Apple's Vision Pro introduces spacial computing to consumers. But will it catch on?
Key benefit: Integration of a computer with multiple, large screen displays in a three dimensional, interactive environment. This is the first standalone Apple product introduced by Tim Cook, as CEO, that isn't an add-on like the Apple Watch.
Price: Starting at $3,500.
Adjusted for inflation, this is roughly the same cost as the Apple I computer released on April 11, 1977, which required assembly.
Price Comparison: Comparable to HoloLens 2.
Personal Thoughts: This is version one of a prosumer product in an entire new area of personal computing and human-machine interactions. Keep in mind that the Pro designation implies it's not a low-end consumer device. While smartphones have virtually connected while physically isolating individuals, the Apple Vision Pro certainly does an impressive job of making remote people feel more present while interacting. Apple also has been thoughtful about how others see and interact with the user. Specifically, when people approach a person using the Vision Pro, the user can see them. Additionally, a person can see the eyes of the Vision Pro user they're interacting with. In other words, the outward facing display is solely for the benefit of others. A nice touch.
A few months ago I became interested in meditation.
Today, I returned from a ten-day silent retreat in the desert city of Twentynine Palms, California where we learned the Vipassana silent meditation technique. This technique involves a remarkably impressive method of visualization.
For the last 10+ days, a group of about 80 of us literally lived like Buddhist monks & nuns that involved the following code of discipline:
1. No talking (Noble Silence, in other words we took a vow of silence where we, the students, never spoke amongst ourselves. This included no hand gestures, signaling, or eye contact. I only spoke about two sentences, each day, to my instructors and some days I literally didn’t speak a single sentence.)
2. No contact with the outside world. (No phones, no electronics, etc. We turned over our phones and car keys at the beginning of the course and didn’t get them back until the end of the tenth day.)
3. No reading
4. No writing
5. No exercising
6. No rituals
7. No stealing
8. No lying
9. No sexual activity
10. No intoxicants
For ten hours a day, for ten days, we meditated. A gong woke us up at 4 am, each morning, and we began the day with two straight hours of meditation at 4:30 am. The final daily meditation ended at 9 pm.
For ten days, no one left the training center compound (unless they quit or were expelled). Fortunately, there were walking paths through the desert within the grounds.
Why did I attend? Simply to learn this technique of meditation.
The course is 100% free including full room and board (breakfast, lunch, and a late afternoon tea break). It’s strictly donation-based. And donations are only accepted from students who have completed the course. Vipassana has close ties to Buddhism. Keep in mind that Buddhism is a philosophy practice, not a religion, making the Vipassana meditation technique highly compatible with most any other religion, including atheism.
What do I think of the experience? It far exceeded my expectations.
It was grueling to sit for hours and mind-numbing to only focus on your breath and body, but it was so well worth it. It became easier and more rewarding as the days went by. Every single person was glowing at the end of the course, when Noble Silence ended (jokingly called “noble chatter”). I have no plans to become a Buddhist but I’m definitely eager to continue the Vipassana meditation technique.
Now please excuse me while I take some time to catch up on my 294 unread e-mails, along with 68 text messages and a host of other social media notifications and voicemails.
In the 1980s and 1990s, software engineers developed software and then a different group manually operationalized it by either putting it on floppy disks/CDs or deploying it to a server. With the advent of cloud computing, this manual process became automated and the best practices were defined as DevOps.
With the proliferation of data, and the large amount of information that can be generated even from metadata, the consumption of it can no longer be done manually, in the form of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load), to remain competitive. So, similar to DevOps, DataOps is a key part of automating the process of ETL which enhances data analytics.
It's so very interesting to see how society adapts to technology. I'm sure, a hundred years from now, people will look back at us and say, "What was the big deal about AI?" since they would have grown up with it.
When the camera was invented, it was thought that a photo couldn't be copyrighted because there was nothing "created." Obviously, that legal opinion has changed.
We teach Driver's Ed in school, because teens need to learn how to drive in society, but we don't teach "horse maintenance" because we no longer use horses as out primary means of transportation. I'm sure our grandparents were looked down upon by their grandparents for learning to drive and not riding a horse.
Public education teaches personal hygiene, like how to brush your teeth. Now they teach digital hygiene like how to pick a strong password or not leak private data.
It'll take some trial and error, but I'm sure K-12 will eventually figure it out, but only after society, as a whole, figures it out.
Most people don't realize that, for general communications, Air Force One and the police don't use encryption when transmitting over the radio.
While Air Force One certainly has encryption capable radios on board, it still has to communicate with civilian air traffic controllers (ATC). So anyone can listen in.
In 2012, when I was flying my plane from NJ to San Diego, I ended up on the same frequency as Air Force One while flying by Columbus, OH as the president was landing while on a campaign trip. My copilot, who was a commercial pilot, commented that that was a first for him.
Civilians can purchase police scanners to monitor police activity. However, police departments are now moving to encrypted communications to maintain the privacy of citizens. Imagine being pulled over, in another state, and the cop can't run your license on his squad car laptop. So, instead, he has to call it in over the radio, reading your name, home address, etc. Encrypted communications for law enforcement is probably a good idea.
Over the past 25 years, I’ve personally noticed something that I now call entrepreneur syndrome.
In a nutshell, these are wannabe entrepreneurs (nearly always solopreneurs) who spend all of their time going through the motions of entrepreneurship without ever generating revenue by bringing a product or service to market.
Instead of selling, entrepreneur syndrome sufferers end up being very "busy" working on things they like doing and telling people about it, especially through social media. They have the title of CEO on one or more “companies” with no employees, no marketing plan, and certainly no revenue. They love to work from wherever they want, like coffee shops, never earning a single cent. Their focus is on building, not boosting (marketing), or buying (selling).
In the end, what they're doing is OK, but what they're really doing is called a hobby, not a business.
Tomorrow, the FDIC will allow access to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) accounts up to the insured amount of $250,000. FDIC insurance is something that's not available in the crypto world (just ask SBF and FTX). I'm guessing that all of SVB bank accounts will probably recoup at least 80% of their deposit when the dust settles. This is why billionaires buy many obscenely expensive homes since those investments can be insured to 100%.
Last week, the CEO of SVB sold $3.6 mm in stock as part of a trading plan. I don't think there's much to see with the CEO's stock sales if the cash ended up in SVB, not some other bank. If not, he'll have a tough time explaining that.
Although I haven't had any personal experience with SVB, a good friend of mind did when he, as CEO of a startup, raised $2.5 mm about 15 years ago. Part of his fund raising deal was that SVB would loan his company $500K provided that all the funds were kept in a SVB account, which he did. In 2009, when times became tough, my buddy's startup had $600K in cash. This wasn't a problem until SVB invoked their MAC clause (material adverse change), swooped in, and pulled his $500K. Unfortunately, the corporation's fellow board members didn't want to fight SVB because they had other deals with the bank. In other words, these directors put their own business interests ahead of the corporations. But what can you do?
My buddy didn't have kind words for SVB when I asked him for comments on Friday.
Once, when I was interviewing with the iTunes U team at Apple, I was asked to write a depth-first search, using recursion, in a language of my choice. I chose Java and proceeded to sketch out a tree on the whiteboard while keeping track of my stack on the side of the board.
It took about 10 or 15 minutes. Then the hiring manager and I walked though the code and I was thrilled that I passed, especially since recursion is not my strongest area of coding.
Today, I used ChatGPT which was released eight days ago. It came up with three different solutions in less than two minutes. This is fascinating.
What is the cloud, both qualitatively and quantitatively and why is it called the cloud?
It's simpler to answer the second part of that first, why is it called the cloud? Simply put, it's called the cloud because, like an electron cloud, you won't not know exactly where an item is located, such as a single e-mail. In other words, like there isn't a clear boundary similar to a the edges of a cloud in the sky.
Qualitative
This segues into a qualitative description of the cloud. In the 1990s, before the cloud, it was simple to point to a single, on-premises, server to identify where a single e-mail resided. Nowadays, with services like Gmail, there's no single server one can point to where an e-mail resides. This is because the subject line of a Gmail e-mail message might be on one server, while the text body of the e-mail is on a different server with each attachment residing on their own servers. A single e-mail is spread out across multiple servers.
Quantitive
Qualitatively, the cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models defined by NIST.
Five Essential Characteristics:
On-demand self-service.A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.
Broad network access.Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).
Resource pooling.The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, and network bandwidth.
Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.
Measured service.Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.
Three Service Models:
Software as a Service (SaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user- specific application configuration settings.
Platform as a Service (PaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).
Four Deployment Models:
Private cloud.The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and operated by the organization, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.
Community cloud. The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.
Public cloud.The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government organization, or some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud provider.
Hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds).
Every Marine knows the date, 10th of November, which makes the following day, Veterans Day, a bit different.
Veterans have Veterans Day to commemorate their military service on the 11th of November. And the Marines have the Marine Corps Birthday to commemorate their roots, one day earlier. All active duty and former Marines will wish each other a happy birthday on the Marine Corps Birthday. Marines will also tell you that the timing of these two back-to-back American holidays is ideal since it gives Marines a day off after their Birthday Ball celebrations and festivities.
America’s military is a unique breed of people who are called to serve, not only to protect their country, but, more importantly, they’re called to serve through their oath: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The distinction between country and Constitution is vital because it prioritizes the principles spelled out in the Constitution ahead of the desires of our citizens or the values we codify in laws.
A Unique Breed
U.S. Marines are a unique breed of America’s military. While each of the military branches have different missions and specialties, one key fact that makes Marines different from the rest of the U.S. Armed Forces is that all Marines are combatants. They are all basic riflemen trained to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy's assault by fire and close combat. More specifically, the Marine Corps does not have doctors, dentists, chaplains, etc. However, since the Marines work so closely with the U.S. Navy (a separate military branch) they receive health and spiritual services from Navy doctors, medics (called corpsmen), chaplains, etc.
Additionally, the Marines are a small, tightly integrated military corps with both tactical fixed-wing (fighter jets) and rotary-wing (helicopters) to support their ground troops. The U.S. Army only has tactical helicopters to support their ground troops. If the Army needs fixed-wing combat support, they’d call on the U.S. Air Force.
Celebrations and Observances
Veterans Day is officially observed withtwo minutes of silence at 11:11 AM PST to commemorate the ending of WW I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. (It’s celebrated at 11:11 AM PST instead of EST so that all time zones in the United States can celebrate it simultaneously.) Additionally, dozens ofparades and ceremonies are held, throughout the country, along withdeals, discounts, and freebies, to honor our Veterans.
While Veterans Day is marked with two minutes of silence, the Marine Corps Birthday is observed with two hours of pageantry, throughout the world, at Marine Corps Birthday Balls. The highlight of the Marine Corps Ball is the cake cutting ceremony which follows abasic script where the first piece of cake is presented to the guest of honor. The second piece of cake is given to the oldest Marine present who then presents the youngest Marine with the third piece of cake to symbolize the passing of experience, knowledge, and tradition from the old to the young.
Even though active duty Marines aren’t yet veterans, they greatly appreciate having the next day, Veterans Day, off from work to rest up from the previous night’s celebrations.
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