Month: February 2022

This week, I was thinking about different approaches to create a virtual tag, a tag that is calculated between two measurements. The most common and more sensabile way to create a virtual tag would be to create a calculated field in tableau, which calculates values between two measures.

Now this approach would be very easy if you know the quirks of tablelau and how to use it. The cons are obvious, it takes time for a user to learn using tableau. I wanted to create an approach that would be interesting and easy for end users to comprehend and use the virtual tags.

I started with an idea where the user inputs an operation, and select the different measures that they would like to calculate, and get a calculation. Example, the user wants to get a difference between “CO2 start” and “CO2 end” measurements, then the flow would be, the user selects “CO2 start”, then input “-“, and finally select “CO2 end”, which forms an equation “CO2 start – CO2 end”. This is interesting since it is intuative for the user to understand and use.

I created my idea by using multiple parameters which allows the user to calculate by selecting a lot of pre-defined parameters, where the user only has these options for the calculation.

The graph shows the Average between “ET Total Prev Day” minus “RTH Prev Day Total” and adds a constant 0.

This should be relatively easy for an end user to use. But in the end, I find that it would be too hard to maintance in the future. If the end user needs additional calculations it would be much harder for the user to modify, compared to defining the virtual tag in a calculated measure.

Overall, I think it is an interesting experiment for me, and does hold some value if the user wants some quick calculations between measures, it would be a much faster approach if the user has limited needs.

Since the introduction of the Intel 386 microprocessor, the high performance computing processor market has been dominated by the x86 architecture. Until two years ago, when Apple announced that it was going to transition into ARM processors. Since then Apple, has revolutionized the laptop market with a chip that can rivial its x86 counterparts but with much less power consumption. The question is what is the future after x86?

The x86 architecture by this point is almost four decades old, with the ever evolving world, the architecture excels with its powerful processing power, but also combined with its power-hungry nature. And Intel is betting big on the new promising new architecture RISC-V^[1].

RISC-V has been one of the most promising architecture since its introduction, with its open source nature, many companies has invested money into the development of the new architecture.

One of the most important advantages of RISC-V is the power efficiency and modularity of the chip compared to x86. It creates allows users to create their own modular chip according to their needs, and with the ever popular system-on-chip market segment, where all in one solutions are more and more common, this market will certainly become more important.

Another advantages of RISC-V is the concern of security issues for some governments or companies with using other architectures. The open source nature means that embedding spyware or malware into the chip would be next to impossible to do^[2].

The biggest disadvantage it is still an unproven technology compared to x86 and ARM, it may have many promising advantages, but if non of these advantages realize, the market will continued to be dominated by Intel and ARM.

RISC-V still need a couple of years before being implemented into the consumer market, and it certainly has a bright future. I am excited to see a market that has stagnated for so long to have a new competitor coming in.

Reference:

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/02/intels-strategy-for-outflanking-arm-takes-shape-with-bet-on-risc-v/

[2] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/5/244325-will-risc-v-revolutionize-computing/fulltext

Long gone are the days where people read newspapers to get up to date, write handwritten mails or use landline phones to talk to friends. The world has been changing rapidly in the past fifty or so years, people are ingesting more information than ever. From the initial clunky box that takes up a room, to now a size that is pocktable. Modern computers has come a long way since then, we now live in a world where personal computers and smart phones are universal in our daily lives. Thus, the question is what will be the next universal device?

Personal computers since the 1990s has experienced explosive growth. Into the new millennia, it has become a staple in almost every household, in the forms of a desktop computer or a laptop computer. But around the turn of the decade, it started facing a new rivial: the smartphone. Since 2010, the smartphone has also become a staple in every household, and has had a even wider reach than the personal computer. But what is the next device after the smartphone that will be on the history books?

Companies since then have experimented with devices that are smaller than the smartphone, yet has achieved the former’s success. The smart watch once was a promising device that may will be the phone killer [2]. Yet, since the introduction of smart watches, the device has been relegated to a secondary device, a device in most people’s eyes, a fitness tracker.

The other promising device during the mid 2010s, were smart glasses, which introduces Augmented Reality (AR) technology to the masses. Google has also been experimenting with the smart glasses since then, with the recent release in 2019. While the smart glasses has yet to take off, but is it only because it’s still ahead of its time? Just like when Microsoft introduced the touch screen device in 2003 [3]. If it is, then the smart glasses revolution may just be a few years a head of us [4].

Of course, and then there is Virtual Reality (VR). Which obviously brings us to the buzzword of the past year, the Metaverse. A light weight VR headset that can access the virtual world, where people can do everything without going outside of their homes, will truley be the universal device of the future. But a technology that is just in its infant phase will not be the next universal device in the near future.

In conclusion, the next universal device may very will be a smart watch or a smart glasses that will be a seamless device where people can wear. But the fascinating thing about technological advance is that it never stops surprising you.

Reference:

[1] https://streamhpc.com/blog/2011-05-06/the-history-of-the-pc-from-2000-2012/

[2] https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/08/will-smartwatches-kill-smartphones/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC

[4] https://ceoworld.biz/2022/02/03/google-glass-to-smart-glasses-what-this-may-tell-us-about-future-technologies/