Brian Roy’s Blog

2007 Turing Awards

Monday, February 11th, 2008 | Emerging Technology Practice, The Future | Comments

This years winners are Edmund M. Clarke, E. Allen Emerson, and Joseph Sifakis.

This years winners are recognized for their work on Model Checking:

Model Checking is a type of “formal verification” that analyzes the logic underlying a design, much as a mathematician uses a proof to determine that a theorem is correct. Far from hit or miss, Model Checking considers every possible state of a hardware or software design and determines if it is consistent with the designer’s specifications. Clarke and Emerson originated the idea of Model Checking at Harvard in 1981. They developed a theoretical technique for determining whether an abstract model of a hardware or software design satisfies a formal specification, given as a formula in Temporal Logic, a notation for describing possible sequences of events. Moreover, when the system fails the specification, it could identify a counterexample to show the source of the problem. Numerous model checking systems have been implemented, such as Spin at Bell Labs.

Full article here…

Obama is a Mac, Clinton is a PC?

Friday, February 8th, 2008 | Humor, The Future | Comments

Just because I find the entire thing funny…

NYT on Monday published an article entitled Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

Yep… this is what our electoral process has come to…

Free as a Business Model

Thursday, February 7th, 2008 | Business Model Innovation | Comments

Chris Anderson (blog, wikipedia) author of The Long Tail is writing a new book entitled Free which New York Magazine discusses here.

From New York Magazine:

Long Tail Author Sells Next: Chris Anderson, author of much-cited paradigm-shifter The Long Tail, sells new book Free to Will Schwalbe at Hyperion. Agent is John Brockman. New title explores “the most radical price of all — zero — in the context of the economics of abundance.”Times Magazine editors crack knuckles.

Chris is looking for help with the sub-title in his blog… here is a link to the post.

Kevin Kelly (blog, wikipedia) is also contemplating Free as a business model. He writes a post answering the following question:

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can’t be copied?

More after the jump…

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New look…

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments

I’ve updated the look of my blog… hope you like it.

Please vote and let me know what you think.

I’ll say it again… Innovaiton is a process

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 | Experimentation, Innovation | Comments

The New York Times published an article yesterday entitled Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work in which they point out (rightly so) that innovation is not an epiphany… but a slow process of building on what you know.

… innovation is a slow process of accretion, building small insight upon interesting fact upon tried-and-true process. Just as an oyster wraps layer upon layer of nacre atop an offending piece of sand, ultimately yielding a pearl, innovation percolates within hard work over time.

More after the jump…

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