Beware radical elements

Revolutionary new materials like graphene can only be good for our future,can't they?  Well, certainly a lot of people are very excited about the positive side of stronger, lighter, more flexible, water repelling materials but  can this be all good?

I'm not one to pour water on a great idea but I do wonder about the ramifications of the large scale introduction of such radically different materials.

Invincibility

Indestructible materials are all very well, until you come to the point where you do want to break them down.   How do you recycle or destroy a product that has been made so strong and impervious to damage?  Will this create a mountain of waste for which there is no disposal other than burial?

Undetectable hostility

Technology that is tiny, light and virtually undetectable is great if you are the one in charge of its deployment. But what happens when a foreign power or a criminal organisation with nefarious intent gets hold of that same technology.  How do you defend your borders against such a threat?

Loss of traditional ways

The construction, manufacturing and the textile industries employ countless millions of people worldwide.   They rely on suppliers and growers to provide the material that they need to make their products.  What happens when those traditional materials are replaced by these new radical materials?  Potentially there is massive impact to the way that whole communities make their living.

Consider the cotton growers who supply the world's textile industry.  If these new textile materials prove to be superior to natural products, the vast cotton fields of the world will be redundant.  That would destroy the livelihood of countless individuals, communities, even nations that depend on the industry.

No built-in obsolescence

Nothing lasts forever, so the saying goes.  However, some of these new materials are so impervious to damage and decay that they may well last substantially longer than a human lifespan.   What could that mean for the economies of the world?  When things stop wearing out what happens to the industries that bank on feeding the need for replacement goods?  What do all the people who make those replacements do now to make a living?

These are big questions for our leaders and for ourselves.   What will we do to address them and will we do them in time?

Oh dear

I wonder if we'll see these appearing as factory refurbished products any time soon . . .

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/apple-returning-millions-of-defective-iphones-to-foxconn-31688/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/22/rumor-apple-returned-batch-of-8-million-defective-iphones-to-foxconn

Flick of the wrist

More rumours of a iWatch are circulating.  If such a thing was launched, would it be a success?  I'm not sure it would be.  Younger people don't seem to have grown up wearing a watch.  This is not going to replace all the functionality you have on your smartphone so surely you will still need to carry one of those everywhere you go.  The more I look at this suggested vision of an iWatch the more I think of the bracelets that felons wear whilst on probation.

Oh well, each to their own I suppose.


iWatch rumours (Apple Insider)

A very big pile

The Samsung S4 is already a record breaker.  Less than 1 month after its high profile release it has already shifted 10 million units.  10 million.  Just think about that.  Can you picture 10 million anything?  I can't .  The number is way too big.

Just how big a pile is 10 million phones?

This kind of volume makes me dizzy on a number of levels.  First of all how do you set up a manufacturing operation to churn out that number of devices?  We're not talking about nuts and bolts here, stamped out on a machine.  These are high precision complex devices that need to be assembled, tested, boxed then shipped to all the corners of the earth where they may be sold.  There are some serious logistics involved here.

The designers have done their bit.  They've created a blueprint that can be turned into a plan for assembly into an incredibly clever muli-purpose computer that will fit into your pocket (assuming you've got a big pocket).

They've hit the ground running.  They've moved this large volume of hardware to the retailers and phone providers ready for the big launch then they've opened the front door and in came a tech-hungry public ready to devour this gorgeous thing.  Even with it's price tag above $1000, that was no barrier to this enormous sales figure being achieved in less than 30 days.

Technology assembly line

Just for a moment forget the actual phone technology and the machines that make this possible and just think of the human effort that has gone into a project like this.  Think of all the people in their white, corporate overalls working long hours on the assembly line. Consider all the satellite factories that produced the components that are turned into that shiny new smartphone.  Think of the drivers and pilots that ferried the product around the globe, the marketers that created the campaigns to launch this new tech beast.  Think about the retailers who threw open their shop doors to welcome in those customers in new of a tech fix,  And think about those 10 million individuals who decided that this month was the right time to invest a handsome sum of money in buying the most advanced consumer phone on the market (at least until the next one is launched).

Huge numbers, indeed.  Any closer to being able to appreciate the energy harnessed to make this happen?  No, me neither.

It's great to live in an age of technology but it's also rather humbling when you start thinking too hard about it.

S4 is the fastest selling Android ever (Stuff)

The future of the assembly line (IEEE Spectrum)

When phones go bad

Back in the day

Apple 1 (1976) - how far we have come

Fancy owning a piece of computer history?  Are you flush with cash?  Well, you may need to be if you want to own this first of its kind personal computer.  The Apple 1 was lovingly crafted (and autographed) by Steve Wozniak as a practically hand-built device, back in the dim and distant past of 1976.  Check out a copy of the Apple 1 owner's manual.

Personally signed by Wozniak himself

I thought my Sinclair ZX81 was primitive but this takes the biscuit.  Seeing that tape machine brought back horrible memories of trying in vain to load up programs from cassettes, only to get loading errors and having to start all over again. And you try and tell the young people of today that . . . they won't believe you.

Check out this link to see how much one of these Apple 1s sold for last year.   No, I couldn't believe it either.

You even had to make your own case for the Apple 1

Overnight this latest auction has netted a price of $US650,000, according to this BBC news story.  Apparently, only 100 Apple 1s were ever made and there are just 6 known working models left in the world.  What would you  be prepared to pay for one?

Apple 1 up for grabs (Mashable)

Wozniak original fetches $650,000 at auction (BBC)

Apple 1 Microcomputer Museum (youTube)

ZX81 memories

Yeah Nah

It's here but do I care?

Windows Phone is readily available to anyone who wants one.  Nokia, former darling of the phone market but now struggling to keep up the pace, is staking much of its future on the Windows platform.

Windows Phone has certainly grabbed some market share in sales volumes.  It's overtaken Blackberry - another blast from the recent past.

Yes, it's sold some units, but when a whopping 92% of all smartphones sold are Android or iOS, are we really going to notice the Microsoft offering?

Nobody has yet tried to sell me a Windows phone but plenty of times I'm encouraged to buy a Droid.  No doubt if I stopped by the Apple counter, they would be keen to see me, too.

An also ran - IBM's doomed OS

With Windows Phone I feel like I'm watching IBM's OS/2 Warp all over again.  IBM tried hard to convince the market to give them a go, try something new - they virtually gave OS/2 away for a while but it was really a foregone conclusion.  It could never gain traction and sadly disappeared without a trace and everyone went back to what they knew best.

It's not that OS/2 wasn't a competent OS.  It was just that it was chasing a giant that was just too strong.   I don't know enough about the Windows Phone offering to even know if it's any good.  Sure, it has the might of Microsoft behind it but it's going up against Google and Apple at a time when they have already grabbed the lion's share of this market.

With Windows I think it may be the horse that was laid up for most of these season and missed the race of its life.  The smartphone race is now at full gallop and only the strongest will survive.  People may already have placed their bets and not be keen on a rank outsider.

You may be an Apple fan - no doubt then you'll go with that.  Or else you may be an Android adopter - so much to choose from, it's bewildering.  Who couldn't find a suitable option in this huge stable?

You could instead plump for the new kid on the block and take a chance on a Windows Phone.  It may be great.  Maybe you don't need the zillion apps that are available from the other platforms.  Maybe you are happy to buy effectively the first generation of a new Windows machine.   Are you game?

Yeah Nah.

Putting the pedal down on Windows Phone (Mashable)

Some Windows Phone offerings

High-flying Xero

You have to hand it to Xero - they know where they're going.

Xero's stock price just keeps going skyward with a few hops and skips along the way.  Early investors will have a big smile on their faces, I'm sure.

Although Xero is a local company, they don't think like one.  They work on the global scale.  They realised early on that it would never be sufficient to be just king of Aotearoa so they built their business plans to chase bigger fish.  That plan is now coming to fruition with the possibility of a NASDAQ listing in the not too distant future.

They've certainly left a previous favourite, MYOB, for dust.

The very best of luck to them in the quest for world domination.

All about Xero

Xero home

Xero on Wikipedia

Awards for a local hero gone global  (NZ Herald)

MYOB vs Xero (SmartCompany)

Xero eyes NASDAQ listing (NBR)