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Sal Khan the founder of Khan Academy is an MIT graduate and his presentation to smart students and familiarity with audience gives a deeper discussion of Khan Academy.
an example of an insight is the early decision on how to scale. The video above I started at the 7:37 mark. This is where Sal explains his first use of Youtube.
Microsoft announced a change in its focus on Mobile and three market segments.
“We plan to narrow our focus to three customer segments where we can make unique contributions and where we can differentiate through the combination of our hardware and software. We’ll bring business customers the best management, security and productivity experiences they need; value phone buyers the communications services they want; and Windows fans the flagship devices they’ll love.”
In the above there is no mention of the youth market. Teenagers and college students are some of the most intense mobile users and Microsoft isn't targeting those users. What is missing are the apps that the youth market uses. Microsoft's strategy is enterprise which many will want office. Given Office apps are on iOS and Android, the value Microsoft is providing is in management, security and productivity. Management and Security sound like the rallying cry for Blackberry.
The kids of parents who work for Microsoft have been more and more convincing their parents they want an iPhone, not a Windows phone. Why? Because the apps. Microsoft won the battles of DOS and Windows vs. others with availability of apps. The losers where OSs like CP/M that couldn't compete with the lack of apps.
Microsoft making layoffs in the summer is turning into an annual event. Microsoft wrote off $7.8bil and the stock didn't budge.
“Microsoft Corp. plans to cut as many as 7,800 jobs and write down about $7.6 billion on its Nokia phone-handset unit, wiping out nearly all of the value of a business it acquired just 14 months ago.”
The data center industry is a relatively small community. Even though the overall data center market is growing there is a consolidation of power going on. There are shifts to those who are the best at building out data center infrastructure.
Some stick to a group of people they have worked with for years like being loyal to your alma matter or home team. They take comfort in the familiar. This is where the term "old boys club" can be used to describe this behavior.
The Golden State Warriors won the NBA finals and Steve Kerr was the star along with MVP Stephen Curry. Steve Kerr was seen on his plane flight back to Oakland with two things that don't fit a SF bay area focus.
“The Warriors coach, fresh off his team’s NBA title victory, was photographed on the plane ride from Cleveland home to Oakland wearing a Seattle Seahawks shirt and reading a copy of “Boys in the Boat,” the popular title about the University of Washington’s 1936 Olympic rowing championship.”
If Steve Kerr was old school he would have a SF 49ers shirt or SF Giants and a book about UC Berkeley's crew team.
Digging a bit further it appears that Steve Kerr and Pete Carrol have become friends, coaches who want to have the best team.
“Looking carefully, though, you can see commonalities — California sensibilities, positive energy, open-mindedness and a constant search to find new ways to motivate varied player personalities.
...
”I always loved Pete Carroll,” Kerr said recently. “Hated USC (Carroll’s former coaching stop) but loved Pete Carroll. And loved the way his teams played.
”They just won the Super Bowl. They play this fun, entertaining, energetic style. That’s exactly how I want my teams to play.”
Kerr had just been hired by the Warriors and was continuing his hyper-speed learning curve.”
The ideas continue on how they shared ideas on how to be the best.
““We talked a lot about just kind of the atmosphere around a team and how you’re going to approach the daily routine,” Kerr said.
”To me, the X’s and O’s ... they’re an important part of coaching but a relatively small part. Eighty percent of it is just relationships and atmosphere, what your daily routine and culture is.
”Are players engaged, are they enjoying themselves, are they competing? All those principals he talked about, and we talked about different ideas of ways to make those things come to life. To me, that’s his gift.”
Practical result: Kerr saw how Carroll’s players reacted when the Seahawks played music throughout practice, so he installed speakers at the Warriors site, and there is now music playing through most Warriors sessions.
”It’s a staple for the Seahawks — it’s really uplifting and it’s fun,” said Kerr, who has piped in an array of rap and rock.
”Everybody’s bouncing around and energetic, but you’ve got to focus, too. So there’s different reasons to employ that. But that came from Pete.””
Google yesterday announced its new Alabama DC and coverage is significant with 198 posts.
Google has been expanding capacity in LATAM, EU, and APAC for years since it has made a land purchase in the US. When you look at the location of the Jackson County Alabama DC in the middle of the cluster of 5 existing facilities I would place bets that Google could build more at this one site than any other. How big? The Alabama site originally had 8 coal fired units. The last one produced 460MW. Times 8 that is almost 4GW of power transmission infrastructure and water to cool down the plant.
The official Google post is here. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-power-plant-for-internet-our-newest.html
What is not in the Google post are some quotes from Google's Urs Hoelzle and Joe Kava which the NYTimes covered. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/google-to-open-new-data-center-in-alabama/
Urs says...
““Data centers are attractive customers” to power suppliers, said Urs Hölzle, Google’s senior vice president for technical infrastructure. In turn, he said, “bringing in alternative power was important to us.”
“In the next 12 months, we will look at plausible projects,” he said. While wind power appears to be the furthest along in producing energy cheaply, he noted that Google had already done a solar energy project in South Africa.”
Joe says
““We are looking to do a similar type of approach as Finland” in Alabama, said Joe Kava, who leads data center construction at Google. Like many Google sites, he said, Alabama will be “a campus model with multiple buildings.”
Google appears to be on something of a construction binge, with data center expansions in the United States, Singapore, and Belgium just over the last few months. This may be partly because of demand, and partly to risk management on Google’s part. By having several construction projects underway, Mr. Kava said, the chances of a shortfall in overall capacity from a slowdown at one project were minimized.”
The Alabama site could be the biggest Google data center location until they buy a bigger one.
Most if not all of you have grown up playing with Legos. Those pieces of plastic that you diligently followed the directions or creatively made things. I don't know about you, but many times when looked at large sculptures it is easy to think about all that plastic.
Lego has realized it needs to change the way it makes Legos to be something not built on fossil fuels. Lego announced its new environmental effort.
“The LEGO Group establishes LEGO Sustainable Materials Centre and expects to recruit more than 100 employees in a significant step up on the 2030 ambition of finding and implementing sustainable alternatives to current materials.
Today, the LEGO Group announces a significant investment of DKK 1 billion dedicated to research, development and implementation of new, sustainable, raw materials to manufacture LEGO® elements as well as packaging materials.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO and President of the LEGO Group, says:
“This is a major step for the LEGO Group on our way towards achieving our 2030 ambition on sustainable materials. We have already taken important steps to reduce our carbon footprint and leave a positive impact on the planet by reducing the packaging size, by introducing FSC certified packaging and through our investment in an offshore wind farm. Now we are accelerating our focus on materials.””
VMware recently created a Lego DC. One of these days maybe someone will build a Lego DC with Wind Farms and/or Solar panels. Problem is the area of the power generation would dwarf the DC space. :-)
