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The Power of the Invisible

by Andrew McCaskey
The invisible internet mentioned in today’s news brings to mind the incident from a few weeks ago that I told you about when talking via Skype with a friend and colleague in Australia.

The most unusual part of the discussion was that we took only passing notice of how unusual it was – to be able to fire up laptops and webcams in our respective homes on opposite sides of the globe, and casually connect on Skype for a half hour chat.

The invisible internet – appearing only as information or content on devices such as the Wii, Tivo, iPhone and Kindle approach this ideal. And when I combine it with other discussions with a friend who is in the Heating and Airconditioning business and is excited about IP aware furnaces and air handler units, I catch a vision of how far this will be embedded in the lives of my grandchildren – the first of which we are informed will be joining us on or about Sept 28.
Stay tuned.

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Stuck in the Middle

by Andrew McCaskey
Three articles today have me stuck in the middle.

The first pair of articles, the history of the LAN from 1977 and the 50th Anniversary of the US launch of Explorer I in 1958 put me firmly in the past of technology – remembering both events but with, as most things, little appreciation at the time.

The second, the PC World article speculating upon technology twenty five years from now. I should have enough data points to be able to extrapolate between them and see how close to the trendline I’m actually going to get.

First of all, any linear relationship technology mapping is going to go out the window. There is clearly no trend that we are a part of today that we can expect to continue in a nice smooth linear function, other than the orderly passing of time. That’s probably the one factor that is linear and predictable, but has the appearance of also being accelerated.

What’s apparent is that the technology is moving forward and the human institutions of law, politics, education and society are struggling to adapt.

Of course, Darwin is often misquoted as observing the “survival of the fittest” . What he actually said was

“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.”

It’s not about fitness, it’s about adapting to change. And Change is a popular concept this year..

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Pure Depth 3D Multi-Layer Display

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Displays Move into 3D

by Andrew McCaskey
by Andrew McCaskey

The military grade display in today’s video may be a taste of the expansion in capability that will move into consumer electronics in the next few years. It’s instructive to note that the applications in the video have been carefuly chosen to emphasize sweet spots along the way.

Medical imaging, gaming (in both the consumer sense and the Casino mode) and trading are all venues where the slightest advantage can, for a time , turn into a real advantage.

The drawback, though will be on the software side of the application – how will developers be able to code for these output devices, and what are their incentives to do so, other than for individualized niche markets ?

The iPhone has already proven the viability of interactive screens. Adding displays in 3D may bring the gypsy’s crystal ball even closer.

I’ll be on the lookout at CES and report.

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

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Water Balloon Not Exploding

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Blogosphere Needs a Vacation

I am certainly resonating with the remarks by Michael Arrington – when the blogsphere is full of talk about some obscure system status message that traps the word “is”, that is an indication of way too much time or a dearth of news.

The Thanksgiving break, short as it is, is a welcome retreat into the world of normal.

As much as I enjoy the show prep and production each day, a day or two off is very, very welcome.
And promises being made, I am going to set aside some time in the Spring for some actual vacation. Already a month into year four of continuous production on the show, it’s becoming more and more important to do so. I’ll have more details as I figure things out.

Best wishes to all for a good Thanksgiving Holiday.

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

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WiFi Secrets of the Techno Gullible

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Nothing Like a Good Con

There is nothing like a good con on someone who wants to believe.

That would be me. November 11, scanning for a suitable YouTube video for the show, surfed across the video from Infinite Solutions on adapting YouTube videos for the Video iPod.

My first excuse is that I don’t own a video iPod. That’s poor leverage, though. I should have been paying attention, as at some level I knew that the YouTube Video segments were Flash based and that the video iPod required mpeg based files.

I even had tried one of the transcoding sites that would allow you to transform mpeg based files into Flash video, and vice versa.

But I sure did not have any critical thinking skills on display when I picked the episode.

I think that I did meet the mission of SDR YouTube- to find videos on YouTube that would be of interest to SDRNews listeners. Just that I would like to have them full of non-BS content.

Thanks to the Thomas Couey, who called me out:

I’m sure someone’s let you know by now, but InfiniteSolutions (the source of the YouTube video for 11-11) is a joke organization, sort of like The Onion. They produce videos that are basically “practical joke” videos designed to trick people into believing ridiculous things. YouTube video is stored in a flash video format (.flv) the iPod does not support this format, nor will it transcode from it. The iPod uses MPEG-4 or H.264 compression primarily. Anyway, I’ve seen some web sites that will transcode YouTube videos to mpeg-4 for you, but they usually get shut down by YouTube for copyright infringement. It’s also very time consuming.

. . .

It seems like you’re an engineer of some sort, but if you have any kind of electrical engineering background, you should be able to tell that he’s just throwing out electrical jargon that makes no sense in context. He does a good job of making his B.S. sound convincing, but I assure you, all of his videos are jokes.

In any case, you may want to let everyone know that they’re not going to be able to podcast youtube videos in the way that he presents it.

I enjoy the podcast. Keep up the good work.

Thomas Couey

Here’s part of my reply..

Thomas -

I sure am embarrassed ! Thanks for the heads up. I have no excuse, other than the gullibility that surrounds topics that I am sort of familiar with but obviously not in sync with.
. . . my engineering background is in radio/wireless and fiber optic carrier equipment. web based video ? Not so much . . .

I had seen the flv to mp4 sites maybe six months ago but since I don’t have a video ipod had not had any need for the service.

Glad you are enjoying the show.. Thanks for the note.

Andy

The video I selected today – I would have picked up on.. I’m sure of it.

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

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