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Messages - Toufik Ahmed Emon

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Teaching & Research Forum / DRAGON
« on: May 11, 2018, 02:04:18 AM »
Dragon is a free-flying spacecraft designed to deliver both cargo and people to orbiting destinations. Dragon made history in 2012 when it became the first commercial spacecraft in history to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and safely return cargo to Earth, a feat previously achieved only by governments. It is the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth. Currently Dragon carries cargo to space, but it was designed from the beginning to carry humans. Under an agreement with NASA, SpaceX is now developing the refinements that will enable Dragon to fly crew. Dragon's first manned test flight is expected to take place as early as 2018.

Source: http://www.spacex.com/dragon

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Teaching & Research Forum / BANGABANDHU SATELLITE-1 MISSION
« on: May 11, 2018, 01:10:30 AM »
SpaceX is targeting launch of Bangabandhu Satellite-1 on Thursday, May 10 from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Liftoff is targeted for 4:42 p.m. EDT, or 20:42 UTC. A backup launch window opens on Friday, May 11 at 4:14 p.m. EDT, or 20:14 UTC, and closes at 6:21 p.m. EDT, or 22:21 UTC. Bangabandhu Satellite-1 will be deployed into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) approximately 33 minutes after launch.

The Bangabandhu Satellite-1 mission will be the first to utilize Falcon 9 Block 5, the final substantial upgrade to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Falcon 9 Block 5 is designed to be capable of 10 or more flights with very limited refurbishment as SpaceX continues to strive for rapid reusability and extremely high reliability. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. You can watch the live launch webcast below and find out more about the mission in our press kit.

Source: http://www.spacex.com/webcast

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Thank you for sharing

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Thanks for sharing.

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Science and Information / Re: Govt plans to launch more satellites
« on: May 09, 2018, 01:01:32 AM »
Great News!

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Thank you for sharing.

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Facebook's chief has said that 2018 has been an "intense year" for his firm.

But Mark Zuckerberg also took the opportunity to unveil a dating service among other new products at his firm's annual F8 developers conference in San Jose, California.

He told his audience that the match-making feature would take privacy issues in mind and would launch "soon".

The company can ill afford another data scandal as it continues to be embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica affair.

"There are 200 million people on Facebook who list themselves as single," said Mr Zuckerberg.

"And if we are committed to building meaningful relationships, then this is perhaps the most meaningful of all."

Shares in the dating business Match Group fell more than 23% after the announcement.

It owns Tinder, a dating app that sources its profile information from Facebook.

Privacy row
Facebook has faced fierce criticism ever since it emerged that it had failed to check whether political consultancy Cambridge Analytica had deleted data harvested about millions of its users.

Mr Zuckerberg said that this was a "major breach of trust" that must never happen again.

'Hate speech button' fazes Facebook users
Zuckerberg faces angry developers
WhatsApp boss and co-founder Jan Koum to quit
As part of efforts to restore confidence, he said the firm was building a new Clear History tool to provide members with more control over how their information is used.

The feature will:

let members see which third-party sites and apps Facebook collects data from
provide the ability to delete the information
prevent Facebook from being able to add such details to their profile in the future
However, in a related blog, Facebook has acknowledged that the tool will take several months to develop, and that it would still need to retain related information in "rare cases" for security reasons.

Online dating
Mr Zuckerberg also addressed his company's efforts to tackle fake news and detect operations designed to disrupt elections.

But while he opted not to unveil a smart speaker - which the BBC understands had once been destined to launch at F8 - he did introduce other novelties.

Image copyrightFACEBOOK
The headline feature is a new service to help singletons on the platform meet potential dates.

He said the opt-in feature would focus on "real long-term relationships, not just hook-ups", and would exclude existing friends from potential matches.

"We have designed this with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning," he added.

Source: BBC

8
Born 241 years ago on April 30, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss is often described as the "Prince of Mathematicians" and hailed for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory and astronomy.

In the German mathematician's honour, Google is changing its logo in 28 countries to a doodle of him and his achievements.

This is his story:

Prodigy   
Gauss was born in 1777 in Brunswick to poor, working-class parents.

His mother, who was illiterate, never recorded her son's birthday. However, she recalled that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days after the Feast of Ascension, 40 days after Easter.

So, Gauss used that information to determine his birthday, developing his algorithm for calculating the date of Easter during the 1700s or 1800s.

His father was a gardener and regarded as an upright, honest man. However, he was known for being harsh and discouraging his son from attending school.
Gauss's mother was the one who recognised his talents and insisted that he develop them through education.

He was described as a child prodigy, and he often said he could count before he could talk. At the age of seven, he is said to have amused his teachers by adding the integers from one to 100 almost instantly. 

While still a young teenager, he became the first person to prove the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity, a math theory determining whether quadratic equations can be solved.

By the age of 15, his reputation had reached the Duke of Brunswick, and in 1791 he granted him financial assistance to continue his education.

SCIENCE IN THE GOLDEN AGE: Al-Khwarizmi, The Father of Algebra (25:04)
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae
Gauss entered the Collegium Carolinum in 1792. There, he studied modern and ancient languages.

For a time, he was undecided on whether to devote his life to mathematics or philology (the study of languages). He chose mathematics, specifically arithmetic, saying famously: "Mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic is the queen of mathematics."
Gauss's first significant discovery was that a regular polygon of 17 sides could be constructed by ruler and compass alone. This was done through analysis of the factorisation of polynomial equations - a revelation that opened the door to other theories.

By the time he was 21, he had written a textbook on number theory, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. The text is widely credited for paving the way for modern number theory as we know it.  Among other things, it introduced the symbol for congruence.

His work established him as the era's pre-eminent mathematician.

Gauss summarised his views on the pursuit of knowledge in a letter dated September 2, 1808, as follows:

"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again."
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment
GAUSS

 Deep depression 
Gauss married Johanna Osthoff in 1805 and had two children with her. She died four years later, and the couple's youngest child, Louis, died the year after.
After his wife's death, Gauss sank into a depression from which he never fully recovered.

In 1810, Gauss married Minna Waldeck, his first wife's best friend, and had three more children with her. She took over the household and cared for him and his family.

Electromechanical telegraph
In 1831, Gauss developed a working relationship with Wilhelm Weber, leading to new knowledge in magnetism and the discovery of Kirchhoff's circuit laws in electricity.

They constructed the first electromechanical telegraph in 1833, and later both founded the "Magnetischer Verein", an observatory which measured the Earth's magnetic field around the world.
The mathematician was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and was also elected a foreign honourary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

During his life, Gauss had excellent health and a strong constitution. He was never seriously ill, but in the last two years, he suffered from insomnia and several other ailments due to his age.

He had a heart attack and died on February 23, 1855, surrounded by relatives and friends.

Gauss's brain was preserved and studied by Rudolf Wagner, who found its mass to be slightly above average. Highly developed convolutions were also found,  which in the early 20th century was suggested as an explanation of his genius.

Honours
After his death, the mathematician was widely honoured. Many streets were named after him.

In Gottingen, there is the Gauss-Weber monument in honour of the two scientists' invention of the telegraph.

Berlin's Potsdam bridge also features a monument to Gauss.

His centenary was widely celebrated in Germany on April 30, 1877.

Gauss's portrait was featured on the German 10-mark banknote. Germany has also issued three postage stamps honouring him. One appeared in 1955 on the 100th anniversary of his death.
Astronomy: The Science of the Stars

Source: ALJAZEERA

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Faculty Forum / 5 Innovations in the Computer Science Industry
« on: April 29, 2018, 08:48:26 PM »
What kinds of challenges and innovations will computer science experts face in the near future? Computer science is a world where abstract principles are realized in astounding practical forms. From an early history of room-sized supercomputers, it has progressed to the common consumer desktop and the mobile revolution. What could be next?

1) Advanced Robotics

Today’s robots are limited in both scope and sophistication. Ideal for rote tasks, they have achieved only limited capacity for situational “reasoning,” much less high-order abstract functions. Much growth would be needed for robotic labor to drive large-scale economic changes as the assembly line did. Yet, their limitations may be challenged in the near future.

The new wave of robotics incorporates more sophisticated sensors and streamlined forms making it possible for machines to work beside humans while presenting far fewer safety risks. While many roboticists are innovating at an approximately human scale, the advent of advanced drone technology has created many new uses for flying robots.

One of the top challenges in making robotics a reality is operationalizing an “intellect” that will let robots adapt to changing tasks. Although major issues still exist – see below for that discussion – cloud technology could be the key to centralizing and accelerating parts of AI development. Instead of each unit being programmed from scratch, robots could use distributed computing to download instruction sets as needed.

2) Artificial Intelligence

One limiting factor in the development of robotics is the linear nature of computer hardware. Even the most advanced motherboards, processors, and microchips must compartmentalize their resources for maximum efficiency under real-life conditions. Electrons – and data – must move from Point A to Point B to Point C and back again. Bottlenecks are a consistent issue.

In living things, biological systems that process data are fully intertwined at countless levels. The human brain has 100 billion neurons. Compare this to the 5.5 billion transistors in Intel’s Xeon Haswell-EP, a flagship 18-core CPU. Although nothing artificial approaches the complexity of a brain, the designs and sensor technologies used in today’s high-level robotics are inspired by nature.

As technology grows more able to mimic the functionality of the human brain, it may be possible to overcome some theoretical hurdles preventing truly adaptive AI. Researchers are closing in on the capability to develop transistors and even entire circuits built around DNA strands and chemical reactions – groundbreaking innovations sure to interface with traditional computer science in amazing ways.

5 Innovations in the Computer Science Industry
http://www.thatsreallypossible.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/nanotechnology.jpg
3) Precision Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering has enormous potential to help humanity overcome food shortages and other health crises, especially in areas of the developing world that have traditionally faced agricultural challenges. In practice, however, the debate over the best way to apply genetic engineering to human needs has often overshadowed its uses. Precision genetic engineering may finally put many concerns to rest while unlocking more of the potential.

Advanced genetic engineering using RNA interference and other innovations make it possible to approach desired outcomes with surgical precision, greatly outperforming current solutions based on agrobacterium tumefaciens bacteria. To deliver consistent, predictable results, however, new genetic engineering techniques will require multi-generational tracking and modeling.

What can provide the ability to sort through massive amounts of information? Big data, the trend toward evaluating an ocean of information characterized by volume, velocity, and variety far beyond what was known only a few years ago. With computer scientists at the helm, the combination of these technologies may make radical positive change possible within just a few generations.

4) Health Informatics

The traditional model of healthcare relies on self-reporting from patients. Unfortunately, this can leave many conditions undiagnosed until well after their progression is severe. With the help of computer science pioneers, health informatics is transforming the way healthcare is done, lending a a much more proactive mindset.

Cloud computing and wireless technology have combined to bring consumers wearable devices that provide important health information between checkups. It is easier than ever to spot the warning signs of hypertension, diabetes, and many other chronic conditions months or even years before they would present symptoms to the patient.

Consumer health informatics is the vanguard of this movement, but it is only part of the big picture. With increasing amounts of raw data, experts are better able to manage and monitor public health concerns. In the future, the data mining made possible here might converge with medical nanotechnology, providing responsive and tailored healthcare at all levels.

5) Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology focuses on engineering at the “nanoscale,” one to 100 nanometers. The tools needed to see individual atoms were not available until 1981, so in many ways, this science parallels the computing revolution that facilitated it. Researchers have discovered that materials at the nanoscale can have unexpected and novel properties, resulting in a wealth of breakthroughs.

Until recently, the majority of work in nanotechnology focused on the development of specialized materials, including ultra-light polymers and crystals with special conductive properties. These efforts have accelerated microchip development, making it possible to envision a near future where transistor count is orders of magnitude higher than it is today.

As nanotechnology matures, it will make possible a world of nanorobotics. Theoretical nanorobots could complete manufacturing tasks in a fraction of the time required now. Likewise, nanorobotics could combine with genetic engineering and health informatics technologies to treat diseases like cancer at the cellular level.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-10-emerging-technologies-of-20151/
http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html
http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/definition
https://www.amia.org/about-amia/science-informatics

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Faculty Forum / Discovery of neutron star collision
« on: April 29, 2018, 03:03:56 PM »
The world's first-ever detection of two faraway neutron stars colliding, causing a massive blast that rippled through the fabric of space and time, was judged one of the major scientific breakthroughs of 2017.


Collision of two neutron stars. Image courtesy: European Space Agency
The smashup of the two ultra-dense stars observed on August 17 "confirmed several key astrophysical models, revealed a birthplace of many heavy elements, and tested the general theory of relativity as never before," the journal Science said in a report.

The blast, which occurred 130 million light-years away, is the kind of event that produces as much as half of the universe's gold, platinum, uranium and mercury, experts said.

.
Shockwaves ran through the scientific community when the discovery was announced in October, after being detected by gravitational wave sensors in the US and Europe, and some 70 telescopes and observatories around the world.


Scientists witnessed the smashup of two ultra-dense neutron stars in August 2017. AFP file photo
Bangalore Sathyaprakash from Cardiff University's School of Physics and Astronomy recalled the moment as "the most exciting of my scientific life."

Source: AFP

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LONDON — Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, escaped tough questioning during congressional testimony this month in part because American lawmakers weren’t well versed about how the social network functions. On Thursday, one of his deputies faced a decidedly sharper inquisition from a panel in Britain.

The dueling experiences highlight the different approaches taken on both sides of the Atlantic toward oversight of personal data and the social media giants who hold it. While the United States has largely eschewed regulating companies like Facebook, Britain and other countries in Europe have taken more aggressive stances, seeking to make tighter rules to better protect consumer privacy.

In London, Facebook’s chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, faced more than four hours of questions from a British parliamentary committee over the company’s data-collection techniques, oversight of app developers, fake accounts, political advertising and links to the voter-targeting firm Cambridge Analytica.

If American politicians have been lampooned for being Luddites, the British Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has built a reputation for thoroughness and detailed questioning. Damian Collins, the committee’s chairman, had more than 11 pages of questions for Mr. Schroepfer, including how facial recognition technology is used and the methods Facebook uses to track people even when they are not on the site.

“This is the pipe through which the fake news comes, and there doesn’t seem to be much you can do to control it,” Mr. Collins said.

Continue reading the main story
The committee, which has been questioning the use of social media to spread misinformation and influence elections, had invited Mr. Zuckerberg, but he declined. The British committee’s 14-month investigation is part of an aggressive campaign by European authorities to clamp down on powerful American tech giants. The probe comes as German antitrust regulators investigate Facebook, others investigate Google, and the European Union prepares to put in place a sweeping new privacy law that sets more restrictions on how companies gather and share data.

“The Europeans are far more alert about this problem and far more willing to tackle it than the U.S.,” Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol who studies how people process misinformation, said in an interview.

On Thursday, Mr. Schroepfer mimicked the conciliatory tone Mr. Zuckerberg struck before Congress this month, pledging that Facebook would do more to improve. “I agree that it’s a problem and it’s something we’re making good progress on, but we have a lot of work to do,” he said.

Video
Zuckerberg’s Testimony, Explained
Senator John Kennedy told Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, that his company’s user agreement “sucks.” Our reporter Sheera Frenkel explains the senator’s questions, Mr. Zuckerberg’s answers and what they really mean. By SHEERA FRENKEL and GRANT GOLD on Publish Date April 11, 2018. Photo by Tom Brenner/The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
 Embed
The parliamentary committee is attempting to punch above its weight. Working out of small hearing room near Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, the panel is composed of 11 members who are mostly rank-and-file members of parliament. It has a staff of about 10 clerks, and little authority beyond being able to summon witnesses — it can’t write new laws or enforce penalties if it discovers wrongdoing.

Before the current investigation, the panel was probably best known for its inquiry of the British phone-hacking scandal. (Rupert Murdoch famously had a pie thrust in his face during a hearing.)

No projectiles have been heaved during the present investigation, but the committee is making the most of its newfound attention thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

So far, there has been little of the rancor and political speechifying that takes over high-profile American hearings. The stereotype of British manners was mostly maintained, even during the tensest moments — lots of “please,” “thank you,” and sarcasm.

“I’m delighted to hear you have a head of integrity,” one member noted dryly when Mr. Schroepfer referred to a colleague in charge of ethics. In criticizing the number of fake accounts on Facebook, another lawmaker wondered why he, an overweight middle-aged man, was getting Facebook invitations from attractive young women.

At other points, frustration bubbled over. A member called Facebook a “giant vampire squid,” an unfavorable reference to a financial crisis-era article about Goldman Sachs, and another compared it to cigarettes. Mr. Schroepfer said the comparisons disappointed him.

“It is obvious that this is a serious inquiry and that the committee is doing its homework and asking very detailed questions trying to get to the heart of some complicated problems,” said Justin Hendrix, executive director of NYC Media Lab, a New York-based research group that met with members of the panel this year.

The panel has been led by Mr. Collins, a member of the governing Conservative party. The inquiry started as a broad investigation into fake news and how misinformation spreads, and whether those capabilities influenced the 2016 referendum when Britain voted to leave the European Union.

As the panel heard from more witnesses, it became more focused on how easily user data from Facebook could be accessed and used for political gain.

Video
Congress vs. Mark Zuckerberg: The Key Moments
In a hearing held in response to revelations of data harvesting by Cambridge Analytica, Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, faced questions from senators on a variety of issues, from privacy to the company’s business model. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date April 10, 2018. Photo by Tom Brenner/The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
 Embed
In a separate interview this week, Mr. Collins talked about his education on the social platform. “I’ve been genuinely surprised by how much data Facebook gathers,” he said, pulling out books he had been reading, including “The People Vs. Tech,” a critical examination of how social media is influencing society, and “Chaos Monkeys,” a memoir by a former Facebook executive.

Mr. Collins’ profile has grown along with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. His committee questioned the company’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, weeks before news broke about its practices. The panel has published audio records in which an executive tied to Cambridge Analytica discusses how the Trump campaign used techniques used by the Nazis to target voters. A webcast of the committee’s hearing with the former Cambridge Analytica researcher Christopher Wylie was so popular it nearly took down Parliament’s website, Mr. Collins said.

Between television interviews this week, Mr. Collins sat with staff watching a small set as a Canadian parliamentary committee questioned an executive from an online advertising company, Aggregate IQ, that had been involved in the Brexit referendum. When Mr. Collins heard a discrepancy in the testimony, he messaged a member of the Canadian panel. “He read out my text during the hearing,” Mr. Collins laughed.

Aware that he doesn’t have the same financial resources as Facebook and other global tech firms, or even as much as his counterparts across the Atlantic, Mr. Collins has been coordinating his investigation with others around the world. He has been in touch with regulators in France, Germany and Ireland, and even as far afield as Singapore.

His efforts come alongside those of other British regulators. The country’s Electoral Commission is looking into whether laws were broken during the Brexit referendum, while Britain’s data privacy watchdog is investigating Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and how social networks are used for political campaigns.

Mr. Collins plans to publish a report with policy recommendations by this summer.

“Many people would look at what’s happened over the past couple of months and say the case for greater regulatory scrutiny of the way the tech companies work would be appropriate,” Mr. Collins said in the interview. “I don’t think you can put that genie back in the bottle now.”

On Thursday, he exited the hearing frustrated, saying Mr. Schroepfer hadn’t fully answered at least 40 questions. He plans to use a “formal summons” to require Mr. Zuckerberg to attend, a rarely deployed legal step.

“As an American citizen living in California, Mr. Zuckerberg does not normally come under the jurisdiction of the U.K. Parliament, but he will the next time he enters the country,” Mr. Collins said in a statement.

He could be in the area soon. The European Parliament has invited Mr. Zuckerberg to testify as early as next month, though a parliament spokesman said it hasn’t been finalized.

Courtesy: The New York Times

12
Faculty Sections / Why Instagram is Becoming Facebook's Next Facebook.
« on: April 27, 2017, 02:13:01 AM »
At a recent all-hands meeting with employees, Kevin Systrom, a founder and
chief executive of Instagram, showed off one of his favorite charts: Days to
Reach the Next 100 Million Users.
“It’s the only graph in the company that we celebrate when it declines,” Mr.
Systrom said in an interview last week at Instagram’s headquarters in
Menlo Park, Calif.
Not long ago, the Facebook-owned photo-based social network grew at a
steady clip. Every nine months, without fail, Instagram added another 100
million users somewhere in the world. Then, last year, it began racking up
more new users every day. It grew to 600 million users from 500 million in
Doug Chay ka
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only six months.
On Wednesday, just four months after reaching that milestone, the company
announced it had reached another: About 700 million people now use
Instagram every month, with about 400 million of them checking in daily.
I had come to visit Mr. Systrom because I’m one of the new 100 million. I
technically joined Instagram years ago but used it only occasionally. In the
past few months, however, I began diving in more often, and now I check it
several times a day. As I used Instagram more, I realized something about
the photo-sharing app: It’s becoming Facebook’s next Facebook.
Part of what got me interested in using Instagram more was the war
between Facebook and Snapchat, the picture-messaging app that has
created genuinely new ways of communicating online — and whose features
Instagram and Facebook’s other subsidiaries recently copied.
Instagram’sfounders, Kevin Systrom, left, and Mike Krieger, at the company’s
headquartersin Menlo Park, Calif. Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times
But once I started using Instagram, I discovered something surprising:
Instagram has improved on the features it took from Snapchat. Over much
of the past year it has added lots of other features, too. Among them are a
feed ranked by personalization algorithms rather than by chronology, live
streaming, the ability to post photo galleries and a (controversial) new app
design and logo.
Instagram is now substantially changing the daily experience of using the
service at a speed that would ordinarily feel reckless for a network of its size.
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But rather than alienating existing users, its confident moves seem to be
paying off.
This is difficult to quantify. My subjective experience may not match yours
(lots of people, for example, say they hate the new ranked feed). But for me,
Instagram’s many changes have made for a social network that feels more
useful, interesting and fun than it was last year. Part of it is the new features
themselves, but a bigger reason is the greater use that the features have
inspired. Networks are better when more people use them more often; the
more I’ve used Instagram recently, the more stuff I’ve seen from more
people, and the more I want to use it some more.
Instagram has thus triggered an echo — it feels like Facebook. More
precisely, it feels the way Facebook did from 2009 to 2012, when it silently
crossed over from one of those tech things that some people sometimes did
to one of those tech things that everyone you know does every day.
In some ways, this is not surprising. Instagram has been growing like crazy
essentially since it went live in 2010, and under Facebook — which bought
the company for $1 billion five years ago — it has had ample resources to
keep that up. But with 700 million users, it’s in virtually uncharted territory.
There are bigger networks: Facebook has nearly two billion users a month,
and two instant-messaging apps owned by Facebook, WhatsApp and
Facebook Messenger, have grown past the one-billion-user mark. In China,
WeChat also has more users.
Instagram’s headquarters. About 700 million people now use the photo-sharing service every month, with about 400 million of them checking
in daily. Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times
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But last year, you might have said there was a question whether a picturebased
service like Instagram could have reached similar scale — whether it
was universal enough, whether there were enough people whose phones
could handle it, whether it could survive greater competition from newer
photo networks like Snapchat. Maybe those problems or others will rear up
in the future, and growth could yet stall. But for now, Instagram seems to
have overcome any perceived hurdles. It seems to have reached escape
velocity.
Mr. Systrom said this plan to rapidly speed up Instagram’s pace of change to
attract more users was deliberate.
“The primary reason we’ve scaled more quickly in the last 100 million is that
we’ve figured out that as we’ve scaled, we’ve had to unbreak ourselves,” he
said. What he meant was that Instagram systematically analyzed all the
bottlenecks to its service and tried to eliminate them. Then it looked for
potential opportunities to better serve users and tried to put them in place
as fast as possible.
This sounds trivial — aren’t allcompanies looking to constantly improve? —
but social networks are sometimes held hostage by their most loyal users,
who tend to hate change (cough, Twitter, cough). Facebook bucked that
trend; as it grew, it constantly adapted its features to become more things to
more people. Mr. Systrom is following the same playbook.
“My favorite thing to ask the team is, how large do you think Instagram will
be eventually?” he said. “Usually you get to some large number, and it’s
definitely more than two times the size we are now. So I can confidently say
that most of the people who’ll eventually use Instagram don’t use Instagram
now.”
Mr. Systrom is a fan of academic business theories, especially Clay
Christensen’s, whose “Innovator’s Dilemma” addresses the tension between
serving an incumbent audience at the expense of a much greater potential
one. The realization that Instagram could become much bigger than it is now
was freeing, Mr. Systrom said; it gives the company the confidence to keep
changing.


Source : NYtimes

13
Flying cars, that perennial dream for futurists that always seem to be at least five years away, may be a little closer to reality than we realize. A lot of prototypes have been showcased recently, and a lot of money is being tossed around. More people than ever seem to buy into the crazy notion that in the near future we’ll be buzzing between rooftops in private, autonomous drones. Today, Munich-based Lilium Aviation announced an important milestone: the first test flight of its all-electric, two-seater, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype.

In a video provided by the Munich-based startup, the aircraft can be seen taking off vertically like a helicopter, and then accelerating into forward flight using wing-borne lift.

The craft is powered by 36 separate jet engines mounted on its 10-meter long wings via 12 movable flaps. At take-off, the flaps are pointed downwards to provide vertical lift. And once airborne, the flaps gradually tilt into a horizontal position, providing forward thrust.

During the tests, the jet was piloted remotely, but its operators say their first manned flight is close-at-hand. And Lilium claims that its electric battery “consumes around 90 percent less energy than drone-style aircraft,” enabling the aircraft to achieve a range of 300 kilometers (183 miles) with a maximum cruising speed of 300 kph (183 mph).

In many ways, electric-powered aviation is still in its infancy. Electric cars with thousand-pound batteries generally max out at 300 miles per charge. The most sophisticated electric aircraft today can barely muster an hour aloft at 99 mph — and that’s without vertical take-off and landing. But Patrick Nathen, co-founder of Lilium Jet and the startup’s head of calculation and design, said their battery technology will get the job done.

“IT’S THE SAME BATTERY THAT YOU CAN FIND IN ANY TESLA.”
“It’s the same battery that you can find in any Tesla,” Nathen told The Verge. “The concept is that we are lifting with our wings as soon as we progress into the air with velocity, which makes our airplane very efficient. Compared to other flights, we have extremely low power consumption.”

Safety is a major emphasis at Lilium, Nathen added. While the startup is working toward having its aircraft piloted autonomously, it intends to use human pilots in the meantime. There will be parachutes on board, and something called the “Flight Envelope Protection System” will prevents the pilot from performing maneuvers or flying the aircraft beyond safe flight parameters.

The plan is to eventually build a 5-passenger version of the jet. So anyone who dreams of a minivan version of the Jetsons’ flying car, this craft is for you. And naturally, Lilium envisions its aircraft used in dense, urban areas in an on-demand capacity. Pull out your smartphone, book a seat, and make your way to the nearest launchpad, which can be found at street level or on a nearby rooftop. Like Uber, but for flying cars (even though Uber is already working on its own version).


Courtesy The Verge

14
Faculty Sections / Why Is It OK to Abuse Customers?
« on: April 20, 2017, 02:28:32 PM »
I often wonder if top executives and boards have some weird undiagnosed disease that causes them, from time to time, to do something so incredibly stupid you have to wonder if someone snuck up on a bunch of them and hit them with a stupid stick.

I recall having a discussion with an IBM exec I reported to back in the early 1990s about the company's practice of intentionally creating buggy products and then charging customers to fix the problems it had created. I asked why we were doing something that seemed insane, only to be told, effectively, that since the customer had no choice, IBM could do what it wanted to them and they would pay whatever IBM charged.

It was like selling air. It remains one of the most idiotic responses I've ever heard, and shortly after I left the firm that entire executive team was canned. (Apparently the newly hired CEO, Louis Gerstner, agreed with my assessment.)

Microsoft had a group of executives who covered up that Office 98 wasn't backward-compatible, and a different group covered up the issues with Windows Vista that should have prevented its release. Those issues created massive problems with customers, and most of the folks responsible lost their jobs as a result.

To hit aggressive price points with lithium-ion batteries in the early 2000s, Sony covered up that they hadn't updated their lines to prevent metal contamination. The batteries became contaminated and caught fire, forcing massive recalls and pretty much wiping out Sony's lithium-ion battery business.

Those batteries could have resulted in an impressive number of deaths had one of them gone up next to a better fuel source on a plane. The lithium-ion coverup followed Sony's institution of a program to put rootkits on PCs in an attempt to combat piracy, which opened those PCs to hacking and put customers at risk. The backlash over that helped wipe out Sony's Walkman business and opened the door to the iPod.

Takata covered up that their airbags were not aging well and actually could kill drivers when they deployed. It apparently did not do anything to address the problem, which eventually was discovered and resulted in the biggest automotive recall in history. It still might put the company out of business.

It appears that Samsung cut short quality testing to get the Galaxy Note7 out quickly only to find out it was catching fire. In an effort to address that problem quickly, it guessed wrong about the cause, and replacement phones caught fire too. To recover some of the costs associated with its massive recall, Samsung decided to sell refurbished Galaxy Note7s, and I doubt that'll end well. I think Samsung has a death wish.

It really seems like an epidemic of stupid at times...

United's Disastrous Decision

There were two paths that United could have taken to move employees to another location without causing an uproar. One was to increase the voucher amount offered to passengers to a point where it was cheaper to charter a plane to move the employees, or simply to have in place what many non-airline companies use, a fleet of smaller planes for employees' use.

What is particularly scary about the method that United chose is that it didn't factor in why people weren't taking a US$1,000 voucher to change flights. Its method for choosing which passengers to bump only focuses on connections, so those who were ending up at the destination airport were prioritized for bumping.

What if someone's job depended on getting to a location on time? What if someone had a dying relative, a wedding or funeral to attend? What if someone were a doctor who needed to get to a critical patent? None of those possibilities was been taken into account, and the poor guy who was beaten up was in fact a doctor.

United's decision has cost it millions in brand damage, and because the passenger looked as though he might have been Chinese, China is treating this like a racial attack on its people, which could result in sanctions. I bet that before this is over, Congress might put a law on the books addressing it. I'd name it "The United CEO Is An Idiot Law." (By the way, PRWeek wants its award back. Suddenly this is an Oscar 2017-like event.) It may even cost the CEO his job -- all because it didn't have a better way to move employees around, which is kind of sadly ironic given it is in the transportation business.

At the end of that last linked article, the author asks why it took so long for United even to understand this was a problem. It was because, in the minds of its executives, customers had stopped being people and had become an exploitable resource instead. That attitude generally is considered a company and career killer.

Apple's Secret War on Customers

Between Apple and Samsung, I'm not sure which has the stronger tendency for suicidal policies. Apple clearly has a problem, because it is a firm that is valued largely for its innovation, and that is one word that largely has been used in the past tense since Tim Cook took over for Steve Jobs. While the iPhone has done well -- particularly this last quarter, thanks to Samsung's suicidal moves -- nothing else has risen to diversify Apple's revenue or offset a trend of increasing margin pressure. As a result, Apple has moved to a strategy of aggressively cutting costs.

That sets a foundation for the kind of problem that I mentioned earlier in this column. You see, Apple customers effectively are locked in to Apple services -- which would be OK, as long as Apple didn't see it as an opportunity to mine them, and could grow its revenue and margins by creating more and more compelling products.

However, Apple hasn't done that. The Apple Watch has languished, the iPad is in decline, and the iPad Pro has been a disappointment. MacBooks, Macs and iMacs have been cash cows for so long that reviving them seems increasingly unlikely, and is driving the company go cheap on components while considering charging more and more for iPhones.

The Qualcomm filing basically just says "Apple is an assh*le," which is far from an uncommon position from any Apple supplier. It gets interesting on page 46 of the whopping 130-page document. It alleges that Apple not only has been using sub-optimal (read cheap) parts, but also has been threatening to retaliate should anyone point that out.

Point 4 on page 46, basically says there are two iPhones in market sold as the same phone: one with cheap parts, and one with good parts but that Apple is crippling so that people can't tell the difference (and thereby avoid the bad phone). However, Apple can't cripple it enough, so people are barred from pointing out that the crippled phone is still better. WTF!?!

Here is the thing: Increasingly we live on our cellphones. We depend on them to work if there is an emergency. Our lives increasingly literally depend on them, and folks think that by buying Apple they are getting the best. However, if Qualcomm is correct, they either are getting a substandard phone -- or worse, an intentionally crippled product.

The potential consequences range from poor performance to bad connectivity, which could leave users with a phone that doesn't work when they most need it. Cutting quality while raising prices and aggressively covering that up only works temporarily. Eventually people figure it out -- and that didn't end well for IBM or for the CEO that shortly thereafter was fired.

Like all of the other examples I've cited here, Apple's alleged action is customer abuse. If it turns out to be true, then it means that the only difference between Apple and all the rest of these bad examples is that Apple has taken more money from its customers. I expect that as a reason to buy from a company, that likely falls pretty low on anyone's list.

I'll add one other element that I think is very similar to the old IBM and the new Apple. Both companies enjoyed -- and still enjoy -- phenomenal customer loyalty. Even though IBM's behavior had been going on for years, most customers seemed to give IBM the benefit of the doubt. As a result, when the problem became pronounced it went to nuclear unbelievably fast.

Certainly, it was way too fast for the existing management team to respond, and the result was a purge. It eventually saved the company, but it was a very close thing. Apple's loyalty is, if anything, greater than IBM's was -- and today's consumer market certainly can move a ton faster than enterprise computing did back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

What this means is that if this alleged anti-customer behavior is left in place too long, the backlash on Apple could be unrecoverable -- particularly if Google further reduces the migration pain to Android.

Given that many of you have huge investments in Apple, I'm suggesting you might not want to have all those eggs in that same troubled basket. Diversification may save your ass.

Wrapping Up

There are times when I wonder if boards and CEOs either are mentally challenged or suicidal. From Samsung, to United, to Apple, this year has been an increasingly ugly example of executives behaving badly.

I know I missed the chapter in management school that suggested screwing customers was a great business practice, but I seriously think those pages should be torn into little bitty pieces and tossed out, along with the idiots who adhere to this strategy.

In any case, this month has provided a strong "teachable moment." Let's hope a lot of executives learn by watching rather than doing. It is never OK to abuse customers. When companies do, they have translated "customers" into "things." We really don't like being mistreated as "things."

Rob Enderle's Product of the Week

When I last wrote about this product, I'd installed two cameras and was impressed that the batteries had lasted a couple weeks. Well, it's been over a month, and I'm now up to 10 cameras. I've had to recharge only two batteries, both of which had more than half their battery life left even though they were in very high traffic areas, which suggests these puppies could last for months in low-traffic areas.

We've caught stray dogs wondering in our yard, the gate left open and our dogs sneaking in and out of it, delivery people who have lied about deliveries, pet sitters who weren't doing what they said they were doing, and a herd of deer wandering in to munch on our newly planted flowers. This system is AWESOME!

Netgear Arlo Pro
Netgear Arlo Pro
The Netgear Arlo is my third camera system, and it was by far the easiest to set up. The lack of wiring means I can put the cameras anyplace I want, and I can install a ton of them. My dogs and cats each have their own tracking camera, but my wife had me move the one that was on her. (That'll teach me to tell her, huh?)

I did figure out one thing: It is cheaper to buy the cameras in the bundle then one by one. You can get an Arlo system with four cameras for $350 if you shop around, while the cameras individually cost around $150.

Sadly, I didn't figure this out until after I'd purchased an additional eight cameras. Further, you get up to five cameras with the free service, but if you want to go to 10 it will set you back $99 a year. However, you then get 30 days of storage for up to 10 GB of data. For 15 cameras, it's $149 a year and you get 60 days storage for up to 100 GB.

Arlo just launched a $450 camera, and what makes it different is that it has local storage, a 3G/4G connection, and a massive battery. Sadly, this is only available to large companies or the government, and we know they would never use them to spy on you...

It has been a long time since I was this excited about a product, and that is why the Netgear Arlo is my product of the week -- again! You could call this "the iPod of security camera systems."

Courtesy : TechNewsWorld

15
Faculty Forum / Future of Foreign Tech Workers in USA
« on: April 20, 2017, 12:27:24 PM »
At dawn in California’s Bay Area, the river of commuters begins to flow. It is filled with the people who help make our smartphones, our favorite games, the apps we download.

But many have also come to make something else, perhaps — a new life in America.

These are just a few of the 85,000 people who come to work at American companies from as far away as India and China on H-1B visas, which are granted to highly skilled workers from overseas. Many, like Kaushik Gopal, land jobs at technology firms that have struggled to find enough American citizens with advanced math and science skills to fill their cubicles.

Often, they hope to call the United States home.
“What I have loved about the U.S. is that it didn’t matter where you came from,” Mr Gopal said. “Your past, your color or religion didn’t matter. If you did good work, there was a place for you here.”

President Trump’s plans to change the rules that govern work visas and immigration have thrown the lives of many visa holders into limbo.

“I’m always on guard because there is a chance that suddenly I’ll get the news that I’m no longer welcome,” said Mr. Gopal, 32, who first came to the United States in 2012.

Continue reading the main story
Like many of Silicon Valley’s workers who are here as part of the H-1B visa program, which is aimed at highly skilled workers, Mr. Gopal was born in India, attended university in the United States and got a job at a tech company. He said the Bay Area attracts the smartest engineers from all over the world because it is known as “a magnet for technical skill.”

He is now at the delivery start-up Instacart, working on an app that customers in several cities use to order their groceries. His weekly podcast “Fragmented,” which he hosts with an app maker named Donn Felker, has raised his professional profile and netted him speaking spots at conferences as far away as Sweden.

While growing up in India, Mr. Gopal was a fan of American television shows and cartoons. After he graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, he was excited to take his parents to Disneyland.

The high-tech industry is now deeply dependent on workers like Mr. Gopal: One in eight tech workers has an H-1B visa, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs.

H-1B visa holders account for about 15 percent of the American work forces at Facebook and Qualcomm, according to the most recent documents the companies have filed with the Labor Department. Silicon Valley start-ups, which often drive tech innovation, employ many engineers on student and work visas, as do tech giants like Google and Apple.

This has allowed an ethnically diverse population to flourish around the Bay Area. The Sikh Gurdwara Sahib temple in San Jose is one of the largest Sikh temples in North America. The 49-mile stretch of towns and cities from San Jose to San Francisco is filled with Asian eateries, like the popular Rajwadi Thali restaurant in Sunnyvale.
“It’s almost like living under this — maybe not fear — but a worry about what’s next and what will happen,” Mr. Jain said. “This feeling of being unwelcome in the country. I hadn’t really felt that before.”

Courtesy NYtimes.

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