Digital Revolution

Due to undecidability of the halting problem, outcomes of many computations can not be predicted by a fixed Turing machine. Direct computational experiments are often employed to study properties of specific computations. Many computations are done locally, but it would be nice to perform them on the cloud so that they are accessible everywhere. Wolfram Programming Lab is a good example of computational experimentation on the cloud. Since computations can be written into apps, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine, Apple Xcode Cloud, etc. may also be employed to experiment with code. Legendary particle physics computations are a great place to start with. Eventually, general computations may attract experimenters' attention, due to intricate patterns computation may produce. It's difficult to formulate a theory about computational patterns beyond Turing completeness, but nevertheless interesting patterns that resemble those in nature may be found by computational experiment. This ...

There was a time when interesting web front-end development was done on the Flash platform. It's a time when multimedia overtook dull static GUI and allowed artistic expressions to prosper. The end of Flash transformed a designer-centric GUI development culture into a collaborative HTML5 designer-coder relationship. For all its flaws, there is still no modern design tool as easy and expressive as Flash. Adobe didn't place much emphasis on Dreamweaver as a front-end development tool. JavaScript frameworks are coders' heaven and designers' bane. It's wise to speculate that the Flash development model also ended with the demise of Flash, for at least one reason: responsive web design. Flash was designed for fixed dimensions. When the multi-screen reality became clear around 2010, Adobe didn't upgrade Flash to address the challenge, but gave way to HTML5 responsive web design. Responsive web design allowed content to be specifically rendered according to user'...

There was a industrial trend to cut the cord in every possible case. The trend paved the way for mobile phones, wireless networks, and all sorts of mobile gadgets like ultrasound beauty devices. It's a undeniable success, but there is a case against it: computer mouse. Few design wireless mouses as elegant as Apple, and yet Apple mice, like all computer mice, suffer one critical flaw. There is no indication how quick it's going to run out of battery. The flaw is probably hard to fix, as a battery indicator on computer mouse seems seldom needed. The only time it serves a purpose is to warn of low battery, critical but infrequent. The traditional solution, a corded mouse, probably will stay with us, in spite of the push by Apple to drop support for it with incompatible ports. The argument that wireless mice reduce clutter is not strong enough to beat unanticipated battery outage. The Magic Mouse is amazing, but the invention of new mice to fit modern ports probably will still be...

Computer had been a terrific innovation for learning. With the Internet and Google, almost any topic within the range of public knowledge can be searched for. With the iPad, learning experience makes another step forward with better UI and ease of use. However, the educational system is slow to embrace the digital revolution. So far, the biggest impact is recorded lecture materials. But computers have much more to offer. Technology aside, there are several areas that the educational system may improve. Advanced knowledge is scattered over the Internet. Although private knowledge like whole process for semiconductor manufacturing is forbidden from the Internet, advanced public knowledge like physics is reachable, but without proper guidance, it's very inefficient to learn from the Internet. Gerard 't Hooft's initiative to teach graduate physics online is only half-successful. The educational system can use better organization of advanced public knowledge that may benefit l...

Apple is well-known for its success in personal computing, but also notorious for the bugginess of its software. Remember the early days of iCloud, when documents may suddenly disappear in entirety and never come back, with no backup. The practice of transforming customers into beta testers works because it's difficult to obtain compensation from Apple for data loss. There is no penalty for unreliable software in personal computing. The situation is bad. Many customers dare not upgrade to a new OS before a flurry of patches arrive. In enterprise computing, reliability is critical, while fanciness is secondary. The bugginess of Apple software is certainly a concern for many companies that utilize Apple devices. It's uncertain whether Apple will adopt a more rigorous approach, considering that Apple makes no promises. What's certain is that lack of software reliability is bad for enterprise business. Companies can collapse if critical data loss occurs. Given Apple's track...

Social networks are ubiquitous. While personal socializing is dominated by Facebook, Twitter, and LINE, etc., there is still no clear winner in the workplace. Even Microsoft has conflicts within itself that two workplace social networks compete with each other, namely, Teams and Skype. Apple restricted Messages app to Apple devices, and thus only provides workplace socializing for enterprises that go Apple. Recently, Apple greatly expanded its social networking capabilities with updates to Messages app and SharePlay. It might be viewed as indication for the company's interest in social networks. Is there possibility that Apple will eventually develop workplace socializing solutions? The question came after Apple announced Apple Business Essentials. The word Essentials indicates that Apple might have plans for more advanced and comprehensive business computing. Thus, release Essentials first, and develop advanced solutions. If Apple had ambitions in business computing, it could not ...

Apple Business Essentials encouraged small businesses to utilize iCloud for work. A ramification discussed earlier is its lack of enterprise features. Here another ramification is raised, that separation of work and private data is at risk. Although many people don't distinguish between work and personal computers, there is good reason to separate work and personal data, with separate apps for example. The failure to separate work and personal data can result in a mess and severely undermine privacy, like Apple employees experienced. At present, the separation can be achieved trivially with Apple apps for private uses and Google/Microsoft apps for work. Clearing private data or work data is easy due to proper separation. There is no worry of privacy violation or company infosecurity breach. With Apple Business Essentials, however, everything might end up with common storage in the same Apple ID, which could result in trouble if the person left the company. A obvious solution is t...

Digital library is a promising and yet somewhat neglected initiative. Most approaches today copy what physical libraries do for free or for some subscription fee. The process is borrowing and returning books from a pool of publications. But many people still don't buy it. Perhaps the subscription model is problematic, in that it doesn't allow a subscription for unlimited downloads. Apple Music, News+, TV+, etc. all offer unlimited access rather than borrowing and returning. If the pool of publications is large and attractive enough, digital library might succeed following the lead of these apps. There are actually some clues for the success of a well-designed digital library. It's the electronic access offered by university libraries. Faculty and students regularly download electronic resources from university libraries in unlimited fashion. It's appealing and users love it. Although the selection of publications might differ for academic and mass audiences, the subscr...

Apple announced  Apple Business Essentials for small businesses. It's a excellent idea, but there are a few doubts. John Gruber raised the question of adequate backups. Though the situation is more complex. The main problem is that iCloud is designed for personal computing rather than enterprise computing. Device management is great, but without a enterprise cloud service, it feels like a half-baked plan. For example, where are business domain and online meeting facilities? Google and Microsoft are much more seasoned competitors, which renders Apple's approach amateur. Rushing out a half-baked plan is very un-Apple-like. Let's hope Apple can do better after the beta period.

In sciences, computable numbers and sequences form a important part of study. From ancient Fibonacci numbers to modern quantum series, computable numbers and sequences provide a crucial tool to understand our world. However, scientific measurements are often inexact. We often see deviations from a computational theory being classified as errors. While random errors may occur, there is also the possibility that the phenomena at hand may be just almost computable, rather than computable. Thus, almost computable numbers and sequences may reveal the true structure of nature beyond computation. There are many conjectures whether a object is computable or not, but there is little understanding whether a incomputable object is a little incomputable or wildly incomputable. As a first step of quantification, almost computable numbers and sequences may be introduced as objects that differ from computable objects by a set of frequency zero. Almost computable numbers and sequences give a first...

The future of SoC is bright. Apple's M1 family SoC delivers breakthrough performance per watt, which is a measure that some consider to replace Moore's law in chip making. As raw chip making with geometric scaling approaches the quantum realm, it's expected that more and more architectural and software optimizations will come into play. SoC is particularly useful for mobile computing, where battery constraints are prominent. On the desktop, where battery constraints vanish, the situation is more complex. While M1 is suitable for daily-life computing, it's still not clear whether pro uses will be completely covered by SoC. This makes Apple's future Mac Pro launches especially interesting from architectural point of view. It seems that SoC is the way to go for mobile computing and, following Apple's lead, should launch a revolution in the PC world. But, as other technologies might indicate, PC world revolution may come astonishingly slow, just as Apple's Reti...