Category: Web, Tech & Design

The 6 Myths Of Creativity

I just came across an interesting article on Fast Company about the 6 myths of creativity. Their list goes as follows:

1. Creativity Comes From Creative Types
2. Money Is a Creativity Motivator
3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity
4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs
5. Competition Beats Collaboration
6. A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization

I totally agree; these beliefs that many people in management positions hold about creativity and what triggers it are simply wrong and have nothing to do with reality.
Even if they hold in one case or another, it’s obvious they are not the rule, and that there most probably were some other factors in the background that helped.

Check out the full article: The 6 Myths Of Creativity

The Top 10 Dead (Or Dying) Computer Skills

I just came across an article on ComputerWorld that lists the top 10 dead or dying computer skills; the list goes as follows:

1. Cobol
2. Nonrelational DBMS
3. Non-IP networks
4. cc:Mail
5. ColdFusion
6. C programming
7. PowerBuilder
8. Certified NetWare Engineers
9. PC network administrators
10. OS/2

Wow, that list brings back a lot of memories of things I used to use or that I had on my list of things to check out, learn or use.

It’s amazing how much changes in so little time when it comes to the IT/Computer industry; but still we wouldn’t be where we are today without all those dead technologies and skills.
So personally, the list above has all my respect and admiration; May they all rest in peace.

Check the full article: The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills.

WiTricity: Wireless Electricity

WiTricity MIT TeamImagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers, and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate.

Well that future could be just around the corner; A team at MIT led by Prof. Marin Soljacic has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future, they were able to light a 60W light-bulb from a power source more than 2 meters away, without any physical connection between the source and the appliance.

The MIT team refers to their concept as

Climate Savers Computing Initiative

Moving towards greener computing…

In an initiative to improve computer power use – equivalent to shutting down twenty 500 megawatt coal-fired power plants – Google and Intel have set up the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

The forty starting members, including AMD, Dell, HP, IBM and Sun, hope to better manage power-delivery and power management of computers to achieve this by 2010. Suppliers, businesses and individuals are being asked to join and help save $5.5 billion in energy costs.

Servers and PCs waste lots of power from the moment it enters their power cables. Google’s SVP for operations, Urs Holzle, said: “The average desktop PC wastes nearly half of its power, and the average server wastes one-third of its power. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is setting a new 90 percent efficiency target for power supplies, which if achieved, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year – and save more than $5.5 billion in energy costs.”

Source: Techworld

Always great to see big companies moving towards providing greener solutions. On an individual level though we can all help by turning off our computers when we’re not actually using them, that saves a lot of energy in itself.

Microsoft Surface Computing

Microsoft Surface

Today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be taking the wraps off “Milan”, a project five years in the making, and the first of what the company is calling a “surface computer”.

The Microsoft Surface tabletop PC, for which the company has created both the hardware and software, turns an ordinary tabletop into a dynamic surface that provides interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.

The surface computer will be able to recognize physical objects and allow hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps.

Although these computers will be available later this year, they’ll be unaffordable for most people; The expensive components required to allow multiple users to touch the device simultaneously give it a price tag approaching $10,000.

So for the time being, the new product is aimed directly at hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues.

The demos I saw online of this just blew my mind, and the possibilities for applications that can run on this type of computers are really interesting and cool. I hope that it’ll become affordable for domestic use in the near future, because I for one would love to have one sitting in my living room.

Microsoft Surface Table Computer

For more:

Google Web History

Google has just announced the launch of Web History, a new feature for Google Account users that makes it easy to view and search across the pages they previously visited. This will help users find things they remember seeing online a lot faster from anywhere.

To use this new feature, all that’s needed is a Google Account and the Google Toolbar with PageRank enabled.

Search History users will notice that it has been renamed to Web History to reflect this new functionality, where they will find both their search history and their browsing history.

Of course a number of people have their usual privacy concerns, but personally I think the benefits of this service outweigh the concerns.

If you’re interested, you can check it out here: Google Web History.

100 Megabits At Home By 2015?

According to a post on GigaOm, FTTH Council is pushing the US government to adopt a 100 Megabit Nation policy with the goal of extending, through both private and public sector initiatives, affordable next-generation broadband (100-megabit-per-second connection) to a majority of Americans by 2010, with universal US availability by 2015.

Hmmm…
On the other hand, over here in Tunisia:
I had to wait for over 3 months for Tunisie Telecom to give me a crappy phone line…
During the first two years, my phone line worked only a quarter of the time…
I’ve been waiting for over 7 months to get a simple 256Kbps ADSL connection at home, and I expect the wait to go on for several more months…

Some of my friends already went through the waiting periods and got their ADSL connections, and a few of them are actually happy with their connections, but still we’re a long way behind, and it all affects how competitive we can be and limits our chances to innovate or become noticeable players on the world level.

I know that there are a lot of factors behind this, I also know that the Tunisian government gives a lot of importance to this, doing all its possible to extend access to faster connections, but we’re still trailing in this area, and maybe it’s time to try a new approach at this and open more doors for some big private players to enter the market and push the country forward in broadband access. It can only be of benefit to everyone: public entities, private companies and individuals.

The Lord Of The Rings Online – Shadows Of Angmar

The Lord Of The Rings Online - Shadows Of AngmarA new interesting game is out, aiming to eat away at World of Warcraft’s domination of the MMORPG market, and it goes by the name: The Lord Of The Rings Online – Shadows Of Angmar.
I guess the name says it all; it’s simply a multi-player game, read online middle-earth, based on the amazing trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien.

You get to create a unique character that can be either a Man, Elf, Dwarf or Hobbit; you choose what class you want it to be from (Champion, Guardian, Burglar, Captain, Hunter, Minstrel, or Lore-master), and where it hails from, his/her skin, hair, eye color, and more; and you equip yourself with all the items you need like sturdy Dwarven armor, intricate Elven mail, or weapons created with the knowledge of past Ages.

Then you can join with the Fellowship to fight against the forces of Sauron, confront the forces of the Nazg