Look, we know you know all about LED backlights, light diffusion, subpixels, and the things that turn them on, but not everybody does. The humble LCD you’re most likely reading this on still retains a level of mystery about the nitty gritty details of how it works for the vast majority of its users, so here’s a terrific video breakdown of both its component parts and method of operation. Bill Hammack, a self-appointed Engineer Guy, takes us from the LED arrays that provide the light for most current LCDs, through all the filters and diffusers designed to make that light uniform, and into the ways thin film transistors make it possible for us to show moving color images of cats diving into boxes on such displays. It’s exciting, deeply nerdy stuff, and it awaits your audience after the break.
As IBM’s Watson proved on Jeopardy, robots are becoming smarter than people. They also make fewer mistakes and they don't get bored.
By 2013 there will be 1.2 million industrial robots working worldwide — that’s one robot for every 5,000 people, according to Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works and author of Robotic Nation.
Robots are currently analyzing documents, filling prescriptions, and handling other tasks that were once exclusively done by humans.
Watch out pharmacists: robots have filled 350,000 prescriptions without error at two hospitals.
Who could be replaced: Pharmacists
Here’s why: The next time you drop off a prescription order, you might see a robot behind the counter.
The UCSF Medical Center recently launched an automated, robotics-controlled pharmacy at two UCSF hospitals.
Once computers at the new pharmacy electronically receive medication orders from UCSF physicians and pharmacists, the robotics pick, package, and dispense individual doses of pills.
Machines assemble doses onto a thin plastic ring that contains all the medications for a patient for a 12-hour period, which is bar-coded.
The pharmacy system, which was phased in over the past year, so far has prepared 350,000 doses of medication without error.
This fall, nurses at UCSF Medical Center will begin to use barcode readers to scan the medication at patients’ bedsides, verifying it is the correct dosage for the patient. The automated system also compounds sterile preparations of chemotherapy and non-chemotherapy doses and fills IV syringes or bags with the medications.
Lawyers, collect all the money you can right now: “E-discovery” software can analyze documents faster and cheaper than humans.
Who could be replaced: Lawyers and paralegals
Here’s why: Instead of paying an army of lawyers and paralegals to review documents, software can do the job in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost.
The New York Times reported that Blackstone Discovery of Palo Alto, CA provided software that helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000.
"From a legal staffing viewpoint, it means that a lot of people who used to be allocated to conduct document review are no longer able to be billed out,” Bill Herr, a lawyer, tells the New York Times. “People get bored, people get headaches. Computers don’t.”
Chauffeurs and bus drivers won’t be needed either: Google’s self-driving test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention
Who could be replaced: Drivers
Here’s why: Google announced last fall that it was working on automated cars as a way to increase safety and help humans reduce the time spent commuting to work.
With human supervisors in the passenger seat, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control.
“Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard,” said Google engineer Sebastian Thrun. “They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe."
(Editor’s note: Tony Hartl is the founder Planet Tan and author of “Selling Sunshine: 75 Tips, Tools and Tactics for Becoming a Wildly Successful Entrepreneur”. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
There are a lot of ways to celebrate a company anniversary: You can go the traditional route with cake and punch. You can rent out a restaurant and have an open bar. Or you can simply give people the day off. But those things have inherent shortfalls—employees come to expect them, and that means they won’t value the occasion, leading to more disappointment than excitement when you don’t “meet expectations.”
So when it came time to celebrate our 12th anniversary at Planet Tan, I showed my appreciation to employees and our members in a unique way. I called a meeting with my store managers and office staff. In my hands, I held a stainless steel briefcase. I told my staff how much it meant to me that they had stayed on for so many years and shared with them what a valuable part of the company they were.
I placed the briefcase onto the podium and opened it. The room was silent as the staff caught a glimpse of $100 dollar bills stacked inside. I called up one of my store managers, Jason, who had been with me for 10 years. One by one, I handed him ten crisp $100 bills.
It became a legend at Planet Tan: that day, I handed out $18,000 of my own money to 18 of my employees.
I hadn’t taken it out of the company, because I didn’t want it to impact our financial statements. I hadn’t added it to their paychecks because I didn’t want them to be taxed on it. I took the 18K out of my own personal savings and gave it to my employees to show my appreciation for their loyalty. I was reinforcing the significance of 12 years in business. I handed out cash across the pyramid, including one member of our maintenance staff who had been with us for many years.
The energy created by these types of gift and other unique celebrations is palpable. It cements the idea in staff members’ minds that the company is succeeding, that you care about them, and that they have your heartfelt thanks for the time they’ve given to the company.
What you reward in your business will be reinforced, and you can create stories and legends within your organization that reinforce the company’s values. At the same time, you can give employees opportunities to be proud of the jobs that they do.
When we celebrated occasions in my company, we took care to make it truly memorable. We chartered a jet to eat at Emeril’s Restaurant in New Orleans, then to the House of Blues for front-row seats at a BB King concert. We gave away trips to Cancun and Jamaica as prizes for increased sales. In whatever you decide to do, the important point is to be sure to surprise and delight your staff.
Make sure that you show what you value through your celebrations—and not through Christmas bonuses that your staff could come to expect (and which could cause resentment if you did not give them out). It should be something new and different and surprising, and if done right, it will always result in an adrenaline surge in energy channeled for your company.
In the long term, keeping your celebrations fresh and unexpected will help you to retain your best talent. It might even convert them to evangelists among their friends, helping you lure high quality employees.
Whatever you value most, align all conversations and communications and incentives around what you’re trying to achieve. Channel all your energies toward that. There were other incentives toward tenure which we used, such as subsidized tuition, health insurance, increased vacation time, even a 30-day paid sabbatical at their seventh year. The longer team members stayed with us, the more they were appreciated, and it kept the best performers from looking elsewhere.
Simon alerts us to yet another story of a big company doing something that is against their own best interests, and blaming copyright for the decision. The story comes via a blog post by Kristi Dosh, who is a lawyer, who notes that she recently went to a Barnes & Noble with her boyfriend to pick up some books. There was a full display of books about Ireland (for St. Patrick's Day) and since the two are planning a trip to Ireland, they decided to pick up some books… and to take a snapshot of the display and tweet it out to friends. As they did so, however, an employee came over and told her no photography was allowed. At first, Dosh thought he was joking, but upon realizing he was serious, asked why. The employee claimed it was store policy and that it was because the books were covered by copyright.
Dosh, of course, knew that this argument was specious. She points out that B&N, since it's not the copyright holder, cannot take action. I actually don't think this argument is all that compelling, really. B&N, as a private actor, certainly has the right to agree with a copyright holder that it will block photographs of their books or to decided, just as a private store, to block photography. Still, it appears the reason is somewhat misleading, and Dosh's later calls to B&N confirmed that they consider this a copyright issue. I’m a bit surprised that Dosh doesn’t mention fair use, as it seems like there’s an amazingly strong argument that there’s a fair use claim here that would protect her from any copyright issue.
But, really, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the legal arguments one way or the other. As happens so often in copyright issues, it’s about the common sense situation, and the fact that blocking photographs in the store makes no common sense. Basically, B&N is barring attempts by people to promote the in-store display for free, and that’s silly. Stopping word of mouth marketing is a bad idea. Dosh digs in:
When I was in San Francisco last fall, I tweeted about the best winery I visited, Jacuzzi Family Vineyards, and encouraged my followers to visit. It’s four months later and that winery still tweets back and forth with me, which has added to my positive experience with them and caused me to continue to order wine all the way from back at my home in Atlanta.
Also while in San Francisco, I had the best meal experience of my life at Forbes Island via the recommendation of a person on Twitter who I’ve never met. Turns out they do absolutely no advertising, they simply exist on word of mouth and their fabulous product and service.
Last month, my boyfriend and I went to Asheville and got more good restaurant recommendations from our Twitter followers. We then proceeded to tweet pics of each and every gorgeous plate of food we had to encourage others to eat at these wonderful locations. I know of at least one follower who has already dined at one of these establishments based on our tweets.
For as long as there has been commerce, word of mouth has been a powerful advertising tool. Now instead of being able to reach the twenty-five other people in Jane’s sunday school class, you can reach potentially millions of people on Twitter.
And yet, Barnes & Noble makes sure this is not possible… because it's afraid of some nebulous, questionable "copyright" claim. Of course, part of this demonstrates the problems of basic copyright law today (even if there isn't a valid copyright claim here). It's designed for a world where nothing is shared, where people aren't promoting things for you, and where all "content" is professionally produced for "consumption" by the riffraff. But reality is more complex. We talk to each other. We share. We promote. It's what we do. It's how culture works. It's how communication works. And copyright throws a wrench into all of that, which is really unfortunate.
engineerguyvideo (YouTube) | Email this | Comments
