Technology Will Save The World

[Morgan]

Morgan, you may find this to be interesting about Watson.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35402.wss

It looks like IBM's Watson is diving into health care!

Ha! That's pretty cool! I can just see it now... Every doctors office will have a "Dr. Watson Medical Terminal" on hand to speed up patient interactions. Or more interesting yet, remove the doctors office and just visit a "WellPoint Watson Center" for fast and accurate medical diagnosis. Each location could have a number of "Dr. Watson's" there. Put them into little cubicles and have the patient walk in and talk to the machine. The voice would be strong and relaxing to make the patient feel comfortable and confident in its diagnosis. Then have an inventory of medicines on hand that could be spit out to patients.

Hmmm. Thinking about how to make sure "Dr. Watson" would stay up to date. Would it simply be software that is updated periodically? I imagine it would. There would eventually be problems with that. I wouldn't be surprised at all if people tried to influence Dr. Watsons decisions. Either for purely nefarious purposes or for economic gain (a la spit out a brand name pill in stead of a generic). How would this be regulated to help make sure that doesn't happen? If the machine is gathering data, how would it determine the good from the bad?

So many things to think about... Good share Ross!

[rkbabang]

Eric Schmidt thinks technology will help save the world.
I tend to agree, if governments get out of the way (and stop murdering people and destroying things) there is a lot we can accomplish as a species. And even if they don't get out of the way voluntarily, as Schmidt points out, technology may just help us push them out of the way.

Google: Technology is making science fiction real

"People who predict that holograms and self-driving cars will become reality soon are absolutely right," Schmidt told thousands of attendees at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the planet's largest cell phone trade show....

It will redefine the relationship these people have in the world. In times of war and suffering, it will be impossible to ignore the cries of people calling out for help," Schmidt said. "In this new world there will be far fewer places for dictators."

That already happened during the Arab Spring that saw governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fall, with more turmoil still under way in places like Syria.

"With information comes power and with power comes choice, and smarter resourceful citizens are going to demand a better deal for their communities," Schmidt said.

[bargainman]

The one wet blanket to all this talk of accelerating cycles and innovation is energy. Gates talked about it recently and it sounds like the problems are just not like the tech sector.  In part because of regulation and infrastructure, but also just the scientific challenges and underfunding.:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/bill-gates-us-energy-research-underfunded/23521

[Morgan]

Here is a neat video from Ted.
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html

In the video he briefly mentions Watson and how it is really good at detecting the nuances of the human language. Imagine when that type of technology is given away (like Wolfram Alpha) and the people all over the world have smartphones with high speed internet connectivity. Imagine someone in the African desert using their smartphone to ask Watson a question. That will change their life dramatically. The future is only going to get better from here on out.


Cheers!

[mikazo]

I'm just weeks away from finishing a bachelor's degree in computer science, and so my circle of competence essentially consists of technology. I know that a lot of capital expenditure is necessary to stay ahead in the tech industry, but I also have some idea of what makes a good tech company or a bad one, having worked for several. I'm going to start researching Intel, since they have a processor in every PC and Mac. I don't even need to be right about Microsoft v. Google v. Apple, they all use Intel hardware.

[bargainman]

I'm just weeks away from finishing a bachelor's degree in computer science, and so my circle of competence essentially consists of technology. I know that a lot of capital expenditure is necessary to stay ahead in the tech industry, but I also have some idea of what makes a good tech company or a bad one, having worked for several. I'm going to start researching Intel, since they have a processor in every PC and Mac. I don't even need to be right about Microsoft v. Google v. Apple, they all use Intel hardware.

The iPhone and iPad don't.  Check the number of sales of macs vs iPads/iPhones in Apple's 10K and you'll understand the importance of that.  Also, there probably aren't many Android or Windows phones that do either.  Not saying Intel isn't a good buy, but just make sure you understand where we are and where we're going.  And most of all what is Intel's competitive advantage?

[mikazo]

I'm just weeks away from finishing a bachelor's degree in computer science, and so my circle of competence essentially consists of technology. I know that a lot of capital expenditure is necessary to stay ahead in the tech industry, but I also have some idea of what makes a good tech company or a bad one, having worked for several. I'm going to start researching Intel, since they have a processor in every PC and Mac. I don't even need to be right about Microsoft v. Google v. Apple, they all use Intel hardware.

The iPhone and iPad don't.  Check the number of sales of macs vs iPads/iPhones in Apple's 10K and you'll understand the importance of that.  Also, there probably aren't many Android or Windows phones that do either.  Not saying Intel isn't a good buy, but just make sure you understand where we are and where we're going.  And most of all what is Intel's competitive advantage?

I realize that Intel hasn't broken into the mobile market yet, but I don't see laptop or desktop or data center computers going away any time soon. Intel has been working on smaller, low-power processors such as the Atom too. The competitive advantage that Intel holds is that they are the inventors and biggest suppliers of the IA-32 and IA-64 architectures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32 If they make changes to the architecture, companies like AMD and others simply have to adapt to whatever changes Intel makes. Intel is also starting to offer complete hardware/software solutions that are tightly integrated with each other. I haven't delved into any annual reports or quarterly webcasts yet, I'm just at the idea phase so far.

[rkbabang]

I'm a tech guy as well, although more on the hardware side (I'm an IC designer).  You are correct in that Intel isn't going away anytime soon.  They have a stable business and are clearly the market leader by quite a long way when it comes to desktop PCs, workstations, servers, etc.    But where will the future growth come from?   If you want a growth story starting from a smaller base and representing more of where we are going you have to take a hard look at ARMH.   ARM has a great business in the mobile processor space and also a long held deeply entrenched position in the IP business (embedded processors / standard cell libraries / as well as various other IP) so that it isn't going away any sooner than Intel will, yet its embedded processor business will almost certainly grow faster than any business Intel is in. I haven't done any research into these companies recently as far as the stocks go so I won't speak to their current valuations, but I think as far as where the technology is headed ARM is in a much better position to take advantage of current and near-term trends.

Also one word of advice on circle of competence.  You can (and probably should) work on building a circle of competence for investing purposes in a number of areas outside of technology and I highly recommend you do so.  As a recent college grad in the mid-90s I used to invest exclusively in tech stocks, because I believed that I should stick to what I know best.  Needless to say I got hit pretty hard by the tech crash of 2000 and have been working on extending my circle of competence into other areas for investing purposes ever since.  I have been investing in restaurants, restaurant equipment companies, insurance companies, construction/farm equipment companies, and with ISRG, a surgical device manufacturer.   The only tech stock I now own is GOOG and restricted stock in the semiconductor company that I work for.  I'd highly recommend picking an industry that interests you outside of technology and start doing some research and trying to build some competence in that area.  It can never hurt to widen your circle, especially when your initial circle of competence only includes one industry which is very difficult to invest successfully in.

[rkbabang]

I also forgot to mention that Windows 8, which will be released this year will support ARM processors as well as Intel.   You could very well see an ARM based PC running windows.  I'm not sure how likely that will be for desktops or workstations, but you will almost certainly see, not only ARM based Windows 8 tablets, but laptops as well.  This will erode Intel's moat even further as ARM eats into its Windows laptop market share.

[TorontoRaptorsFan]

There's an application which utilizes the cloud to allow you to use the iPad to use Microsoft apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and Flash.

http://desktop.onlive.com/