Showing 1 - 7 of 7
AI -- what is it good for?
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/08/2019
» Why do we care about machine learning and the kind of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems I mentioned last time? The amount of data being taken in by systems in modern times is outstripping the ability of humans to keep up. Enter machine learning systems to pre-process the information, highlight patterns and identify the bits and pieces that humans may find interesting. Key areas include fraud detection, whereby a set of rules is applied to data and flagged if those rules are detected. It also includes the age-old problem of the best delivery routes to bring manufactured goods to customers, with the additional benefit of using less fuel. A recent McKinsey report found that AI improved on "traditional analytics techniques" in 400 use cases across 19 industries and nine business functions. As far as the current situation, AI or machine learning is not an end state. Human intervention is still required to make sure the results make sense and also to ensure stuff isn't being missed in the process. There is also continuing training and refinement being regularly applied. It's a growing field and those organisations that are not at least aware of it could be left behind by their competitors. At least, until Skynet takes over.
Easy-to-use websites have flown the coop
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/02/2016
» I was trying to book a flight on the Qantas website recently and I realised that websites have become too busy. Consider the average traveller. They want to go from one place to another on a particular date, sometimes at a particular time, and most likely they want to come back again. For a single provider like Qantas this should be easy; pick the departure city and date, the return city and date, and a list of options is presented. You can try a test for yourself to see how easy this is. For example, you can't type in a date and the date picker take ages to appear, at least with my browser. There are some cute icons next to the date fields that I will never use and what used to be an easy task took three goes to get something back. The art of the clean, simple, easy-to-use website is for the most part lost and drowned in advertising and unnecessary options which makes them slow and unwieldy. There are exceptions of course.
The Office 360 downgrade
Life, James Hein, Published on 07/10/2015
» As I write this article I am in New York. New York has excellent Internet connectivity if you have the right connection. Like anywhere, however, Wi-Fi access can vary considerably. When I travel I also use Team Viewer to connect to my home computer and as I found out you are relying on someone at the other end to restart the computer if there is a problem like a power failure. If you do travel I recommend leaving some instructions on what to start after the computer is turned on or set things up to auto load. The other option of course is to forget about technology altogether and just have fun. These days it is all about the selfie shot. I must admit that while I do not typically indulge in the practice I did take a couple in front of some iconic places and put them on Facebook. It is amusing to see someone use a selfie stick to take a normal picture, it looks very awkward.
3D Doctor Who a literal headache
Life, James Hein, Published on 04/12/2013
» It is interesting how much we take modern technology for granted these days. We read stories of people who believe their in-car GPS units over common sense and have ended up on dead- end streets, in rivers, lakes and the sides of house _ in one case up a tree. The younger generation believe Google and Wikipedia over Grandpa, who was actually there. People create fantasy words in which they spend hours, but real-life meetings are sometimes avoided.
It's time for an overhaul
Life, James Hein, Published on 24/04/2013
» So the question of the next big thing seems to be, why would you need to have a watch and a phone? I have noticed that most of the younger generation, the ones with a smartphone, don't have a watch because the time is prominently displayed on the phone. One simple answer might be that a watch is still useful for when your hands are full, or swimming underwater, or when you are doing something that doesn't include pockets.
Ink and incremental change as Apple continues to fall
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/12/2012
» This year will be an interesting one and a little like 1998 because the world marketplace will be struggling, there will be little disposable income to go around, sales figures will be down and as a consequence there will not be a strong push to move computer technology very far. In the smartphone arena I predict that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will eclipse the iPhone 5S for two reasons. The 5S will be a catch-up model to the S3 with nothing special about it and at the same time the S4 will be well ahead of the 5S in functionality. Up until the iPhone 4, Apple dominated the market. With the release of the 4S and the passing of Steve Jobs things started to go downhill as Apple started to become reactive to the marketplace instead of a market driver. It moved to litigation and protectionism over inventiveness and innovation. So the downward slide of Apple will continue through 2013.
Focus on loyal, paying customers, not pirates
Database, James Hein, Published on 27/01/2010
» There is a fine line between product protection, security and customer dissatisfaction. Organisations that develop software employ all manner of protection mechanisms to stop people using their products without paying for them first. Almost without exception the pirates and crackers find a way to bypass these protection mechanisms and the same people who didn't pay for software get the latest versions for free or at a greatly reduced price.