Permanent data storage

How advanced do you think we are, in terms of being able to store information?

The most common medium that we have now would be paper, tapes, CDs, harddrives and memory cards.

You might say that we have progressed well in terms of technology. The memory cards we used now sure beats the floppy disks that I used back in the 1980/90s in terms of speed and capacity. But reality is, these medium of storage dun last very long. Worst, due to the technology advancement, we find it difficult to access old mediums. Try finding a disk drive to read your vintage 5 1/4in floppy disks. In another few more years, you probably will not be able to access your old CDs. Heck, most laptops nowadays do not even come with CD drives anymore. Go further, a decade into the future, I doubt anyone has USB connections.

But access aside, how long can our current means of information storage last? Paper can last several hundred years without significant deterioration under storage conditions in libraries and archives. Digital storage like your CD and HDD could probably last a hundred year at most. Magnetic tapes will last max of 50 years.

Compared to what the Egyptians did. They carved in stone. Those last for a few thousand years. Until now, we could not outdo them.

Someone invented quartz glass storage. These babies technically could last forever.
Wedding photos storage, anyone?

Read more here.
http://gizmodo.com/5946110/this-piece-of-glass-can-store-data-forever

Having our own labs.

Innovation is key in my industry.

Yet in most of the companies I worked in, research and development is managed haphazardly at best. During good times,a single piece of equipment or technology might catch the eyes & ears of management and kickstart a fury of activities to purchase/learn, trial and implement. Most of the time, it is a series of disconnected activities carried out by individuals out of their interest.

R&D projects compete for the same resources that works on paid client projects. There are often multiple start-stop cycles as different resource hops in and out of the R&D projects. Its tricky to manage such projects as internal requirements can change over time and there are usually tension between business (that wants to see business value) and IT (who are just excited to try anything new and innovative).

The current company that I'm with right now concluded on the same as well. Global HQ created a labs toolkit which contains the necessary information required to setup R&D labs  across all regional offices. This includes list of hardware and software to purchase, the type of packaged demos, possible areas to R&D into etc.

For once, we have budget set aside yearly to run these, would be really interesting to see how far we can bring the labs concept to in POSSIBLE Singapore. On plan we are looking at being able to showcases prototypes around:

• Augmented Reality 
• Proximity 
• Kinect 
• RFID
• NFC
• Scentbot
• Leapmotion 

Interesting times ahead. Let's see if I can manage to take a couple of videos of the demos in the near future.

For those who want to lead, read.

I miss reading. Being with a good book is way more enjoyable than the best movie. I'm sure many of you who might be reading this would agree.

When you read, your mind wanders. It enters a world beyond what the author is trying to convey and conjure. I would like to think that we learn and gain a little more wisdom from these experiences. Studies have shown that the more varied is our reading the better we learn.

Having said that, when was the last time you really read. Shut off all outside distractions and read. Bite each word and sentence, chew on it and digest the meanings. I find that truly enjoyable, but its such a rare occurrence now. As work and family commitments piles up, its so difficult to just have some time off to read. And its not just me or us, according to this article by HBR, we are reading less. We are getting more literate, but reading less.

I aspire to read everyday. Could be anything, just 15mins a day before I go off to bed. That will be my new resolution. Read more, to know less and ask more.

Read more here (pun intended).
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/for_those_who_want_to_lead_rea.html

Image credits: http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com 

Understanding someone's inner logic

This is an interesting article from Harvard Business Review.
How many times have we faced the same problem. We find someone's behavior or thinking as unreasonable or illogical. But if we delve deeper and probe with the right questions, we might be pleasantly surprised that its perfectly reasonable and logical when we understand the motivation and mindset that the person is working with.

This is especially important in the context of project management. When you face a seemingly unreasonable stakeholder or client, maybe its time to take a step back. And ask different questions. Find out what could be motivating this unreasonable request.

I remember this quote from Ayn Rand (one of my favourite writer), "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

Bear it in mind. It might get you out of an awkward confrontation.

Read more here.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/discovering_the_other_persons.html

Leap Motion gesture based interface

Ever since it was made popular by films like Minority Report (which I'm extremely proud to mention that Possible Worldwide's Chief Interaction Officer, Dale Herigstad was behind some of the UI concepts used in the film), using gesture to manipulate devices have been somewhat of a holy grail from a user experience standpoint.

Had the chance to work with Dale in the past, its almost next to impossible try to keep up with his ideas in UI with current available technology. He is always pushing technical dudes like me to the limit of what is feasible.

This gadget however looks really promising. Gesture based interaction with your computer to replace your keyboard and mouse. The ipod sized device allows you to control a computer as an I/O device with natural hand and fingers movements. 

The intro video on the site looks really good.

Only catch? Its not on sale yet. Expect delivery of the device in Dec 2012/Jan 2013.

Read more here.
http://www.leapmotion.com/

Image credits: Screen cap of leap motion video on http://www.leapmotion.com/