Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something. Like many of the new development buzzwords (which many of them are over-used on many business documents), the concept of innovation originates from the world of business. It refers to the generation of new products through the process of creative entrepreneurship, putting it into production, and diffusing it more widely through increased sales. Innovation can be viewed as t he application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation article points out that there is a form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth. The definition of innovation is easy to find but it seems to be hard to understand. Here is a simple taxonomy of related activities that put innovation in context:
- Novelty: Something new
- Creation: Something new and valuable
- Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
- Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful
The taxonomy is illustrated with the following diagram.
The differences are also evident in the mechanisms that exist to protect the works: Novelties are usually not protectable, Creations are protected by copyright or trademark, Inventions can be protected for a limited time through patents (or kept secret) and Innovations can be protected through market competition but are not defensible through legal means.
Innovation is a lot of talked about nowdays as essential to businesses to do. Is innovation essential for development work? article tells that innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
Some innovation ideas are pretty simple, and some are much more complicated and even sound crazy when heard first. The is place for crazy sounding ideas: venture capitalists are gravely concerned that the tech startups they’re investing in just aren’t crazy enough:
Not all development problems require new solutions, sometimes you just need to use old things in a slightly new way. Development innovations may involve devising technology (such as a nanotech water treatment kit), creating a new approach (such as microfinance), finding a better way of delivering public services (such as one-stop egovernment service centres), identifying ways of working with communities (such as participation), or generating a management technique (such as organisation learning).
Theorists of innovation identify innovation itself as a brief moment of creativity, to be followed by the main routine work of producing and selling the innovation. When it comes to development, things are more complicated. Innovation needs to be viewed as tool, not master. Innovation is a process, not a one time event. Genuine innovation is valuable but rare.
There are many views on the innovation and innvation process. I try to collect together there some views I have found on-line. Hopefully they help you more than confuze. Managing complexity and reducing risk article has this drawing which I think pretty well describes innovation as done in product development:
8 essential practices of successful innovation from The Innovator’s Way shows essential practices in innovation process. Those practices are all integrated into a non-sequential, coherent whole and style in the person of the innovator.
In the IT work there is lots of work where a little thinking can be a source of innovation. Automating IT processes can be a huge time saver or it can fail depending on situation. XKCD comic strip Automation as illustrates this:
System integration is a critical element in project design article has an interesting project cost influence graphic. The recommendation is to involve a system integrator early in project design to help ensure high-quality projects that satisfy project requirements. Of course this article tries to market system integration services, but has also valid points to consider.
Core Contributor Loop (CTTDC) from Art Journal blog posting Blog Is The New Black tries to link inventing an idea to theory of entrepreneurship. It is essential to tune the engine by making improvements in product, marketing, code, design and operations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Schools gone woke: a view from America
https://thecritic.co.uk/schools-gone-woke/
In a warning to teachers around the world, one American teacher opens up about the invasion of woke orthodoxy in the education sector
Starting about five years ago, these schools began to be consumed by woke ideology.
When I say “consumed by woke ideology” I mean that these schools are obsessed with sophomoric and divisive notions of diversity, equality, and justice; increasingly hostile to freedom of expression; addicted to cancelling anything that offends the woke movement; and prioritising activism over understanding as the goal of education.
The pendulum will not swing back because the woke movement is not a pendulum; it is a steamroller
I am writing this letter to alert those we may describe as “sleep-wokers”. A sleep-woker is one who has not taken the woke creed to heart, yet nevertheless tacitly complies with the linguistic, pedagogical, political, and moral imperatives of wokeness. Sleep-wokers go through the motions; they are like religious folk who say prayers without thinking, attend worship services without engaging, and perpetuate dogmas without believing.
While sleep-woking, an English teacher can unwittingly help cancel Chaucer, Keats and Conrad in the name of decolonisation. A biology teacher might find herself obliged to deny important differences between the sexes. A football coach will not be able to cheer on a player after a strong tackle, as strength and physical violence smack of toxic masculinity.
Most of my sleep-woking colleagues are good people. Like me, they were lulled into complacency by a woke take-over that was slow and subtle. What’s more, some changes were initially promising and even corrective — of course we should pay more attention to marginalised voices and overlooked narratives, and I am glad that we now do. To bemoan an expanded curriculum is simple chauvinism. In the end, however, wokeness has proven to be oppressive and totalitarian rather than inclusive and liberating.
Here is some of what wokeness has wrought at top American schools:
Offence in is the Eye of the Offended
Schools openly preach that if one feels offended, one has been offended. For example, if a student or colleague claims to have been offended by your words or actions, it does not matter if you intended no offence. More troubling is the fact that it does not matter if your words and actions were not those that a rational person should find offensive — you are an offender merely by virtue of the fact that someone claims to have been offended.
Elimination of Non-Woke Student Clubs
Any student group that resists woke orthodoxy is likely to be forcibly disbanded or prevented from forming. Student clubs cannot form without faculty sponsors.
No Resisting Woke Slogans
Opposing woke slogans or voicing contrary slogans is not tolerated. Since opposing wokeness is thought to be motivated by hate, voicing opposition to woke slogans is tantamount to hate speech. A student who challenges a woke slogan is bullied and harassed by the woke majority.
Cultural Appropriation
White or Western students are told not to participate in cultural traditions of non-white, non-Western people — the oppressors cannot participate in the culture of the oppressed.
Cancelling Curriculum
Shakespeare, Homer and other canonical authors are being eliminated from the curriculum. In some cases, schools and teachers boast about cancelling these patriarchal racists. Even at schools that do not officially cancel canonical Western texts, the texts are subtly replaced in the name of anti-racism.
Most of my students will go to university never having read Homer or Shakespeare, though they will have been required to read many texts and attend many lectures on intersectionality and gender identity.
Normalising Fallacies
Ad hominem attacks are presented as the cornerstone of critical thinking rather than as a fallacious form of argumentation. We teach students to evaluate texts and arguments by primarily attending to the author’s race, gender, and sexuality.
Mandatory Training
Students attend mandatory training sessions in which experts teach them how to identify and report microaggressions. And since to a student with a hammer everything looks like a nail, the students begin informing on each other and on their teachers. White teachers are told to attend racial-political re-education workshops in which they strive to overcome their whiteness in the classroom. (It has long been accepted that “whiteness” is a meaningful category.)
Trigger Warnings
Before introducing a new unit, teachers compile lists of trigger warnings for the material in that unit. A trigger warning serves to alert students to any and all things in the unit that could cause them stress, frustration, anger, or sadness. These lists are shared with students.
Manners and Dress Codes
A side-effect of the woke attack on tradition, authority, and hierarchy has been the revocation of dress codes.
Arguably the only rule left in the dining halls and cafeterias is “Don’t throw food.”
Many students eat meals with headphones in their ears while watching videos on their phones. The less respectful students don’t bother with headphones.
Elimination of Objective Assessments
Exams are being eliminated for two reasons: first, because exams are apparently inherently racist, sexist, classist, heteronormative, or otherwise unfair; second, because exams cause students stress, and stress makes students feel bad, and feeling bad negatively impacts their well-being. Additionally, some students do poorly on exams, and this has the potential to result in a situation that is inequitable.
Pronouns
Faculty are frequently pressured to identify their pronouns. Failure to identify one’s pronouns is seen as transphobic or cis-centric or both. Students can reassign their own pronouns at will. If a teacher mistakenly does not use the student’s preferred pronoun, the teacher is accused of misgendering. Misgendering a serious offence, even a kind of violence.
The unchecked advance of wokeness will do two things to your school. First, you and your students will lose the ability to freely read, write and speak as pupils and teachers. Second, the education that you now provide will become unrecognisably impoverished.
Wokeness has been achieved at the expense of education
Many of my students claim to be proud practitioners of social justice (don’t push them too hard on what that means) yet they have only an elementary command of grammar and geography, struggling to write complete sentences and unable to locate Turkey on a map. Some have begun to ask why we take math so seriously given that math is apparently grounded in Western patriarchal rationalism. Wokeness has been achieved at the expense of education. Reason has been subordinated to passion.
To not be woke is to be asleep: unconscious or ignorant of what is really going on
One of the canniest bits of woke linguistic manipulation has been appropriation of the term “woke” itself. To not be woke is to be asleep: unconscious or ignorant of what is really going on. Either one is woke or one is not aware of reality. Or, as I was recently told by a student, if you are not woke, it must be because you are uneducated or hateful — or both. Such is the woke reality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Everywhere
https://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-interviews/iot-everywhere/234019/
In the past five years Arm has shipped over 100 billion chips for applications including smart healthcare, industrial robotics and the connected home. Today it is well positioned to help drive both innovation and adoption when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT).
According to Mohamed Awad, VP of Arm’s IoT Business, however, there is still a lot to be done in terms of the development, deployment and monetisation of IoT devices, as well as a broader ecosystem, that will help to unlock value and enable developers to focus on innovation.
“Looking at the IoT, there’s still much to be done when it comes to addressing all of these issues. It’s going to require a multi-year effort to deliver on the promises that have been made.
“Over the years, we’ve talked at length about the IoT and today our focus is on connecting numerous ‘intelligent’ endpoints to an infrastructure and, as a consequence, creating and generating real and actionable insight from each one. From smart healthcare to remote monitoring, from industrial robotics to the connected home we are, in many respects, still at the beginning of this revolution in connectivity,” Awad suggested.
When intelligent devices are connected to an infrastructure, new challenges will emerge. What is done with the data that is generated and how do you glean meaningful insights are, Awad pointed out, just a few of the challenges.
“There’s already some intelligence at the edge but we are now actively connecting smart devices to an infrastructure. Once they are connected to a broader network we then need to take into account a range of issues from managing updates to adding new workloads to devices – these are new concepts for endpoints that will need to be addressed.”
The reality, according to Awad, is that it will take many years and numerous steps, and miss-steps, to get these devices in place and delivering actionable data.
“Some industries have been moving faster than others,” he conceded, “and while there is a lot to do, there have certainly been some successes.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
UK digital skills shortage risks economic recovery
https://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-blogs/uk-digital-skills-shortage-risks-economic-recovery/235702/
With Britain’s economy showing tentative signs of recovery could it be blown off course by a digital skills crisis?
Well, that appears to be the conclusion being drawn from a new survey that shows that there has been a sharp fall in the number of young people taking IT courses.
According to the Learning and Work Institute under half of UK employers thought that new entrants to the workforce had the advanced digital skillsets required and, as a consequence, this lack of sufficiently trained recruits was costing the economy billions of pounds.
While a significant majority of young people say that digital skills are essential to their future careers just 22% of GCSE entrants, 17% of A Level, 23% of apprenticeships in ICT, and just 16% of undergraduate starts are in computer science.
Something is obviously going wrong here in the UK and with 60% of businesses saying their reliance on advanced digital skills will only increase
Tomi Engdahl says:
New result from the LHCb experiment challenges leading theory in physics
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-result-lhcb-theory-physics.html
The LHCb Collaboration at CERN has found particles not behaving in the way they should according to the guiding theory of particle physics—the Standard Model.
The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that particles called beauty quarks, which are measured in the LHCb experiment, should decay into either muons or electrons in equal measure. However, the new result suggests that this may not be happening, which could point to the existence of new particles or interactions not explained by the Standard Model.
Physicists from Imperial College London and the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge led the analysis of the data to produce this result, with funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council. The result was announced today at the Moriond Electroweak Physics conference and published as a preprint.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists Collected Human DNA From the Air In a Breakthrough
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88awgb/scientists-collected-human-dna-from-the-air-in-a-breakthrough
The first reported collection of human and animal DNA from ambient air is a boon for researchers in forensic archeology, ecology, and population studies.
In a first, scientists have revealed that animal and human DNA can be plucked straight out of thin air. The development heralds a promising new scientific technique with possible applications for ecology, forensics, and medicine, according to a new study.
Now, a team led by Elizabeth Clare, senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), has provided the “first proof of concept demonstration that air samples are a viable source of DNA for the identification of species in the environment,” according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal PeerJ.
Tomi Engdahl says:
After failing critical thrust tests, the “impossible” engine has proven to be just that.
Scientists Just Killed the EmDrive
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35991457/emdrive-thruster-fails-tests/?utm_campaign=socialflowFBPOP&utm_medium=social-media&utm_source=facebook
After failing critical thrust tests, the “impossible” engine has proven to be just that.
The “impossible” EmDrive has failed international testing in three new papers.
The idea was always far out, but that’s part of how science moves forward.
EmDrive works (or not) by pumping microwaves into an asymmetrical closed chamber.
In major international tests, the physics-defying EmDrive has failed to produce the amount of thrust proponents were expecting. In fact, in one test at Germany’s Dresden University, it didn’t produce any thrust at all. Is this the end of the line for EmDrive?
Tomi Engdahl says:
It could be incredibly easy to manipulate childhood memories, studies suggest.
False Childhood Memories Are Easily Planted, Then Removed, From Peoples’ Mind
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/false-childhood-memories-are-easily-planted-then-removed-from-peoples-mind/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
Tomi Engdahl says:
After Years Of Trying, Somebody Finally Just Cooked A Chicken By Slapping It
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/after-years-of-trying-somebody-finally-just-cooked-a-chicken-by-slapping-it/
People have been attempting to cook chickens by slapping them for years, after learning that physics says it’s possible. Now a YouTuber has finally achieved it.
A while back on Reddit, somebody asked a question in the No Stupid Questions subreddit: “If kinetic energy is converted into thermal energy, how hard do I have to slap a chicken to cook it?”
Though it clearly is a stupid question, it’s also sort of the best question the Internet has ever heard. A physics major over on Facebook, Parker Ormonde, did the math
“1 average slap would generate a temperature increase of 0.0089 degrees Celsius,” Ormonde calculated. “It would take 23,034 average slaps to cook a chicken.”
That’s an absurd number of slaps when the oven is right there requiring precisely zero.
It took around 135,000 slaps, and 8 hours to achieve, but it was worth it. As an added bonus, he also cooked a pretty good looking medium-rare steak and ate it while he was at it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Metal-Munching Robot Can Navigate Autonomously Without a Brain
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-metal-munching-robot-can-navigate-autonomously-without-a-brain-b92c4f50a2d7
Researchers from University of Pennsylvania have developed a robot that feeds on metal and can navigate autonomously without a brain.
Tomi Engdahl says:
97 percent of those who received the vaccine developed the right immune cells to respond to an HIV infection.
New HIV Vaccine Approach Shows Great Promise In First-In-Human Clinical Trial
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-hiv-vaccine-approach-shows-great-promise-in-firstinhuman-clinical-trial/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum particles in a gravitational wave violate a key principle of classical physics.
https://www.natureindex.com/institution-outputs/australia/the-university-of-adelaide-adelaide-uni/5139072d34d6b65e6a00213e?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nindx-Apr21RH&utm_content=UAD&fbclid=IwAR0m_WyiDq1Z2wnnNfiFl0QdrGsBsTPyeO3NuvIllji2tPr5DdO6IKocmHA#highlight
Tomi Engdahl says:
Useless research – an expensive waste of time?
https://amp.theguardian.com/science/blog/2007/jul/13/uselessresearchanexpensive
Research doesn’t come cheap. Considering the wealth of useful information we’re still lacking, should we really be wondering how to make the perfect cup of tea?
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.kooders.fi/blogi/mita-teet-tyosi-vastapainoksi
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.editorx.com/shaping-design/article/cognitive-biases
Tomi Engdahl says:
Miten kehittäisit itseäsi? 4 vinkkiä uusien taitojen nappaamiseen
https://www.lifeworks.fi/blogit/miten-kehittaisit-itseasi-4-vinkkia-uusien-taitojen-nappaamiseen/
Tiesitkö, että nykyiset taitosi eivät takaa sinulle töitä enää vuonna 2025? Lue Lindan vinkit itsesi kehittämiseen sekä lisää taidoista, joille on eniten kysyntää vuonna 2025.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Muons: ‘Strong’ evidence found for a new force of nature
https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Exactly Is Your Brain Doing When Reading Code?
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/software/what-does-your-brain-do-when-you-read-code
Coding is becoming an increasingly vital skill. As more people learn how to code, neuroscientists are beginning to unlock the mystery behind what happens in people’s brains when they “think in code.”
“Computer programming is not an old skill, so we don’t have an innate module in the brain that does the processing for us,” says Anna Ivanova, a graduate student at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “That means we have to use some of our existing neural systems to process code.”
Ivanova and her colleagues studied two brain systems that might be good candidates for processing code: The multiple demand system—which tends to be engaged in cognitively challenging tasks such as solving math problems or logical reasoning—and the language system. Despite the structural similarities between programming languages and natural languages, the researchers found that the brain does not engage the language system—it activates the multiple demand system.
The result was consistent regardless of programming language
The study also found that the multiple demand system likely stores representations of code-relevant information, including common coding concepts (such as loops) and knowledge specific to a programming language (such as the syntax of a for loop in Java versus Python).
Yet coding and math and logic don’t rely on entirely the same brain mechanisms. “The multiple demand system includes regions in the left and right hemispheres,” Ivanova says. “For math and logic, we usually see more activity in the left hemisphere. For code, it activated the multiple demand system in both hemispheres, so the activation pattern is different from what we see for math and logic.”
“Most people use their right hand to write, while some people use their left, and fewer people can use both hands. That might also be true for reading code,” Liu says. “Most people use the left logical reasoning system, and some use a bit of the right, but maybe some people use both. How much each individual relies on the left brain to read code is associated with how much they rely on the left brain to do linguistic tasks.” This suggests that language may still play a role in understanding code even if the brain doesn’t engage its language network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://fortune.com/2021/03/31/turning-award-winners-2021-computer-science-prize-nobel-prize-money/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How does the brain interpret computer languages?
Neuroscientists detect a distinct brain network that grows stronger with practice.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/how-does-the-brain-interpret-computer-languages/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00592-0
A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient.
the authors observe that people consistently consider changes that add components over those that subtract them — a tendency that has broad implications for everyday decision-making
For example, Adams and colleagues analysed archival data and observed that, when an incoming university president requested suggestions for changes that would allow the university to better serve its students and community, only 11% of the responses involved removing an existing regulation, practice or programme. Similarly, when the authors asked study participants to make a 10 × 10 grid of green and white boxes symmetrical, participants often added green boxes to the emptier half of the grid rather than removing them from the fuller half, even when doing the latter would have been more efficient.
Adams et al. demonstrated that the reason their participants offered so few subtractive solutions is not because they didn’t recognize the value of those solutions, but because they failed to consider them. Indeed, when instructions explicitly mentioned the possibility of subtractive solutions, or when participants had more opportunity to think or practise, the likelihood of offering subtractive solutions increased. It thus seems that people are prone to apply a ‘what can we add here?’ heuristic (a default strategy to simplify and speed up decision-making). This heuristic can be overcome by exerting extra cognitive effort to consider other, less-intuitive solutions.
we propose that the bias towards additive solutions might be further compounded by the fact that subtractive solutions are also less likely to be appreciated. People might expect to receive less credit for subtractive solutions than for additive ones. A proposal to get rid of something might feel less creative than would coming up with something new to add, and it could also have negative social or political consequences
Finally, sunk-cost bias (a tendency to continue an endeavour once an investment in money, effort or time has been made) and waste aversion could lead people to shy away from removing existing features2, particularly if those features took effort to create in the first place.
These perceived disadvantages of subtractive solutions might encourage people to routinely seek out additive ones.
Adams and colleagues’ work points to a way of avoiding these pitfalls in the future — policymakers and organizational leaders could explicitly solicit and value proposals that reduce rather than add. For instance, the university president could specify that recommendations to remove committees or policies are both expected and appreciated.
In some situations, it should arguably be easier to generate subtractive changes, because those do not require imagining something that isn’t already there. Indeed, when people imagine how a situation could have turned out differently, they are more likely to do so by undoing an action they’ve taken rather than by adding an action they failed to take
Tomi Engdahl says:
Disorganized desktop? It might mean you’re a genius.
Albert Einstein’s Messy Desk Highlights The Surprising Link Between Clutter And Intelligence
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/369141
Einstein isn’t the only big thinker to flourish in disorder. Mark Twain, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few other documented examples of creatives who kept their desks in a state of organized chaos.
Research published in Psychological Science has good news for messy-deskers. Scientist Kathleen Vohs and a team at the University of Minnesota found that both clean and messy workspaces have their own unique perks.
In this series of experiments, participants were seated at a desk that was either clean or messy, then asked to answer survey questions and make various decisions. Participants seated at a messy desk generated more creative ideas during a brainstorming exercise. They also chose new or novel products over established ones when presented with options.
In contrast, those seated at clean desks behaved more conventionally, doing that was expected of them. When presented with either an apple or piece of chocolate for a snack, for example, participants seated at clean desks chose the healthy snack more frequently.
It’s a chicken-or-the-egg scenario that invites us to consider the type of thinking we want to cultivate. Do you work best after clearing space first and giving yourself some mental white space? Or does chaos leave you feeling freed up, resulting in your best and most valuable ideas?
Creativity is one of the most important and lucrative skills you can cultivate as an entrepreneur. Here are a few tips to tap into your inner Einstein on a regular basis.
Focus on passion. Figure out what makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning — then go after it with everything you’ve got. When you’re inspired, the grind feels weightless and exciting.
Stay informed. You don’t know what you don’t know, and often learning about a new technology or shift in markets can get your creative juices flowing. Make it a habit to read and learn every day.
Consider non-verbal brainstorming. To-do lists and fancy journals are great, but why limit yourself to words? Sketches, models, and doodles can help you flesh out ideas without being burdened by the confines of language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10161742963214522/
Is nuclear physics off topic? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2274847-physicists-have-created-a-new-and-extremely-rare-kind-of-uranium/ I am intrigued as it suggests that we may have nuclear theory slightly wrong.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2021/04/16/nanokokoinen-spinaaltolaite-on-askel-kohti-uudenlaista-laskentaa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
APIs alone will not transform dinosaurs into unicorns, but they can help you automate manual processes and act as innovation generators.
Power of connectivity – the benefits of APIs
https://wunderdog.fi/blog/power-of-connectivity-the-benefits-of-apis?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=HEL-benefits-of-APIs&fbclid=IwAR3nUt6RFnA_zzFuVbrGqJpKOOdq291BDzq7400HoYEYngfPggXyqkfnFdU
Role of APIs in the connected World
Many successful consumer services, such as Uber and Wolt, use APIs as their key building blocks. Business to business sector, in general, is slower, less agile, and less creative when it comes to digitalization. These companies often focus on digitalizing their existing business models and processes, rather than invest in digital growth opportunities.
APIs alone will not transform dinosaurs into unicorns, but they can help businesses automate manual processes and act as innovation generators. Smart API strategies and smart APIs push businesses gently towards a more holistic and connected way of thinking.
An API allows platforms and digital systems to communicate and share information with each other. This article will not go into technical detail, but it’s good to know that there are three main types of APIs:
Open APIs, aka Public APIs, are publicly available to developers and other users with no or minimal restriction.
Partner APIs are APIs exposed by/to the business partners.
Internal APIs, aka private APIs, are hidden from external users and only exposed by internal systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
My Assumptions about College Engineering Vs. My Experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMhUa-Tvga4
This video will cover what I expected as in incoming engineering student vs what I actually encountered with the major. I personally majored in electrical engineering and went to school at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Obviously everyone’s stories will be different, but this is what I went through.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/science-behind-cannabis-medical-properties/
Tomi Engdahl says:
To increase the sustainability of device manufacturing, Duke University engineers have come up with the world’s first recyclable printed transistor.
Duke University Engineers Develop World’s First Recyclable Printed Transistor
https://www.hackster.io/news/duke-university-engineers-develop-world-s-first-recyclable-printed-transistor-84caf7dd5483
A transistor is the most basic building block of all digital computing. Transistors act like tiny switches and enable Boolean logic, which is the basis of every operation a computer performs. CPUs, GPUs, and many other components contain millions of transistors. The Apple A14 Bionic SoC (System On a Chip), used in the iPhone 12, contains a whopping 11.8 billiontransistors. Unfortunately, most transistors have silicon insulators and are impossible to recycle. That means that we have an ever-growing pile of electronic components that are obsolete but that can’t be reused or harvested for resources.
The engineers constructed their transistors by printing special inks onto paper substrates. One ink, made from carbon nanotubes, acts as the semiconductor material. A second ink, made from graphene, acts as the conductor material. The final ink, which is the key development here, is the insulator. That ink is made from nano cellulose, which is processed from natural plant fiber. An inkjet printer sprays those inks on the paper substrate in the correct pattern to form a functional transistor.
When it comes time to recycle one of these transistors, the paper substrate goes through a series of chemical baths and a centrifuge ride to separate out the carbon nanotubes and graphene. Those are reusable. All that gets left behind is the paper substrate and the nano cellulose, both of which are biodegradable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/12071-lapinakyvalla-kalvolla-auringosta-sahkoa-18-6-prosentin-hyotysuhteella
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/04/26/logic-flows-literally-in-this-water-adder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/04/23/paper-bottles-for-your-fizzy-drinks-and-bottle-rockets/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Europe’s unofficial incubator is pulling the continent together to incite innovation. Here’s how
Europe’s division is harming its ability to innovate
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/bc/eit-innovation?fbclid=IwAR3OUrsY77WipTIWuRxwGNnjIf7cm9W_aIJ6VBcLHkQUBCCK22FitxGW5UM&utm_campaign=Wired+EIT+Traffic+April+2021+&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_source=Paid_Social
The continent built on creativity still needs help translating it into innovation
Culture is Europe’s forte, but the continent is lagging behind when it comes to turning its creative heritage into concrete solutions. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is working to change that. This year, the EIT is calling for proposals on how to build their newest Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC), focused on Europe’s cultural and creative sectors. Its aim is to bring innovation to these industries, and also lift up the EIT’s eight other KICs, which cover a range of areas from sustainability to health.
“Europe is no longer in the lead,” says EIT director Martin Kern. “We can see that in innovation scoreboards and success stories. If you once had the leadership in a certain field, then of course that’s not automatically perpetuated.” Europe is still a creativity powerhouse, but fragmentation is holding it back.
Political divisions aside, the continent boasts an array of different cultures and perspectives. “Because of the richness and the diversity and the differences we have in Europe, it may not always be so easy to all move in the same direction,” says Kern. Too often that spreads us apart. But if we pool together, Kern says, we’d have a huge advantage.
“Innovation happens at the boundaries,” says Kern, “not by the same people working together on the same issues, but by cross-fertilisation and creating room for serendipity and different encounters to happen. That’s our experience of how creativity can spark innovation.” Creativity is hard to get to, so it’s good to have as many shortcuts as possible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Released In US For First Time To Combat Disease
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-released-in-us-for-first-time-to-combat-disease/
A landmark project, spearheaded by the biotechnology company, Oxitec, has released genetically modified mosquitos in the Florida Keys. This marks the first time that genetically modified mosquitos have been released into the wild in the US. The reason: to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito species responsible for spreading mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and Zika in the region.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Flat-Packed Pasta – A More Sustainable Way To Enjoy Your Penne?
https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/flat-packed-pasta-a-more-sustainable-way-to-enjoy-your-penne-348458?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=IFLS%20Referral
There are over 350 types of pasta that have been created all over the world to suit different traditions and cooking needs. Specific shapes hold certain sauces better than others; if you are craving a hearty meat-stuffed pasta dish, for example, using strands of spaghetti might prove a little challenging – enter the tortellini.
Whether it is tubed, spiralled, twisted or waved, many types of pasta require large boxes to transport them safely across the world without causing damage to the product.
In a new study published in Science Advances, researchers from the Morphing Matter Lab at Carnegie Mellon University propose a more sustainable approach: flat-packed pasta that morphs into the shape of “traditional pasta” when it is cooked. Inspired by flat-packed furniture, the scientists hypothesize that this approach could offer a space-saving solution for transporting pasta, which might reduce the carbon footprint of the process.
Getting groovy with pasta design
To create the morphed pasta, the team introduce surface grooves into the flat pasta dough, which is made from semolina flour and water, that tune the differential swelling rate of the pasta as it cooks. “This causes the morphing. If you design the groove patterns in different ways, you can program the shape that the pasta will morph into,” says Yao. The grooves can be created through low-cost manufacturing methods, such as casting, laser etching and stamping.
Perhaps most importantly, the morphing of the pasta does not lead to a compromised taste, according to Ye Tao, former postdoctoral researcher at the Morphing Matter Lab. She decided to pack-up some of the pasta as fuel for a hiking trip, where she cooked it on a portable camp stove. “The morphed pasta mimicked the mouthfeel, taste and appearance of traditional pasta,” she describes in a press release.
the raw materials and the process required to knead and sheet morphed pasta dough are the same. “The changes in a mass production line may include the introduction of a stamping process. Our intuition is that this is relatively trivial, but we need more input from industrial experts,”
The method could also be applied to other flour-based foods, such as Japanese ramen or Asian noodles. “Food gels like gello, or Japanese wagashi, could work too,” says Yao.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robert Hart / Forbes:
Study of 430K+ adolescents from the US and UK finds that there is “little evidence” of a link between teens’ technology use and mental health problems — There is “little evidence” of a link between teens’ technology use and mental health problems, according …
Study Finds No Link Between Time Teens’ Spend On Tech Devices And Mental Health Problems
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/04/study-finds-no-link-between-time-teens-spend-on-tech-devices-and-mental-health-problems/?sh=3640e9032cc9
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/08/reinventing-the-wheel/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The human-focused startups of the hellfire
The future of technology and disaster response Part 4: Training, mental health and crowdsourcing
https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/09/the-human-focused-startups-of-the-hellfire/?tpcc=ECFB2021
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers Develop an Ultra-Compact Injectable
https://www.hackster.io/news/researchers-develop-an-ultra-compact-injectable-temperature-sensing-chip-powered-by-ultrasonics-81bae67254e5
Temperature-Sensing Chip, Powered by Ultrasonics
Small enough to be injected through a small needle, this wireless temperature sensor shows promise for future medical procedures.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers Develop an Ultra-Compact Injectable Temperature-Sensing Chip, Powered by Ultrasonics
Small enough to be injected through a small needle, this wireless temperature sensor shows promise for future medical procedures.
https://www.hackster.io/news/researchers-develop-an-ultra-compact-injectable-temperature-sensing-chip-powered-by-ultrasonics-81bae67254e5
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pandora Is Ditching Mined Diamonds, Moving To Sustainable Lab-Made Alternatives Only
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/pandora-is-ditching-mined-diamonds-moving-to-sustainable-labmade-alternatives-only/
Pandora, one of the world’s largest jewelry suppliers, has announced that it will be ditching selling mined diamonds as it launches the company’s first-ever lab-created diamonds.
Alexander Lacik, Pandora CEO, told the BBC that this shift was part of a broader sustainability drive at the company. The launch of the sustainably acquired diamonds “marks a new milestone for Pandora as it will no longer be using mined diamonds,” the company said in a statement. “Going forward, mined diamonds will no longer be used in Pandora’s products.”
Lab-made diamonds are cheaper than traditional diamonds but identical to those dug up from the ground in terms of optical, chemical, thermal, and physical characteristics. They are also graded by the same standards: cut, color, clarity, and carat.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/groundbreaking-hologram-technology-brings-scifi-battles-to-life/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Man Who Is Paralyzed Communicates By Imagining Handwriting
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/12/996141182/paralyzed-man-communicates-by-imagining-handwriting?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social
An experimental device that turns thoughts into text has allowed a man who was left paralyzed by an accident to construct sentences swiftly on a computer screen.
The man was able to type with 95% accuracy just by imagining he was handwriting letters on a sheet of paper, a team reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Tomi Engdahl says:
No Link Between Teenage Tech Use And Mental Health Problems, Huge Study Finds
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/no-link-between-teenage-tech-use-and-mental-health-problems-huge-study-finds/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Harvard psychologist to parents: Do these 7 things if you want to raise kids with flexible, resilient brains
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/harvard-psychologist-rules-for-raising-intelligent-kids-with-resilient-brains.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why ‘early specialization’ is the key parenting approach for raising exceptional kids: Performance expert
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/key-parenting-approach-to-raising-exceptionally-successful-kids.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
From WinZips to Cat GIFs, Jacob Ziv’s Algorithms Have Powered Decades of Compression
https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/from-winzips-to-cat-gifs-jacob-zivs-algorithms-have-powered-decades-of-compression
Tomi Engdahl says:
A therapist shares the 7 biggest parenting mistakes that destroy kids’ mental strength
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/25/biggest-parenting-mistake-destroys-kids-mental-strength-says-therapist.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
New quantum receiver the first to detect entire radio frequency spectrum
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-quantum-entire-radio-frequency-spectrum.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shape Shifting Liquid Metal Could Revolutionize Robotics
This can be utilized in many fields, including soft robotics and flexible computer displays.
https://interestingengineering.com/scientists-have-created-shape-shifting-liquid-metal-that-can-be-programmed
Tomi Engdahl says:
Farming Robot Kills 100,000 Weeds per Hour With Lasers
A person can weed about one acre of crops a day. This smart robot can weed 20
https://www.freethink.com/articles/farming-robot