2015 marks 40 years since John Cocke of IBM Research introduced the idea of a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) to the world. It has been a long road, but today RISC architecture computer systems dominate the mobile computing landscape. More than 50 billion processors have been delivered to consumers through the purchase of products ranging from TV set-top boxes, tablets, and most significantly, cell phones. RISC is an overnight success story that took 40 years to be realized. Continue reading Imitators and Innovators Adopt RISC
Category Archives: Technology
Are Google and Apple About to Pivot?
Pivoting happens whenever a startup misses the market and goes back to the drawing board to construct a new strategy. A pivot is a radical change in direction forced on a company about to capsize. Continue reading Are Google and Apple About to Pivot?
Will the Flying Car Make a Comeback?
Flying cars loomed large in most every prediction of the future since the airplane was invented, beginning in 1917 when the Curtiss Autoplane flying car was made public. Interest reached a fever pitch in the 1960s when the successful TV program, “The Jetsons,” showed George Jetson driving a 1962 animated model. Ford Motor Company even considered building the first FAA-approved flying car called the Aerocar in the 1970s. Continue reading Will the Flying Car Make a Comeback?
Why Physical Cyber Security is Broken
Recent FBI reports of a dozen physical attacks on the Internet backbone near Sacramento, CA highlight the sad state of physical cyber security and policies to cope with threats to the Internet. Sacramento is an intermediary in the Internet backbone carrying east-west traffic; it connects Chicago and San Francisco hubs, and ultimately links the West Coast with the remainder of the U.S. and Europe. No wonder the bad guys physically cut the fiber optic cable near Sacramento—it is a critical link in the most highly traveled cables in the U.S. Continue reading Why Physical Cyber Security is Broken