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The Universal Machine now has a Facebook page, called "The Universal Machine." You can read everything that is posted on this blog there if you prefer to use Facebook and of course you can "Like" the page write on its Wall and share with your friends. To see the page click this link or the link at the bottom of the column to the right. 

Blog name change

As I mentioned earlier this blog's name and URL is changing from "universal-tool" to "universal-machine" because my publisher prefers that title for my book. Please update any links or bookmarks you have to the old name/URL. Sorry for any trouble this causes but it's better I do this now rather than when my book is published next year.

iThank you

Following the sad news of Steve Jobs' death yesterday it was no surprise that the media was full of technology gurus listing his obvious achievements: the Apple II, Macintosh, NexTSTEP, iMac, OS X, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad. In fact when you write it in a simple list like that it is rather remarkable. It was also no surprise that the media was just as full of business and economics pundits listing his achievements. After all he did co-found the first successful PC company, guide Pixar to stardom, and bring Apple back from near bankruptcy to become the world's most valuable technology company in just 15 years. You could pick any achievement from either list and it would be significant.

Tributes left outside a London Apple store

   But you know what has really surprised me? It's been the outpouring of grief, love and respect from members of the public worldwide - Apple's customers. I can think of several occasions in my life when people globally have exhibited grief at the death of a person they never knew: John Lennon, Princess Diana. Michael Jackson for example. But they were celebrities who were constantly in the media spotlight and who touched peoples' lives in very personal ways. Steve Jobs was a business man, a technologist, apart from his Apple keynote speeches he avoided publicity and yet so many worldwide are mourning. People are leaving flowers, tokens and messages outside Apple stores; I can't think of a single CEO's death that has ever been received in this way. Remarkable. RIP Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

Steve Jobs, co-founder and chairman of Apple, has died of cancer, aged 56. Jobs stepped down from the role of CEO in August, saying he could “no longer meet my duties and expectations”. In a statement, Apple said "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives."

Many believe that Steve Jobs is indispensable and that without his vision, Apple will falter. First, don't expect to see any sudden failure from Apple. They  have several years of new products in development and seem to have a clear strategic view with regard to iOS, the cloud and the future of the Mac product line. 

So what did Jobs bring to Apple? As co-founder of Apple with Steve Wozniak, Jobs was not the electronics genius; Woz designed the Apple I and Apple II. Jobs raised the money, sold the early computers and importantly, wanted the Apple II to look beautiful, like a sleek European hi-fi rather than a ham radio kit. He also saw in the revolutionary interface of the Macintosh (inspired by a demo he saw at Xerox PARC) that computers could be easy to use.

The first Macintosh, released in 1984, was a breakthrough, but was crippled by inadequate hardware, and this – along with his mercurial management style – eventually led to Jobs' departure from Apple. I believe this was a lesson Jobs learnt well and never forgot; there must be a total synergy between hardware and software to deliver a really great user experience. He also recognised, unusually for the IT industry, that most users only care about what they can do with their tech toys, not what the specifications are. You may notice that Apple adverts always show what people can do with the hardware, and never emphasise how many gigabytes or megahertz the product has. 

Another key to Jobs' success was his understanding of supply side logistics. As a kid Jobs worked for an electronics store in Silicon Valley, and he knew the importance of sourcing components at a good price. Once regarded as over-priced (called the "Apple Tax"), Apple's products now feature drop-dead gorgeous designs and are hard to beat on price. Almost two years after the release of the iPad, a legion of competitors have still failed to deliver a tablet with a similar spec at a lower price. 

When the history of computing is written, Steve Jobs will have a significant place as somebody who put the users first, making computers both easier and sometimes a joy to use.

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me." - Steve Jobs

A sample chapter from my book featuring a biography of Steve Jobs is available here or from the menu above

Writing update

So I now have a date to work to - Dec 15th is when I'm contracted to deliver the manuscript to my publisher. There's nothing like a deadline to focus the mind!
   As anticipated the chapters of the book have changed slightly since I started. Some chapters have grown into two and another has been absorbed in several chapters. Look at the new Contents to see the current of the book.
   I've uploaded a new sample chapter which you can now download as a pdf, which should be easier to read. This chapter is about Apple and Steve Jobs.
   I currently have about two chapters to go, so I'm on target.

Apple's personal assistant - Futureshock

The rumours have been flying ever since Apple bought the AI company Siri that they were going to put an intelligent assistant in iOS devices that used voice recognition. Well the rumours were true, but more on that later. First a quick comment on the hardware.
   Apple invited selected journalists to their Infinite Loop campus today for a event titled "Let's Talk iPhone."After lots of stats of how many billions of songs and Apps have been downloaded, how Apple dominates its markets etc...the new iPhone 4S was unveiled. So many forecasters and "Apple insiders" have egg on their face today - where's the iPhone 5 they were all predicting? Personally I always thought that just as with the iPhone 3 the next release would be an "S" model. The form factor of the iPhone 4 is relatively new (and IMHO gorgeous), why would Apple want to make it obsolete so fast? The new 4S has a faster processor, a better camera, some tweaks to the antennae and that's about it. We'll see the iPhone 5 next year. Once again though the important announcement was the software.
   Tim Cook, the new CEO, at the start of the event said: "Today we're going to be learning about innovations in software and hardware, and the integration of all of these into a "powerful yet simple integrated experience." This perfectly captures Apples ethos - an iintegrated experience, which only they can deliver since only they design and manufacture both the hardware and the software. All their competitors do one or the other and have to team up to do both.
   So back to Apple's new Intelligent Assistant. This has been a dream of Apple's for a very long time. Way back in 1987 they released a concept video of what they called the Knowledge Navigator. This was an intelligent personal assistant that used voice recognition. You can watch one of the series of videos below.

   Siri was a company spun out of the CALO “Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes” project funded by the US DARPA programme. This was a huge AI research project that  ran for five years involving more than 300 researchers from 25 of the top university and commercial research institutions in the US. It's  goal was “building a new generation of cognitive assistants that can reason, learn from experience, be told what to do, explain what they are doing, reflect on their experience, and respond robustly to surprise.” Sounds useful.
   When Apple bought Siri, many people said Apple have bought a search company, but Steve Jobs always said that they'd bought an AI company. Jobs said in a 2010 interview "[Siri is] not a search company. They're an AI company. We have no plans to go into the search business. We don't care about it -- other people do it well." Jobs believes passionately that for too long we've adapted our behaviour to  interface with our computers. Touch is our native way of manipulating our environment hence the iPhone and iPad. But,  speech is our natural form of communication, and consequently we should be talking to our devices. Apple may have stolen another lead on the competition through their acquisition of Siri and into integration into iOS 5. 
   Siri launched there own iPhone app which ran on the 3GS, but, by there own admission, there was barely enough processing power and they had to implement several shortcuts (you can read an interview with Siri's co founder Norman Winarsky here). Apple have waited until the hardware (i.e., the iPhone 4 and their new cloud infrastructure) is fully capable of running the Assistant. I don't expect this to be available on the 3GS. Winarsky says that apps like Google Voice are "partial AI" but that Siri is "real AI." He believes that "We’re talking another technology revolution. A new computing paradigm shift. It reminds me of another SRI Project: Doug Engelbart, Inventor of Mouse augmented human ability back in the ’60s. Just as Steve Jobs took that technology and ran with it, we believe that Apple will use Siri to start another revolution."

Flexible phones!

The news last week was full of rumours that Samsung were going to release a flexible bendy cell phone called the Galaxy Skin. Earlier this year Sumsung showed a bendable AMOLED display - so a bendy phone seems like the next step. However, it turns out the phone everyone had become so excited by is actually a design students' project and they put the Samsun logo on their concept to make it look more authentic. Sumsung have subsequently denied the rumours.
   However, that is not to say that scientists and engineers aren't working on flexible electronic devices. Nokia and scientists at Cambridge University are working on flexible and stretchable electronic skin that could in the near future become part of clothing (see the video below). Flexible batteries are underdevelopment and Samsung have already shown us a flexible screen. Soon perhaps we'll be wearing our smartphones, rather than carrying them - Apple rather than Armani.