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Friday note: Google I/O 2013 wrap-up. My 3 key take aways would be 1. awesome maps (see below), 2. Let’s clean up and forget about last year’s hardware disaster and 3. services, services, services. And of course, Glass as the must have accessory of millenial geek chic. Happy Friday !
[Reproduced from the New York Times 05.17.13] Google Escalates the Competition in Map Services by Jim Wilson Cartographers, beware: the map wars have begun. The new Google Maps shows images from several sources in one place, like this view from Rome. It also suggests places to go when away from home. First Apple built maps, and now Facebook wants its own mapping service. In the tech industry, maps have become essential, primarily because of the explosion of mobile devices, on which maps are a critical application. Maps are also seen as the gateway to commerce, both online and in the real world. Yet even as maps have become a must-have service, Google, the leader in online mapping so far, is showing that experience pays dividends. On Wednesday, Google unveiled a new Google Maps, by far the biggest redesign since it introduced Maps eight years ago. Google announced the maps at its annual I/O developers conference, where it also showed off new tools for search, photo editing and to-do lists, along with a music service and features for Android and Chrome apps. Many of the announcements had an undercurrent — one-upping Apple. From its new music and photo services to maps to voice commands that rival Siri on the iPhone, Google seemed to be offering alternatives to Apple products. But the new maps service was the biggest announcement. “The future of search starts with maps. That’s where all the commerce is going to be done and that’s what everyone’s fighting out,” said John Malloy, a partner at BlueRun Ventures, which invested in Waze, a crowdsourced mapping service that Facebook has shown interest in acquiring. “To monetize mobile traffic, maps are a critical ingredient.” Google’s revision of its map service comes less than a year after Apple removed Google Maps from the iPhone and replaced it with its own version, which has had problems with accuracy. Facebook and Microsoft also think maps are so important that they need their own services. [more] Big data reignites the supercomputer race: Google joins Supercomputing Project. Since we are generating exobytes of unstructured data at an exponential rate, it was only a matter of time for google to go after Amazon’s d-wave. Now is quantum artificial intelligence the correct answer ?
[Reproduced from Wall Street Journal 05.16.13] Google Joins Supercomputing Project By DON CLARK Google Inc. plans to help create a new laboratory to study quantum computing, a high-profile endorsement of the esoteric technology—and a Canadian company that has been pursuing it since 1999. An unusual supercooled machine built by D-Wave Systems Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, will be installed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center, near Google's campus in Mountain View, Calif. It will be operated by the nonprofit Universities Space Research Association. The arrangement is designed to allow researchers from Google as well as other institutions try out the system for solving different kinds of computing problems. Quantum computers take their name from quantum mechanics, the branch of physics associated with the behavior of matter at the scale of atoms or subatomic particles. Researchers have long theorized that machines that exploit those properties could be much faster than conventional computers. Many companies, including International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp., have conducted quantum-computing research. D-Wave, whose approach differs from most others in the field, is the only one to have sold any hardware. Lockheed Martin Corp. in 2010 bought the company's first machine, which was installed near Los Angeles in a research center affiliated with the University of Southern California. The system that will be used in the new lab—the second that D-Wave has placed outside the company—was required to pass a series of tests posed by Google and its collaborators that point to applications in a variety of fields. "It's yet to be seen what this computer can do in practice," said Steve Conway, an analyst who tracks scientific computing for the research firm IDC. "But the fact that organizations like Google are confident enough to order one is a big step forward for quantum computing." [more] Opening up the internet of things: Xively the new IoT Public Cloud. Heavily promoted by ARM as the mature IoT public cloud, is this the correct approach to M2M and the Industrial Internet ? Surely Logmein has the correct firmware technology, and now the cloud, to get there.
[Reproduced from the Wall Street Journal, 05.15.13) Opening Up the ‘Internet of Things’ By Anna Leach With the internet of things, it won’t just be the robots that are intelligent. 50 billion objects will connected by 2020. It will now take hours instead of months to make smart objects that can connect to the internet, British chip designers ARM Holdings plc promised Tuesday. ARM announced a collaboration with a software startup that it promises will make it quicker and cheaper for companies to make products for the hotly-tipped new sector. The internet of things is when everyday objects become “intelligent” and can connect to the internet thanks to small embedded chips. ARM designs the chips that go in the objects, and with the new collaboration, startup LogMeIn Inc will provide the software that takes data from the object and feeds it into an app or website. “It’s the sort of market where you’re going to have a huge amount of innovation,” said Simon Ford, Director of Online Tools at ARM and lead on their internet of things project — mbed. “There’ll be startup companies coming from nowhere with new ideas and this technology will allow them to happen because the barrier to entry is very low.” [more] |
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