GPGPU - next gen performance

Graphics Processor Unit processing is the way of the future.  Basically the main reason AMD bought ATI was to get at this technology.  Intel is producing their next generation CPU architecture in combination with a GPU.  The speed improvements are dramatic - from 2x-30x differences in calculation performance.

CUDA compatible GPU cards as efficient hardware accelerators for Smith-Waterman sequence alignment

The Smith-Waterman algorithm has been available for more than 25 years. It is based on a dynamic programming approach that explores all the possible alignments between two biological sequences; as a result it returns the optimal local alignment. Unfortunately, the computational cost is very high, requiring a number of operations proportional to the product of the length of two sequences. This paper by Svetlin Manavski and Giorgio Valle describes SmithWaterman-CUDA, an open-source project to perform fast sequence alignment on the GPU. Although the software performs the optimal Smith-Waterman alignment it is faster than heuristics approaches like FASTA and BLAST. The tests on protein data banks show up to 30x speed up related to reference CPU implementations. (Svetlin A. Manavski, Giorgio Valle, CUDA compatible GPU cards as efficient hardware accelerators for Smith-Waterman sequence alignment, BMC Bioinformatics 2008, 9(Suppl 2):S10 (26 March 2008))

GPGPU

Finally, some food for thought: The GPU is becoming so powerful that companies like nVidia are pitching them as GPGPUs and selling HPC (high performance computing) products that provide massive amounts of power (128 processors, massively parallel) in a little box. So, imagine that we took this same concept a step further and implemented an entire library outside of WPF that allowed you to leverage those kinds of platforms for general programming. Just like DLINQ where the expression is translated to SQL and remove over to your DB server for processing, we could translate and remote over to one of these boxes and execute it in a nanosecond

http://blog.hackedbrain.com/archive/2008/02/19/6141.aspx

Where technology like this would really shine is when programs have been optimized for parallel computing. 

PC Perspective recently had an interview with John Carmack, one of the 2 Johns responsible for creating Wolfenstein & Doom.  He is the one person who would probably take this technology and demonstrate its full potential.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=532

That is my big take away message for a lot of people about the upcoming generation of general purpose computation on GPUs; a lot of people don’t seem to really appreciate how the vertex fragment rasterization approach to computer graphics has been unquestionably the most successful multi-processing solution ever.  If you look back over 40 years of research and what people have done on trying to use multiple processors to solve problems, the fact that we can do so much so easily with the vertex fragment model, it’s a real testament to its value.  A lot of people just think “oh of course I want more flexibility I’d love to have multiple CPUs doing all these different things” and there’s a lot of people that don’t really appreciate what the suffering is going to be like as we move through that; and that’s certainly going on right now as software tries to move things over, and it’s not “oh just thread your application”.  Anyone that says that is basically an idiot, not appreciating the problems.  There are depths of subtly to all of this where it’s been an ivory tower research project since the very beginning and it’s by no means solved.

OurAirports: OurAirports: Where have you been?

Nice Google Maps Mashup with Airports from around the world.

Before you fly, read about the airports you plan to visit.

Places to start ...

Sign up for a free account to create a personalized map and leave signed comments (if you want to wait a bit before signing up, you can still explore and leave comments as an Anonymous Flyer).

Search for airports code, airport name, city/region/country name, latitude and longitude, etc. etc.

OurAirports: OurAirports: Where have you been?

If only it was this simple

I think Flight Simulator X uses a similar codebase with one overriding if clause:

if (FramesPerSecond>10)
{
   sleep(30);
}

I recently picked up a Quad Core system with 2GB of RAM and an Nvidia 8800 GT.  I even have the blue blinky LED light on the front of the case that's supposed to speed up things.  I'm still only seeing 9FPS using high levels in FSX.  What gives?  Do I _really_ have to turn off all of that vehicle traffic, weather, clouds and defrag my hard drive every night?

There's something about "future-proofing" software that leaves much to be desired.  Sometimes simplicity speaks volumes.

Don't lose a tempermental model's luggage

No more throwing cell phones around... this time it's all about assaulting an officer on an international flight out of the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow.

A cell phone to the head is serious... but this looks a bit worse.

When the police were called in to manage the dispute, Campbell flew completely off the handle and assaulted the police officer, which, apparently is against the law. She was thus subdued, handcuffed and removed from the plane along with her entire entourage of Campbellites.

Naomi Campbell flips out in Heathrow Terminal 5, gets arrested - Gadling

And another case for backing up your important data in the "cloud" or somewhere not physically near you, and definitely not in your luggage!

First the opening day woes, then Naomi Campbell, now 24 year old Scottish singer, song writer and record producer DJ Calvin Harris. Harris was flying from US to London’s Heathrow (Terminal 5) when his laptop with the only existing copy of his second album went missing (in the notorious Terminal 5 Baggage crisis). The airlines offered him GBP 750 as compensation for the loss.

Would you like to help out the folks at BAA with their luggage problem?

Try "Wee Willie Walsh" in TERMINAL PANIC!

Reminds me of that old Commodore 64 game, Beer Tapper.

If you don't want to help BAA, you can join the Stop Heathrow Expansion web site, though I think it's a bit late for that.

Apparently luggage is now being sorted by hand until they can figure the mess out.  I don't think they can outsource that work to another country.

Grupo Ferrovial stock seems to have weathered the storm okay. British Airways, not so much...

System update kicks Heathrow baggage system offline | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com

This is probably one of the highest profile computer/infrastructure failures in the last few years

The error occurred, “[A]fter an update to the system made it reboot….” Additionally:

BAA told Computerworld UK that a computer software upgrade, conducted Monday night, was the cause of the failure. Despite testing the software, the “glitch crashed both baggage sorting machines….”

System update kicks Heathrow baggage system offline | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com

Computer glitches were part of the issue, but the key problems appeared to be logistics.  Staff couldn't find parking spaces in the morning, and couldn't log in to the system.  After that, it's no wonder they were having a bad day.

But British Airways added that staff log on issues were also part of the problem. “The log on system initially didn’t work,” a BA spokesperson told Computerworld UK. “There was an issue with that for some reason.”

The airline said that “the car parking problems meant the staff were not in place.”

Who designed the baggage system? 

The high tech baggage system, was heavily featured in the Terminal Five pre-opening publicity. Created through 400,000 man hours of software engineering, it was designed and supplied by Vanderlande Industries in conjunction with IBM technology and Alstec, who are operating the system.

Didn't George from Seinfeld work for Vanderlande Industries?

British Airport Authority (BAA) is ultimately responsible for the operation of the terminal and it's technology.

The technology investment is immense. T5 boasts 17 kilometres of baggage conveyor belts in a system designed to handle as many as 12,000 bags an hour. Over 400,000 man-hours have gone into developing the system's software, which has the ability to prioritise late bags. The terminal has involved 180 IT suppliers, runs 163 IT systems, manages 546 interfaces, more than 9,000 connected devices and 2,100 PCs. The building has 96 self check-in kiosks, 54 traditional check-in desks and 90 self-drop baggage depots.

This release from February 14, 2008, seems to be a preclude to the disaster.

Airports authority BAA has begun looking for a service provider to work with it to help develop consistent IT systems at Heathrow and across the authority’s airports.

It appears that 50 of the IT staff for BAA transferred to IT services company LogicaCMG, when BAA signed a 5-year outsourcing contract with them.

LogicaCMG will manage more than 400 different applications, including Oracle Enterprise Suite, as well as aircraft stand allocation and staffing.

Other components of the luggage handling system include wireless connectivity.

The network will have 800 access points connected to two separate redundant Aruba Mobility Controller wireless switches, in two separate locations in Heathrow. The APs used are Aruba's 802.11abg devices. The new 802.11n specification was too risky and early at the time the network was designed – "but we can just clip in 802.11n when we need it", says Newbold.

The wireless LAN will be used for the baggage-handling system. Engineers with laptops and PDAs can manage the infrastructure and check barcodes on luggage anywhere in the building.

However, Newbold made a deliberate decision not to focus on making the WLAN "seamless". He explains, "It's not a contiguous medium, it's not connection oriented." For instance, when staff step from the shopping mall to "back of house", it is very important that they experience a transition, and some resources are not available the other side of the line. Sometimes this is enforced by excluding radio signals from other parts of the space. "There are a lot of Faraday cage materials in the building."

That would tick me off if I was a baggage handler having to setup connectivity every time I leave an area.

Here's a question that shouldn't have to be assumed... it should be proven in a lab when dealing with this kind of scale.

Will it work?

Despite careful planning, Newbold can't be sure the WLAN will work straight away, because the building has not yet seen a full complement of visitors. "Optimisation is the biggest challenge," he explains. On an average day, the building expects to see 53,000 people, all of whom will have a definite effect on the propagation of radio signals, since they are mostly made of water.

Could login issues be as simple as wireless connectivity?

And with ever-increasing numbers of people wishing to fly, the things that can turn airports into nightmares are getting bigger and more frightening.

The line above was written almost 3 years ago.

Passengers arriving very early, say seven hours before their scheduled departure, will also be able to check their bags into the system rather than wait for check-in to open and add to the queues.

Doesn't sound like Just in time baggage check-in to me...

I had my luggage "delayed" somehow on a trip to NY last year.  It was shipped to my hotel 7 hours after the flight, however by then I had already purchased a new outfit.  (So I guess it wasn't really a bad thing. )

There was one other person with me waiting anxiously at the baggage carousel for bags that would never show up.

That was only 2 people and the person manning the desk for lost luggage still looked stressed.  I wonder how the staff at new Heathrow dealt with 12,000 "delayed" bags.

If my reaction was to go out and buy a new outfit and toiletries, then I guess that losing people's luggage is one way of indirect economic stimulation. 

LHC 2008 - Journée Portes Ouvertes

Something to do on Sunday... visit CERNs Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  At 27km long, this circular tunnel contains the largest particle accelerator in the world.  It was supposed to come online in November, 2007.  Looks like it might be August before we find out just what it's capable of...

On Sunday 6 April 2008 CERN will throw open all the doors to the LHC. A range of exciting activities will be organised around the ring, both on the surface and underground.

LHC 2008 - Journée Portes Ouvertes

Techgage - Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition

This is definitely going on my wish list for FSX. 3840x1200 gaming...

In order to power the maximum resolution of 3840x1024, a dual-link DVI connection is needed. While many PCs today have dual-link either through their motherboard's video out (notebooks) or their graphics card (desktops), there are many that don't and it's because of this that Matrox included the analog VGA connector on this product. This allows Matrox to market the TH2Go Digital to many more people than they would be able to without the VGA out port.

Techgage - Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition

MaximumSignal - Dropped cell phone calls

Here's one way to keep a decent signal on your cell phone...

9DB 30 inch Super Trucker Antenna - Omni Directional
SKU: SKU9DB30INTRUCKER
The best Trucker antenna available period from any manufacturer!. Covers all North American Carriers on 800 MHz and 1900 MHz including CDMA , TDMA , GSM , EVDO , HSDPA ,EDGE, iDEN and ANALOG , This bad boy will leave all the other drivers drooling and begging you to know where you got it!!

MaximumSignal

blog.pmarca.com: The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6

 
I picked up Charlie's book last year in Los Angeles at the Huntington Library.  It is worth it's weight in gold.  I just wish the darn thing wasn't so heavy...

Charlie Munger is an 80-something billionaire who cofounded top-tier law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson and is Warren Buffett's long-time partner and Vice-Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful companies of all time.

Some people, including me, consider Mr. Munger to be an even more interesting thinker and writer than Mr. Buffett, and recently a group of Mr. Munger's friends assembled a compilation book of his most interesting thoughts and speeches called Poor Charlie's Almanack, inspired by Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack. (The Munger book is only available on Amazon in used form, although you can apparently buy a new copy here.)

blog.pmarca.com: The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6

Air Charter Hot Deals — Charter Flight Promotional Offers, Discounts from Virgin Charter

Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin brand are now selling direct-to-internet charter flights.

Want to book a trip from Tokyo to LA on a private Jetstream V for $58,000? How about less? Just put in a bid.

Can't see any stink bids being accepted but who knows? Not sure if they accept Paypal just yet... on second thought... $50k & paypal probably don't mix.

This is a neat way to see where the rich, famous, and business execs frequently travel. Namely NJ, CA, and TX, with some flights from Portland, OR to Hawaii.

I saw Sir Richard a couple of times when I went to those roving Learning Annex seminars. Although the brand name is successful, I'm not sure how well his companies do. It was impressive to see him show photos of the Royal family flying around in the 80s and 90s in his private jets. It wasn't so impressive when he was advertised as a motivational speaker, and was hung over after VirginFest in Toronto. Motivation and alcohol don't mix for me.

His other comment about always keeping a notepad in his back pocket to take down information during parties (because of alcohol-induced blackouts?) kind of made sense. Memory's always a problem when liquor kills your brain cells.

Best way to get a flight to anywhere and become influential in the world? Buy an airline.

Worst way to get famous? Fly around Washington, DC.

Speaking of flying, my quest to master FSX and take on the real world of flying has hit a snag. The keyboard seems really sensitive, so when I hit the throttle to taxi I end up either driving into a ditch or crashing into a terminal. This is not a confidence-builder. There is no "realism setting" in real flying. This is really ticking me off since I bought a new computer and was looking forward to flying around with the maximum effects turned on. At least I can see the cars I'm crashing into when I try to land on the highway.

Guess I'll have to break down and buy a yoke & rudder... or maybe just go for the real thing... or maybe do both.

With American Airlines and Virgin America promising in-flight broadband I might be able to fly FSX multiplayer while flying in a real plane.

That makes my head hurt... or was it the 2 bottles of Baron Phillip de Rothschild Merlot from last night? Searching for reviews on that wine comes up with "buy cheap wine." Sigh. Should have stuck with the Chateau Mouton.

Air Charter Hot Deals — Charter Flight Promotional Offers, Discounts from Virgin Charter

A Flipbook on China: A Magnum photo essay. - - Slate Magazine

This video steps through 30 years of photographs of China, and has some really powerful images.

"China Transformations" is the theme of the 12^th International Biennial of Photo-Related Art, which takes place in Houston on March 7 to 20.

"A Flipbook on China" celebrates 60 years of observing the changes in China, as documented in Magnum's living archive. More information about the festival can be found on the FotoFest Web site.

A Flipbook on China: A Magnum photo essay. - - Slate Magazine

A book I just received in the mail and definitely worth picking up if you like art history and want to learn more is 30,000 Years of Art. 

Be careful if you have a weak lower back... this thing weighs about 13 pounds, is 12" tall, 3" thick and is over 1000 pages.  Quite possibly the best value for your free shipping coupon, though the postal delivery person will hate you.

The book would make a good side table, a project I may consider since it crushes my legs when it sits on my lap.

I managed to 'read' it in half-an-hour, though it will probably take years to actually acquire some "art appreciation" with it.  It's really a picture book of art appreciation, with one photo per page, but the small caption for each piece is misleading.  A wealth of information has been captured detailing where the piece currently resides, country of origin, how it was created, and why it is relevant.

Don't bother with the bookstore.  Get this thing delivered.

If you're interested in China, news, language, and culture, please check out my blog at: http://kneehow.blogspot.com/

Essays About The Elevator Pitch

The elevator pitch is a key skill to have, to people's eyes from wandering...

As a result, I have started putting down in words everything that I have learned about what makes an elevator pitch effective. This includes a primer entitled Elevator Pitch 101 as well as a number of related essays...

Essays About The Elevator Pitch

Read email with a dance pad

 

Explanation

We’ve created applications that can be controlled using a dance pad instead of the keyboard or mouse. We have StepMail which allows you to read, delete and flag your email and StepPhoto which allows you to organize your photos. Using these applications is fun, helps reduce RSI, and gets you up out of your chair.

http://research.microsoft.com/vibe/projects/stepUI.aspx

Everyone wants a new PC

Sorry to hear my P5E board doesn't support DDR3 RAM... but who cares about geekspeak... it's still a smoking fast system.

I managed to run out of 2GB of memory with Flight Simulator X though... what a pig.

Apparently building a new PC and creating a video qualifies for a reward.  I should have taped my experience... 6 hours of cursing, dropped screws, band-aids, and XP still took 45 minutes to install (same as my old PC).

It’s finally done! The “Max Builds a PC series” wraps up with the build process from start to finish. I had a lot of fun throughout this entire series starting with debating and choosing the parts with all of you all the way to the time I spent in the studio putting it all together. My only regret is that I have to give this 5.9 rated PC away rather than keeping it for myself……… Oh yes, you read that right: this got a 5.9 rating from Windows Vista’s experience rating system!

Page 3 - Max Builds a PC: The Final How-To Video and WINNER! | Posts | Channel 8

I'll probably cough up $50 for another 2GB of RAM.  Glad I got the 8800 GT... if you're buying a new PC for anything but email & web surfing, get a good video card.

Why i like my new computer

I recently upgraded to a more powerful "beast" of a computer to play the latest Flight Simulator X and for checking my email (and maybe some work too).  I'm a bit rough at assembling systems (the last one I built was in '99) but I managed to figure out how to put the pieces together without bending too much, and in only 8-10 tries.  With no smoke, and only a few reversed cables, I think my warranty is still good.

I'm still trying to figure out why I need to deal with standoffs, motherboard mounting screws, and those stupid connectors for power switches, reset buttons, and LEDs.  There has got to be an easier way.  This stuff has been the same since the 80s.

The other thing that killed me were the rebate forms.  I kept asking myself why I'm wasting a half-hour of my life filling out an $8 rebate form and going to the different web sites for registration.

One thing I liked, since I don't have front-facing audio jacks...  this stuff is magic.

Another thing I liked... the Asus Nvidia 8800 GT...  this is the real beast.

I did have to upgrade the motherboard BIOS and video card drivers from Nvidia to get the system stable.

Now I can see cars driving in FSX... for the price of a couple of hours of real flying time. 

Now if I can only figure out how to stop an uncontrolled helicopter spin.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/

BBC NEWS | Technology | Brain control headset for gamers

Well, looks like my wiimote just became obsolete.  Worst $45 I ever spent.

A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year.
"It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv.
"It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively," she added.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Brain control headset for gamers

Actually, it seems to use a similar technology, a gyroscope, to detect movement and facial expressions.  The one difference?

"Communication between human and machine has always been limited to conscious interaction, with non-conscious communication -- expression, intuition, perception -- reserved solely for the human realm. At Emotiv, we believe that future communication between human and machine will not be limited to the conscious communication that exists today. Users will demand that non-conscious communication play a much more significant role."

http://tinyurl.com/2ad9ur

Though the thing looks a bit like an 80's headset with tentacles, it still sounds incredible.

The 80s is probably where they got their design idea...

"I honestly believe that the next big leap in immersive technology will be very much like Brainstorm." - Douglas Trumbull, Brainstorm

But why gaming?  Why not just turning off the lights in your house, or changing the channel on the TV, or programming your Tivo?

More info on the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology.

It looks like controlling a computer with your brain has been around since the mid-90's.  From Wikipedia:

"in experiments beginning in the mid-1990s, Niels Birbaumer of the University of Tübingen in Germany used EEG recordings of slow cortical potential to give paralysed patients limited control over a computer cursor."

Of course, it took months of training to write 100 characters an hour, so it didn't work very well.

Looks like my light switch idea was already tested with good results, albeit in the virtual world.

"In 2000, for example, research by Jessica Bayliss at the University of Rochester showed that volunteers wearing virtual reality helmets could control elements in a virtual world using their P300 EEG readings, including turning lights on and off and bringing a mock-up car to a stop."

Who's behind this latest innovation?  I'm guessing the Fraunhofer Society, the killers of the physical music media and inventors of MP3 have something to do with it.

Neatorama » Blog Archive » The Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos

 

You’ve seen these tech logos everywhere, but have you ever wondered how they came to be? Did you know that Apple’s original logo was Isaac Newton under an apple tree? Or that Nokia’s original logo was a fish?

Let’s take a look at the origin of tech companies’ logos and how they evolved over time

Neatorama » Blog Archive » The Evolution of Tech Companies’ Logos

Yahoo eats its creative brains?

Design and Innovation are really similar and complementary terms.  Design is "to conceive or fashion in the mind; to invent" while innovation is to improve on a design, or invention, probably through more design.  It is an iterative process that happens in waves.

Kind of like job cuts.  During times of stress, the first ones to go are R&D.  The last person to go is the one who turns off the lights at night and makes the coffee in the morning.

Interesting times are in store for Yahoo after axing 1,000 employees.  Someone else did some cold ballpark estimates for the effect the cuts will have on YHOO's stock price & EPS.  Apparently the more people they cut, the more operating profit they will have?  Sounds a bit flaky and unsustainable to me.  Are they going to have the board of directors installing more memory in the servers at Yahoo, or are they just going to outsource everything to Amazon S3?

The entire Yahoo Design Innovation Team, aka yHaus, has been axed en masse, Portfolio.com has confirmed with one of the team's former members.

"Yahoo Design Innovation team has been shut down completely," wrote Doug Fritz, a former full-time staffer for the team, in an email.

Confirmed: Yahoo Design Innovation Team Axed - News Blog - Daily Brief - Portfolio.com

No word on whether they were measuring innovation vs. profit at Yahoo, or the social aspects cutting 1,000 jobs will have on corporate culture.  Perhaps this is a poison pill designed to stop any hostile takeover?

One designer posted some really interesting data visualization videos around FAA flight data here.  Like living organisms, the planes graphically pour in and out of the US.

Here is a list of a few of web sites of the former Yahoo design innovation team for further inspiration.

http://www.aaronkoblin.com/
http://www.ghost-hack.com/
http://www.bigpixel.com/
http://www.practicalist.com/
http://www.dougfritz.com/
http://jennylc.com/
http://danielmassey.net/
http://recombine.net/
http://interactive.usc.edu/members/adm/

Innovation is quite similar to the creation of life.  It is a drastically changing event that impacts everyone around it.  Sometimes innovation may even shorten life.

Speaking of life and living, one of my friends sent me photos of their unborn son.  This feels to me like looking into a crystal ball and being able to see a life before it sees the world.  Incredible stuff...

Like watching the creation of life, being able to watch what is happening in the brain is as incredible.  It is still a very mysterious part of our anatomy, though every day technology turns into a Rosetta Stone for translation and decoding of our thoughts and actions into meaning.

One technology that captures my interest is brain single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) 3D imaging.  This technology gives psychiatrists and scientists the ability to compare the brains of various subjects and view incredible 3D visualizations of the inner workings of the brain.  Picture a cure for brain-related disorders, and perhaps even better-tasting food.

Cardiac MRI provides the ability to look into the inner workings of the heart.  Picture longer lives and a healthier brain.

However, with all of the advances in science, there does not yet exist a tool to visualize the soul or even prove that it exists, though fetal imaging gets pretty close to seeing a mother and father's soul combined into a living being.

What does this all have to do with Yahoo cutting its innovation teams?  Perhaps it leaves them to go on to more important work than just building a better web site, search engine, or social network, like getting rid of lost baggage or delays at airports, or inventing a way to visualize the soul.

Just my $0.02.

Innovation in Canada

I am a member of a task group studying innovation within our company.  This seems to be a prevailing topic as the focus moves from monetizing physical assets (capital goods, real estate, hardware, software) to monetizing innovative ideas (think green, cost reductions and efficiencies, patents, best of breed designs) and ensuring that we keep up with the increasingly fast-moving R&D train of the world, and all of those building cranes.

Canada does have a way to go, though we do have RIMM and our Canadian Space Agency... and CATA.

Canada’s lack of innovation, a 14^th place ranking or a D Grade in Innovation, among the 17 OECD nations, is leading to mediocre socio-economic performance compared to other developed countries (Conference Board of Canada)

Source: CATAAlliance Executive Dashboard, February, 2008

Is D a pass? 

Some of the focuses of CATA, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, include:

• Building a brand for Canada (isn't this Tim Hortons?)
• Creating an Industrial Strategy for Canada (outsourcing and a higher CAD?)
• Attracting, retaining and training best talent (George Romero is moving to Toronto)
• Public Safety and National Security with an eye on protecting privacy(unlike the US, where the GOP walked out of the House today because they couldn't get their NSA bill passed)

The membership has a noticeable slant towards manufacturers, which is probably because Canada has a large amount of them. 

So what is OECD and how do they have the authority to rate our innovative spirit? It's the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.  Since this was written, there are now 30 nations on the list, so maybe Canada's been bumped a bit higher (or lower..)

In the US, a government task group has been created from top executives in the largest corporations to figure out how to quantify and measure innovation.  This committee, aptly and verbosely titled Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economic Advisory Committee (MI21cEaC would make a good strong password) has Steve Ballmer of Microsoft as one of its members.  Other companies with representatives include Wal-Mart, 3M, and IBM.

Oddly enough, Steve Jobs or anyone else from Apple isn't represented.

So why is everyone caring so much about innovation today?

"Innovation is a key determinant of economic growth and improvements in living standards over the long run. "

Sounds important.  So how do we measure innovation in an IT consulting organization?  In the "real world" outside the business, patents and R&D expenditures are used as proxies to measure innovation.  One KPI used is R&D / GDP (%).  SInce we don't have GDP in our organization, perhaps R&D spend / Total Revenue is a good KPI?  For measuring expenses perhaps, but innovation has got to be much more than figuring out how much money is being thrown at a problem.

Inside the business, there should be many ways to measure innovation.  Of course, before you can measure you must define.  The problem with the term "innovation" is that it has many possible connotations.  Invention is the creation of an idea.  So is innovation?  No.  Innovation, from what I understand is an idea that significantly improves on a previous idea (invention) or combines multiple ideas in a unique way, and demonstrates it to others in a repeatable fashion.

For things like this I look to Wikipedia, possibly the most revolutionary innovation since the printed word.  Since we're trying to relate this to business & government, I will go with this example.

In economics, business and government policy,- something new - must be substantially different, not an insignificant change. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. Innovations are intended to make someone better off, and the succession of many innovations grows the whole economy.

To simply even further, you need to define what "value" is from an economic sense.

Value is...

"the amount (of money or goods or services) that is considered to be a fair equivalent for something else; "he tried to estimate the value of the produce at normal prices" - Free Dictionary

Sounds like apples to oranges... each of them could be priced matched and both are fruits, but some people like apples and some people like oranges.  Maybe Total Economic Value provides a better defnition?

"TEV is composed by use values, option values and non-use components. There is not in the literature a single standard categorization nor terminology. Often Total Value is reported as the sum of use value and non-use values or passive values"

Ouch.  Maybe not.

How do you increase value through innovation? 

Change the world.

Simpify. 

Livestation Beta Opens Up

I just got approved for the Livestation trial.  I'm a bit underwhelmed, since I have 1 channel (Al Jazeera) and a couple radio stations.

The quality is good, but for now I'll stick with Joost.

European Livestation users will have access to the BBC, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, France 24 in French and English, Euronews, Canal+, Sky News and two BBC Radio stations with the new beta test unveiled today. US users will just get Al Jazeera, France 24 and BBC Radio for now, but Berlucchi was quick to remind me that this is still a technical trial to prove that the technology is working and that there is actually a demand for such an offering.

Livestation | NewTeeVee: Livestation Opens Up Beta Test, Focuses on News | Download the free Livestation player