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Thoughts on the iPad

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad yesterday, my first thoughts were "Ooooh! Shiny! I want one!"

Then I read the orgy of criticism that washed over the blogosphere last night about all the device's perceived failings and, on mature and considered reflection...

I still want one.

(Maybe two, so I don't have to fight with my wife over it.) [Read more...]

TopEyeView

I made an expedition to Gwinnett County recently to look at a blimp. [Read more...]

Augmented Reality at Georgia Tech

Interesting article on Augmented Reality research at Georgia Tech here. One of the linked videos demonstrates a Virtual Pet application on a current generation iPhone. The iPhone overlays an animated image of a dog on realtime video input from the iPhone's camera. The result is a pet that appears to reside in the real world in front of you.

One of the reasons I love what I do... getting to hang out with cool guys like Blair McIntyre!

Microsoft at GEDC

Microsoft just announced their $600,000 investment in the Georgia Electronic Design Center at Georgia Tech, to focus on "RF-DNA"... the next generation of RFID. One of the key applications will be anti-counterfeiting technology for pharmaceuticals.

Here's the signing ceremony at GEDC in Technology Square. Joy Laskar, director of GEDC, is at the podium, and various GT, state, and customer representatives are at the table.

Marcus Nanotech Center

Today, I received my invitation to the official opening of the Marcus Nanotechnology Center at Georgia Tech, which reminds me that I never posted the photographs from my tour a while back. [Read more...]

American Maglev

Jeff Foxworthy said once, "If the directions to your place include the phrase 'Turn off the paved road,' you might be a redneck."

I'm not sure if American Maglev would appreciate the comparison, but it's apt. A little ways off Thornton Road in Powder Springs, about twenty miles west of Atlanta, down an unpaved road, is a glimpse of the future. I got a chance to visit them yesterday.
[Read more...]

Thoughts on Reliability

I grew up in the Bell System, where reliability was second only to safety as an overriding concern. If a phone company employee caused a 15-second service outage, they'd certainly get counseled by their manager, and perhaps referred to additional training. If he caused a 15-minute outage, he'd get reviewed in front of his manager's manager. Not punitive, but trying to figure out what went wrong, how to capture the failure in an improved process, and how to get that information to others who might encounter a similar problem in the future.
 
Well, email is far more important to me now than telephone service was then. Last night, our IT staff started a server upgrade to patch against the "Conflicker" virus at 5:00 pm. It crashed the machine, and service wasn't restored for 15 HOURS. I got a note of apology at 8:00 am that translated basically as "Stuff happens."
 
When did we decide that this was acceptable? Why do we put up with this?

Do the Right Thing

I had a hardware problem with my MacBook Pro today. Apple delivered a model of stellar customer service. I figured the least I could do in return was write about it.
[Read more...]

My Letter to the Editor for “New Scientist” magazine

They probably won't publish this, so I'll put it here:

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To the Editors:

The premise of your special on growth in the 15 October 2008 issue is just plain wrong, and the wrongness starts in your lead editorial. http://tinyurl.com/4evh5e

You state that "we live on a planet with finite resources." But we also live in a solar system with eight planets, fifty moons, a million asteroids, [Read more...]

Phi Beta Kappa

I got into a discussion about Georgia Tech academics the other day, when I mentioned how difficult the undergraduate curriculum was. The other person (who graduated from a state university that shall remain nameless) retorted with "Well, Tech doesn't even have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa!"

That's true. We don't. And I started digging into why. [Read more...]