Redefined Horizons Blog

Two recent magazine articles chronicle efforts to improve Wi-Fi for users. This is part of a trend to increase the amount of data we can send between all our computing devices.

The first article entitled “Stronger Signals” is in the March 2012 issue of Popular Science Magazine. It discussed a new standard by the Wi-FiAlliance that will allow cell-phones to automatically log into WiFi hot spots on their cell phones. This is important, because most Wi-Fi hot spots offer a connection that is 15 times as fast as the latest 4G networks from the cell phone companies. (As someone who often browses the net on their cell phone, I can personally testify to the difference in speed. Don’t even try to download large files on a cell phone connection.) If this new standard finds widespread acceptance, users cell phones will be able to ho-scotch between wireless networks in urban areas and connect to them automatically. Way cool. Some users may even subscribe to services from companies like Boingo, mentioned in the article, which serves users over400,000 hotspots in locations like malls and restaurants.

The article also discusses the recent decision of the FCC to allow Wi-Fi to broadcast in a different band of the radio wave spectrum. In the new band, dubbed Super Wi-Fi, the longer wavelengths will result in Wi-Fi spots with a range four (4) times as big as traditional Wi-Fi. (Apparently the Wi-Fi marketing folks aren’t thrilled with the name choice of Super Wi-Fi by the FCC.)

The second article is in the January 28, 2012 issue of the Economist Magazine. The science and technology section has an article entitled “Tripping the Light Fantastic” that describes technology that uses flickering lights to power an optical version of Wi-Fi that doesn’t use radio waves. This is good news in areas with crowded radio spectrum. Several companies have formed a new Li-Fi Consortium around the concept of optical Wi-Fi.

The article in the Economist explains how LED lights can be modified to serve as a Li-Fi router. How fast will this optical Wi-Fi be? The Li-Fi Consortium thinks it could acheive speeds of 10 gigabytes per second. That is fast enough to download a high-def video in 30 seconds.

See you later 4G. Wi-Fi here I come.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The February 4th, 2012 issue of the Economist Magazine had a couple of large article on Facebook and its IPO. In one of these articles, entitled “The Value of Friendship” the magazine commented on reasons why Facebook will continue to grow in number of users into the future.

One of these reasons, as identified in the article, is the rapid spread of internet connectivity. The article quotes the Boston Consulting Group, which say that 1.6 billion more people will be online in 2016 than in 2010. That is almost double the number of internet users in just 6 years. As more people have access to the internet, more people will have access to Facebook. Although this growth in internet users will benefit all social networks, the article claims it will benefit the most because the company has turned Facebook into a “social utility” that lets people do all sorts of things on the internet. This may be true, but I find Facebook’s attempts to set-up an alternate internet universe a bit annoying. I only visit the site to check on updates from friends and family that are heavy Facebook users, and use other sites on the net for other stuff. Most of these sites do it better than Facebook. (For example: I use flickr to post my photos.)

The second reason Facebook will continue to grow, according to the article, is the rise of the mobile phone. 425 million people already connect to Facebook on their mobile phones. The article states that most of Facebook’s future growth will come from the mobile web. That’s great news. Let’s take Facebook’s ugly page and cram it into a crappy mobile layout. That sound’s like a great user experience.

The article has some other interesting tidbits about Facebook, like its plans for taking on Google in internet search, that I hope to post about later.

The Sunburned Suveyor

HP recently announced it was dumping personal computers as part of its business.  (The company also announced its plans to ditch tablets.) It also moved more aggressively into the software business with the acquisition of Autonomy.

The Economist Magazine has an article in its August 27, 2011 issue entitled “Aping IBM” that talked about the possible reasons behind HP’s decision. The article stated: “To grasp what HP has in mind, one has to understand the two main currents in the IT industry. First, nearly any new technology quickly becomes a commodity that is easily copied and hence not very profitable. This is why IT firms are always trying to move “up the stack” into software and services, where margins are higher. Second, the biggest IT firms typically control what is known as a “platform”: a digital foundation on which others build their products, such as Microsoft’s Windows. This allows them to capture a disproportionate share of the industry’s profits.”

The article also commented on the possible reasons why HP bought Autonomy: “Buying Autonomy also helps HP to move onto higher-margin terrain: the British firm’s operating margins exceed 40%. But the main reason HP paid a 64% premium for its shares seems to be that it believes that Autonomy’s technology could be turned into a platform to help companies make sense of their ever-growing pile of data. This includes not only “structured” data (payroll records, sales figures), but also the “unstructured” kind (documents, e-mails), which now makes up more than 80% of the information that flows through a typical company.

Such a platform would allow firms to do some nifty things. A retailer, for instance, might decide how much beer to stock based not just on previous sales records, but also on weather forecasts, party chatter on social media and schedules for sports matches.”

I understand why HP would be interested in building a platform. Any surveyor who’s dealt with the headaches of mixing surveying equipment and software from different vendors would understand that desire. I’d like to blog more in the future about what makes a technology platform, and about the conflict between technology platforms, consumer freedom, and open technology standards.

I don’t understand this: Why is it so hard to make money selling personal computers? Could it be a result of how easy it is to get a bogus patent for software? This would give software companies the advantage of overcharging for their products that hardware companies don’t have. Or is it because HP didn’t do a good job of selling their hardware with an appropriate business model? For example: If personal computers are a commodity, as the article implies, you have to offer something more. This could be great customer service, reliability, value, a bullet proof warranty, or something else that will attract consumers. What are the other personal computer makers failing at?

The Sunburned Surveyor

The Marketplace show from American Public Media had a recent piece on a patent victory for Apple. An Australian court awarded Apple a victory in a patent lawsuit that claimed Samsung had violated Apple IPad patents with their own tablet computer.

The piece indicates this is part of Apple’s strategy to defeat the popularity of the Android operating system from Google.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The October 2010 issue of Inside GNSS Magazine had an article entitled “When GNSS Goes Blind”. The article discussed the use of limited GNSS information and features extracted from a camera to navigate. The concept being that a camera mounted on a vehicle could be used to supplement GNSS signals in poor GNSS environments like forests or urban canyons.

The first few paragraphs of the article do a great job introducing the concepts that are later explained in greater detail (with algorithms for the math fans). I’ll see if I can include an even shorter summary here, but you should definitely read the first part of the article. Here is the summary:

1. One or two GNSS satellites are often “visible” even in poor GNSS environments.
2. Carrier phase measurements to these satellites can be used to determine the position of features extracted from images from a single camera lens.
3. These features can then be used to navigate when there are no GNSS signals.
4. The effectiveness of using stereo vision (a camera with two lenses, or two cameras) to position features extracted from images is related to the distance between the two lenses. The greater this distance, the more effective the stereo vision. This makes stereo vision a poor GNSS navigation supplement choice for small devices like mini unmanned aerial vehicles and hand held devices.
5. A single camera can be used to mimic, in a way, stereo vision, by taking two images with a single lens from different locations at different times. The GNSS measurements to one or two satellites can then be used to determine the distance between the camera positions for the two images. This creates what the article calls a “synthetic baseline” similar to the actual baseline between the two lenses in a stereo vision system.

Check the article out. It presents a cool concept.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The September 2011 issue of Popular Science Magazine has an article entitled Reengineering the University. The article starts with an interesting premise: The traditional university should have been replaced by a simple technology that arrived a long time ago – the book. Why hasn’t it? The article mentions a couple of reasons, including our desire to spend time face-to-face with other humans. However, the article’s most powerful insight is in the main reason universities survived the invention of the book: they convey status to those they educate. The article argues one way the university system conveys status is by limiting quality education. This is the opposite of the strategy that would benefit society: giving the most people possible the greatest access to high quality education as efficiently as possible. The author of the article offers a possible solution to this problem. He suggests we develop degrees that allow students to credibly assert what they know, which would reduce the focus on where and how you were taught. In some way this is already done for land surveyors and other professionals like lawyers. These professionals must past a licensing exam before they can legal practice their profession. Not too many people care what university you attended if you’re not licensed to do your job. The licensing exam becomes an equalizer of sorts. The author of the article further argues that the science fields are the best suited to developing this new type of degree because it is easier to develop clear and fair standards for most sciences than it is for the arts. Land surveyors often debate the merit of education and the decision to require 4 year university degrees in some states. This article offers a unique perspective on the related topic of university education. It touches on ideas I mention in my article entitled “What does the future of the geospatial professional look like?”. ITunes-U and OpenCourseWare even get honorable mention in the article. This Popular Science article is thought provoking. Read it.

The Sunburned Surveyor

The August 20th to 26th issue of Economist Magazine has an article entitled Plugging The Leaks that discusses the development of computer transistors. The article begins with an explanation of Moore’s Law with a great chart showing how the number of transistors crammed into circuit has climbed due to different technological achievements. The article then explains why it will be hard for this trend in shrinking transistors to continue. It can be summed up in this statement from the article: “Every time transistors shrink, they get closer to the point where they can shrink no further…”

The article then describes three (3) processes to make even smaller transisters in the future. The processes are being developed by Intel, the Silicon On Insulator consortium, and a Silicon Valley company called SuVolta.

The article lists predictions about transistor size from the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. This organization predicts transistor size will be down to 16 nanometers by 2013 and 11 nanometers by 2015 (the current standard size is 32 nanometers).

The article concludes by discussing a transistor design by Jean-Pierre Colinge which could go even smaller, creating transistors that are just 3.1 nanometers across.

This article would’ve been even better with some diagrams of the existing and proposed transistor designs.

If you’d like to learn more about how transistors (switches) are wired together to make a computer, I highly recommend the book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. It does a great job of explaining how a modern computer is made up of thousands of switches.

The Sunburned Surveyor