Moores Law

1965– You may have heard about Moore’s Law. This states that every 18 months, a processor will double in speed. The law’s name is coined after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore. He said:

It can’t continue forever. The nature of the exponential is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.

The law started with the Integrated circuit. It has continued to this day – especially since we switched ideas and, instead of speeding up, we double the amount of processors.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 13

Day in Tech History Brought to you by:Ready to get your own Drone? Get FREE SHIPPING on the DJI Phantom II or other drone!

* Apple discontinues the Power Mac G4

* Atari signs agreement with Williams Electronics

* Metallica sues Napster

One of the best bits of Gadget Show Live (http://www.gadgetshowlive.net/) is the support for the British Inventors’ Project (http://www.gadgetshowlive.net/whats-on/the-lab/copy-of-british-inventors-project). Designed to showcase the best of British invention and innovation, the Project sets aside part of the GSL for the inventors to demonstrate their products. It’s always interesting to see what’s on show, with some inventions little more than sketches on the back of an envelope, to final products looking for trade buyers and distributors.

There’s an award for the British Invention of the Year and last year the winner was the OmniO Rider (http://omnioworld.com/), a backpack buggy. You can here my interview from last year’s show here (http://geeknewscentral.com/2015/04/16/omnio-rider-backpack-buggy/) and it was good see that this invention has gone on to full production.

In 2016, the British Invention of the Year award went to eFOLDi (http://www.efoldi.co.uk/), an electric scooter that folds up into both a chair and a suitcase. The pictures show it both folded and unfolded, and the eFOLDi easily morphs between wheeled vehicle and suitcase. If you are interested, the eFOLDi is pre-ordering on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1726375706/efoldi-tm-the-most-versatile-personal-electric-veh) for GB£699 (while pledge levels remain). The videos on Kickstarter show more detail on folding and unfolding the scooter. The project is a short of its £90,000 goal with a little over a third raised and 25 days to go. Good luck.

Regrettably, I didn’t get to interview the eFOLDi team, but I was able to record the award ceremony, which was hosted by Hosted by David McClelland and Jason Bradbury. The audio isn’t great – I was standing at the back!

Over the next few posts, I’ll be covering the great inventions of the British Inventors’ Project 2016. There’s some fantastic stuff to come.

In this podcast (http://www.radiofreehpc.com/audio/RF-HPC_Episodes/Episode105/RFHPC105GTC.mp3), the Radio Free HPC team recaps the GPU Technology Conference.Since Rich is traveling around in some desert somewhere, Dan and Henry go it alone and discuss what happened at last week’s GTC’16 conference. They talk about the new Pascal (P1000) GPU, NVIDIA’s new server, and what happened at the concurrent OpenPOWER conference. A good time is had by all….”Download the MP3 (http://www.radiofreehpc.com/audio/RF-HPC_Episodes/Episode105/RFHPC105GTC.mp3) * Subscribe on iTunes (http://bit.ly/WgEZzd) * RSS Feed (http://bit.ly/QXKy3V)(http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/RadioFreeHpcPodcast/~4/vXuX_1YbYK8)

CAPCOM Number 1 (Deke Slayton): Okay. I think you ought to clearly understand there is absolutely no experience at all with landing without the helmet on.

SCHIRRA: And there no experience with the helmet either on that one.

CAPCOM: That one we’ve got a lot of experience with, yes.

SCHIRRA: If we had an open visor, I might go along with that.

CAPCOM: Okay. I guess you better be prepared to discuss in some detail when we land why we haven’t got them on. I think you’re too late now to do much about it.

SCHIRRA: That’s affirmative. I don’t think anybody down there has worn the helmets as much as we have.

CAPCOM: Yes.

SCHIRRA: We tried them on this morning.

CAPCOM: Understand that. The only thing we’re concerned about is the landing. We couldn’t care less about the reentry. But it’s your neck, and I hope you don’t break it.

SCHIRRA: Thanks, babe.

CAPCOM: Over and out

MC watches first live TV from Apollo 7

View of Florida from Apollo 7

Recovery of Apollo 7 Crew

Mission Control celebrates the end of a very successful Apollo 7 mission

Apollo 7 crew is welcomed aboard the USS Essex

Barbara Eden, Bob Hope, Paul Haney, and the crew of Apollo 7

Congratulations SpaceX on a successful landing on the Barge. Was awe inspiring. In addition today Ohana, I have a full stack of tech news.. Mike Dell will be guest hosting next show, so I am sure he will entertain you better than I do.. I off to the W...

April 12, 1976: Ronald Wayne gives up his 10% of Apple Stock

1976– What a position Ronald Wayne was in. He was the 3rd co-founder of Apple Computer on April 1 with 10% share. However, after two weeks Wayne sells his share for $800 back to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The reason why was because if the company was to go under, he would be liable for any debts incurred. While a solid reason why (Wayne had assets that couldn’t be risked in that nature), it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes as Apple is grossed in the billions. Wayne designed the original Apple logo and wrote the partnership agreement.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 12

Day in Tech History Brought to you by:Ready to get your own Drone? Get FREE SHIPPING on the DJI Phantom II or other drone!

* emoticons are first suggested (https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/72x72/1f609.png)

* Sega is guilty of intentional patent infringment

* First commercial SPAM is reported.

* Cisco discontinues the popular Flip brand camera

Congratulations SpaceX on a successful landing on the Barge. Was awe inspiring. In addition today Ohana, I have a full stack of tech news.. Mike Dell will be guest hosting next show, so I am sure he will entertain you better than I do.. I off to the W...

In the last of my smart home interviews from Gadget Show Live, I look at one of the new entrants to the market, Smanos (http://www.smanos.com/). The Dutch firm announced their new K1 Smart Hub (http://www.smanos.com/K1) at the show and while it’s a good-looking piece of kit, the K1 is coming into an increasingly crowded space. I chat with Rafael about Smanos and the difference it brings.

Coming from a security background, Smanos has brought its understanding of that space to the smart home. The first iteration of the K1 focusses on security: the starter kit includes a siren, door/window sensor, motion sensor and keypard with the Smart Hub. As might be expected, the devices use Z-Wave for communication and there’s an app for managing and controlling the system, so additional sensors can be added easily.

In order to set Smanos apart from the competition, the K1 has well designed sensors that wouldn’t look out of place in a bijoux pad. All white and chrome with surface detail, it’s clear that the sensors are part of a matched set, and not awkwardly thrown together to meet a functional need.

In addition to the K1 Smart Hub (GBÂŁ249), Smanos launched the UFO (http://www.smanos.com/ufo) panoramic Wi-Fi HD camera (ÂŁ149) with a massive field of view, and a smart video doorbell (http://www.smanos.com/doorbell) (ÂŁ159). Both of these look neat.

Windows 10 Tweaks, Synology printing tip, VGA to USB device, USB monitor

A British Gas incubator, Hive (https://www.hivehome.com/) has been a British success since 2013, bringing smart heating controls to UK homes. Building on the back of this success Hive are expanding their portfolio and making Hive the heart of the smart home. In the third of my smart home interviews from Gadget Show Live, I talk to Elvin about Hive and their new range of products.

The Hive team first realised that while almost everyone in Britain had a central heating system, it was often poorly controlled and inefficient, either through a lack of understanding of the controls or simple laziness. Few people go beyond adjusting a thermostat for summer and winter, never mind worrying about turning the heating off when out for the evening.

Next, they designed easy-to-use replacement heating controls that could be monitored and adjusted from a smartphone or website and fortunately the team used a standardised wireless protocol called ZigBee as part of the Hive solution. This crucially meant that the Hive system could now be extended with other new products using the same wireless technology.

Hive have added the three smart home basics of smart plugs, motion sensors and window / door sensors, with lighting to come soon. As with any smart home, there’s the complementary smart phone app for the review and control of devices with the home.

Finally, the backing of British Gas as a household name gave homeowners reassurance to adopt the new technology and install Hive.

The Hive heating system consists of the main hub, thermostat and receiver, and it costs GB£249 including installation. Extending the system into a smart home costs £39 for the smart plug and £29 for the motion and door sensors. There’s more info on Hive at www.hivehome.com (https://www.hivehome.com/).