I’m in Atlanta at the Marriott beside the Atlanta airport for the ACP Thin Manager User Conference. Perhaps this could be called the “future of industrial computing” conference–at least according to Automation World columnist and technology futurist Jim Pinto. In his keynote, Pinto proclaimed the end of the PC era as the industry moves toward peer-to-peer, distributed, self-organizing technologies.
I first met Matt Crandell (president and CEO) and David Hancock (now COO) at the 1999 National Manufacturing Week. Someone said, “You have to go over and meet the Linux guys.” Well, they use Linux, but that wasn’t the game they were in. What they do is build a platform to enable thin client computing in an industrial environment. The company has grown slowly but steadily for the ensuing 13 years. About 200 people are attending this year’s event that includes the unveiling of Thin Manager 6.0, Screentronix and XManager.
Crandell explained to me that what ACP does is build a platform. The platform enables the use of safe and secure thin clients to use HMI/SCADA applications from companies such as Invensys Wonderware, Rockwell Automation and GE Intelligent Platforms (all represented in the exhibit area).
It’s really difficult to describe the details, but users seem to really like what they get with the product. The new edition unveils Screentronix–a secure connection technology that appears to be open and flexible enough to allow ACP to enter new markets if it so desires. It now supports mobile devices, such as Apple iPads, even in management mode. It allows users to log in and see the exact desktop and applications that they left open the last time they were on.
It’s interesting that there is still no one doing the exact thing. There are a couple of companies going into cloud computing. But Thin Manager is not really cloud in the sense that its core technology is not Web based.
But I have a sense that this is part of the new future of computing in manufacturing and production.
“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” asks Regina Dugan, then director of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In this breathtaking talk she describes some of the extraordinary projects — a robotic hummingbird, a prosthetic arm controlled by thought, and, well, the internet — that her agency has created by not worrying that they might fail. (Followed by a Q&A with TED’s Chris Anderson)
When I listened to this last night, I began to regret stopping my technical education and work. But this should be shared with any young people who are thinking about a technical career.
Regina Dugan directs the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the DoD innovation engine responsible for creating and preventing strategic surprise
Another great TED Talk. Once again, something for you all to think about. Maybe you can come up with a cool invention within your industry. From the TED Website–What’s the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage — so we can have power on tap even when the sun’s not out and the wind’s not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: “We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap.”
I am still wading through an accumulation of TED Talks. By the way, excellent use for an iPad. And much better use of my time than watching “Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives” (well, a little better, anyway). I subscribe in iTunes.
After watching a doctor friend emerge from a rural medical center in India who had just lost a mother and new-born baby because the mother had anemia, Myshkin Ingawale decided to invent a way to conduct a blood test that did not require drawing blood. This needed to be something that a nurse/practitioner with minimal training could do in very rural and poor areas. As he says, “So, I built one. It didn’t work. After 32, we got it right.” Perhaps this could inspire my audience of engineers to think about things where you can build something small and inexpensive that will change the world.
I realize that many of my readers are involved in the petroleum business, but we in the U.S. know the political ramifications of sending so much money to the Middle East where some gets siphoned off to groups who are actively fighting us. In another TED Talk, T. Boone Pickens discusses how natural gas is a good way to reduce US dependence on foreign oil. TED founder Chris Anderson then engages Pickens on alternative energy and the money he lost on wind energy.
Many of us have watched the death throes of the music industry with mixed emotions. As they sue their customers and back bills in Congress such as the SOPA one recently, many of us see how the industry is changing and artists are now gaining access to fans without losing so much money to the industry. Rob Reid, in The $8 Billion iPod, discusses “Copyright Math” in an amusing tour of logic.
A special bonus–poetry. Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate, discuses a project of animating several of his poems in “Everyday Moments, Caught in Time”. Humorous and thoughtful.
I try to talk to the CTOs of as many companies that I follow as possible. The idea is to see what they are studying so that I know what to watch for. A couple of years ago, Sujeet Chand, Rockwell Automation SVP and CTO, told me about autonomous agents. So, I’ve kept watch.
Yesterday I wrote about the TED talk about autonomous robots from the University of Pennsylvania. Today I listened to this podcast from IT Conversations that also discusses agents. Very interesting. Prof. Subramanian Ramamoorthy worked at National Instruments early in his career and provides some insights on the foundational ideas of that company as background.
