Category: Technology
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Making Things in Seattle
This summer I got interested in making things in Seattle. After nearly 25 years since my last attempt with robots, I got to work with robots. As part of the SparkSip: Tiny Task Bots project, we built a small robot that will be used for cleaning metal roof. Congrats to the kids who worked on this robot…
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Hi Robot, help me with my daily chores, please …
Yesterday I was talking about some ideas with my wife. The topic of robots came up. She rightly challenged me that these robots are not mostly about doing things that are not directly helping with daily items.I agree with her. Earlier this year, Melinda Gates wrote about the paucity of time in the Gates Notes annual…
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Microsoft gets IN!
Today was historic day for Microsoft. Microsoft is acquiring Linked In. And it joins the 443,000,000 other users in a new capacity – as an owner of the Professional Networking Services firm. Only about 5-6 years back, there was caution about endorsing folks on social networks including Linked In. And now Microsoft owns it. Thousands…
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Next 5 innovations please!
Yesterday my 6 year old son was in awe and asked me ‘are there cars that drive themselves?’. I thought that was great he was learning from the world and is interested in technology. We got to watch the BMW Concept 100 Car video. The coming years are intriguing and awesome. Many companies are…
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Tax filing experience from Turbo Tax keeps getting better
It is that time of the year for folks working and earning in USA. I am not a constitutional expert; but this much I understand. Come Apr 15th (or around there) we have to complete filing the tax returns to ensure that what may be due as per reams of legislation makes it to the…
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Investing and Prioritizing for Products without shouts – CSI method
In big companies and small companies, we are always brimming with many ideas but limited time or people to get work done. There are many ways to organize the work list and at many different granularities. A few years back we were in a product planning session with literally 1000+ items to consider. Yes, spreadsheets are great…
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Energy, engagement and early success in startups
In the past week, I spoke with founders and co-founders of startup companies. These companies are pursuing projects in diverse areas including internet-of-things, software-as-service for invoices and shipping, robotic games for consumers, novel application of sensors for physical environments, etc. The founders are bright, focused, and exude energy in their missions. They are mindful of the challenges…
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Retail Innovation – online, offline, and mobile integrated
Today I came across a nice experience that Home Depot has built up for connecting their online and offline experiences. In searching for a house hold tool – telescoping tool, I discovered the nice experience. I often go to my default store – Amazon. Unfortunately I did not find a suitable one. So I popped…
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Low low power connectivity
Yesterday during my jog with my friend we were chatting about if there are low powered connectivity solutions for devices. We knew about Bluetooth Low Energy and continuously shrinking WiFi chips. We also knew that WiFi has been focused on enabling higher bandwidth and longer distances. Today I discovered Passive WiFi which promises to reduce the…
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Model driven APIs and service
In the past few months, I had been building a set of services using nodejs. After having dabbled in JavaScript over the past year, I was looking for a way to build service side code as well with REST APIs. voila! I discovered nodejs which fits the bill. There are many tutorials online for how…