Space Flight? There’s an App for That

The cutting edge scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center have pushed the space agency forward in many ways through the years.  This week, they did so again by releasing a new tool to help us all keep track of them many things happening at NASA.  They released an iPhone app – and it is quite well done.  The app is free, and you can get it on the App Store from Apple directly to the iPhone and iPod Touch or within iTunes.

It is not at all surprising that the NASA app comes from the Ames Research Center.  ARC is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and the Innovative Partnerships Program at ARC has been the part of NASA that is most connected with developing cutting-edge technologies in partnership with the private sector.  The partnership with Google? – managed at ARC.  The partnership with companies developing a private ability to send supplies and people to the International Space Station? – managed at ARC.  The partnership with the venture capital community? – managed at ARC.

Making Better Decisions

Most of us are flooded with information in today’s world.  It’s no surprise: today’s information systems are capturing and digitizing more information EVERY DAY than has been collected in the entire history of the Library of Congress.

Schoolchildren with a basic knowledge of how to construct google searches are able to access detailed information about arcane subjects that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

When I was earning my MBA (in the dark ages of the early 80s), the core mantra in almost every class was avoidance of snap judgements.  The first thing to determine was how long the ultimate decision could be delayed, so as to use the maximum amount of time to gather all salient facts.  More facts (more data) could be used to make better decisions.  So, with all this data available on which to base decisions, today’s decisions must be the best in the history of mankind – right?

Thank You, Apple!

Thank you, Apple. I had a problem with my MacBook Air last week. After the upgrade to Snow Leopard, the Operating System was taking up 100% of the CPU cycles and leaving the machine unusable for me.

I took it to the Palo Alto genius bar, where I was told it needed a new logic board and thermal module. Since I always buy AppleCare, the repair would be free.

I checked in with them on Thursday, since I am off on a business trip tomorrow and I needed the Air for the trip. They apologized for taking so long with the repair and gave me a brand new MBA instead!

Since I had a current backup, there is no problem with putting all my information onto the new machine, which is what I am doing today.

This is excellent customer service.

Thank you Apple!