Here’s why CO2 build-up in the atmosphere is meaningful:

Our atmosphere is relatively transparent to visible light. Therefore much of the energy from the sun passes through our atmosphere and is “absorbed” by the surface (which is relatively opaque to visible light). The surface then begins to warm and as a result re-radiates the energy. This re-radiation occurs at a different wavelength then the incident energy and is generally shifted toward the near infrared (commonly referred to as “heat waves”). Our atmosphere however, is not as transparent to the near infrared or “long wavelength” end of the visible spectrum and so this energy is “captured” by the “greenhouse gases” in our atmosphere and the resulting is a warming of the atmosphere. You know that the atmosphere is not as transparent to the long wavelength, red end of the spectrum because “the sky is blue”. If the atmosphere was equally transparent to all visible light then, even during the day, the sky would be pure black (like pictures from the Moon). You also know that we’re warmer with an atmosphere than we would be without it because you know what happens when you cover your own body with a blanket.

Everything above is without debate. Now, however, it’s important to attempt to model this precisely and that is difficult. If the earth were a pure “blackbody” then it would be relatively easy. For example, we could assume that all light energy from the sun that hit a “disk in space” of diameter equal to the earth’s diameter was absorbed completely and thermal equilibrium were achieved. Using the Boltzmann’s Law we could then determine the temperature a blackbody globe would be to emit this much energy (thermal equilibrium). This predicts a temperature of about 42 Fahrenheit. This immediately complicates however because the earth doesn’t absorb completely and some of the energy is reflected. This is known as the earth’s albedo and is roughly estimated to be about 68% absorption efficiency. In addition, we have to estimate how effective the atmosphere is in capturing the energy re-emitted by the earth. This is known as emissivity, i.e. what percent of the energy radiated by the earth is emitted out from the atmosphere. This is roughly estimated to be 61%. Using these two parameters for earth’s light absorption and atmospheric emission we then predict a temperature of 56 Fahrenheit. This is a fairly simple model but it gets pretty close to the actual average earth’s temperature which is about 55 to 56 Fahrenheit. (This model is further explained here and here’s a simple excel spreadsheet that implements these calculations).

OK, now we’ve got a pretty good handle on what affects the temperature of our climate: the incident energy from the sun, the reflectivity or albedo of the earth’s surface and the energy absorption or emissivity of our atmosphere. If any of these parameters change, then the temperature we experience is going to change. So the simple answer to “Why is CO2 build-up meaningful?” is that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere can change the emissivity of the earth’s atmosphere. According to our model, a one percent change in emissivity will result in a 2 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature. Note also that in the model a one percent change in albedo also results in a 2 degree change in temperature. This is why the polar ice caps are considered of such importance, the size of the “white” polar ice caps (areas of high reflection) is a large determinant of the earth’s albedo.

Again, at a high level, there no debate in any of these points. The earth is a physical object that obeys the laws of thermodynamics and it’s made of materials that have physical characteristics. If these physical characteristics change (e.g. albedo, emissivity), the the point of thermal equilibrium will change according to the laws of thermodynamics. What’s also true, however, is that precisely measuring and predicting these effects on a global scale is extremely difficult and highly debatable. The measurement of average surface temperature of the earth is extraordinarily hard, especially when trying to reproduce a backward history of these measurements. Predicting and measuring the average emissivity of the atmosphere, especially as a function of the atmospheric make-up is again, an extraordinarily difficult problem to make complete and precise. To further complicate the model, the two parameters emissivity and albedo interact. A lot of work in this area is subject to debate and, unfortunately, when driven by a political agenda often complete crap. A relatively objective look at the complexity involved indicates why so much is available for debate. It doesn’t change the reality that if we put enough CO2 into the atmosphere, we’re going to change the temperature of the climate, that’s just physics. (Note: CO2 is only one of the “greenhouse gases” a relatively poor name for gases that absorb energy in the infrared spectrum such as water vaper, ozone, CO2, nitrous oxide and methane)

So let’s stay with “An Un-confused Truth”, (whether or not convenient): The earth is a natural system that is currently in a state that supports complex life and is especially conducive to the dominance of man. This particular state of the earth, however, is not it’s only possible state and, in fact, not the state that it’s been in for long. The earth has existed as a solid sphere for about 4.5 Billion years. A unique characteristics of the earth right from the start was that its distance from the sun allowed for water (note our simple model predicts a temperature of 42 Fahrenheit, right where H20 is a liquid). It turns out that water and a bit of methane gas is a great cocktail to allow complex carbon molecules to occur and bacteria (or prokaryotes) seem to have existed on the earth for nearly 4 of its 4.5 Billion years. The creation and proliferation of bacteria is what created the atmosphere and the atmosphere warmed the earth to above 50 Fahrenheit creating a globe whose surface is covered mostly by oceans. The nursery of the oceans and about three to three and half billion years of incubation allowed complex animal life forms to emerge. The exact conditions that have allowed man to be the dominate complex life form have existed for about 200,000 years. Those conditions include a mild and consistent climate that let’s man’s intelligence and memory find food year round. And a long term stability that has allowed our species to develop a continuous memory of nearly 10,000 years to form what we loosely call “knowledge”. But please note the time scale: if the 4.5 Billion years of earth’s existence were a timeline that spanned from the tip of your right hand across your shoulders to the tip of your left hand, then you could wipe out the time of man by swiping a nail file across the tip of your left middle finger(*).

The belief that this world is in a stable, self-correcting state that has existed and will exist forever is naïve. The reality is that we exist in a highly unusual place: a relatively small and solid planet, just the right distance from a relatively small and stable star that allows water to exist as a natural form; and that condition has been highly stable for approaching 5 Billion years. Given time, it will change. The responsible behavior for us, given our knowledge is to try to preserve the gift of our environment as best we can. Our lives depend on it.

(*) – The analogy of the ‘a nail file wiping out the time of man’ is one of my most remembered passages from Bill Bryson’s excellent book A Short History of Nearly Everything. You should read it.

Guidance remains conservative, a healthy view given the uncertainty in the overall economy.   I would speculate, however, that the combination of the PC market benefiting from the Windows 7 release, the strong onset of the “smartPhone” product category and the somewhat delayed but necessary investment in communication infrastructure will allow semiconductors to have some “strong sailing in the rough seas” of the global economy for 2010.

Now, because I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression, I’ll also point out that there’s a strong belief that projected world’s energy needs when supplied by today’s technology, leads to, in the most dramatic framing, “the destruction of the global environment”. Therefore, alternatives are required!! Putting us in this “boat” together then … learning about alternative energy is important for us all so that we can save the planet …

By the way, there are other people in the boat rowing in the same direction and the TED group recently highlighted an interesting talk by none other than Bill Gates.

OK, if you’ve read this far it means I didn’t completely alienate you with my introduction and you did not get sidetracked by the much more compelling content of Mr. Gates’ talk. I appreciate your patience. As a reward I’ll try to get on track and give you a few “talking points” on “global warming”, a topic that’s filled with debate and sometimes rancour.

To help avoid the rancour, I propose a set of framing questions that have helped me try to understand further the issues in debate and the things worth doing about it. These questions are as follows:

1. Is there a build-up of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere?
2. If so, is this build-up of man-made origin?
3. If so, what are the implications of this build-up of carbon dioxide?
4. Given the implications, what should we do about it?

Question 1 – Is there a build-up of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere??
This question, though leading, is primary to the debate. The core result is presented as the “Keeling Curve”, shown below, with all the background on that particular curve presented at the NOAA site that “owns” the measurements. This data quickly provides a convincing picture that, yes, Carbon Dioxide is building in the atmosphere.

Question 2 – Is this build-up of man-made origin?
Though slightly less obvious then the first, the data here is again pretty convincing. The core data is the measurements made that attempt to determine the carbon dioxide concentration over the last 400,000 years and compare that to the direct measurements made over the last 50 years.  This reasoning, though circumstantial is, none the less, strong.  The argument strenghtens by estimating the effect that the 8 billion or more tons of estimate carbon production would have in an environmental model (see graph below).    Believing the data, however, you could still argue that something other then man’s activity is the source but it’s tough to believe given the spike in CO2 concentration is wholly coincident with the industrial age.   In addition, there is supposedly a direct method to estimate the “age” of carbon in the atmosphere.

Question 3 – If so, what are the implications of this build-up of carbon dioxide??
Now enter the realm of the debatable!  The advertised implication is “Global Warming”.  This now overused phrase is the result of many decades of research that begin with the observation we learned in high school known as the “Greenhouse effect”. Interestingly the first observations of the existance of the “Greenhouse effect” were made as early as 1824 by none other than Joseph Fourier, the namesake of the oft use “Fourier Analysis” techniques. Many observations and experiments have been made since and you’re encouraged to look and view the many presentations, one of which is presented here. Of course, the debate begins as conclusions here depend on the accuracy of the models, which, in my opinion are questionable and how these models relate to other natural and chaotic phenomena. Nonetheless, arguing in the extreme: it’s not debatable that a different atmosphere would, in fact, change the temperature of the planet (see, for example, Venus)

Question 4 – Given the implications, what should we do about it?
OK, we’ve loosely presented some of the scientific background, intentionally moving from the most concise and compelling to the more complex and debatable. Now we’ve arrived into the realm of the pure political. Man’s activity is measurably producing over 8 billion tons of atmospheric carbon/year. But acting to change man-made carbon production on a global basis would require a political structure and will that doesn’t exist. If you are where I am, that 1) atmospheric carbon dioxide IS increasing and 2) it’s due to MAN-MADE effects and 3) this will inevitably have SOME effect on the environment we live in then it’s easy to conclude that, all else being equal, we should choose energy sources that produce less carbon. Unfortunately, there’s almost no choice where “all else is equal”.

But recognizing carbon production as a cost of energy is important, and is today, not directly included in the “price”. “Carbon credits” begin the discussion but, already, we start down a road that will be politically difficult to implement. I have to agree with Bill Gates. Results will occur when we have a readily available source of energy that cost less, period, and, by the way, doesn’t produce carbon. This solution, whether it’s as nice and “natural” as solar, wind or waves or it’s of more “industrial strength”, such as nuclear, enables economic activity and improved lifestyle (man’s selfish goal) … and, by golly, even saves the planet from man-made destruction (a nice side effect to carry along).

Going back to my own, admitted, selfish behavior. We’re installing solar panels on our roof! There’s a bit of an up front cost but Akeena Solar has made it easy for me. In addition, the government has conspired to make it so that I’ve contracted with SunRun and bought my solar electricity for the next 18 years at a rate of just of over $.15/kWh.   Now with only a little bit of scheming (and hoping I can control, to some degree, the amount of Xbox Live played during school hours!)  I believe I will have electric bills of zero dollars/year.   If my nefarious scheme works I’ll have paid for my solar panels in less than four years and it’s all upside from there, baby!!  I place the worst case scenario at an investment with about a 10% return which isn’t too bad in today’s slowed economy. And, BTW, I’m reducing the “carbon footprint” of our house. So you see, I can remain the selfish guy that I am … and still do my part in saving the planet.

Top 25 Fabless Semiconductor Companies by 2009 Revenue

Looking at the table a few things standout. First, it’s interesting to separate the list by country of origin. As there is only one company from each of Japan and Europe, it hard to conclude anything on average except that neither region has embraced the fabless model. Note, however, the stark difference between the results in the U.S. and in Taiwan. The average decline for a U.S. based company in the top 25 was 8.7%, pretty close to the industry average. A company in Taiwan in the top 25, on the other hand, grew an average of 13%!!

As, or maybe more interesting, is to look at how the companies did against their regional average. Seven companies beat the regional average in the U.S.: Atheros, Silicon Labs, Qualcomm, Avago, PMC-Sierra, Broadcom and Semtech. Is there any doubt that that list represents the “cream of the crop” of fabless IC companies. More unique, however, is that two U.S. companies managed significant growth in this environment. Congratulations to Atheros and Silicon Labs, among my most admired companies in the fab-less industry.

But let’s turn attention to Taiwan. With the regional average being 13% growth, these companies are operating in a different (more condusive to growth?) environment. Within that environment, three companies beat that average, Mstar, Mediatek and Realtek. These names have and should strike fear in the management of U.S. based companies. These companies continue to grow on a business model focused on cost based design for volume applications. They make strong ties to local foundries and easily capture design wins with local ODMs. Given that TSMC is destined to become the 2nd largest semiconductor company in the world in just a few years we are only going to see the strengths of Taiwan based companies increase. U.S. management and investors, take note …

Top 25 Fabless Semiconductor Separate by Country and Sort by 2009 Growth

SIA November 2009 Sales Estimate

Semiconductor Industry Revenue

That’s not quite what the industry guided to, however …

Xilinx and Altera, both broadly exposed geographically and across application segments did revise guidance in December, guiding guided to up 16-20% and up 15-18% respectively … so they’re consistent with the predicted average. Intel, however, provided guidance in the up 6-8% range in their October earnings release and did not modify that guidance when they provided an update in November. Looking at a couple of other large semiconductor companies guidance:

• Broadcom – revised from flat in their October earnings release to up 5% in a mid-Dec release
• Nvidia – Guiding up 2% in their October earnings release
• Texas Instruments – Revised guidance in early December to flat to up 5% from their October guidance of down 3% to up 5%

Hmmm … I’d say that INTEL, Broadcom, Nvidia and TI are all fairly comfortable in their guidance. I expect that we might see a few more pre-announcements and revisions here shortly as well. And I’d also say, that Altera and Xilinx might actually be outgrowing the industry … but we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

• Game Platforms with Internet Access, specifically Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360
• Playon Server on a PC with DLNA capable endpoints.
• Roku Internet TV Client
• Apple TV

My Home Network

Messy here!! -----------------------------------------> but nice there

So you can follow along here’s the basics of my home network. My broadband connection is Verizon DSL, 3MBPS service which consistently shows about 2.8-2.9MBPS downloads on most internet based speed meters. The DSL modem/gateway is located in a wiring closet that includes an ethernet switch that connects to about a dozen CAT5e outlets in the living room, family room and other appropriate places in the house. The network also includes wireless in the form of 802.11g, important in this context as that’s the “built-in” connectivity for the Wii. My TVs are setup with DIRECTV satellite service and, where there’s a game system, the “TV” is a display and the sound is through a stereo receiver that can select either the DIRECTV box or the game system as the audio and video source and output the sound through a 5.1 surround sound set of speakers.

Game Platforms

Nintendo Wii

First, the Nintendo Wii is great!! This is the “family’s” game system, no Call of Duty “shoot ‘em up” stuff, we golf, ski, play balance games and “workout” all in the living room. And starting in September Wii has made the “Internet Channel” free on the Wii by just downloading. What you are downloading is, in fact, the Opera Embedded Browser. Once this channel is downloaded you immediately get the ability to go to a few web sites and browse. Specifically, Youtube is integrated using the “Youtube XL” interface. This is a “much reduced” presentation showing you only a few videos and about 4 tabs to select from to browse other content. This is, however, about appropriate for the “10 feet away, up, down, left, right, select” user interface and the video comes through relatively well. Extensibility is limited to adding new “favorites” to the browser front page (which is quite useful when you get to “PLAYON”, discussed later.)

With the Opera Browser, you are on the web and you can go anywhere and view the content. The content presentation is, however, limited by the implemenation of the Opera Browser and any “add-on” or “plug-in” availability that is available and the web site uses. For example, hulu.com content is implemented in Adobe Flash and the good news is that the opera browser has implemented Adobe Flash!! The bad news, however, is that the opera browser implemented Flash version 7 and the hulu content requires, Flash version 9 and so … it doesn’t play. Going through various website you’ll find many either don’t work at all (e.g. hulu.com) or don’t look good on the TV as rendered by the Opera browser.

This issue is, and in my opinion, will remain a very big and real issue for internet video content on the TV. The web has this issue intrinsically: you’ll note that many websites will “recommend” a browser, usually Internet Explorer or Firefox. What a web developer is telling you is that they’ve designed and tested the website with this browser. It should work with other browsers, but the web site developer is subject to the implementation that’s in the “client-side” browser and by “testing” on IE and Firefox, the developer has covered almost 90% of the PC users. Opera looks like it’s hitting about 2-3% of the PC market, but Opera on a TV display … guess what, you’re on your own. This will take time but is likely to go in the direction that it has on mobile phones. Note that to get “nice looking” content on your phone you go to a “mobile specific” site (e.g. m.yahoo.com or m.espn.com). The TV display is different enough than either the PC or the phone that we’re likely to end up at tv.espn.com or similar “TV” intended content.

Pros: Easy to use, Nice well integrated user interface
Cons: Intrinsic content quite limited, Basic Youtube and other “browsing” sites.

Xbox 360

First, don’t underestimate the power of these game platforms. Call of Duty VI/Modern Warfare II is the one of the most successful entertainment launches in history, and netted over $550 Million in sales in the first 5 days mostly with Xbox and Xbox Live sales. That compares to a blockbuster movie launch that is usually in the $100-$200 Million range in week 1. In addition, these games have “map updates” and “scenario additions” that are added to the game over the first year or so of play. These are downloads from Xbox Live that usually cost $5-$10 per update. The Call of Duty franchise has racked up over $3 Billion in total sales to date and I think they’re just getting started. With an installed base of 35 Million units and a relatively easy revenue target of >$100/installed box this is a GREAT business generating platform.

The internet is intrinsic to the Xbox platform. The real fun of these games is playing on-line with friends. My boys are typically on-line with about a half a dozen buddies from school and then get matched up with gamers from around the world. They’re quite cognizant of the number of COD players in the UK, Europe, Africa (a grand total of one, by the way) and the far east. In fact, the setup is so compelling the guys typically decide NOT to go to a friends house and instead “meet on-line” for a night of game playing. I’m not defending it, mind you, just reporting how immersive this experience has become.

So with internet “core” to the experience, internet video is also easily available. Mostly, this is packaged as “video content for the Xbox”, game trailers, using the Xbox, etc. In addition, however, Netflix is a selection on one of the console Menu items before you get into the game. You can also with a little bit of “rigama-roll” get a browser onto the xBox and go web surfing. Note, however, that this implementation counts on a “Media Center” PC on the network to format the content and the formatting of the content is subject to the same comments as above.

Pros: Easy to use, Nice well integrated user interface and good implementation of Netflix
Cons: Limited optimized web browsing content

Playon Server on a PC with DLNA capable endpoints.

Available for download from playon.tv is a “media server” for your PC. This media server implements the Digital Living Network Alliance protocols and serves content to web clients. So, guess what, all the internet connected tv’s that have a basic browser are ready for this content!! In short, we just solved the formatting problem intrinsic to the web content on the Wii and the Xbox. The playon server just needs to know what size display is being used and it takes care of “the rest”. “The rest”, in this case, includes the bandwidth available from the internet web site (about 2.5-3Mbps in my case) and to the display (about 100Mbps on my home network) and it works out and performs the required “transcoding”. And, low and behold, one of the sites that playon.tv has implemented and tested well is hulu.com. The whole process and result are pretty well documented on the video from this site.

In addition to the basics of formatting the content to the display the server implements the DLNA protocols which provide the basic protocol to “browse” the available content. This means that any client that is “DLNA aware” can browse the content from the server. In this case, both the Wii browser and the Xbox intrinsically are DLNA aware clients. Therefore with playon installed both the Wii and the Xbox happily display all the playon transcoded content.

I have to say it’s pretty good. If you’re comfortable with the download and installation process it’s a fairly good way of getting off your PC to watch hulu content and into your living room. And the content that’s been tested is pretty compelling: hulu.com, cbs.com and others. And one of the “big features” is that its extensible through relatively simple programming and scripting and there’s a user community building these things.

The limitation, as pretty well documented in the video, is the user interface. The content is presented in categories and to get to the choices you go through an alphabetical list. The video gets to a “Family Guy” episode in about 5 or 6 clicks which may not sound too onerous but remember, the user knew exactly what he was looking for. Compare that to the number of “clicks” it takes you to change channels on your TV …

The other benefit is that now that you have a DLNA capable server, you can display the content on any number of DLNA capable clients, or “renderers” in the parlance of the DLNA. You can actually check out this certified list here. Note, however, that neither the Wii or the Xbox 360 are listed. Now the Wii is “officially” supported by playon and while the Xbox 360 is not offically supported it seems to work OK. Also working, when I tested on my home network were both my H21 and HR22 receivers from DIRECTV! So with the playon server I’ve got internet TV on all my TV sets with little investment beyond the basic home network!

Pros: Video Content of the internet “unlocked”! Extensible on “both sides” through plug-in to the web and any DLNA enabled device on the client.
Cons: Complexity of Home Server architecture that needs to be installed and maintained. Version control between web sites, server and clients is likely to be an issue.

Roku Internet TV Client

OK, for this and Apple TV I have to caveat and tell you that I didn’t actually “buy it and try it”. Therefore my comments are going to be based on giving the benefit of the doubt that this stuff actually works as advertised … but I think that’s a pretty good bet.

Roku is a network connected TV device. And it’s intent is to solve all the problems that I’m talking about. So starting at $79.99 you can buy a device that get’s connected to the internet (through your home network) on one end and connects to your TV through composite video on the other. If you want to get HD capability you need to “move up” to the $99.99 device which has component video output. Once connected, Roku takes care of the rest.

Roku is essentially “solving” the format and user interface problem “one website at a time”. If you visit the Roku site you can see the “channels” that they’ve implemented so far. Note that this includes a sports channel, mlb.com which is a nice idea (but is also accessible through the playon & Wii setup above). I also expect that this list will grow nicely over the next year or so and so I’d think the investment is pretty well protected. Notice that Netflix is front and center in the positioning and I’m sure both Roku and Netflix see it as a good partnership. Note, however, that Netflix isn’t solely counting on Roku as the Netflix implementation is on a growing number of devices. I, personally, think it would be a nice addition if Roku implemented the DLNA feature but I can imagine that from Roku’s perspective it’s not obvious that it would drive sales and certainly adds to support. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t expect to see it immediately.

Pros: Really easy to setup and what is advertised to work, works well.
Cons: Content limited to the channels that Roku implements

Apple TV

So if you want something that easy to use and works flawlessly … go buy it from Apple. I think their products are great! Though I didn’t buy it myself, I’ll assume that Apple TV is no exception. The premise is exactly like the Roku box but the “channels” in this case are those channels that are on iTunes. Like the iPod from Apple which is a digital music player that drives sales on iTunes, Apple TV is a box that’s intended to drive video downloads and sales from the iTunes store. When I tested it out in the Apple store, it still suffered a bit from the fact that the five button remote interface limits the speed at which you can find things. But if you know what you want, it works really well.

Pros: Really easy to setup and it works as good as anything Apple put their name on!
Cons: It an expensive way to get a portal to iTunes video … period.

And the winner is …

Content. Follow the content and you’ll know who wins. So what content do you want. Here’s my list:

1. Live Sports
2. Games and Interactive Entertainment
3. Beautiful DVDs

So with that I’m going to allocate my dollars to:

1. A TV subscription, congratulations DIRECTV you get my business
2. A game platform (or two), Wii for the family, Xbox 360 for the kids
3. A subscribtion to Netflix … and since my game platforms will both implement Netflix over the internet, I’m done.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed with myself because I really like the vision and implementation of the playon server. You could argue (and they do) that it’s a platform like the early web that is both immediately capable and infinitely extensible. However, unlike the web that was motivated to increase access to knowledge and general productivity, the application we’re talking about here is basic entertainment. Easy … and I mean “no thinking dirt easy” is going to win and so when it comes to betting dollars that’s where mine will stay.

And while I’m expressing appreciation, I am becoming convinced that Mr. Gates, though one of the great “industrialist”,  will be remember in the lens of history as one of the great philathropist of our time.    The work of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation  is exemplary and its quality is due to the personal involvement of Bill and Melinda Gates making sure their legacy is effectively applied.

Thank-you Mr. and Mrs. Gates

Laird on a small wave ... for him

The other, which my strange make-up found equally exciting was a talk by Norman Winarsky of SRI that discussed coming “Waves of Innovation”.     Now to be honest,  Norman discussed the “Five Waves of Innovation”.    I know that because that’s what my notes are titled.    I then have notes on four waves.    So, much like my surfing ability,  I somehow missed a wave.      The four I did catch were nice rides, however:

1. Robots/Agents

   I think this may have been two waves, one being bots that probe, investigate and possibly disrupt ”the network” and the other being agents.    Regardless, I believe that “agents” piece of it is most interesting.    Norman demonstrated an “agent” application that is in market presently: “Siri” (SRI’s baby?).     Pretty compelling demo.    It’s a phone app, speak to it, ask it to DO something, (e.g. “Make me a reservation at Manressa at 8pm on Thursday”) … done.     I expect it will be received as a “breakthrough” app.    And as is often the case in “breakthroughs” there’s only a little that’s new … it’s mostly a set of developed technologies that are ready to be put together in a new and useful way:

   Speech Recognition – It’s a done deal, speech can be recognized to greater than 99% accuracy, especially in context.   Go buy an app from Nuance.    I also believe this is further evidence of Jeff Hawkin’s model On Intelligence,  all good speech recognizers are trying to “predict” what you’re saying and they do a better job with better predictors.

   Web Search -  I don’t have much to add … if you want to learn more “Google it”.

   Select and act – This is the “new” technology, and this is the result of $150M of government investment in the CALO project.    I think it’s great,  but it certainly builds upon the fact that good search technology has given you a list that almost all of the time has everything relevant in the first handful of results (when was the last time you found what you were looking for on the 2nd page of a web search?).    From there it’s building a “confidence score” on whether and how to act and the mechanism for recovery, i.e. “trying again”.   The “difficult” problem in the UI  is when the agent doesn’t get it right, the human response is to simply repeat the same words slower and louder (“I said, I NEED A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER!!!”).     The machine has to be “smart enough” not to more accurately get to the same, wrong result.

   I look forward to watching Siri progress.   

   I also believe, in general, voice will come back as a viable and important UI as the personal device moves from Notebook to Smart Phone.    I just can’t buy that thumb typing on a virtual QWERTY keyboard is the optimal way for a human to efficiently instruct a machine (the original keyboard layout was designed to prevent mechanical jams of letter swing-arms!?! C’mon … we can do better). 

2. Pharmaceuticals

   This, in my opinion, is the biggie!!   The 20th century was the century of physical sciences.   In scientific terms, the century began with J.J. Thompson’s discovery of the electron and the century comically ended with the Luddite fear that the Y2K effect would “stop the world” as we had become too dependent on the “buggy” computer, the culminating economic application of electron theory and electronics.    I think the 21st century will be remembered as the century of biological science.    The Human Genome Project completed two years ahead of schedule in 2003 and the result is a complete map of the human DNA.    More telling, the cost of DNA sequencing has dropped so dramatically that instead of it costing $100M’s that it cost to sequence the human species, any other species can be sequenced for a mere few million dollars.  

   Our ability to understand and control biological processes, as a result will be astounding. The near term result is good types of “designer drugs” that have unprecedented effectiveness.    The “Cure for Cancer”, in general, may be no nearer than it was 20 years ago but the cure for an individuals cancer is getting pretty close.    Catch the early signs, use a biological simulation to model the metastasizing mechanism and develop a drug “cocktail” that prevents and reverses it’s course for that individuals body and biological processes — cancer stopped.    And so we attack and cure the biggies: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer.    They are all simply biological processes that can be “modified”.    Does this mean eat right, see your doctor regularly and when he occasionally catches something awry he provides an appropriate cocktail and makes sure you live to be 100?  Maybe it’s so.  And what about aging itself, isn’t that just a biological process that can be understood and controlled?

   So we’re going to learn to live forever … or pretty close to it.   I won’t touch upon the ethical and moral debate it raises but I do think it’s worth thinking about, especially in context of the dramatic demographic changes the world will see in the next 10-20 years as discussed in the current Economist.

3. Alternative Sources of Energy

   There’s been a lot written about the new potential sources of energy and there’s been a lot already done to diversify the energy supply away from oil. It’s surprising, however, how little impact “green sources” have made so far and speaks to the breadth and magnitude of the opportunity.    The graph below shows that everything “green” outside hydro-electric generation as of 2007 comprised less than 1% of Total Supplied Energy on a world wide basis!

   

   I won’t re-iterate here what alternative sources look most promising and why (think wind and waves) but I will observe that conservation or, maybe more appropriately, efficient energy use remains a strong “pseudo-source” that has the added benefit of reducing carbon footprint.     The graphic below speaks to this “other” opportunity (source: Dr. George M. Whitesides).    This graph shows the inputs and outputs of the U.S. as an energy system.    It deserves some study but the big “take-away” is that over 50% of the energy produced is “lost” in distribution to or at the end application.     Do you hear that “humming” when you go under power lines, it uses power to make that sound.

   

   It speaks to the importance of the Smart Grid initiatives occuring on a worldwide basis.    These initiatives may well have the impact the development of the interstate highway system in the 1940′s and 1950′s did in the last century.    Remember, growth in our new economy, is more about moving electrons and information than it is about moving things.

4. Enhanced Reality

   I’m not sure what to say about this one. I think I get it … it’s video games, the new multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. And you can easily understand how practical and “cool” it is when you head down to Dave and Buster’s and play Pebble Beach on their golf simulator. It’s not such a big leap to believe you’ll be able to afford to put one in your basement or backyard for your year 2020 birthday. There’s a lot of innovators out there who are going to find lots of “non-entertainment” ways to make this technology useful. And then how far away are we from the vision in Bruce Willis’ latest movie, Surrogates? I’m not sure I like that particular vision … but if I could get anywhere near the thrill Hamilton must experience on the elevator drop of a 50 foot wave, sign me up.

The first message ever sent over the ARPANET (sent over the first host-to-host connection) occurred at 10:30 PM on October 29, 1969. It was sent by UCLA student programmer Charley Kline and supervised by UCLA Professor Leonard Kleinrock. The message was sent from the UCLA SDS Sigma 7 Host computer to the SRI SDS 940 Host computer. The message itself was simply the word “login.”   The “l” and the “o” transmitted without problem but then the system crashed. Hence, the first message on the ARPANET was “lo”.  They were able to do the full login about an hour later.

The breakthrough was the use of computers to implement a “packet-switched” network, obviating the need for a dedicated circuit to communicate from point A to B.       A few more core ideas were added before we have the network that is so familiar today.    In 1973, Robert Metcalf at Xerox PARC developed the concept of Ethernet, proposing the hardware mechanism for collision detection and resolution on a shared media, now familiarly known as CSMA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access).     Probably more seminal, however, was the development of the Internet Protocol stack, originally worked out by Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, also in 1973.      

The ensuing forty years has seen a true “paradigm shift” in the communication network.    The term Ethernet has probably evolved most to refer to a wide variety of hardware access schemes but the core implementation of a packet-switch network implementing IP protocol at every node for reliable message delivery is the core network of global communication today.    

Happy Birthday Internet …