Value Unleashed

 The Geek's Reading List

The Geek's Reading List is a weekly publication written by Valitas advisor, Brian Piccioni. Brian has been part of the technology industry for a third of a century now. He has been a sell-side research analyst for the past 20 years, where he was ranked the #1 tech analyst in Canada for six consecutive years, named one of the best tech analysts in the world, and won a number of awards for stock-picking and estimating. The Geek's Reading List looks at recent developments in the technology sector by discussing articles that Brian compiled over the week. In his own words, the discussions are usually provocative, new, and counter-consensus. The sorts of things not being written anywhere else.

1) 5G, Gigabit LTE, Millimeter Wave: What Will be Real, When

2) 3D TV is finally, blessedly, mercifully, dead — will VR follow suit?

3) Fast-Forwarding to the Future of Broadcasting

4) Trump Immigration Ban Can Worsen U.S. Doctor Shortage, Hurt Hospitals

5) Hotel ransomed by hackers as guests locked out of rooms

6) Chinese Factory Replaces 90% Of Human Workers With Robots, Sees 250% Production Increase

7) From Garbage Trucks To Buses, It’s Time To Start Talking About Big Electric Vehicles

8) Wireless Abundance is here: What Gig LTE, Massive MIMO, mmWave, and more can mean

9) The hi-tech war on science fraud

10) Can Eagle-Eyed Artificial Intelligence Help Prevent Children From Going Blind?

1) 5G, Gigabit LTE, Millimeter Wave: What Will be Real, When

There is a good chance 5G wireless technologies will disrupt the broadband industry, especially in North America where it is dominated by a small number of protected players. The regulatory infrastructure for wireless is different and 5G wireless in particular can exploit a vast amount of unlicensed spectrum.

“I haven’t been this excited since DSL and cable modems came out around 2000. Here’s what looks solid, per discussions with engineers around the world. We are entering a Wireless Age of Abundance. It will take some time to reach most people. The engineers are ready to deliver a ten to twenty-five times increase in capacity, using 4G, Massive MIMO, and half a dozen other emerging technologies. Weak competition with weak regulation will hold back progress in some places. You will not get a gigabit on your mobile phone until at least 2020 and more likely 2022-2024. I’ve seen a demonstration of 20 gigabits, shared, but that’s not out of the labs yet. The technology, 5G high frequency millimeter waves, is enormously complicated and it will take years to develop the standard and design the equipment for phones.”

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/5G-Gigabit-LTE-Millimeter-Wave-What-Will-be-Real-When-138807

2) 3D TV is finally, blessedly, mercifully, dead — will VR follow suit?

I can take or leave 3D TV but I can’t wait to see the end of 3D movies. I continue to be very skeptical that VR will “sweep the world” but I think it will be pretty successful in gaming and certain applications such as training. I don’t think content would have helped 3DTV significantly since the experience is pretty poor and unnatural. In contrast VR can provide an immersive experience.

“The story of 3D’s rise and fall is a cautionary tale for the VR industry as well. I love VR and would like to see it shape the future of gaming, but many of the issues that doomed 3D TV and 3D content could also kneecap VR adoption. Like 3D, it requires expensive, personal peripherals. Like 3D, games need to be designed explicitly for VR in order to showcase the technology to best effectiveness. Like 3D, VR can cause nausea and headaches. Like 3D, working in VR has an entirely new set of best practices, some of which aren’t intuitive to people who spent their careers working on conventional design.”

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/243280-3d-tv-finally-blessedly-mercifully-dead-will-vr-follow-suit

3) Fast-Forwarding to the Future of Broadcasting

As the article indicates ATSC 3.0 is IP based, which should make it easier to work on a variety of “not-traditionally TV” type devices such as mobiles. Although adoption is probably inevitable it probably won’t be as fast as ATSC (the original HDTV standard) because issues like radio spectrum allocation won’t be concurrently at play.

“This standard, which some call ATSC 3.0 and others call “Next Gen TV,” is the first one to marry the advantages of broadcasting and the Internet.  Specifically, this new broadcast standard is based on Internet Protocol, or IP, and will permit seamless integration with other IP-based services and platforms. Next Gen TV matters because it will let broadcasters offer much better services in a variety of ways.  Picture quality will improve with 4K transmissions. Accurate sound localization and customizable sound mixes will produce an immersive audio experience. Broadcasters will be able to provide advanced emergency alerts with more information, more tailored to a viewer’s particular location. Enhanced personalization and interactivity will enable better audience measurement, which in turn will make for higher-quality advertising–ads relevant to you and that you actually might want to see. Perhaps most significantly, consumers will easily be able to watch over-the-air programming on mobile devices.”

http://www.multichannel.com/blog/mcn-guest-blog/fast-forwarding-future-broadcasting/410630

4) Trump Immigration Ban Can Worsen U.S. Doctor Shortage, Hurt Hospitals

This is my one political item of the week. The US president has adopted a travel ban from certain countries. As is usual, there are many apologists for this move. However, the US has benefitted enormously over the decades by attracting many of the best the brightest from around the world into its professions and graduate programs. If I had the wrong skin tone or religion I would wonder if the US is now a good choice: will I be the subject of a future ban, ethnic registry (as promised) or harassment by emboldened xenophobes? These sorts of moves can have a multiplier effect and can be long term. Time will tell.

“More than 8,400 doctors working in the U.S. are from two countries listed in the executive order—Syria and Iran—according to data from the American Medical Association. Even more foreign-born physicians—close to 50,000—are from India, which is not included in the travel ban. But the fears created by last week’s executive order will ripple across Asia and the Middle East, reaching places like India, says Atul Grover, a physician and executive vice president of the AAMC. “The majority of our foreign doctors come from India and Pakistan, and while they’re not on the list I think when the environment feels this uncertain and this inhospitable, they’ll go to Canada and the U.K.,” he says.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-immigration-ban-can-worsen-u-s-doctor-shortage-hurt-hospitals/

5) Hotel ransomed by hackers as guests locked out of rooms

This article is just another example of the weaknesses of Internet of Things security. These hackers have made it a business of hacking their hotel and the hotel or at least its electronic lock supplier, seem powerless to stop it. It is unclear to me why the locks have to be connected to the Internet regardless. As the hotel has realized one good solution is to revert to mechanical locks.

“One of Europe’s top hotels has admitted they had to pay thousands in Bitcoin ransom to cybercriminals who managed to hack their electronic key system, locking hundreds of guests out of their rooms until the money was paid. Furious hotel managers at the Romantik Seehotel Jaegerwirt, a luxurious 4-star hotel with a beautiful lakeside setting on the Alpine Turracher Hoehe Pass in Austria, said they decided to go public with what happened to warn others of the dangers of cybercrime. … Brandstaetter said: “We are planning at the next room refurbishment for old-fashioned door locks with real keys. Just like 111 years ago at the time of our great-grandfathers.””

http://www.thelocal.at/20170128/hotel-ransomed-by-hackers-as-guests-locked-in-rooms

6) Chinese Factory Replaces 90% Of Human Workers With Robots, Sees 250% Production Increase

Articles about automation create a lot of excitement nowadays and this one had a major profile. Unfortunately, neither the article nor most of the associated commentary both to mention that there is nothing unusual or remarkable about this example: companies invest in capital in increase labor productivity. That is pretty much what the industrial revolution was about. Anybody who has set inside a factory knows this. Get over it.

“One of China’s first unmanned factories in the city of Dongguan recently replaced 590 of its workers with robots and the results were astounding. While the factory used to be run by 650 employees, only 60 of those people still work at the factory and their primary job is to make sure the machines are running properly, not working on manufacturing. The Changying Precision Technology Company focuses on the production of mobile phones and uses automated production lines. The robotic arms produce certain parts of the mobile phones at each station and the factory even makes use of autonomous transport trucks.”

http://monetarywatch.com/2017/01/chinese-factory-replaces-90-human-workers-robots-sees-250-production-increase/?doing_wp_cron=1486131709.4486410617828369140625

7) From Garbage Trucks To Buses, It’s Time To Start Talking About Big Electric Vehicles

Replacing diesel heavy vehicles with electric battery ones sounds pretty appealing until you do the math. It turns out that the battery for, say, a tractor trailer, would be about the same size and weight as the freight capacity of an existing tractor trailer and that doesn’t even to take into account the staggering costs of the battery. If you want to reduce heavy truck emissions set aside highway lanes for their exclusive use: it is better for the environment than “High Occupancy Vehicle” (HOV) lanes even if it isn’t politically astute.

“First, to achieve disproportionate impact, you must target a disproportionate contributor to the problem. While medium and heavy trucks account for only 4% of America’s +250 million vehicles, they represent 26% of American fuel use and 29% of vehicle CO2 emissions. If you are looking for a way to address more problem (foreign oil dependence, climate change, air quality, you name it) with less solution, big vehicles are it. If you want to have outsized impact, don’t convince a Prius driver to go electric, electrify a garbage truck.”

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/02/02/garbage-trucks-buses-time-start-talking-big-electric-vehicles/

8) Wireless Abundance is here: What Gig LTE, Massive MIMO, mmWave, and more can mean

This is a follow on to item 1: emerging wireless technologies not only deliver vastly greater throughout they allow for the exploitation of a vast swath of spectrum, including a large slice of unlicensed spectrum. There is good reason to believe “spectrum shortages” will soon become a thing of the past.

“Telcos report costs going down 40% to 60%. That allows T-Mobile U.S. & Sprint to offer “unlimited” with only a few gotchas. Competition and regulation will determine who is actually served. Technology on the market can deliver 10X to 25X at reasonable cost; Weak competition or weak regulation could hold this back. Speeds over 50 megabits with a cap high enough to watch 100 hours/month of HD TV can be delivered in most of the developed world. The engineers can deliver. Marconi Fellow Paulraj tells me Massive MIMO will bring many of the same benefits to most rural areas, including in emerging nations. Extreme rural areas – the last 1-3% – may not be as fortunate.”

http://5gwnews.com/index.php/90-r/670-wireless-abundance-is-here-what-gig-lte-massive-mimo-mmwave-and-more-can-mean

9) The hi-tech war on science fraud

Science is a truly wonderful thing but the reality is the overwhelming majority of published peer reviewed research is wrong. That’s not so much because of intentional fraud but sloppy work, bad methodology, , etc.. It turns out that very few papers are ever read by a statistician and as a result papers are rife with wrong statistics. You’d think a real scientist would be pleased with the prospect of a tool which points out those errors but, no, the precious snowflake is worried about “scrutiny and suspicion” and “harassment”. Mind you if I was in a field where almost none of the research could be replicated I’d be nervous as well.

“Statcheck’s method was relatively simple, more like the mathematical equivalent of a spellchecker than a thoughtful review, but some scientists saw it as a new form of scrutiny and suspicion, portending a future in which the objective authority of peer review would be undermined by unaccountable and uncredentialed critics. Susan Fiske, the former head of the Association for Psychological Science, wrote an op-ed accusing “self-appointed data police” of pioneering a new “form of harassment”. The German Psychological Society issued a statement condemning the unauthorised use of Statcheck. The intensity of the reaction suggested that many were afraid that the program was not just attributing mere statistical errors, but some impropriety, to the scientists.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/01/high-tech-war-on-science

10) Can Eagle-Eyed Artificial Intelligence Help Prevent Children From Going Blind?

There is great potential for AI in medical applications but I don’t believe for a minute that it will ever replace doctors. Most likely AI will provide a sort of objective second look at test results, in particular, those associated with medical imaging.

“”Missed or mistaken diagnoses, as well as inappropriate treatment decisions, are common among rare-disease patients and are contrary to the goals of precision medicine, especially in developing countries with large populations, such as China,” write a group of Chinese researchers in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. These researchers aim to fix that preventable treatment gap by using eagle-eyed AI. The researchers outline an artificial intelligence program that can diagnose congenital cataracts more accurately than human doctors, and report that the data it collects could help spur new research on how to treat this rare disease.”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/eagle-eyed-ai-doctor-could-nip-cataracts-bud-180961993/