https://baisil.com Articles on AI, system design, software architecture, and learning out loud, written by Baisil Geevarghese. en-GB Copyright 2026 Baisil Geevarghese noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) Fri, 01 May 2026 08:48:06 GMT Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT 1440 https://baisil.com/icon.svg https://baisil.com https://baisil.com/blog/the-ipl-secret-nobody-talks-about-its-not-just-cricket-anymore/ https://baisil.com/blog/the-ipl-secret-nobody-talks-about-its-not-just-cricket-anymore/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Millions watch IPL for entertainment. But behind every ball, something far more powerful is shaping the future of decision-making. AI IPL AI Future Cricket Data Technology Decision Making noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/tariff-shock-what-it-means-for-tech-2026/ https://baisil.com/blog/tariff-shock-what-it-means-for-tech-2026/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Tech stocks are in freefall. Supply chains are being repriced overnight. Everyone is talking about tariffs. But underneath the noise, there are some quieter questions worth sitting with. Tech Industry Tech Industry Opinion Global Tech AI Economy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ai-agents-everyone-building-nobody-using/ https://baisil.com/blog/ai-agents-everyone-building-nobody-using/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI agents are the most talked-about thing in tech right now. Every company is announcing one. But when I look at what people are actually doing with them day to day, the picture is much quieter than the announcements suggest. AI AI Agents Opinion Tech Industry Future of Work noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/the-end-of-it-dependency-ai-makes-everyone-a-builder/ https://baisil.com/blog/the-end-of-it-dependency-ai-makes-everyone-a-builder/ Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Ten years ago, businesses called an IT vendor when something needed building. Today, an individual with a laptop and an AI tool can do what an entire outsourcing team once could. The dependency chain is collapsing. Most people have not noticed yet. Future of Tech AI Opinion Tech Industry Future of Work Automation noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/claude-leak-2026-post-mortem/ https://baisil.com/blog/claude-leak-2026-post-mortem/ Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT The March 31st exposure of Anthropic's internal architecture is not merely a corporate data breach. It is the definitive collapse of the "Security through Obscurity" model that has governed Silicon Valley for the last decade. AI Security AI Security Opinion Anthropic Cybersecurity noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/perplexity-computer-week-review-2026/ https://baisil.com/blog/perplexity-computer-week-review-2026/ Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Perplexity Computer launched in February 2026 at $200 a month. I used it every day for a week across research, writing, and code tasks. Here is what the reviews are not telling you. AI Tools AI Tools Review Perplexity Agents noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ai-in-healthcare-not-just-hype/ https://baisil.com/blog/ai-in-healthcare-not-just-hype/ Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI in healthcare sounds perfect on paper. Faster diagnosis, less admin, smarter systems. But when you look closer and see how hospitals actually operate day to day, things get complicated fast. AI and Healthcare AI Healthcare Opinion Technology NHS noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/future-of-ai-in-healthcare-systems/ https://baisil.com/blog/future-of-ai-in-healthcare-systems/ Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Healthcare AI is at an inflection point. The architecture that served hospitals for decades is colliding with AI capabilities that demand a different approach. Here is what that means in practice. AI and Healthcare AI Healthcare System Architecture Data noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/what-ai-tool-should-i-use-as-a-developer/ https://baisil.com/blog/what-ai-tool-should-i-use-as-a-developer/ Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini. Every developer is asking the same question right now. I am not going to tell you which one to pick. I am going to help you think about it properly. Developer Tools AI Developer Tools Opinion Career Productivity noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/state-of-ai-march-2026/ https://baisil.com/blog/state-of-ai-march-2026/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Three years after ChatGPT, the AI landscape has clarified considerably. What has worked, what has not, what the current frontier looks like, and what I think happens next. AI AI LLM State of the Industry 2026 noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/do-you-need-a-certification-to-work-in-ai/ https://baisil.com/blog/do-you-need-a-certification-to-work-in-ai/ Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Everyone seems to be chasing an AI certification right now. But I keep asking myself the same question: does a certificate actually prove you can do the work? My honest answer might surprise you. Career AI Career Certifications Learning Opinion noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/the-enterprise-ai-gap/ https://baisil.com/blog/the-enterprise-ai-gap/ Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI capability has advanced rapidly. The gap between what organisations have access to and what they are successfully deploying is stubbornly wide. The reasons are not technical. AI AI Enterprise Adoption Strategy Engineering noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/llm-integration-patterns-enterprise/ https://baisil.com/blog/llm-integration-patterns-enterprise/ Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT After two years of integrating language models into enterprise systems, clear patterns have emerged for what works and what causes problems. From prompt management to cost control to compliance. Architecture LLM Enterprise Integration Architecture noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/what-2025-got-right-and-wrong-about-ai/ https://baisil.com/blog/what-2025-got-right-and-wrong-about-ai/ Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Predictions made at the start of a year rarely survive contact with events. Reviewing what the forecasts said and what actually happened teaches more than the forecasts themselves. AI AI Industry Reflection Agents Predictions noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/designing-resilient-distributed-systems/ https://baisil.com/blog/designing-resilient-distributed-systems/ Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT I have been involved in enough production incidents to have strong opinions about what makes distributed systems resilient. The patterns are not complicated. The discipline to apply them consistently is. Architecture Distributed Systems Resilience Architecture System Design noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/open-source-ai-closes-the-gap/ https://baisil.com/blog/open-source-ai-closes-the-gap/ Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT The argument for open source AI used to be mostly about control and cost. By late 2025, capability had joined that list. AI AI Open Source LLMs Engineering Strategy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/hidden-costs-of-production-ai/ https://baisil.com/blog/hidden-costs-of-production-ai/ Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT The cost discussion around AI applications almost always focuses on inference. Once you are at scale, inference is rarely the most important cost. AI AI Engineering Production Architecture Costs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/the-problem-with-shipping-ai-features/ https://baisil.com/blog/the-problem-with-shipping-ai-features/ Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT A team builds a prototype. The prototype is impressive. They ship it. User adoption is lower than expected. The team is confused because the prototype worked well in testing. AI AI Product Engineering UX Adoption noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/when-everything-became-multimodal/ https://baisil.com/blog/when-everything-became-multimodal/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT The models that emerged in the first half of 2025 made the text-in, text-out assumption obsolete for most practical purposes. Here is what that actually changes. AI AI Multimodal LLMs Voice Vision noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/mcp-protocol-agents/ https://baisil.com/blog/mcp-protocol-agents/ Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT Anthropic's Model Context Protocol landed in late 2024 and by 2025 had become the standard way to connect AI models to tools and data sources. Here is why it matters and how it works. AI Engineering MCP AI Agents Claude Anthropic Integration noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/what-changed-when-intelligence-got-cheap/ https://baisil.com/blog/what-changed-when-intelligence-got-cheap/ Thu, 08 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT The price of a million tokens from a frontier model dropped by roughly ninety percent over 2024. The downstream effects of that are still working through how products get built. AI AI LLMs Product Economics Engineering noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/reasoning-models-what-changed/ https://baisil.com/blog/reasoning-models-what-changed/ Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT OpenAI's o1 series and DeepSeek's reasoning models demonstrated that thinking before answering produced significantly better results on hard problems. The implications for how we use LLMs are still being worked out. AI o1 DeepSeek Reasoning AI LLM noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/rag-is-harder-than-it-looks/ https://baisil.com/blog/rag-is-harder-than-it-looks/ Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT Every introduction to retrieval-augmented generation shows the same four-step diagram. Building it in production involves considerably more decisions than four. AI AI RAG Architecture LLMs Engineering noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/agentic-ai-production-2025/ https://baisil.com/blog/agentic-ai-production-2025/ Tue, 18 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT Two years after AutoGPT made agents seem imminent, the production reality is clearer. Narrow agents with human oversight work. Fully autonomous agents are still research. Here is the honest picture. AI AI Agents LLM Production AI Engineering noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/llm-landscape-start-of-2025/ https://baisil.com/blog/llm-landscape-start-of-2025/ Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT At the start of 2024, GPT-4 was the clear benchmark. By the end of it, the picture had changed considerably. Here is what actually shifted. AI AI LLMs Machine Learning Industry noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gemini-2-year-end-ai-review-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/gemini-2-year-end-ai-review-2024/ Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT Google released Gemini 2.0 in December 2024. The release closed a year that had delivered serious capability progress and even more serious complications. AI AI Gemini Google Year in Review 2024 noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ai-2024-us-election-deepfakes-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/ai-2024-us-election-deepfakes-2024/ Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT The 2024 US election was the first national election in the era of widely available generative AI. The doomsday scenarios about AI-generated misinformation were less consequential than expected. Technology AI Election Deepfakes Misinformation Policy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ai-nobel-prize-physics-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/ai-nobel-prize-physics-2024/ Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT In October 2024, Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for foundational work on artificial neural networks. AI AI Nobel Hinton Hopfield Research noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/openai-o1-reasoning-models-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/openai-o1-reasoning-models-2024/ Fri, 13 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT In September 2024, OpenAI released o1, a model family that traded latency for reasoning capability. The capability tradeoff was different from anything previous frontier models had offered. AI AI OpenAI o1 Reasoning LLMs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ai-engineering-new-discipline/ https://baisil.com/blog/ai-engineering-new-discipline/ Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT Something new emerged in 2024 that sat between software engineering and machine learning but was not quite either. Building reliable products on top of language models required skills and patterns that had not existed before. AI AI Engineering LLMOps ML Engineering AI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/crowdstrike-global-outage-fragility-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/crowdstrike-global-outage-fragility-2024/ Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT A faulty update from CrowdStrike took down approximately 8.5 million Windows machines globally. The outage was not a security event. It was a software quality event with security infrastructure consequences. Technology Security CrowdStrike Windows Outage Infrastructure noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-intelligence-integration-question-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-intelligence-integration-question-2024/ Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT At WWDC 2024, Apple announced Apple Intelligence. The pitch was about integration into existing apps rather than a standalone product. The question was whether the integration would be enough. AI Apple AI WWDC Apple Intelligence On-Device noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/local-llms-ollama-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/local-llms-ollama-2024/ Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT Ollama made running large language models on your own machine genuinely accessible. One command to download and run Llama 3. For data-sensitive applications, this was significant. AI Tools Local LLMs Ollama Llama AI Privacy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/llama-3-meta-open-source-bet-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/llama-3-meta-open-source-bet-2024/ Fri, 19 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT Meta released Llama 3 with stronger benchmarks and the same permissive licence. The case for open source AI as a serious frontier strategy got considerably more solid. AI AI Llama Meta Open Source LLMs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/claude-3-nvidia-market-cap-2024/ https://baisil.com/blog/claude-3-nvidia-market-cap-2024/ Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT In early March 2024, Anthropic released the Claude 3 model family and Nvidia briefly overtook Apple in market capitalisation. The two events were related more than coincidental. AI AI Claude Anthropic Nvidia Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/multimodal-ai-vision/ https://baisil.com/blog/multimodal-ai-vision/ Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT GPT-4 with vision capabilities arrived in late 2023 and became widely available in early 2024. Being able to show the AI a screenshot and ask questions about it changed more than I expected. AI Multimodal AI GPT-4V Computer Vision AI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2024-humane-ai-pin-hardware-moment/ https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2024-humane-ai-pin-hardware-moment/ Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT CES 2024 was full of AI hardware. The Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 generated significant attention. Whether the form factor was real, or whether it was a moment, was the question underneath. Technology CES AI Humane Hardware Wearables noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-gemini-launch-year-end-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-gemini-launch-year-end-2023/ Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT In December 2023, Google launched Gemini and claimed it beat GPT-4 on multiple benchmarks. The year that ended with that launch had been the most consequential in AI history. AI AI Google Gemini LLMs Year in Review noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/openai-altman-fired-rehired-saga-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/openai-altman-fired-rehired-saga-2023/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT The OpenAI board fired Sam Altman on a Friday afternoon. Five days later he was back as CEO. The episode revealed more about AI governance than years of regulatory hearings had. AI OpenAI Sam Altman Governance AI Microsoft noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/openai-devday-platform-vision-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/openai-devday-platform-vision-2023/ Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT At its first developer conference, OpenAI announced GPT-4 Turbo, custom GPTs, and a vision for becoming the platform on which the next generation of applications would be built. AI AI OpenAI GPT-4 Platform Developers noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/llm-agents-early-days/ https://baisil.com/blog/llm-agents-early-days/ Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT AutoGPT went viral in April 2023. Agents that could autonomously break down goals into tasks and execute them looked like the next leap. Six months later, the gap between demo and production was clear. AI AI Agents LLM AutoGPT AI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/mistral-ai-european-bet-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/mistral-ai-european-bet-2023/ Sat, 26 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT A French startup founded by former Meta and DeepMind researchers raised one hundred and five million euros in seed funding. Europe finally had a serious AI play. AI AI Mistral Europe Open Source Startups noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/llama-2-open-source-shift-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/llama-2-open-source-shift-2023/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT In mid-July 2023, Meta released Llama 2 with a licence permitting commercial use. The open source language model conversation became substantively different overnight. AI AI Llama Meta Open Source LLMs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/vector-databases-guide/ https://baisil.com/blog/vector-databases-guide/ Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma, Qdrant: vector databases went from niche to essential infrastructure in 2023. Here is what they actually are, why they exist, and when to use one. AI Infrastructure Vector Databases Embeddings AI Search noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/hinton-leaves-google-ai-safety-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/hinton-leaves-google-ai-safety-2023/ Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT In May 2023, Geoffrey Hinton left Google to speak more freely about the risks of AI. The reaction depended significantly on whose work in the field you took most seriously. AI AI Geoffrey Hinton Safety Risk Ethics noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/rag-architecture-explained/ https://baisil.com/blog/rag-architecture-explained/ Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT Retrieval Augmented Generation solved the problem that made LLMs risky for most business applications: they confidently hallucinate facts. RAG grounds responses in real documents and it changed what enterprise AI actually looked like. AI Architecture RAG LLM Vector Databases AI Architecture noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gpt4-released-new-benchmark-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/gpt4-released-new-benchmark-2023/ Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT OpenAI released GPT-4 in March 2023, four months after ChatGPT. The capability gap with what had come before was substantial enough to reset expectations again. AI AI GPT-4 OpenAI LLMs Multimodal noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-bard-fumbled-demo-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-bard-fumbled-demo-2023/ Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT Google announced Bard at a hastily scheduled event. The demo contained a factual error. The market reaction was immediate. AI AI Google Bard Bing Search noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/chatgpt-100m-users-microsoft-bet-2023/ https://baisil.com/blog/chatgpt-100m-users-microsoft-bet-2023/ Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT In late January 2023, ChatGPT reportedly crossed 100 million monthly active users. Within days, Microsoft confirmed an additional ten billion dollar investment in OpenAI. AI AI ChatGPT Microsoft OpenAI LLMs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/chatgpt-launch-what-happened/ https://baisil.com/blog/chatgpt-launch-what-happened/ Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT ChatGPT launched on 30 November 2022. I tried it within hours. One million users in five days. One hundred million in two months. I have been thinking about what happened ever since. AI ChatGPT OpenAI AI Language Models noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/chatgpt-launches-everything-changes-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/chatgpt-launches-everything-changes-2022/ Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. Within five days it had a million users. Within two months it had a hundred million. AI AI ChatGPT OpenAI LLMs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/musk-twitter-takeover-complete-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/musk-twitter-takeover-complete-2022/ Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT On October 27, 2022, Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter and walked into the headquarters carrying a sink. The next several months would be unusual. Technology Twitter Elon Musk Social Media Acquisition noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/stable-diffusion-open-source-ai/ https://baisil.com/blog/stable-diffusion-open-source-ai/ Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT Stability AI released Stable Diffusion openly in August 2022. Within weeks it was running on consumer hardware, generating images that would have seemed impossible a year earlier. The implications were not simple. AI Stable Diffusion AI Image Generation Open Source noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/stable-diffusion-open-source-ai-art-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/stable-diffusion-open-source-ai-art-2022/ Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT In August 2022, Stable Diffusion was released as open source. The capability could now run on a personal computer with a decent GPU, and the implications spread quickly. AI AI Stable Diffusion Open Source Image Generation noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/tech-layoffs-accelerate-correction-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/tech-layoffs-accelerate-correction-2022/ Mon, 25 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT By July 2022 the layoffs were happening at a pace that had stopped being newsworthy at the individual company level. The cycle had clearly turned. Technology Layoffs Tech Industry Economy Hiring noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/lamda-sentience-ai-consciousness-debate-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/lamda-sentience-ai-consciousness-debate-2022/ Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT A Google engineer claimed that LaMDA, the company’s large language model, had become sentient. The claim was almost certainly wrong. The conversation it produced was useful anyway. AI AI LaMDA Google Consciousness Ethics noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/terra-luna-collapse-crypto-winter-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/terra-luna-collapse-crypto-winter-2022/ Fri, 13 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT In a few days in May 2022, an algorithmic stablecoin called UST broke its peg and the associated token Luna lost nearly all of its value. The shockwaves rolled through the crypto industry for the rest of the year. Technology Crypto Terra Luna Stablecoin Markets noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/elon-musk-twitter-bid-saga-begins-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/elon-musk-twitter-bid-saga-begins-2022/ Mon, 25 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT In late April 2022, Elon Musk announced an offer to buy Twitter for approximately $44 billion. The saga that followed would define social media for the rest of the year. Technology Twitter Elon Musk M&A Social Media noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/nft-crash-web3-skepticism-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/nft-crash-web3-skepticism-2022/ Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT By March 2022 the NFT market was visibly cooling. The skepticism that had been suppressed during the boom was suddenly the dominant narrative. Technology NFT Web3 Crypto Bubble noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/starlink-ukraine-tech-in-conflict-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/starlink-ukraine-tech-in-conflict-2022/ Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT Within days of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials had requested Starlink terminals. The role of commercial satellite internet in active conflict became real in a way it had not been before. Technology Starlink Ukraine War Communications SpaceX noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2022-metaverse-products-2022/ https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2022-metaverse-products-2022/ Sat, 08 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT CES 2022 was a hybrid event with reduced attendance. The pitch on the show floor was metaverse hardware. The reality was a chip shortage that did not care what you called your products. Technology CES Metaverse Chips Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/log4shell-open-source-fragility-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/log4shell-open-source-fragility-2021/ Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT A vulnerability in a Java logging library produced one of the most consequential security incidents in years. The library was maintained by a small group of volunteers. Security Security Log4j Open Source Vulnerability Supply Chain noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/github-copilot-first-impressions/ https://baisil.com/blog/github-copilot-first-impressions/ Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT I got GitHub Copilot access in the technical preview in June 2021. By November I had strong opinions about what it actually was and was not. It is not a replacement for a developer. It is something different and more interesting. Developer Tools GitHub Copilot AI Developer Tools Productivity noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-becomes-meta-metaverse-bet-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-becomes-meta-metaverse-bet-2021/ Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT Facebook renamed itself Meta and committed to spending tens of billions a year on the metaverse. The bet was both about the future of computing and about what to call the company that was making it. Technology Meta Facebook Metaverse Zuckerberg VR noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/low-code-platforms-who-builds-software-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/low-code-platforms-who-builds-software-2021/ Wed, 22 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT By late 2021 the low-code and no-code conversation had reached a level of seriousness that earlier waves of similar ideas had not. The reasons were less about the tools and more about who had the time. Technology Low-Code No-Code Power Platform OutSystems Citizen Developer noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/web3-honest-assessment/ https://baisil.com/blog/web3-honest-assessment/ Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT In 2021 it was impossible to work in technology without having a view on Web3. Here is mine, formed after actually building things with Ethereum and Solidity rather than just reading about it. Industry Web3 Blockchain Ethereum DeFi noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/github-copilot-ai-coding-begins-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/github-copilot-ai-coding-begins-2021/ Thu, 08 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT GitHub announced a technical preview of Copilot in late June 2021. The reaction from developers was unusually polarised, and unusually informative. AI GitHub Copilot AI Programming OpenAI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-att-privacy-advertising-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-att-privacy-advertising-2021/ Mon, 21 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT Apple’s App Tracking Transparency had been announced in 2020. By the middle of 2021, the data on what it was doing to mobile advertising was finally arriving. Technology Apple Privacy Advertising iOS WWDC noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/crypto-crash-elon-tweets-may-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/crypto-crash-elon-tweets-may-2021/ Thu, 20 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT Bitcoin dropped roughly half its value in a few weeks. The triggers were specific. The lesson was about how exposed the market had become to single voices. Technology Crypto Bitcoin Markets Elon Musk noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/coinbase-ipo-crypto-mainstream-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/coinbase-ipo-crypto-mainstream-2021/ Thu, 15 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT Coinbase went public in April 2021 at a valuation that briefly exceeded $85 billion. A cryptocurrency exchange had become a Wall Street story. Technology Coinbase Crypto IPO Bitcoin Finance noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/beeple-69-million-nft-explosion-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/beeple-69-million-nft-explosion-2021/ Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT In March 2021, a digital artist sold an NFT at Christie’s for almost $70 million. The sale was a financial event. The interesting question was about what had actually been sold. Technology NFT Crypto Beeple Digital Art Web3 noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/clubhouse-audio-social-moment-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/clubhouse-audio-social-moment-2021/ Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT For a few months Clubhouse was the social network everyone was trying to get into. The invite-only model created urgency. The product underneath did not last as long as the hype. Technology Clubhouse Social Media Audio Product noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gamestop-wallstreetbets-reddit-2021/ https://baisil.com/blog/gamestop-wallstreetbets-reddit-2021/ Fri, 29 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT A subreddit drove the price of GameStop stock up by an order of magnitude. The mechanics were a finance story. The infrastructure underneath was a technology one. Technology Reddit Finance GameStop Discord Retail Investing noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/salesforce-buys-slack-saas-consolidation-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/salesforce-buys-slack-saas-consolidation-2020/ Fri, 04 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT Salesforce announced it would acquire Slack for $27.7 billion. The deal said something about Slack and something larger about where the SaaS market was heading. Technology Salesforce Slack SaaS M&A Enterprise noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-m1-shocking-benchmarks-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-m1-shocking-benchmarks-2020/ Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT Apple shipped the first Macs with M1 chips in November 2020. The benchmark numbers that came back were the kind that made you check your testing methodology twice. Technology Apple M1 Silicon Benchmarks Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/low-code-platforms-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/low-code-platforms-2020/ Thu, 08 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT Every vendor was selling low-code in 2020. Some teams I worked with used it to genuinely transform their processes. Others created unmaintainable nightmares. The difference was in how they approached it. Tools Low-Code Power Automate Digital Transformation No-Code noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/nvidia-acquires-arm-chip-architecture-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/nvidia-acquires-arm-chip-architecture-2020/ Tue, 15 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT Nvidia announced a $40 billion deal to buy Arm from SoftBank. The chip industry, which had been quietly consolidating for years, suddenly had everyone paying attention. Technology Nvidia ARM Semiconductors M&A Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/tiktok-ban-apps-become-political-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/tiktok-ban-apps-become-political-2020/ Sat, 08 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT In August 2020, an executive order targeted TikTok. The questions about app ownership, data, and national borders were no longer theoretical. Technology TikTok Policy China Geopolitics Apps noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gpt3-the-world-changed/ https://baisil.com/blog/gpt3-the-world-changed/ Mon, 20 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT OpenAI released GPT-3 access to beta users in July 2020. I got access in August. The first hour with the API was unlike any other hour I had spent with a technology. Something had genuinely shifted. AI GPT-3 AI Language Models OpenAI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-silicon-end-of-intel-inside-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-silicon-end-of-intel-inside-2020/ Tue, 23 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT At WWDC 2020, Apple announced it would transition the Mac line to its own ARM-based chips. The move had been rumoured for years. The execution was about to be the interesting part. Technology Apple Silicon M1 Intel Hardware WWDC noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gpt3-arrives-text-ai-new-level-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/gpt3-arrives-text-ai-new-level-2020/ Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT OpenAI announced GPT-3 with a paper that quietly changed expectations of what language models could do. The API waitlist filled fast. AI AI GPT-3 OpenAI NLP LLMs noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/covid-digital-transformation/ https://baisil.com/blog/covid-digital-transformation/ Wed, 15 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT Years of digital transformation strategy documents achieved less in five years than COVID-19 achieved in five weeks. Here is what that tells us about how organisations actually change. Industry Digital Transformation Remote Work Cloud Healthcare Tech noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/remote-work-explosion-zoom-becomes-verb-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/remote-work-explosion-zoom-becomes-verb-2020/ Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT In a few weeks, the entire knowledge economy moved into video meetings. Zoom went from a competent enterprise product to a verb. The infrastructure underneath was not ready. Technology Remote Work Zoom COVID Collaboration noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/tech-conferences-cancelling-covid-2020/ https://baisil.com/blog/tech-conferences-cancelling-covid-2020/ Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT Mobile World Congress was the first major conference to cancel. The signal it sent was less about the conference and more about the months that were about to follow. Technology COVID Conferences Technology Industry noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2020-last-conference-before-everything-changed/ https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2020-last-conference-before-everything-changed/ Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT CES 2020 was full of AI demos and concept cars. Six weeks later most of the people walking those halls would be working from their kitchens. Technology CES AI Technology 2020 noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/decade-review-2010s-technology-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/decade-review-2010s-technology-2019/ Sat, 28 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT The decade began with smartphones still being a new thing and ended with them being the primary computer for most of humanity. That single shift explains most of what the 2010s did to the world. Technology Technology Decade Review Mobile Social Media Reflection noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/disney-plus-streaming-wars-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/disney-plus-streaming-wars-2019/ Thu, 14 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT Disney+ launched on November 12th 2019, and within hours it was clear that the streaming landscape had fundamentally changed and Netflix was no longer the only service that mattered. Technology Disney+ Streaming Netflix Media Entertainment noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-quantum-supremacy-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-quantum-supremacy-2019/ Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT When Google published its quantum supremacy claim in Nature in October 2019, the paper had already leaked, IBM had already objected, and the argument about what the result actually meant was already underway. Technology Google Quantum Computing Sycamore IBM Computing noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/iphone-11-a13-neural-engine-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/iphone-11-a13-neural-engine-2019/ Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT The iPhone 11 and the A13 Bionic chip were announced in September 2019, and the detail that stayed with me was not the cameras or the speed but the neural engine running eight trillion operations per second. Technology iPhone Apple A13 Machine Learning Mobile AI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gpt2-full-release-ai-text-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/gpt2-full-release-ai-text-2019/ Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT When OpenAI finally released the full GPT-2 model in August 2019 after months of staged rollouts, it prompted a genuine reckoning with what capable language models actually meant. AI OpenAI GPT-2 AI Language Models Machine Learning noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-ftc-fine-five-billion-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-ftc-fine-five-billion-2019/ Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT The FTC fined Facebook five billion dollars in July 2019, the largest fine in the agency's history. The stock price went up on the day of the announcement. Technology Facebook FTC Privacy Regulation Fine noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-libra-crypto-backlash-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-libra-crypto-backlash-2019/ Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT When Facebook announced Libra in June 2019, the reaction from governments and central banks was immediate and visceral in a way that most tech announcements simply do not produce. Technology Facebook Libra Cryptocurrency Regulation Finance noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/kubernetes-production-lessons/ https://baisil.com/blog/kubernetes-production-lessons/ Tue, 14 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT Running Kubernetes in a lab is manageable. Running it in production for a year is an education. Here are the things I wish someone had told me before we started. Infrastructure Kubernetes DevOps Infrastructure Production noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/galaxy-fold-5g-launch-problems-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/galaxy-fold-5g-launch-problems-2019/ Mon, 22 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT April 2019 was supposed to be the month foldable phones and 5G both arrived in earnest. One of them had a better debut than the other. Technology 5G Samsung Galaxy Fold Mobile Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-services-pivot-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-services-pivot-2019/ Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT The March 2019 Apple event was the clearest signal yet that the company had accepted its hardware growth era was maturing and was betting its next decade on subscriptions. Technology Apple Services Apple TV+ Apple Card Streaming noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gpt2-alarm-bells/ https://baisil.com/blog/gpt2-alarm-bells/ Thu, 21 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT OpenAI released GPT-2 in February 2019 and refused to release the full model, citing misuse concerns. I read the generated samples and understood why. Something had changed. AI GPT AI NLP Language Models noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2019-foldable-phones-future-2019/ https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2019-foldable-phones-future-2019/ Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT CES 2019 arrived with foldable phones at the centre of every conversation, and for the first time in years the question of what a phone could be felt genuinely open again. Technology CES Foldable Phones Samsung Mobile Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/tech-industry-chill-end-of-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/tech-industry-chill-end-of-2018/ Tue, 11 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT The end of 2018 felt different from the ends of the years that had come before it. The confidence that had characterised the tech industry for a decade was showing cracks. Technology Technology Industry Layoffs Regulation Market noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/react-hooks-rethinking-state/ https://baisil.com/blog/react-hooks-rethinking-state/ Wed, 07 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT Dan Abramov announced React Hooks at ReactConf 2018. The room went quiet, then the Twitter responses started. Hooks changed how we write React components more profoundly than anything since the library launched. Frontend React Hooks Frontend JavaScript noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-plus-shutdown-lessons-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-plus-shutdown-lessons-2018/ Tue, 09 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT Google announced the shutdown of Google+ in October 2018 following a data exposure it had chosen not to disclose. The product had failed years earlier. The disclosure situation was new. Technology Google Social Media Product Failure Platform noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/voice-assistant-wars-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/voice-assistant-wars-2018/ Tue, 18 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT By late 2018, Alexa was in hundreds of products, Google Assistant was on more phones, and Siri was on more devices than either. Nobody had figured out what people actually wanted to do with them. AI Voice Assistants Amazon Google Apple Alexa AI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-first-trillion-dollar-company-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-first-trillion-dollar-company-2018/ Mon, 06 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT Apple became the first publicly traded US company to reach a one trillion dollar market capitalisation on August 2, 2018. The milestone invited a question worth asking. Technology Apple Business Technology Market Cap iPhone noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gdpr-first-month-what-changed-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/gdpr-first-month-what-changed-2018/ Tue, 10 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT GDPR went into effect on May 25, 2018. The internet did not break. The cookie banners arrived. The actual enforcement took longer. Technology GDPR Privacy Regulation Europe Data noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-duplex-ai-phone-calls-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-duplex-ai-phone-calls-2018/ Tue, 12 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT At Google I/O, a recording played of an AI making a haircut appointment by phone. The AI said um and uh convincingly. The reaction was complicated. AI Google AI Voice Duplex Natural Language noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/gdpr-changed-how-we-build/ https://baisil.com/blog/gdpr-changed-how-we-build/ Fri, 25 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT GDPR came into force on 25 May 2018. The software industry spent the preceding year either preparing carefully or panicking. I saw both approaches close up. Here is what actually changed. Data & Privacy GDPR Privacy Compliance Data noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-cambridge-analytica-zuckerberg-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-cambridge-analytica-zuckerberg-2018/ Wed, 11 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT Mark Zuckerberg testified before the US Congress in April 2018. The questions revealed how poorly most legislators understood the business they were attempting to regulate. Technology Facebook Privacy Cambridge Analytica Regulation Data noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/jamstack-static-sites-comeback/ https://baisil.com/blog/jamstack-static-sites-comeback/ Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT Static sites were considered old fashioned. Then JAMstack arrived and suddenly static was the sophisticated option. Pre-rendering, CDN distribution, and decoupled architecture made it interesting again. Frontend JAMstack Static Sites Frontend Performance noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/falcon-heavy-spacex-new-space-race-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/falcon-heavy-spacex-new-space-race-2018/ Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy on February 6, 2018. Three boosters, two of which landed simultaneously. A Tesla Roadster as the payload. It was serious engineering wrapped in theatre. Technology SpaceX Rocket Space Engineering Elon Musk noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/meltdown-spectre-cpu-vulnerabilities-2018/ https://baisil.com/blog/meltdown-spectre-cpu-vulnerabilities-2018/ Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT Two vulnerabilities disclosed in January 2018 affected nearly every processor made in the last two decades. The fix itself caused performance problems that took months to understand. Security Security CPU Intel Vulnerability Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/bitcoin-peak-blockchain-mania-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/bitcoin-peak-blockchain-mania-2017/ Tue, 19 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT Bitcoin touched nineteen thousand dollars in December 2017. The conversations happening around it revealed more about the moment than the price chart did. Technology Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Blockchain Bubble Finance noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/net-neutrality-fight-fcc-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/net-neutrality-fight-fcc-2017/ Wed, 22 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT The FCC was preparing to vote on eliminating net neutrality rules. The debate was about internet infrastructure. The stakes were about who controls what you can access online. Technology Net Neutrality Policy Internet FCC Regulation noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/bitcoin-mainstream-consciousness-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/bitcoin-mainstream-consciousness-2017/ Mon, 16 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT Bitcoin crossed ten thousand dollars and suddenly everyone had an opinion. The technology had been around for years. What changed was who was paying attention. Technology Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Blockchain Finance Technology noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/equifax-breach-data-security-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/equifax-breach-data-security-2017/ Tue, 12 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT Equifax disclosed that 143 million Americans had their personal data stolen. The data was not optional to provide. Nobody had chosen to give Equifax anything. Security Security Data Breach Privacy Equifax Infrastructure noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/css-grid-finally/ https://baisil.com/blog/css-grid-finally/ Tue, 22 Aug 2017 00:00:00 GMT Fifteen years of hacking layouts with floats, then flexbox. Then CSS Grid landed in browsers in early 2017 and two-dimensional layouts became something you could just do. Frontend CSS Frontend Layout Web noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/alphago-retires-ai-milestone-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/alphago-retires-ai-milestone-2017/ Thu, 27 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT DeepMind announced AlphaGo would play no more competitive matches after defeating the world number one. The interesting question was never whether it could win. AI AI DeepMind AlphaGo Machine Learning Go noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/arkit-wwdc-augmented-reality-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/arkit-wwdc-augmented-reality-2017/ Thu, 08 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMT Apple announced ARKit at WWDC 2017. No headset required. No special hardware. Just the iPhone already in hundreds of millions of pockets. Technology Apple ARKit Augmented Reality iOS WWDC noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/python-data-science-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/python-data-science-2017/ Sat, 20 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT R had been the data scientist's language for years. Python had always been a strong contender. By 2017 the debate was effectively over. Here is what tipped it. Data Python Data Science Pandas Analytics noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-f8-camera-platform-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/facebook-f8-camera-platform-2017/ Thu, 20 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMT At F8 2017, Zuckerberg declared the camera would be the primary way people share. Two years after Snapchat, Facebook was making the same bet. Technology Facebook AR Social Media Camera Platform noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/vault-7-cia-hacking-tools-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/vault-7-cia-hacking-tools-2017/ Thu, 09 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT WikiLeaks published thousands of documents describing CIA hacking capabilities. The implications were less about espionage and more about the software we all rely on. Security Security CIA Hacking WikiLeaks Privacy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/tensorflow-ai-for-engineers/ https://baisil.com/blog/tensorflow-ai-for-engineers/ Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT Google open-sourced TensorFlow in late 2015. By 2017, it had become the default framework for machine learning. What made it special was not the algorithms. It was the engineering. AI TensorFlow Machine Learning AI Python noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/amazon-echo-smart-speaker-ces-2017/ https://baisil.com/blog/amazon-echo-smart-speaker-ces-2017/ Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT CES 2017 was full of screens and gadgets as usual. But the product everyone kept coming back to was a small cylinder that just listened. AI AI Voice Assistants Smart Home Amazon CES noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/fake-news-platforms-end-of-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/fake-news-platforms-end-of-2016/ Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT The end of 2016 closed with a question that the technology industry had been avoiding. What were the platforms responsible for, and what were they not? Technology Misinformation Facebook Platforms Election Media noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/aws-reinvent-lambda-serverless-moment-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/aws-reinvent-lambda-serverless-moment-2016/ Wed, 30 Nov 2016 00:00:00 GMT At AWS re:Invent 2016, Lambda had been generally available for two years. The conference made it clear that serverless was no longer a curiosity. It was a category. Technology AWS Serverless Lambda Cloud Architecture noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/graphql-versus-rest/ https://baisil.com/blog/graphql-versus-rest/ Wed, 05 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT Facebook open-sourced GraphQL in 2015. By 2016, the developer community had split into two camps. I was in the sceptical camp. Then I built something with it and changed my mind, partly. API Design GraphQL REST API Design Backend noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-2016/ Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 GMT The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 launched in August 2016 and was recalled by September after units started catching fire. The replacement units also caught fire. The product was eventually killed. Technology Samsung Note 7 Hardware Recall Manufacturing noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/pokemon-go-augmented-reality-mainstream-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/pokemon-go-augmented-reality-mainstream-2016/ Mon, 15 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT In the summer of 2016, Pokémon Go did something augmented reality had been struggling to do for years. It became a mass cultural phenomenon almost overnight. Technology Pokémon Go AR Augmented Reality Mobile Gaming Nintendo noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-promise/ https://baisil.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-promise/ Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT Google pushed hard on Progressive Web Apps in 2016. Service workers, offline support, push notifications, and home screen installation. The vision was compelling even if the execution was uneven. Frontend PWA Mobile Frontend Performance noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/brexit-tech-industry-uncertainty-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/brexit-tech-industry-uncertainty-2016/ Tue, 28 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT On June 23, 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The technology industry’s reaction was a mix of immediate market panic and longer-term planning that would take years to play out. Technology Brexit UK Europe Technology Policy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-io-2016-assistant-home-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-io-2016-assistant-home-2016/ Thu, 19 May 2016 00:00:00 GMT Google I/O 2016 introduced Google Assistant and Google Home. The strategy was about more than chasing Amazon. It was about positioning for the next way people would interact with computers. Technology Google I/O Google Assistant Google Home AI noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/kubernetes-why-it-won/ https://baisil.com/blog/kubernetes-why-it-won/ Mon, 18 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT In 2016 there were three serious container orchestration systems. By the end of the year, Kubernetes was clearly winning. Here is why it beat Docker Swarm and Apache Mesos. Infrastructure Kubernetes Docker Infrastructure DevOps noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/alphago-defeats-lee-sedol-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/alphago-defeats-lee-sedol-2016/ Tue, 15 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMT In March 2016, DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol four games to one. One of those games contained a move so unusual that Go commentators stopped talking when it was played. AI AI AlphaGo DeepMind Go Machine Learning noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-vs-fbi-encryption-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-vs-fbi-encryption-2016/ Sun, 21 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT The FBI demanded Apple help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers. Apple refused. The case forced a debate that had been theoretical to become specific. Security Apple FBI Encryption Privacy Policy noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2016-vr-arrives-properly-2016/ https://baisil.com/blog/ces-2016-vr-arrives-properly-2016/ Fri, 08 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT CES 2016 was the show floor where consumer virtual reality stopped being a research project. The Oculus Rift had a confirmed launch date. The HTC Vive was demonstrable. The category was real. Technology CES VR Oculus HTC Vive Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/streaming-takes-over-end-of-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/streaming-takes-over-end-of-2015/ Fri, 18 Dec 2015 00:00:00 GMT By the end of 2015, the shift from owned media to streaming had reached a tipping point that would not reverse. The infrastructure was ready. The expectations had changed. Technology Streaming Netflix Spotify Media noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/es6-javascript-changed/ https://baisil.com/blog/es6-javascript-changed/ Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT Arrow functions, destructuring, promises, modules. ES6 arrived in 2015 and suddenly writing JavaScript felt like writing a real programming language. Frontend JavaScript ES6 Frontend noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/android-marshmallow-microsoft-surface-book-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/android-marshmallow-microsoft-surface-book-2015/ Mon, 26 Oct 2015 00:00:00 GMT In a single week of October 2015, Android Marshmallow shipped, Microsoft launched its first laptop, and Apple released the iPad Pro. Each was small on its own. Together they sketched a future. Technology Android Microsoft Surface Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/react-why-it-felt-different/ https://baisil.com/blog/react-why-it-felt-different/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMT React was not the first JavaScript framework. It was not even obviously the best one. But something about the way it thought about UI made it click in a way Angular and Backbone never quite did for me. Frontend React JavaScript Frontend noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/microservices-real-talk/ https://baisil.com/blog/microservices-real-talk/ Mon, 03 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT Microservices were everywhere in 2015. The conference talks made them sound inevitable. The reality I saw was more complicated: teams solving distributed systems problems they did not have before. Architecture Microservices Architecture System Design noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/windows-10-launches-platform-shift-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/windows-10-launches-platform-shift-2015/ Wed, 29 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMT Windows 10 launched on July 29, 2015. Microsoft skipped Windows 9 entirely and offered the upgrade free to most existing Windows users. The strategy was about more than the OS itself. Technology Microsoft Windows OS Platform noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/devops-rise-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/devops-rise-2015/ Sat, 20 Jun 2015 00:00:00 GMT Everyone thought DevOps was about Jenkins and Ansible. The teams that actually succeeded figured out it was about removing the wall between the people who build software and the people who run it. Engineering Culture DevOps Culture Automation noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/google-io-2015-android-m-photos/ https://baisil.com/blog/google-io-2015-android-m-photos/ Thu, 28 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT Google I/O 2015 announced Android M and a new standalone Google Photos product. The Photos announcement turned out to matter more than the OS update. Technology Google Android Google Photos I/O noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/apple-watch-launch-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/apple-watch-launch-2015/ Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT The Apple Watch went on sale in April 2015. The first product Apple had launched in a new category since the iPad. The reaction was complicated. Technology Apple Wearables Apple Watch Hardware noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/docker-changed-everything-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/docker-changed-everything-2015/ Thu, 12 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMT In early 2015 I watched a colleague containerise an app in twenty minutes that had taken three days to set up on a new server. That was the moment I understood what Docker actually was. Infrastructure Docker Containers DevOps noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/configuration-drift-manual-setup-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/configuration-drift-manual-setup-2015/ Wed, 18 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT Everything works perfectly until you try to recreate it somewhere else. That is when the problems start. I have been noticing a pattern and it has a name: configuration drift. DevOps DevOps Configuration Automation Infrastructure noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese) https://baisil.com/blog/virtual-machines-vs-bare-metal-2015/ https://baisil.com/blog/virtual-machines-vs-bare-metal-2015/ Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT Everyone around me keeps saying the same thing lately: just spin up a VM, it's easier. And they're not wrong. But I've started noticing something strange, sometimes things feel just a bit slower, and nobody can really explain why. Infrastructure Infrastructure Virtualisation Performance Bare Metal noreply@baisil.com (Baisil Geevarghese)