If we do not control the technology we rely on, another individual will — and we would in contrast to the implications. When people fail to manipulate their actions, the law might step in. When people fail to govern their technology, code might intercede.  It’s happening already. Google is definitely on its strategy to developing self-driving cars. Definitely automated cars will save lives, fuel, and time because, let’s accept it, we’re terrible drivers usually. Normally you are an excellent driver, but statistically speaking, your average lifetime risk of dying in a car accident involves something like 1 in 84. Even when you drive flawlessly, another person won’t. You or someone you recognize could suffer for that. Expect that Google will do better, if we’re willing to give up control. It looks like we shall. Technology has become so complicated and robust that a lot of people prefer ease of use or the promise of security, real or not, over control. Apple has won... Read More »

Let’s deconstruct the “flash will die” theory. I’ve read about a articles recently predicting a sudden and abrupt end to the flash market. The rationale given was that as flash NAND gets cheaper, it also becomes less reliable. Here is due to the decreasing flash lithography and the increasing write density (choice of bits per cell). Each of those lowers the life expectancy of the technology. The concept is that, as this continues to happen, flash turns into unsustainable and the industry will move directly to something else. While I agree that flash will someday get replaced by another technology, i don’t believe that’s going to happen anytime soon. Except for NVDIMM, most competing memory technology is five to 6 years faraway from being appropriate for the enterprise, and NVDIMM should be used only in small quantities as a result of cost. There’s various technology that supports the flash NAND market. This includes flash controller technology that controls how and where flash is written. The... Read More »

VMware shows strong profits in fourth quarter, renewed strength because it spending revives. Commoditization? What commoditization? VMware concluded 2013 with strength: Its fourth quarter was up 15% over the year-ago period, and revenue for the complete year was up 13%, to $5.21 billion over 2012. These numbers disguise greater than they reveal. VMware continues to go upstream at an accelerating pace into virtual datacenter and personal-cloud management. That isn’t just a revenue producer for the corporate today, but a trademark that, because it budgets strengthen, VMware is able on the way to yield growing revenue far into the longer term. The other view — that VMware is in a market that’s being commoditized — is thrown into doubt by the fourth-quarter figures. For example, without its Pivotal divesture, those numbers would had been up 17% for the year and 20% for the quarter. By moving Cloud Foundry, Spring, Greenplum, and RabbitMQ into Pivotal, VMware got both lower-yield open-source products (and the headcount related to them)... Read More »

Intel stands out as the biggest loser if Asus cancels dual Windows-Android devices owing to operating systems makers’ objections. Mobile World Congress: 5 Hot Gadgets (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Asus’s introduction of the Transformer Book Duet TD300 on the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year was a huge deal. Brian Krzanich, Intel’s CEO, joined Asus on stage and helped exhibit the convertible, a dual-boot machine that can run both Microsoft’s Windows and Google’s Android operating systems. Asus envisioned it’d be a piece machine by day and a private media device by night. Two months later, it seems that the product has become the victim of disapproval from both OS giants. Asus has “indefinitely postponed” plans to sell the device, in step with sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. The postponement comes after Microsoft and Google made clear to Asus their feelings about this kind of device. It’s no surprise that every platform maker wants devices to run just one platform. There... Read More »

VMware steps up competition with Amazon Web Services by hiring away its international technology evangelist. IT Jobs: Best Paying Titles Of 2014 (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Simone Brunozzi was named chief technologist and senior VP for VMware’s vCloud Hybrid Service. He was recruited from Amazon Web Services and said he’ll miss working with “great people like (CTO) Werner Vogels,” but can’t resist going over to the opposite side. VMware has urged its third-party partners to step up and compete more effectively with Amazon for cloud customers. At its Partner World in April, president Carl Eschenbach urged them to bypass being beaten by a would-be technology company “that sells books.” Now VMware is recruiting former booksellers into its own ranks: among his other credits, Brunozzi said he used to be a novelist. VMware announced Friday that Brunozzi has resigned from Amazon as a senior technology evangelist to aid VMware establish the cloud credentials of its vCloud Hybrid Service. Brunozzi grew up in Assisi,... Read More »