WSJ on a future with ambient computing: “Your transition to wakefulness triggers a cascade of changes in your apartment. Your window shades open automatically. In the kitchen, coffee starts brewing. As you pad into the bathroom to brush your teeth, a display projected onto the mirror above the sink shows your calendar for the day. It highlights what time you’ll have to leave to get to your office for the in-person meeting you scheduled for 8:30. Returning to your bedroom, you find your stowaway robotic bed has retracted into the ceiling, and your collapsible walk-in closet has expanded to reveal your clothes and a full-length mirror. The mirror suggests, based on your schedule and the weather, an outfit it displays as an augmented-reality overlay that moves with your body as you inspect yourself. You aren’t fond of the first option, so you make a swipe-left gesture in the air. The mirror responds by suggesting another outfit. You signal assent, and the two drawers containing the items you want glow around their edges, so you don’t have to waste time hunting for them…[A]mbient computing is the idea that we’ll interact with the world through a growing assortment of gadgets and sensors, many of which will be physically embedded in our environments. And we’ll interact with this technology in a growing variety of ways—from voice and gestures to simply existing in a space full of sensors that track our every action.”
Shane Parish: “The easy path today makes a hard path tomorrow. The hard path today makes an easier path tomorrow. The choice is yours, but the mountain isn’t going away. The longer you put off the hard thing you know you need to do, the harder it becomes to get started. The climb is the fun part.”
Kyle Harrison on the hype cycles of venture capital: “There is a lot to be said about investors “predicting the future.” (Spoiler alert: they can’t.) But I think there is a spectrum between investing in the current thing and seeing the future, and you want to be in the middle. It’s about finding the early inflection points, and being ready with a prepared mind to invest in the things that can most effectively ride those inflections.”
Steve Blank has an explainer on the semiconductor ecosystem. “The semiconductor industry has seven different types of companies. Each of these distinct industry segments feeds its resources up the value chain to the next until finally a chip factory (a “Fab”) has all the designs, equipment, and materials necessary to manufacture a chip. Taken from the bottom up these semiconductor industry segments are: Chip Intellectual Property (IP) Cores, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Tools, Specialized Materials, Wafer Fab Equipment (WFE), “Fabless” Chip Companies, Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), Chip Foundries, Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT).” On a related note: a Kearny report on Europe’s urgent need to invest in a leading-edge semiconductor ecosystem.
The Atlantic: “In the past 30 years, the British economy chose finance over industry, Britain’s government chose austerity over investment, and British voters chose a closed and poorer economy over an open and richer one. The predictable results are falling wages and stunningly low productivity growth…The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.”
