Up Yours Scammers And PPI Callers!
My BT phone bill was put on-line today and an advert on the site talked about a new BT 6500 phone, which has an answerphone and also blocks nuisance calls.
BT 6500 Phone
It would appear to have all the benefits of trueCall in one package.
I’ll see how I get on with it, as I must get about ten or so unwanted calls on some days.
Sorting Out My Energy
Every so often, I check up to see if I’ve got the best energy deal. As some companies are now offering smart meters, I wondered if I could get one of these thrown in.
So I checked one of the comparison sites and found, that I could save four hundred or so a year, by swapping to nPower.
As my current supplier is nPower, I found that strange, as I thought, I was supposed to be on the lowest tariff, according to new government legislation.
So I phoned them up and got changed onto the new tariff. The only downside is that there is now a £60 cancellation fee!
I can’t help thinking, that all of this has a touch of professional theft about it.
I think the moral of this story, is that you should check your energy bills against the rest of the industry probably twice a year.
You might be surprised, as I was, that one short phone call, saves you a few hundred pounds.
I still haven’t got my smart meter though! But then the big companies are reluctant to bring those in, as it will both cost them money for the meter and because savvy customers will cut their energy use.
Boris Gets Everywhere
Boris Johnson is to open a new Wrightbus factory to make chassis for the New Bus for London. This is a paragraph in the report.
Each bus costs around £354,500 and has an estimated lifespan of 14 years.
I don’t have any doubts on the cost, as that is probably an official or contractual figure.
It’s the fourteen years, that I think is wrong. Just look at some of the trains we have in this country. Take the Class 455 that works out of Waterloo to the south west of London. They were built in the early 1980s and Wikipedia has this paragraph about a recent refurbishment. Included is this sentence.
This refurbishment was so comprehensive that many passengers thought the refurbished units were new trains.
Who’s to say that in five years time or so, that New Buses for London will be refurbished and will continue to serve for many more years. London Underground used to do this type of operation with old-style Routemasters at Aldenham Works.
If you look at the design of the New Bus for London, it is very much a series of modules and components bolted together with a small diesel and the other motive power components distributed around the bus. For example, the battery is under front staircase and the electric motors in the rear wheel hubs. All of this makes continuous refurbishment and improvement a realisable prospect. In fact, I read somewhere recently, that LT1, the first New Bus for London, is off the road at the moment, as it is being upgraded to production standard. I must admit, I haven’t seen it lately, but I only note the numbers, when I pass one and I generally only do that a couple of times a day at a maximum.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these buses outlive me.
The Dangers Of 3D Printing
I’m a great believer in 3D printing, as it is a technique, that would have helped me greatly in the past, with some of the companies, in which I invested.
But this story, where some idiots in Texas, have designed a gun produced on a 3D printer horrifies me. Their aim seems to be to give everybody an affordable firearm.
But how do you police such a technology as 3D printing?
You can’t! Especially, as in a few years time, it will be one of the mainstays of small scale manufacturing.
Ten Years Of The London Congestion Charge
It is now ten years since the London Congestion Charge was brought in and it is reported here on the BBC.
Perhaps eight or so years ago, when I walked round the are covered in London, the traffic appeared to be less heavy than it is now. And as I reported in this post, the problems in Chelsea are awful. So it would appear that it is working and the removal of the Western Extension of the zone was a real mistake.
As a non-driver, I’m very much in favour of the system and feel the area should be expanded. But even most of my friends, who live in London and drive, don’t ever pay the charge, as they use public transport or taxis, when going to Central London.
What to me is the most interesting thing about the Congestion Charge is how well the technology has worked. I was very dubious, that this could be done successfully, those ten years ago. But in this case, I was very pleased to have my fears proven wrong.
The Star That Is ARM
I am linking to this article, which has the full speech of ARM’s CEO’s statement giving the Q4 2012 Financial Results. It is a full nine pages long, so it won’t be an easy read. This statement from the first page is very telling.
So let’s start off with the highlights for Q4. Well, Q4 was a fantastic finish to 2012. We saw our continued momentum in licensing and sold 36 licenses in the last quarter. That’s another year of over 100 licenses in the full year.
As someone, who used to put his own intellectual property on someone else’s hardware designs, this number of licences is a significant number, as obviously, the more licences the company signs, the more money it will earn.
I don’t know anything about the technicalities of what ARM does, but judging by the company’s success, it must be pretty damn good. But to me, just as it was for Metier Management Systems with Artemis, when we owned the company, the managers have got the marketing and revenue model right.
In fact, I might argue, that getting that right is more important than getting the product to a hundred percent of your design aims. As obviously, if you are generating lots of money, it is easier to close that last gap in your designs.
So often, I’ve seen wonderful ideas fail, because their revenue model wasn’t designed well enough and doesn’t feed itself back strong enough into product development.
There is another thing that ARM and Metier had in common. ARM is and Metier was considered a almost a crusade or political movement by those that started the companies and those that worked there. The companies that I’ve dealt with or know of, that have had that zeal are hard to come by. My short list would include Apple, Dyson, Rolls-Royce and Zopa. Although, there are one or two architectural or construction companies, that in a few years time, might join them. And don’t underestimate other companies in all sorts of high-tech fields, using an ARM-style of cash-flow model, based on a group of individuals having a unique idea and the determination to see it through.
I can also think of several companies that had everything and then blew it! You could say we did that with Metier by selling out and a lot of other high-tech companies have done the same. And then there’s some that have just lost their way like IBM and Automony.
A Mini Tablet Computer With A Built-In Printer
My little tablet computer, which is a Samsung Tab 2 with a seven inch screen. I use it to answer e-mails, keep a list of tasks and details of my drugs and INR results.
It does the job well, but it doesn’t handle all scenarios.
Say I was an architect working on a new house. I could make notes as I walked round the site and type them up later to give to the builder, who may not be very computer literate. But that is more hassle than I need.
Imagine though being able to write on a pad of paper, perhaps a few centimetres across, with a standard ball point pen and then give the paper copy to the builder. This is how many people work, using Post-it notes for the purpose.
Suppose though, that the pad fitted over the screen of the tablet computer and that could capture what was written as an image, so that when I got back to the office, I could download the various images to my computer for safe keeping.
In the late 1980s, I saw a demonstration of a system, where signatures were captured, that had been written by a standard ball point pen, through a thick pad of paper.
So the technology has existed for some time.
This idea has potential and all of the technology exists somewhere.
As with the double-sided credit card holder, I want one. And I want one now!
David Versus Goliath Or ARM Versus Intel
I have just read this article in the Motley Fool about David or ARM Holdings taking on Goliath or Intel.
The article has been given the title The Reason ARM Holdings Is Dominating Intel, but interestingly the web page is called Why ARM Holdings Destined Destroy Intel. This name is chosen by the blogging software, from the first title used for the article taking out the short connecting words, like is and to. Look at the title and web address of this post.
But I suppose someone in management at The Motley Fool felt it was a bit provocative.
I don’t, as I think Intel is doomed.
As we need to process and store more and more data, one of the biggest limitations will be the amount of power needed.
As an example look at the average smart phone. It may have lots of features and processing power, but this often comes at the price of a short period of operation before the phone needs recharging. Now virtually all smart phones are built around ARM chips, as the Intel chips use too much power. This power consumption of ARM chips is one of the main reasons they are dominant in portable devices like smart phones and tablets.
The vast server farms have a similar problem and I’ve read that about ten percent of the world’s electricity consumption could be used to power them in the future. So a low-power route would be to everybody’s advantage. And ARM is the low power processor, although Intel are starting to design processors that are more efficient. Intel might be able to put up a strong fight, but I believe there’s one big reason, why it won’t.
Intel is a conservative company, that sticks to a philosophy that has worked for years. And getting companies with a vast investment in a proven philosophy to change, when the writing appears on the wall is not easy! Especially, when you are selling product to equally conservative companies, who don’t want to change their philosophies.
Let’s say you are a server manufacturer like Hewlett-Packard. You know you have to go with lower powered processors to maintain your market share.
You have two choices; wait for Intel’s product to arrive or design your own low-power processors around the ARM technology and get them manufactured by any one of a number of companies.
The second approach is probably the one with the lowest risk, so you at least have to try it. If it fails, you can still go with Intel’s new low power chips.
If you don’t succeed, then it is absolutely certain that someone else will develop a low power server using ARM technology. So your traditional market will go bang anyway!
It also has the great advantage, that if you do it successfully, Intel will start to worry, that you’ll go down the same route with all the other chips you buy from them. so you may get better prices for the other chips.
If you don’t succeed, then it is absolutely certain that someone else will develop a low power server using ARM technology. So your traditional market will go bang anyway!
The main loser in either scenario is Intel.
You have to remember how dominant IBM was in the 1960s. They had a philosophy that worked well, but where are they now! They’re just a shadow of their former selves where hardware is concerned. Smaller and more innovative companies chipped away at their market.
I would also throw in a view on how hardware designers and programmers think. Basically, ninety percent are anarchists, who believe in destroy and rebuild much better, so they will always decry the architecture of companies like Intel and go for something that appeals to their dark side.
ARM was that forbidden fruit that only a few companies used. But now it is so mainstream, you can satisfy your own preferences and those of management as well.
In five or ten years time, they’ll be writing articles about how the new processor on the block is going to destroy ARM.
The Onward March of ARM
I’ve always kept a watching brief for ARM Holdings. Partly because it was local to where I lived, but mainly because one of the founders was Robin Saxby, who was in my year at Liverpool University.
I have just read this report in Forbes. There are some facts in that report, that will shape the world. Consider this abstract.
East (The ARM CEO) notes that by some estimates IT equipment now suck down 10% of the world electric power already; he also notes that there are estimates that in the next few years that the amount of data creates could increase 100x, or maybe 1000x. Even at 10x, he notes, we’re going to run out of power at the current consumption rates. “They are going to switch to ARM because it is all about the power,” he says. “The digital world is not going to become a reality unless servers and network infrastructure is designed in a different way….ARM is a tool in the toolbox for making this stuff more sustainable.”
Generation of electricity is one of the causes of global warming, as so much is generated by fossil fuels. So a small company in Cambridge will become a major player in the fight, just because its chip designs are so much more efficient.
Reading the Forbes article, says to me, that ARM can only get an awful lot bigger. But it is all about brain power and not about manufacturing in the traditional sense. On the other hand, ARM has been and will continue to be a company, whose technology enables other companies to start up in innumerable fields.
The Anonymous Widower 