Author: Dr. Donna Murdoch

Adult Learners. Lifelong Learning and Relevancy. Opinions are my own.
Donna Murdoch, Future

Delivery dreams: How I’d build a better Amazon Prime

I always thought Amazon Prime was a fantastic deal, so wasn’t surprised when they announced the new price increase (after so many years.)  The author of this article lives in a place where there are options, but unless you live live in one of the areas she mentions these interesting options really aren’t available.  They could be in the not-to-distant future though.  “The Amazon Prime price hike has me thinking about what I’d really like to see from the service. Think streaming sports, personal shoppers and never having to go to the post office again.”

via Delivery dreams: How I’d build a better Amazon Prime — Tech News and Analysis.

Digital Puglishing, Donna Murdoch

With Medium, Evan Williams Is Tackling the Future of Writing Online

I like Medium, another Ev WIlliams (Twitter, Blogger) startup.  Do we like longer-form posts when reading online?  Often when we are writing content to be posted, we try to be short and succinct.  Medium content is somewhere in between long and blog-post short.  Critics say it is hard to filter quality from noise – but the quality tends to rise to the top.  “Mr. Williams is also still trying to decide how to describe his venture. Medium is for short posts and long ones, by amateur writers and professional ones. It emphasizes a clean design and relies on a network of writers and readers to edit and discover new posts.”   It is well done.

via With Medium, Evan Williams Is Tackling the Future of Writing Online – NYTimes.com.

Donna Murdoch, Tech Hardware

People Love Their Tablets. That’s Bad News for Apple

Interesting – seems the upgrade cycle for tablets is similar to computers or laptops, not iPhones.  That’s the conclusion I had after this article from Wired.   “Apple sold more than 70 million iPads last year. People love them. But they might love them a little too much for Apple’s taste, if new predictions of shrinking growth in the tablet market turn out to be true. Tablets are so good, it seems, that people are keeping the ones they have and not buying as many new ones.”

via People Love Their Tablets. That’s Bad News for Apple | Wired Business | Wired.com.

Digital Puglishing, Donna Murdoch, Tech Software

What are New York and San Francisco Tweeting About?

Evidently people tend to complain about the same things via Twitter if they are from the same city.  “New Yorkers are always complaining about the weather, while San Franciscans tend to moan about the city’s perpetually poor MUNI bus service. That’s not just a stereotype — it turns out there’s hard, Twitter-based evidence for it.”

via What are New York and San Francisco Tweeting About?.

Donna Murdoch, Future, New visions

MIT Technology Review’s List of 50 Smartest Companies for 2014

This is an annual list of MIT Tech Review Smartest Companies.  Not the ones we see frequently, but companies that have the potential for changing lives in  big way.  “We didn’t count patents or PhDs; instead, we asked whether a company had made strides in the past year that will define its field. The biggest of these strides happened at Illumina, which is driving down the price of DNA sequencing to levels that will change the practice of medicine. We also found dramatic developments on the Web, in batteries, and even in agricultural technologies.

Familiar names such as Apple and Facebook aren’t on this list because reputation doesn’t matter. We’re highlighting where important innovations are happening right now.”

via MIT Technology Review’s List of 50 Smartest Companies for 2014 | MIT Technology Review.

Donna Murdoch, Future, Tech Software

What UPS Drivers Can Tell Us About the Automated Future of Work

Sometimes we can see what the future will look like on a bigger scale when we see what big companies are doing.  This story of how UPS utilizes dynamic data to calculate best delivery routes is an example.  “Take UPS’s On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation, or ORION, as an example. The brainchild of Jack Levis, UPS’s director of process management (he worked on it for nearly a decade before the first test implementation in 2008), it uses a variety of data streams — map data, customer information, business protocols, and work rules — to calculate the most streamlined and efficient delivery route … better than any mere mortal ever could.

The system uses so many algorithms — nearly 80 pages of math formulas — that Levis describes it as “something Einstein would have on his blackboard.””

via What UPS Drivers Can Tell Us About the Automated Future of Work | Wired Opinion | Wired.com.

Donna Murdoch, Future, New visions

This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood

Incredible – Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford and literally re-invented phlebotomy.  “Instead of vials of blood—one for every test needed—Theranos requires only a pinprick and a drop of blood. With that they can perform hundreds of tests, from standard cholesterol checks to sophisticated genetic analyses. The results are faster, more accurate, and far cheaper than conventional methods. The implications are mind-blowing.”

via This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood – Wired Science.

Digital Literacy, Donna Murdoch, Tech Software

Your Twitter Conversations Fall Into One of These Six Categories

A recent study from the Pew Foundation categorized Twitter conversations, putting different types of discussion into silos.  I think some of us fall into different categories at different times.  “Researchers concluded that there are roughly six different types of conversational archetypes that take place on Twitter. In other words, most conversations take the form of one of these six general structures: Polarized Crowd, Tight Crowd, Brand Clusters, Community Clusters, Broadcast Network, Support Network.”  From Mashable.

via Your Twitter Conversations Fall Into One of These Six Categories.

Digital Literacy, Donna Murdoch, Future, Tech Hardware, Tech Software

In Apple’s healthcare play, will BYOD = Bring Your Own Data?

The Quantified Self seems to be Apple’s newest direction.  It’s not really a surprise, as the newest iPhones have a chip that measure our steps and motion, even though few apps take advantage of it.  They’ve clearly been thinking about this for some time, and new reports are making the plans take shape.  “As we sifted through the reports and rumors, we became encouraged about the level of discourse about Apple’s possible healthcare play. Much of the discussion has centered around Apple’s assembly of a high caliber team of experts with deep experience in medical sensors and patient monitoring technologies, which gave further credence to reports of Apple’s possible introduction of an “iWatch” that would allow users to track health and fitness data generated by sensors embedded in the wearable. Some even raised the possibility that Apple might be interested in developing medical devices, peripherals or accessories for the iPhone.”

via In Apple’s healthcare play, will BYOD = Bring Your Own Data? | VentureBeat | Health | by Mark McAndrew, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP.