(You) Tube and Toast

The English had their toasts (toasters) thanks to electricity. I’ve got my music thanks to Youtube. Each generation tries to outdo the previous one. My daughters would read about Mars, not Moon (I blogged about the excitement of waiting in line for hours to see that rock brought back from the Moon).

Thanks YouTube. The three founders I believe who invented this medium.

It brought together a platform made possible by broadband and algorithm (perhaps you might like to listen to this…..).

Don’t give up on us baby, then If you leave me now, or Adieu Sois Heureuse.

“Lord knows we’ve come this far”

“We went too far to leave it all behind”.

Innovators, don’t give up. Lord knows we have gone this far. We can’t change the way we are.

Push forward.

Science at the forefront of change.

Let’s tweet again.

Politician and musician will follow suit.

As long as scientists and technologists don’t give up.

I know you are more intimate with your sleeping bags than your spouses.

But for generations to come, you have us forever grateful to your “prototypes”.

A VoIP call, a clip we share, a link we paste.

How can this be?

I started out my Telecom career throwing a tin can with string attached across the alley to my neighbor’s house.

Despite the heavy rain, we communicated without shouting.

But it was “wire line” then. It’s wireless now. And not just voice. It’s the apps era.

Here or To Go?

When we grew up in Vietnam, at the height of the war, we stuck our noses into our neighbor’s window to catch a glimpse of Vic Morrow‘s Combat, or Wild Wild West. Large crowd, small screen.

Now I see small kids, watching large screens.

The time, they are a’changin, as Dylan would say.

To close this blog, I want to draw our attention to a very controversial character: Insull, who died in a Paris metro with a ticket in his hand.

Insull would make the Ebbers of the world look like they are from Junior League.

Insull left behind the electricity meters and business model we see today.

It made possible the electrifying of the English toasters and todays’ Youtube.

Insull rode the ups and downs of an entrepreneur life. And he died riding the subway in Paris a homeless and wretched man. But Don’t give up on us Baby.

We have come thus far, can’t we stay the way we are.

We have come too far to leave all this behind.

I enjoyed my toast and tube this morning. Feel like a million-dollars.

Thanks to those guys that went before me. On shoulders of giants we stand, we sing and we soar.

(You)tube and toast. Let’s toast to the spirit of innovation and creativity.

Think of something new and bigger than yourself today. Even the moonlight.

Before the ground claims us all to itself. Vic Morrow has died, in accident, and not in Combat. The  point is, fight for every inch against complacency. Read Ron Paul‘s parting message. Appreciate the liberty we are given to pursue dreams and discovery. I have blogged about the payload. All into it, except for those outliers. Then the world will join you .. the way they are hunting for an I-phone 5. VoIP, data and video, on the go. Beautiful apps, wonderful world we are living in.

The analog attachment

Years ago, I was fascinated with the California flea market.

Back East, we got garage sales or moving sales. But the Bay Area markets sold vinyl albums, “flower” clothing, books and even gourmet meals on wheels. A Vietnamese family even offered sugar cane juice next to a hot-dog stand.

Fast forward 20 years. A random walk down a flea market today found all things analog, for a dollar:  books, cell phone accessories and cleaning products.

People even tried to sell Sunday papers there (while the NY Times now offers membership package for its online version).

First we downloaded some music for free. Then we paid 99 cents.

Then comes the free online news. Now we have to pay a subscription fee for more exclusive content.

It’s fair, especially for mobile download apps etc…

Many will disagree with me.

But how would journalists feed their children, especially when they have to travel overseas on assignment (and got injured, tortured and kidnapped).

We evolve once again into a two-tier society online, just as we have off-line.

Financial Times, Rupert Murdoch’s News for I-pads, WSJ and now, NY Times

all go for paid content.

The developing poor got an analog version (the other side of the digital track), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/fashion/20Cultural.html?src=me&ref=homepage

the middle class  enjoy free “coach” content, and the high-class, paid content.

We seem to have reached a compromise in this Pro-Am emergence. The digital divide is coming to clearer focus.

When I was in school, all I knew was that we lived in a world of 4 Billion people.

Now, it’s a 7-Billion digital play ground.

And many of us will watch movies on Facebook, in-mail each other on Facebook, and recommend news on Facebook.

Netflix, last year’s number one company, will have a run for the money.

Meanwhile, Rackspace and Amazon lead the way to the cloud.

We finally move up the value chain, where software apps rule.

IT admin guys will be the new Maytag men.

I remember clearly voice analog people spread the word that VoIp was quite choppy, hackable etc.. until people can dial 911 from their mobile phones,

which put the nail on the analog voice coffin.

Now, a walk down the flea market will find many CPU’s, servers  for sale because companies will have made a leap to the cloud. Moore’s Law wasn’t about the time it takes to double the speed of chips.

It’s more about how quickly we need to let go of our attachment to all things analog.

No wonder agriculture farms in Idaho and Dakota (cold weather) now give ways for server farms (cut down on the electricity needed to cool the cage).

Heartland America once again thrives after losing a horde of people during the Post Dust Bowl era. There is no turning back to One-hour photo or even Red Box.

That’s how fast change has arrived. Wake up to the new digital reality. If you don’t believe me, then visit your nearest flea market to see what ‘s on sale. Gadgets you now embrace at home.

If so, then it’s time to go shopping. And by that, I mean online shopping, not to Circuit City. It has been out of business.

I want my Skype call!

By now, we all know about our right to make a phone call when being arrested.

That phone call usually is placed from a pay phone (soon to be a museum piece).

Skype has been down (and slowly back up to full speed), and 26 million users worldwide felt the pinch.

VoIP. Conversation chopped into tiny pieces to be reassembled at the other end (with some help from the listeners to “guess” and fill in the gaps).

The process is called quantization which creates a digital graph of an otherwise analog waves used in landline telephony.

Skype helped sell a bunch of headsets for sure.

And it has been disruptive to incumbent Penny-talk services (Skype could be called Zero-cent talk).

With Facebook founder visiting China, we can expect more E commerce apps. How about Facetalk, with caller’s profile and friending list.

People communicate in whatever way they deem convenient.

Skype and Twitter just happened to be King of the Hill at the moment.

Until the next innovation comes along. No wonder there are titles such as “First, break all the rules”. Who would have thought that which was intended for Data transmission (Internet protocol) can be used for voice and video. Even Google which already “got it” more than Microsoft, seemed to have missed the boat when it comes to Web 2.0. If only they paid attention to the human side of users, who are made up to be social animals (hence, the rise of home networking, which caught the attention of Cisco, now Linksys-Cisco).

Sometimes, the market trickles down (IBM mainframe to Texas Instrument, to Xerox then Atari/Apple computers). Other times, it’s the reverse (Social Media and Mobile apps for the work place, business casual attire etc..).

Whatever the case, I admire the distribution channel: they always make sure we have new stuffs to buy for Christmas e.g. Susan Boyle CD, Wall Street DVD (first, it cheated investors out of their money, then the fictional film version is taking Main Street pocket change), Ipad and Blu-Ray. It’s not a new century at all. It just happens to be the most crowded one. Translation: lots of gift wrapping: toys for tots, text for teens. Skype for all..