For someone who spent 14 years in a corporate research lab (seven of those in China) I don’t write much about research. Perhaps I should. One of the things that was obvious to me went I came East was that, given the scale of investment and the determinism and hard work going on, China would soon be catching up with the West in research. The numbers seem to be suggesting this will soon be true.

When I went to school the teachers had a kind of hit and hope approach to the teaching of English. (I mean “hit and hope” in the sense a careful aim was not taken. I do not mean I was hit. Ever.) As I recall there was very little teaching of grammar rules or sentence structure. We would write stories, they would come back with red pen on them and from that we were meant to learn something. You could call it learning by osmosis. As opposed to say maths or sciences which are based on learning rules and formuli.…

My first PDA was a Psion Series 3c. A classic. This was followed by a Series 5. Even better. And then a slightly mis-judged Series 7. Probably one of the World’s first netbooks; released in 2000. These machine were well designed and some what ahead of their time. In classic British fashion Psion managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and gave up the PDA market. They now live on as a supplier of industrial handhelds called Psion Teklogix. The Psion operating system (EPOC) was also ahead of its time: small, realtime, embedded.…

Do you browse Amazon? Do you know what information in your Amazon profile and viewing history is publicly viewable?