HaloLens – my interest is peaked

Augmented reality has always interested me and I finally got around to signing up for Microsoft’s HaloLens community. I used to do quite a bit of work with Microsoft (somewhere around here I have a crystal cube for the ‘lasting contributions’ to Visual Studio 2005) but I’ve not exercised those skills in a while – so HaloLens seemed like an ideal opportunity.

The hardware shown looks powerful and flexible. I’ll need to come up with some use cases that can exercise its capabilities. I am sure that somewhere between ham radio, data analytics, 3d printing and my other interests there must be something.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that I’ll make it to a build event but hopefully I’ll get my hands on one somehow.

Tinkerplay – a must for 3D printing

If there is one program that anyone needs to have who is interested in 3D printing (or knows of a child that may be interested) — it is Tinkerplay. It runs on Windows, Android, Windows phone and iOS.

You can build various ‘creatures’ out of predefined parts. You can play with them in the building environment:

That’s an animated gif of a number of screenshots in a rendered environment.

Once you have everything defined the way you want, you can then build a parts list model that is ready to print:

Service Innovations over time…

I was in an exchange with Jim Spohrer (of IBM) the other day about Service innovations and he gave me the following lists dealing with service innovations:

Top Ten Service Innovations in all of History
1. Division of Labor – an entity gets to do more of what they do best, and less of what they do less well
2. Cities – local concentration of division of labor, including security and protection
3. Writing – allows communications over distance and time
4. Written Laws – brings more objectivity into governance and justice
5. Money – brings efficiency into exchange transactions
6. Universities – local concentration of division of knowledge, including preparation of next generation
7. Democracy – collective decision making via voting (citizen -> decision)
8. Republics – two stage collective decision making via voting (citizen -> representative -> decision)
9. Checks – safer than carrying paper money
10. Banks – safe storage of money, and compound interest/loans

Top Ten Service Innovations of Last 100 years
1. Universal Education – increases capability of population, and allows more complex problem solving
2. Universal Service – even rural people can communicate, and have right to communicate efficiently
3. Rural Electrification – even rural people can have lighting and access to modern appliances
4. Credit Cards – convenience and safety
5. Loyalty Programs – incentives for usage
6. Franchises – standard service in multiple places
7. FedEx – overnight package delivery
8. Automobile Transportation – systems of filling stations, roads, laws
9. Internet & Worldwide Web – access to information
10.  Wireless Communication Networks – Radio & Television – conquest of distance and access to service

Top Ten Service Innovations of Last 10 years (or so)
1. Amazon – market for books and things
2. eBay – market for personal stuff
3. iTunes – market for music
4. Etsy – market for home made things
5. Uber – market for rides
6. AirBnB – market for rooms
7. Smart Phones & App Economy – access to information, communications, and other mobile services, including cognitive assistants
8. MOOCs – massively open on-line courses to augment education
9.  Mutual funds – finance investments that provide benefits of diverse portfolios
10. Global IT-enabled Outsourcing – division of labor between nations and large corporations

I’d add 3D printing to this list myself, but that may be just me.

Top Ten Service Innovations that broke out in 2014
1. TransferWise – lower transaction cost of transferring money
2. Coinbase – bitcoin digital wallet
3. Apple Pay – easier to pay money out
4. Lending Club – easier method to get investments in and out (founded in 2006)
5. Quirky – inventor community (started in 2009)
6. Bill.com – small business pay bills better (started in 2008)
7. Betterment.com (investment personal assistant)
8. Kickstarter – crowd funding (I think this actually started in 2009)
9.  Amazon Echo (home assistant)
10. Google Nest (home assistant) (actually the first Nest appears to be released in 2011)

Some things to think about…
What would be on your list? What should make the list for 2015? Do these innovations have anything in common?

Low-cost dongle increases value of <$100 tablets

A while back Microsoft made a policy change that Windows will be free on small tablets. Because of that shift, I purchased an HP Steam 7 tablet for well under $100 (at the time I was working for HP). There are now a number of low-cost tablets on the market from a range of vendors (e.g. Dell Venue 8, HP Stream 8) that run full Windows 8.1.

One of the issues almost all of them have though is a single interface port – a micro-USB. Unfortunately, this is also used for charging and just plugging in a powered USB hub just doesn’t work to allow you to also connect to peripherals. So you can’t charge and access USB devices at the same time!

I came across a dongle from Dell (for about $20) that does exactly what I needed.

It lets me charge the tablet, while allowing me to plug in a powered USB hub and connect a mouse, my phone, a thumb drive… With the use of Mouse Without Borders I can even manipulate the cursor from my other PC – if needed. Right now I have this device controlling my 3D printer. Granted, it does charge it slowly but it is at least enough to keep up once fully charged.

Note the thumb drive attached and the tablet is still charging.

So the addition of the dongle took a nice, cheap tablet and turned it into a general purpose, portable workstation.