Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
The Diamond Age is emerging
I've been writing for a while about the Energy Economy and the Space Economy as emerging trends. But there is yet another emerging trend--the Diamond Age. Diamonds are fascinating stuff--the hardest substance in the world, with brilliant clarity and appearance, yet made from the cheapest of materials--carbon.
Natural diamonds are scarce, and hence, valuable. Industrial, manmade diamonds have been around for a while, but have usually been small and of poor quality. More recently, a Russian process for creating diamonds has been transported to the U.S. with some success, but the diamonds are yellow in color, limiting their appeal for both jewelry and certain kinds of industrial and optical applications.
Inexpensive diamonds, of sufficient size that they can be formed or machined into usable shapes, is a kind of holy grail for manufacturing and science. In an age of cheap diamond materials, the effects would be far reaching. Industrial processes that involve machining would become much faster and more efficient as diamond tool heads would replace carbide, which breaks and/or wears out fast compared to diamonds. Cheaper manufacturing processes would lower the cost of many items, and make other items available for the first time. Even in our homes, a diamond knife would never wear out and would never lose its edge.
Now Carnegie-Mellon researchers (hat tip to SlashDot) have developed a new process to produce optical quality , large diamonds. The process is producing much larger diamonds than anyone has ever been able to make, suggesting that "the Diamond Age is upon us."
What is the effect on communities? The most plentiful source of carbon on the planet is coal. If your region used to have a booming coal economy, start thinking (as a long term strategy) about the effect of cheap diamonds on your region. How about heavy industry? Would machine shops and equipment manufacturers benefit from improved efficiencies? This is still a few years away, but the ripple effects of cheap diamonds will be extensive.
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Microsoft kicks Dell and HP in the teeth
Microsoft has announced its new, 2nd generation XBox. It's a lot more than a game console, and can do many things that a home PC can do--play movies and CDs, surf the Web, and display photos on your television. Although Microsoft is being fairly quiet about these features, the new XBox has more capable hardware than most Wintel personal computers. And it's quite capable of doing anything a Dell or HP computer running Windows can do.
So Microsoft is now in direct competition with its two biggest customers, who buy millions of copies of Windows and Office per year. Why is Microsoft doing this? Because they are losing the battle, and they have to capture customers somehow. Apple totally dominates the music business, and Yahoo's new subscription service is likely to gather up what crumbs are left in that market. Industry pundits are pretty confident that Apple's next foray will be to do for movies what they have done for music (and I agree). Microsoft has no answer to that, either. Home entertainment is driving the computer business, and the market for spreadsheets and PowerPoint has been flat for years. Microsoft has very little to offer in the new and booming music/video/entertainment markets, where all the money will be for the next several years.
So the only way that Microsoft can see to get back and retain control of customers is to get into the hardware business. Even at the risk of alienating their biggest customers. But if Microsoft is in trouble, Dell and HP are in worse shape. They really have no alternative to selling Windows computers. Both sell a few computers with Linux, but it amounts to pocket change for the companies.
IBM saw this coming years ago, and made the switch to Linux as the core of its business. But HP and Dell don't have an exit strategy, so they will have to continue to buy from Microsoft even as the company tries to take customers away from them.
One last loser in this is Intel. IBM makes the PowerPC chips that power its own computers and servers, and is the primary supplier to Apple. Guess what chip is used in the XBox? That's right, it's a PowerPC chip. Microsoft has been at the mercy of Intel for the past twenty years, and has had to continually adapt Windows to run on Intel hardware. But Microsoft has freed itself of that problem (the PowerPC is available from several suppliers). So Apple's computers and servers run on the PowerPC, IBM computers use the PowerPC, and now the XBox runs on the PowerPC. Intel is in trouble with its highly profitable processor line.
And one last thing.....guess what Microsoft used to develop the XBox software while the hardware was under development? Yup, it was Macs.
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Nanostructure hydrogen fuel tanks
The single biggest problem facing the transition from fossil fuel powered cars to hydrogen-powered cars is the storage of hydrogen. The energy density of hydrogen (normally a gas, not a liquid) is much lower than gasoline, so you have to compress it at very high pressures to be able to store enough of it in a tank small enough to fit in a car. In other circumstances, hydrogen stored at high pressure would be called a bomb, so how you store hydrogen in an vehicle subject to occasional violent crashes is important.
New theoretical research suggests that a breakthrough has finally been achieved. Nanostructure researchers have proposed new kinds of nanotubes and buckyballs that would soak up hydrogen like a sponge and store in safely in the molecular structure of the nanotube or buckyball--in other words, a dense storage system that is nonexplosive.
The Wired article goes on to say that chemists are confident they can make these nanosystems work, which is important. The question remaining is the actual storage capacity of a reasonably sized tank that would fit in a car; some scientists are predicting capacity could be as high as 300 miles of travel, while others think it might be lower, on the order of 100-150 miles of travel. But safe hydrogen storage is the holy grail of the Energy Economy, and that might be just around the corner.
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Cow manure powers hydrogen cars?
The emerging Energy Economy continues to evolve in unexpected ways. A Minnesota farmer and researchers from the University of Minnesota have developed a method to generate electric power from a fuel cell that uses cow manure as the feedstock.
The prototype fuel cell generates 5 kilowatts--enough to power a modest home but not enough to run a whole farm. Nonetheless, it is a significant development because it uses a feedstock (manure) that is currently something that is a disposal problem in many areas. It's also good news for rural communities, since it could provide a significant measure of energy independence and/or could help a rural region become a net energy producer by selling power back to the electric company, if enough fuel cells (running at higher efficiencies) were in use.
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Utah's fiber rolling out to neighborhoods
This report [link no longer available] from a Utah resident highlights two of the best-known fiber projects in the country: iProvo and UTOPIA (hat tip to Dave Fletcher's weblog). The iProvo muni fiber is 100 times faster than cable modem and 250 times faster than DSL. In other words, it is world class service, of the kind that is common in lots of other countries. Utah gets the connection between broadband and economic development, and the state has the quality of life, especially outdoor sports like hiking and skiing, to be attractive to companies who want affordable housing costs and a great quality of life to go along with affordable broadband.
We're going to increasingly see a Digital Divide between states that get it and states that don't.
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Muni fiber: 3x payback the first year
A muni fiber system in Utah's Salt Lake Valley installed to manage traffic throughout the region had an installed cost of $51 million and an expected ANNUAL payback of $179 million in savings.
The Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) uses the fiber to manage more than 50 major traffic corridors, coordinate signal changes on more than 600 traffic lights, provide traffic monitoring via video cameras, and hook up truck scales.
The system has provided significant reductions in commuting time (saving time and gas), and over the long term, will reduce the need to build more roads.
Utah got this one right--we need digital road systems to reduce the demand for our old, 20th century road systems. The article does not say, but let's hope they threw in some extra fiber for other uses. Traffic management could become the anchor tenant for fiber projects in many regions, with the transportation savings helping to fund the effort and leveraging the investment for wider community benefit.
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2001 and a space odyssey
Embarrassed, perhaps, by the success of garage entrepreneurs and visionaries like Bert Rutan, NASA has proposed a new two stage approach to getting to, from, and around space. Instead of trying to design complex one-size-fits-all vehicles like the now rattletrap Space Shuttle, NASA is proposing to partner with a whole group of private sector designers and firms to build two new space vehicles.
A Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV) would move people from earth to orbit, using the space station as a transit point. A second vehicle, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, or CEV, would stay in space and be used for orbital work (repairing satellites, weather and astronomy studies, etc.) and for trips to and from the moon.
If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because it is--it is exactly what Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick imagined it would be like in 2001: A Space Odyssey--back in 1968. Apparently senior NASA officials finally read the book and/or watched the movie. And we're only ten years late, sort of. We don't have anywhere near the level of technology envisioned in the movie, probably because NASA has been asleep for nearly thirty years.
But let's not focus too much on history. NASA is making the right moves, and the private sector contracts for CTVs, CEVs, and related support and services will be worth billions. Another signal of the emerging Space Economy.
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Cleveland tackles digital literacy
The City of Cleveland is addressing the issue of digital literacy. The program will offer training and certification to 30,000 low income workers over the next five years. This is an important program; so many areas of the country bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of opportunity for unemployed workers but fail to adjust economic development spending and job training programs to the realities of the global Knowledge Economy.
Although I applaud Cleveland for diving in, I would prefer to see some changes in their approach.
The first is the term "digital literacy" itself. It's a lousy phrase that does not mean anything--are we saying we should be literate about digits? The word "literate" traditionally refers to reading and writing skills, so why are we trying to redefine it to mean something else--and what is that something? I prefer the phrase "technological competency," which means we are able to use technology skillfully to perform every day tasks.
Cleveland has partnered with two private sector companies, which is fine, except that the city is using these firms' definitions and certification. I'd like to see Cleveland work collaboratively with some other interested regions/towns/cities to develop an open source definition of technological competency, and partner with some nonprofit educational institutions to develop an open source certification process.
The training and certification can still be performed by private sector firms, but now the common good is driving the process, rather than profit motive (note that I'm a businessman and so am not opposed to profits--it's just that I also believe communities, if they are spending tax dollars, need to do so in a way that accrues the most good to the most people).
Hopefully, the Cleveland effort will inspire other regions and communities to develop similar programs.
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Apple quietly gets into the video business
Apple quietly edged closer to a full-fledged video download strategy yesterday with a free upgrade to the company's iTunes software, which works on both Windows and the Mac. EnGadget and other sites are discussing the upgrade, which now allows users to store videos in the iTunes library along with music.
Apple is not saying much about the new feature, which means they aren't ready to lay all their cards on the table. But selling movies is the next logical step after the hugely successful iTunes music business.
What Apple is likely to pioneer is a video distribution system, which will really be more interesting than the content, and will open up all kinds of opportunities for independent producers of video content. While it is still a stretch to download a 2 hour movie using the twenty year old, copper-based DSL and cable modem broadband, the average 22 minute TV program is a different matter.
Instead of having to set up the VCR or the TiVo to record a program at a certain time, imagine if you could go to the iTunes store and just pay ninety-nine cents to buy a copy. And imagine if you could browse an archive of every television show from the last forty years, and you could buy programs in bulk for under fifty cents?
If I was looking for content to test the waters of the iTunes video store, I'd be looking at back episodes of The Simpsons. There would be huge demand, I'd bet, and with it we would come closer to the death of television as we know it.
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PVPs on parade
I love a good gadget as much as the next, um, geek, but the current techie obsession with PVPs (Personal Video Players) baffles me. Engadget has a review of a new one from Mustek, which is kind of an iPod on steroids (it has a 40 gig hard drive, which will store several movies).
Is it any wonder the U.S. is a bit overweight (to put it mildly, from all reports) and that our kids are also struggling with weight problems? All we seem to want to do is sit around and watch movies...in the house, in the car, on an airplane, waiting in line, in bed, walking down the street. In short, sitting around watching other people engage in entirely made up stories is fast becoming the national pasttime. It makes watching pro sports look healthy, since real people engaged in a real game is somewhat closer to reality. Instead of having a life of our own, we would apparently prefer to watch other people pretend to have a life. It's depressing.
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