Sort of like... real virtual reality thats augmented or something

The following youtube video is an interesting discussion of motion processing and sensors in mobile devices. There was one bit that made me laugh. The whole terminology question has come up with customers and partners in terms of what is virtual reality, augmented reality etc. We tend to use the term virtual reality for something that mimics the real world and possibly augments it. The reasoning is that if you have a virtual reality you would be most likely want to augment that virtual reality and hence the need to refer to an augmented virtual reality in conversation and text is minimal. Anyway, here’s the bit that is being referred to in this post:

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

Wall Street Journal China Econtracker

The Wall Street Journal China Econtracker site is a handy visualization of KPIs for the Chinese Economy. The aspects that stand out include that the GDP, Fixed Asset Investment and Foreign Exchange Reserves went fairly smoothly through 2008/09 and the GFC. The GFC effects stand out much more clearly in the Exports, Imports, CPI and especially the New Loans figures. The continuous push in New Loans and Fixed Asset Investment throughout all of this is amazing. None of the reality of this fixed asset investment is clear to me as we focus on day to day software development tasks in Perth, Australia. Will all of this investment in China make it even more of a powerhouse in the future or is it wasteful investment where the assets created aren’t fully utilized?

The interest in the Chinese economy is a natural pre-occupation for Western Australian businesses given the two speed economy that is present in both the state and the country. If a company is directly involved with work physically at a mine site or an oil/gas facility then business is good and rates are high. The less you’re involved directly with the mine sites and the benefit of the “boom” dwindles pretty quickly. There’s a saying I’ve heard a number of times in a variety of forms. Paraphrasing: In Australia, if you want to dig dirt out of the ground then you can get investment. However if you want to actually create something new or invent a new technology then its way way harder. It is frustrating seeing how much money and how many humungous mining and gas projects are going on in WA and Australia, but then contrasting that with how little investment is taking place outside of these realms in new technology and future oriented benefits. Are we going to squander the benefits of these times?

As you can see, I have no answers, only questions.

PS: This is the first post where it will autopost to twitter, linkedin and an email group. We’ll see how it goes J

See the full gallery on Posterous

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

A Players and B Players

I just listened to a great podcast:

http://thehive.org.au/gideon-shalwick-of-rapid-video-blogging/

There’s lots of great aussie entrepreneurial stories at the hive web site. Sounds like they’re finishing up on the site which is a shame. One snippet from Gideon Shalwick’s talk was as follows:

The question is to explain the difference between the kind of work that A players do and the kind of work that B players do. Let me give you this with an example. This will illustrate it. So I had two designers in my company. One of them… I’ll let you guess which one it is. I would describe the task to him and say I need this graphic. It would need to do this sort of thing and it is to fit in with this sort of theme.. or this sort of feel. He’d end up asking me a tonne of questions..and we’d probably have around ten iterations of that graphic to be able to make it look the way I want it to. Now it would take a tonne of time for either me or my manager. You could probably guess who that is… the B player. The A player on the other hand I would say “I need this graphic”. Same instructions. It needs to have this sort of feel etc. etc. That’s it. The next thing I hear from my designer is a download of the graphic and guess what.. nine out of ten times its better than I could have imagined.

Now A players.. they take initiative. There’s a bunch of key things that they have.. that they do. It’s just the way they are.. that B players can never have and so when you get those A players, it can help you save a tonne of time even though they cost more money and also because you save time, you save money.

It makes such a difference when you can describe a concept or a task and then someone just runs with it without heading done needless paths. It’s that ability to understand your intent and then work out all of the details. The reverse is also soul destroying i.e. having to lead someone down every decision point and effectively do their work for them. One thing I don’t agree on is that B players can never have what A player’s have. Though there’s always some aspect of inherent ability, A player behaviour can be learnt and you can turn B players into A players. I think it’s an equal measure of attitude and ability.

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

Is Microsoft trying to tell me something?

I’m not doing too well on getting Microsoft to fix problems in Visual Studio 2010 that have been introduced in the changeover from older versions. Check out the statuses below: By Design, Won’t Fix, By Design. The frustrating part is that they worked in earlier versions of Visual Studio so it was obviously part of the design I took a dependency on then.

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

Massive Disruptive Change

I came across a number of web news reports that though unrelated indicate the massive technological changes that are occurring now and also going to sweep through our society over the coming years.

·         Borders, Angus & Robertson go bust

·         VMware Android handset virtualization hands-on

·         Nvidia Kal-El: Quad-core coming to a mobile near you

·         AeroVironment/DARPA’s Nano Hummingbird reconnaissance UAV

The bookstore bust story is likely more nuanced that just an “Internet kills books” meme but there’s certainly a strong effect there. I do love reading books on multiple Kindle devices rather than have to lug physical books around. Any business that is fundamental selling “data” – read software, music, movies, books just needs to stay away from high priced real estate commitments and high staff numbers.

VMware’s getting into virtualization for phones is strategically brilliant. The processing power coming down the road for handsets is mind blowing. People want to control their own phone environment, have one phone and businesses want their staff to use a controlled environment on their phone. It’s a perfect storm for a new virtualization market. It’s also another reason to use Android in business unless companies such as Apple, Microsoft and RIM don’t move quickly to provide something similar. Sure battery usage is an issue, but don’t under-estimate how quickly things are going to change on the processing power versus power usage equation.

Now the news on the Nvidia Kal-El Quad-core processor for phones and other devices put Microsoft’s plans for running Windows 8 on ARM and other SoC (System on a Chip) architectures into perspective. At first I thought it was a terrible idea and an indication of an ivory tower syndrome in Microsoft decision making. The thought of the current Windows desktop UI on phones and ipad like devices is ridiculous given the experience with Windows Mobile. I was hoping for an announcement of a Microsoft ipad like operating system building on what they’ve done for Windows Phone 7. However, looking at the upcoming power of these non-Intel SoC architectures, it looks more like a defensive move by Microsoft. Unless they’re in the game with respect to hardware like the Nvidia Kel-El gear, their crown jewel Windows will be under threat.

The last link in this unrelated set of technology links, is the Nano Hummingbird. Freakin amazing technology. All of this new technology changes our lives totally and the way we thought businesses and business processes worked up until now will change totally and quickly because of it. Another technology boom is coming once the broader business population get a feel for how much this new technology will change the business landscape (followed by the inevitable bust when people get over exuberant as we as a collective always do).

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

The Power of Relationships

The Gephi blog has a post on the Egyptian political changes in relation to Mubarak:

The Gephi dynamic visualization of the twitter relationships reminded me of the work we are doing on the MVX Object Server functionality. The MVX Object Server leverages the power of relationships between the information in your SCADA and Industrial Automation systems. Check out the following video that runs through how we use object oriented relationships and network graphs to extend the expressive power of systems beyond that possible with tag/point based software:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TorqSoftware#p/a/u/5/ffhgsWPgQNU

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

Wording Habits

It’s just the way of the world, but clients and potential clients of software development often use particular wording in order to imply that some work should be very inexpensive to complete. Here’s just a few examples from last couple of weeks that were infuriating and humorous all at the same time:

·         “Minor modification needed”. Often a change is clearly a minor modification, but in many functionality areas these words shouldn’t be used until at least a short investigation is undertaken.

·         “Can this be fixed?” in reference to a functionality item that was never mentioned before. When it’s totally new functionality being requested, it’s not a fix, its new work!

·         “So users can finally do X” in relation to an IT initiated environment change where users could do X with no problems before the environment change.

·         “for a very standard X environment” implying it’s going to be a small task to implement.

Yes, I’m bitching here and its pathetic. I just think trying to pre-emptively minimize a task by using wording that implies the task is small is counter-productive for all parties. It may well be a small task, but let’s figure that out together. We are likely to arrive at a unique solution that is both inexpensive and satisfies all of the requirements.

PS: I’m sure Software Developers unconsciously also use terminology that highlight the uncertainty of software development estimates which frustrates the crap out of buyers of software development services.

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

Nokia changes its CEO and its tune

The machinations at Nokia are fascinating:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-rallies-troops-in-brutally-honest-burnin/

When the previous CEO was regularly coming out with put downs targeting the Android platform, I was thinking “What planet is this guy on?”. Is he in the same reality as the rest of us?

The new CEO is at least acknowledging that they are losing ground big time. The pattern of the head-honchos at large companies getting comfortable with a view of world and then being shocked when that view crumbles because of some technology or market shift is such a common one. Ivory towers anyone?

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

First 5 minutes with a Kindle DX

I purchased a Kindle DX and just got it today. The unboxing experience was interesting in that it had a few of the typical peel off tabs that are typical with gadgets and electronic equipment. For some reason I thought that the front screen showing the first two steps (plug into power and then turn on) was another sheet to peel off. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that the first step instructions was the actual Kindle screen. This is a sort of screen-culture shock which made me smile once I realized it. The next culture shock was that I was looking for where to configure the Wifi. Instead it just worked and started downloading my books from the local cell towers with need to configure settings or deal with a phone company on my part. Very nice startup experience and impressive. I put no effort into understanding how a Kindle DX operated beforehand or the premises on which it operated. It was all just discovered in the first five minutes.

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/

Roosevelt's century old speech and shipping software

One of the blogs I read is written by Werner Vogels the CTO of Amazon. His latest blog post includes an excerpt from one of Roosevelt’s speeches which I found particularly inspiring:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat

Being a software developer, I took a lot of this in the context of software development and in particular the concept of shipping software. Software is becoming more and more a background to society as a whole. The number of people who interact with software every day and the number of times software touches their lives in many different ways in every moment of the day is growing exponentially. The effect of software is far far greater than when I first finished my Electrical Engineering degree with a view to getting into Software Development for Industry.

A frustrating aspect of this spread of Software is the lack of appreciation of the cost of developing software. This is compounded by nature of software development in that most of the time you are building on other’s work – standing on the shoulders of giants.  We almost always build on other platforms which are in turn built on other platforms (turtles all the way down). This means that one developer in a particular software area can achieve highly functional results with minimal effort and cost because they are building purely on the work of others. Another developer, who is not walking the beaten path, will take more to achieve very little visible functional results. Is this developer wasting time and resources? Possibly. Or possibly not, if they are creating something truly innovative and not following the sheep. Witness the myriad braying companies releasing tablets at CES 2011 just because Apple proved it’s a great solution in the year before. Basically software development effectiveness is incredibly nuanced. You have to look deep and think beyond the immediate to understand the value you are getting from a software development exercise.

So when I read the excerpt from Roosevelt’s speech above, the context that came to mind was that the software developer that ships is the doer of deeds. We ship software. We handle the complexities and get it done. There’s much satisfaction in this rather than just talking about software. It’s the difference between being a talker and being a doer.

http://apolon.torqsoftware.net/