Real Time View

Camped outside Lincoln, Nebraska, as I head to the MATUG event outside Washington D.C., I realize that there’s much to be learnt from being on the road. Not the least being the time to be able to think of what future NonStop systems might look like and to catch up with innovative companies that may yet impact NonStop. Much of my summer months I’ve spent on the road. With the better weather conditions for driving it’s an opportunity to mix with the NonStop community – vendors and users equally, and the insight that this provides is always valuable. It’s a very simple equation really, to write one needs to first listen and then just as importantly, read and comprehend. The basics, right! However, it still comes as a surprise when I encounter something unexpected and so it’s never about the destination, as the saying goes, but the journey. Or to put it another way, information is out there.  It exists. You just have to want it. Even if you are in the middle of the road attentive ...

This week we worked on an article for an upcoming May / June, 2015, issue of The Connection magazine – Richard and I chose the title Data ain’t Data – a case for mission-critical data on NonStop. The title came as an analogy to a very successful advertisement campaign when Castrol Oil created the punchline, “Oils ain’t Oils!” See the article to read more about it! The point we were making was that there is some data that is of critical importance; in fact we pointed out that such data could be as mission critical as are some transactions or applications. We also asserted that the source of some of this critically important data could be social media. To illustrate that point I started with: “When you watch news…” and stopped! Who watches news?   Sometimes, when engaging in the mindless activity of applying makeup, I listen to the radio to get the news. So the sentence was intended to show how social media content can be critical data, so important for example to the polic...

There’s an article in theguardian.com that reads like a science fiction book or the plot from a Bond movie: “Google has struck a deal with the healthcare company Johnson & Johnson to develop surgical robots that use artificial intelligence. Google’s life sciences division will work with Johnson & Johnson’s medical device company, Ethicon, to create a robotics-assisted surgical platform to help doctors in the operating theatre.” The article then ends with: “Google’s life sciences team is also developing systems that can detect cancer and heart attacks using nano particles, and has worked on smart contact lenses that contain sensors capable of monitoring the signs of diabetes – technology that was licensed by the Swiss drug firm Novartis in July 2014 to develop into a practical medical application.”   The link to this article is here: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/27/google-johnson-and-johnson-artificial-intelligence-surgical-robots There is more...

Mobility is bringing with it advantages that benefit us all but in our quest to be constantly informed about what’s going on – in the business world at large, as well as  within our company – it’s mandating changes to how we deliver content. It seems more than sensible to spend time in America’s southwest at this time of year. Polar Vortexes, snow storms swinging down from the Pacific Northwest, and any number of frigid ice-bound days is enough to have any sane person pulling out roadmaps and checking upcoming conference schedules to see if any might be in a warmer location. Fortunately, I received press passes to two important industry events – one in Las Vegas, Nevada,  organized by ATMIA (the ATM Industry Association) with the other in Phoenix, Arizona, organized by BAI (which stands for Bank Administration Institute, but is better known as the organizers of the annual Retail Delivery show). No matter how you describe the benefits that come through participation the f...

Architects and intellects worry about what to do with former pristine examples of technology in their day and yet, left to creative individuals, there’s no limits to what can be done to breathe new life into what otherwise might be trashed. For the NonStop community some examples raise interesting questions including the database … One of the more interesting developments I have witnessed these past decades is the repurposing of buildings – historical buildings catering to entirely new, and often unexpected, patrons. Think Starbucks opening in the foyer of an old Sydney bank branch, near the famous Circular Quay. Think too of the former Roman Catholic Church of St. Joseph in Arnhem, Netherlands, one of hundreds of decommissioned churches, that was turned into a skate park – a situation that the former elders could never have contemplated as a likely eventuality. The photo above? It’s of a former Lutheran church in Edinburgh, Scotland, that has become of all things, a Frankenstein...

Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down on the land; Catching the swirling wind … Go closer, hold the land feel partly no more than grains of sand; We stand to lose all time a thousand answers by in our hand …” so go the lyrics from a YES song written decades ago and yet, it foresaw we stood to lose a thousand answers … In a play on a title I used for the final post of 2012, Yes, I get it! closing out 2014 brings with it a lot of anticipation. There will be NonStop community members – users and vendors alike – that have placed orders for NonStop X and more than likely have been testing their applications on NonStop X for some time. The prospect of installing your own NonStop X system is bound to arouse excitement typical for this time of year. For all of us living in the northern hemisphere, the prospect of spring seems a long way off, as winter has us fully in its grip, but spring will come, no matter what, and that’s how I sum up NonStop X. It’s coming, no matter wha...