E-books finally suck less

New e-books are being released over the coming months that are starting to provide decent alternatives to paper. Some remaining issues to be solved are slow refresh rates (8/10 of a second) which prevent support of animation and video and lack of color. Color versions are supposed to be availble next year, and video is forecast to be supported by 2012.

The iRexReader 1000 which will be released in the coming months will have options such as touchscreen, bluetooth, wifi, and 3G cell connection.

My opinion is that this niche product for reading books/magazines etc. will become a true convergence device and in about 3-5 years will start to replace laptops for some uses and even mobile phones, assuming the form factor can be figured out, as well as replacing print.

Peter Drucker on Marketing

Jack Trout is a major thinker in the area of marketing strategy and spouts some good stuff in this article on Forbes.com, although he does wander a bit.

Jack starts with Drucker’s conception of marketing and tries to explain how to generate marketing success. I have tried to distill his four steps down into simpler terms below, and have also included Drucker’s quote, for if you remember just one thing from this article, it should be Drucker’s words.

1. Understand your competitors and your positioning relative to them in the customer’s minds
2. Develop a differentiated value proposition
3. Have a compelling argument based on direct comparisons with competitors
4. Do some good marketing

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." -Peter Drucker

Obama Suddenly Panicked After Gazing Too Far Into Future

Its from the Onion, and is damn funny.

MADISON, WI—Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) fell deathly silent in the middle of a speech on education before the Wisconsin Teachers Union Tuesday, his failure of words reportedly a result of the Democratic nominee's forward-looking tendencies suddenly bringing him a harrowing glimpse of a future world shaped by madness and horror. " click through to read the rest

Is the semantic web really the next big thing?

I really hate the web 2.0 et al terminology because it doesn't mean anything, and in general I'm not much for bullshit terms.

However, I am very interested in the future direction of the Internet, and recently found an interesting article on this topic from Forbes talking about what the author calls Web 3.0.

In Web 3.0: What's Next After What's Next the author makes his pitch, primarily about the semantic web, and I'm sure that it will lead to a number of speaking engagements for him.

Its an interesting read and a good conversation starter, although I’m not sold that the author has much of a clue about what the future of the web holds.

There is little discussion of ubiquitous or mobile computing for example, but he does dive a bit into software as a service and cloud computing. The author seems to have planted his flag firmly on the top of mount "semantic web", and waxes semi-eloquent on the topic for a number of pages.

I do believe that benefit will be derived from some of the approaches grouped under the semantic web topic, but that they will be felt most in areas where someone has the power to drive compliance with standards. Some of the arguments sound a bit like the next wave of "EDI will change the world" which then became "XML will change the world.

Additionally, some of the concepts fall prey to the dismal science's core tenet - humans are self-interested. People are not altruistic (if you think so, lets talk about utility), therefore they will do things that benefit themselves to the detriment of others.

In this particular context, they will abuse definitions of objects, global taxonomies, and anything else they see fit, unless someone has the power to stop them, or at least make them feel a little pain. This implies also that someone spends time and money monitoring and ensuring compliance, which given the scale of the web, is more than just an enormous undertaking.

So, I'm not so sure that the semantic web will truly change the world, but it is more likely than not that we will continue our steady advance towards SkyNet, at which point we will all either die or spend our days fighting cybernetic terminators. :)

Why rednecks may rule the world

Great stuff from the BBC, a snippet is below, you'll have to click through to the BBC for the rest.

By Joe Bageant
Author of Deerhunting With Jesus

During this US election cycle we are hearing a lot from the pundits and candidates about "heartland voters," and "white working class voters."

What they are talking about are rednecks. But in their political correctness, media types cannot bring themselves to utter the word "redneck." So I'll say it for them: redneck-redneck-redneck-redneck.

The fact is that we American rednecks embrace the term in a sort of proud defiance. To us, the term redneck indicates a culture we were born in and enjoy. So I find it very interesting that politically correct people have taken it upon themselves to protect us from what has come to be one of our own warm and light hearted terms for one another.

On the other hand, I can quite imagine their concern, given what's at stake in the upcoming election. We represent at least a third of all voters and no US president has ever been elected without our support.

Consequently, rednecks have never had so many friends or so much attention as in 2008. Contrary to the stereotype, we are not all tobacco chewing, guffawing Southerners, but are scattered from coast to coast. Over 50% of us live in the "cultural south", which is to say places with white Southern Scots-Irish values - redneck ...

Click here for the rest of the article

Artificial Super Muscles

Researchers have developed methods for creating nanotube reinforced composites which hold the possibility of one day being used as artificial muscle or skin.

Original research paper is here.

Bolo Tanks in the Near Future?

Next Big Future has a great article on how to a build a Bolo tank out of technology that is either available or relatively near term, with some interesting results.

My vote is on the hovercraft.