eman's views

eman is moving to emansviews.com

emansviews — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:39:24 +0000

Given the success of this blog, I’ve decided to move to my own hosted domain at emansviews.com. I hope that you’ll continue enjoying this blog at the new site. Links for the RSS Feeds are provided directly below. Hope to see you at http://www.emansviews.com. Thanks!

NOTE: eman’s views has now moved to emansviews.com. I hope you’ll stop by.

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photo by RBerteig

Saturn V Flight Manual

emansviews — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:03:13 +0000

Ever since seeing Jay Walker show his original version of a Saturn V Flight Manual during TED2008, I wondered if I could get hold of a copy. Lo and behold the power of the Internet. You can download a pdf version of this manual at this link. The manual is dated 1 November 1968. Fascinating!

NOTE: eman’s views has now moved to emansviews.com. I hope you’ll stop by.

photo by jurvetson

Technorati Tags: Jay Walker,Saturn V,Flight Manual,TED,TED2008,TED Conference,TED@Aspen

Honey, Have You Seen My iPod?

emansviews — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:23:59 +0000

Did you leave it on the Space Shuttle Dear?

Zooming into the left window…. What’s that I see? Well I’ll be, it’s my iPod, but without the lithium battery, because that’s not allowed on the Shuttle – only alkaline batteries.

Story from SpaceRef.com See also this article for more about iPod’s on the Shuttle.

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Technorati Tags: iPod,Space Shuttle

Google Innovation – The 16 Principles

emansviews — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:30:28 +0000

A while back I posted on Douglas Merrill’s talk about innovation at Google. I have to say I was a bit disappointed in that talk – I didn’t really take away any clear messages to apply to my own work. Recently however, Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Google, delivered a fantastic talk at his alma mater, Claremont McKenna College, called Inside the Black Box: Technical Innovation at Google. Jonathan gave a very compelling talk outlining 16 key principles to innovation at Google. This outstanding talk is well worth the time. Watch the video to understand these principles more fully.

NOTE: eman’s views has now moved to emansviews.com. I hope you’ll stop by.

Hire the Best
Ideas Come From Anywhere
Practice Sharing & Openness Fully
Morph, Don’t Kill, Ideas
Users Come First, Not Money
Data Drives Decisions
Iterate a Product (don’t use a Project Plan)
Make Your Vision Simple, Understandable and Share It With All
20% Time
Think BIG
Bet on a Trend, or Fall Victim to It
Accept a Smaller Piece of a Larger Pie
Feed the Winners, Starve the Losers
Avoid Hippos (highest paid person’s opinion)
Never Surrender to Lawyers, Auditors, or Bureaucrats
Reward Innovation
Learn How to Learn (a 17th extra principle)

Technorati Tags: Google,Innovation,Jonathan Rosenberg

How to Start a Social Movement

emansviews — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:22:40 +0000

Dave Eggers was recently noted in Time magazine as one of the Time 100: “Many writers, having written a first best-seller, might see it as a nice way to start a career. Dave Eggers, 35, started a movement instead.”

He is successful writer, publisher, as well as philanthropist and teacher-at-large. Dave recently won a TED Prize and described his work in setting up a variety of tutoring labs across the country. His talk is now online. A very entertaining and uplifting talk.

Given the need to edit the talk to ~25 min, some other wonderful examples of how the tutoring labs have significantly changed students’ lives (e.g. improved grade levels, increased focus on school work, etc.) were omitted. Trust me, there were several more wonderful inspirational examples of how this work is effecting the lives of students and their families. Awesome work, and fantastic talk describing how “the movement” began.

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photo by Erik Charlton

Technorati Tags: TED Conference, TED, TED2008, Dave Eggers, TED Prize

Best of TED2008

emansviews — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:12:26 +0000

Jill Bolte Taylor gave one of the best talks of TED2008. She is a neuroanatomist that suffered a stroke and describes what she when through. It is an incredibly compelling and touching talk that had many of us in tears. Have a look here.

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Technorati Tags: TED Conference, TED, TED2008, Jill Bolte Taylor

Microsoft’s Photosynth

emansviews — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:35:46 +0000

Microsoft’s Photosynth was demoed at TED2007 (video below). One application of this software is to link a vast number of digital photos together. Linking together overlapping photos appropriately – the images are joined together to provide an accurate representation of space. With the Space Shuttle set to launch this week, I was reminded that there was a Photosynth demo with photos of the Shuttle. Very cool software app to play with. Enjoy.

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Technorati Tags: TED,TED2007,TED Conference,Space Shuttle,Microsoft,Photosynth

TED Reflections.4 Johnny Lee

emansviews — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:12:55 +0000

Johnny Chung Lee is a Ph.D. Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. Johnny stole the show for a while at TED by demonstrating some very cheap, but powerful projects that you can do with a Wii remote. These projects are described on his website, and in the videos below. First is a multi-point interactive Whiteboard using the Wii remote and a couple of easy to build infrared LED pens. The second project video is an example of using head tracking for desktop virtual reality displays. As Johnny mentioned at TED, he strives to produce an 80% solution for 10% (or less) of the cost (i.e. Perceptive Pixel vs. Wii remote Whiteboard). Electronic Art’s new game Boom Blox will ship with “hidden” capability for head tracking and the Wii remote. You can keep up to date with Johnny’s projects by following his blog.

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Technorati Tags: TED Conference,TED,TED2008,TED@Aspen,Johnny Lee

TED Reflections.3 World 2.0?

emansviews — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:26:26 +0000

It’s been a long day, and it’s not over yet. My flight was delayed by two hours leaving Aspen, causing me to miss my connection. I’m waiting in Chicago for the next flight home which will put me at home about 2 AM. One thought has been bouncing around in my mind over the last couple days… It seems that TED is rapidly becoming more than a conference (really, a series of conferences with TEDEurope, TEDAfrica, & TEDGlobal). Is TED now a movement to influence and effect change on world social issues? In watching the TED Talks over the last year, and now having attended my first TED Conference, it seems to me that TED is becoming a place where representatives from major (and not-so-major) companies with wealthy individuals discuss new breakthroughs, as well as issues within our society. Via the TED Prizes and other informal conversations, TEDsters are coming together to make significant progress on issues where governments and others have been slow to act or have made little progress. Is this World 2.0 – a catchy phrase for a web-enabled world? A consequence of the Internet Age? A new Age of Collaboration? Regardless, it is exciting times.

Yes, this is a bit philosophical. Maybe one shouldn’t blog when they’re tired… Now my connecting flight is also delayed. Ugh!

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photo by Mr. Kris

Technorati Tags: TED@Aspen, TED Conference, TED, TED2008

Where’s TED?

emansviews — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:35:27 +0000

With TED2008 having finished up, some may ask where and when can I participate in a TED conference? Here’s a list of the upcoming meetings….

TEDAfrica: Cape Town, South Africa, 29 September – 1 October 2008. Theme: “What If?” Information and registration here.

TED2009: Long Beach, California, 4-7 February 2009. Theme: “The Great Unveilling”. It’s already sold out.

TEDEurope: Oxford, UK, 22-24 July 2009. Theme: “The Substance Of Things Not Seen”. Registrations will open soon. The first TEDGlobal was held in Oxford in 2005.

TEDGlobal: Mumbai, India, November 2009. Details will follow.

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Technorati Tags: TED@Aspen, TED, TED Conference, TED2008, TEDAfrica, TEDEurope, TEDGlobal, TED2009