• Category Archives Computers

  • Imagine a life with no computers……ahhhh……bliss…..

  • 15 billion for self driving tech

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    Intel just paid 15 billion dollars for a automotive self driving tech company.

    Yes, it’s a lot of money, but why is the question. Why would a chip maker get involved in self driving cars?
    Because the Internet is too slow.

    You can’t just put a camera and a wifi point on a car and have a big computer somewhere on the net watch the camera and decide if that ‘thing’ in the camera is a stop sign, a tree or a lolly pop. By the time the image goes up, the decision made and the answer sent back, the car is long past the question.
    So, all the processing needs to be done in the car. And it is a LOT of processing, and it needs to be done accurately, and it needs to be done very very fast.

    To pull this off, the car needs to be a mobile computer server farm. A whole bunch of computers all talking together working the problem with some massive amounts of code. This is why Intel put the money down. They want to make sure their computer chips are the ones in the cars. They need to buy into the tech so they know what sort of chips they need to make. Buying into the tech so they can have their finger on the pulse and know where it’s going and make chips that the software guys need before they need it is a very smart move.

    If I was commuting in traffic, I would take a loan out to get a self driving car to try and remove some of the stress, but since I am not, and since I love driving back roads, and since I love the actual driving part, I am not the least bit interested in actually owning a self driving car, but I love the tech and the reasons behind it.


    Computers

  • Add batteries to stabilize the grid

    Posted on by beno Comment

    [Edit 13th March – This has really blown up in the media since I wrote this blog over a week ago. I did not think it would gain as much traction so I just scheduled this blog to go live 1 week forward from when I wrote it (as I often do if I have a few blogs stacked up), but then I am also not sure that I have anything timely to say, so in the end, I am just a bit dejected that I was talking about this a week before mainstream media picked it up, but on the flip side, you do not come to this blog to be on the bleeding edge of tech news?]

    Ok, on the back of yesterdays blog, I just had to follow up with this other angle…..

    Tesla is in talks with the Australian Government about adding ‘utility sized’ battery storage to the grid to help stabilize it.

    Some takeaway points I want to highlight;

    The Australian government, which has been known for encouraging fossil fuels, currently counts on peaker plants and “clean coal” to fix the issue, Rive claimed that Tesla could do it better and faster.

    This puts the finger on the two points I made yesterday, pulling the gas (peaker plants) AND making the coal ‘clean’ is not the answer. You can’t just pull them out, put in some solar, wind and hydro plants, it just won’t be stable enough.

    He referenced the 80MWh Powerpack station with Southern California Edison in Los Angeles, which they built and brought online in just 90 days.

    This installation is just down the road from Temecula. There is nothing to look at, other wise I might drive down and check it out. The point is, Tesla have done it. They know this stuff. It is not bleeding edge, it is not rocket science. It is battery banks and inverters. That’s it.

    Tesla then really really hits the nail on the head;

    “It makes no sense to duplicate infrastructure. By the time it gets up and running, the technology will be obsolete. It’s going to take years. […] And it still doesn’t address the problem. It’s a bandaid. We don’t need to build more transmission lines. …The only reason we’re building more transmission lines is to address congestion that may happen a few times a year. Storage can fill that gap. Use the existing infrastructure (and add battery storage) and it solves the problem. It really does. And it’s more cost effective. Why go the other path?”

    Boom. Love this. Don’t spend millions and millions on 2-3 days a year for some weird sequence of weather events. Spend a little money that will fix the day to day, week to week disturbances on the grid.

    The article then goes on to talk about the Tesla Powerwall product, I have some thoughts on those too, but they will have to wait, along with the blog on the ‘duck curve’…..


    Computers Other

  • Handle – the rolling robot

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Boston Dynamics are at it again.

    This leaked out in a shaky cell phone cam video a few weeks back, glad I waited to talk about it because we now have a proper video to talk about.

    Few interesting things at work here. The wheels work surprisingly well for outside. I can see a bigger / fatter set of wheels/tires on this thing and it really doing well.
    The ballance is impressive, but those arms would really help things out, it is almost human like in some of the moves.
    I guess the most interesting thing for me is the bump in efficiency and quietness…. I mean if you are going to have a robot overlord follow you around all day, it needs to be quiet!


    Computers 📎and tagged

  • Raspberry Pi Zero – W

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Better late than never? Duno. History will be the judge.
    What am I talking about? Well, after the tech media and myself included took a massive jab at the Raspberry Pi Foundation for releasing one of the most crippled computers in the history of computers, they have done what they should have done in the first place and added Wifi and Bluetooth to the Raspberry Pi Zero.

    I am normally not a fan of the beta news site, but in this case, they have a great wrap up of what you get for your 10 bucks.
    Introducing the Raspberry Pi Zero – W.

    In a nutshell, you get a pretty useful little Linux PC that you can actually connect to. I will buy one in due course, I even have a use for this guy (now that I can talk to it while it’s in my house Wifi range).

    As usual, we can’t buy one. Out of stock pretty much everywhere. Constantly. That’s Ok (for me). It simply proves that I was right all along, they should have skipped the Zero and gone straight to the – W. I suspect before too long they will just quietly stop making / selling the zero and pretend it never happen.

    Note to all future computer / IoT device builders. Make sure your little ‘disruptive’ device has some connectivity huh… Because no matter what Gary says, we need to talk to your little wonder. We just do.

     


    Computers 📎and tagged

  • Chrome browser font ugliness

    Posted on by beno 4 Comments

    Might have mentioned this to a few people while I was back home. (You know who you are).

    Been having this problem with my Chrome web browsers. Yes, browsers. Chrome (one of the many reasons why I love it) synchronizes all its settings across all browsers that I am logged into – being in front of one is just like being in front of any of them – Since I run three main computers, work, home PC and laptop, it is very very very convenient.

    The problem is squares. Lots and lots of little squares.
    Everywhere there should be a little symbol – called ansi symbols, I get a square. You have to hover the mouse over each square to figure out what it should do.
    Not. Fun. Not even a little bit.
    Since I am getting back into the blog, this was the tipping point…. As you can see here……


    It makes blogging a bit tricky. (And to be clear, it’s not a WordPress issue, it is every where an ansi symbol should appear, even in my beloved groov).

    I have had this issue for around 8+ months now, and not just with the blog, but on every website that has, well, symbols. Every. Website. Every.
    Ok, so what’s the problem?
    Fonts.
    This is what started it…. Many websites showed up as pretty ugly text. Most websites.
    Here is an example of what I was seeing.

    As you can see, the font under the main heading is pretty mangled. Pretty hard to read when you get a web page full of it.
    Ok, so what was the solution months ago?
    Install a Chrome extension that makes all fonts a default type, like Ariel. Yes, it overrides the pages CSS. That fixed all my text issues, but introduced the square symbol issue. At the time, I could put up with the squares. While it was annoying, it at least meant I could read the Internet.

    Pretty simple choice really. Read the web, or have symbols. One or the other, but not both.
    This is a bit of a known problem. Google Chrome just does not handle the whole font thing very well.
    How to fix it. That’s the real challenge.

    I have no idea. But. On the upside, as of a few days ago, at least now I know the root cause of the problem.


    Computers