Author Archives: Richard L

Outage Outrage: The True Cost of Tech Giant Downtime

Tech giants like Google, Netflix, Facebook and Amazon earn a ton of money, and it’s by no means a secret. Facebook, as a quick example, generated $9.32 billion dollars in revenue last quarter (that’s £7.2 billion smackers for us Brits!).

With the internet as their primary source of sales, it’s incredibly important to keep their websites up and running at all times. But things don’t always work out: Back in 2013, e-retailer Amazon went down for 40 or so minutes, costing the company upwards of $4.8 million dollars!

Developing your skills – A career in coding and development

We live in a digital age, and the rise of the computing industry has been like no other in history, becoming one of the world’s largest in only a few decades, and this unprecedented growth doesn’t seem to be halting any time soon.This expansion has led to a huge demand for talented coders and developers to come along and program our favourite site we use in everyday life. Due to the nature of web development requiring you to learn entirely new programming languages, there is a high level of demand and relatively small supply for these code monkeys, making it a great opportunity for anyone with a passion for computer science….

Grays Business Almanac

Unfortunately, hindsight can be a bit of a blessing and a curse, and when we look back over the course of the last few decades we have seen the boom and bust of some huge tech companies. Well here at Jolt we thought it would be interesting to look back and see what would have happened had you invested just $1,000 into some of these companies upon their initial public offering.For instance, if you had put away a bit of your savings into Amazon in the middle of 1997 you would now be on your way to becoming a millionaire with a whopping $643,000, meanwhile if you had done the same for Twitter back in 2013 it would now amount to only $406. The real kicker however is that if you had put your money down onto some Bitcoin back in 2001 you would now have a stash of cash worth approximately 35 Million dollars!

The Price of Memory

It’s hard to contemplate the rate at which technology is evolving in modern times. Where your phone used to be the size of a brick and could just about make a call, today we carry what is essentially a mini computer in our pockets.In an issue of the Creative Computing magazine in 1981 they predicted “The cost of 128 kilobytes of memory will one day fall below $100” while they were completely correct I doubt even they could have predicted the rapid speed at which the price per byte has fallen to where it currently lies.Well we thought we would look back over the past four decades and see exactly how far the price of both Hard drive and RAM space has decreased. Where getting your hand on a terabyte of memory would have once cost you the same amount as the Playboy mansion you can know buy one of the equivalent of a meal out.

Evolution of Robots in Film Infographic

Robots have fascinated film-makers for generations, from the days of silent films to the modern blockbusting Hollywood films of today. Where once long ago they were merely a plot device or fictional idea in a scriptwriters story, today robots in reality are becoming more and more advanced. Major robotic competitions are often held, with one of the biggest and best being the incredible World Robot Olympiad. This year the event is being held in Sochi, Russia and promises to be an exciting event.Inspired by the WRO, our infographic celebrates our love of robots at Jolt, looking at 30 different robots stretching right across the decades. From the silent streets of Metropolis, which were the stomping grounds of false Maria, right up to the Jaeger warriors of Pacific Rim, protecting the planet from the portal crashing Kaijus.