Category Archives: Science

September 24, 2024 · 22:59

Two sides of technology

There are always two sides on any technology. The question is whether they are aligned or not. The first story is found at (at https://www.edgemiddleeast.com/ai/tsmc-and-samsung-consider-100-billion-uae-chip-projects) where the Edge Middle East gives us ‘TSMC and Samsung Consider $100 Billion UAE Chip Projects’, it all comes across as straight forward. We are given “Semiconductor giants TSMC and Samsung are in early talks to establish massive chip-making facilities in the UAE, potentially marking a significant expansion in global production.” It seems to me that this is a straight forward option, especially for the UAE. We are also given “develop potential chip projects in the United Arab Emirates, with investments that could exceed $100 billion. The discussions, which are still in the early stages, were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday” and this article ends with “Should these plans move forward, they would mark a significant milestone in the UAE’s efforts to position itself as a global technology hub.” The second article was initially from the Financial Times (but they are behind a paywall), as such I I cannot give the link, but the headline reads ‘UAE president meets Joe Biden in push for more US AI technology’ where we are given “Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan seeks to formalise fledgling partnership between both countries” as well as “The United Arab Emirates’ leader met US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday to advance artificial intelligence co-operation as the Gulf nation tries to secure easier access to US-made technology” and “The UAE is one of the US’s most important allies in the Middle East, but relations have been strained at times in recent years. Talks for a formal security pact with Washington have stalled, and Abu Dhabi was infuriated by what it saw as a lukewarm US response to attacks on the UAE’s capital by Houthi rebels from Yemen in 2022.” This is a dangerous time for America. The trivialisation of the Houthi terrorists will cost America dearly, it has before and it will cost America more than they imagined. You see, as I personally see it. There is a bigger fish. The option that China will play nice with Taiwan when there is a larger part of the $100,000,000,000 could give China the edge they need. And in this setting China will have several bonus options that would fall away from American. That alone would entice China to play nice with Taiwan to a whole larger degree. Is it viable? I honestly cannot say as the media is massively anti-China. Ask Huawei is you doubt my view on this issue. 

How could this happen?
There are several options, but if I were a betting man China would offer Taiwan independence UNDER China. Would Taiwan accept this? I don’t know, but if China would enable a diplomatic solution via the United Arab Emirates it could happen. China is more interested in the collapse of America sooner and will hand an independence ‘option’ to Taiwan. And the setting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan gives China a larger option to manouver. It is my believe that the Biden administration is driven to not make my speculation happen and for that it needs a slice of the UAE AI business and America will offer whatever it has to to make their entrance a done deal. On the positive side if Microsoft gets involved there is every chance that their affinity to mediocrity will blow up in their faces and the American stance becomes a whole lot weaker. This is not ‘fear mongering’, this is merely the view I have on Microsoft and the blunders they have made in the recent past. The UAE embraces perfection, as such Amazon (AWS) or Google would be a much better fit. But this is not about bashing Microsoft (it is fun though). The AI investments that could be coming the way of the UAE, there is a larger field. We hear all about ‘AI’ and the developers (Amazon, Apple, Google, et al) but most forget that Huawei has its own system. The FusionMind AI platform. I don’t know how good it is. Whatever the media tells us, once Huawei gets to demonstrate their system. No matter what others think, if the UAE considers it good enough, the American race for revenues goes in the wrong direction (for America that is). Don’t ask me how good or how bad the Huawei system is, because I have never seen it, but I know about it and the media is doing its best to ignore Huawei, but I am not convinced that this is a good move to make. The IT people (like me) want to assist people with solutions that WORK. I do not think it is a good idea to ignore the Huawei system. And I believe that neither Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates are ignoring the Huawei technology side of it all. For me the larger setting isn’t merely what works, but it is the dim witted view of accusing Huawei whilst not offering ANY clear evidence. That is the larger stage and if Huawei, or the Chinese government can convince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to allow Huawei to present their case, American will have additional worries to deal with. I personally think that Google AI with Mandiant would be personally the better option. That is merely because I have have limited exposure to AWS and no exposure to Amazon security solutions. So my view is slightly biased. In all this, Google needs to convince the UAE that they have what the UAE needs. After that Saudi Arabia should be shown these solutions too (likely they have already seen them).

When we see these sides, one side is the technology, the other side is the software and when we optionally see these chip solutions the bigger winner becomes whomever sets the premise of their software to the hardware provided. I personally hope for Google (I am biased here), but the end game is nowhere near concluded at present. I reckon the Biden administration is hoping for a memorandum of intent, but that is something we might see on Wednesday. So keep looking.

It is almost Wednesday here and Vancouver is following in 18 hours. So anything is possible. Have a great day.

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September 21, 2024 · 12:40

Realisations

That is the topic of the day (for me). You see, we all have our ways and that is fine, however one app that I ‘embraced’ is Conqueror. Conqueror is a walking tool that keeps you on point to a degree. To a degree is a little ‘stiff’ but as I had to endure two open heart surgeries within two months, I thought it a good idea to embrace a little more active lifestyle. Conqueror had that and it was on point for me, the gamer in me embraced it. I am now on the third Tombraider challenge and I only started this third one yesterday.

The first thing I got was a gaming stage to a real deal, a virtual challenge. And with this, besides the ‘postcards’, the maps and the videos was a setting that with every 20% done a tree was planted. As such I have been the instigator on 10 trees so far. This gave me food for thought. You see it takes 8 trees to create the oxygen that I require. The first realisation was that if there are 8 billion people at this time. We need to have 64 billion trees to keep this world oxygenated. So, how many trees in the amazon, Indonesia and other places have been cut for the need of money? There is a limit that ‘brown gold’ gets you and in a global economy. What places have this? A partial fact was given in 2015 “We estimate that there are approximately 3.041 trillion trees in the world, an entire order of magnitude greater than the previous estimate of 400.25 billion. For each person on Earth there are 422 trees”, this presumptuous estimation is rough and not entirely believable. You see, in the last decade massive lumber issues were seen in several places. And when we consider  “there are approximately 3.041 trillion trees in the world, an entire order of magnitude greater than the previous estimate of 400.25 billion.” My issue in this is that there are always issues with these numbers, that’s fine but to make an estimation issue that is off by almost 800% is too far fetched. Even being off by 100% makes the issue dubious at best. One of the estimations was not done with a clear scope in mind. So was it the first or the second? In 2023 we were given “Cattle ranching and soybean farming are colossal culprits, with cattle ranching accounting for 80% of current deforestation in the Amazon. As demand for these products increases, more and more land is cleared to make room for crops and grazing.” Which gives us the first worrying issue “80% of current deforestation in the Amazon” the issue is the percentage. This doesn’t state this as a percentage of the stated Amazon, which might have been X. Then there was the issue in Indonesia and Global Forest Watch gives us “In 2001, Indonesia had 93.8 Mha of primary forest*, extending over 50% of its land area. In 2023, it lost 292 kha of primary forest*, equivalent to 221 Mt of CO₂ emissions. 144 kha of this loss was found to be within Indonesia’s official forest land cover classes and with a patch size larger than two hectares according to MoEF-WRI analysis.” As such, when we consider these two facts, how believable was the first numbers we got? There is no other way to consider these facts then the clear notion that certain people are trying to sell us a bag of (optional corrupt) goods. As such we need to get real numbers. Because we are wasting the oxygen we desperately need to breathe. The optional thought that I have 5-10 years ago that we would have to decimate the population by 97.3%, a harsh but not unrealistic number. This gets me to the third issue, the fires of New Guinea. It was stated that from 2001 to 2023, Papua New Guinea lost 139 kha of tree cover from fires and 1.73 Mha from all other drivers of loss. So how does the initial statement of “We estimate that there are approximately 3.041 trillion trees in the world, an entire order of magnitude greater than the previous estimate of 400.25 billion. For each person on Earth there are 422 trees” with these three simple setting there is no way that this is set to any level of truth. People are optionally lulled to sleep and the danger is that soon Russia with its East Siberian taiga is now the only region remaining having the title ‘the lungs of the earth’ possible shared with the forests of Africa. Namely the rainforest of the Congo Basin, the Guinean Forests of West Africa, which run from Sierra Leone to Cameroon; the Eastern Afromontane, which span Ethiopia to Southern Africa; the Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa from Kenya to Mozambique; and the forests of Madagascar. So there are a few, however, how many trees there are remains a topic of debate. Is there any validity in the statement of “3.041 trillion trees” or “400.25 billion trees”. In both cases we are still OK, but in case of the second, I feel a lot better that I have contributed to my oxygen supply with so far 10 trees. I reckon that as these numbers are actually revisited and counted with some level of precision (Google, wake up, your Gemini talents are needed) we need to be cautious. I predict that someone will start vamping up the phrase ‘Oxygen neutral’ we might be in a lot more trouble than we think we are.

And that is merely the first issue. A second one was the challenge that I will be doing next (my fourth trial). Here I a stepping away from the gaming section to something more historically real.

It is the challenge ‘the St Francis way’. This is a virtual walk of 503km. 

It is the walk Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone made around 1204 when he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. The part I walk was a description from Florence to the Vatican. 

It is a ‘mere’ 503km but still a decent challenge. The ‘issue’ here is that we have become complacent in our luxuries. We are too eager to resort to cars and planes (I am not against any of them), I am merely a person who walked everything with a public transportation or two on the side. Living next to the office (place of business) is no longer an option for many of us. And as Sergey Brin is not likely to fuel my retirement, walking is nearly all I have. No complaints from my side mind you. I made my own bed and I accept my larger part in this. But as this trial came across my eyes I started to consider a few things. First of all the realisation what St. Frances accepted as his goals. He was a child of an Italian father, Pietro di Bernardone dei Moriconi, a prosperous silk merchant, and a French mother, Pica di Bourlemont, about whom little is known except that she was a noblewoman originally from  the French Provence and decided to marry his ‘lady Poverty’ as a bride. I have seen many things in my life, but the wealthy accepting the life of poverty is not one of them, and in all honesty, neither would I (although I have next to nothing), so what does that matter. The setting of walking that distance is not one of contemplation, it is a drive to succeed. A very different dive Giovanni ever had. And this challenge is one that we should all have, if it was only to get into a better healthier shape.

One mere app giving me more than one train of thought. There are still a few other trials to get and to complete after this one. The Harry Potter trials (7 of them) and the Lord of the Rings with 5 trials all towards an ending at Mount Doom is a wanting achievement as a Tolkien fan. So I can proudly state (if ever) to Elijah Wood: “I did that too. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah” OK, I admit, a little childish, but at times proud moments must be diminished by simple words to make the act (a total 1095km) a seemingly trivial one. The distance or journey didn’t matter, it is the total achievement that has meaning (be it in my own mind). 

So what did you learn (virtual or not)? Have a great Saturday, I still have almost half a day to go.

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September 20, 2024 · 20:58

The step in the open

We all have this, we see another option. Or an option that is there when two players unite their resources. So here we get player two who enters the field. The player has an app named Talkie. It is seemingly some hardwired to a sexy girl that entices you to interact. She dances and possibly does more, but it is all virtual. The app gives us (as one of the options) “Enjoy endless conversations with Talkie AI’s expansive gallery”, well that seems to be the core of it.

Yet, already there was a player one in the air. It is FunEasyLearn. They offer a interesting way to learn languages. They appeared in the first covid phase, or at least that was when I became aware of them. They have a multitude of languages. Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French (my reason for getting the app), Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and several more. I got the plus package which was at the time $100 and it gave me instant access to every language they had. It was a good deal. 

Now combine those two (and add one language) and you get a new setting. 

In my case I would get an option to practice Latin (or ancient Greek). We could see this as an option for people to train language skills to men and women. Even until recently (2000 years ago) you would address a person (male or female) different depending on what their status was and believe me, the idea of addressing a roman centurion with the words ‘bonum mane carus’ as a simple slave, a senator or a striking woman will have very different responses (me laughing out loud). But with talkie in the field the options to learn linguistic skills gets a whole new range of options. Then there is the business need to learn Arabic and that is one business meeting you want to go well. The same can be said for every language. And here we have a new setting. Will FunEasyLearn offer it as a new stage, or will talkie add to its library of options? Consider the option to practice the classical languages (Greek and Latin). With that in option there is a lack of educational options and at present we need to hand more as a language tools, especially languages. Oh, and if you want to address Lord Hades with ‘εσύ εκεί, πού να είμαι’, let me know because that is an interaction I want to see with my own eyes. Should be fun for all seeing that interaction. 

All fun aside, there is more and more lacking in the proper interactions we all have (I am equally guilty in that) and now I see two apps that could score a lot higher by uniting skills. And the question is, was this option missed entirely, or is it still coming? 

Your guess is as good as mine, but the advertisement show us that enticing hormonal drifts (read: sex sells) might seem more prevalent, but even in France there is a case to address an person properly (I once hear a person use ca va, in stead of comment vas-tu), that one mistake ended the business introduction. The visiting man had taken offence. I do not know French as such I was unaware of what I had just missed. Wouldn’t it have been a great idea if these apps were in existence then? 

Just a simple snack for thought. But some apps are growing a lot beyond the simple needs we have and as such we should hand the applications a larger width to offer the users a lot more.

Well, Saturday is still three hours away, as such I am going to kill a lot of Uruks (shadow of Mordor). We all need a hobby to keep us entertained. Have a great day.

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September 18, 2024 · 23:35

It’s fun to get it right

On the 11th of September I wrote ‘A brief recollection’, a story where I had issues with the setting of ‘monopolisation’ by Google and with that I also stated “Google innovated this market more than anyone ever considered. The fact that Microsoft has no chance and lacks expertise in software to make any dent in Google application is one part of the evidence. It also didn’t stifle competition, the fact that Microsoft had no option to push anything in Google’s path seems to me that this is the second part of the evidence is also nullified. After decades of ‘exploitation’ of customers, Google gave them all a fair chance. So why doesn’t anyone see that?” And now, less then four hours ago, the BBC gives us ‘Google scores rare legal win as 1.49bn euro fine scrapped’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62rjd363j1o) with the text “It said the Commission had not considered “all the relevant circumstances” concerning the contract clauses and how it defined the market. Because of this, it ruled the Commission did not establish “an abuse of dominant position.”” That was what I basically said. The lack of creativity by others (read Microsoft) is no evidence of abuse. Their failure to see an equal footing five times over (once by Apple, once by Amazon, once by Sony and twice by Google) is not a setting of dominant abuse, it is merely dominant captaincy due to a failing to set the stage on creativity and I myself am about to give that lesson to Microsoft twice more. So how stupid do they need to get? 

As such it seems that the legal profession had to admit defeat on the mere stage to scrap the fine with the quote “The Commission concluded Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than AdSense when they were seeking adverts for their web pages”, which is not correct either. You see Microsoft has edge and its advertisement solution. It is however failing on several fronts It falls behind Chrome having 65% and behind Safari with its 18.5%, Edge has a mere 5.3%. And behold, Safari is only on Mac systems. In February 2024 MacOS systems had a mere 15.42% and PC’s had over 72% and even in that environment Edge has a mere 5.3%, failing to come close to Safari. Does that not tell you something. It isn’t that Google is abusing dominance, there simply isn’t anything close to compatible. It isn’t abuse, there is simply no equivalent in that game and the advertisement game is cut throat to say the least. And as I see that, I see two additional blows I can give Microsoft and that pretty much ends Microsoft to be the competitor. It is a mere agent of mediocrity and as such it loses more and more market share. I can give (for a fee) one to Google and the other one to Amazon and they can show Microsoft what it is to be dead last in a game that only has space for the victor. Soon America will try its luck on shaking down Google for cash as we are told “The US government is also taking the tech giant to court over the same issue, with prosecutors alleging its parent company, Alphabet, illegally operates a monopoly in the market.” I wonder how they tend to prove that when the competitors (mainly Microsoft) are showing to be ridiculously short changed on competition. As I see it, it is a court session waiting to fail. The nice side is that I could optionally still rely on Kingdom Holding and Tencent Technology to enter a deal with me to broker technology and is definitely worth it when it comes to Kingdom Holding, and optionally Tencent Technology would be a worth the talk to. Amazon waked away from this and once these two setting pan out, all can see how much of a shortage Microsoft had. And that is a shortage that has been visible to those who think critically for at least a decade. The media spin has no hold over them and as we are told ‘Microsoft Wants To Stop The Next CrowdStrike Error Before It Causes PC Shutdown’ a mere 10 hours ago is set against “Microsoft even got everyone together at a security summit earlier this month where the company had talks about changing the dynamics of who can access the Windows kernel and control the changes” with the added “Microsoft realises that unrestricted access to Windows kernel is the big reason why the Crowdstrike outage occurred in the first place. It was even pointed out that Apple will never give that kind of access to its partners and vendors, which explains why no Mac machine was down on that day.” As such we get that MAC systems never had the issue and the collaborated events give rise to the stage that the CrowdStrike issues could optionally still happen. Did anyone guess what happens to cloud systems when this is not addressed in the next 48 hours? How many vendors will switch to AWS as such? When we consider that “changing the dynamics of who can access the Windows kernel and control the changes” could not normally be resolved in 48 hours at all. This is the setting that Microsoft is up against and that is all before we realise that it is a fundamental shift required in search and advertisement systems that makes Edge even less of a competitor soon enough and that gives Google more leeway. That realisation is what these courts are fighting against. There is no monopoly when there is not competition. And Microsoft is no longer any kind of interfering factor. That merely leaves Google, Amazon and Apple. Amazon holds 7.3% of the online ad market, Apple gets 30% from Google, which only leaves the optional others. And when we consider that Amazon has a bigger share than Microsoft/Edge. How much of a competitor was Microsoft to begin with? So who is setting the fictive breach towards ‘abusive monopoly’? Isn’t that the critical question? What voices speak to the EU and US lawmakers? That is the question that matters and I personally think that it is those who have a personal gain through Microsoft stages that are screaming murder. They bet on the wrong horse and as I see it Microsoft is a horse no show. The EU had to cancel that €1.49B euro fine as this could optionally backfire as well. The stage as I saw it was always different. As Microsoft went its way into the boardrooms, they forgot that those dozen people (times Fortune 500) depend on millions of workers doing stuff and that was where Google grew. And the Microsoft strategy fell flat. I myself found another nice worth billions in pretty much the same way. As such one of my solutions was primarily for Amazon as Google dropped their Stadia, which made the Amazon Luna the only contender and Microsoft with its solution fell flat behind Sony (PlayStation) and Nintendo (Switch), yet Tencent came roaring with its solution and became a contender. This shows how certain people in the US are using the Department of Justice and as (September 9th) we were given “According to the lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and a coalition of states in 2023, Google dominates the digital ad marketplace and has leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition.” I see the same failing happen under Google “leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition” and equal shortage as there are no innovators (they heed to solve their CrowdStrike issues before they also lose the cloud market and there is no competition as there is a competition of one, that is no monopoly, it is the lack of equally sharp minded people gaining serious forward momentum. That is the actual stage and that was the setting all along. And the setting is easy to fathom. Consider the mere first strike “On the 9th of October 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion” In 2006 Microsoft had the cash and the option to buy this, but they did not. 

The former employees of PayPal were out there and Microsoft didn’t see the option. That is how much they failed for 18 years. After that Microsoft had at least three options to compete, but they did not. 2005, 2006, and 2014. Microsoft did nothing (as far as I know). More over in September 2016 ByteDance created TikTok. In 4 years it surpassed 2 billion downloads and still Microsoft was in the dark on what they had missed. You think this is not related, but it is. The competitors a near complete lack of comprehending its audience for close to 18 years and that is where the Department of Justice comes in? Competition is created by the players who understand their audience. It is something that is known for half a century. A monopoly is created when there are like minded players stifle matters like innovations (which requires innovators) and competition (which requires market share) most (especially Microsoft) failed on both matters. Amazon had its own niche market and had its own 7.3%. The only one with any right to cry foul (or is that fowl) is ByteDance, but the Department of Justice are silencing that voice. 

So as I am having fun because I saw the field correctly all along will (hopefully) soon have two more reasons to roll on the floor laughing and the fun part is that a player like Microsoft is too stupid to see the audience that they are disregarding. 

I wonder what the American DoJ will make of that.

Have a great day.

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September 17, 2024 · 23:46

Point of service

That is at times the question. We are so overwhelmed with cost and points of profit that we ignore the essential first step. What is a point of service. Luckily the United Arab Emirates gives us this setting. The Khaleej Times gave me (really) early this morning (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/travelling-to-uae-free-esim-with-10gb-data-launched-for-tourists) ‘Travelling to UAE? Free eSIM with 10GB data launched for tourists’ This is an absolute wow moment. In stead of getting ripped off with roaming costs and so on, you have the option of a free eSim with 10GB of data. 

2GB keeps me in power for days, as such this solution will have a decent setting. It might not solve all issues you have, but you have a solution that will get you to your hotel with internet. I (paranoid as I am) see a few hitches, but ‘it can be self-activated by simply scanning a QR code’ an eSim option at any airport could relieve so much stress, it might not get you call options initially, but you have options. The press release gives us “A statement issued by the UAE’s largest telecom services provider said that visitors can activate their ‘Free Visitor Line eSIM’ as soon as they pass through immigration. The free eSIM also comes with 10GB of complimentary data and is valid for a day, ensuring visitors can connect with loved ones and access essential services immediately.” So it might just be for a day and that is enough. You can email family and friends where you are and from there find a more wholesome solution. Perhaps they will even have that as well. Remember, by handing out a free eSim (even if it’s just for a day) could easily be converted into a month for a few dirham more (AED35 to be exact, which amounts to $9.5) business from service, a not so novel idea that has been forgotten for too long. The first step is offered free of charge and with that in under an hour you will have emailed all your friends (both of them), gained your bearing and the quickest way to your hotel. From there you will learn where the free wifi is (of buy some option that doesn’t make you poor in roaming cost). And in this case the provider Etisalat and has you covered with a free internet connection for a day. And that is dirt cheap, I have paid a lot more for less bandwidth. They offer 30 minutes of talk time and up to 5GB of data. A simple setting but think of it, you merely need to be reachable and you have to be able to read your email. All that for a mere $10 bucks. That is beside the point that you got your first day for free, a complimentary gift from the UAE government. I say, it is all kinds of a win with a shawarma and an ice-water and coffee all around. 

I think that these kinds of service points will gain the telecom company a lot of visibility. It might merely be Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the first instance, but when this gets going it will be a visibility all over the middle east. Now consider how many people pass an airport. Dubai is (as I recall) in second place with 86,994,365 (2023) people clocking in. Now consider Jeddah (42,910,407 passengers), Doha (45,916,098 passengers) and Cairo (14,711,500 passengers). Now consider what options Etisalat and has in the coming future. They might not all select them, some of these passengers are coming home and already have a provider. The simple equation is that they be able to show others how good their services are. 

I just think that someone working from the point of service perspective has options and they get an increasing amount of opportunity. For me, it was just another pleasant surprise coming to me from the United Arab Emirate, via the Khaleej Times that is. 

Have a great day you all and as I am now 20 minutes from the start of the middle of the week (Wednesday), you all enjoy the rest of Tuesday left to you. 

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September 13, 2024 · 05:31

As the walls start to crumble

Yes, this is a little speculative, but the story is not. I just learned of the BBC story that they released 4 hours ago, 17 hours after I wrote the previous story. The BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq82852kkz8o) is giving us ‘Microsoft lays off more gaming staff in new cuts’ with the subtext “It laid off 1,900 staff in January and, in May, closed four studios bought before its purchase of Call of Duty maker Activision-Blizzard”, as well as “He said the decision to cut more jobs – about 3% of its gaming staff – was made “as part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure” and organising the business “for long-term success””. The ‘he’ in this story is Phil Spencer, and that long-term success? As I personally see it Microsoft will implode within the next 30 month, so that long term is relatively short (as I see it). And as for the layoffs being towards post-acquisition team structure. That might be the intention, yet the issue remains that the interest alone on a $69,000,000,000 purchase should be no less then 4.5 billion dollars and the gaming stage brought Microsoft (according to several sources) no more than 2 billion dollars. As such Microsoft is coming up short around 50% of the interest alone and that is before we factor in what more is needed to take care of the principle. And as Microsoft is dealing with all kind of fines and several angry people suing for what they think they are due, the numbers will not come up nice, more like tainted and covered in blood covered red. We then get “Xbox boss Mr Spencer told gaming website IGN he was expected to run a “sustainable” gaming business and show growth during a June interview”, so what does this Spencer person think what ‘sustainable’ means? In my book it means able to be maintained at a certain level, and how does that work when you lay off over 2000 people? Support? Managers? One gives relief to hardship and buggy environment to the customers (something that Microsoft is intimate familiar with) and the managers are often the creative part of the company and they have had the ears of their staff. Now these fired people could optionally use my freebees and create these games on NON-Microsoft systems. Giving Microsoft even more hardship. A game that makes perfect sense in the business mind of Microsoft, but gaming is mostly art and that is a setting that they seem to misunderstand. I like it when the unworthy give me resources and tools that can be used against them. Karma tends to be a bitch. The quote we see is “In its latest finance report Microsoft said its gaming revenues had increased, mostly due to its ownership of Activision-Blizzard, which also produces World of Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch” what we do not see are the issues that Diablo 4 still has (on whatever system). It might have been the big cash cow (over $666M in the first 5 days) but what did it cost to develop Diablo 4? It took 6 years, that is nearly all we know about it and Microsoft is really happy to hide a lot of numbers and merely focus on the good stories which is to be expected, but as we now see that thousands have been cast out, there is every chance that these people could become their worst competitor and not in a good way. Another setting is seen (at https://www.inverse.com/gaming/xbox-enotria-delay-microsoft-ps5) where inverse tells us ‘Enotria Is Just the Latest Game to Hit A Mysterious Snag With Its Xbox Launch’ with the byline “Something’s amiss at Microsoft”, I think that it is a lot more. How is it possible that Phil Spencer can smilingly visit the board of directors as we are given things like “it was canceling the Xbox release of HAAK. According to the developer, it spent over 14 months attempting to register the game for release on Xbox, when it estimated it needed only about two weeks of porting work. However, bugs in Microsoft’s Partner Center and Support site prevented it from applying”, as such I wonder, when a we see registration issues and bugs. What is Microsoft doing, or better asked, not doing? 14 months? There seems to be an increasing issue with transparency and in gaming it is damaging, as such what is Microsoft doing? I see it as a setting where the walls come crumbling, but what if I am wrong? What if Microsoft has a more insidious plan? I have no idea what it is and I have no clue what they are doing but there is a setting where Microsoft is all about all games online and in the cloud. So what happens when gamers are all controlled from a singular place? I have no idea what is going on, it was a mere speculation, but the increasing amount of issues (including bugs all over the place) does not fill me with comfort. Consider this and wonder why they were willing to pay 69 billion, all whilst there is a lack of revenue. There is more going on and I think it is becoming more and more imperative to create games on OTHER systems and bleed Microsoft dry. The other part is that the (speculated) intentional lack of clarity in regards to the numbers we see reports of 160% year on year growth, but with gaming it is merely based on the next game and so far quality has been lacking. The failures that Redfall brought, the lack of issues in Starfield is one side, the lacking sales of the Xbox is the other part. When you see the list of issues we must understand that there are plenty of intelligent people at Microsoft, so what is this about? We can wait to find out, or we can create a wave of excellent games and give the gamers an option to select the Amazon Luna, the Sony PS5 (PS4 too), the Nintendo Switch or the Tencent Handheld as their new home. At this point China becomes a contender in the gaming industry. That should be a hard sell to the US government, would it not be? As such I set the gaming IP I designed as Freebee to non-Microsoft systems. I might not know what Microsoft is up to, but I do know that they are greed/revenue driven, and as such I know what would hurt them and should Kingdom Holding accept my offer the hardship of Microsoft merely increases. A nice way to end my career, by partially saving the gaming world (a bit presumptuous perhaps). Microsoft should never have done what they did, they wanted to become absolute ruler and that didn’t sit well with me, a such I created IP and stories for game developers. The one rule was, ‘not for Microsoft systems’. Making the ideas public domain made the most sense to me. Or as Frank Herbert wrote in 1965 ‘He who destroys a thing, controls a thing’ as such I went to work. Now I believe that the BBC is merely handing me a partial confirmation (as I see it) that I was right all along. When the staff leaves it becomes a problem. 

Oh and as this becomes a new reality, China gets a real chance to pick up hundreds of people with a good grasp of gaming. That is merely my point of view and I could be wrong. 

Have a great day, the day before the weekend. 

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September 11, 2024 · 03:01

A brief recollection

Yesterday I saw an article (source: BBC) that gave me reason to give a little recollection. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2dpkpmv1o) giving us ‘Google’s lucrative ad tech business goes on trial’ and the text “A trial beginning on Monday will hear the Department of Justice’s case that the search engine’s parent company Alphabet illegally operates a monopoly in the market.” set me off. You see, I worked on that system as an operator, a technical account manager if you prefer. I worked on this system in 2015. This is important because in the nine following years Microsoft and its ‘system’ Bing couldn’t even remotely get anything working that presented some weak looking imitation. The system was that excellent. And excellent is the operative word. You see before that advertising agencies were taking their clients in some kind of a looting ride. Prices were out of this world for the advertisers. It was a business limited to big business. The Google ad system was made so that everyone had a clear possibility, a fair system that didn’t overcharge, something that wasn’t possible before. That was a new approach to advertising. 

Bid for placeCharged
9.001.28
3.001.27
2.001.26
1.251.25

The setting was that the higher bid was only charged one cent more than the previous one. The advertisement agencies would pocket the difference from $7.62 of the first bidder. Now consider this happening ten thousands of times every day. When you realise this you see how this was the better system. There was no monopoly, customers suddenly had a fair chance to their advertisement options. That part is missing. It is not the fault of the BBC, they merely report. They also give us “Alphabet has argued its success is due to the “effectiveness” of its services – but prosecutors say it has used its market dominance to stifle rivals” which is exactly what I am saying. But the prosecutors are exaggerating (as anyone would suggest). We then get ““It is a really important industry that grabs billions of consumer dollars every year,” said Laura Phillips-Sawyer, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.” A statement (possibly taken out of context) from a law professor from Georgia. The less excusable statement was “grabs billions of consumer dollars every year”, that is where my example comes in. This is not the way of this system. It tempers the cost and need for ‘over’ bidding. I gave an example of four, but the list goes on for a lot more. This illustrates the loss of Laura Phillips-Sawyer and how little she knows of this system. So its not “I think all consumers have an interest in this litigation”, I believe that Microsoft minded people want to get into this business and the prosecutor is a possible way for these people to get in. 

As such we see that the statement “Google dominates the digital ad marketplace and has leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition” Google innovated this market more than anyone ever considered. The fact that Microsoft has no chance and lacks expertise in software to make any dent in Google application is one part of the evidence. It also didn’t stifle competition, the fact that Microsoft had no option to push anything in Google’s path seems to me that this is the second part of the evidence is also nullified. After decades of ‘exploitation’ of customers, Google gave them all a fair chance. So why doesn’t anyone see that? How come that this is not shown to us all? Is it perhaps that the prosecutor has the ear of those people who lost their golden eggs? I am stating that not only is Google innocent in this, the world doesn’t realise how fair this system is. And the wannabe’s want to hack into this system for their own selfish needs. We are also given “It argues that competition in the digital ad space is growing, not contracting – citing increased ad growth and revenues for companies such as Apple, Amazon and TikTok as proof”, in this I say that the digital ad space is growing because Google made it more fair and as such players like Apple, Amazon and TikTok are given a space where they have millions more to advertise against the once exploitative system. What we do not get to see is that I enabled dozens of advertisers, small business units to get a grasp of advertisement space on. Monthly basis. They had the option to set a budget for as little as $5 a month to get several placements every day. Yes, they might not be above the fold as the expression goes, but they were on the page. The advertisement agencies would not have even talked to those. Now consider that this happens to tens of thousands of customers and realise that the statement “I think all consumers have an interest in this litigation” becomes folly.

When we consider this the statement “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly” is equally folly. And I wonder who Judge Amit Mehta was serving. Even as the judge was an optional idolising fair play person we need to realise that the Google rank system was re-invented

The eigenvalue problem behind PageRank’s algorithm was independently rediscovered and reused in many scoring problems. 

In 1895, Edmund Landau suggested using it for determining the winner of a chess tournament. The eigenvalue problem was also suggested in 1976 by Gabriel Pinski and Francis Narin, who worked on scientometrics ranking scientific journals, in 1977 by Thomas Saaty in his concept of Analytic Hierarchy Process which weighted alternative choices, and in 1995 by Bradley Love and Steven Sloman as a cognitive model for concepts, the centrality algorithm. (Source: wiki). 

Now consider that Sergey Brin and Larry Page made this system 30 years ago based on ideas dating back to (as quoted) 1895. And then three times more and no one at Microsoft woke up. They were all so focussed on greed and gaining the attention of board of directors at big business. Google focussed on the millions of people working there and getting the attention of people who needed a better option. “As of September 24, 2019, all patents associated with PageRank have expired” and now these systems are under attack. However, the data is already with Google and the larger players (read: Microsoft) will need decades to catch up and they know they are not able to, in case of Microsoft I personally believe that they merely have at most 24 months left until they collapse and that is it for the once computer behemoth. As per now, fr a player like Microsoft, the ad space is a much safer option to recollect lost revenue and keep their head above water. I admit that this is speculative, but it makes the most sense. Even in 1995 I saw how Microsoft was lagging behind, but they had serious problems (read: Netscape) and it get worse after that. But that is not the aim of this article. As I have shown here Google was a true innovator and you need to wonder if monopoly is a valid setting when all the others cannot even get close because their innovators are merely presented spinners, or optionally previous exploiters. How is it a monopoly when there is no other realistic contender for the crown? Is an island with a population of one totalitarian in nature?

Simple questions that are hard to answer. Enjoy your day today, this fine Wednesday where we start yearning for the coming weekend.

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September 8, 2024 · 23:27

Alignments?

Less than 24 hours ago I wrote about Microsoft and the statement I gave there, namely “When you need to appease 400,000 partners things go wrong, they always do. How is anyones guess but whilst Microsoft is all focussed on the letter of the law and their revenue” led to a few questions. So, how is 400,000 partners an issue and the 12,000 partners of Salesforce are not? Well, I never said that 12,000 partners are not a problem, but as I see it the 400,000 are. 

To get where I am going, a few definition are needed. A partner (in IT) is set to “A partnership when it comes to IT is within the IT sphere and has mutual or at least some value for both companies.” But here the issue starts. You see, some have a somewhat more defined setting “In some mild cases, there are a few well-intentioned and hard-working partners who are just out of the loop. In more extreme cases, certain partners are not bought in, are not being held accountable, and are negatively impacting performance.” This is where the problem starts. Partners have an alignment to you, but they also have their own agenda. Microsoft can make all the claims they want, but this is reality. So lets get a useful presentation image. 

So see this boat, that is the Micro boat (a very soft presentation) the goal is the 100% mark, right on course. Now consider that in a polarising setting there are two directions, And the group of 400,000 is split up. In this we get that one group is larger and it has the breaching impact of the good ship Microsoft coursing to the right. Reality gives us that there will be be clusters in all directions. 

Some ahead to the left or the right, but those behind the ship will also slow it down with all kinds of budget overruns. No matter how good the Microsoft agreements are, there will always be interest groups for THEIR interest trying to ‘steer’ the ship more in their direction. As such 400,000 partners is (as I see it) folly. Revenue and greed will only help anyone so far, as I see it, Microsoft has had its problems. I reckon that not all the news is sincere and completely valid. Some were (as I personally see it) issues with alignment. Their might not have been drastic but there will have been issues. That is my point of view and in business intelligence I have seen my share of ‘issues’ not all of them drastic but plenty of them with some kind of impact. 

Take this as well as the news we saw through Wired and we get a much larger issue and now as I personally see it, partners could become debilitating. Mess with a partners revenue stream and things go pear shaped really fast. We see this 1 hours ago when we are told “Nvidia Loses $470 Billion in Value in a Week. Should Investors Be Worried? · The market as a whole is shaky · Nvidia remains in an extremely solid position.” Really? At what point does a firm remain in a solid position when they lose $470,000,000,000 in a week? Now take this setting (which might be a temporary thing) and take it to the next level. A major side to the so called AI stage. That firm loses four-hundred and seventy BILLION dollars. That’s about 20%, so this was a simple dip which recovered in mere minutes. So at what point and why did it drop to that degree? And as I see it, any partner that does not react is on a fools errand. Now consider that 400,000 partners call Microsoft at that point to learn what THEIR impact might be. So a software vendor needs to appease 400,000 partners. And I couldn’t get support (in the past) for hours. So how does this compute? Well look at the first image. These partners will not be in one direction, but in dozens of directions. So are you catching on now? So take that and News by TechTarget giving us ‘Understand Microsoft Copilot security concerns’ and the underlying text “Microsoft Copilot can improve end-user productivity, but it also has the potential to create security and data privacy issues.”and that with the news at Wired (see previous article) gives a lot more weight to “the potential to create security and data privacy issues” and now, what will the partners do? How many will optionally panic? Now watch the good ship Microsoft slow down and drop their anchors for the storm (optionally in a teacup) recede. What is the bill belonging to such a knee-jerk reaction? 

You tell me, but there will be a reaction. As I see it, they either have 400,000 customers (optionally non paying) and they will not make a sound, but it makes Microsoft seem more important, or they have 400,000 real partners and you see what I described above. I am merely throwing the terms they publish (via media). You can’t have it both ways and it all ends with the setting of Alignment. I do not know a real good read on the alignment of customers versus partners. But one gets you revenue and the other gives you a smoking hand grenade. You tell me what you prefer to deal with. 

OK, not the most positive writing, but it came from a question that gave ma additional pause to think. 

Have a great Sunday (Vancouver) and I am moving towards Monday a present (in 40 minutes).

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September 8, 2024 · 01:09

Poised to deliver critique

That is my stance at present. It might be a wrong position to have, but it comes from a setting of several events that come together at this focal point. We all have it, we are all destined to a stage of negativity thought speculation or presumption. It is within all of us and my article 20 hours ago on Microsoft woke something up within me. So I will take you on a slightly bumpy ride.

The first step is seen through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240905-microsoft-ai-interview-bbc-executive-lounge) where we get ‘Microsoft is turning to AI to make its workplace more inclusive’ and we are given “It added an AI powered chatbot into its Bing search engine, which placed it among the first legacy tech companies to fold AI into its flagship products, but almost as soon as people started using it, things went sideways.” With the added “Soon, users began sharing screenshots that appeared to show the tool using racial slurs and announcing plans for world domination. Microsoft quickly announced a fix, limiting the AI’s responses and capabilities.” Here we see the collective thoughts an presumptions I had all along. AI does not (yet) exist. How do you live with “Microsoft quickly announced a fix”? We can speculate whether the data was warped, it was not defined correctly. Or it is a more simple setting of programmer error. And when an AI is that incorrect does it have any reliability? Consider the old data view we had in the early 90’s “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. Then. We are offered “Microsoft says AI can be a tool to promote equity and representation – with the right safeguards. One solution it’s putting forward to help address the issue of bias in AI is increasing diversity and inclusion of the teams building the technology itself”, as such consider this “promote equity and representation – with the right safeguards” Is that the use of AI? Or is it the option of deeper machine learning using an LLM model? An AI with safeguards? Promote equity and representation? If the data is there, it might find reliable triggers if it knows where or what to look for. But the model needs to be taught and that is where data verification comes in, verified data leads to a validated model. As such to promote equity and presentation the dat needs to understand the two settings. Now we get the harder part “The term “equity” refers to fairness and justice and is distinguished from equality: Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognising that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.” Now see the term equity being used in all kinds of places and in real estate it means something different. Now what are the chances people mix these two up? How can you validate data when the verification is bungled? It is the simple singular vision that Microsoft people seem to forget. It is mostly about the deadline and that is where verification stuffs up. 

Satya Nadella is about technology that understands us and here we get the first problem. When we consider that “specifically large-language models such as ChatGPT – to be empathic, relevant and accurate, McIntyre says, they needs to be trained by a more diverse group of developers, engineers and researchers.” As I see it, without verification you have no validation and you merely get a bucket of data where everything is collected and whatever the result of it becomes an automated mess, hence my objection to it. So as we are given “Microsoft believes that AI can support diversity and inclusion (D&I) if these ideals are built into AI models in the first place”, we need to understand that the data doesn’t support it yet and to do this all data needs to be recollected and properly verified before we can even consider validating it. 

Then we get article 2 which I talked about a month ago the Wired article (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-copilot-phishing-data-extraction/) we see the use of deeper machine learning where we are given ‘Microsoft’s AI Can Be Turned Into an Automated Phishing Machine’, yes a real brain bungle. Microsoft has a tool and criminals use it to get through cloud accounts. How is that helping anyone? The fact that Microsoft did not see this kink in their trains of thought and we are given “Michael Bargury is demonstrating five proof-of-concept ways that Copilot, which runs on its Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word, can be manipulated by malicious attackers” a simple approach of stopping the system from collecting and adhering to criminal minds. Whilst Windows Central gives us ‘A former security architect demonstrates 15 different ways to break Copilot: “Microsoft is trying, but if we are honest here, we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”’ beside the horror statement “Microsoft is trying” we get the rather annoying setting of “we don’t know how to build secure AI applications”. And this isn’t some student. Michael Bargury is an industry expert in cybersecurity seems to be focused on cloud security. So what ‘expertise’ does Microsoft have to offer? People who were there 3 weeks ago were shown 15 ways to break copilot and it is all over their 365 applications. At this stage Microsoft wants to push out broken if not an unstable environment where your data resides. Is there a larger need to immediately switch to AWS? 

Then we get a two parter. In the first part we see (at https://www.crn.com.au/news/salesforces-benioff-says-microsoft-ai-has-disappointed-so-many-customers-611296) CRN giving us the view of Marc Benioff from Salesforce giving us ‘Microsoft AI ‘has disappointed so many customers’’ and that is not all. We are given ““Last quarter alone, we saw a customer increase of over 60 per cent, and daily users have more than doubled – a clear indicator of Copilot’s value in the market,” Spataro said.” Words from Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president. All about sales and revenue. So where is the security at? Where are the fixes at? So we are then given ““When I talk to chief information officers directly and if you look at recent third-party data, organisations are betting on Microsoft for their AI transformation.” Microsoft has more than 400,000 partners worldwide, according to the vendor.” And here we have a new part. When you need to appease 400,000 partners things go wrong, they always do. How is anyones guess but whilst Microsoft is all focussed on the letter of the law and their revenue it is my speculated view that corners are cut on verification and validation (a little less on the second factor). And the second part in this comes from CX Today (at https://www.cxtoday.com/speech-analytics/microsoft-fires-back-rubbishes-benioffs-copilot-criticism/) where we are given ‘Microsoft Fires Back, Rubbishes Benioff’s Copilot Criticism’ with the text “Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for AI at Work, rebutted the Salesforce CEO’s comments, claiming that the company had been receiving favourable feedback from its Copilot customers.” At this point I want to add the thought “How was that data filtered?” You see the article also gives us “While Benioff can hardly be viewed as an objective voice, Inc. Magazine recently gave the solution a D – rating, claiming that it is “not generating significant revenue” for its customers – suggesting that the CEO may have a point” as well as “despite Microsoft’s protestations, there have been rumblings of dissatisfaction from Copilot users” when the dust settles, I wonder how Microsoft will fare. You see I state that AI does not (yet) exist. The truth is that generative AI can have a place. And when AI is here, when it is actually here not many can use it. The hardware is too expensive and the systems will need close to months of testing. These new systems that is a lot, it would take years for simple binary systems to catch up. As such these LLM deeper machine learning systems will have a place, but I have seen tech companies fire up sales people and get the cream of it, but the customers will need a new set of spectacles to see the real deal. The premise that I see is that these people merely look at the groups they want, but it tends to be not so filtered and as such garbage comes into these systems. And that is where we end up with unverified and unvalidated data points. And to give you an artistic view consider the following when we use a one point perspective that is set to “a drawing method that shows how things appear to get smaller as they get further away, converging towards a single “vanishing point” on the horizon line” So that drawing might have 250,000 points. Now consider that data is unvalidated. That system now gets 5,000 extra floating points. What happens when these points invade the model? What is left of your art work? Now consider that data sets like this have 15,000,000 data points and every data point has 1,000,000 parameters. See the mess you end up with? Now go look into any system and see how Microsoft verifies their data. I could not find any white papers on this. A simple customer care point of view, I have had that for decades and Jared Spataro as I see it seemingly does not have that. He did not grace his speech with the essential need of data verification before validation. That is a simple point of view and it is my view that Microsoft will come up short again and again. So as I (simplistically) see it. Is by any chance, Jared Spataro anything more than a user missing Microsoft value at present?

Have a great day.

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September 5, 2024 · 10:24

Your (starting) fame on timing

There we have it, another freebee for the eager developer who wants to increase his (or her) visibility. Last month I was (happily) forced to get the Pixel Watch 2, there would be too much time for the new Pixel Watch 3 and I didn’t have the required dineros to get it. Not to fret, the Pixel Watch 2 does everything it needs to do as such I am happy. It was not until this week that I was missing out on one thing. I still have my mobile, so there was no pressing need, but I thought, why is it not there? 

So I went looking and behold, Google had missed out on it. So here it is your chance to shine. Im not sure if there is money in it, but the eager developer will see a way to turn this visibility into cash making opportunity.

As such I present a (extremely) rough view on the tile that a lot of people are waiting for.

The stage is founded on the clock widget, as such it is possible that you can capture that data (which uses the clock program in Google). The widget supports 4 times, but in this case the fifth is wherever you are (home). I also set the home in a different colour, but that is up to you. In my case I need to keep these times in mind, but whatever your reason is, it works. In Europe you have three times all over the place and there are more reasons. Some nations do not embrace summer/winter time. As such  the clock program has this all figured it out. So you just need to capture that data when it is needed. I think it is a simple and basic requirement, but Google seemingly never caught on. And with Google shipping the pixel watch 880,000 times (as per Oct 2022) you will gain a lot of visibility. As per 2023 Apple sold over 93 million smartwatches and it is likely that the solution is almost exactly the same, as such you could get multi million views with a simple tile addition. So use the idea and gain visibility I say. And here I suggest that you look what Apple has.  I dare say that the eager programmer could create that tile in mere hours, and a day of testing. 

So hop to it and gain your fame I say.

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