One of the best methodology available for product innovation is called the "Blue Ocean Strategy".  In order to reduce trial and error with moving things forward the following is noted  "Ninety percent of businesses fail within ten years. In almost any other context, that would be a shocking statistic. But it’s something the entrepreneurial community seems to accept as standard. If you want to minimize the randomness and trial and error in creating new market space, follow these five systematic steps so that you maximize the chances of hitting the bulls-eye."

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As we all know, SDN has carried the buzz in networking for the last 5 years or so. One of the communities that emerged early was Opencontrail started by Juniper Networks. While there is a lot of interest from Telcos and some enterprises, Opencontrail has very little vendor inputs since it was seen as a Juniper dominated community.

However, that should change with the community now part of the Linux Foundation and having a new name "Tungsten Fabric".  Here is the release from SDXCentral.com. 
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The OpenContrail open source network virtualization platform, previously hosted by Juniper Networks, has completed its move to the Linux Foundation. And it’s got a new name — Tungsten Fabric.
Randy Bias, VP of technology and strategy at Juniper Networks, said, “We went through a long process to figure out the name.” But ultimately the group chose “Tungsten Fabric” because tungsten is a very strong metal that’s unlikely to break down even as part of a fabric. 
The move to the Linux Foundation should provide a clear distinction between the open source code of Tungsten Fabric versus the commercial Contrail products offered by Juniper. “Historically, there’s been a challenge between the commercial version and open source version because they were always exactly the same,” said Bias. “People were never sure which side of the fence they were on.”
In fact Juniper’s decision in December 2017 to move OpenContrail to the Linux Foundation came after criticism that the code wasn’t really that open.
“We’ll be one of the biggest consumers of Tungsten Fabric,” said Bias. “For the current state, there’s no difference between Tungsten Fabric and OpenContrail in terms of feature sets. In the future, we don’t see there being any functional differences between them.”
Tungsten Fabric’s mission is to build a cloud-grade, software-defined networking (SDN) stack that provides a network fabric capable of connecting diverse environments. Contributors and community members include Aricent, AT&T, Bell, Cavium, Intel, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, Mellanox, Mirantis, Netronome, and Orange, among others. Read More

Here comes Stratum which is an evolution of  switch data plane management. This approach leverages P4 and moves away from the classic OpenFlow protocol.

Here is what the ONF says of the project "Stratum is an open source project to develop a reference implementation for white box switches supporting all next generation SDN interfaces. It will provide a silicon-independent switch operating system that allows a switch to be controlled by a local or remote Network OS (NOS) via P4, P4Runtime and OpenConfig."

Read more details on the stratum site - Project Stratum

This seems to build off the work done on CORD @ on.lab

Ran into this exciting new Robotic solution for building which significantly reduces the time taken and effectively reduces cost as well.

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Can technology create quality homes at a fraction of existing cost? Its great to know that its possible to make homes for less than $10,000 using 3D printing technologies. This reminds me of the $300 house movement started at MIT. 

We all know that with the emergence of many technology types, its really possible give most humans on this planet a very good quality of life if only we had the social structures in place to accomplish this.

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How could poor countries develop better systems to eliminate poverty? It seems that having the right balance of systems and approaches could ignite the innovative potential of these countries.

According to an HBR Article - Inclusive Growth: Profitable Strategies for Tackling Poverty and Inequality
"The situation is far worse in the developing world. Although growth has raised the standard of living in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, more than a billion people remain in extreme poverty and outside the formal economy. This is especially true in countries with large rural populations, where smallholders are shut out of the supply chains of nearby food companies because they lack knowledge of modern agricultural practices and the means to access and finance needed technology inputs. Developing nations also suffer from massive talent gaps. Large numbers of young adults are unemployed, while corporations find planned expansions stymied by a shortage of skilled local workers." 

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Are you afraid of AI taking over? Well, there maybe ways they will do so without being overlords so to speak.  It may just replace humans in certain jobs.

In the last few years, machine learning has seen real applications including the field of computer vision. Check out this new Amazon Store that was building on these technologies.

What do you think of this? Share your views?

CES 2018 will start this coming Monday January 9th, so expecting lots of chatter around areas like Machine learning, Self-Driving cars and many others.

Here is one site to check and follow during the show - Techradar

Do you have a report to share or favorite gadget from CES 2018?
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The whole concept of 3D printing is well established and the overall hype has died down to some extent nowadays. The goal then is to now find practical solutions that solves real world problems. 

One area to explore especially in developing countries is the concept of reducing waste notably plastic while creating real manufacturing solutions. 3D printing is a good candidate but does have special requirements in terms of material composition. Thankfully, there are solutions emerging such as the ProtoCycler Product. Popular Science did a great article on how this product came about - Feed Your 3D Printer Recycled Plastic.
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While this is great and a step in the right direction, the next phase is to push more open source solutions to reduce the overall cost significantly.