The wisdom that comes with experience seems like such a valuable asset to have. You have advice that people should listen to, you think, as you smirk condescendingly at the kid with the big idea and no clue what terrible obstacles stand between her and success.
I sometimes feel that skepticism creeping into my thinking when I look at a new idea being presented by an eager and innocent young entrepreneur. It’s a relatively recent thing, and I want to stamp it out like a cancer.
There’s no room in my world for that kind of nonsense. Who am I to tell someone that they can’t change the world? I say fight on. And if you fail I’ll give you a solid fist bump and tell you to get back on the horse, or whatever the saying is, and try again. Because you’re going to get it right, whether it’s this startup or another one.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
There’s no room in my world for that kind of nonsense (skepticism creeping into my thinking)
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
$4.30 -- serious micro-controller. :)
What is LaunchPad? LaunchPad is an easy-to-use development tool intended for beginners and experienced users alike for creating microcontroller-based applications. At $4.30, the LaunchPad offers everything you need to get started with your projects.
The LaunchPad development kit is a part of the MSP430 Value Line series. LaunchPad has an integrated DIP target socket that supports up to 20 pins, allowing MSP430 Value Line devices to be dropped into the LaunchPad board. Also, an on-board flash emulation tool allows direct interface to a PC for easy programming, debugging, and evaluation. Included are free and downloadable software development environments for writing and debugging software. LaunchPad can be used to create interactive solutions thanks to its on-board pushbuttons, LEDs, and extra input/output pins for easy integration of external devices.
I wonder it this works ok with the existing Arduino shields. Maybe not able to stack the pin-out headers, but at least you can jump the pins directly. :D
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Future-Proofing Your App on the Android platform
As a developer, I’m excited by Android’s potential as a single development platform that can make my apps available on a wide range of devices. From smartphones to televisions, Android is now being used on an increasingly diverse collection of hardware.
Last year’s Android SDK 1.6 release was the first to introduce support for variations in device hardware, paving the way for devices like the HTC Tattoo — a small screen device with a non-autofocus camera. Future devices, like Google TV, may not include some of the hardware features that we now expect, such a accelerometers and telephony.
We all want our apps available on as many devices as possible, but on some hardware they might just not make sense, so it’s important that apps are available only on the devices where they do.
This Mac devotee is moving to Linux - Dan Gillmor
Apple is pushing computer users as fast as it can toward a centrally controlled computing ecosystem where it makes all the decisions about what native applications may be used on the devices it sells -- and takes a cut of every dollar that is spent inside that ecosystem. This is a direct repudiation of its own history, and more broadly that of the larger personal-computing ecosystem, where no one can stop anyone else from writing and distributing software that other people might want to use.
Steve Jobs says Apple is a curator, nothing more. This grossly understates the control. Jobs says Apple has "made mistakes" in being the police, judge, jury and executioner in its Disney-style world, and is working hard to perfect the system.
But this is a disconnect with reality. Central control, no matter how well-intentioned, is itself the problem, not the solution. The "enlightened dictator" is fiction. And dangerous.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Android's purpose is to establish an open platform for developers to build innovative mobile apps.
Android's purpose is to establish an open platform for developers to build innovative mobile apps.
I think some people miss the point. Here's the first paragraph on the Android compatibility page:
"Android's purpose is to establish an open platform for developers to build innovative mobile apps." -- http://source.android.com/compatibility/index.html
It's not an OS nor a Phone. It's a dissident manifesto for creating a whole kind of mobile device.
It's basically saying, here's the common framework/platform/environment Android stands for, go take your own Linux kernel (Archos 7HT has an Ubuntu based kernel), take the Dalvik VM code, take the base/zygote code, cross-compile it, and make it run. Here's the SDK so you can build your own apps on your own forked platform.
It's aspiring for the holy grail, it's a big goal. And it's something left to be proven. There's a lot of promise for all kinds of mobile devices based on Android coming out in the next one year. Which will give us an idea of what kind of future Android aspires to have. And if it is able to execute, which is important.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Publicly available anonymous Healthcare data from CDC.
Community Health Data Initiative Interim Work Page
The Community Health Data Initiative is a collaborative effort among government and non-government partners to establish a network of suppliers and demanders of community health data, indicators, and interventions. Its purpose is to help Americans understand health and health care system performance in their communities, thereby sparking and facilitating action to improve performance and value.
The HHS Health Indicators Warehouse that is currently under development will serve as the data hub for the initiative. We consider health indicators to be measurable characteristics that describe the health of a population (such as life expectancy, mortality, disease incidence or prevalence, or other health states); determinants of health (such as health behaviors, health risk factors, physical environments, and socioeconomic environments); and health care access, cost, quality, and use. Depending on the measure, a health indicator may be defined for a specific population, place, political jurisdiction, or geographic area. NCHS is working with data, content, and application experts to develop this interactive system that will represent a major infusion of free, easily accessible HHS data. While the warehouse is under development, we are making several resources available.
Below you will find links to downloadable data sets which form the basis for the content anticipated to be available through the Indicator Warehouse and which will further the success of the Community Health Data Initiative. A draft set of indicators [PDF - 122 KB] that may be included is available for review and comment.
Please send all questions and suggestions to IndicatorsWarehouse@cdc.gov.
Downloadable Data Sets
Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) - A web-based tool providing local public health agencies access to county health status profiles for improving community health by identifying resources and setting priorities. Visit the CHSI home page to read about the data sources, definitions, and notes, and then explore the CHSI dataset file [ZIP - 5 MB].
County Health Rankings - An interactive website providing access to 50 state reports with rankings of each county within each state according to its health outcomes and health determinants. The County Health Rankings are a key component of the Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH) project. MATCH is a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Read about the project and then examine the MATCH State Data file [XLS - 3 MB] [ZIP - 3.4 MB].
DATA2010 - An interactive database system containing the most recent monitoring data for the Healthy People 2010 objectives. Statistical tables [ZIP - 17 MB] from eighteen focus areas with state level data are now available.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - Provides a wealth of downloadable data, such as Hospital Quality Compare and Nursing Home Compare, for health policy researchers, the media, and others interested in Medicare (Medicare's database download resource page).
USDA Economic Research Service - Provides the US Food Environment Atlas, a spatial overview of a community’s ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so. The Atlas assembles statistics on three broad categories of food environment factors: Food Choices; Health and Well-Being; and Community Characteristics.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality - Produces the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports measuring the trends in effectiveness of care, patient safety, timeliness of care, patient centeredness, and efficiency of care. Static tables are available in addition to an interactive tool for generating customized tables. A data table containing all measures by all states is also available.
The State of the USA - An organization assembling high-quality measures and data that will increase the understanding and progress of the US across many areas, including health. SUSA is currently developing a set of health indicators that will be available in the near future.
Select Indicator Reports and Initiatives
America’s Children: Key national indicators of well-being, 2009
A compendium of indicators illustrating both the promises and the difficulties confronting our Nation’s young people.Chronic Disease Indicators
A set of 90 cross-cutting, important, uniform, and available indicators developed by consensus and drawn from many data sources.Health, United States, 2009
A chartbook and 150 detailed tables providing an annual picture of the health of the entire United States.Healthy People
Healthy People 2010 contains 467 objectives in 28 focus areas designed to serve as a framework for improving the health of all people in the United States. Healthy People 2020 is currently under development.Older Americans 2008
A report of the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, providing data on 38 key indicators that portray aspects of the lives of older Americans and their families.
Project Partners
- Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary (HHS)
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
- Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
- Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
- Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP)
- Office of Minority Health (OMH)
- Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Friday, June 18, 2010
A Sense of Place, A World of Augmented Reality
The contemporary convergence of mobile phone, camera, wireless Internet and satellite communication — the key ingredients of the digital handheld — accelerates the reconstitution of place from real, occupied space to a collage of here and there, past and present. But digital technology’s effects do not only blast us out of place; they also bore us into the sights right in front of us — those in our viewfinder. Our sense of place is augmented by information wired from the World Wide Web. Part of the information comes from media conglomerates. Much of it streams at us from our social networks and online acquaintances. The information allows us to peruse unseen depths of the place we’re in. We have the opportunity to gain a better or different sense of place anywhere we travel within the network’s reach.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Properly setting up Sun Java 5 JDK on Ubuntu Karmic / Lucid -- for building Android source
Properly setting up Sun Java 5 JDK on Ubuntu Karmic / Lucid
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Apple filed for patents in the mHealth space. I wonder if we develop our own products here, we have to pay license to Apple?
mHealth News: Five mHealth patent applications from Apple
14/05/10Sure, the latest patent application that Apple filed for an embedded heart rate sensor received a ton of largely unwarranted hype, but Apple has busily applied for and received (some) patents related to wireless health, biometrics and fitness.
Here are five Apple patents we have tracked during the past year, including the much-talked-about heart rate authentication one:
Smart garment, April 15, 2010: A sensor authenticated to a garment transfers information, either wirelessly or wired, to an external data processing device. Such information includes location information, physiometric data of the individual wearing the garment, garment performance and wear data (when the garment is an athletic shoe, for example). The external data processing device can be portable digital media players that are, in turn, in wireless communication with a server computer or other wireless devices. More
Activity monitoring systems and methods, March 31, 2009: An activity monitor, comprises housing for attachment to a person; at least one accelerometer disposed within the housing; and a processor disposed within the housing, for processing signals from the accelerometer to assess activity of the person. A method assesses activity of a person, including: sensing acceleration at a first location on the person; processing the acceleration, over time, to assess activity of the person; and wirelessly communicating information indicative of the activity to a second location. More
The patent seems to be a bit generic, a wireless embedded sensor that's probably being sewn into the garment, and then transmit data to a wireless portable media player or a wireless base station. That's seems to be any kind of sensor that captures data, transmit data over ZigBee, Bluetooth, WiFi, RF to another device for further processing. I don't know why these kinds of patents even exist, with the level of information available online and to a lot of people, i don't think an idea patent is still relevant. It should be based execution, and not who gets the idea first. Since really, i don't think there's any special idea with what Apple is trying to patent here. I wonder who applied for the patent to have a tablet form touch based wireless mobile device?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Things to consider when hacking on Android - a highly effective team running Linux, git and vim or emacs to edit C code.
Things to consider in your projectIf you're porting Android to a new device, we recommend you consider the following points:
First, this is a just a milestone along the way to any kind of shipping product. We still have work to do before the N810 will be good enough for us to develop custom applications. Likewise, the N810 isn't a phone, so we didn't have to spend time debugging the call stack. And then there are the pieces that don't work -- power management, WiFi, etc. -- that could all take more time to make work than we spent on this initial port. So the hard work is ahead, not behind.
Second, the N810 is a shipped commercial product that has gone through Nokia's strenuous quality control processes and is well loved by lots of hackers. We have worked on other projects with flakey hardware and no vendor support (yeah, that was a huge mistake -- and it was made even worse by doing it fixed-bid). If you are porting Android to your own hardware, be sure to factor time and resources into dealing with hardware risks. We highly recommend that you make sure there are software people assigned to making the hardware drivers work.
Third, figure out which baseline kernel version you will use at the start. This way, you can verify or add tasks for making sure your hardware has the kernel drivers developed for that version of the Linux kernel. And since an outside vendor often provides binary drivers, make certain that you will have those drivers compiled against your Linux kernel when you need them.
Fourth, use the right tools and processes -- preferably the same ones that the Linux and Android developers use. We've worked with big companies who import open-source software into closed-source development models. While this makes it easier to get started, these teams later pay a price when they are not able to easily merge new versions of open-source software into their code base. Additionally, if your developers want to use Windows at all, we recommend you push them out of their cocoon and into the Linux world. A highly effective team would be one running Linux on their desktop, git for source control, and vim or emacs to edit 'C' code.
Finally, assemble the right team. While we're new to Android, we've been hacking embedded Linux systems for a long time. So check your teams' experience and plan accordingly.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Now what we have here... an Android 7" tablet. Now for sale on Amazon for $199?
If i can just upgrade the OS on this one, to a custom Android build, then we're game! :D
Alright, non-sense! What do you mean you're still using Windows? It's year two-oh-one-oh. Got it?
We first heard rumors of this policy change a couple of months ago, but now it's made the papers: the Financial Times is reporting that Google is phasing out the use of Windows internally, as employees are migrated to either Linux or Mac OS X on machine turnovers or new hires. The policy change was precipitated in large part by the security breach attributed to Chinese hackers; Google's IT leaders apparently feel that Microsoft's OS represents too great a risk across the enterprise to leave it in place.
Awesome articles about hardware details designed for programmers.
In the early days computers were much simpler. The various components of a system, such as the CPU, memory, mass storage, and network interfaces, were developed together and, as a result, were quite balanced in their performance. For example, the memory and network interfaces were not (much) faster than the CPU at providing data.
This situation changed once the basic structure of computers stabilized and hardware developers concentrated on optimizing individual subsystems. Suddenly the performance of some components of the computer fell significantly behind and bottlenecks developed. This was especially true for mass storage and memory subsystems which, for cost reasons, improved more slowly relative to other components.
The slowness of mass storage has mostly been dealt with using software techniques: operating systems keep most often used (and most likely to be used) data in main memory, which can be accessed at a rate orders of magnitude faster than the hard disk. Cache storage was added to the storage devices themselves, which requires no changes in the operating system to increase performance. {Changes are needed, however, to guarantee data integrity when using storage device caches.} For the purposes of this paper, we will not go into more details of software optimizations for the mass storage access.