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Ignite Show: Andrew Hyde on The Posting Economy
By Brady ForrestOctober 30, 2009
Andrew Hyde runs Ignite Boulder and works for Techstars. In this week's episode he shares his thoughts at Ignite ATL about the rapid economic shifts that can be caused by user-generated content. Andrew calls this the Posting Economy. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License...
10 Ways to Use the Network to Be More Sustainable
By Sarah SorensenOctober 22, 2009
We are currently in a pivotal point in our world's history - the choices we make today will impact future generations. We need to change our consumptive habits, adjust our resource dependencies and create more sustainable social, economic and political models. To do this, we will need the network,
Life With TED - Micromanaging Your Carbon Footprint
By James TurnerOctober 19, 2009
I've been interested in having a better handle on my electrical consumption for a long time. Our family regularly goes through 1100-1200 kWh a month, and it's been frustrating that I couldn't really get a grip on where or when the power was really being used. Then, this week, Google announced on their blog that normal mortals could now order a device called The Energy Detective (or TED, as he's known by his friends...)
A Computing Future from Microsoft: Large and Cheap Displays
By Brady ForrestSeptember 24, 2009
Chris Pratley, the head of Microsoft's Office Labs, gave the PICNIC audience a peek into the future they envision when planning their products. What is that future? It was encapsulated in the above video that they made a year ago. Some of the technologies (Augmented Reality and realtime language translation for example) have already come to the fruition (and...
Burning Man Gets an API (and a Whole Lot More)
By Brady ForrestAugust 26, 2009
An API! SMS! Foursquare! An iPhone app! They are all coming to Burning Man this year. Will the festival be the same? The annual tech-art festival in the Nevada desert, starts on Sunday. Normally the attendees leave their phones and laptop behind, but this year that may not be the case. As I ride from Seattle to Black Rock...
Is intimate personal information a toxic asset in cloud datacenters?
By Carl HewittAugust 17, 2009
Guest blogger Carl Hewitt, Emeritus at MIT in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, is known for his research on strongly paraconsistent logic, privacy-friendly client cloud computing, norms and commitments for organizational computing, and concurrent programming languages, models, and theories. Aggregators (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) tend to believe that personal information is a valuable asset for several reasons....
The Government Blocks Twitter No It Doesn't
By Mark DrapeauJuly 27, 2009
In a recent CSPAN interview, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs noted that, “for some reason, Twitter is blocked on White House computers,” which created a minor frenzy among tech-savvy journalists ranging from UPI to The Hill. Later, news upstart Mediaite uncovered that the New Media team in the Old Executive Office Building could indeed access Twitter, but other people working...
Bantamweight Publishing in an Easily Plagiarised World
By Mark DrapeauJuly 15, 2009
Even professional writers are prone to infrequent accidental plagiarism. But in the world of novels, newspapers, and college exams, there are rules about bootlegging others’ work that are well-established - most everyone agrees on what behaviors are unacceptable and what the consequences are. In bantamweight publishing, however, the rules are not so clear. In order for the British Army to...
Four short links: 15 July 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJuly 14, 2009
Endogenous steroids and financial risk taking on a London trading floor (PNAS) -- We found that a trader's morning testosterone level predicts his day's profitability. We also found that a trader's cortisol rises with both the variance of his trading results and the volatility of the market. Our results suggest that higher testosterone may contribute to economic return, whereas...
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bot
By Mark DrapeauJuly 7, 2009
Web technologies often allow you to scale things that weren't scalable before. Unfortunately, that list of scalable things includes spam. From unsolicited phone calls to unwanted emails to unnecessary tweets, it can seem like we're getting progressively overloaded with information we don't necessarily want. One group blamed for the increase in online spam are Twitter bots - Twitter accounts...
Clean Energy and Security Act - First Step for U.S.
By Sarah SorensenJune 30, 2009
"What does this Act mean?" Almost everything about the bill can be debated, from whether the cap and trade system it introduces will be effective to whether the carbon emissions targets are going to be impactful. But it's a start...
Does "green" really matter?
By Sarah SorensenJune 23, 2009
"Green" has a definite role in business, while politics and religion are probably best left outside the board room. Why does "green" matter? Setting aside issues around climate change - which is often where religious debates occur - from a practical standpoint, there are real business implications.
The role of communications in greening the planet
By Sarah SorensenJune 16, 2009
The "Smart 2020" report, commissioned by the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI), with analysis by McKinsey & Company, estimates that information and communications technology (ICT), of which the network is a key component, has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by 15 percent by 2020. But it is also true that the ICT industry contributes to overall emissions during their lifecycle. And as more information and resources are digitized and the reliance on our connections to these online assets increases, those emissions will increase too. So there is work that needs to be done within the industry to ensure maximum benefit is derived from communications technologies, while minimizing their impact.
Twitter is Not a Conversational Platform
By Mark DrapeauJune 9, 2009
Perhaps the most common reason given for joining the microsharing site Twitter is "participating in the conversation" or some version of that. I myself am guilty of using this explanation. But is Twitter truly a conversational platform? Here I argue that the underlying mechanics of Twitter more closely resemble the knowledge co-creation seen in wikis than the dynamics seen with...
CrisisCamp is June 12-14th in Washington, DC
June 7, 2009
CrisisCamp is an unconference to bring together domain experts, developers, and first responders to improve technology and practice for humanitarian crisis management and disaster relief. This is the first event in what I hope will become a movement, and it's happening on June 12 - 14, 2009 in Washington, DC. Potential CrisisCamp sessions include breaking down the bifurcation between international...
Geeks Invade Government With Audacious Goals
By Mark DrapeauMay 27, 2009
Guest blogger Mark Drapeau is the Co-Chair of the Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase in Sept 2009 and the Gov 2.0 Expo in May 2010, both in Washington, DC. He holds the title of Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University, a professional military educational school run by the Joint Chiefs...
Importance of Innovation in Finance & BarCampBank
April 20, 2009
“Progress is not the mere correction of evils. Progress is the constant replacing of the best there is with something still better.” -Edward Filene Two years ago, when we were organizing the first BarCampBank in the US, many people found it hard to believe that banks & credit unions could a place for meaningful grassroots innovation. Even crazier was...
Tweenbots: Cute Beats Smart
By Brady ForrestApril 11, 2009
If you wanted to build a robot that could go from one end of Washington Square Park to the other without your help how would you do it? How expensive in time and money would it be? Would you build or buy a navigation system? Construct a sensing system to detect obstacles? Or would you decide to take a...
It's Really Just a Series of Tubes
April 7, 2009
Molly Wright Steenson hit the Ignite jackpot at Etech this year with her explanation of the steam powered network of pneumatic tubes of the 1800s. If you're someone that, like me, has a [somewhat obsessive relationship with Internet Infrastructure](http://conferences.oreilly.com/velocity), you must watch this talk.
ETech: Wrapup
By Robert KayeMarch 13, 2009
I've been attending ETech and the P2P conference that preceded ETech and this conference, and this year I've noticed the best gender balance ever. Granted this conference's focus has changed from the very geeky P2P and Web Services focus it started with and meandered through a host of topics to arrive at a less geeky, but still thought provoking...
ETech: Mobile Phones Reveal the Behaviors of Places and People
By Robert KayeMarch 13, 2009
[Quinn managed to scoop me blogging about Tony Jebara's presentation! But after I chatted with her, we both agreed that I should continue with my blog post and see if I can augment her post a little.] Tony Jebara's presentation "Mobile Phones Reveal the Behaviors of Places and People" really opened my eyes to what amazing things you can...
Uncommon Knowledge and Open Innovation: Building a Science Commons
By Robert KayeMarch 12, 2009
The first session I attended today was John Wilbanks' "Uncommon Knowledge and Open Innovation: Building a Science Commons" presentation. John talked about the process of establishing the Science Commons and how creating a science oriented commons presented unique challenges. John first pointed out that Metcalfe's Law works for both networked computers and documents. But, he went on to extend...
Two Thousand People Singing Daisy Bell Together via Mech Turk
By Brady ForrestMarch 11, 2009
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand from Aaron on Vimeo. Have you ever heard two thousand people sing and harmonize together? Bicycle Built For Two Thousand splices together over two thousand audio samples to sing the public domain song Daisy Bell, the song sung by HAL at the end of 2001. It is being launched today at ETech. You can...
Ignite Show: Andrew Schneider, Experimental Performance Devices
By Brady ForrestMarch 11, 2009
This week's Ignite Show features Andrew Schneider, a performance artist, and his DIY experimental performance devices, but first a cupcake decorating contest. If you're at ETech this is a preview for his performance tonight with Zoë Keating before the ETech Fest. The cupcake decorating contest and Andrew's talk were filmed at Ignite NYC II. The Ignite Show will feature...
ETech: Priorities for a Greener World: If You Could Design Anything, What Should You Do?
By Robert KayeMarch 11, 2009
The second session today I'd like to share with you was presented by a personal friend of mine, Jeremy Faludi. Jer started his session entitled "Priorities for a Greener World: If You Could Design Anything, What Should You Do?" by pointing out that if we want to change the world, we ought to know what the most important issues...
Etech Session Liveblogging: Real Hackers Program DNA (Ginko Bioworks)
By Quinn NortonMarch 10, 2009
GB is "Making the process of engineering biology easier." Synth bio is the idea that biology is a technology to engineer novel systems- say drugs, biofuels, other sexy sexy projects. This is to be a flavor of what engineering biology is all about. We will be installing a program into E coli to make it turn red, glow in the...
Startup Marketing Isn't Rocket Science, So Don't Hire the Ph.D Too Soon
By Darren BarefootMarch 9, 2009
Guest blogger Darren Barefoot is a writer, marketer, technologist, and co-founder of Capulet Communications, a web marketing firm that specializes in high-tech and sustainability clients. He is the co-author of a forthcoming book about social media marketing for No Starch Press entitled "Friends with Benefits." Darren's personal blog is DarrenBarefoot.com. . A couple of weeks ago, my partner and I...
O'Reilly Week in Review for February 23rd, 2009
By James TurnerFebruary 25, 2009
This week, the O'Reilly editors discuss how the new stimulus package may effect the alternative energy industry, we hear an excerpt of an interview with virologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe, and get a new patent-related podquiz question to puzzle over....
Kodu: Visual Programming on the Xbox with P2P Level-sharing
By Brady ForrestFebruary 24, 2009
How do you make programming fun? How do you make it fun enough for kids to want to spend hours learning how to make loops and if/then statements? Simple you give them simple visual commands that let them control robots on the Xbox -- or at least this is the thesis of Microsoft Research's Kodu (formerly Boku). Kodu (Boku)...
ETech Preview: On The Front Lines of the Next Pandemic
By James TurnerFebruary 23, 2009
With all of the stress and anxiety that humanity deals with on a daily basis, confronting the dangers of global warming, the perils of a financial system in meltdown and the ever-present threat of terrorism; the fact that there's yet another danger lurking out there ready to destroy mankind, the threat of a global pandemic, may be easy to forget. But although you and I may have driven thoughts of Ebola and the like from our minds, Dr. Nathan Wolfe worries about them everyday. Dr. Wolfe founded and directs the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative which monitors the transfer of new diseases from animals to humans.
ETech Preview: Creating Biological Legos
By James TurnerFebruary 17, 2009
If you've gotten tired of hacking firewalls or cloud computing, maybe it's time to try your hand with DNA. That's what Reshma Shetty is doing with her Doctorate in Biological Engineering from MIT. Apart from her crowning achievement of getting bacteria to smell like mint and bananas, she's also active in the developing field of synthetic biology and has recently helped found a company called Gingko BioWorks which is developing enabling technologies to allow for rapid prototyping of biological systems. She will be giving a talk entitled, "Real Hackers Program DNA" at O'Reilly's Emerging Technologies Conference in March. And she's joining us here today. Thank you for taking the time.
ETech Preview: Why LCD is the Cool New Technology All Over Again
By James TurnerFebruary 11, 2009
One of the things that the One Laptop Per Child project is best known for is the amazing transflective display technology that it utilized. Combining a traditional backlit color display with a black and white display that could be used outdoors, it both met the needs of low power usage and outdoor readability that is crucial in developing countries. When Mary Lou Jepsen, who developed the display for the XO, left to form Pixel Qi, the expectation was that some of the revolutionary engineering that was used in the XO would begin to make its way onto the broader consumer market. Since she’ll be talking at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference in March, we decided to check in and see what she's up to.
Come to ETech; Experiment with Physical Computing and RFIDs
By Brady ForrestFebruary 10, 2009
RFID's are associated with credit cards, passports and inventory systems. However, they can also be used to add a proximity interaction to a service like entering a subway via a passkey (Jan Chipchase has several posts describing these interactions around the world). By linking yourself to an RFID tag you can let a device know who you are. If...
The Kindle and the End of the End of History
By Jim StogdillFebruary 10, 2009
Bezos' vision to make every book ever printed in any language accessible within 60 seconds could save history.
ETech Preview: Living the Technomadic Life
By James TurnerFebruary 9, 2009
One of the themes at O'Reilly's e-Tech conference this March is nomadism, and no one is a better example of a technomad than Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard. Traveling around the country in a custom 17' trailer towed by a Diesel Jeep Liberty, they manage to run a consulting firm while satisfying their desire to see new places and meet new people. We took a few minutes to talk to them about what it takes technologically to make it work, and what a life on the road is life.
A Climate of Polarization
By Gavin StarksJanuary 28, 2009
We are entering an new era of seismic change in policy, business, society, technology, finance and our environment, on a scale and speed substantially greater than previous revolutions. More than ever, we need to create space for learning, communication and understanding.
Cheering For Green Tech - Critically
By Julian DarleyJanuary 28, 2009
When times are bad, especially this bad, it is tempting to increase the level of cheerleading, but it may be better think more carefully and critically about future technology, especially green tech, so that we spend our precious resources most wisely.
ETech 2009 Schedule Posted; Early Registration Ends Monday
By Brady ForrestJanuary 22, 2009
ETech is a technologist's playground. We specifically design the conference to expose new ideas and learn from the people behind them. This year the focus is on how the way we live is changing -- through policy, technology and ideas. The proliferation of sensors, advances in materials and manufacturing, the changes in government and the financial market will all...
ETech Inauguration Celebration: 25% Discount
January 20, 2009
What a day it's been! Make the most of the inspiration and register for ETech with a 25% savings--on top of the early registration discount. This special additional discount is for January 20th only.
Pedal Powered Petaflops
By Kurt CagleJanuary 15, 2009
Chances are that when you think about supercomputing, you think about big machines (or lots of machines) all running full bore while performing complex calculations to determine weather patterns or wind-tunnel simulations. Secondarily is the assumption about power - you need lots of it, as well as ways of cooling those systems down (which requires even more power).
Upcoming Webcast with Rob Passarella on "Equity Research in the Age of Web"
January 14, 2009
What better way to spend your Friday than participating in a free, live webcast exploring the very intriguing intersection of Wall Street, equity research, technology, and the Web? This Friday, January 16 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Money:Tech conference co-chair...
Four short links: 6 Jan 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJanuary 5, 2009
Four thought-provoking links from the worlds of disaster tech, multicore, bioengineering, and 17th century French nobility. Techies: Volunteering to Save the World - article on NGO work being the new black for technology. In particular, this caught my eye: "Earlier this year, IBM launched a program called Corporate Service Corps to send 100 employees to Romania, Turkey, Vietnam, the Philippines,...
What Will Change Everything?
By Brady ForrestJanuary 1, 2009
Regular Radar contributor Linda Stone sent this in to be posted today. What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see? The Internet, television, antibiotics, automobiles, electricity, nuclear power, space travel, and cloning - these inventions were born out of dreams, persistence, and imagination. What game-changing ideas can we expect to see in OUR lifetimes? As...
The State of Transit Routing
By Jim StogdillDecember 16, 2008
Mixed modal transit routing is coming, but it faces a different kind of data acquisition problem than street routing before it. The data isn't observable, and it's often proprietary.
Looking under what rises to the top: personal information in online searches
By Andy OramDecember 10, 2008
The search for self remains a powerful force, driving the flood of social networks, microblogging, and the posting of photos and videos to the Web. The urge toward self-definition exerts itself also when we search for information on other people--and that's where it becomes a problem.
The Energy Secret
By Julian DarleyDecember 2, 2008
Do we really understand the deepest causes of the economic crisis? If not, then we run the risk that our remedies will not produce sustainable results.
Help! The Polar Bears Have Fallen Down the Well!
By James TurnerNovember 24, 2008
This is an essay about human nature, and the way that the global warming (or global climate change) problem is encountering a "perfect storm" of human shortcomings. It is unabashedly an advocacy piece, and I'm equally unabashed in my support...
DIY Appliances on the Web?
By Jim StogdillNovember 18, 2008
The appliance is moving up the stack in the enterprise data center. How about open hardware appliances on the web?
Apps for Democracy
By Jim StogdillNovember 14, 2008
The District of Columbia is making its data transparent. Now it's up to you to do something with it.
Shai Agassi on Electric Cars
By Ben LoricaNovember 12, 2008
One of my favorite sessions at the recent Web 2.0 summit was Tim's half-hour conversation with Shai Agassi, the CEO of Better Place. Better Place aims to make electric cars widespread ("the electric car as the de facto standard") by addressing major issues that have held back electric vehicles: affordability and convenience. In a relaxed conversation with Tim, Shai described...
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