"Microsoft wants to "democratize artificial intelligence" and bring AI to systems that everyone uses. So to reflect that desire, the company is shaking up its organization. The company is creating a new group, the AI and Research Group, by combining the existing Microsoft Research group with the Bing and Cortana product groups, along with the teams working on ambient computing (a world in which everything around us is computerized and connected and responsive to our presence), robotics, and the Information Platform Group (which covered both Bing advertising and natural user interfaces).
Together, the new AI and Research Group will have some 5,000 engineers and computer scientists. It will be lead by 20-year Microsoft veteran Harry Shum, who was previously the Executive Vice President of Technology and Research. It makes AI into a fourth engineering group, alongside Windows, Office, and Azure"
"Cortana should be dancing in the streets. With this reorg, Nadella puts considerable muscle and money behind his commitment to "the democratization" of artificial intelligence. (Sounds a whole lot better than "mobile first, cloud first," eh?) At least, Microsoft will give Google and Apple a good run for the money."
"Onion has produced a $5 tiny Linux computer that supports JavaScript, Python, PHP and more. In its KickStarter campaign, Onion calls the Omega2 the "World's smallest Linux server, with Wi-Fi built-in.
...
A base Omega2 model comes with 64MB of RAM and 16MB of flash storage; a $9 "Plus" model has 128MB RAM and 32MB storage, along with a MicroSD slot for additional storage capacity. Both computers use a 580MHz CPU."
Microsoft not only likes Linux, it also likes Java, since many cloud apps use Java & Linux.
Based on this podcast interview, apparently there is a license fee paid to Oracle for using Java.
Microsoft is apparently the largest distributor of Java licensing for Oracle, and at the same time offering alternative free versions of Java are also usable on Azure.
Zulu - Azul Systems, Inc. Azul Systems, Inc. "Zulu: certified builds of OpenJDK that can be deployed across various operating systems, containers, hypervisors and Cloud platforms. Choose Zulu Enterprise for cost-effective Java support."
"Microsoft has penned an agreement to help the Renault-Nissan Alliance develop next-generation connected services for self-driving cars that will be enabled through Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure."
Audi's electric SUV taking on Tesla - Business Insider "Tesla's Model S and Model X are soon going to have some serious competition. Last September, Audi revealed its all-electric e-tron quattro concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The SUV, which is slated to go into production by 2018, will have three electric motors, a range of 310 miles on a single charge, and quick charging capabilities."
Excellent free ebook, how to optimize your time. A must read (or listen text to speech :) Michael writes (and podcasts) about "how to win at work and succeed at life"
Productivity Archives - Michael Hyatt Shave 10 Hours Off Your Workweek: 4 Proven Strategies for Creating More Margin for the Things That Matter Most.
Meet the LattePanda, a tiny Windows 10 PC for the Internet of Things | ZDNet "LattePanda isn't using an ARM or an Edison processor: it's a full quad core Cherry Trail Atom processor, with 2GB or 4GB of memory, and a ATMega32u4 co-processor that handles the Arduino-compatible features, along with 20 GPIO connections for your sensors and actuators."
A chain reaction that is applicable to business also: small wins can help create bigger wins when a chain reaction is in motion. This was mentioned in one of Brian Johnson’s classes.
Domino Chain Reaction - YouTube "A domino can knock over another domino about 1.5x larger than itself. A chain of dominos of increasing size makes a kind of mechanical chain reaction that starts with a tiny push and knocks down an impressively large domino."
The real Domino effect – Medium "...scientific weightage/validation/life to the famous words by Goethe “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”
"Learning How to Learn, a MOOC from UC San Diego, is one of Coursera’s most successful offerings; in its first year, nearly one million learners enrolled in the course. As a result of its high student satisfaction levels (4.55 on a 5-point Likert scale) and the persistence of strong student interest in the course, it is worth examining the course’s dynamics more closely in an effort to tease out its sources of satisfaction and popularity." Learning how to learn | An infographic | Immersivities
Angular 2 and TypeScript - A High Level Overview @ InfoQ "AngularJS is by far the most popular JavaScript framework available today for creating web applications. And now Angular 2 and TypeScript are bringing true object oriented web development to the mainstream"
"As you have probably heard, ‘intelligent apps’ is the new black, today is easier than ever to enhance an application with features related to cognitive computing, neural networks or Data Science."
An interesting and useful story about asking right questions.
I herd this in context of asking good questions for Data Science.
How A Story From World War II Shapes Facebook Today | Co.Design | business + design "In WWII, Allied bombers were key to strategic attacks, yet these lumbering giants were constantly shot down over enemy territory. The planes needed more armor, but armor is heavy. So extra plating could only go where the planes were being shot the most. ...Wald flipped conventional logic on its head. He said the military didn’t need to reinforce the spots that had bullet holes. They needed to reinforce the spots that didn’t have bullet holes. Because the planes that had been shot in these bullet-free zones never made it home to be accounted for."
This is not Amazon Dash button, it is a simple proxy/hub tool to allow using multiple Azure storage accounts to allow saving even more data. It currently works with blobs only.
The same concept is used to increase performance of attached drives on Azure, and in that case it is already part of the Windows and Azure platform.
"DASH is a solution from Microsoft that allows you to bypass space and I/O limits on Azure Storage. In order to use DASH, you will need to download the source, build the package, and deploy it to Azure."
LattePanda | A Windows 10 Development Board with Build-in Arduino - DFRobot $79.00, including Intel Atom quad core CPU, RJ45, USB 2 & 3, HDMI, Bluetooth "LattePanda is a complete Windows 10 computer on a single board! It includes everything a regular PC has and can do anything that a regular PC does. It is compatible with almost every gadget you know: printers, joysticks, cameras and more. Any peripherals that work on your PC will work on LattePanda. LattePanda comes pre-installed with a full edition of Windows 10, including power.."
Quandl: A Wikipedia for Time Series Data (2013) "www.quandl.com as sort of "search engine" for numerical data. The idea with Quandl is that you can find data fast. And more importantly, once you find it, it is ready to use. This is because Quandl's bot returns data in a totally standard format. Which means we can then translate to any format a user wants."
"Metaweb was acquired by Google in a private sale announced 16 July 2010.[3] Google's Knowledge Graph was powered in part by Freebase.[4]
Freebase data was available for commercial and non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution License, and an open API, RDF endpoint, and a database dump was provided for programmers. On 16 December 2014, Knowledge Graph announced that it would shut down Freebase over the succeeding six months and help with the move of the data from Freebase to Wikidata.[5] On 16 December 2015, Google officially announced the Knowledge Graph API, which is meant to be a replacement to the Freebase API. Freebase.com was officially shut down on 2 May 2016.[6]"
"Direction of information flow - DBpedia extracts information from Wikipedia, Wikidata provides it to Wikipedia.
Structure - DBpedia does it's best to apply structure to textual information from Wikipedia, while Wikidata information is structured natively to start
Maturity - DBpedia is older, Wikidata is just getting started
Notability - DBpedia inherits Wikipedia's white, western, male sense of "notablity" while Wikidata has no notability rules (yet — and Wikipedias can choose not to include Wikidata information that they don't think qualifies as "notable")"
Most people have hard time selecting one ultimate goal that is consistent with conditions.
Steve Jobs was right in his view that "you can not connect dot's looking forward it all makes sense when looking back". It is like "waterfall planning" vs "agile" development: you have minimum information at be begging, so start and do steps the best you can and keep adjusting.
In his next book, "Deep Work" Cal does acknowledge huge value of selecting #1 goal and focusing solely on that, passionately. A good advice supported by research:
"passionately do the work that you are doing"
Specifics of the work you do for living does not matter too much, it is general lifestyle traits like "autonomy", "impact", "power and respect", "being creative" that are represented in tasks and career.
Cal's suggestion is: "we should look Steve Jobs and do what he did, not what he said"
Result is a "snowball effect": early success => interest, motivation = deliberate practice, skill acquisition => separation from other people with less skills => identity, intrinsic motivation = more deliberate practice => separate more, stronger passion
deliberate: start from vision based on somebody already successful, and work backwards how to get there; use "career capital" to evolve to the next level
Everything Is “Lock-In”: Focus on Switching Costs @ InfoQ "Coding in Java, buying SAP, deploying OpenStack, and using Amazon Web Services: each one introduces a type of lock-in. Lock-in–described by Wikipedia as something that “makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services”–is always a hot topic of discussion in the technology community. ... it makes no difference how hard you try- some form of lock-in is unavoidable. What matters most is understanding the layers of lock-in, and how to assess and reduce your switching costs."
"LEVITT: Uber is, in many ways, the embodiment of what the economists would like the economy to look like, because Uber is a market in some sense that the prices you pay respond to supply and demand. When there are lots of people looking for rides and not enough drivers, they raise the price, and when there are too many drivers and not enough people, they keep the price low. So that is how economists like markets to work.
...in 2015, if you extrapolate to the whole U.S., we found that the overall consumer surplus added up to almost $7 billion. So people spent about $4 billion on Ubers, but they actually would have been willing to spend about $11 billion. So for every dollar people spent on Uber, they got about $1.50 worth of extra joy that they would have been willing to pay on average above and beyond what they did pay.
An improvement to JavaScript: Implement your performance critical stuff in wasm and import it like a standard JavaScript module.
A new language: WebAssembly code defines an AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) represented in a binary format. You can author and debug in a text format so it’s readable.
A browser improvement: Browsers will understand the binary format, which means we’ll be able to compile binary bundles that compress smaller than the text JavaScript we use today. Smaller payloads mean faster delivery. Depending on compile-time optimization opportunities, WebAssembly bundles may run faster than JavaScript, too!
A Compile Target: A way for other languages to get first-class binary support across the entire web platform stack."
"What is SmartBook? SmartBook is a digital version of your course textbook. It contains the same content within the textbook, but unlike a typical eBook, SmartBook actively tailors that content to your individual needs as a student. SmartBook can be accessed online through your laptop. And, many SmartBooks are available on tablet, too!"
HP’s Samsung Printer Deal; RBC Sees Less Reliance on Canon - Tech Trader Daily - Barrons.com "HP CEO Dion Weisler has set a goal of expanding HP’s printer business into the so-called “A3” market, which is the market for office copiers, which the company refers to as a $55 billion market. HP believes it can go from just about nothing to meaningful market share by replacing what it deems as overly complicated and costly office copying machines with machines that are basically multifunction printers."
"Goodbuy, information age - we are now in idea age". "...An age, or era, dies once something better comes along that turns the valuable resource of previous era into a commodity." "...Ideas add quality to information"
But even ideas are now commodity, so what adds value to an idea?
"The ability to communicate it effectively
The ability to take action and turn it into reality
The ability to choose the right idea in the first place "
O'Reilly Bots Podcast - O'Reilly Media "The O'Reilly Bots Podcast covers advances in conversational user interfaces, artificial intelligence, and messaging that are revolutionizing the way we interact with software".
"In computer science, a software agent is a computer program that acts for a user or other program in a relationship of agency, which derives from the Latin agere(to do): an agreement to act on one’s behalf. Such “action on behalf of” implies the authority to decide which, if any, action is appropriate.[1][2] Agents are colloquially known as bots, from robot.
So in its most basic form, a “bot” is a bit of software that makes something happen. The most recent surge of use of the term mostly has to do with something Wikipedia calls a “chatterbot” which is now colloquially referred to as a “chatbot.” There’s basically just a computer program that can converse, presumably like a human.
A chatterbot (also known as a talkbot, chatbot, Bot, chatterbox, Artificial Conversational Entity) is a computer program which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods."
"Amazon Dash Replenishment Service (DRS) enables connected devices to order physical goods from Amazon when supplies are running low...
DRS can be integrated with devices in two ways. Device makers can either build a physical button into their hardware to reorder consumables or they can measure consumable usage so that reordering happens automatically."
