Email from Arnie: Dear Dr. Shurtz, You have discussed various telecom subjects, equipment and toys on Tech Talk before. Do you know anything about OOMA phones at www.ooma.com. I wonder if one has to keep their computer on 24/7 in order for this phone system to work? Do you see any problems with this voip telecom system? Any comments regarding the price of the system? Like you, I use Skype, but OOMA appears to be different. Thanks, Arnie McKechnie, Davidsonville, MD
Tech Talk Answers: OOMA is a great option. The voice quality has gotten good reviews. I am considering this service and dropping my Verizon landline. Your number can be ported. Cost is $250 a year and all US calls are free. International calls are normal VoIP rates. Premier Service is available for $99/year.
Email from Emily: Dear Richard, I listen to your program everyday in the OH Zone station in Taiwan. Because I want to improve my English in listening and speaking skill. You really give me a great help in English learning. Thank you very much! Best Regards, Emily Liang from Taiwan
Tech Talk Answers: Thanks for listening Emily.OH Zone is an Internet radio website with all English shows.
Email form James: Dear Tech Talk, Frankly, i didn’t understand the difference between geeks and nerds. But I was thinking about "The big bang theory", and I was pretty sure that, Sheldon would be the geek type and Leonard would be a nerd type. And who knows, Penny, may be you’re wife? So, I hope I understood well. James
Tech Talk Answers: Thanks James. I think you understand the difference quite well. Over time nerds have morphed into geeks.
Email from Lauren: Dear Dr. Shurtz, In the past 7 months I have rec’d 2 speeding violation citations in Montgomery county, issued by a camera. Prior to these, I had never received a speeding ticket in my entire driving history. I have been driving for over 3 1/2 decades. After spending hours researching the circumstances surrounding the first ticket, which was issued in May, I determined that another vehicle that was very close to my car and in front of me actually triggered the camera but I got the ticket! I challenged this one and it was voided.
In the 2nd one I just got in the mail, there are no other vehicles near my car in the pictures I’ve been sent. I am wondering how I can learn more about these cameras and your thoughts on how I can discredit their authenticity/reliability when I go to court to disprove this ticket. Thanks, Lauren
Tech Talk Responds: You first defense was very good. The only other defense that I found was if the time delay after the yellow was too short. One person won that case. These tickets are hard to beat. There is a plastic film you can place over your license plate. It allows the license number to be seen from ground level, but blocks it when viewed from above.
Lars and Jens Rasmussen are the innovators behind Google Maps and Google Wave
Lars Rasmussen and Jens Rasmussen were born in Denmark.
Lars received an MS in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Edinburgh in 1992 and a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley in 1998.
They were hired by Digital Fountain a startup company when dotcoms were golden.
When the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000s, the Rasmussen brothers were laid off within weeks of each other.
There were virtually no jobs to look for in technology. So the brothers cashed in one of their pensions and bank accounts to create their own company.
Lars had done some work in Sydney for his old employer Digital Fountain before being laid off and had fallen in love with a Cuban girl, Yarima, who lived there.
So in 2003, Lars moved to Sydney and convinced two of his Australian friends, Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma, to help build a prototype for the new mapping platform.
The four formed a loosely structured company called Where 2 Technologies.
By the end of 2003, the four engineers had an online mapping prototype in hand.
They attempted to VC funding in CA. No one thought they could make money.
Sequoia almost funded them, but that fell through when Yahoo improved its maps.
Google was interested. They didn’t have maps technology at the time.
After patiently waiting for Google’s IPO, they finally received an offer in 2004. They remember that they only had $16 between by the time the sale went through.
Lars joined Google and worked with the team that created Google Maps.
The first mash-up saw two developers reverse-engineer Google Maps to display rental listings from Craigslist. And the rest is history.
They left the Maps team in 2007 and started Google Wave (codenamed Walkabout).
They wanted to make a high stress incubator like a real startup.
Google Wave would operate as a start-up company within Google.
The 60-person Wave team would be based in Sydney, Australia, far away from Google’s corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Google employees who wanted to work on Wave would have to take a risk.
The team took cuts to their bonus pay, with the hopes of a big payout.
And their project would be secret. The rest of Google’s project files, codes and other documents are accessible to anyone in the company. Not Wave’s.
Along the way, they found another form of motivation: the fear of failure.
Google Wave is e-mail updated for the Internet age.
E-mail is based on the snail-mail format.
Wave makes mail collaborative and instant. When you type a message to a friend, he or she sees what you’re typing as you type it.
Wave also lets users collaborate on editable documents, called Wikis, share photos, update blogs, set appointments and chat in big groups.
A translation function called Rosy will translate chat messages between languages as you write.
Currently it is in preview and limited distribution
Wave is what Google thinks email would look like if it were invented today instead of 40 years ago.
Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless — in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is a conversation with multiple participants — participants are people added to a wave to discuss and collaborate on its content.
Participants can reply any time and anywhere within a wave, and they can edit content and add more participants as a wave develops.
It’s also possible to rewind waves with the playback functionality, to see what happened, and when.
A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.
Article of the Week: Innovator’s DNA
Harvard Business Review, December 2009
According to a six year study of innovators, the most creative executive possess five discovery skills: associating, questioning, observing, experimenting, and networking.
These skills form the basis of what may be called creative intelligence.
Dyer, et al, contend that these skills can be cultivated, if the individual is not born with them.
Associating — They have found that associating is the unifying activity in innovation. Associating is the ability to connect seemingly unrelated pieces of information from different sources to trigger new associations and new ideas. The process to trigger these ideas requires disciplined thinking using the next four elements.
Questioning — Innovators must ask the right question and be clear about the purpose of his thinking. The question should challenge the status quo. The innovators must ask “why?” or “why not?”, or “what if?” As Ratan Tata, Tata Group chairman, puts it, “question the unquestionable.”
Observing — Innovators must gather data through observation. They might observe customers, competitors, neighbors, or even pets.
Experimenting — Innovators must try the ideas through experimentation. This might be intellectual exploration, physical tinkering, or engagement in new surroundings. They must work within the constraints of the problem and understand the consequences or implications of the innovative idea.
Networking — Innovators must network and talk with people with radically different perspectives. They should be their own devil’s advocate and adopt a point of view diametrically opposed to his first inclination. Innovators must look at the question or problem from multiple points of view, an essential element of critical and creative thinking.
This process of innovation is remarkably similar to the process of critical thinking defined by Paul and Elder. They agree with Dyer, et al, that creativity can be cultivated.
The Droid will be a serious competitor to the iPhone. More specifically Droid II.
The Android operating system runs on the Linux kernel and was developed by Android Inc. and later purchased by Google.
Sprint, T-Mobile, LG, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Google and others are members of a group called the Open Handset Alliance, which has 50 members who develop open standards for mobile devices.
Android is the No. 1 software for the Alliance.
AT&T and Verizon are not members of the alliance.
You must have a Gmail account. The phone’s interface is really as easy as entering your Google username and password.
Google apps are so fast and flexible that every Android phone can have its own sense of identity.
Droid is fast for web browsing. The turn-by-turn GPS got great reviews.
The Droid’s screen resolution is slightly better than the iPhone.
The iPhone’s is 480 x 320 on a 3.5-inch diagonal screen
The Droid’s is 480 x 854 on the 3.7-inch screen.
The Droid has a 5 megapixel camera with a flash.
Video quality was also strong, although there are no editing tools.
The Droid captures video at 720 x 480 and 24 frames per second, while the iPhone records at 640 x 480 and 30 frames per second.
There is no iTunes connection. Music is not as good as the iPhone or iPod. You can simply copy songs to the phone and store them on the SD card.
There are more than 10,000 apps for the Droid and that number is growing.
Other features
Storage: Removable 16 GB SD card expandable to 32 GB.
Points of pressure on the screen. Not as good as iPhone.
Mini USB connection
Syncs with Google Docs very nicely
Battery life drains quickly when you leave the sync on.
Battery is removable.
Wi-fi
Conclusion: Verizon has a winner. I am waiting for Droid II