Wolfram Alpha is not a traditional search engine — rather, it is a "computational knowledge engine". That means it generates output from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links. Nonetheless, it produces some amazing answers to things you want to calculate or know about.
Watch this video to get a sense of some of the things it can do, and how it can help you.
The breadth of topics it covers is pretty amazing.
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I have been using a software tool you might find useful. It solves a problem that you probably have, even if you don't think about it often.
A Cure for Information Overload.
It In the old days, you could photocopy something and put it in a file. So finding it was relatively straight-forward.
Today, you are faced with a different type of challenge (and chances are your filing system is so "1990s"). Nowadays, you might be looking for a picture, audio snippet, or video … a document (or more likely, just a part
of one) … or a scrap you saved (like a quote, web-link, or blog post).
Moreover, as you use the computer for more things (and a bigger percentage of the work you do), it gets harder to find a random "something" that you might be looking for.
Part of the problem is that we are getting more efficient at creating "stuff", so there is more of it. In addition, that stuff is a lot more varied than it used to be.
Capture
Everything to Your Personal Digital Memory.
Evernote makes it easy to store, organize, and find virtually anything. Even better, it is also good at sharing it with others (award-winning good at it).
Chances are, if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screen-shot. It will be there when you need it.
Finding it Fast, Wherever You Are.
Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and searchable. That means you can find things quickly and easily.
You can search for items by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote even makes the printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too (for example, the text on a photo of your white-board).
There is an application program. However, you can also access your
information through a Web interface (wherever you are, even if you are away from your computers). In addition, there are versions that work on
various smart phones and Evernote
provides "Capture" buttons that integrate with Microsoft Outlook and whatever browser you
might use. What that means is that it's easy to use, and it's there
when you need to use it.
Here is a video showing you how it works.
One Tool That Takes the Place of Many Others.
I've tried dozens of programs that do similar things. In the old days, they were called "personal information managers".
Many of these tools are specialized, so to handle it all you might use a to-do list (or "Getting Things Done" organizer), Internet bookmark manager, screen-capture utility, document management system, and free-form database.
Evernote does all that, and virtually anything else you throw at it … yet, it doesn't cost you anything until you throw enough stuff into it to pass its generous monthly threshold. For what it is worth, I clipped over 200 items before passing the limit.
Bottom-Line: Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use. For free. It's worth a try, you might like it.
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I have been using a software tool you might find useful. It solves a problem that you probably have, even if you don't think about it often.
A Cure for Information Overload.
It In the old days, you could photocopy something and put it in a file. So finding it was relatively straight-forward.
Today, you are faced with a different type of challenge (and chances are your filing system is so "1990s"). Nowadays, you might be looking for a picture, audio snippet, or video … a document (or more likely, just a part
of one) … or a scrap you saved (like a quote, web-link, or blog post).
Moreover, as you use the computer for more things (and a bigger percentage of the work you do), it gets harder to find a random "something" that you might be looking for.
Part of the problem is that we are getting more efficient at creating "stuff", so there is more of it. In addition, that stuff is a lot more varied than it used to be.
Capture
Everything to Your Personal Digital Memory.
Evernote makes it easy to store, organize, and find virtually anything. Even better, it is also good at sharing it with others (award-winning good at it).
Chances are, if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screen-shot. It will be there when you need it.
Finding it Fast, Wherever You Are.
Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and searchable. That means you can find things quickly and easily.
You can search for items by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote even makes the printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too (for example, the text on a photo of your white-board).
There is an application program. However, you can also access your
information through a Web interface (wherever you are, even if you are away from your computers). In addition, there are versions that work on
various smart phones and Evernote
provides "Capture" buttons that integrate with Microsoft Outlook and whatever browser you
might use. What that means is that it's easy to use, and it's there
when you need to use it.
Here is a video showing you how it works.
One Tool That Takes the Place of Many Others.
I've tried dozens of programs that do similar things. In the old days, they were called "personal information managers".
Many of these tools are specialized, so to handle it all you might use a to-do list (or "Getting Things Done" organizer), Internet bookmark manager, screen-capture utility, document management system, and free-form database.
Evernote does all that, and virtually anything else you throw at it … yet, it doesn't cost you anything until you throw enough stuff into it to pass its generous monthly threshold. For what it is worth, I clipped over 200 items before passing the limit.
Bottom-Line: Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use. For free. It's worth a try, you might like it.
"Meet the World" uses national flags to represent relevant social or political issues and real data specific to the particular country.
It comes from an award-winning ad series created for a Portuguese news magazine, Grande Reportagem, known for its photo-journalism and investigative reporting.
Here are a few examples.
Interesting and thought provoking.
How does President Obama's popularity and approval rating compare to past presidents? This chart surprised me a little. It turns-out that the steep decline of his approval ratings is a little unusual, but not unprecedented.
The real issue is whether the Democrats will lose control of the House of Representatives in the next election. Jeff Miller has a good article about that on A Dash of Insight.
Dancing With Obama.
Domestic politics aside, apparently, the President is still pretty popular. While nuclear summits aren't usually a source of humor, the New York Times may have unintentionally struck gold with this time-lapse video. Watch the absurdity of presidential photo-ops as President Obama works the event, shaking one hand after another.
Read more about the video here.
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How does President Obama's popularity and approval rating compare to past presidents? This chart surprised me a little. It turns-out that the steep decline of his approval ratings is a little unusual, but not unprecedented.
The real issue is whether the Democrats will lose control of the House of Representatives in the next election. Jeff Miller has a good article about that on A Dash of Insight.
Dancing With Obama.
Domestic politics aside, apparently, the President is still pretty popular. While nuclear summits aren't usually a source of humor, the New York Times may have unintentionally struck gold with this time-lapse video. Watch the absurdity of presidential photo-ops as President Obama works the event, shaking one hand after another.
Read more about the video here.
The terms "Internet
of Things" and "System of Systems" are concepts that help to explain a great deal about what
is happening, now, where the digital world meets the physical and
intellectual.
In the video below, from IBM, you get a glimpse of it …
Imagine if your alarm clock talked to your calendar and knows you
need to catch the
ferry in 1-1/2 hours to get to work, so it wakes you up. But, a half hour before it wakes you, it turned on the heater in your bathroom; and other sensors started your morning coffee and de-iced
the windshield in your car.
Here are some excerpts from the film:
“Over the past century, but accelerating over the past
couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data
field. The planet itself – natural systems, human systems, and physical
objects – have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we
didn’t used to be able to hear it, to see it, or to capture it. Now we can
because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And it’s all
interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in
effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.
Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex
systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then
we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. That’s
where societies become more efficient, that’s where more innovation is
sparked.
When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two
dimensions. One is to be more efficient, less destructive, and to
connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more
conscious, deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also
to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, and new forms of
social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information,
creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its
information but we weren’t. But increasingly now we can, early days,
baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to
us.”
This framework applies to many other things (for example, trading and markets). Expect to hear more about this type of insight and automation.
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The terms "Internet
of Things" and "System of Systems" are concepts that help to explain a great deal about what
is happening, now, where the digital world meets the physical and
intellectual.
In the video below, from IBM, you get a glimpse of it …
Imagine if your alarm clock talked to your calendar and knows you
need to catch the
ferry in 1-1/2 hours to get to work, so it wakes you up. But, a half hour before it wakes you, it turned on the heater in your bathroom; and other sensors started your morning coffee and de-iced
the windshield in your car.
Here are some excerpts from the film:
“Over the past century, but accelerating over the past
couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data
field. The planet itself – natural systems, human systems, and physical
objects – have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we
didn’t used to be able to hear it, to see it, or to capture it. Now we can
because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And it’s all
interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in
effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.
Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex
systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then
we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. That’s
where societies become more efficient, that’s where more innovation is
sparked.
When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two
dimensions. One is to be more efficient, less destructive, and to
connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more
conscious, deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also
to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, and new forms of
social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information,
creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its
information but we weren’t. But increasingly now we can, early days,
baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to
us.”
This framework applies to many other things (for example, trading and markets). Expect to hear more about this type of insight and automation.
Here is a link to short video by Mac Anderson of Simple Truths.
It is a collection of quotes and simple truths set to music. Hope you have a good week.
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In this video, Gary Flake demos Pivot, a new way to browse and arrange massive amounts of images and data online. Built on breakthrough Seadragon technology, it enables spectacular zooms in and out of web databases, and the discovery of patterns and links invisible in standard web browsing.
The big idea that this video demonstrates so well is that the whole of the data in which we consume is greater that the sum of the parts. And, instead of inducing information overload, new tools enable us to use information so that patterns pop and we can see trends that would otherwise be invisible.
If we can do that, then, instead of being trapped in data, we might
actually extract information. And, instead of dealing just with
information, we can tease out knowledge. And if we get the knowledge,
then maybe even there's wisdom to be found.
Click here to view the transcript.
This tool, and others like it, will have massive impact on businesses
and the scale of projects they undertake.
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