New Beginning

By Frank | February 21, 2010

Over the last few years, this website has contained the musings and discussions relating to my evolution of my focus from just Finisar and optical communications towards a broader horizon – clean tech and green investing. I was in sync with the overall trends of high tech culture in this step.

Over the last 7 months I have been working to start an incubator focused on clean tech, optical systems and novel materials – all in partnership with the Singapore government. On December 30, 2009, Small World Group was notified that we were one of the Incubator proposals that has been accepted by the government.

The ramifications of this are multiple -

• first of all it means that I will be spending 4 weeks out of every 6 in Singapore; as a corollary, when I am in the USA the time there always involves travel to both Indiana (home) and California (business) as well as time  visiting my children who live all over!  I am once again signed up for too much travel; if you want to reach me, you can see my location calendar here.
• SWG now has 2 principals – myself and Dean Haritos.  Dean’s background is Cal Tech (BS), Stanford (MS), HP – Finisar – Infinera in terms of big corporations and Cloudbreak Software as a startup company.  Dean is a master of project planning and execution.  He is also a cancer survivor who works with people diagnosed with cancer – he maintains a website “just past infinity” for this purpose.
• Small World Group Incubator is now a Pte LTD company in Singapore.  We began operations in early January and are making progress towards funding our first company.  The scheme here allows us to invest up to $88K and at that limit the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) gives the company a convertible loan of $500K where the SWG Incubator owns the right to convert the loan at its own decision for up to 3 years after the company is founded.  More is available about the NRF TIS scheme (1), (2), (3).
• In Singapore, we have an entrepreneurial ecosystem that is rich in technical talent as well as rich in Institutes and Universities that have state of the art equipment.  Also we find there is a real focus on transforming the country from its diminishing manufacturing base to one where ideas, designs and product development are needed to build the new future.

We hope you will go to the Incubator tab and explore our activities there!

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Really FAST Internet

By Frank | February 16, 2010

Spent the night in downtown Tokyo in a 40 story hotel.  My room was near the top floor.  And the internet in that room was nothing short of amazing.  Here is my data -

This screen shot is from the www.speedtest.net website.  It is free to all, so go there and try it on your own home or business access.

Now a bit about this.  The site measures 3 things about your internet access -

1. Ping Time – this is a measure of how long it takes a message from your computer to go out to the internet and be bounced back to you from the nearest internet node.  Typical very good times are 20-30 milliseconds.  You can get this using DSL connections but CATV cable connections are often longer.  Ping Times that are long can cause echos in Skype phone conversations, for example.  And they can make the web feel sluggish on just browsing.
2. Download Speed – this is a measure of the bandwidth delivered to you by the internet.  If you go to YouTube and ask for a video, it will stream out to you at around this rate.  Older DSL lines are typically 1-2 Mb/s or 1-2 millions of bits per second.  Newer DSL can be 3 – 6 Mb/s in the USA and up to 10 Mb/s in Asia.  Cable modem rates are typically 5-10 Mb/s but can go higher if you pay for it.
3. Upload Speed – this is a measure of how fast you can upload a big file to somewhere on the internet.  In all fairness, this test assumes that you are able to send to a very fast receiving internet node.  Sometimes upload can be slow just because you are sending to someone who cannot receive fast.

OK.  So here you see we achieved a ping time of 3 milliseconds, upload and download speeds are close to 10 Mb/s in each direction. And that is really amazing.  I did some video conferencing with 2 different people in different parts of the USA from this Tokyo hotel room and it was crystal clear.

All that you are reading on the news today about the USA being behind other countries in Internet access is true.  Here is first hand data.  And it is shameful.  We invented it and all of the main access techniques.  And we have fallen behind in technology that enables business and people to work together better.

Ouch.

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iPad and its future

By Frank | January 27, 2010

Some time ago I wrote about the upcoming Apple tablet which now will know as the iPad.  Here is a short video that shows off its features.

It is a device in between the iPhone and their portable laptops.  And it is a device with much promise as I believe there is this need for a mid-level device to compliment the smaller and always mobile iPhone and the more powerful and work centric MacBook Pros.  But for the moment this is really just an iBook reader for me.  And perhaps a replacement for the small laptop that my Dad uses.

So right off the bat, this device is simpler to use and that will have steady appeal for many folks who only need a browser and an email client.  Who never need word processing, spreadsheets and so forth.  My Dad clearly falls into that category.  A targeted device that is responsive, simple easy to sit with and tote around may be all he needs.  In some ways the iPhone is too powerful and complicated for many users like that.

It was very significant to me that this is the first device to use a new class Apple designed processor – the A4.  Apple purchase a high performance and low power design group for, I believe $250M, about 2 years ago and this is the first thing that bears fruit from that decision.  Interesting but the story is just unfolding is my prediction.  For one thing, having your own processor group allows you to keep your development directions more secret from competitors.  You want to know Apple’s MacBook roadmap, look at the Intel roadmap for its processors.  At least for now.  The use of the A4 must send shivers up the spines of the folks at Intel.

For example, Intel in the last year did their basic IP slaughter on the folks at nVidia and that was bad for Apple as the chips that they had designed in for graphics processors and into the OS as coprocessors will not be used in the future because nVidia is precluded from selling chips.  That is the law but it is not good for the community.  And if I were Apple, I would reflect on that and plan a different future 5 years out.

Next, most significant was what was left out of this device -

• Multitasking comes to mind first.  The iPhone does not multitask and that means things you want to do simultaneously cannot be done.  I am surprised they left this out with all of the horsepower of the processor but perhaps that is for iPad OS 2.0.
• a user facing camera for video conferencing, using skype among family members who are far apart.  this will come in the next generation device.
• a stylus.  I have seen pretty cool use of stylus in presentations by others using tablets lately and they use it to highlight things on the screen of a presentation very effectively.  Also taking notes would be better especially when you want to include sketches and the like.  But maybe the touch interface will be sufficiently refined in the device to make this possible anyway.
• a real underpinning inside the device and the SDK to support the iPad’s use in education.  Such a device might be put in every school kids hands and we do away with text books.  they take notes, tests, get feedback and even interact with their parents all through this single simple UI and device.  Missed opportunity there or at best postponed.

Anyway, tell me what you think about the most hyped device of the decade.  Unlike the iPhone, I am significantly underwhelmed.

More on the Incubator in the next couple of days.

Frank

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It’s Not About US(A)

By Frank | January 12, 2010

This winter has been a bit colder than normal in Indiana and certainly this seems to be so for much of the USA.

And so because I am a tree hugging climate nut, I get the inevitable questions.  They go something like this -

If global warming is happening like you say, why is it so cold?

If global warming is as important as you say, why are we having a record cold day in Indianapolis?

And the simple answer to this is to start with the first part of the question.  Each question is about Global Warming and not about the local impact of this global trend in Indianapolis, Philadelphia or Memphis.

For a clear rendition of the state of global climate the best site with the most succinct  and easy to read message is here.

But let me quote from it for those unwilling to click through -

“The years 2001-2008 rank among the ten warmest years of the 130-year (1880-2009) record and 2009 will certainly join them as one of the ten warmest years of the global surface temperature record.”

The challenge for our civilization is to stop thinking locally.  Our local data is only part of the whole.  There will be locally hotter and colder areas but global warming is happening.  Make no mistake.  And there is absolutely general consensus that the sooner we all work together to make changes the better off we will all be.

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Green Home Video

By Frank | December 19, 2009

I have written about the green home in Tiburon … now here is a video!

Topics: Essays, Green Perspectives, Personal Stories | 7 Comments »

Incubator News

By Frank | December 1, 2009

Yesterday I presented Small World Group’s Incubator proposal to Singapore’s National Research Foundation. We were one of 15 proposals that were asked to present from out of the 30 submittals.

The NRF review committee had taken on a herculean task of interviewing 15 incubator managers from around the world all in a single day.  Wow.  My presentation was towards the end of this day and I was able to keep it short and cut to questions and answers quickly.

NRF documents say they expect to award a few of these proposals with actual funding, perhaps 3 or 4.  Competition was very strong with proposals from Israel, USA, New Zealand and several other countries.  So it is not clear if Small World Group’s proposal will be selected.

Nevertheless, as we prepared for the proposal and then the final presentation, we learned quite a bit and we put together a basic structure for interacting with people interested in working with us.  This website and it’s Incubator tab are starting points for those wishing to find out more about where we hope to go should we be selected.

Please take a look, wander around both the site and our information Hub that is online as well.  You will need to write to us to get access permission for the Hub.

Topics: Singapore Incubator | 1 Comment »

SWG Singapore Incubator

By Frank | November 22, 2009

About 6 weeks ago I proposed to the Singapore National Research Foundation to start up and operate for an extended period of time an incubator for start up companies focused on CleanTech and optical systems.

You can learn more about this by clicking on the incubator tab above and following links on that new branch of the SWG website!

Topics: Green Perspectives, Investing, StartUp Ideas | No Comments »

Amazon Kindle, Apple Table, My Hope

By Frank | November 9, 2009

I am on an extended trip (actually to fly around the world on United is cheaper than a round trip business class to Singapore) to Singapore, Turkey, Germany, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Diego and then San Francisco.  This trip I took Monika’s Kindle DX with me.  As I sat in the United lounge in the USA waiting for my flight, I downloaded about 10 books.  Some fiction (Neuromancer, The Magicians, Candles in the Rain, Hardy Boys for my grandson) and some non-fiction (What the Dog Saw, Salon, Slate) just to be able to try it out thoroughly.

My impression after now 10 days is that I really love it.  First of all it does not weigh anymore with 1 book or 10 books.  Duh.  But for the lean traveler that has serious meaning.  Also, I am pretty sure that I love the DX version with its larger screen than the smaller version.  I do wish it had its wireless features enabled in Singapore but I will try it in other countries as I continue to move westward back to CA.

Now all of this brings me to the now-legendary-vaporware-Apple-Tablet that may sometime be released.

I confess that I now really hope that they do.  And it should be a different object than either the iPhone or their laptop or any Macintosh flavor.  Why?

After the Kindle experience, I see the value in a product that is primarily for reading.  The device would be better with a full color display and in exchange I would give back some of the Kindle’s amazing battery life (read weeks if you are careful with the wireless).

Here is my list of what I would want -

• greater than 10″ display, full color, high resolution
• an iTunes like book store where magazines and books are all available by the issue or by subscription
• ideally we could buy a library card and take out books (but this would produce too thin a revenue model, I suspect)
• of course it should have a camera (maybe a pretty good one with some zoom and good focus and of course, video) and ability to play music and videos
• But its real purpose is to be a general reading tool and to that end it needs color to really render magazines fully.
• it should have communications probably with embedded WiFi and GSM so that it can always be used for things like interactive ads in magazines.  imagine a much strong link from print to purchase
• it would have most of the iPhone sensors and maybe some others so that it can be a fun platform for games.
• it should allow students of all ages not to have to lug around so many books that have become back breaking.
• it would be a tablet with student’s books but also enable teachers to give an entire class test and have each test different so as to reduce cheating as well as make feedback after the test instantaneous.
• it would allow improvements in teaching in class rooms as assignments could be tailored to each students ability and rate of learning.  lessons read could be self tested for comprehension and more details can be shared as needed individually by each student
• it would be a better typing surface than the phone level I/O devices.  it will be more easily accommodate touch typing

Back to the main point.  Reading.  This is something that is not going to die.  And just like we want our computers for real strong interaction and explanations and writing.  And we want our phone for truly mobile simple communications, I believe we would also carry our “reader”.

For me this would be the ultimate simplification as I would travel with these 3 Apple branded devices that work together, play nicely, network out to their respective worlds and so forth.

The miracle that Jobs and company have to pull off is to really get the print folks to abandon paper and to strongly support the new platform and for that there must be a revenue model that works for everybody.

With iTunes and music, the model was crush the music stores and eliminate a level or 2 of markups.  But it ended up still hurting artists and their handlers.  That is still a work in progress.

With iPrint or whatever it will be called, I see how the New York Times and Time magazine can still be in the publishing business, still have advertising revenue, lose the need to kill so many trees and so forth.  But they all must be looking at iTunes and remember how disruptive that was and if they have really thought through their portion of the revenue shifts.

Hope that they have and that we get the 3rd leg of this platform in place.

Topics: Essays, Green Perspectives | No Comments »

Remarkable Reliability and Longevity

By Frank | November 1, 2009

Over the last 30 years, one of the major trends is that American made cars have become more reliable and demonstrate longer lifetimes.  Much has been made about how this was done because Japanese cars were already doing this well by the mid-1970s.

I remember growing up and the typical lifetime for an American car was considered 5 years or 50,000 miles.  Today we routinely use cars well past 100,000 miles and 10 years.  In the right climates (those without salt and ice on the winter roads) cars can now last 200,000 miles and 15-20 years!  At the same time, we have lengthened the lifetime of tires and other elements of the car.

Having said all of this, a car that is used for 100,000 miles and is driven at an average speed of 50 miles per hour over that life will have been operated 2000 hours total.  Even if we use the longer 200,000 mile figure then this only rises to 4000 hours.

As I write this I am in Singapore working on starting an Incubator for start up companies that will focus on clean technology and optical systems.  To get here, of course, I flew over in Boeing 747s, the basic design of which dates back to 1969.  Probably all of those original planes have been retired but I suspect that the average 747 airframe has probably an average of 20 years service.

What kind of service?  Well such planes are probably used 16 hours per day and for a total of 250 days per year allowing for routine maintenance and repairs.  (The one I flew on had to have one engine manually started out on the tarmac after we had left the gate!)  So that means that a typical Boeing 747 is used 4000 hours per year!  And that the average 747 airframe has an average total use hours of at least 80,000 hours and that some probably have well more than 100,000 hours.

Compare that to our cars that we think are so reliable because they give relatively trouble free service for 100,000 miles or 4,000 hours.

This means that we knew very well how to make reliable machines before the Japanese began their lessons for Detriot.

Moreover these 747s see temperatures as high as 100F and as low as -80F nearly every day!  They fly through winds of 550 miles per hour, and carry passengers, freight and fuel that totals at least 500,000 lbs.  Wow.

I was glad that Boeing was capable of such great engineering as I slept crossing the international dateline last night.  And I wonder what they have in store for us as they soon launch the 787 Dreamliner – their most radical new design in 40 years since the launch of the 747.

Topics: Essays, Green Perspectives, Personal Stories | No Comments »

Annual Report – Natural Gas

By Frank | October 7, 2009

The Tiburon home originally had natural gas heating in 3 separate zones.  It also had all of the hot water used for washing, showering and sinks warmed from natural gas.  Finally the cook top stove burners were natural gas.  The home is still divided into 2 separate addresses 1 Reserva Ln is the main home and 3 Reserva Ln is the apartment.  One of the heating zones/one furnace and one of the 2 hot water heaters were dedicated to the apartment.

Overall natural gas usage for the home including the apartment was between 100 -250 therms depending on time of year; we used more natural gas in the winter with the maximum months being January and February.

We combined the hot water systems into one where solar thermal collectors warm a 120 gallon tank to preheat the water and then follow this with natural gas fired tankless water heaters.   This system had a few wrinkles but for the last year has worked flawlessly.  The system elements were designed by Heliodyne and the system was installed by SunFirst!

Over the past year we used 148 therms for the entire year.  We estimate that the savings are about 88%.

But we expect this to get better still because the heat pumps we installed for home heating in the winter we were unable to control initially when they called for natural gas as a back up heat source.  But now that is fixed.  Given this change we anticipate that a normal year of natural gas consumption should be below 100 therms for an overall savings of 93%.  100 therms is the equivalent of 2900 KW-hrs so if we make this final target then the home is pretty close to carbon neutral on a overall basis.

Here is the graph for overall natural gas consumption -

As you can see the already low usage drops even further during the sunniest of months from April through October.

Topics: Essays, Green Perspectives, Personal Stories | No Comments »

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