In the Covid and post-Covid world will the online meeting still reign? For many in the workplace who are working from home it is their lifeline with colleagues and managers. According to chief analyst Matthew Ball, one of the five issues currently challenging industry is better human collaboration.
There are currently an estimated 59 million physical meeting rooms with conferencing quite advanced, as long as you remember to unmute. Working from home with a headset and a small video camera, millions have been simulating this for months now, often included in larger meetings because they can be, easily.
- Post-Covid lockdowns, this equality of experience may vanish as people return to the physical office, where less people can physically attend meetings and no longer be involved in the decision-making process. Attending can be a more complex process with phone numbers and passcodes requiring the hash key. This could reduce collaboration if not managed well.
- The other four challenges are semiconductor shortages, information security resilience, demand for intelligent IT automation, and the increasing need for reliable energy to power growth.
- So, you think you have the best smartphone on the market? Sure, you probably paid a fortune for it, but is it as good as the Tesla Pi Phone? If you haven't heard of this yet that is not surprising, it's not out yet and so far, appears to be a concept phone. In the past companies that tried to enter a completely different market often failed. Microsoft did poorly with phones, then Apple with cars, and there are myriad other examples. In this case however, Elon Musk has form in moving into new industries, eg, from cars to space ships. Hence the rumour that we will soon see a Tesla phone from Elon.
- What will the screen size, memory and other normal smartphone features be? No idea yet, other than they will no doubt be at least as good as the top-of-the-line options today. What is rumoured, is connectivity to SpaceX's Star-Link providing up to 200Gbps transfer speeds from anywhere you have a decent view of the sky. There are also hints that you'll be able to connect to the phone via Neuralink, ie, control it with your mind -- after the implant of course. A solar energy charger will be an option so you can use it anywhere, even on Mars. For that one you will be able to mine Mars cryptocurrency. Apart from providing a new smartphone plus, what's in it for Elon? It provides a comms option prototype for Mars voyagers. It also raises the middle finger to Apple for ignoring him when he tried to sell Tesla to Apple all those years ago. If the rumours are true, expect this device to temporarily blow the others out of the water with features while potentially costing even more than a top-of-the-line Apple model.
- Has anyone else noticed how much censorship is happening on the major social media sites? Lately, I'll read a commentary then try to find the source material and it's been removed, or I'll start watching an interesting and topical livestream on YouTube and suddenly it is taken down. After some analysis these incidents are typically political and only targeted at one side of politics. It's worse when the presentation is on the actual science of something like a new vaccine, being presented by a Nobel Laureate in medicine, and it is removed or hidden. In the modern world science takes a back seat to politics. The answer of course is to get off the mainstream sites and spend more time watching content on alternatives like Rumble. Not only is there a lot less advertising, but the material is a lot more interesting, more likely to be accurate, more likely to come with references attached to track down and confirm, and won't be removed. As one commentator there puts it, "we provide the receipts".
- Some will remember the promise of the Internet of Things in homes so smart they do everything for you. Users of Google's Nest Hub may disagree. After a recent update, users are complaining about problems with the smartscreen and operations. Some have even compared it to a brick, while noting that even bricks have some use. The Home Hub also called the Nest Hub should provide a visual experience to monitor and control smarthome devices. It is worth noting that the Nest Hub has superseded old gen one devices. Lately, devices are resetting back to factory defaults, some don't respond to commands, the screen locks up and cannot be reset, in this case with a grey screen showing the G logo akin to the Windows Blue Screen of Death. Google has been rolling out their new Fuchsia operating system, replacing the older Linux-based Cast OS. Some users have decided that the newest OS is not as good as the older one, or at least not well tested.
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.
