Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Swype Installed, Swiftkey Paid For

Image representing Swype as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
I did manage to install Swype. But right before that I paid for the paid version of Swiftkey. I had been using the trial version with weeks to go. But it was only four bucks.

Typing is fast enough on the smartphone for me. But it can always do one better.

I don't seem to able to find Swiftkey Flow that supposedly accepts Swype like, well, swipes.

SwiftKey Counters Swype With A Smarter Version, Makes An In-Road Into Healthcare Market
the market seems to be turning into a face-off fight between Swype and Swiftkey. ..... Swiftkey has also released a custom version for the medical industry called SwiftKey Healthcare, allowing health care professionals take better and faster notes on tablets. This is their first entry into enterprise ..... Swiftkey works by understanding what you intend to type by the context of what you are writing. It both corrects words and suggests the next word. The app can be synced with your email, Tweets, and Facebook status updates to better learn your style and vocabulary. As a result the company estimates it’s saved its users over 65 billion keystrokes. ..... The ability to dictate, rather than type, words may help it in Asia where some languages with non-Roman alphabets have thousands of characters. Nuance bought Swype in October for $102.5m.
Swiftkey adds Swype-like gestures to its Android keyboard. Swell!
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Manufacturing Was Never Going To Go Away

Global Warming (album)
Global Warming (album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Cheap labor should be allowed to compete globally. That is only legitimate. But so should advanced manufacturing. The next industrial revolution will produce smarter goods in smarter ways with smarter energy. And goods are not going away. It is not like we have evolved to only consume food and broadband. And it is only a matter of time before China competes in advanced manufacturing as well. And that is good news. A robust China prevented the world going into a deep recession in 2008. China is successfully competing on bullet trains and clean tech, is it not? But if you believe in the expanding pie, it is a win win situation.

Cost is the reason reshoring is happening. Cost is the reason clean energy will happen. Bad air is a huge health expense, and health costs have to be factored in. Sandy - caused by global warming - cost tens of billions. That's a cost of global warming and has to be factored in.

Literally every good can be connected to the Internet. Every good can be made to be smart.

Transportation costs are also very real.

Just like a strong China is good for the world, a strong America is also good for the world. The global economy benefits the more giants it has.

And China is not going to stop manufacturing. Rising wages there is a sign domestic consumption in China is expanding.

Made in America, Again
“reshoring.” Although Chinese wages are a fraction of U.S. labor costs, rising shipping rates, quality problems, and the intangible costs of being far from headquarters all add up. That’s why some companies have begun to rethink the manufacturing equation....... Chinese wages are doubling every four years .... the vast majority of what Americans consume isn’t high-tech at all. We need to efficiently make ladders and hammers and paper and lights .... A refrigerator is made up of very little intellectual property and a lot of weight.
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Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Data Centers And Light Phones

World map depicting Asia Esperanto: Mondmapo b...
World map depicting Asia Esperanto: Mondmapo bildiganta Azion Español: Ubicación de Asia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If the data centers are pervasive enough and powerful enough, your phone can be light as light. The two extreme ends feed on each other. Larry Ellison is right. There is no cloud. What we refer to as cloud is really these data centers. I am surprised Google lags so far behind in Asia. And I am guessing it lags even further behind in Africa and Latin America. Come on, Google, you can do better than this.

New Google Asia servers expected to bring 30% speed boost when they go live later this year
the new servers could provide up to a 30 percent improvement in the speed of Google services in Asia .... Google already operates seven data centers in the US and facilities in Finland, Belgium and Ireland, but the lack of an Asia center has likely inhibited the company’s potential for growth in the region
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