Data made meaningful and powerful by cooperation

I read about Google Chrome having 70 million users (not downloads, but users) on the Google Operating System blog. An impressive statistic.
The chart showed the increase over time:

Aside from the starting at 30 millions and thus not being able to see the full axis and thus the scale of it, I thought it showed the statistic well.
However, looking through the comments, I came across this comment from Scrvpvlvs: "Your fine article prompted me to compare the two browsers’ growth rates", dated the same day, under his blog post: "Chrome Heats Up Faster Than Firefox".
And in three charts he makes the data totally meaningful. The original poster quoted some figures from another website and stated that Firefox had five times more users than Chrome - implying that we should see the 70 million in that context.
Scrvpvlvs' charts show that these are indeed impressive figures because it shows the growth of Chrome. first by market share over time:

Then by share growth:

and then projecting one year into the future:

showing Chrome overtaking Firefox.
Thanks Scrvpvlvs for the analysis. It struck me also that it showed the power of collaboration, enriching the analysis of the original statistic.

Virtual Choir - "Lux Aurumque"

Eric Whitacre's "Lux Aurumque" is a wonderful piece (thank you Catherine), composed and conducted for a VIRTUAL CHOIR - this being done from individual Youtube tracks of singers from 12 countries.



Credits:
PRODUCED AND MANAGED BY:
Scott Haines

COMPOSED AND CONDUCTED BY:
Eric Whitacre

Representing 12 Countries:
Austria
Argentina
Canada
Germany
Ireland
New Zealand
The Philippines
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States of America

Google CEO's Fireside Chat at Google Atmosphere

A good insight into Google's ways of working as well as their priorities over the next few years was given by Eric Schmidt's Fireside Chat at the CIO event held in London.
Applications are not full replacement for the incumbents - Google's goal is to get to 80% functionality. Google Apps has 2 million enterprise customers!
Schmidt says that what is important now is to get the mobile architecture right. Single most interesting development is the arrival of HTML5. Really important for browser development.
Chrome and Chrome OS with 2 second boot time. Platform at every level.

He was asked for a thumbnail SWOT on Google:
Strength (?)

• We make lots of mistakes but we admit them.

Weakness

• As Google becomes middle aged it is harder and harder to do completely new things.
• Every government has some group busy trying to figure what we are up to - information is power - disrupting industries.
• Most large companies have cooperation as well as being competitors with Google.

Schmidt ended with the following pearls:

• Most important aspect of leadership in the modern age has to do with curiosity - most people "my" age don't ask the fundamental questions. Challenge every single assumption. Employees will respect you if you are on top of the details.
• Treat employees as if they are intelligent - ask them a question rather than telling them what to do.
• Collaboration does not mean by consensus - collaboration means that we sit in rooms until the best idea around, everyone agrees on that idea and that is what we do.
• There are many smart people in your organisation - try to find them and try to encourage them.

Mobile phone size grows into i-Pad

I have often wondered if the choice of SIZE of display of a digital assistant (mobile phone, netbook, laptop, desktop, etc) is determined by whether you are long or short sighted. Seeing friends struggling to read menus or hunting around for their magnifying spectacles to use a small screwdriver reminds me that we all do not see the world in the same way.

Being short sighted means that mobile phone and small screen laptops are easy. Yet, even with this facility, the amount of space, just space, for seeing the "complete picture" is missing. I need to read more than just a few characters of text.

So, this is where the i-Pad will be a hit, I think. A big enough display to see what you need. And coupled with the i-Book you have great possibilities.

Just days to go to the i-Pad launch

With just days to go to the i-Pad launch (Saturday 3rd of April), the usual secrecy surrounds it. Apple Store staff, even managers and Geniuses (Apple know-all fixers), will not see the i-Pad before the public.

How are others seeing it? Interestingly, even the detractors say that they will buy one!
In the Spring edition of iPhone Life, the odds are 2 for and 1 against. Two writers support it wholeheartedly, one does not. Todd Bernhard's list of disappointments are:

• No camera
• No multitasking
• No tethering
• Limited memory

And yet, he writes, he will buy one.

I agree with the "no multitasking" disappointment - but that is core Apple (Apple core? The bits that stick in your mouth...). Consider i-Tunes, great for many things but only one-slow-task-at-a-time. What is the fundamental flaw that prevents Apple products from multitasking?

Not an i-tablet but an i-Pad

"Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price".

With these words, Steve Jobs, looking thin, grey and with a weak voice, summed-up the new Apple i-Pad.

And I don't think that he exaggerates. I have to say that after viewing the over-an-hour long presentation, Jobs and his team convinced me. Stephen Fry, much quoted for his i-Pad support since the launch, was in the audience. I can understand how he too could be convinced.

What struck me?

1. First the statistics on i-Phone Apps: both Jobs and his Senior VP for Software, stated 3 billion downloads and over 140,000 apps available. That is huge. Impressive also is the revenue (selling) system that Apple has - i-Tunes - not the most wonderful bit of kit (what is it with Apple and multiple programmes running? They do not seem to be able to get to grips with this) - but one from which you have to buy all the extra bits through. Talk about controlling your revenue stream.... oh! And Apple is a $50 BILLION mobile devices company - number one in the World.

2. Existing i-Phone Apps work on the i-Pad. So a user has 140,000 apps already available.

3. Apps can be tweaked to enhance them for the i-Pad. Impressive. The New York Times app "captured the essence of reading the newspaper, .... providing a finite snapshot in time, exquisite typography, images and content, ... providing a superior reading experience". Using your fingers to interact with the newspaper, flicking through pages, obtaining content lists, double tapping up articles, customising fonts, well, even being able to see moving images in the newspaper page (as Harry might do in the Daily Prophet).

I was impressed by Brushes, an app which has been enhanced and which produces a complete art studio weighing one and a half pounds.

4. i-Book. This is a winner. A fully adjustable Kindle, with five major publishers' content negotiated. Go to the i-Book store, select, download, click on it on your bookshelf, read. It fits nicely into your hand, is thin, clear. The possibility for textbooks is excellent.

5. i-Work. Totally revamped to take advantage of the fingers interacting with the image on the screen. Impressive auto wrap around graphics, specific screens developed so that you can work with Numbers (spreadsheet) in an intuitive way.

6. Games. Well, not so interested in this but using the i-Pad as a steering device, seeing the image right in front of you, and having the accelerometer registering the movement was excellent. I can see why people are excited about this.

7. Battery life. Wait for it. Up to 10 hours. Will it turn out to be so?

8. Price. Here was a real surprise:

16GB for $499, 32GB for $599 and 64GB for $699.

Available? Those above in 60 days. 3G models for $130 more available a month later.

WiFi packages? Up to 250MB data monthly for $14.99 per month; unlimited $29.99. All i-Pad 3G models sold unlocked using GSM micro SIMS. Available internationally June, July.

Add the dock and keyboard accessories and you have a serious work and play machine.

What wonderful opportunities for education.

What's in a definition? Making sense of one-to-one laptops....

I am reading Pamela Livingston's "1-to-1 Learning, Laptop Programs that Work", published by ISTE (Second Edition).
At first I found the description of a laptop as a Digital Assistant liberating - here was a meta-name for device which could be a laptop, mobile phone, i-Touch, etc. But then, reflecting a bit and looking at the original work on this by Prakash Nair, I found much more to think about.
Nair uses the term Digital Teaching Assistants for 1-to-1 laptops and considers them as being "beyond a tool" - that is, it is not a "passive" tool like a pencil or ruler, but improves its properties as a tool the more you "programme" it.
It is the "teaching" bit that started me thinking. I think a laptop can teach, perhaps, but it probably better to say that the laptop can help students to learn (emphasis on the student learning rather than implying that the laptop, an inanimate object can "teach").
That is, Digital Learning Assistant is a better definition.
I liked Livingston's list of uses that the Digital Assistant can be put to (I have settled on using her term). I list them here, split into groups of uses, so that these can be considered and challenged, if necessary.

• Writing, reading, studying, learning, researching, organising, making assumptions, solving problems, publishing, presenting, connecting ideas, and creating new understandings.
• Database for work and files, a sketchpad and planner for projects, a publisher for reports and papers, and a conduit for research that provides access to online resources.
• Communications facilitator for e-mail, instant messaging and blogging.
• Calculator and what-if analyser of data and information.
• Digital processor for  photos and videos.
• Facilitates children's thinking, analysing, presenting, writing, reading researching, revising, communicating, questioning, proposing, creating, surmising, and publishing.

(I paraphrase a little above - from p2)
What do you think about the list? Anything missing?