Ben's Place

Oops, Apple did it again

Ben Volach — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:00:55 +0000

The buzz around the Apple tablet has been building gradually last year. Rumors have run wild that Apple will introduce its much anticipated 10-inch touchscreen device, and next Wednesday, on January 27th, Cupertino-based computer maker Apple is likely to finally unveil its tablet device.

Here is a very rough outline of the mass market computing devices evolution. First there were desktop PCs, then came the Internet, followed by slimmer PCs shaped like small suitcases – the laptops, which became lighter and lighter over time. In parallel the mobile phone phenomena took place while people started to carry mobile phones with them at all times, making them virtually accessible anytime – anywhere. In the beginning of this century, mobile phones started to have Internet capabilities integrated into them. But the implementation of the phone makers, Nokia and others, got it all wrong for years. Screens were too small, appropriate operating systems were not open for developers, network access was extremely slow and expensive, and the wall-garden approach of the mobile operators dominated and prevented the mobile Internet from flourishing. It was at this stage that the Apple revolution occurred, where many others failed before. Apple connected the dots with the introduction of the iPhone (riding the wave of the iPod’s success), which was so much more than just a great technology. It was the first time that a mass market mobile phone offered a very wide variety of applications and services connected to the Internet with a reasonable business model and a great user experience. The iPhone became the gold standard for Smartphones, and since then many others have been following.

Apple’s tablet is based on an existing concept, called a netbook which was not adopted by the masses yet. Like most Apple’s products, it would be a high-end one in its category. With a powerful community of applications and developers at hand, convenient touch pad technology, easy to carry and stylish properties, on top of its wondrous marketing capabilities, Apple now intends to reinvent this existing category, just like it did with the iPhone for Smartphones. Although netbooks are much cheaper than what Apple Tablet would cost, competition will emerge and prices will drop with time.

If you own an iPhone or other Smartphone, you are well aware by now, that you can do much with it, spending less time on your PC than ever before. You may check your email and calendar, read news, take pictures, play games, listen to music, access social networks and even watch videos – all done with a device that you carry on at all times, which also serves as your mobile phone. Apple’s Tablet doesn’t come to replace this concept, but to complement it. In a world where internet is so crucial to our daily interaction, such a device can take us one step further from the desktop PCs and laptops, and do even more without them. The Tablet could be the best device for surfing the web and far more suited for reading newspapers, books and blogs. Apple may represent a direct challenge to Amazon, which dominates the fast-growing e-book market with its Kindle product. Additionally, it may become the best solution for watching videos while on the go.

Even more, imagine that the Apple Tablet, whether in this version or next one will come with a new type of tactile, gesture-based keyboard, something a recent Apple patent supports and which is really missing in the iPhone today. Say you could type freely similar to a conventional keyboard, it would immediately become a great device for computing on the go, one that could be used as your primary computer if you wished.

Apple’s Tablet would not just serve the gadget lovers, it would introduce an important category into mobile computing. In just one week we would probably know the product details (like its name, specification and price). Tablet is likely to start shipping in Q2/10. Whether Tablet will make a revolution similar to the iPhone’s one, is yet to be seen. Stay iTuned!

Israeli Effort in Haiti Goes Unrecognized

Ben Volach — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:12:25 +0000

Apparently, when Israel is making a bad move, it is being criticized unprecedentedly through media networks around the globe. The negative coverage would sometimes last even more than a few days before it would be removed from the news desk. The various media networks also compete each other who would be the first one to report, and with as many details as possible, without a thorough check of the facts, without any proportions to the scope of the incident and without checking the real intentions (after all, it’s the intention that counts). To show us, the viewers, that the media networks are objective, they would bring defenders for both sides. While this is a little comforting, we – the Israelis, are always left with the taste that they take the other side’s position. Arguable, but difficult to prove.

A few days ago, on January 12th, a powerful earthquake rocked Haiti, killing dozens of thousands, wounding millions and damaging their infrastructure in a catastrophic way.

Israel has done a very impressive gesture to the people of Haiti who have gone through hell and deserve much help and support. Israel sent about 250 people as part of a rescue team and built a field hospital which the United States has yet to build. In addition, Israel has brought advanced equipment coming from the other side of the world to save lives. The United States, which is a neighbor to Haiti, sent a team of 2000 people which is by far the largest one to operate in the area in absolute terms and its efforts are blessed, but Israel relative to its size is by far the largest rescue team to operate in the area.

Why isn’t Israel getting the favorable coverage when deserved? Can Israel do something that will be conceived as positive by the media? Here is a chance for the foreign media networks to show that they are somehow objective in their reports regarding Israel. While the United States efforts are massively being broadcasted proving with no doubt that the topic is very interesting and draws a lot of public attention, the Israeli effort is almost completely left unrecognized. The foreign media simply turns a blind eye on the Israeli effort. Although it may be unsurprising, it clearly unveils the foreign media’s hypocrisy, their non-objective reporting, and the fact that they are being hostile to Israel.

Here’s a short video from CNN, I was able to find after a long search; this video speaks for itself. Nevertheless, note the reporter’s name.

Alone in Space?

Ben Volach — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:32:21 +0000

How many times did you look up to the sky at night, watching those twinkling lights and wondered: Are we alone in the universe? Have you considered the odds? Is it really possible that we are the most intelligent species in this huge space? A discovery of earth-like planets may hold the key to the mystery that long ago captured the minds of many. Suggesting that we find earth-like planets, what are the chances we will find a civilization there, one we can communicate with? Is intelligent life the rule or the exception in the cosmos? I have some thoughts I would like to share on this matter, you might find them to be interesting.

Our planet Earth is a small world, a global village. Out in Space, there are massive worlds in what seems today as an indefinite number. The universe is enormous, gigantic; in fact, I am not sure we have a word that would describe how vast it really is. Observing that by these terms, Earth is actually indiscernible.

In order to look for life out in Space, we need to think out of the box. Visualize intelligent type of life just like us on other planets, that went through similar technological revolution. Only that they went through the industrial revolution one million years ago. Such forms of life may be entities that we can’t grasp, so we can try to imagine an abstract concept by a tangible example. Imagine a form of life that you can’t sense in any way, but is able to see you, read your thoughts, utilize virtually unlimited memory and processing power, communicate with other entities invisibly to you and move rapidly (say 100 times the speed of light).

So let’s try to apply some logic, look at some facts and stats to try to examine the possibility of life outside Earth.

First – Our knowledge is limited:
We feel in the comfort zone about things we already know (e.g. we know that we can get to the moon). We feel less secure about things we know that we don’t know (e.g. up until recently, people in NASA were anxious to know if there is water on the moon). But what about those things that we don’t know that we don’t know (the unknown of the unknown). This is where we are constantly being surprised. Nassim Taleb in his book The Black Swan narrates a story about how people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, until the discovery of Australia, where for the first time, a black swan was observed. A single observation of such black swan was enough to refute the absolute reality as was observed before. What I come to claim is that being unaware of other forms of life, does not mean they don’t exist. We simply don’t know, and mostly don’t even realize what we don’t know.

Second – Visitors from space on Earth?
Just as we crave to know if there is life on other planets, visitors from outside might be doing the same thing. They may hold much more knowledge, as some of them could be far ahead of us. There are many claims of people who saw UFOs while governments constantly deny withholding any evidence. In general, we know that governments censor certain information, when it’s in their interest. Are there things that we are not being told? Why is the US government investing so much in its space projects? What do they already know that we don’t? Is Area 51 a myth or do they want us to think it is? I believe that soon in our times the truth will be revealed. I would like to bring to your attention Paul Hellyer, Canada’s former Defense Minister, in quite an amazing disclosure.

You can read most of the speech here: Alien Contact – Speech Script

Third – Our senses are limited: Since our senses are limited, our ability to experience the reality first hand is highly reduced. We have five senses, and we use them to acquire information about our surroundings. However, as great as our senses really are, they lack much skills that even other species in our world have. Here are a few examples:

Bats are blind, but have an echolocation (Sonar like system) – they make a high frequency sound that hits an object and bounces back to the bat. Just like a radar. Scientists were puzzled for long about how bats manage to navigate long distances in the dark.
Dolphins can hear frequencies up to 100,000 Hz. Humans can only hear between 20 and 20,000 Hz. Dolphins use sonar-like system to “see” under water but they also have excellent vision with their eyes. They have eyes on the sides of their heads that allow them to see in front and in back of them.
Sharks have special cells in their brains that are sensitive to the electrical fields other creatures generate. This ability is so refined in some sharks that they can find fish hiding under sand by the weak electric signals their twitching muscles emit.
For moths, the term “love is in the air” is something to be taken literally. The furry insects can detect chemical love signals, called “pheromones”, emitted by the opposite sex from up to 10 KM away. Some studies show humans also detect pheromones, but the effect seems to require close encounters.

In addition, we have to at least assume that there are other senses we are unaware of. Even bats have capabilities we don’t possess, and it took us a long time to understand how they do it. There could be things that we just can’t grasp with our senses.

Fourth – We use technology to aid our senses:
Through experiments and ideas generated by the power of thought, we are creating new technologies, some of them are aiding our senses which as described aforementioned are limited. For instance, we created radars to identify flying objects, telescopes to help us zoom into space, satellites to aid in navigation, microscope to look at tiny forms of life and so on. We recently showed that a simple thoughts can be read using MRI machines. We made major technological progress over the last century, in fact we made more progress by a few orders of magnitude than the previous century. We are still far far behind exploiting our potential, and we prove that every single day. It is inevitable that major technological progress will be made in the 21st century, unless a catastrophic will occur. It therefore makes total sense to conclude that we are very modern compared to 100 years ago, yet quite primitive compared to 100 years from now.

Our ability to experience the reality is bounded to what we can sense (including the use of technology to aid our senses). These abilities keep on developing. If we made such a quick progress in such a relativity short time, how may we assume to be most intelligent species in the cosmos? (before Galileo discovered the telescope, most people assumed the world is flat- just 400 years ago). Here is an interesting video taken by NASA. It is genuine, and it shows a really weird phenomena. Could this be a visitor’s Spacecraft? You decide.

Fifth – There might be dimensions we can’t grasp:
Humans live in a three dimensional world. We see vertical, horizontal and depth. Imagine that we would live in a two dimensional world, where everything is flat and there is no depth dimension. To try to understand it better, take a piece of paper, and draw a circle on it. Now, imagine that you are this circle living on the surface of that paper and there is a pen laid on the paper. Being able to see everything from the two-dimensional perspective is enclosed behind walls, and remaining completely invisible by standing a step away in the third dimension. You can move anywhere on the paper, but you are not even aware that there is up and down. The pen seems to you like a a blockage (a wall) on your way. From your perspective as a circle, a three-dimensional being has seemingly god-like powers, such as being able to grab the pen without your ability to see how and even understand that it is a pen. By applying dimensional analogy, try to imagine that there are species that live in a four or more dimensional world (other than the time axis). In such environment, all we can sense is that shadow of a pen.

Sixth – Statistically we are not alone:
Scientists have long been working on the definitions they believe are basic prerequisites for the existence of life on a planet. In essence, life needs three basics, liquid (e.g. water), molecules that can complete “us” and an energy source. There are many conditions in which scientists believe that life cannot be produced such as an optimal temperature: it cannot be way too hot or too cold. We also need to keep in mind that these estimates are not necessarily true; the way we understand and define life might not be the only way for existence of forms in the universe. But looking at the stats, the size of the universe is just not something we can really comprehend. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to comprise between 200-400 billion stars! It is one of billions of galaxies in the “Observable Universe” (i.e. galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day), which could be (and is probably) just a small fraction of what is really out there. These assumption are based on life as we (humans) define it, which is may be fundamental mistake. But even considering that, out of the trillions of stars, statistically, a great number would respond to today’s scientific assumptions which can support life.

Final words:
The universe we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far reaching that we were ever to know until this point in time. We are just a drop in the bucket. It is my belief that we are not alone in this enormous universe, I actually think it is pretentious to think we are. However, since science is based on evidence, and there is no real hard evidence available to the public on other life forms outside Earth, all I can do is believe and assume. Since human nature is to rule and survive as was constantly demonstrated in the few previous millennia, finding intelligent life could completely change the world’s political agenda. Such forms of life, could be so far ahead of us, which might have created all of us in the first place. A lot of long books and stories can be written on this extraordinary subject. I hope I was able to provide your mind with some liberty to imagine the possibilities.

Who are the Creative Entrepreneurs?

Ben Volach — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:00:35 +0000

I believe you can put a loser into a great business and it would fail miserably, but a winner may turn a failing business into a very successful one.

Successful entrepreneurs are normal people that share some high qualities. Does it mean that anyone can “do it”? No, but many that haven’t done so certainly could have. Many people that could have been successful entrepreneurs took a decision to be hired workers or freelancers, building professional careers bottom up, taking the less risky route. Later in time, when they started to take obligations and liabilities upon themselves (building a family, buying a house, new car, etc.) it was sometimes too late to take the high risk approach even if they were capable and wished to do so. If you haven’t read the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” story by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, I highly recommend it, even just the first few chapters to get the general idea.

Many friends and colleagues whom I had the honor to work with, told me about a great idea they had, and a few weeks later, they found out that it already existed or being implemented by someone else. If you had a great idea once, that’s a superb sign, I can assure you that it won’t be long before you will have another one. In addition, the fact that someone else is working on something in an early stage, does not mean you can’t do the same thing, better. There are endless examples for that. It is important to acknowledge that ideas are usually subject to your exposure to certain topics, so if you are uninterested in chemistry, chances you will come up with an idea in this area are slim. An Idea for a startup is in essence an attempt to solve a problem or answer a certain need.

If you seek being an entrepreneur, keep in mind that a great idea is crucial but not enough. You are going to need an excellent team, funds, faith, hands-on approach and true leadership just to name a few. You will have to go through many hurdles. The way to success in the real world is long, tough, tiresome and complex. There are no miracles. If you are in a great business, others would like to be there too. Luck won’t bring you there (if you feel lucky, fill out the lottery, go to Vegas or hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button in Google).

It is als0 important to acknowledge that entrepreneurs are distinct from freelancers. While freelancers are getting paid for work they do, usually according to a “Time and Material” model, they think in terms of “getting more work or projects”. Entrepreneurs on the other hand, think in larger terms; they think in terms of creating value. That means identifying opportunities, producing results and making profits.

It is important to find an appropriate initiative, one you are passionate about, one that suits your skills well. Not every initiative can work out and create value; hence it is critical to have faith in those that have high potential rather than fearing to skip those that do not have potential even if the idea is great. I believe timing plays an important role, and I believe it should accompany your decisions along the way.

Although not all entrepreneurs are best-sellers, technologists, have the ability to grow with the business, top-notch negotiators, know how to delegate or how every single bit works in their business, they do share many high qualities. Creating an initiative takes a lot, much more than just having an idea, the desire to get rich, being responsible or smart. Entrepreneurship is a long process. It is not a move at full speed for a short distance, it’s a prolonged marathon, so prepare to devote things in your life, even some that are important to you. Always keep in mind, that even if you have it all, the initiative may still fail since not all parameters depend on you. Remember the famous quote: “Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan.”

If so, is there a clear way to be sure you will be a successful entrepreneur? Not necessarily. There are many recipes for success. But in my opinion, there are some qualities that are critical for success. Some of them are based on natural talent, others on your real desire.

Infinite ambitiousness
Incredible confidence in your ability to perform
A Winner personality
Ability to change
Passionate about things
Risk taker
High IQ and EQ
Common sense
Creative thinker
True leader
Opportunities identifier
Autodidact
Optimistic view
Hands-on approach

Additionally, these qualities may turn a good entrepreneur into a great one:

Complete devotion
Strategic thinker
Quick Recovery from failures
Great understanding of the business
Path finder
Nonconformist at times
Coachability
Know where, how and when to delegate
Constantly re-invent yourself

Outstanding entrepreneurs learn to quickly identify their own weaknesses, and find ways to compensate for them. They never stop learning from their own mistakes, and mistakes of others. Remember, successful entrepreneurs aren’t super humans. If you find many of these qualities in yourself and if you desire so, have faith, never stop believing in yourself. You are on your way to become a successful entrepreneur.

Obama The Celebident

Ben Volach — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:33:45 +0000

Obama – Celeb or President?

Following a comprehensive and quite convincing campaign (taking advantage of Bush’s stumbles and the recent financial crisis), Obama certainly won the jackpot, leading to historic US victory. Obama is an inspirational speaker and this is appreciated by many. Now he is the president of the “United States of America” (as he likes to emphasize). Now is the time to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. So far he seems like a very successful celeb. The campaign for presidency, however, is over. Whether Obama and his administration will be able to step up to the challenges the world is facing both politically and economically, remains to be seen. We are all full of hope they will. “Yes we can”.

Like the recent 2009 Israeli elections where, in my opinion, between the three prime ministerial candidates, there was no clear choice, yet one had to be elected, the US elections seemed no different. It appeared that the US citizens did not vote for their favorite candidate, but rahter voted against the candidate they liked the least.

Personally, I am not against going the diplomatic way, as long as the dialog is productive. We have to agree rather than disagree, at least on the very basics. I think we are all in agreement that it’s getting late and time is running out. There are others who take advantage of this mess and confusion. Starting the talks that should have been concluded years ago does not seem like the best choice right now. Actions must be taken immediately. Although, Obama’s speech about North Korea seems like was written by the Bush administration, Obama needs to start to deliver. He is still … just talking. The time to act is now.

Watch Obama in action, and judge by yourself.

Are we living the future?

Ben Volach — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:18:49 +0000

Welcome to the future. I know that a decade ago you didn’t carry your mobile phone with you at all times. It has been very difficult times. Well, now you made it, the future is here, and it is happening as you read this post with that amazing computer you are using, a state of the art creation, which is based on tremendous amount of technologies and innovations. It would not have been that simple to plug-in the computer to the electricity socket has the infrastructure not been in place. There have been lots of inventions that preceded it of course. You are living the future, and you are so lucky to take part in this astonishing journey. This, is the time of our lives.

The following post is intended to provide a teaser to this astounding topic. Many fictional ideas of authors, philosophers and film makers already came into our daily lives, inherently. It seemed so unreal at their times, and yet today’s technology seems to keep pace with their dreams.

In fact, Technology and Advance have become the center of our lives. Whether we notice or not, we are consuming technology every day, immensely. It seems very natural to us, and we tend to take it for granted. The future, though, is also far ahead of us, and there are so many surprises that are waiting for us along the way. That’s right, in this lifetime. There are millions of scientists and engineers that are working on the next big things to come. Some of them, will become things that we just can’t live without. Just like we can’t think of life today without electricity, running water, cars, airplanes, microwave, aircon, TV and so on.

There are people who tend to adopt technologies very quickly; we sometimes refer to them as geeks or early adopters. They are usually super updated about lots of technologies and electronics out there. There are of course those who are extremely slow to adopt technologies; we sometimes refer to them as dinosaurs, slow adopters or "mom and dad", but they do so when it becomes main-stream, without paying attention to it, taking it for granted as we all sometimes do. If you think you are a “dinosaur”, compare yourself to someone your age 2000 years ago, or even a primitive tribe in Africa which is completely isolated from us, and see for yourself. If you really think you are a dinosaur, try going backwards a little further… well, try maybe 60 billion years back. Whether you are a geek, a dinosaur, passionate about new technologies or completely uninterested – you are addicted to Technology and Advance.

Here’s an example. People tend to say, “I use my mobile phone only for voice calls and sometimes for text. I don’t care about the other stuff”. Only for calls and text, I ponder?! Well, imagine you are a legion commander of the Roman army, and you need to convey a message to the Cesar that you’ll need reinforcements; otherwise you’ll lose the campaign. You really wish you could dial a 10 digit number to get to him… but there is no way you could do that. So you send your message via a Messenger. A real Messenger (it was so long ago, there wasn’t even ICQ…) You can’t even write your message on a piece of paper with a pen. It may then take your message 3 weeks to arrive and another 8 weeks for the reinforcements to get to the field. Living at that period, you’re not even aware of how complex things are. Today we take it for granted – transportation is easy, communication is simple. So, next time you text someone, keep this in mind

Take information as another example. It is accessible today almost for everyone, usually for free. You can find almost anything you wish on the Internet. If you want to know something, you don’t need to ask anyone, you just Google it. One, who used to be a knowledgeable person in the Roman times or even 200 years ago, would be considered quite unknowledgeable nowadays. Of course knowledge cannot replace understanding, no argue about that.

So how may the future look like?

It may range from concept that we will probably get to experience, such as personal automatic flying vehicles (like the one from "Back to the Future"), electronic wallet, complete voice recognition, electronic newspaper that changes dynamically as you turn the page, complete wireless home, and such (yes, also pink iPhone ladies).

But it may also evolve to some concepts that seem completely fictional to us today such as teleportation of oneself to another place instantly, reading minds and communicating through telepathy, having our memory backed-up if something happens (or actually reviving ourselves), choosing how your new born looks like and by-passing the pregnancy process, getting into a machine that scans our body and detects any health issues instantly, sensing a movie – true virtual reality (watching, hearing, smelling and touching) or even fly to another galaxy with our family as a “road trip”.

The progress in which technologies have evolved is not linear. Our grandchildren are going to question the way we lived. How could we live without so many things that will look so natural to them. Just like the legion commander would have asked had he been alive today. The pace in which new technologies are and will be introduced is just amazing, and it’s going to get faster than ever. Do you really think we will have to wash and iron manually? I don’t think so.

Watch the Youtube clip below to see what Louis CK thinks about it – everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy

So, are we really that advanced, or in fact, quite primitive? I guess the answer is both, just a matter of perspective, looking back or looking forward. At any rate, stay tuned…

TIP: Remove Friend Request

Ben Volach — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:05:15 +0000

Ever added someone on Facebook as a friend by mistakenly thinking it’s someone else or he/she did not approve your request? Here’s a way to delete your request.

Block the person you’ve added (you can block anyone, not just friends) and then remove the person from the Block List. This will delete your friend request, and actually requests and invitations you have sent that person. It will bring everything to its previous condition.

Many people wonder if there is a way, so actualy yes there is.

As for a pending friend requests, I believe there isn’t such a list on Facebook. The only way I am aware of is when you click on a person you added, you can see if your request is still pending, “Friend Requested”, or been ignored and “Add as Friend” link will show up again.