A Walk to Remember

After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley by Rob Reid

2017-12-18T21:10:00.003+05:30

After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley by Rob Reid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First off the bat, at 500+ pages it's a long read, but then it comes with a tongue-in-cheek warning upfront about this. The book covers a lot of ground in the near future SF genre.

When the protagonist is an "omniscient" social media platform Phluttr with an intelligent, and witty personality and a sociopath attitude, there is never a dull moment. There are hundreds of small characters interspersed in the story line. Heck, there are multiple parallel story lines, and one of them is a fictional storyline within the main storyline, so go figure. :-)

Starting out with super AI, it touches on the true meaning of privacy, romance bots, speed intelligence, quantum computing, parallel universes, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, artificial emotions, World War 3, and much more. The scenarios and unintended consequences imagined by Rob, truly make you sit up and take notice.

Usually when we think of AI, we think of it as a separate entity. It either wants to rule us, or serve us. Rob introduces the concept of a centaur, where man and machine work in a symbiotic relationship playing off each others strengths and drawing strength from the other to cover their own weaknesses.

While you are at it, don't miss the wickedly funny, hijacking amazon Product reviews by Charles Henry Higgensworth III. They are sure to have you rolling on the floor laughing.

To sum up it's the most thought provoking book I have read in a long time. Highly recommended for all SF fans.

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RSI: Relative Strength Index demystified

2017-05-10T15:02:00.002+05:30

What is RSI?

The relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator developed by noted technical analyst Welles Wilder, that compares the magnitude of recent gains and losses over a specified time period to measure speed and change of price movements of a security. It is primarily used to attempt to identify overbought or oversold conditions in the trading of an asset.

RSI attempts to capture the following:
1. Recent gains and losses over a period of time,
2. Measure of speed and change of price movements, and
3. Overbought or oversold conditions in trading of a stock or Index.

Calculating RSI

1. Find out average gain during specified time frame.

2. Find out average loss during specified time frame.

Then calculate the RS value for each closing day.

RS = Average gain of up periods during the specified time frame / Average loss of down periods during the specified time frame.

The relative strength index is calculated using the following formula:

RSI = 100 - 100 / (1 + RS)

The RSI provides a relative evaluation of the strength of a security's recent price performance, thus making it a momentum indicator. RSI values range from 0 to 100. The default time frame for comparing up periods to down periods is 14, as in 14 trading days.

Interpreting value of RSI

Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI is that :-
RSI values >= 70 indicate that a security has becoming overbought or overvalued, and therefore may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price.
On the other side of RSI values, an RSI reading of <= 30 is commonly interpreted as indicating an oversold or undervalued condition that may signal a trend change or corrective price reversal to the upside.

RSI is just an indicator and simplifies the behaviour of the stock price in the past. It is not a sure fire way of predicting the future trends of the asset price.

Seasoned traders usually use RSI in combination with other indicators like MACD and ADX to arrive at a conclusion about initiating or closing a trading position.

Should you tie up your hard earned money in Real Estate???

2017-05-10T12:03:00.000+05:30

Your House is not just Property?

One should buy a house for no purpose other than to live in it. Property or Real estate makes for a poor financial investment because the ticket size is huge, and liquidity is poor. This combination is highly risky for placing a bet using a huge chunk of your money. In addition the entire investment has to be sold at one go. You cannot dream of deleveraging your investment by hiving off a part of your investment at a later date.

Though the popular wisdom seems to indicate that you can't go wrong with property, the fact is that you may or may not be able to sell when you want to--in a slump, entire markets disappear for long periods. God Forbid, if you need money in a hurry, then you are trapped in a buyers' market. Add to this, the myriad hidden charges like Annual maintenance, Repairs, Taxes and Fees, Registration charges, Stamp Duty, Brokerage, and you begin to wonder about the "real" gains.

When you acquire your first house for staying in it for a fairly long time, it is for the purpose of enriching your life. Hence such incidental charges and fees become necessary evils and need not be the sole deciding factor in calculating whether you are getting a good deal. You should be looking at liveability of the locality, proximity to schools and hospitals, availability of parks and other open spaces, pollution levels, distance to work, etc.

On the other hand, if you are investing with an aim to earn income or capital gains, the weightage of these factors becomes way more important. As can be seen from the chart below, assuming 4% CAGR for real estate prices, and 9% CAGR for rent, 6 years is the break event point for the rent-v/s-buy decision.

Buy or Rent - Value v/s Time

https://www.bigdecisions.com/calculators/rent-vs-buy-calculator

Gains: Legendary or Mythical?

Coming back to real estate as "investment", many "wise" people point to the huge gains that were made by "certain" property owners in the past. The myth of real estate being a great investment is mostly due to the math behind compounding being a little counter-intuitive.

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. -Einstein.

If you hear that a piece of property is worth 50 or 100 times its value after 40-50 years, it seems impossible to find another asset that can achieve the same ROI. It simply sounds legendary, but once you sit down with pen and paper you realise that it is actually nothing special. It is slightly better than what an FD may have achieved.

Another influencing factor is the large ticket sizes involved. Humans tend to interpret large sums as huge without paying too much attention to the actual percentage gain involved.

To put things in perspective, a gain of 100 times over 50 years comes to a CAGR of 9.6 % p.a -- good, but not exceptional after adjusting for inflation. Compared to this the BSE Sensex has managed to achieve 300x its value in 38 years.

Why real estate appreciates?

Historically the gains from real estate can be attributed to five sources:-

The original change in usage from agricultural or barren land to residential or commercial. Leads to value unlocking. Similar to the difference between wholesale and retail. The increase in valuation is somewhat on real (actual) terms.
The development of physical infrastructure which makes this land usable for the new purpose. This is value addition mainly through construction of a shelter and amenities and creates additional value and consequently increases the price of the property. The increase in valuation is still rooted in real (actual) terms (construction), but some part of it is future valuation discounting.
The improvement in livability or commercial viability as the area gets populated more and more. This is urbanisation of the locality and improves the apparent valuation due to increased rental income. At this stage, the increase in valuation comes mostly from future valuation discounting.
The periodic booms and busts that afflict real estate. This is mostly speculative and sentiment driver. The increase in valuation is completely in the realm of future valuation discounting and fluctuates.
The general inflation of the economy that becomes part of the visible change in the property's price. This is because rentals are closely tied to the prices of goods and commodities. This is also the reason gold is believed to hold its value over time.

If you give a little free reign to your imagination, you should be able to see the economic similarity between Steps 1->5 above, to the increase in price of an agricultural commodity as it moves from the farmer(#1) to the end consumer(#5). In between, it moves through a supply chain involving value adders and middlemen.

If you look closely, most of the gain happens before Step#3.

Real Estate: A good investment?

If you acquire real estate at an early stage, all the gains from the second to the fifth point above will accrue over the next two to three decades. But this involves the risk and hassles of buying land in faraway places, with no infrastructure and amenities.

Things are very different now. We typically buy an apartment from a real estate developer. In this new model, all gains from stage one to three accrue completely to the developer and whoever came before the developer.

Not just that--and this is the worst part--the developer also tries and often succeeds, in discounting much of the future value potential and capturing much of the value of the later stages in advance from the buyer.

The intense marketing hype around real estate projects is intended to convince you that one day in the imminent future, the property you are buying will be among the most desirable in your part of the country. The artificial sense of scarcity that is projected through limited offers and time bound deals easily pressures you into taking an emotional decision due to FOMO, and you end up with an acquisition price that is a high multiple of a value that will supposedly be attained in the far future. This future value is directly proportional to the hype that the developer manages to create.

I personally make it a rule to walk away from deals that needed me to pay the booking amount immediately in exchange for a lower rate without allowing me time to verify the facts, or sleep on it. Beware of FOMO, whatever may be the apparent "possible" loss of opportunity. We need to be aware that, to our minds fear of missing a possible gain (opportunity) is akin to real physical pain, and this deeply influences us.

Conculsion

The price of a property in South Mumbai or South Delhi may have become 50x over the 50 years. However, the flat on the outskirts of these cities that someone developer is pretending is worth Rs 5 crore today is not going to be saleable for Rs 250 crore come 2070.

The reason is not that compounding is going to fail in the future, but that much of the future value is already included in that Rs 5 crore that the developer wants today. All the marrow has been sucked out by the developer.

So before you take the plunge and decide to acquire additional real estate "investments", take a deep breath and consider the following:-

Put your FOMO to rest.
Don't get dazzled by the large ticket sizes.
Convert gains to % CAGR, before deciding how much the actual gain is.
Factor in the illiquid nature of the asset (Illiquidity is directly proportional to ticket size)

Therefore, it's only logical that savers buy only one house, the one in which they are going to live in. If your lifestyle and family need many houses, then that's fine but don't consider it as a financial investment.

Review: Elon Musk: Tesla, Spacex, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

2015-10-30T11:31:00.001+05:30

Elon Musk: Tesla, Spacex, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ashlee Vance has a good narrative style that keeps your interest alive. Not that there was any need in the case of Elon's story. Elon is a dreamer, and a true inspiration to anyone who is passionate about changing the world, but has been unable to muster up the courage to take the first step.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book. The in-depth look into the inner workings of Tesla, and SpaceX are a revelation into the new world of world changing tech. Elon's courage and success in taking on an industry as entrenched as automobiles is really an eye opener, and tells you nothing is impossible. Hope to see many more of Elon's ilk take over ours as well as other worlds.

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Closed timelike Curves: Solving the "Grandfather Paradox" and foiling Quantum Cryptography.

2014-09-06T13:50:00.001+05:30

•Entering a closed timelike curve tomorrow means you could end up at today.

On June 28, 2009, the world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking threw a party at the University of Cambridge, complete with balloons, hors d'oeuvres and iced champagne. Everyone was invited but no one showed up. Hawking had expected as much, because he only sent out invitations after his party had concluded. It was, he said, "a welcome reception for future time travelers," a tongue-in-cheek experiment to reinforce his 1992 conjecture that travel into the past is effectively impossible.

But Hawking may be on the wrong side of history. Recent experiments offer tentative support for time travel's feasibility—at least from a mathematical perspective. The study cuts to the core of our understanding of the universe, and the resolution of the possibility of time travel, far from being a topic worthy only of science fiction, would have profound implications for fundamental physics as well as for practical applications such as quantum cryptography and computing.

Closed timelike curves
The source of time travel speculation lies in the fact that our best physical theories seem to contain no prohibitions on traveling backwardthrough time. The feat should be possible based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes gravity as the warping of spacetime by energy and matter. An extremely powerful gravitational field, such as that produced by a spinning black hole, could in principle profoundly warp the fabric of existence so that spacetime bends back on itself. This would create a "closed timelike curve," or CTC, a loop that could be traversed to travel back in time.

Hawking and many other physicists find CTCs abhorrent, because any macroscopic object traveling through one would inevitably create paradoxes where cause and effect break down. In a model proposed by the theorist David Deutsch in 1991, however, the paradoxes created by CTCs could be avoided at the quantum scale because of the behavior of fundamental particles, which follow only the fuzzy rules of probability rather than strict determinism. "It's intriguing that you've got general relativity predicting these paradoxes, but then you consider them in quantum mechanical terms and the paradoxes go away," says University of Queensland physicist Tim Ralph. "It makes you wonder whether this is important in terms of formulating a theory that unifies general relativity with quantum mechanics."

Experimenting with a curve
Recently Ralph and his PhD student Martin Ringbauer led a team that experimentally simulated Deutsch's model of CTCs for the very first time, testing and confirming many aspects of the two-decades-old theory. Theirfindings are published in Nature Communications. Much of their simulation revolved around investigating how Deutsch's model deals with the “grandfather paradox,” a hypothetical scenario in which someone uses a CTC to travel back through time to murder her own grandfather, thus preventing her own later birth. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

Deutsch's quantum solution to the grandfather paradox works something like this:

Instead of a human being traversing a CTC to kill her ancestor, imagine that a fundamental particle goes back in time to flip a switch on the particle-generating machine that created it. If the particle flips the switch, the machine emits a particle—the particle—back into the CTC; if the switch isn't flipped, the machine emits nothing. In this scenario there is no a priorideterministic certainty to the particle's emission, only a distribution of probabilities. Deutsch's insight was to postulate self-consistency in the quantum realm, to insist that any particle entering one end of a CTC must emerge at the other end with identical properties. Therefore, a particle emitted by the machine with a probability of one half would enter the CTC and come out the other end to flip the switch with a probability of one half, imbuing itself at birth with a probability of one half of going back to flip the switch. If the particle were a person, she would be born with a one-half probability of killing her grandfather, giving her grandfather a one-half probability of escaping death at her hands—good enough in probabilistic terms to close the causative loop and escape the paradox.Strange though it may be, this solution is in keeping with the known laws of quantum mechanics.

In their new simulation Ralph, Ringbauer and their colleagues studied Deutsch's model using interactions between pairs of polarized photons within a quantum system that they argue is mathematically equivalent to a single photon traversing a CTC. "We encode their polarization so that the second one acts as kind of a past incarnation of the first,” Ringbauer says. So instead of sending a person through a time loop, they created a stunt double of the person and ran him through a time-loop simulator to see if the doppelganger emerging from a CTC exactly resembled the original person as he was in that moment in the past.

By measuring the polarization states of the second photon after its interaction with the first, across multiple trials the team successfully demonstrated Deutsch's self-consistency in action. "The state we got at our output, the second photon at the simulated exit of the CTC, was the same as that of our input, the first encoded photon at the CTC entrance," Ralph says. "Of course, we're not really sending anything back in time but [the simulation] allows us to study weird evolutions normally not allowed in quantum mechanics."

Those "weird evolutions" enabled by a CTC, Ringbauer notes, would have remarkable practical applications, such as breaking quantum-based cryptography through the cloning of the quantum states of fundamental particles. "If you can clone quantum states,” he says, “you can violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,” which comes in handy in quantum cryptography because the principle forbids simultaneously accurate measurements of certain kinds of paired variables, such as position and momentum. "But if you clone that system, you can measure one quantity in the first and the other quantity in the second, allowing you to decrypt an encoded message."

"In the presence of CTCs, quantum mechanics allows one to perform very powerful information-processing tasks, much more than we believe classical or even normal quantum computers could do," says Todd Brun, a physicist at the University of Southern California who was not involved with the team's experiment. "If the Deutsch model is correct, then this experiment faithfully simulates what could be done with an actual CTC. But this experiment cannot test the Deutsch model itself; that could only be done with access to an actual CTC."

Alternative reasoning
Deutsch's model isn’t the only one around, however. In 2009 Seth Lloyd, a theorist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed an alternative, less radical model of CTCs that resolves the grandfather paradox using quantum teleportation and a technique called post-selection, rather than Deutsch's quantum self-consistency. With Canadian collaborators, Lloyd went on to perform successful laboratory simulations of his model in 2011. "Deutsch's theory has a weird effect of destroying correlations," Lloyd says. "That is, a time traveler who emerges from a Deutschian CTC enters a universe that has nothing to do with the one she exited in the future. By contrast, post-selected CTCs preserve correlations, so that the time traveler returns to the same universe that she remembers in the past."

This property of Lloyd's model would make CTCs much less powerful for information processing, although still far superior to what computers could achieve in typical regions of spacetime. "The classes of problems our CTCs could help solve are roughly equivalent to finding needles in haystacks," Lloyd says. "But a computer in a Deutschian CTC could solve why haystacks exist in the first place.”

Lloyd, though, readily admits the speculative nature of CTCs. “I have no idea which model is really right. Probably both of them are wrong,” he says. Of course, he adds, the other possibility is that Hawking is correct, “that CTCs simply don't and cannot exist." Time-travel party planners should save the champagne for themselves—their hoped-for future guests seem unlikely to arrive.

More @ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-travel-simulation-resolves-grandfather-paradox/

Benford's Law: How Tax Frauds are caught...

2014-09-01T10:03:00.002+05:30

If you list all the countries in the world and their populations, 27% of the numbers will start with the digit 1. Only 3% of them will start with the digit 9. Something very similar holds if you look at the heights of the 60 tallest structures in the world — whether you measure in meters or in feet.

The first Digit Phenomenon

This phenomenon — called Benford's Law —helps auditors detect fraud in things like taxes and elections, but it also connects up in striking ways to modern physics and mathematics (e.g., power laws in statistical distributions, as well as ergodic theory).

Benford's Law often strikes people as unintuitive because it seems that every digit should have an equal opportunity to start country populations or heights of skyscrapers, like this:

Normal Human Perception

(The delightful figures are from http://www.thecleverest.com/benf...)

This egalitarian intuition about leading digits turns out to be misleading. The situation where every digit is equally likely to start numbers is actually the anomalous one.

==

Simon Newcomb

The fact that the non-uniform pattern is the common one was named for physicist Frank Benford, who, in 1938, showed that it holds in a wide variety of real lists of numbers (river lengths, molecular weights, street addresses, etc.). But the fact was first discovered in 1881 by Simon Newcomb. He noticed it while thumbing through logarithm books -- tables used at that time by scientists to do arithmetic with large numbers. Newcomb became intrigued by the fact that the pages listing numbers starting with 1 were far more worn than the other pages. This would not happen if every digit occurred equally often as a first digit in the numbers scientists worked with.

(Newcomb was a remarkable polymath. Despite having little formal education, he made an early, quite accurate measurement of the speed of light and was the first to enunciate the fundamental equation of exchange in economics.)

==

The reason Benford's Law is useful in fraud detection is that most fraudsters, in the process of making up numbers, do not pay attention to the pattern of first digits that shows up in organic data sets [6]. The leading digits in large spreadsheets of legitimate financial numbers (light green in the figure below) tend to be very close to Benford's Law (blue), while ones filled in by guessing randomly look way off (orange), and fraudulent numbers (red) tend to look even more bizarre. When tax sleuths notice these tell-tale "unnatural" patterns in data sets, they call people in for a human audit.

Tax Data and Benford's Law

What are the fraudsters missing? To get a sense of why the uniform distribution isn't so natural, we can reason as follows.

First, observe that if you multiply a number by 2, then very often the first digit of the result will be 1. Certainly if the original number started with 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9. So if you begin with the intuitively appealing uniform distribution of leading digits (every leading digit being equally likely) and then multiply all the numbers by 2, the distribution of leading digits will no longer be uniform — there will now be a lot of leading 1's.

(To describe this phenomenon, I say that multiplication by 2 privileges 1 as a leading digit.)

This simple observation already tells you that the uniform distribution of leading digits is not really very stable. It doesn't like to persist. It is easy to upset by the innocuous operation of multiplying everything by 2, which is difficult to avoid in the wild!
Second, it turns out that many naturally occurring tables of numbers can bethought of as arising from taking some original list and multiplying each entry by a random number of twos.

In view of this, it is natural that we see lower digits overrepresented, and higher digits under-represented, in many naturally occurring data sets.

To explore the explanation in more depth, let's focus on the example of country populations. These tend to grow over time. Think of growing as starting from a random size and being multiplied by 2 a (random) number of times, different for each country (depending on growth rate). Since multiplication by 2 privileges the digit 1 as a leading digit, it's not surprising that a lot of the final numbers start with ones. More than start with nines.

(By the way, it's not just multiplication by 2 that privileges 1 as a leading digit. Multiplication by most numbers privileges lower initial digits, in a sense that is made precise below. So does division by most numbers.)

Maybe the way to think about it is this. To get a list of numbers not to satisfy Benford's Law you need to build it that way (say, by writing down a list of 6-digit numbers and rolling a 10-sided die to pick all the digits). And then you need to make sure no creature comes along after you are done and multiplies all of them by something a bit unpredictable. But actually, it's very hard to exclude such a creature, because sometimes it is nature (as with population growth) and sometimes it is another source of unpredictable proportional change. And those idiosyncratic multiplications (or divisions) typically privilege lower initial digits.

==

This explains the qualitative phenomenon that 1 appears as a leading digit more often than 9 does. But what explains the quantitative Benford's Law distribution?
That is, why do we expect to see that about 30% of numbers start with 1, while 10% of numbers have a leading 4, and only 5% of numbers start with 9? Where do those percentages come from?

We saw above that the uniform distribution of leading digits — an 11% probability for each potential leading digit — is not stable when you multiply all the numbers by 2. If every leading digit starts out being equally represented, that stops being true after you multiply by 2.

It turns out there is a distribution of leading digits that does not get upset after multiplying by 2 in this way — it remains stable. That special distribution is precisely the Benford's Law distribution in the first figure in this answer. And that's not just true for multiplication by 2 — the distribution is stable when you multiply by any number between 1 and 10. The Benford's Law distribution is the only one that has this property, and once you know that, it is easy to work out what it has to be.

For more detail on this and many other mathematical facts about Benford's Law, see the beautiful blog post by Terry Tao at http://terrytao.wordpress.com/20..., as well as a presentation (slides only) by Michelle Manes athttp://www.math.hawaii.edu/home/....

==
For more info, check out:
[1] The Effective Use of Benford's Law to Detect Fraud in Accounting Data,http://dbentrance.com/blog/?p=112
[2] http://www.math.hawaii.edu/home/...
[3] http://www.rexswain.com/benford....

Innovation Cycle: Divining reality from the hype

2014-08-31T10:38:00.001+05:30

OVER the past few decades it has become clear that innovation—more than inputs of capital and labour—is what drives a modern economy. In the developed world, the application of technological know-how and scientific discoveries by companies, institutions and government establishments accounts for over half of all economic growth. Because of its seminal influence on wealth-creation in general and employment in particular, the manner in which innovation functions—especially, the way it comes and goes in Darwinian bursts of activity—has emerged as a vital branch of scholarship.

What researchers have learned is that waves of industrial activity, first identified by the Russian economist Nikolai Kondratieff in 1925, have a character all of their own. Typically, a long upswing in a cycle starts when a new set of technologies begins to emerge—eg, steam, rail and steel in the mid-19th century; electricity, chemicals and the internal-combustion engine in the early 20th century. This upsurge in innovation stimulates investment and invigorates the economy, as successful participants enjoy fat profits, set standards, kill off weaker rivals and establish themselves as the dominant suppliers.

Over the years, the boom peters out, as the technologies mature and returns to investors slide. After a period of slower growth comes the inevitable decline. This is followed eventually by a wave of fresh innovation, which destroys the old way of doing things and creates conditions for a fresh upswing—a process Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian economist, labelled “creative destruction”.

Back in the late 1990s, Babbage noticed that the waves of innovation had begun to speed up (see “Catch the wave”, February 18th 1999). The industrial waves Kondratieff observed in the 1920s came every 50-60 years or so. By the late 1990s, fresh ones were arriving twice as often. Fifteen years on, their frequency appears to have doubled yet again. Waves of new innovations now seem to be rolling in every 10 to 15 years.

It is not hard to see why. Rather than leave things to chance, all the big industrial countries nowadays have legions of engineers and scientists scanning the literature for ideas that portend blockbuster innovations capable of carving out new markets. Meanwhile, social networking has made it easier than ever for money and talent to join forces in order to hustle the innovation process along. In addition, today’s far broader channels of communication ensure that any new way of doing things becomes instantly known to everyone interested.

Sometimes too well-known. Indeed, the hyperbole surrounding many fledgling technologies, especially those in their early stages of development, can prove a costly distraction for the unwary. Firms on the fringe of some new development may have difficulty filtering the message from the hubbub, allowing expectations to lose touch with reality. Believing some emerging technology (say, 3D printing) is about to transform their industry, they may make aggressive investments that will prove disastrous if the technology’s impact turns out to be less than anticipated.

To help companies manage such expectations, Gartner, an information-technology consultancy based in Connecticut, has built a set of decision-making tools based on its so-called “hype cycle”. For the past 20 years, the consultancy has produced an annual update of various hype cycles that provide snapshots of the progress certain technologies have made over the previous year; where on the innovation cycle they currently reside; and how long (if ever) they will take to reach maturity. This year’s collection (published on August 11th) assesses the prospects of some 2,000 technologies, grouped into 119 aggregated areas of interest. The graphic above illustrates many of the points on this year's curve, each categorised by the time until a technology's projected maturity in the market.

Each hype cycle shows how expectations change during five key phases of a technology’s life cycle. The first phase (“Innovation Trigger”) happens when the news media begin to notice a promising new technology. Even though no usable product may exist and the technology’s commercial viability is still a long way from being proved, media interest begins to gather steam.

At the top of the cycle (“Peak of Inflated Expectations”), the early publicity prompts a number of success stories, while scores of failures receive less attention. During this second phase, some large early adopters get involved, spurring further headlines.

In the third phase (“Trough of Disillusionment”), interest wanes as trials fail to deliver results and press coverage turns negative. A shake-out drives weaker participants to the wall, while survivors with better products consolidate and gain support from early adopters, along with additional funding from venture capitalists.

With the fourth phase (“Slope of Enlightenment”), more enterprises approve pilot schemes, as they become acquainted with the technology’s proven benefits and best practices. Meanwhile, second- and third-generation products begin to appear, providing the needed confidence for mainstream adopters to think about committing themselves.

Finally, the fifth phase (“Plateau of Productivity”) is where mainstream adoption takes off. Firms providing the technology are now seen as credible suppliers. Their products gain broad market appeal, as the technology's value becomes recognised by the industry as a whole.

But the shake-out along the way is considerable. A good example is the chart for emerging technologies—Gartner’s longest-running and most comprehensive annual hype cycle. This provides a close-up of those technologies that possess both broad industrial relevance and the promise of at least a high, or even transformational, impact on firms affected. Of the 45 emerging technologies in this year’s snapshot, 17 are the subject of rising expectations, ten are at the peak, 11 are sliding into the trough, six have begun to climb up the slope towards viability, and just one (speech recognition) has made it to the plateau of mainstream acceptance. Only the fittest seem to survive all the hyperbole.

Perhaps the most cautionary hype cycle of all, though, is the one for personal 3D printers. Here, Gartner identifies two themes. The first is that the enterprise market and the consumer market for 3D printers are driven by entirely different uses and requirements. As such, they bear little resemblance to one another. For instance, there are 40 or so established manufacturers selling enterprise-class 3D printers to business for $100,000 and up. By contrast, more than 200 start-ups are hoping to crack the consumer market with 3D printers priced as low as several hundred dollars.

The second point is that 3D printing is not one technology, but a combination of seven different ones. “Hype around home use obfuscates the reality that 3D printing involves a complex ecosystem of software, hardware and materials, whose use is not as simple as ‘hitting print’ on a paper printer,” notes Pete Basiliere, research vice-president at Gartner.

The hype cycle for 3D printing shows some of the technologies involved are maturing faster than others, and could be widely available within a few years. For instance, the use of 3D printing for making prototypes—a mainstay of the industry since its inception—is enjoying increasing acceptance in business. But prototyping is unlikely to be of much interest to home users. Besides, despite the broad awareness and media buzz, even the prices of personal 3D printers that are being banded around are still too high for typical do-it-yourself consumers. Overall, says Mr Basiliere, consumer 3D printing is five to ten years away from mainstream adoption.

Babbage thinks even that may be optimistic. Several months ago, he wondered aloud whether 3D printers would ever make it into the home, if the only things they could fabricate were small trinkets and gew-gaws out of soft or brittle plastics (see “Making the cut”, June 2nd 2014). He felt that, to have any practical value, personal 3D printers should be able to make load-bearing components—to repair things around the home like lawnmowers, washing machines, children’s bicycles and old cars. To do that would mean being able to print with powdered metals.

But, while industrial metal printers that use selective laser sintering do an excellent job, they cost $125,000 or more. Their price would have to come down by two orders of magnitude to have any chance of making it into the home.

Consumer 3D printing is still at its hype cycle’s peak of expectations. Whether it survives the coming slide into the trough of disillusionment, with the inevitable shake-out of suppliers, is still too early to say. Babbage hopes it does, but that the survivors focus more on reducing the cost of making things that are genuinely useful rather than merely ornamental.

The 2014 Gartner hype cycle chart, with all technologies identified

For more:http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/08/difference-engine-2?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/diviningrealityfromhype

A thousand robots assemble into shapes

2014-08-15T12:49:00.001+05:30

The madmen at Harvard have finally done it: they’ve simulated real life swarms with tiny robots, thereby bringing the coming robot apocalypse that much closer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1t4M2XnIhI

Or maybe they just created some really cool proof-of-concept robotic self-assembly systems. Either way, what you’re seeing is a set of a thousand “kilobots” that can self-assembled into shapes and patterns. The first few bots create a seed and then the other bots fall into line, positioning themselves perfectly among their peers.

The process they use is actually quite amazing. The seed bots gather together and send out little blasts of IR light. The dimmer the light the further away, so the other robots begin moving towards the seed. Finally, once they get enough robots in one place, the robots communicate with each other to position themselves properly. These robots could also be charged via IR or an internet power network that activates when the robots chain up.

The robots can even tell other robots when they are broken or off course, allowing the healthy robots to maintain their work. It’s some amazing technology and looks wildly cool on video. I suspect, however, that we don’t have to worry about these little bots just yet – they’d die underfoot with a satisfying crunch – but I worry what will happen when they form the shape of a gun.

For more:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/watch-a-thousand-micro-robots-self-assemble-into-wild-shapes/

Will 3D printing disrupt manufacturing?

2014-07-21T23:11:00.001+05:30

Hard to believe that digitalisation might affect manufacturing to the same extent it has affected and changed media. Record shops did not survive the digital reproduction of music: the last Virgin Megastore in the US closed five years ago, following the earlier demise of many thousands of smaller retailers. Newspapers had to rethink their content and delivery systems—the New York Times recently started to deliver summarised news directly to smartphones. What if 3D printing, also called “additive manufacturing”, goes mainstream and allows each one of us to reproduce tangible goods remotely?

Conventional models of production rely on large, interlinked manufacturing facilities and the vast complex of supply and delivery relations that revolve around them.

Digitalisation has potential to disrupt this system. It is already disrupting business-as-usual in certain niche industries, prosthetics and medical implants among them, because 3D printing makes customisation easier and design processes faster. MIT’s Dr Hugh Herr prints plastic prosthetic sockets that once were made almost artisanally. Now, the part comes out already perfectly adjusted to individual requirements. If not, it can be remodelled and reprinted in no time. “Rigorous quantitative processes of developing unique elements of a prosthesis reduce discomfort of the patients and drive down the price,” he explains.

For standardised items, the cost advantage of additive manufacturing may be less significant since the technology does not yet allow high-volume production, while mass manufacturing decreases the average cost. It can still be of use, however. For example, 3D printing can help reduce tooling costs by up to 30% because the piece can be printed in its final form rather than carved from a larger piece of material—saving time and reducing waste. Marco Annunziata, GE’s chief economist, agrees: “We project that by 2020 over 100,000 parts will be additively manufactured by GE Aviation, which could reduce the weight of a single aircraft by 1,000 pounds, resulting in reduced fuel consumption.”

One of the future scenarios in an Industrial Research Institute study imagined a collapse of mass manufacturing under the strain of 3D printing. A recent McKinsey report predicts that more companies will adopt the technology by 2025 and change the way they add value to products, altering their focus to personalisation. 3D printing could also reduce the entry costs into markets, allowing niche businesses to spring up closer to points of consumption. Over time, the source of competitive advantage will shift towards such areas of the value chain as design or even the ownership of customer networks. In such a situation, world economies reliant on scale manufacturing at low cost, like China, would appear to be the losers.

Chris Caplice, MIT’s executive director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics, believes that 3D printing fits into the general trend of decentralisation of manufacturing and scale reduction, joining robotics, automation and other technologies. But the real impacts, he told Look ahead, can be discerned only in a long-term perspective.

Parcel delivery companies will be under the most pressure. However, they are also not waiting to be cannibalised. Same as the engineering giants (Airbus, Boeing, GE, Ford, Siemens), they have already started to hybridise additive and conventional manufacturing. UPS, FedEx and other firms have launched pilot projects to explore the technology and leverage their decentralised facilities. “They can become, for example, local hubs for 3D printing of small parts,“ Dr Caplice says.

Logistically, the technology could also change the distribution and the nature of goods: more raw materials for 3D printers than end products would be pushed towards decentralised areas. Because of fewer long hauls, lower volume would also be coming in through ports.

The changes, Dr Caplice concludes, will take decades. “We will have driverless cars way before we have that level of sophistication.”

- See more at: http://gelookahead.economist.com/3d-printing-will-disrupt-manufacturing-2/

Hardware Is The New Software

2014-07-13T12:36:00.001+05:30

Nest. GoPro. Beats. Jawbone. Oculus. All hardware companies and each of them accorded multi-billion-dollar valuations either in private investment transactions or acquisitions by some of the largest technology companies on the planet.

When the deals first surfaced, more than a few people were puzzled. Hardware hasn’t exactly been sexy for the past decade or so. Until last year, VC and tech talent have been fawning over software companies, which attracted nearly $11 billion in venture capital and saw 1,523 deals in 2013. And how did consumer electronics makers do with VCs in 2013? A paltry $848 million and 31 deals.

That’s because software, once expensive and complicated to make, has become relatively easy. Increased access to open-source services and the cloud mean that two guys in a garage can inexpensively create an application for accepting mobile payments at your new pop-up store or for finding a ride downtown. Access to massive global markets can be had almost overnight via iOS or Android app stores. No need for vast distribution networks. No need for a supply chain. Just extremely low overhead and high margins.

But there’s just one thing missing from software.

Before anyone can get to the bits, they must get through the atoms. Which means they need one thing: Hardware.

And while software is incredibly attractive as a business proposition, there’s something truly special about hardware that software lacks. Hardware ignites intense passion in people – to the point of camping out for days to buy the latest gadget or tattooing logos from their favorite consumer tech brands.

So why doesn’t every technology company just dazzle the world with incredible hardware?

Because as famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen once said: Hardware is hard.

First of all, development times can span at least a year. And we’re not talking about two guys in a garage for that year. We’re talking about large specialist teams – mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, industrial designers, wireless engineers .… The list goes on and on.

Unlike software, hardware is incredibly difficult to iterate on. Once you reach a certain point, you need to “go to tool.” This is when you make a mold and begin fabricating tens of thousands of units from a single mold. Going to tool alone may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. Unlike software — where you get the opportunity to iterate if you’ve made a mistake — once you go to tool, you can’t pivot, you can’t change much. In short, if you’ve designed a dud, you’re outta luck.

And that’s just the start. Next, you have to figure out how many units to get off the line and how many units to make. After that, you’ve got to move all that product around the world by building global distribution channels. AND….after you’ve done all of that, you still have to do the damn software!

Hardware is hard.

But hardware and software do have something in common. Like software, hardware is getting easier.

What is the effect of hardware becoming less hard? Nothing less than a revolution in the user experience.
Traditional hardware companies like Dell and HP have paved the way by outsourcing manufacturing to contractors like Foxconn and Quanta. We’re also seeing the rise of multi-function system on chips, which means that we can run complex instruction sets right out of the box.

And we have a new age of supply chain providers that will pick your product, pack it, put it in a box, and bring it to the end user in a single step. For distribution, there’s Amazon and other e-commerce channels, all but eliminating the need for retail contracts and allowing direct access to consumers.

Recently, we’ve seen the advent of Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other early stage capital sources greasing the skids for hardware. Smartwatch maker Pebble has raised $10 million right from users themselves.

So, what is the effect of hardware becoming less hard? Nothing less than a revolution in the user experience.

Easing some of the more mundane, time-consuming aspects of making hardware is allowing a new breed of hardware to emerge. Cars, industrial equipment, eye glasses – all types of hardware are fast becoming purpose-built machines with software smarts.

Tesla fixed its recent problem with battery fires through over-the-air software updates – drivers didn’t have to lift a finger, let alone hassle with bringing their car into the shop. Xiaomi ships affordable well-designed smartphones but it’s the phone’s regular software updates that have its customers chattering on their forums.

In short, hardware is now the new software. Or, what some call Hardware 2.0.

Unlike the traditional hardware companies that focus on shipping boxes, Hardware 2.0 companies have disrupted our notions about the difference between hardware and software with one seamless user experience. The Hardware 2.0 disruption is so profound, tech giants are spending billions to make sure they don’t miss this seismic shift.

Apple realized very early on that great design and hardware combined with awesome software could create magic. Then came Google’s acquisitions of Motorola and Nest. Amazon got in the game with Kindle, Fire TV and now the Fire Phone.

It’s incredibly difficult to build a great hardware company and it’s incredibly difficult to build a great software company. However, it’s insanely difficult to build a hardware and software company all in one. And it’s the new Holy Grail that venture capitalists and the largest of tech giants are pursuing with multi-billion-dollar investments and acquisitions worldwide.

Courtesy: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/12/hardware-is-the-new-software/

Ex-IT services bigwigs engage with startups.

2014-07-06T13:54:00.001+05:30

IT services bigwigs quitting a company would previously find a top role for themselves in another IT services company. But more and more of them are today turning to roles where they engage actively with startups — as angel investors, mentors or as part of private equity firms.

Former Wipro joint CEO Girish Paranjpe is an angel investor in Bangalore-based educational startup eDreams Edusoft. Paranjpe, who is an operating partner in Boston-based PE major Advent, is also the chairman of the board of eDreams. The startup, founded by former Wipro executive Rajeev Pathak, has a solution for schools — using artificial intelligence, machine learning and speech processing — that enables teachers to give different students in a class different problem sets depending on their abilities.

Former Infosys board member V Balakrishnan is investing in a Bangalore-based risk management product startup. He does not want to name the startup, but said that the solution could be integrated with existing ERP software to oversee regulatory compliance in an organization.

Infosys' former sales head Basab Pradhan has donned the role of an advisor in California-based startup IT Exchange, a marketplace for technology services that connects mid-sized IT buyers and service providers.

Sudip Nandy, who was CEO of Aricent and prior to that the head of the telecom and product engineering solutions division of Wipro, has joined the board of Bangalore-based Religent Global that helps technology biggies to set up global inhouse centres (GICs) or captives in India. Religent was founded by his former Wipro colleague Shreedhara Shetty last year.

Former Infosys board member T V Mohandas Pai has invested in Bangalore-based wearable technology startup GetActive, which is developing an activity tracker to measure sleep patterns, calories, steps and distance covered.

Sudip Banerjee, who was CEO of L&T Infotech and prior to that the head of enterprise solutions at Wipro, is a mentor to and on the governance board of Kolkata-based Totalstart, an entrepreneurial ecosystem developer. Totalstart provides a spectrum of services to startups including incubation centres and consulting services.

"IT veterans can scale up the risk taking abilities of startups and prepare them for a global play. Currently, the startup infant mortality rate is high as they lack access to mentoring and necessary connections, and that scales down their global ambitions. This is vital to invigorate the startup ecosystem," says serial entrepreneur and investor K Ganesh. He is co-founder and chairman of HealthVista, which operates the Portea home medical care services.

Pai says it's exciting to be part of India's startup story. "Our young entrepreneurs are working on disruptive ideas that will push the country into a different orbit," he says.

Courtesy: http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/tech-news/Ex-IT-services-bigwigs-engage-with-startups/articleshow/37797985.cms

Food Startups are here to stay.

2014-07-06T13:37:00.001+05:30

I was trying to understand why food startups are so hot when I ran across the following two charts.

In the image, you’ll notice that I circled a line labeled “P/E.” In the language of finance, P/E is short for “price-to-earnings ratio,” which is the relative value of a company’s stock price to its profitability (aka earnings). When a company enjoys a high stock price yet barely turns a profit––like Amazon––it shows in the P/E ratio.

This typically happens when investors think the company will grow and reap huge profits down the road at some later date (or that someone else will pay an even higher price later on). Generally speaking, having a high P/E ratio means that investors like you and believe that you have a bright future.

The average P/E ratio on the major stock markets indices is 15. Google’s P/E ratio is 30. Chipotle’s P/E ratio is 56. Said another way: Chipotle’s profits are worth more than Google’s.

Mind. Blown.

Which brings me to the original inspiration for this post: Sprig.

Gagan Biyani, the founder of Sprig, is a friend of mine. Sometime last year we caught up and he told me about a new food delivery startup he was working on. They’d make the food themselves, he explained, and deliver it too — really fast.

Oof, I thought. Not a bad idea, but sounds like a tough sell to the capital markets. Lots of upfront cost, little relative profit, no clear customer lock-in or network effect. How would they ever join the 10x revenue club?

Since that conversation, Sprig has gone on to raise over $10 million from Greylock and others. Immediately, the floodgates opened: SpoonRocket raised $10 million. Munchery raised $28 million. Capital has literally flooded the food space, but I still didn’t get it. Why? What were the VCs seeing that I wasn’t?

At first glance, these companies reminded me of Postmates, which I classify as a premium service targeting a niche audience of wealthy urbanites willing to pay a 30 percent premium to have food delivered. How big could these businesses get, really, especially outside of the SF bubble? What the hell were investors thinking?

As I thought about it more, I realized that while Postmates and Caviar are services on top of restaurants, Sprig, Munchery and SpoonRocket are restaurants. Really, they’re the new fast food chains.

Like a Chipotle, these new fast food chains operate commercial kitchens, pay a chef to design their menu and hire low-skilled minions to mass-produce the actual food dishes. Unlike a Chipotle, these new fast food chains can lease out cheap real commercial real estate in out of the way, low-cost locations. Not only do the new fast food chains pay less per square foot of real estatec, they also need a fewer locations and thus less real estate in absolute terms. How many locations does SpoonRocket need to feed all of San Francisco? Three… maybe? Then think of Burger King — how many locations would they need to serve an equivalent volume of customers? Fifteen? Twenty?

And finally, instead of someone upselling you fries with that, the new fast food chains seal the deal with nice photography and a well-designed mobile app. Not bad efficiency.

Yet for the money they save on cashiers, the new fast food chains introduce a new, countervailing cost: human delivery agents. And with fuel costs being driven up by the rise of China’s middle class, delivery ain’t cheap — Sprig pays their SF delivery workers $16 an hour.

Software is eating food.

From an operations perspective, the relative costs of these inputs — real estate, food prep, delivery — are going to determine how profitable the new fast food chains are. The pressure to increase efficiency and drive down the costs in these companies will be great. For the workers on the other side of the iPhone app, the old industrial logic of low-pay-for-low-skill will apply just as it ever has, especially as more of the intelligence and skill becomes centralized in the form of software and the buffeting effect of venture capital goes away in five years or so when these companies mature.

Due to their vertically integrated operations, these companies can reimagine the entire value chain from the vantage point of software. They can apply A/B testing and innovative startup thinking to not just their website or mobile apps, but the entire food production and cooking process. Here, in the unglamorous backend of operations, is where the profits will be won or lost.

By way of comparison, the publicly traded stocks of the old fast food companies are kicking ass. In terms of P/E ratios, McDonald’s shares are doing better than Apple’s; Starbucks is beating the pants off of Facebook and nipping on the buds of Amazon.

How big can these businesses get? In a word, huge. By market cap, McDonald’s is a $100 billion business — that’s two-thirds of an Amazon. At $19 billion, Chipotle is worth a whole WhatsApp. Hell, Taco Bell’s parent company is almost worth one-and-a-half Twitters.

Whither the next unicorn(s)? Food. Trillions of dollars of consumption are quite literally in play.

U.S. consumers spend $6,130 a year on food (~10 percent of all spending, depending how you slice it). And a dollar of Chipotle’s profit is worth more than a dollar of Google’s.

There will many winners. Unlike social networks or online marketplaces, there’s no winner-take-all dynamic in the food world. Homebrew’s Satya Patel summed up the typical VC mindset in his own explanation of why Homebrew is avoiding the food space, writing: “Many markets have room for more than one “winner” but very few have room for more than two or three.” Satya is wrong about food.

Food is a market like the Internet is a market — it’s too big to be to considered just one “market.” There’s high-end, low-end, middle of the road, Mexican, Sushi, Thai, Burgers, etc. The list goes on and on forever. Witness Jack in the Box ($2.4 billion), Panera Bread ($4 billion), Starbucks ($58 billion), Burger King ($9.4 billion), and more. The list of billion-dollar restaurant chains goes on and on, addressing all manner of market segments. Practically speaking, people don’t want to eat the same thing every day, thus supplier diversity is natural, organic and inevitable. And so it will be with the new fast-food chains who disrupt the old.

The food opportunity is so big because people need to eat three times a day. And unlike casual social interaction — here’s looking at you, Facebook — people happily pay for food. Counted in terms of DAUs, the number of potential daily active users for these companies is in the billions.

A thundering herd of food unicorns is assembling itself on the horizon. Prepare yourself. It’s not a fad. It’s not over yet. And you’re not too late.

This is just the beginning.

Courtesy:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/05/the-new-fast-food/?utm_campaign=fb&ncid=fb

Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries of Science

2014-07-06T11:31:00.001+05:30

photo credit: NASA, ESA, CFHT, CXO, M.J. Jee (University of California, Davis), and A. Mahdavi (San Francisco State University)

Despite what cable news may tell you, scientists don’t really squabble over if evolution is real (it is) or if the climate is changing faster than can be explained by naturally-occurring phenomena (it is) or if vaccines are regarded as safe and recommended for most children (they are). Sure, there may be fine points within those categories that are debatable, but not to the extent that is commonly described by talking heads on TV. However, that’s not to say that scientists perfectly understand everything about the ways of the Universe.

Physicist Brian Cox once said: “I'm comfortable with the unknown—that’s the point of science. There are places out there, billions of places out there, that we know nothing about. And the fact that we know nothing about them excites me, and I want to go out and find out about them. And that's what science is. So I think if you’re not comfortable with the unknown, then it’s difficult to be a scientist… I don’t need an answer. I don’t need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find.”

So what are some of the top mysteries keeping scientists busy? Here’s our top ten:

Why is there more matter than antimatter?

According to our current understanding of particle physics, matter and antimatter are equal but opposite. When they meet, they should destroy one another and leave nothing left over, and most of those annihilations should have occurred early in the Universe. However, there was enough matter left over to make the billions and billions of galaxies, stars, planets, and everything else. Various explanations surround mesons, which are short-lived subatomic particles made of one quark and one antiquark. B-mesons decay more slowly than anti-B-mesons, which could have resulted in enough B-mesons surviving the interaction to create all of the matter in the Universe. Additionally, B-, D-, and K-mesons can oscillate and become antiparticles and then back again. Studies have suggested that mesons are more likely to assume the normal state, which may also be why regular particles outnumber antiparticles.

Where is all the lithium?

Early in the Universe when temperatures were incredibly high, isotopes of hydrogen, helium, and lithium were synthesized in abundance. Hydrogen and helium are still incredibly abundant and make up nearly all of the mass in the Universe, though there is only about a third of the lithium-7 that we should see. There are a wide variety of explanations for why this might have happened, including some hypotheses involving hypothetical bosons known as axions, and others believe it is trapped in the core of stars, which our current telescopes and instruments can’t detect. However, there are currently no clear front running theories to explain this absence of lithium in the Universe.

Why do we sleep?

While we do know that the human body is regulated by a circadian clock that keeps humans on a sleep/wake cycle, we don’t really know why. Sleep is the time when our bodies repair tissues and perform other maintenance activities, and we spend nearly a third of our lives snoozing. Some other organisms don’t need to sleep at all, so why do we? There are a few different ideas out there, but none seem to solidly answer the question. Some theorize that animals who are able to sleep have evolved the ability to hide from predators, while others who need to remain more alert are able to rest and regenerate in other ways without fully going to sleep. While scientists don’t quite know why we do it, they are starting to learn more about why it is important, and how sleep impacts important things like brain plasticity.

How does gravity work?

We all know that gravity from the moon causes tides, Earth’s gravity holds us to the surface, and the sun’s gravity keeps our planet in orbit, but how much do we really understand it? This powerful force is generated from matter, and more massive objects therefore have a greater ability to attract other objects. While scientists do understand a great deal about how gravity acts, they aren’t really sure why it exists. Why are atoms mostly empty space? Why is the force that holds atoms together different from gravity? Is gravity actually a particle? These are answers that we really just can’t answer with our current understand of physics.

Where is everyone?

The observable Universe is 13.7 billion light-years in diameter, filled with billions of galaxies with stars and planets, yet the only evidence of any life anywhere is right here on Earth. Statistically, the odds of us actually being the only living beings in the Universe are impossibly low, so why the hell haven’t we connected with anyone else yet? This is known as the Fermi Paradox, and there have been dozens of suggestions to explain why we haven’t encountered extraterrestrial life; some more plausible than others. We could probably talk about all of the different possibilities for days about whether or not we’re just missing signals, if they’ve actually been here and we didn’t know it, they can’t/don’t want to talk to us, or—the extremely unlikely scenario—if Earth is the only planet with life ever.

What is dark matter made of?

About 80% of all mass in the Universe is made of dark matter. Dark matter is pretty peculiar stuff, as it doesn’t emit any light. Though it was first theorized about 60 years ago, there isn’t any direct evidence of its existence. Many scientists believe dark matter is comprised of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which could be up to 100 times more massive than a proton, but doesn’t readily interact with the baryonic matter our instruments were designed to detect. Other candidates for dark matter’s composition include axions, neutralinos, and photinos.

How did life begin?

Where did life on Earth come from? How did it happen? Those who believe in the Primordial Soup model believe that a nutrient-rich early Earth eventually formed increasingly-complex molecules that gave rise to life. This could have taken place in the deep ocean vents, in clay, or under ice. Different models also give variable levels of importance to the presence of lightning or volcanic activity for the spawn of life. While DNA is the predominant basis for life on Earth now, it has been suggested that RNA could have dominated the first lifeforms. Additionally, other scientists question whether other nucleic acids aside from RNA or DNA may have once existed. Did life spawn just once, or is it possible that is was created, wiped out, and then restarted? Some believe in panspermia, in which microbial life was brought to Earth via meteorites or comets. Even if that is true, it doesn’t answer the question of how that life originated.

How do plate tectonics work?

It might sound surprising, but the theory of continental plates moving around, rearranging continents and causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and even forming mountains, has only received widespread support relatively recently. Though it was first postulated back around 1500 that the continents may have once fit together (it’s not really a stretch for anyone who has looked at a map), the idea didn’t gain a lot of traction until the 1960s when the hypothesis of sea-floor spreading, where rocks are pulled into the mantle of the Earth, recycled, and brought back to the surface as magma, was backed up by physical evidence. However, scientists aren’t entirely sure on what drives this movement or exactly how plate boundaries were created. There are many theories, but none of them completely address all aspects of this activity.

How do animals migrate?

Many animals and insects migrate throughout the year in order to escape changing seasonal temperatures and the waning resources that come with it or to find mates. Some of these migrations can reach thousands of kilometers in one direction, so how do they find their way there and back again year after year? Different animals use different navigational tools, including some who are able to tap into the Earth’s magnetic field and use themselves like a compass. However, scientists still don’t know how this trait evolved or how untrained animals know exactly where to go season after season.

What is dark energy?

Of all of the great mysteries of science, dark energy might be the most enigmatic of all. While dark matter makes up an estimated 80% of all mass, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy believed to make up around 70% of all content in the Universe. Dark energy has been implicated as the cause for the expansion of the Universe, though there is still a considerable amount of mystery regarding its supposed properties. First and foremost, what is it even made of? Is dark energy constant, or are there fluctuations throughout the expanse of space? Why does dark energy’s density appear to match the density of regular matter? Can dark energy be reconciled with Einstein’s theory of gravity, or does the theory need to be reevaluated?

Courtesy: http://www.iflscience.com/physics/top-10-unsolved-mysteries-science

Google Story feature on Android

2014-07-01T23:22:00.001+05:30

Google has just launched a story feature. It cobbles together dates, images, location data, etc from my camera, and picasa albums and presents it as a storyline. Narratives can be optionally added.

https://plus.google.com/101990381577227615140/stories/5c83fd79-2a33-32a0-b2aa-9dd74f050fab/1?authkey=COaqiZKG0ZOMWA

Everything Google I/O 2014

2014-06-29T23:05:00.001+05:30

Google began the announcement the same way it does every year – by talking about Android’s growth over the past year. Senior Vice President at Google Sundar Pichai said Android now has more than 1 billion active users per month.

Android One

Google kicked things off with the announcement of the Android Oneprogram to provide guidelines for a unified Android experience for those creating smartphones for the developing market. This allows Google to dictate the minimum hardware requirements for manufacturers around the world.

The first devices will arrive in India brands like Micromax and Karbonn, starting at less than $100.

➤ Google announces ‘Android One’ standard for affordable devices, arriving first in India at under $100

L Developer Preview

Android’s upcoming L release features a new cross platform UI called Material Design, which offers app developers more precise tools to make customized typography, grid and color changes. Material Design also allows designers to add smooth animations at 60 fps using Polymer, a prototyping tool.

Additionally, Google has added aguideline to help designers build consistent look and feel.

L’s preview also teases lockscreen notifications and context-based authentication features (for example, if you’re wearing a paired Bluetooth watch while using your phone, it won’t prompt you for a pattern lock pass). Google touts L’s enhanced Art performance, 64-bit compatibility, and a new Android Extension Pack to support 3D graphics.

To help developers learn more about battery life, Google also showed off Project Volta to help identify battery discharge patterns to improve overall power consumption.

Lastly, L will come with more security, such as new patches for Google Play services and factory reset protection.

➤ Google reveals its ‘L Developer Preview’, an early glimpse at the next version of Android

Android Wear

Google demonstrated its Android Wear SDK to show off select Android wearable functionalities. The touchscreen UI lets users swipe across Google Now cards and supported apps from the paired smartphone, and users can use the “Ok Google” prompt to create notes, reminders, alarms, calls and more. Material Design is also present in this wearable platform.

When a user installs an app from the Play store on their phone, a wearable counterpart is also installed on the smartwatch so the features are immediately synced.

Some of the Android Wear-equipped products include:

LG G Watch, available today in the Play Store.Samsung Gear Live, also available today in the Play Store.The Moto360 will follow later this summer.

➤ Android Wear SDK available to download for developers from today

➤ Samsung Gear Live and LG G Android Wear smartwatches available to pre-order today

Android Auto

The completely voice-enabled Android Auto is designed to help developers create a safe and seamless solution for using connected devices while driving. By connecting the driver’s smartphone to a compatible car, the Android Auto UI will cast on the car’s screen with quick shortcuts to location searches, suggestions and navigation.

Drivers can also send and receive text messages using solely voice command features to keep their hands and eyes on the steering wheel.

To cap it all, Google announced the Android Auto SDK that supports streaming radio and messaging services. The Android Auto release will be available later this year, with 40 partners including Hyundai, Porsche, Acura and more.

➤ Google unveils Android Auto, a new voice-enabled platform for the car

Android TV

Google combines all things entertainment into one with Android TV, which lets users watch live TV or stream content while adding a fluid search experience which provide information like cast information and related YouTube clips. Users can employ the remote control, D-pad or their smartwatch as control options.

Android TV also adds a gaming experience, enabling users to bring Play store games to the big screen. Users can cast content from their Android device to the Android TV just like a Chromecast.

➤ Google announces Android TV to bring ‘voice input, user experience and content’ to the living room

Chromecast update

You no longer need to be on the same Wi-Fi network to cast content to Chromecast! Users can search for nearby devices and connect via the cloud. If Chromecast does not recognize you in the area, it will ask for a pin. This feature is opt-in, and will roll out later this year.

Google has also added a Backdropfeature to allow background photo customization that draws photo from your library. You can opt to display weather information or news, or choose to mirror your entire Android device to the television.

➤ Google’s Chromecast to get Android mirroring, ‘Backdrop’ slideshows and casting from nearby devices

Android apps come to Chromebook

Just like the new L update that allows users to unlock their phone if using context and location, Chromebooks can also be unlocked if you have your phone with you. In addition, Android will be able to send notifications straight to the Chromebook for a continuous experience.

Select Android apps are nowcompatible on the Chromebook as well, including Evernote, Vine and Flipboard.

➤ Google previews Android apps running on Chromebooks

Bridging work and play

To connect a person’s work and personal life into one device, Google announced an Android for Workprogram to help applications live in one place. This allows native Microsoft Office editing in Google Docs as well.

Additionally, Google announced a premium Google Drive offering for enterprise customers which allows unlimited storage for $10 per user per month.

➤ Google unveils native Office editing to Google Docs and Android for Work certification program

Google Cloud

Google demoed improvements to Google Cloud engine and touted the many apps that launched using the infrastructure, such as Snapchat and Secret. With the platform, developers can debug a live application running on hundreds of servers, and set alerts for various events to monitor performance.

This suite of tools includes Cloud Save, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace and Cloud Debugger.

Google also demoed Cloud Dataflow, which lets you create data pipelines for ingesting large data sets.

Additionally, Google announced that it has acquired Appurify, a mobile test automation service, to optimize app building and testing.

Google Fit

Google previewed the Google Fit platform, an open, multi-OS API for fitness apps and devices. Much like Apple’s recently announced HealthKit, Google Fit aggregates all of the user’s fitness data into one place. Partners include Nike, Adidas and Withings.

➤ Google launches Google Fit Platform Preview for developers

Google Play

Google Play shows off the Games profile feature, “Saved Games” section that shows a screencap of your game progress, leaderboards and “Quests” so gamers can set goals.

Google also announced that users can set up direct carrier billing for tablets so they can charge everything in one place.

Bonus

In the first hour of the Google I/O keynote, a protestor interrupted the presentation, calling attention to an eviction complaint related to Google’s head of eDiscovery, Jack Halprin. She was promptly escorted out, but not without making things rather awkward.

An hour later, a second protestor crashed Google’s party, shouting, “You’re all involved with a company that builds robots to kill people.” The complaint is thought to be related to the company’s recent acquisition of Boston Dynamics, which makes military-grade robots.

➤ Google I/O 2014 interrupted by protester calling for Google to “develop a conscience”

Shridharacharya: Solving Quadratic equations in the 9th Century.

2014-06-29T12:54:00.001+05:30

Sridhar Acharya (c. 870, India – c. 930 India) was an Indian mathematician, Sanskrit pundit andphilosopher. He was born in Bhurishresti (Bhurisristi or Bhurshut) village in South Radha (at present Hughli) in the 10th Century AD.

He was known for two treatises: Trisatika(sometimes called the Patiganitasara) and thePatiganita. His major work Patiganitasara was named Trisatika because it was written in three hundred slokas. The book discusses counting of numbers, measures, natural number, multiplication, division, zero, squares, cubes, fraction, rule of three, interest-calculation, joint business or partnership and mensuration.

He was one of the first to give a formula for solving quadratic equations.He found the formula :-

(Multiply by 4a)

Proof of the Sridhar Acharya Formula,

let us consider,

Multipling both sides by 4a,

Substracting from both sides,

Then adding to both sides,

We know that,

Using it in the equation,

Taking square roots,

Hence, dividing by get

In this way, he found the proof of 2 roots.(http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sridhara)

Amazon Fire Phone: Android, Dynamic Perspective, and Firefly.

2014-06-19T07:01:00.001+05:30

The Fire Phone is Amazon’s first venture into smartphones. Jeff Bezos calls it the phone built for the Amazon Prime customer. At first blush, it looks like any other smartphone currently on the market, but it has a secret: the ability to track a user’s head.

The Fire Phone rocks a 4.7-inch IPS screen and is equipped with a 13MP rear-facing camera with image stabilization and a f2.0 lens. Inside is a quad-core 2.2GHz chip, Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM — not enough to stand tall against the latest Android flagships but enough horsepower to provide a good experience.

The Fire Phone packs a new feature called Firefly that can detect, through the camera, phone numbers, movies, books, games, CDs and food. It allows Fire Phone owners to buy things instantly that are found in the world. It’s Amazon’s version of Flow and undoubtedly a big marketing hook for Amazon.

Poetica: Free Collaborative Document editing

2014-06-18T22:56:00.001+05:30

Now there’s Poetica. It’s really nice.

Created by a team of programmers and designers, Anna Maybank, Blaine Cook, and James Weiner, the program is surprisingly elegant… at first. You type into a blank window (or you import files) and then share the documents with friends via email or a public link. Friends come in and edit your document using standard editing marks familiar to those who grew up in the 20th century. The screen becomes overrun by comments, arrows, and text changes You can then edit, accept, or reject changes. Because it’s free and web-based you don’t have to give away much of your privacy or money (looking at you, Google Docs and Word) and the whimsical editing tools are more geared to commenting on text than simply changing it.

Website Performance Optimization

2014-06-18T22:51:00.001+05:30

Have you ever wondered how a browser converts HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into actual pixels on your screen—a sequence of steps known as the Critical Rendering Path? And, more importantly, how you can optimize your resources so that your web pages render faster on mobile? Well, you can now learn all about that in our new online Udacity course “Website Performance Optimization: Critical Rendering Path”.

The Big Oh

2012-11-11T21:31:00.001+05:30

The funniest (if you too think geek to be funny) explanation of why we need to use the O(n) notation to analyze the performance of algorithms.

http://www.crsr.net/Notes/BigO.html

orkut Blog: Beauty Perception

2007-11-25T16:20:00.000+05:30

orkut Trends: Beauty or conceit?
Read about this interesting piece on orkut blogs. It is based on statistical analysis of how people rate themselves on "beauty" on orkut. Since people are usually biased about their own beauty, it is better to think of it as a conceit rating index.;-)

Spin these pipes...

2006-10-31T14:04:00.000+05:30

Recently, a dry spell at work waiting for the customer to deliver the requirements faced me. Nothing to do but chatting, surfing, and catching up with old friends through e-mail. It was fun for the first couple of days, then the feeling of doing nothing productive started to settle on me.

Then I struck upon Wei-Hwa Huang's gadget page on Google. By the rate at which Wei comes up with new puzzles, he seems to be a very innovative soul. Best of all most of his puzzles are simple and involve almost no learning curve. At the same time the puzzles are not trivial, though some are easy to solve.

Of all the puzzles, I fell in love with "Pipe Spin". It has a typical arcade feel and is sufficiently stimulating, without really taxing your mind. Ideal for those rainy days at work, when the feeling of useless waste comes creeping.

A sample Puzzle from his site has been reproduced here. Enjoy...

Statutory warning: Can be highly addictive.

More of Wei-Hwa's puzzles can be enjoyed here.

Alice in the Forest...

2006-09-20T07:13:00.000+05:30

Heaps, Random Number, Hashing algorithms,Self-Balancing Trees have always had me kind of confused a bit around the edges. Add AVL and Red-Black Trees into the equation and the plot thickens. Recently I had to get my ankles wet with self-balancing Binary Trees to avoid the degenerate worst case, and found myself sinking to the depths instead. I recalled some of the things I had studied, but there was the fuzz arounbd the edges, that you usually see on old sepia toned photographs.

I called out to Google for help and Eternally Confuzzled was among the first few pages it threw back at me. Written by Julienne Walker[happyfrosty@hotmail.com], it deals with Trees, hashes, Rand Numbers, etc. If you are also one of those who think a "Hit" is something that the mob orders, and that you should avoid being the target of one, this site is just the place to get you started. An excellent resource for those who are interested in doing more than just CCPT and getting the job done.

Granted that you don't have to know physics to be a pitcher, but having a sound understanding of the underlying ideas always helps, espeacially when those nasty bugs rear their head. Starting with Binary trees, I found myself hooked to the effortless way in which complicated sounding ideas were presented.

<BRAG>While I was at it, I even happened to find a minor but significant bug in the code, and wrote to the author, who promptly responded wiht the promise of a correction.</BRAG>

Overall an execllent resource especially for all the Comp. science and Engg. students who feel a bit flustered by Knuth, Djikstra and the gang.

P.S. Absolutely no offence meant to the GODS of Algorithms.

Animate any webpage

2006-09-07T16:04:00.000+05:30

This works especially well with IE, works partially in Firefox too. Open any website that contains images. Copy paste the javascript given below in the address bar and press enter.

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i < DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()', 35); void(0)

Sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

Huamn Paetrtn rengcoition...

2006-06-20T12:39:00.000+05:30

You may feel that the title of this post has too mayny typos, but believe me it is intentional and you'll still be able to make out every word.

cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny
iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot
slpeling was ipmorantt!