Amp hour

hi welcome to the ampow I'm Dave Jones from the eev blog and I'm Chris gaml from Chris gamls analog life how are you doing Dave how you doing Chris well excellent all right we'll get we'll get that down someday here we will get it down someday um yeah we we've had all sorts of microphone problems this morning I've got some weird thing happening with my mic uh the the volume controls going up and down on its own it's I think it's possessed so yeah I don't know what's happening there so yeah hopefully this one comes out and uh if only we know how to fix Electronics or something well yeah I think we need to uh yeah we need to learn more uh penguin geek stuff at least I do so yeah right right so what do we got on on the cards for today Chris oh my my goodness we have a ton of stuff but uh let we do let's go run through some shout outs first huh oh well there's an event coming up which I forgot to mention last week they're in Sydney so only people in Sydney which is pretty rare to announce an event in Sydney there's an electronic show called Electronics um and it's on for two days September 9th and I will be there I'll be the Dork walking around with the tripod and the camera and I'll have a media pass and um yeah I'll probably uh film a thing for the blog so all right shout out reward if you get if you snap a picture of a nerd with a tripod if you yes absolutely if you can St a photo of me in my the settings do then yes there you go yep yep y so yeah I I'll be there I'm not sure which day yet but um yeah I'll definitely be there so Electronics that's maybe we get covered in uh element 14 again I saw you were in that yes I was in element 14 that's um new magazine um out which is the element 14 Journal it's their second edition and I've got an article in there on my fluke 28 how I toed it around destroyed it and I tossed it around in a canyon and um yeah it's a two page um article with a real doky photo head of me and uh photo of me AB sailing down the waterfall yeah and um yeah but um un we can put a a link up uh to it so you can see it if you don't it's actually a hard copy uh printed which they send to people but um you would think it's the element 14 manual right but you try to go to the element 14 uh website and find it I bet you can't right well I couldn't maybe I'm just dumb I don't know but well it's just their old format I think I think they they Bas it basically like they're like oh well we're printing this and we'll just make it a PDF that's digital right yeah but why it's not linked on its main on their main element 14 page is beyond me it's probably in there somewhere but the element 14 site's pretty convoluted it tries to be all things to all people it sort of meshes a Blog with a discussion forum forums and and yeah everyone has a Blog and you don't know whether and then there's channels and you don't know like I've posted stuff on there and I don't know whether to post things in the channel or in the discussion or in the or in the road test discussion forum or whe whether in my own channel it's just niut yeah anyway I've seen that system they've used before and it's it's kind of confusing I think it's like a full package system that's why it's it's like developed all together so whatever exactly yeah fig out when people stop going there well yeah I mean there's some good there's some good discussions and stuff going on on there but if if you can find them that's the main thing I guess is that yeah they're just next to impossible to find so yep yep there you go element 14 look out for it I'm in there yeah post it up on your walls you can hang it up yes digital copy well you posted another thing about the uh the Mitch Alman talk I saw that on your blog too the Mitch Alman talk yes the um if you don't know Mitch Olman he's the um inventor of the TV beone and also those glasses too the uh what those pulsing light glasses for yeah the pulsing light glasses and some brainwave reader or something like that as well um and I also posted up a talk from um AR fruit as well um and that's on how to start your own Open Source Hardware business and um nice I highly recommend you listen to that podcast um especially the Mitch ultman one's very interesting he actually uh talks about how to do what you love um I.E how to take a product your own product to Market and make you know and make it your life um sounds relevant to you well it does and he's a rather weird he's a rather interesting character cuz he's so passionate about um not watching TV that he wanted to sort of it wasn't just doing this cool Gadget he wanted to it's his goal I think I you know don't quote me but it's like his goal what come across to me is that it's his goal to stop people watching wasting their lives watching TV hence his TV begone product yeah I've read I've read about it before and I think it was like Cam and a couple friends that kind of were at dinner one night and he said everybody was kind of looking over at the TV and and it really kind of made him angry and he wished he could switch it off but made him angry so he did he developed this product and he goes through all the all the trials and the pitfalls of of actually developing a product um and it took him like a year or something I mean it's a little it's a little eight pin micro with an L with a with one button and an LED right and a and then infrared lead but yeah it took him doing the custom case and everything and I think by the time he actually pushed the button to go into production he said it cost him about30 or $40,000 or something it's crazy and that's I think he was just no I think he was very lucky and there's incredibly there's much cheaper ways to do that for one tenth or 100th of the cost of what he did it so um yeah don't sort of think that you have to spend that sort of money to bring a product with one button and one lead and one micro to market right spend Grand start by makeing one at a time if you can if you can poet or swallow the uh you know the one cost instead of many costs oh which isn't much these days to do something like that cuz he designed a fully custom case and everything you know and things like that and he had a lot of help and he talks about patents and and as I have in a recent blog as well and uh yeah yeah so yeah it's highly yeah I highly recommend you listen to it I've also got a link to the video of it but it didn't seem to be working yesterday so okay I have to post that okay yeah that'll definitely be in the blog so uh if you're listening and and you have access to a computer or an iPhone or anything click on through click on through y well those guys are in think someone was oh go ahead uh I think someone was complaining that they couldn't get this um The Amp Hour podcast um on their iPhone something um yeah well if so let us know no sorry no it wasn't no it might have been my blog or something I don't know anyway it's early Sor I'm getting confused ah when you've got two blogs it's very yes two things how can we keep it all separate there just so many autographs and it's that's how it is right Dave oh absolutely when yes when when you're a YouTu now with the yes couple well we we love everybody who listens though anyways uh onto a a place that actually is pretty big uh Make magazine has a new podcast not new I just never knew about it I was kind of searching out podcast myself kind of just look looking to see what else is around and make has a really great podcast and it's a video and couple cool tutorial yeah I've seen it um a lot of the um yeah cuz they work full-time on it they've got full-time employees I think um Colin um sorry I forget his last name he's actually a fan of my uh blog and he actually watches it and we tweet occasionally and um yeah he he he does the uh videos well he does some and um that other guy um I think his name is um Kay um he does a lot of the um uh a lot of these tear down like oh no sorry how to make things from you know nothing you know well I guess guess that's a make thing and and but his videos get you know hundreds of thousands of views and uh yeah you know how to make a little you know laser death pointer or something like that out of something you got from the supermarket you know right yeah I never seen it before he works fulltime on those yeah I'd never seen it before that's pretty cool that they had those so yeah yeah check out it's good it's it's sort of not really consistent thing like uh mine it's kind of different you know it's kind of Oh They'll have somebody do one and somebody do another and they'll Link in other people's videos and stuff like that so yeah it it more is a a i I guess a Blog is is traditionally either saying something to yourself or or or submitting other material you know showcasing other material you found and right uh things like that whereas mine's all you know generated by me so right um I'm a oneman band where is there a big full-time business now make magazine so good on them yeah they've certainly got the resources to do it so well speaking of things people have found online how about our logo we have a uh a new logo now uh we do have a new logo yeah so it's actually uh if you go to the the the ow.com link here we have a couple uh cut and pastable pieces of HTML you can stick in your site there's uh yep big ones and small ones and things that have text on them so yeah and it's basically a uh it's basically a uh Earth globe thing with a microphone going around the globe and it's got Sydney Australia and Cleveland Ohio there in the US so it's got everything yeah and circuit board in the middle too yeah and um and also um we'll post photos of our well um I haven't done it yet I'll post a photo of my little recording studio I guess you could call it here um which is rather unusual today I was um annoyed by the echo uh last week because I'm in a tiny little room with square walls and uh no other Furniture apart from the desk really so it echoes pretty badly so I've put some um I've taken apart the lounge and I've put some cushions up behind my monitor and I haven't seen pictures of this yet but I cannot wait right it's going to look like a fort oh not quite there's only two cushions there I didn't go May next time you can have yeah I'll add some extra cushion so hopefully it's not as echoey this time but Yeahs um but if if you're thinking about doing your own podcast um just think about that um Echo is a big thing you know you really have to um you really have to go to a fair bit of effort to stop echoes in most rooms you know you put up heavy curtains and and you know egg curtain on the wall and I always love like when I learned about Echo I never really realized what it was that it's just a phase shift I mean it makes sense right but Eko is just and that or maybe that's Reverb Reverb is just a phase shift yeah yeah yeah eeko is actually a the sound wave bouncing back but then you get like the interference and everything and the shifting it's pretty cool that's how you can do it in software too oh yeah yeah you can do it in software and but it's hard to take out so if your if your recording's got an echo in it it's not true not easy to take out so yeah if you're thinking about doing a podcast you know you may have your super you know you may have a ,000 microphone but it's going to be no good if you're sitting in a crap room so yeah it's all important but yeah I still don't think my uh my mic my audio here is perfect but anyway well any tips send them over to Dave or me and we we'll try and get them in here more cushions more cion I'll be surround I'll be surrounded with cushions I'm telling you you got to build a fort you'll be fine okay next time I have to take another photo yeah yeah anyway that that photo W be up so okay good there you go so I got an email from uh Bill Meera he's the guy that does solder smoke I like I said before I was looking I was reaching out for other people that had podcast and we had talked to him we had talked about the show before and I was kind of reading through some of his issues and listening to some of his his uh his older podcast and he's actually been in Rome for the past couple years cuz he's a diplomat and he said he's all right okay that's CRA I mean that's crazy what a great like you know side not side job I guess podcasting is his side job and talking on the radio is a side job but or building radios because he's a ham guy but uh yeah he he's been in Rome and now he's on his way back to to Washington he said so he's gonna he's for all those listeners out there that have been waiting for him he's he's on his way back and he's getting his stuff soon he said so so we'll be looking to interface with him a lot hopefully excellent yeah um well i' I've known about solda smoke for years they've posted stuff on the on the forums and and and various things and um I I I don't think I've listened to a full one cuz it's yeah it is very ham radio sort of oriented I think but um yeah they put a lot of um effort into that and they they they sort of pioneered the whole thing oh yeah and from an analog perspective those guys are just rock stars I mean they can take like a transistor a rubber band and then like Bounce It Off the stratosphere and be talking to ex oh it's incredible I know yep that's so different to what I do it's justbe oh it's yeah you know just like an rate and stuff and an antenna well basically yeah um yeah RF you know I'm I'm not an RF guy that's that's that's not my thing but um yeah the an I I think one of them um don't quote me on this but I think one of them died a couple of years back um was tragically killed or something or something happened um yeah I I do remember that uh there was two of them it started out with two of them they were just ham radio operators you know discussing something and I think yeah um gez I hope I didn't get that wrong sorry if I did but um yeah I think that uh what may have happened which is pretty tragic um but obviously they they're still going so well back soon so that's good and uh hopefully we can bounce ideas back and forth with them you know podcasting wise yep and we're almost through our list of shout outs shout outs today have been extensive they're all over the place have you seen the uh so Matt Mets he uh I don't know how to say his his site sio I I'll link but uh i' I've I've seen the um I'm seen the poster you're talking about yeah it's about like resistors and the resistor colors I didn't realize what the I never saw the YouTube video and then I saw it had like 12 million views and I never got oh right I haven't I haven't seen I haven't seen the YouTube video send me that one oh yeah it's he he links to it on his site it's it's like some guy like freaking out about a double rainbow but you know like there's all these catchy memes and blah blah blah and so he he did that with resistor colors but he's uh he's selling that so if if memes and resistors are are your thing you can jump jump on that poster real quick go for it yeah and is that the end no we got one more shout out do we oh Jerry Ellsworth again yeah you've talked about her before but yeah I never our favorite chick yeah I've never realized she uh had a a live podcast just by herself and I clicked over to that when I was looking the other day and that's you know hopefully the shout outs will be less next time because I hopefully found all the podcasts out there but uh yeah she it was just like her working in her Workshop it was really weird and yeah and they always get about like 30 people view watching her fix a pinball machine or or just you know even if she isn't there the Nerds just chat among themselves you know oh sorry scientists they're called oh really yes she she she has a name for people who watch her program and they're scientist well I'm a nerd so I might not be allowed right okay yeah you must become a scientist to uh yes to be on the Forum there but hello to everyone on the Jerry osworth Forum they all love playing with with my the the Dave voicebot chat oh yeah yeah that's right you talked about that okay which I'm going to have to play I'm going to have to actually get my keyboard I'm going to have to program it up and I'm going to have to play some of my sounds and I'll probably have to do it on video though so well that works too it's hilarious yeah so the one last else we got one last event Open Source Hardware oh yes have you heard about that Open Source Hardware conference um uh I've heard about the um I haven't heard about the conference but I've heard about their um um the they're do they're coming up with this new open source uh like a draft right like a draft yeah what actually Open Source Hardware is yeah I think that's there's actually a copy of the draft on the website if you will we'll link that too but uh I think Phil terrone uh he started it and there's a couple other edits and stuff and and this is kind of like you look at the the list and it's like whoa these people are that's like all the that's like everybody so it's like 40 bucks to get in the who yeah it's pretty much the who's who of the Open Source Hardware industry you know all all these $10 million companies are you know all their yeah owners are all going to be there um but I've got to I've got to have a little rant here um I don't yeah I'm sorry but I don't necessarily agree with their definition of Open Source Hardware oh um why not yeah here we go because um they're saying that it must be under the Creative Commons which is great okay but it must be under the it must not be the non-commercial version it must only be the attribute only that means that you um can't apparently call your product open Hardware according to them at least if you if you uh use the non-commercial um attribute of the license which means that basically everyone's you know you're giving all your information for free it's open um that's my complaint is that you're opening your Hardware it's completely open same as all the other licenses but you don't allow anyone else to make money from it which I think is quite reasonable um you know I don't can you an examp all the info open so can you give an example of how that would work I mean so you're saying right now give the old way and and the way that you don't like okay the standard way is the attribution only okay um we yeah as I've I've mentioned this on my uh blog there's there's six different types of the uh license and the standard one is the attribution only so you put your information out there make it open everyone's free to copy it make money from it do whatever they want um all they have to do is give you credit for it okay that's it um but um there is also a oh there's also a non derivative version so no one's allowed to make a derivative product so if you make if you make a widget they can't make widget 2.0 right exactly um but that one is allowed under their so they're the two that are allowed under their open source definition um Open Source Hardware definition but there's a third option which is to actually um have a non-commercial thing applied to it which means the information is exactly the same it's open but uh you are not but nobody is allow nobody but you the copyright holder is allowed to make money from it okay so then it's like widget widget internal information is out there you know how the the guts of it work but you can't yep you can't produce your own you you can but you're not allowed to make a profit from that's the only thing just like um let's say the um Arduino right that is under the standard um attribution only um so you're allowed to make M you can take you can start selling 20 different or different kit companies right 20 different kit companies with arduinos and that's to fuel that industry but if it's just I think if it's just one your if it's just your one little product you know you've got a product for a niche market or something like that I think it's it's reasonable that some people might want to actually have the non-commercial aspect to it so that you know somebody doesn't come along and you know and sell the same product and undercut you on price and push you out of the market so I yeah I I didn't realize what side you were coming down on but now I I get it from that so now it's like now it's almost like the kit makers are getting to the size where they're trying to uh open it all up that their their volumes are making it worthwhile for them to to say these things exactly like if I have a new uh open source product and I and I release it under their open source definition does not open Hardware sorry um that doesn't include the non-commercial license then out of fruit or fun are free to go oh we love that kit we make it ourselves instead of paying any licensing or anything like that exactly and how am I supposed to compete with them um the only way I can protect it is to um or or you if you're making your open Hardware product is to trademark the name and then they're not allowed to use the name but they can copy your PCB they can copy everything right right but you know that's kind of interesting because you uh I mean you come down on the side of not looking P but that's almost like halfway to a patent you know what I mean it's it's not exactly a patent but it sort of is uh well it well no well I don't agree because you're still giving well you are kind of you're opening it up but I mean you do that a patent too you say okay well here's all my information then the patent office says okay here's your patent and no one else can make that which isn't really true so I understand what you're saying well the yeah but but the patent you don't actually give away all of your actual uh files to manufacture it you know whereas whereas an open source you're giving away your PCB file your schematic your bill of materials your whole you know your whole enchilada so well maybe there's more to it that we don't know about it though like maybe there's a reason for maybe there is yeah I'll tell I'm sure there is a reason so there is a chance I might be going to it oh okay there you go out then I'd probably try and get some uh some sound Clips while I'm out there and uh all right I'm actually going out for something else in in Boston but uh hopefully I'll be there around that time so excellent yeah well there you go yeah fantastic so if anyone else is going let me know too uh I don't know who who's listening and and might be going but if you are please shoot me an email or leave a message on the blog so yeah yeah but yeah that would be great so I'm not necessarily against their definition I just want to know their reasoning behind it cuz I think there's yeah I just you're right that that immediately pushes it that pushes it towards a uh you know a big fish he little fish kind of uh situation again it does because AR fruit or or spark fun could come out and manufacture your kit and put you out of business overnight and it's like micro scale to stop it's like a micro economy so yeah so yeah it doesn't really protect the little guy and I'm and the Surfs are beginning to protection sorry I said the Surfs are beginning to rot that's it yeah but yeah anyway so I'd love to know the reasoning behind that hopefully we'll hear I'm sure it's very philosophical argument you know that oh it should be Bigg is at work for the Arduino and all that sort of stuff and yeah but I don't you know it's there's no one blanket rule for all things that's why the creative comment licenses has has six different options in it um allows you to pick and choose which one so I think as long as you use the Creative Commons license heck it should be open but anyway I'm going to make a prediction real quick I think we're going to have a good bit of fun talking in you know a year or two from now when these kit makers start eating each other either uh they get into brawls because you know you see this coming with any company or they're going to start buying each other so keep an eye out here that that could happen once critical mass yeah I mean you know some of these companies are big they're like 1010 million you know spark fund is a $10 million plus compan I think so yeah once they get taken out bought out by someone you know heck I don't like you know if the founder of spark fun you know sold out I I certainly wouldn't blame him you know to build up a company and once you sell out that's you know you lose your core values and things like that right or or we're going to see like bigger vendors like the farnell's or the the digi Keys going and buying them because then they have a Part Source automatically too and they just get all the the cers well that's the thing fars and Digi are getting into this business farell have a new Arduino compatible board oh I I can't remember the name of it it's called yeah it's it's not called Arduino because it's I think the pin out yeah it's just yeah the board is exactly the same it's their compar so they've taken it because it's it's you know there's no license that says you can't manufacture your own yeah and yeah so F it's in the latest Fel uh catalog the monthly flyer thing okay so I'm sure I can post a link to that if you see a link [Music] copu who do you buy it from which one do you buy they're all going fight each other on price so I think you might be then China will jump in in some well exactly someone from but then you can't stop China it doesn't matter which license you use it's all over well speaking of that's a good segue I actually uh I talked to a friend who lives in China and I am thinking about trying to learn Mandarin for business and Fun and Profit I guess right yeah I mean like how how is that not a good idea right I mean I don't I've tried it once before well exactly we've at um work we in our Hardware group we've got a guy who speaks Mandarin and um yeah that's pretty much Essential really you when you're buying parts from all these Asian online dealers and you know he sits there in the chat window and you know always Skype and talks to them in you know talks them in Mandarin it's just yeah Advantage so yeah yeah I mean yeah it's just like it's just a reality of I mean we're kind of switching away from the microcosm of of hobbyist Market to the the macrocosm of electronics Industry but it's it's it's going to happen I mean like and and and then you see these art I have this other article here about you know people wondering uh you know Samsung there's all these articles about how Samsung's meant to outpace Intel in in 2014 it's like well of course of course they are you think you think you're going to keep buying stuff from Asian suppliers over over and over again and then you're going to be like oh I don't know how this happened oh what happened to us here you know like so yeah well let's let's let's talk about that Samsung Intel thing shall we yeah yeah definitely I mean there's well if you if you haven't seen it we'll post a link once again we we're fond of posting links here on uh on the ow and um yeah basically there's a new the ow.com there uh there's um yeah there's this uh graph and they've some conference thing some guy proposed that um Samsung within I think what 2014 2015 yeah 2014 will will surpass um Intel in sales and they' got this graph and you can see how they actually converge and um it's it's obvious that yeah it's happening based on the based on the you know the uh the sales data of the two companies and things like that and you can see I like the uh difference started out being as high uh it it yes start out being as high as 400% um difference in the sales of the two companies now it's 27% and it's going consistently going down so yeah they're good at making stuff well yeah cuz yeah Samsung make a lot of you know dams and Flash memories and things like that so they're getting into the market too I mean they make the iPhone uh chip right now I believe too the A4 arm processor yep the A4 one I think they might yeah so they make pretty much yeah anything you can think of they're they're probably involved in it so yeah and they get the pricing power too with like uh you know when you think about the people that actually make the equipment that makes chips then I mean why wouldn't you want to sell to Samsung I mean they're like they're monstrous so yeah exactly and the crazy thing so you might think they you know the average consumer you know you might think oh they just make you know TVs or something like that no they're huge in the semiconductor business so and the really crazy thing is they make everything over there they make there's toilets there's Samsung car oh really they are oneir of the South Korean GDP wow yeah that's that's unbelievable that is it is yeah I mean they're just conglomerate they're like one they're like one of the biggest conglomerates in the world so yeah don't think you're going to mess with them uh you know you think Intel's big and they are big don't get me wrong Intel's not going away the much the amds chrin even though they release that new product or the new uh chip line uh Intel's not going away but Samsung's getting bigger and and there's a lot of other companies from China on their tail I guarantee you that so and all the more reason for the US to protect South uh South Korea then I guess there you go bit politic I suppose yeah I guess I don't really have any opinion on that oh I've got an opinion on everything but we won't go there oh right right right well well I mean there's uh one thing that that we're definitely not protecting and that's that's of course jobs uh so that's another article I have here is uh just about you know there's it's a edn article actually about from the now here this blog but just how there's the repeated ignoring of Technology requ like requests that for funding about technology and stem programs and everything it's just you know one day you know they they did this with you know there's a lot of uh shock and outrage that oh my God Samsung's going to be bigger than Intel well it there's there's a lot more that's going to happen than that uh so if if you happen to be a politician and you're listening to this I guarantee you're not but if you happen to be wake up and smell the coffee people if you don't start you should have started funding things 10 years ago uh it's already too late so uh 20 actually 20 probably yeah yeah you should have started when China opened up to to capitalism and and it's a little too late but you know there's still time you can still get some some some Niche Industries I got I got cussed out for not saying Niche R yesterday I always say Niche yeah but uh that's all right yeah but I mean there there's still time but it they're they're not doing very well right now well I think I think the US government has always us industry has always thought well we're too big to fail AR you I think that's probably the old you know the oldfashioned yeah we're too big to fail nobody's ever going to come up and beat us and that was that's been true for 20 years but um that's clearly not the case anymore and they're going to get bittens so oh it's even worse than that I just saw this other article I linked here so there's another article about tsmc now coming to they're they're in Boston they're they're recruiting there so now they're coming back so all these all these student these young students from Taiwan mainland China uh you know South Korea they all come over to the US they do they you know they have spectacular grades they're great students they they get into MIT and Harvard and all these awesome schools and now tsmc is coming back and recruiting him right back over to to uh Taiwan and it's like of course they're going to do that of why would they got this I mean and and believe me that's not going to last very long because the schools in in China are getting so much better that they don't need to but they're coming over here and now the because of the uh you know the the H1B I don't even want to get into that stuff but the Visa policies and everything like that it's just easier for them to come over here and recruit all these kids back who are brilliant and it's like oh exactly go double whammy oh losing the people you know people taking the places in the universities that could be training you know could be training Americans that's the thing though I mean like these I mean the the people that are the the the kids that are are coming over here and they they deserve to be here they're they're brilliant kids you know they're doing they're doing the research that needs to be done and yet there's just not anything here for them to stick around so see you later they're recruiting a thousand kids this year so if you speak Chinese you're in a good place right now if you if you do technology and you speak Chinese you might not make as much in the US but you're not going to be paying as much to live over there either so absolutely that's another that's another one where Chris got worked up oh boy oh he's going internally berserk again gentlemen well I'll spend all my nervous or my energy hopefully learning Mandarin yeah but if you never thought of it you know start thinking about it yes oh yeah I don't think I'll go there I suck at foreign languages I really do there's no way I'm going to be able to learn it but um yeah DAV you tried have you tried English that sounds like a foreign language to you English oh oh well yeah yes apparently I don't speak Aussie no you don't speak Australian or H strin as it's called here oh nice okay never heard about that one strin because we slur our words together so aan becomes strin nice St oh yeah so and it's interesting the further towards the center of Australia you get the more slurring the words the faster the faster they talk and the more the words get slurred together so wow do you do you have an impression for us in the US when you go oh no no okay no okay okay yeah it it gets I think get lynched as you get as you get South it it gets kind ofly yeah the southern yeah the southern exactly I used to live in Texas how you doing yeah yeah howdy all right nice little tangent there yes well uh that brings up um the jobs market and things like that that brings up an interesting um I think we had that as one of our discuss points here is that how the you know jobs are declining and how graduates are supposed to be like what is it 1 in 70 UK yeah yeah there was oh that was in the UK was it yeah right right well that's that's that's crazy it's nothing like that here I mean it's really know where they're getting that yeah I don't know where they're getting their General figures from but I'm sure it's nothing like that in the US either well I don't even know but I think a lot of that could have been inflated too cuz when you have I mean in the US at least it's 10% unemployment so you got to fig for job people are throwing a resume at it regardless of if it it fits or not so a lot of that is actually noise I think so maybe yeah I think it is yeah there's yeah there's not much signal to noise ratio there I think so yeah and well interestingly um what I want to talk about today is I got a new Amazon Kindle oh really the BR yeah the brand new Amazon Kindle 3 and I'm going to have to do a review of it but I am absolutely Gob smacked but before I talk about that um which wasn't on the list here sorry I've throwing in this in as an as side don't want to throw you there Chris off off the cuff Dave off the cuff yeah off the cuff that's it uh we do have a list of stuff we might talk about in the podcast but yeah there there's certainly no script and no uh no logical order that's for sure so here we go I've thrown in from Left Field the Amazon Kindle which I think is a game changer um but let before I get um I my original reason to bring it up was jobs because um the Amazon Kindle is designed yeah designed by a company called lab 126 it's lab1 126.com and they're um a company they're an R&D you know uh company [Music] and the e in dis well they use the e in display they don't do the e in display but they they they just manufacture the Amazon Kindle they actually designed it I I I'm sure they write the software as well but they design the hardware and write the software and um they do the whole kitten and Kaboodle and if you go to their website and you look at the careers button list of jobs they have I there's a there's got to be 50 or more of them I'm I'm not even going to count them it's ridiculous firmware Engineers lead performance Engineers software development Engineers uh quality you know there's a few managers but most of them Hardware Engineers systems Engineers there's there's a university recruiter position so not only are they looking for graduates they're looking for a full-time University recruiter wow I guess they need some people and you see I just sped one audio system engineer that means I gu to bring in sound to it soon huh well yes the Kindle does sound it plays M3 is brilliant yes it's got lovely speakers on it I told you I'm going to have to do I looked there's not many reviews on the Kindle 3 um it's amazing so I'm going to have to do one I'll probably do a tear down as well but the my wife might kill me if I take it apart but so I'll probably do a separate review on this tear down yeah maybe once you get the Kindle four you can do a tear down exactly oh this is amazing I I mean you know I've heard about this eink um eink screen which they use you know but I've never actually seen one and this is the latest generation and I'm I'm telling you I am absolutely Gob smacked and I've been looking at um the you know the LCD technology progress for the last 30 years and this is a game Cher I really you think it is it is that I mean it's not going to it's not going to you know it's not going to surpass LCD but it enables nich applications like this and it's in in that respect it's a game Cher so it enables this thing has got a 1mon battery life I know that okay that that is spectacular that is insane that that is what sold me on this um and even if you turn on the Wi-Fi it's got Wi-Fi and um and uh mobile phone GSM it's like 3 weeks even with that but the display and and you open the box okay you open the box and they on the screen welcome you know it's it's already exactly it ships like that because it's not actually switched on cuz the image retains its um you know it actually retains the image even with the power off um so yeah they they actually ship it and you get it out of the box and there and and you think it's one of those peel off you know one of those STI but it's not it's the it's the real green and I you know this is a radio show I can't show you but if you haven't looked at the New Generation Um Kindle 3 oh have a look at the screen it is it is Gob smacking yeah do you know how that works there you go have you ever um it's I did look into it once don't quote me on this but I think it's carbon particles or something there's little particles they're suspended in some fluid or something like that and when you polarize It One Direction they float to the surface and then the light gets reflected off the black articles so you see that as a black dot and the other way it sinks oh okay I thought some of them uh I thought I thought they rotated but that makes sense too I thought they had rotated I'm not sure of the exact yeah I I haven't actually looked at the exact thing so don't cool I mean it's really cool but it's very cool it's completely different to LCD technology and I'm telling you you cannot see the pixels on here it is just it is insanely good and it looks like a real sheet of paper and it has a true uh 180° um spherical uh angle view it it's just yeah it is nothing like it looks like a real bit of paper it's just absolutely incredible anyway I am absolutely Gob smacked and I'm still trying to figure out all the features of this thing but that's pretty cool is cool yeah I know they they started putting textbooks on I I know some of the people at at my alma moer they actually started using that for textbooks yeah it's great I mean I've only got the smaller um the smaller screen version I've got the art of Electronics on here as a PDF document but because it's formatted as like a a large size book it doesn't fit on the screen very well you can still read it but it's very small font so you can zoom in and stuff like that yeah yeah yeah it's not as convenient so if you are going to if you do want one of these Kindles to view um you know data sheets PDFs and uh books that aren't formatted for the 6in screen then by all means get the 9in version so play the that can they do can you do podcast that um well it can play mp3s um but it's got a really it's it's sounds really good but um there's no actual media player in it so all you can do is turn it on actually I'll turn it on now here we go man Dave does love this thing doesn't he oh hang on hang on I got to switch it on first there we that helps it's see it's confusing cuz it had an image on the screen it was switched off so I thought it was actually on yeah I press alt space bar and there you go weird Yankovic weird hang on uh I've got the complete Collective works [Music] of wow well there we go we want to get caught for copy yeah we don't want to get caught for copyright we can't afford it we can't afford it yeah so my Kindle has the complete Collective works of weird yanic on it nice very nice I'm sure he he'll love the shout out I'm sure he's listening to yes love your weirdo oh yeah he one of my favorites he brilliant classic I always love the you ever see the movie UHF um I I haven't seen that in 20 years or something good I have DVD I love it all right oh that's that that reminds me I'll have to down I'll have to get it again and and watch it so yeah there you go all right that's the Amazon Kindle anyway all right yeah that's the uh that's the gadget review of the year for for theet review of yeah yeah cuz yeah radio doesn't let's talk geek guys are the Leo ports of the world yes radio doesn't lend itself to product reviews I'm afraid so yeah that's still pretty cool though I have to I have to check that out oh I'm I'm I'm stoked so you know I don't get excited about products like that too often what else have we got uh let's see well uh so I I've been kind of getting into like the creativity side of things lately uh kind of reading about that and I saw a really interesting article today about the creative economy you ever heard about that um uh yeah I've heard Snippets about this and I've I've seen the link you sent through and well tell us about it well basically it's that you know from now on I mean you think about what what you even talked about on here today about the EV we were talking about the kit manufacturers and how when China gets their hands on it it's all over right and I mean basic it's true I mean manufacturing is a commodity uh electronics are a commodity and now they're saying that even knowledge is a commodity where the to the point that uh you know we talked about that too you know the students are getting so good there's so many students worldwide that have learned so much that so you think about the availability of information today so take the art of electronics maybe if that book was around 40 years ago due to the availability of books and you know cultures and everything else MH only a small percentage of the world have access to that book but now today exactly in 2010 out there it's all out there it's in 30 different languages it's yeah easily you know people can rip that off the internet easily just as easily as they can get it you know from a book store and now so that information is everywhere so now knowledge is the new commodity basically well yeah I yeah knowledge is but it requires more than knowledge I think I think Talent is the real economy um because you know you got millions of engineering graduates right spewing out of the universities all over the world but are they talented you know are they you know yeah they've got their basic education but that doesn't mean that they're actually good at actually doing anything right that makes me question if I'm good though too you know am i t i I don't know we'll see it's um well because that's been my experience um in in general you know I don't know what the percentage is but probably pushing over 90% of the people I meet who graduate engineering degrees just don't have a clue and they don't have any interest and they don't you know and it's and it's sad and they all end up in sales or they just go onto something else and you know it's I I don't know if that's getting worse these days or whether it's getting better with as you say with all the knowledge that's out there you know and and people encouraging this sort of you know being creative and things like that yeah I don't know if it's getting better or not but yeah just because there's you know millions of people out there with the knowledge does not mean that they have the talent or the enthusiasm or the you know yeah the go the go getness to actually to yeah to actually carry it through um like you know how many electronics podcasts are there right there's two because how many people have bothered to get off their ass and do it how many electronics video blogs are there you know yeah it's um yeah well exactly there's it's I mean but that might but the thing is you know everything can get commoditized eventually right I mean if there's enough if there's enough demand out there I mean we don't know how much demand there is for this even like our own little radio show podcast thing but if you got to imagine if you know 300,000 people start listening it to like the Leo the port kind of shows right cross your fingers uh then eventually there there are going to be other people that enter the market that's just kind of like a economic system where you know it's efficient and that people are going to move towards towards where it is or even the the kit manufacturers people have enter the kit making business because they see an opportunity and they try and you know eek out a living doing that and so it's the same kind of thing I think so I we could say that now but basically I think the the article the article I was talking about was from Phil mckin he talks about Innovation and stuff and and uh and he has a podcast too actually but uh I think the thing is that you kind of have to keep coming up with stuff so you know maybe kits are the thing this year but maybe 10 down the road it's a completely hackable solution so like even like the chumby right chumby one y is a is a full scale solution that you can hack but maybe that's the new Norm or maybe it's something we can't even dream of right now so you know like well exactly but the um interesting thing about the chumbi Chum's Open Source Hardware you know it's fully open source but it's the only one the only open source hardware company which is Venture Capital funded I believe oh yeah so yeah they're getting you know they they got Venture Capital to set that up [Laughter] show me the money but interesting aside here yeah and interesting to side is that um uh personal manufacturing I'm I'm I'm a big belief that um you know in 10 years time pick and place machines it's starting to happen now pick and place machines and you know and actual manufacturing manufactur assembly equipment is getting so cheap and so it's almost getting down to the hobbyist level where the hobbyist can if they got enough space they can have their own pick and place machine Reflow soldering the whole you know uh past dispenser the whole works they can manufacture their own products inh house and I can see that happening a lot more rather than the Outsourcing side of things as you know as the prices come down for these machines they don't cost half a million dollars anymore they cost 10 grand right yeah no yeah it's um well I think that's kind of the that's kind of the idea because then eventually you think about it so every person say every electronics hobbyist has an entire setup in their house maybe because it's all made in one machine you know like CNC and circuit board manufactur somehow that all gets rolled into one thing the size of a maker box if everybody has that then what's left I mean nothing really Talent there you go talent talent enthusiasm and creativeness yeah it's it's not necessarily knowledge knowledge is you know knowledge is easy to get how how but how you actually apply that knowledge is a different thing entirely so yes okay we've got um another discussion Point here um a bogus another bogus energy harvesting scheme oh I love these did you get a chance to read that it was like I've I've I've got it open here I'm having a look at it now and um what is it a lightning thing it's not lightning it's just lightning not even lightning it's just uh static electricity out of the air you know there's ionosphere there's there's electrons floating around in the air and oh let's just pull them on down well sure yes no you know with no thought about the actual uh conversion efficiencies involved and things like that I'm sure so somebody's probably getting good funding for that I'm sure and and they're milking that for all it we and then they'll probably start a startup company based on their University Research and then they'll get grants and then they'll get rich and then they'll bail out cuz the company will fail cuz the IDE was a flopping yeah so the world goes around yep there you go that happened with you know good luck to him e store did you ever I I wrote about them a long time ago and kind of called him out the E store e store was this horrible horrible horrible uh SC scam and as far as I know they still haven't produced a single thing so you heard it here Chris Gamel is calling you out still e store you are full of crap I don't like to use that language that often I'm not Dave but uh you are full of crap uh basically I think they're full of too you go I don't know them but yeah I'll say they full of yeah well tell us a story basically they they say oh we've got this Ultra capacitor technology and we use this fancy new it's not even fancy it's like barium nitrate I'm not even sure what the uh the component is because i' I've ignored them basically I think they're so full of it and they're trying to do the shadowy oh well we have this great product coming out in two years and we already have contracts with blah blah blah and basically for the past two 2 and a half years I wrote about this when I started my blog and so that's been like 2 and a half 3 years now and they still haven't produced a single thing so they say oh we have interest from uh Ro not rock uh who's who's one of the big uh Aerospace guys North not northr the other one whoever that is North grm I don't know there's there's T which is huge but you're probably talking about the US ones right yeah sorry yeah whoever the other one is and they're saying oh we already have these military contact contracts and basically still there's nothing there was uh they were supposed to be put into this Zen Car which is another you know like all electric vehicle flat flat on their face so you heard it you heard it here I think they're full of it there you go but they're making but somebody got lots of venture capital and they probably still oh yeah oh they could tons yeah they were out of Austin that's why I've heard of them and and you know they got so much interest to the point where people were buying the stock of the the car that was supposed to have it in it because it was supposed to be some awesome technology and and and it it's uh you know you hate to see the scams but whoever gets whoever gets dumped on when they buy that stock they deserve it you know like sorry that reminds me um Silverbrook here in Australia Silverbrook it's one it's run by this nutcase guy he's been running it for um his actual name is Kia Silverbrook so the silver it's his last name um Kia Silverbrook and um it was a top secret uh research um Center which basically he his goal in life I believe is to become the world's largest patent holder okay like surpassing Edison and that Japanese guy and everything so they've got their own inhal he he came up with one idea for this um inkjet uh print head for use in mob you know micro you know highspeed page at a time um uh inkjet print head kind of things they they're like a nano scale silic print head or something anyway he came up with one idea and he patents like thousands of different variations of this idea and he's crazy and they haven't made a scent in I don't know how long it's been going 10 15 years now and the companies all the big uh printer companies I won't name names but they in they continue to invest in this they continue to hire they got hundreds of employees here in Australia and they they used to be very secretive before they came out about a year ago and they'll now finally admit how many employees they actually have cuz they used to hide how many employees they had they yeah they they actually used to cuz I went for a job interview there once and they used to hide um how much consumables they buy you know how much milk they buy for their employees less somebody figure out how much Venture Capital funding they've got if you know how many employees and all that sort of crap anyway they haven't produced a damn thing oh they've demoed a couple of uh print heads but they're ramping up to full production but they still haven't produced a damn thing so and you know what guess what companies it doesn't matter how many employees you have or how many patents you have until you have something that you're selling and you're making money yep you're not doing anyone any good except maybe your owner and whoever's milking it from you prover proverbially so yeah that was exactly but but my hat's off to him though for getting venture to continue to get Venture funding for so long so be yeah exactly so for some reason he's very good at getting money so there you go but yep haven't produced a damn thing not a sausage well that was another uh another thing I I would I get upset about you know you see all these you know I read the E times and the edn and you know I do it for you know not just work to try and get some technical articles but there's you know there's industry news there it helps here and it helps for you know buying stocks or whatever like that but I can't stand when all all the articles are like oh well well Intel miss their guidance and you know uh in infinion Miss it's like I this is this is a bit of a rant for me because you know I I always read about like Warren buff and all those guys and like I cannot believe that these companies basically they come out and they say we're going to make $2 billion next year why why do you say that why it's like what does that really do for you that does nothing for you you know like all it does is then at the next quarter when you say oh we made $1.9 billion you're worth 10% less for no good reason it doesn't change anything it's like why what are you doing like why and you know and why do you forecast why do you bother doing forecast I mean like the market demands it the market demands I guess so what's the market going to do what's the market going to do if you don't do that you know like so say you're not even Intel Intel's a ridiculous example say your you know linear technology or Analog Devices right great analog analog type of companies who cares you know like you're big but you're not that big uh who do you think people are going to stop buying you because you didn't tell them that you're going to make $300 million next year and then you make sales are going yeah there are companies like that the sales are going to be pretty darn consistent so it's yeah it's pointless giving exact figures but yeah I know that's that's big business for you who knows how it I think the other thing is too it's it's because you know there's people sitting around in finance departments and and Executive offices and they're like well we got all these numbers what do we do with them I guess I guess we should tell people huh it's like exactly it generates excitement and guess price up now you know right and then they go cash it out and then buy it when it drops next sem next quarter right yeah that that's the evilness of being a public company you know it's just oh you know day you build up your company and sell out just you know sure sell out to the company but don't hang around just take your money and go start another company go go little companies yeah yep absolutely so yeah yeah it gets it gets to size that's it's unrealistic I mean like I I I can't even imagine you know like people like we talked about HP before and how you know that guy's making $40 billion doar or they're making $40 million uh you know and it's exactly just for leaving yeah I I I don't get it I'll probably never get it because I don't want to do that stuff but but if you were offered 40 million bucks you'd take it too just like me yeah I guess so I don't know yeah you would come on then yeah yeah you'd take it and bug her off but the these people take it and they go well that's not enough I'm going to go do it again and again and again and oh yeah anyway what can you do well we can end the show on that sad sad note I think our 3600 cools are up I think they are I think they are well uh another good one thanks for joining us definitely yeah hopefully you're checking out the website once in a while we'll have some pictures up of the the labs I'm I'm reworking my lab actually again so I'll I'll put up new pictures after that and Dave's got his well mine isn't the lab mine is just my study so expect a photo of a table with a with a computer and a couple of cushions on that's right that's right sitting on top so yeah and uh also a reminder if you have a site or you want to make your profile picture on Facebook or something the amp hour you can uh find it on our site at the ow.com link here so that might be a bit unrealistic but uh you know we'd love you for it yes indeed okay catch you next time bye Dave