Computational Power of the Universe

Having spent the past 75 hours without Internet access, I've had a chance to think a little bit more about the expansiveness of the universe and where we're going in it.  This is a little bit off topic from the nonlinear app, but maybe not so off topic...

What is the computational power of the universe if all matter could be harnessed for computing and how long will it be before we get there?

Here are some back-of-the-napkin calculations:

Computations per second per kg of matter
There are already some thoughts on this.  Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity Is Near discusses quantum computing and the theoretical limit of 1 kg of matter being able to process computations per second (CPS).

Matter in the universe
Using Sir Fred Hoyle's estimation of matter in the universe, based on a steady-state universe, we end up getting kg.

OK, so handy multiplication gives us CPS / kg x [mass of universe] or

Total computational power of the universe:

CPS

or 800 googol CPS... at that amount, we can probably be safe to say 1 googol FLOP.

Extending Moore's Law - that the power of processing doubles every two years - beyond the end of transistors, we need to find out how many doublings we need to accomplish to get to this large number.  First, we need to know what is today's record.

Current computing record
The record holding computer as of today is the K Computer at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe (record set June 2011 - written here October 1, 2011 and soon to be very dated).  The processing power of this computer is 8 PetaFLOPS or CPS.

Time until we reach the computational power of the universe
If we let n be the number of doublings until we get to this level, we get this:







 doublings

Multiplying n  by two to get the number of years:

 years

So, in 246 years, we'll reach the computational power of the universe of more or less a googol calculations per second.  The year will be 2257 in the Gregorian calendar, 1678 in the Muslim calendar, 1636 in the Persian calendar, and 6018 in the Hebrew calendar.

Of course, there are some huge assumptions with these calculations:

• The numbers used above are correct
• Moore's Law will continue to hold
• We can get access to distant matter for computing
• I haven't made any ridiculous & glaringly obvious math mistakes
• I'm not missing other hugely obvious assumptions

Enjoy... and happy 5772!

PS - Some interest readings:

The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
Wikipedia on the Observable Universe
Wikipedia on Moore's Law
Japan Reclaims Top Ranking on Latest TOP500 List of World’s Supercomputers

Version 1.4 Released!

I just pressed the "release" button on version 1.4 of nonlinear.  This is really exciting.  I think that you'll see a huge jump in stability and the Dropbox integration should make it much easier to use the app.


I'm eager for your feedback!

nonlinear 1.4 in the works now

We've been testing the next version of nonlinear and there are even more changes for the better:


Super-solid performance. The flake factor is going from flour-less chocolate cake to sponge toffee
Quicker load times. Imported files will load faster.
Smooth drawing. No jaggy lines or high latency - just smooth lines for easy drawing during a presentation.
New price. At $4.99, it makes it easier for people who are budget-conscious but appreciate being able to give nonlinear presentations to purchase the app.  For those who bought the app at $9.99, you are brave souls who put a lot of faith in nonlinear. Thank you. I want to make sure that you get a continuously improving experience and that one day you can proudly tell your great grandkids that you were one of the first to get nonlinear. 


And the one I'm really excited about...


DROPBOX INTEGRATION!  That's right. You'll be able to load in files from your Dropbox account wirelessly. Dropbox has created some very generous technology and we wanted to make it easier to use this with nonlinear.


In What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly described the creation of new technology and this process has manifested itself very quickly in nonlinear's development.  There have actually been 5 versions of the app (not all were released) and many internal incremental versions.  Also inline with Kelly, you can look out for some news ways of being able to help advance nonlinear.


And as was suggested by Guy Kawasaki in Rules for Revolutionaries: CHURN, BABY, CHURN! We started with a frail app and now we're looking at something really exciting.

Thank you!

Our free-app fundraiser for Acumen Fund was a resounding success. Over $1,000 was raised as a result!

The app is now back up on price - but things may change again. Now, several thousand people are using nonlinear.

Thanks for your support!

Starting tomorrow - nonlinear is FREE

Starting tomorrow, nonlinear will be FREE for 500 downloaders.  On top of that, for each download, $2 will be donated to Acumen Fund.

I've been inspired by Chris Anderson's Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing and the work being done by Acumen Fund. There are more excited changes in the works for nonlinear, but this pricing will be start.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this!

iOS 4.3 support and more ideas

Today, we all heard very exciting news about the iPad 2 and iOS 4.3.  nonlinear will be tested on this and an update released soon.  What excites me most about the iPad 2 is the HDMI output.  This will make it that more exciting to play back high quality videos and images during non-linear presentations.

What else?  9x the graphic processing and 2x processing power should make the app that much swifter.

Of course, as is all the rage these days, Keetsy will have it's own big announcement soon.

$1,000 for Acumen Fund!

Thank you, nonlinear-ers!

By downloading nonlinear, you've helped raise $1,000 for Acumen Fund. $2 from every purchase of nonlinear in the App Store goes to the fund.

That goes a huge way for this amazing organization. Acumen Fund reinvests that money into projects in the developing world. It's not a charity - it's for giving people an opportunity to become independent.

Watch the video below or go to acumenfund.org to learn more.

New version of nonlinear now available!

nonlinear v 1.3 is now available for download from the App Store!

Download it here.

Release date for V. 1.3 - February 18, 2011

The release date for nonlinear version 1.3 is Friday, February 18, 2011!

This release gives:

- Changeable backgrounds
- A presentation timer
- Reliable performance and stability
- Easier to use interface

One of the things that I'm excited about is that you can recommend nonlinear to a friend and they'll get a free promo code if one's available.

I'll get right to it... here are some screenshots from the new version.

Video Preview of nonlinear v 1.3

nonlinear v 1.3 is just about ready to be submitted for approval from iTunes. You can get another look at what's coming here:

Presentation Sample for v. 1.3

The next version of nonlinear will include a sample presentation for getting the hang of the app. This will hopefully make using the app more intuitive. Here's another sneak peak (may take a few moments to load):

Coming Revisions

Version 1.3 of nonlinear is underway right now and I'm really excited about some of the changes that are coming. A few books have influenced me over the past year and this influence will be part of the next versions:

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Seth's book discussed “The Resistance” - the lizard brain of ours that keeps us back by spicing our dreams with fear so that we don't pursue them. This fear is insidious as it uses logic and reason to keep us from pushing through difficult phases to achieve a goal.

The fact that v. 1 of nonlinear was launched is largely due to this book. There were many reasons to keep back v. 1 or even scrap the project altogether but launching and enduring the pain of bugs was necessary to get to v. 1.3.

Rework

The original concept of The Digital Talking Pad called for a lot of features – an ability to send presentations to other, track how long people spent on each slide, and linking between different slides. Although it was never intended to have all the features of the original concept put into the first version of the iPad app, after reading Rework, even the original concept was boiled down to the essential elements – allowing for the delivery of non-linear presentations.

From Rework, I got that the number of bells and whistles isn't as important as the functionality of those bells and whistles. With nonlinear v. 1.3, this is the focus – making the absolute best tool for giving non-linear presentations using the iPad. Faster loading, more stability, easier to follow interface – these will be the improvements coming up in the next version. Going forward, changes are going to improve the core of the app.

What Technology Wants

While this an incredibly interesting on its own, the take away that is going towards v. 1.3 is that technology evolves. First versions barely work, which was the case for nonlinear v.1. However, they will improve. It gave me more confidence to pursue these later versions.

The Point

"Get to the point."

Our distributor is sitting in the back of the room staring at me, moving his index finger in a rolling fashion.  The room is filled with ten grad students, a handful of professors, and a dean, all of them whisphering to each other.  The word whisper is a difficult word to pronounce in Hebrew for a reason. I've lost them.  Between my broken Hebrew and too long of an introduction, they're in their own world.

Then they all stop.  On the screen in front of them, a robot arm is bouncing a ball off of a ping pong racket.

They're back!  Now we discuss the way we made this happen...

There's a time and place for State of The Union addresses and keynote talks.  Most of the time, presentations are made to a gaggle of people with dissimilar motivations for listening. Being able to adapt quickly by skipping over to juicy parts then coming back to main points is the difference between communication and frustration.

Quick Guide for Importing Files to nonlinear

Here are some quick tips for importing files to nonlinear:

To get a PowerPoint/PDF/Keynote file into nonlinear:

- connect your iPad to your computer

- in iTunes, select your iPad then go to the apps tab

- at the bottom of this tab, select nonlinear

- press the add button

- select the PowerPoint/PDF/Keynot file to add

Back in nonlinear on the iPad...

- select a new presentation or select load saved presentation

- select import files

- your powerpoint or other files should now appear on the list

- select it and then press Import and Edit

Tada!

I should have a video up with the next release of nonlinear - more details coming on that soon!

New Version Ready!

nonlinear v 1.2.1 is ready! This version is a big improvement on the first version: the ability to import from iTunes directly to the app, PowerPoint and Keynote support, and quicker loading.

Grab it here.

What’s new? 

Version 1.2 adds the following exciting features: support of PowerPoint, Keynote, and Bitmap files; ability to import files through iTunes; ability to delete nonlinear presentations and imported files; easier navigation when creating a nonlinear presentation; more stability when running the app; built-in feedback button to get quick support. This new version significantly improves the experience of making and running non-linear presentations.

Running a nonlinear

I’ve been fortunate to run a few presentations to clients using the nonlinear app. This type of presentation lends well to one on one meetings or group discussions where opening up a laptop and presenting a PowerPoint would look awkward and way too “selly”.

From my limited experience, the less one looks or sounds like a cheese ball during a meeting where one gains financially from the other party’s purchase, the better for everyone.

In his book Influence: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini mentions that being associated with good news makes one appear good as well. I extend this to thinking that being associated with cool technology makes one appear cooler. At least, this is how I feel when I take out the iPad to start a nonlinear presentation. People have a look that borders on awe and envy. This effect will diminish within a few months.

Without an external monitor, nonlinear has been effective as a way of pointing out different videos or pictures related to a specific topic. With the Apple iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter, attention focuses back from the iPad to the content of the presentation.

I’m eager to hear people’s experiences with the app. Is this app a killa’? … or is it killin’?

Quick TIps for nonlinear

Some useful and interesting feedback is starting to come in on the use of nonlinear. It’s very exciting to see people come up with ideas that you’ve never thought of. People’s imagination and creativity amazes me.

Here are some tips for working with nonlinear.

How do I load my PowerPoints / Keynotes? – You can’t yet directly load PowerPoint or Keynote files into nonlinear [update: yes, you can now]. Instead, you need to:

(1) export them as PDFs
(2) upload those PDFs to some type of webhosting; and,
(3) use the “Download from Web” option in nonlinear to enter the URL and download the PDF. This ability is being worked on now.

Can’t erase files - Nope, you can’t. Not yet. [update: yes you can now!] If you’ve created a presentation, you can delete all the slides in the presentation. This is coming soon.

Video doesn’t play - This might be very frightening, but if you can play the video using the video player that comes with iPad, there’s a quick fix to get it to work properly in nonlinear. Resetting the device clears cache and a memory problem that prevents videos from playing in some apps. To reset an iPad, hold down on the home button and power button at the same time for three seconds.

No web hosting - currently, to get PDFs onto the device, you’ll need to upload your PDF to the web and then download it using the “Download Files” feature. Web hosting can cost between $2 – $10 / month for your own domain, but there are a few free web hosting sites for you to temporarily upload your PDFs to. One that I’ve tried out and seems to work well (though they try to sell you things) is webs.com .

If you have any tips or questions, you can send them directly to info@keetsy.com.

Introduction to Seth

Matt has had a very positive influence on me. We worked together many years ago, separated by a bluish gray cubicle wall, wondering about doing bigger things with our lives. So much amazing technology was blooming around us and we felt so static. Imagining the possibilities and the excitement of what was out there got us through our days.

Matt left the company. He got me a job at the company he went to after he left there. While I moved away, we kept in touch every few months and exchange phone calls.

After I moved away from Ottawa, I started to take up reading. Matt suggested to me a few books by Seth Godin and Seth’s blog. This was 2006.

I started to read Seth’s blog… and I read and read and read. Every post, every link. I took out his books from the library. For my birthday, I asked my girlfriend (now wife) to buy me The Dip. When Seth released Tribes, I bought it immediately and got access to the Triiibes website. On Squidoo, Seth’s lens site, I started making lenses and am now a “Giant Squid 100”. You could say I’m a fan.

Almost every morning, I wake up to Seth’s posts. In February, when he posted about the Digital Talking Pad, I thought it was an interesting idea but I thought a million people would jump on it. In June, when Seth posted about it again, no one had pulled the trigger. It was just around the time I was ready to take on a new project – something different.

This is why nonlinear is now a real app. Thank you, Seth, for the idea.

Thank you, Matt, for introducing me to Seth.