The Rise Of The “Social Professional” Network
[Philip Lelyveld comment; Why is this thought of as unusual. There have been professional societies for decades. This is just a faster turn-around enabler.]
The notion of a social network for every type of employee might be far-fetched, though. It’s not as if coffee baristas have a compelling need to join a network of other coffee baristas. Vertical professional networks are likely to be the most attractive to highly skilled knowledge workers. Think software engineers (GitHub), mechanical engineers (GrabCad), data scientists (Kaggle) and academics (Academia.edu and ResearchGate).
These networks are far from “niche.” GitHub has well over 6 million registered users and Academia.edu boasts more than 10 million users.
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/28/the-rise-of-the-social-professional-networks/?ncid=tcdaily
BEHIND GE’S VISION FOR THE INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS
[Philip Lelyveld comment: This is a really good article about the internet of things - really big things producing terabytes of data per day. Locomotives and rail networks. Jet engines and flight reliability. The four tech tools described in "How to make a freight train go express" are alternative implementations of tools used in Disney Parks to optimize ride performance, guest through-put, and guest experience. Very interesting stuff.]
An approaching third wave, enabled by data and analytics, does something new. It strikes an agreement between GE and a customer for a certain kind of outcome, rather than a certain kind of functionality. It's not only about measuring whether a jet engine is working up to its specifications, or about repairing it on time, but whether it's delivering, say, the agreed-upon amount of peak operational time. "We're getting to the point of selling thrust, not engines," says Brad Surak, a software manager for the company. "Or we're selling locomotion, not locomotives. And we guarantee that back to our customers. If an engine breaks down on a Southwest Airlines jet full of passengers sitting on a tarmac and they need to take passengers out of the plane and reroute it, we pay penalties to them because of it."
See the full story here: http://www.fastcompany.com/3031272/can-jeff-immelt-really-make-the-world-1-better
The Amazing Uses of Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is going to go mainstream, with pioneers such as the Oculus Rift leading the charge. Players such as Sony have already realized this and have already released their VR HMDs (The Project Morpheus, along with the TMZ HMDs that came before them).
With major industry shapers such as Microsoft and Apple (Along with Samsung) rumored to be developing VR HMDs, the future looks a bright as it could for Virtual Reality.
But then, as we think about VR going mainstream, the questions pop in, asking what exactly will VR be suitable for. There are some obvious uses, but also some not-so-obvious ones.
See the full story here: https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/the-amazing-uses-of-virtual-reality-7ea48dfe0748?curator=MediaREDEF
The Tech-Savvy Supreme Court
[Philip Lelyveld comment: While some say the Aereo decision "stifles innovation," I will argue that is redirects innovation toward activities that will lead to more interesting innovations that are less anchored to a winner/loser dynamic.]
"The majority decision indicates that justices understood Aereo’s unique technical infrastructure. They simply rejected it as a legal gimmick, which is a perfectly valid interpretation."
See the full story here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/the-tech-savvy-supreme-court/?_php=true&_type=blogs&curator=MediaREDEF&_r=0
Are you ready for 4K TV? Akamai shares which countries are good to go.
SUMMARY:Every quarter Akamai tracks the trends in broadband — from speeds to IPv6 readiness and security threats. This year the percentage of people who have speeds greater than 10 Mbps hit 20 percent for the first time.
See the full story, with many more tables, here: http://gigaom.com/2014/06/26/are-you-ready-for-4k-tv-akamai-shares-which-countries-are-good-to-go/
The next thing Silicon Valley needs to disrupt big time: its own culture
The problem is that Silicon Valley has gone completely to the other extreme. We’ve created a make-believe cult of objective meritocracy, a pseudo-scientific mythos to obscure and reinforce the belief that only people who look and talk like us are worth noticing. After making such a show of burning down the bad old rules of business, the new ones we’ve created seem pretty similar.
Because the talent market is tight, that insularity presents a problem. It’s hard to find good people to hire. All the Stanford graduates have offers from multiple companies and there’s no time to develop talent. On the other hand, so many nice-seeming candidates seem to fail the interview process for trivial mistakes that fall under the catch-all category of “culture fit.”
Let’s review the bidding. A capable professional expressed interest in working for a company. Instead of talking with her about that in plain English, she was held at arm’s length for days while The Culture examined her for defects: coffee dates in the afternoon, conversations over dinner. When she gets the invisible nod, her reward is a “spontaneous” invitation to a night of drinking with the team. You have to wonder why intelligent people would devise an interview process so strange and oblique that the candidate doesn’t even know it’s happening.
...Again Max Levchin: “PayPal once rejected a candidate who aced all the engineering tests because for fun, the guy said that he liked to play hoops. That single sentence lost him the job.”
The obscurity and arbitrariness are very much by design, and is why explainer posts are supposed to be so valuable. Having engineered an unfair situation, insiders then offer secret guides to winning it.
Read the full story here; http://qz.com/225782/the-next-thing-silicon-valley-needs-to-disrupt-big-time-its-own-culture/?curator=MediaREDEF#/h/80696,3,80701,2/