Category: personal_noteS

Future of Interactive VR?

A video of a very interesting experience that involves VR settings and an live actor (motion captured and built in VR simultaneously)!

This might be the new start of VR enthusiasm.  With 5G launching as soon as 19H1, its use in VR should not be far away. By that time, VR theater should be feasible and even in a interactive way (for front rows maybe); interactive VR party will come to reality (think of VR halloween party and maybe people don’t even need to actually wear costumes). The consumer level applications may focus on entertainment, but enterprise/government uses will also play an important part, perhaps in a way that most people won’t know.

If we go further.. and make robots instead of live human actors, things will be wild. When a connection is built, tactile internet + VR = do anything with anybody anywhere.

California Republic And (Currently) A Democratic State

Recently I saw the state flag a few times with the bear and the name of “California Republic”. While the name may have new meanings now, it also represents its history.

Originally part of Mexico, the 1846 revolt declared independence of California Republic with its capital in Sonoma. Only lasted for 25 days, the republic later became part of the United States.

Despite the republic origin, California has been a strong democratic state since 1992.

https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-voting-history/
Source: Los Angeles Times

It appears to me tho, that the “republic” or “democratic” name itself won’t convey much meaning going forward. Sure a party will start with a name that is closely related a specific opinion. After decades or hundreds of years, most of the founding ideas will fade away; it might be okay to just call them “party A” and “party B”.

Ultimately, most ordinary voters only care about if their feel good or not. And most of that feeling is correlated with economic status. So the flipping of the economy will change the control between parties.

California has been booming for years with the help from semiconductors, PCs, internet, etc. As long as tech industry remains strong, so does California and it will continue be won by the current party.

Climate Change’s Impact on Deserts

There are two aspects of the impact – 1) in terms of deserts itself including creatures that originally live deserts 2) in terms of deserts’ expansion to external environments

Within Deserts

Although desert species are thought to be live in the hottest and driest places around the world, they can only thrive under limited conditions. It takes thousands and millions of years for creatures to adapt to new environments, but climate change is happening dramatically within 100-200 years.

According to a study on sensitivity to climate change for two reptiles, a moderate climate change of +2 °C and -50 mm precipitation, desert tortoises’ suitable habitat was reduced by nearly 88% in the Sonoran Desert and nearly 66% in the Mojave Desert regions.

Desert Tortoise | Source: Wikipedia

The distinctive Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) in Joshua Tree National Park could lose up to 90 percent of its distribution if we increase temperature by +3 °C.

Joshua Tree | Source: NPS/Larry McAfee

What is more, as creatures need to move to cooler and higher-elevations areas, another problem arises – mismatch and imbalance. Joshua trees are hard to move with in 10 years, where animals are more free to find new inhabitants. Even within critters, movement speeds are different, e.g. tortoises are slow-moving while side-blotched lizards are faster. But ecosystem is constituting of species depending on each other. The difference in moving speeds alone will cause lots of chaos.

Outside the Original Deserts

Desertification has been talked up for years. In a 2018 study, Sahara Desert has expanded 10% since 1920. And the newest desert on earth is Aralkum Desert, which appeared since 1960 on the seabed once occupied by the Aral Sea.

Animated map of the shrinking of the Aral Sea, and growing Aralkum | Source: Wikipedia

As deserts are mostly measured by rainfall, it would be more interesting to look at land degradation. The World Atlas of Desertification claimed that “Over 75% of the Earth’s land area is already degraded, and over 90% could become degraded by 2050; Globally, a total area half of the size of the European Union (4.18 million km²) is degraded annually, with Africa and Asia being the most affected.” In a 1991 study, 35% of the world’s land surface is currently at risk and more than 20 million hectares are reduced annually to near or complete uselessness.

The measures are different, but the trend is certain.

AWS 的半壁江山

11/28，Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy 在 re:Invent 大会上引用了 Gartner 的数据，说 AWS 全球市场份额超过一半为 51.8%

诚然，AWS 的神话和统治地位毋庸置疑。Amazon 从 2015 年开始将 AWS 作为独立的 segment 汇报财务数据。通过 2014 年的增长率可以倒推出 2013 年以来每个季度的 AWS 收入。

不过，Gartner 那份今年 8 月的报告局限于 2017 年的数据。其它各家如 Azure 和 Alibaba Cloud 的增长率有目共睹。CY18Q3，Azure 增长放缓至 76%，依旧接近 AWS 最快的时候 (2015 Q2, 81%)。

微软一直没有把 Azure 的收入单独列出，仅作为 Intelligent Cloud Division 的一部分汇报。这个 division 包括了 Windows Server, Azure 和其它企业服务。今年第二季度，整个 division 的收入首次超过 AWS。

虽然这样不算直接的 apple-to-apple 比较，但侧面正好提醒我们微软在企业市场的底蕴，也是 Azure 超高速增长和未来发展潜力的保障。相比之下，AWS 于 Amazon 其它业务的协同效应一般，远不比微软有其它企业服务以及 office 365、Github 等。

Amazon 要保住市场份额，还有很多工作要做。

再来做一个对于 Azure 收入的直接估算：

  • 第三季度 Intelligent Cloud Division 整体增长 24% 至 8.6 billion
  • 假设除 Azure 外这个 division 其它收入增长 10%，则 Azure% * 76% + (1 – Azure%) * 10% = 24%
  • Azure% = 21%，Azure 第三季度收入约 1.8 billion，大约在 AWS 2015 年 Q2 – Q3 水平
  • 考虑到其它业务增长可能没有 10%，实际 Azure 数字可能更大

For Being Written In History? First Gene-edited Babies

Twin girls (Lulu and Nana) were born this month in China and they might be making a history. Applying CRISPR-cas9 to disable the CCR5 gene, which plays a key role in HIV infection, Jiankui He revealed details about the “surgery” in an exclusive interview with AP released on Monday.

At Shenzhen

According to AP, He studied at Rice and Stanford before going back to China. He opened a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUST) of in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies.

He has been on leave from teaching since early this year, but he remains on the faculty and has a lab at SUST.

Partner

The U.S. scientist who worked with him on this project after He returned to China was physics and bioengineering professor Michael Deem, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston. Deem also holds what he called “a small stake” in — and is on the scientific advisory boards of — He’s two companies.

All about making a headline and a history?

The motivation to prevent HIV is good, and justifiable according to George Church. But for many stakeholders in this case, other things come into play. It is political.

“Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing” was to held in Hong Kong from Nov.27 to Nov.29 (Beijing time). The He Lab uploaded videos on YouTube on Nov.26. No coincident.

Things like this could have been discussed thoroughly beforehand. Why is that related parties are “shocked” now?

The plan could have been reported months ago and open to comments/discussions. Why is that no industry associations are aware of anything?

Even the news and YouTube videos could have been written and released the day after the twin was born. Why waiting?

I believe in the future of gene editing; and it will eventually be used in humans, babies and embryos someday. But how this particular news unfolds makes me kinda uncomfortable.

It is understandable that someone (not only about He) wants to make a history, wants to be the “first”.

It is as well understandable that some others are not happy that the “first” title has been stolen.

…

But I would rather see science & technology less political and less about fame, making history or setting standards/principles.

When science & technology are being pursued largely for showing off, it is pathetic.

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Beyond Meat Go IPO and Non-animal Food Trend

From Vegetarians to non-animal meat-like food, we are entering an age of synthetic foods going mainstream.

Beyond Meat – story and IPO

Beyond Meat (BYNd), a start-up who made the first 100% plant-based burger, filed IPO with SEC recently and will become the first of its kind to trade on Nasdaq.

The founder grew up in Maryland with a family farm business. The company was founded in 2009, with initial operation, and manufacturing in Maryland. The foundational technology was licensed from two researchers in nearby universities. And initially, the company built its presence with Whole Foods Market in mid-Atlantic.

Beyond Meat was funded by venture capitals, including Kleiner Perkins (16.1% pre-IPO stake), Obvious Ventures, among others, totaling $140+ million before IPO. The latest round valued the company at $550 million last year.

The IPO filing indicates a $100 million raise. Currently, the most important product is the Beyond Burger, selling through various grocery chains and other channels, representing 71% of 2017 sales.

Beyond Beyond Meat

Within this space, the most famous startup might be Impossible Foods, sold in many restaurants including The Counter. It raised $114 million this year from investors including Temasek.

Other initiatives include the new plant-protein-based drink by Starbucks, although not a popular offering.

I think for sure in the future food market, the overall percentage of plant-based food will increase and animal-killing will be decreased by a lot. Whether eventually most of the food will be entirely synthesized remains a question for now.

At least in 30-50 years, I think the benefits of non-plant-based food are non-obvious. But the non-animal trend will be more influential and be part of everyone’s life, not just for vegetarians.