3min 20sec @techinsider clip - inside A #Warehouse Where Thousands Of #Robots Pack Groceries

Text from youtube "Ocado's new warehouse has thousands of robots zooming around a grid system to pack groceries. The thousands of robots can process 65,000 orders every week. They communicate on a 4G network to avoid bumping into each other. Is this the future of retail? "

‘I’m Not a #Hacker’, A Short Film About a Disgruntled #IT Technician

I'm Not a Hacker from THUNDERLAB on Vimeo.
found via laughing squid

2014 #MIT Tech Review #Digital Summit

6 take-a-ways from Jason Dorrier's excellent Singularity hub post on "Our hyperconnected future roundup of the 2014 MIT Tech Review Digital Summit" and 1 of my own











1) We won’t run apps, apps will run themselves, anticipating our needs and responding to voice or gesture.

2) Traditional devices will be replaced by a combo of devices embedded in our environment and worn on our bodies. 

3) Machines will be better at the cognitive parts of  professions (e.g. medicine - diagnosis and prescription)

4) The Internet of Things means almost everything will have a chip which measures and more efficiently and automatically controls our homes and cities. 

5) All these devices and systems in our homes will talk to each, coordinating their functions. 

6) “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” so in a world bristling with sensors and chips advertisers/government/hackers will know and exploit intimate personal data and in a network of 25 or 50 billion connected devices it’s easy to imagine a physical world as buggy as a laptop at the turn of the century.

and my own input

7) In the face of in world of global commercial entities local smaller geographically focused governments become increasingly powerless 

#Universal #Credit - Early Progress #Report by #NAO - not value for money in its early implementation

So the NAO has just posted today a progress report on this £2.4bn (to 2023) project which the Department for Work & Pensions is undertaking with the help of  Accenture, IBM, HP and BT. 

The NAO's conclusions don't make pretty reading - in summary they are:

- value for money in the early implementation has not been achieved;

- the programmes timetable and scope were over ambitious, risks were taken to try and achieve them, there wasn't an explanation of how the plans had been decided upon on and their feasibility wasn't evaluated;

- a new "agile" project management approach (typically used in small collaborative teams) was used on a project which grew to over 1000 people - and such an approach had never before been used on a programme of this size and complexity (the Agile approach uses iterative and collaborative project management);

- there was an absence of a detailed view of how Universal Credit was meant to work (you can see how this might lead to some problems in implementing a large IT system);

- there was poor control and decision-making which undermined confidence in the programme and contributed to a lack of progress;

- there was a lack of IT expertise and senior leadership and frequent changes in senior management (5 senior responsible owners since mid 2012)

The NAO's recommendations focus unsurprisingly on: Producing a  realistic plan with clear programme objectives, linked to policy design & service requirements; Using a management approach that allows policy experts, operational teams & systems developers to work together; establish effective governance processes & structures; Tightening financial management & control over spending; Re-assessing existing programmes & capabilities in light of the experience on Universal Credit.


But what was the root cause of the failures found and underlying issues identified?


In my opinion much of what has gone on seems to have been caused by a familiar story as concerns large projects and early announcements about them being:

-  initiated by high flying strategy wonks who are largely driven by political or news management imperatives and who won't be in the firing line if it all goes horribly wrong;

- based on little consultation with implementation grunts and a surprisingly low level of specific detail in the feasibility studies upon which the announced costs and timescales are based.


In other words - if you want to give a project a good chance of succeeding then have a detailed scope with corresponding cost and programme estimates 


(ht to wikipedia for the image)