I did something last night that brought me to the realisation that the age of the mobile device is truly upon us. I am a guitar player; certainly no Slash but I do OK. Many years ago I bought a final mix rack-mounted device from TC Electronics. It was, and still is, a great device for taking say a song and processing it for the final mix before recording to say a CD. A couple of weeks ago I ordered myself the Flashback Delay stomp pedal from the same company. For those not familiar with such a thing it is one of those small boxes guitar players connect to, often a series of them, and activate by stepping on a switch to add say an overdrive, or in this case a delay effect to the sound of a guitar.
At this point you are probably wondering where I am going with this? The latest half dozen pedals from TC Electronics come with a Toneprint setting. This is a downloadable effect put together by an artist as their ideal delay effect. Normally I would need to disconnect the effect and plug it into a computer via a USB cable and download the patch I wanted into that ‘slot.’ Last night I grabbed an Android app that contains all such patches for all such devices. I selected the one I wanted and held my phone over my guitar pickup which loaded the selected print into my pedal. I did all of this without going near a computer. For many people with the right phone type, the need to go near a computer is being slowly removed and for some there is no need at all. I get my e-mails sent to my phone so that I can check them anywhere.
The question then is for how much longer will some people need any kind of fixed line connection to their homes? In Australia the government is convinced that this is a mandatory requirement for a very long time and people over 50 may agree with them. For Gen Y and earlier many in this category do not have a home phone line and rely solely on the mobile device for interaction and connectivity. Texting, Tweeting, E-mails and surfing are all carried out with a phone or tablet via a WiFi or phone SIM connection. This included video calls, sending pictures and loading up their devices with applications. For some the stream TV shows and movies directly to their devices. The kind of functionality left over that requires a PC and a line connection is rapidly vanishing.
That people are after some kind of connectivity is not in doubt, how they get their connectivity is changing. For me I use a fair amount of data and so I plan to have a fixed line connection, and my wireless one, for some time. For example I just ordered a new media player to replace the one connected to my TV. The new one is Android based, supports a USB 3 external HDD and allows a mouse and keyboard connection. The latter is to allow Web surfing to find say an online video to watch e.g. YouTube. The latest TVs also allow smart surfing and connection to a streaming service to say watch a movie. I upgraded simply because a few of the latest 3D HD movies at 1080p and with DTS sound are not supported by my older box due to a shift in standards and CODECs. What is interesting here is that up until now boxed by the A.C Ryan’s and DVICO’s of the world have all been Linux based. This is the first Android based unit I have seen and it supports multi-tasking, something the Linux devices probably could have but never did. The new box also has a much easier HDD swap capability, i.e. no screws to undo. Since I have never recorded anything from the TV I didn’t need the Tuner so that cut the cost down to under $250 for the new device from DVICO, shipped direct from Korea saving even more money.
Bottom line, the NBN in Australia is a complete waste of time if they go beyond the exchange or sub-node level. It will be expensive (at least the twice current access costs) and a huge white elephant. It adds costs for regular battery backup replacement, one that will be borne by the customer either directly or as part of the monthly cost.
A T-SQL Example
I was asked at a recent interview how I would convert a comma delimited string in a column to a series of records. T-SQL is not really a procedural language but it does have the capability to perform as such. My first response was that I would not use T-SQL to do this if I had the functionality in say an SSIS package or similar. My second response was that I’d look it up it took about 2 minutes to find.
Most of the solution is below. This is the T-SQL equivalent of a language solution. Basically skip through the input field finding a comma and stripping off the field until there are no more commas. This would be boxed into a procedure call as part of the outer Select
Something like: Select Code, SplitOutItems(CommaField) From ….
CREATE FUNCTION SplitOutItems(@Code Int, @String varchar(8000))
As
begin
declare @idx int
declare @slice varchar(8000)
select @idx = 1
if len(@String)<1 or @String is null return
while @idx!= 0
begin
set @idx = charindex(‘,’,@String)
if @idx!=0
set @slice = left(@String,@idx - 1)
else
set @slice = @String
if(len(@slice)>0)
insert into tblDataOut (Code, Items) values(@Code, @slice)
set @String = right(@String,len(@String) - @idx)
if len(@String) = 0 break
end
declare @slice varchar(8000)
select @idx = 1
if len(@String)<1 or @String is null return
while @idx!= 0
begin
set @idx = charindex(‘,’,@String)
if @idx!=0
set @slice = left(@String,@idx - 1)
else
set @slice = @String
if(len(@slice)>0)
insert into tblDataOut (Code, Items) values(@Code, @slice)
set @String = right(@String,len(@String) - @idx)
if len(@String) = 0 break
end
end
Industry News
Remember all those claims that Moore’s Law was reaching the end only to have a new one a few days later that it wasn’t? Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, has predicted Moore's Law will run out of steam within the next ten years as silicon designs run up against the laws of physics. In 1965 Moore himself expected his doubling prediction to last about ten years, turns out he was wrong as well. To be fair his was about the number of transistors but this has changed to performance in more recent times. The problems will occur below the 5 nanometre range according to Kaku. The problem is leakage and overheating.
Kaku is suggesting that biological components will replace silicon. There is some symmetry here as silicone has replaced biological components for years. Yes my first breast joke in a Currents column. Since we now have tri-gate transistors I’m guessing that going upwards might work for a while beyond ten years. Kaku also suggests that Quantum computing is an end of the century away
It pays to be an IT company. No really it pays. Consider the largest IT company in the world Apple and yes I am pushing the meaning of IT here. The New York Times wrote that Apple paid an effective tax rate of 9.8 per cent last year. Another report had this at 25 per cent. The last figure is probably more accurate as the NYT has a terrible track record of accuracy in real reporting. The reason is simple, Apple pays tax based on their 2010 profits and their profits have more than doubled over the past year 2011. This makes the apparent tax rate look like it is a lot lower than it is in reality. A basic mistake but one the NYT seems to be a master at.
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