Finally, The Navy Has Laser Guns

If we look at older science fiction (think the original Star Trek), we can see that there are some technological advancements they got very wrong.  We already have better computer displays than whatever Spock was looking into and my cell phone is already smaller than Captain Kirk's.  But for all of our advancements, there is one area in which we are way behind what people in the 60's thought:  laser guns.  It seems like everybody thought we'd trade in bullets for batteries by now.

Well they may not have been that far off.  From the Associated Press:

The Navy for the first time last week successfully tested a solid-state high-energy laser from a ship. The beam, which was aimed at a boat moving through turbulent Pacific Ocean waters, set the target's engine on fire... The baseball-sized laser beam... could be used to stop small crafts from approaching naval ships. It could also target pirates.

That's right - the Navy is going to be shooting pirates with lasers.  We live in an age of wonders.

Of course the whole laser gun thing turns out to be a little less cool than what the starship Enterprise has.  Here's the movie:

So there are no sound effects or explosions and nobody is getting vaporized anytime soon, but hey, I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves since we still have 300 years to develop phasers.

Google Sky Map

I own a cell phone with the Android operating system.  There is a great application available for all Android phones called Google Sky Map. (See video below)



It is pretty cool.  For instance, I looked up the Crab Nebula and it showed me it's current position in the sky.

Google is awesome!

Forbes names Red Hat America's 11th fastest-growing company

I enjoy hearing various business pundits claim the open source model is flawed and can't bring in revenue. Pundits, explain these two facts about Red Hat, a company with an open source model:

• Buisness 2.0 named Red Hat the second fastest growing tech company in 2006, ahead of apple, Microsoft etc...
• Forbes has just named Red Hat the 11th fastest growing tech company in America.
  

This from CNet:

I wouldn't mind being in a list with companies like Google and Salesforce.com, which is precisely the company Red Hat is keeping in its continued growth trajectory. Forbes just named Red Hat the 11th fastest-growing company in the United States. Red Hat's sales have grown 41 percent over the past five years.

Not too shabby.

It's particularly impressive when you consider the hurdles a company has to overcome just to be considered for the list:

Our focus is on sales growth--we require at least 10% annualized sales gains over the past five years--but candidates for our list must be profitable over the past 12 months and have Thomson IBES consensus earnings forecasts of at least 10% annualized earnings growth over the next three to five years.

The Move To Hardware and Microsoft Surface

Proprietary computer companies have learned the future of making big bucks in the computer industry is in the hardware. Potential money in software is steeply declining with open source projects nipping at their heels.

However, hardware is going to be in the future rich with money potential. Apple has already showed this with their innovative laptops, iPods, Apple TV and soon iPhone. Microsoft has answered these things with their own Zune and now Microsoft Surface.

You should check Microsoft Surface out. It is very innovative. I find this interesting because Microsoft's business model used to be: we will write the world's greatest software, and everyone will buy it to run it on their hardware. Since this model will slowly die in the future with open source spreading its wings, the new business model is the one Apple first successfully implemented:

Make the most innovative all around device, both software and hardware, and that's where the money lies.

My Second Major OS Prediction

I spoke with another volunteer, some security big shot from IBM. I talked with him for a long time and he confirmed my suspicion which I call: My Second Major OS Prediction.

This is the prediction: that within 5-10 years, probably closer to 5, online operating systems, manned by hundreds if not thousands of system administrators, will begin to dominate the market and eventually take it over. This has these advantages:

1. Your files will be able to be accessed anywhere where there is a web browser. This is the ultimate "flash drive."
2. Your favorite applications will be accessible from anywhere where there is a web browser. Ie.. you can use your favorite word processor anywhere you have the internet.
   
3. Thousands of well trained system administrators overseeing large server networks can keep data 100 times more secure than a non-computer savy person just trying to keep is personal computer secure.
4. Your data will be constantly backed up in several locations, again under the supervision of thousands of system administrators. Your data just won't get lost.
5. You will not have to buy a faster and faster computer every year. You get a computer that runs a web browser at a sufficient speed and let the server sysadmins worry about upgrading hardware to make the OS run faster.

Now for some speculation: Enter Google OS. Google has admitted to developing a "googlized" version of Ubuntu Linux named Goobuntu. The screenshots of Gooubuntu say: Google OS. Additionally they have hired the chief Linux kernel maintainer, several other open source big wigs and have gone so far as to host Ubuntu 's development conference at the Google headquarters.

I do not believe Google will take over Ubuntu. They will take Ubuntu and turn it into an online Google OS with each major Ubuntu release. Ubuntu has a major release every 2 years with 6 month snapshots along the way. I suspect Google will develop the same release cycle where they build off of Ubuntu, which is open source, and release the finished product as Google OS. It would probably be an OS designed so so that the user has the ultimate "Google Desktop." It also has the advantage that the user will be able to save all his work online and accesses it from any other computer with all the advantages stated above.

Now which Ubuntu cycle will we see the first Google OS spring from? Maybe I will be surprised and find it based off the 2008 major Ubuntu release. I think more realistically you will see Google keep working at providing online applications like Gmail, an Office Suite and other things and the first attempt to release a Google OS will be off the 2010 major Ubuntu release. Then we will see if my prediction holds true.