Video: The Cloud, Explained By Kids :)

Good stuff from the folks at Rackspace....... kids describing the cloud. Turn up your speakers and enjoy!

Goodbye SMS-Based Text Messaging

ASYMCO put up an interesting piece titled What's up with text messaging? yesterday about texting in Spain. Volume is dropping rapidly with Internet Protocol (IP) based message apps like Whatsapp, Apple's iMessage and Facebook messaging replacing a voice network based text protocol called Short Message Service (SMS). SMS has been around since 1982 and has become a real cash cow for wireless providers. 

Here's more from that ASYMCO post:

• Whatsapp reported that it set a record of 18 billion messages processed over New Year’s Eve. 
• In October Apple announced that iMessage had delivered 300 billion messages during the preceding 12 months.
• Globally SMS traffic is still rising. It’s expected to reach 9.6 trillion in 2012, but at least one analyst forecasts  that SMS’s share of global mobile messaging traffic will fall from 64% in 2011, to 42% in 2016.

I'd also put Skype on the list as a disruptor.

Expect similar results in the United States and other countries. Wireless providers have seen this coming for a while now and (I believe) it's the reason we've seen most implement data caps while, at the same time, encouraging customers to consume more data (translation - go over your data cap) using services like mobile video streaming. 

If you want to know more about SMS and IP based texting I've got an earlier posted titled Why Are My iPhone Text Messages Sometimes Blue and Sometimes Green? linked here.

Tektronix Oscilloscope Tutorials

I came into Electrical Engineering a different way than most - starting as a graduate student with an undergraduate degree in Microbiology. These two disciplines are slightly different - Microbiologists use microscopes and EE's use oscilloscopes :) I knew I had some catching up to do and remember one of my major goals for the summer before I started grad school was to learn how to use an oscilloscope. Fortunately I came across a free tutorial booklet from Tektronix on understanding and using an oscilloscope which made it pretty easy.

Well, even though that was over 30 years ago now, the Tektronix free tutorial materials still exist and they are even better than before. If you are starting from scratch or just want to brush up these are highly recommended. Here's a link to the tutorial page. Good stuff!

Crosstalk and Copper Wires

Electrical current flowing through any conductor (like the copper wires connecting his phone) will produce a surrounding electromagnetic field. If another conductor is within the surrounding field, an inductively coupled current will flow through the adjacent conductor.

Inductively Coupled Electromagnetic Flux

In the figure above current flowing through the conducting wire will produce an inductively coupled current in the adjacent wire. If the varying signal current represents a voice transmission the conversation can crossover from one line to another and voices can be heard on one line from another line conversation. Usually this is only an annoyance since crosstalk signal levels are typically low when compared with the signal levels of the conversation on the primary line. On the other hand digital data transmissions are extremely sensitive to crosstalk. Crosstalk can cause bit misinterpretation and will typically require a retransmission of the damaged data.

There are two types of crosstalk, near end and far end.

Near End Crosstalk (NEXT)

Near end crosstalk occurs between a transmitted signal and a received signal. Transmitted signals are typically stronger that a signal that is being received and interfere with the received signals.

Near End Crosstalk

Far End Crosstalk (FEXT)

Far end crosstalk occurs between two signals transmitted in the same direction. The adjacent conductors each produce a magnetic field and can interfer with each other.

Far End Crosstalk

The most common way to reduce crosstalk between adjacent wires is to twist the wires together in a way that cancels the crosstalk flux. That's why Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cabling is used for high speed data cabling like Ethernet. In addition shielding, in the form of foil or metallic braid is also used in Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) cable.

STEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future

Back in April 2012, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee published an interesting (and upsetting) report titled STEM Education: Preparing for the Jobs of the Future. I find this report particularly interesting because it was prepared by an economic committee and not an education based committee. As a father of two STEM women and someone who has focused a large part of his career on STEM education, I found the Why Are We Falling Short in STEM section particularly disturbing...... not because I disagree with the findings but because (unfortunately based on my observations) I agree. Here's a list of what I find most disturbing as quoted from the report:

• Science and technology curriculums are often thin in K-12 education, and may not be enough to provide students with a solid foundation in STEM upon which to build.
• Part of the problem is that it is challenging to attract and retain STEM-trained individuals to teach STEM subjects at the K-12 level when higher wages and employment opportunities outside of the education sector make working in a STEM profession an attractive alternative.
• Furthermore, while the quality of math and science teaching is the greatest factor in improving student achievement in STEM fields, not enough  K-12 math and science teachers have  hands-on experience working in STEM.
• Teachers may also lack an educational background in STEM. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) found that 36 percent of middle school science teachers and approximately 30 percent of middle school math teachers lack in-field training.
• Finally, there is the matter of culture. While not easy to quantify, to the extent that math and science are not considered “cool” among image-conscious high school students, inevitably many talented young people will be turned off from pursuing degrees and careers in STEM fields. Women may be particularly  unlikely to pursue STEM as a result of gender and cultural norms.

Lack of a science and math foundation at an early age, underprepared teachers, cultural issues.... can it be fixed? I encourage everyone to read the report.

First Person Shooter Games

I've been debating - do I write this post or not since Friday evening. Newtown, CT is just heartbreaking -  so many others are so much better at expressing feelings and emotions with words than I am. It's all still as confused and upset as I was Friday around 12:30 when I first heard the news something had happened. 

Yesterday (Sunday) morning I watched the political shows and there was a lot of discussion about a "common thread" profile with these types of incidents. Specifically:

• Mentally unbalanced
• High intelligence
• Computer expertise
• High estimation of potential that gets damaged in life prior
• Hero in their own mind - happiest moment of their life during shooting
• Lost in a black hole of their own festering
• History of graphic video game violence with a passion for shoot to kill video games
• Access to weapons - specifically assault type weapons like the ones used in violent video games

On Saturday I posted up a link in Facebook to a blog post on First Person Shooter (FPS) games written Thursday, the day before the shooting in CT, titled America's Love Affair With the First Person Shooter and the Rise of "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2". The post finishes with this paragraph:

The FPS genre is a perfect reflection of our national identity. It has become as American as celebrity worship and gaming itself. Like it or not, you have to admit that emptying a clip into some stranger's face could become a new American tradition. And how new is it really? After all, this is the nation that gabe the world cowboys, gangsters, and Rambo. The fact is that the FPS genre will be with us far into the life cycles of the next-gen consoles and beyond. Celebrity and mere mortals, athlete and accountants, rappers and high school students—there is no one type of FPS enthusiast anymore. It has become a vehicle where ordinary players can become professionals in the realm of eSports, attaining their own measure of celebrity in the process. Regardless of what critics may think of the content of these games, it's time to accept the fact the FPS genre has become our new national pastime. So why not just relax and heed Biggie Smalls' immortal words of advice: stay low and keep firing. 

This was written the day before the shooting. I encourage you to read the entire post and form your own opinions.

Watching What You Do While You Watch TV

Verizon recently filed a patent application that would target television ads using real time information collected by infrared cameras and microphones in you DVR. This is wild stuff - here's some examples of how this system would work right out of the filed document:

• if detection facility 104 determines that a user is exercising (e.g., running on a treadmill, doing aerobics, lifting weights, etc.), advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with exercise in general, a specific exercise being performed by the user, and/or any other advertisement (e.g., an advertisement for health food) that may be intended for people who exercise. 

• if detection facility 104 detects that a user is playing with a dog, advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with dogs (e.g., a dog food commercial, a flea treatment commercial, etc.). 

• if detection facility 104 detects one or more words spoken by a user (e.g., while talking to another user within the same room or on the telephone), advertising facility 106 may utilize the one or more words spoken by the user to search for and/or select an advertisement associated with the one or more words. 

• if detection facility 104 detects that a couple is arguing/fighting with each other, advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated marriage/relationship counseling. 

• if detection facility 104 detects a particular object (e.g., a Budweiser can) within a user's surroundings, advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with the detected object (e.g., a Budweiser commercial). 

•  if detection facility 104 detects a mood of a user (e.g., that the user is stressed), advertising facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with the detected mood (e.g., a commercial for a stress-relief product such as aromatherapy candles, a vacation resort, etc.).

The image posted is also from the patent application and shows the detection zone. 

Pets, people, conversations, moods, beer cans?? I don't think this is something I'd want in my home.