Article 15; In New York, a Tech Incubator Becomes a Hub of Collaboration

This week’s article is titled: “In New York, a Tech Incubator Becomes a Hub of Collaboration” by Jenna Wortham. The article addresses the current ever so popular Twitter, and how an independent business owner, Iain Dodsworth, has used that tool for his own success.

Tweet Deck is what he called the service, which originated some time before his company had “the kind of momentum most entrepreneurs only dream about”. An example of the sudden surge of interest that the public displayed for his product, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore posted a video to show their support. It was of them using the service.

Of course, on the heels of that video discovery were investor inquiries for the one man company. None of them rang a bell with Dodsworth except for one. Betaworks. He went with the company because “Betaworks had a track record in this field back when no one had a track record in this field.”

Main Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/technology/start-ups/03betaworks.html?ref=technology

Second Article:

http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

Article 14; The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-Up

This week’s article is titled “The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-Up” and was written by Steve Lohr of the New York Times. The author refers “Fleet-Footed Start Up” to companies that make there way into fruition via a slimmed down business plan. The recent surge in the popularity of companies starting this way is first seen through the example of Eric Ries of Grockit, an online education network. Supposedly he is the man who actually coined the term “lean start-up”.

“His inspiration, he says, was the lean manufacturing process, fine-tuned in Japanese factories decades ago and focused on eliminating any work or investment that doesn’t produce value for customers”. Also a proponent to the subject of lean start-ups is a man coming from an entirely different perspective than Ries. Steven Blank, a 56 year old “serial entrepreneur”, describes it as “lean manufacturing for start-ups”.

“Since 1978, he has been a founder or early employee in eight start-ups, both winners and losers”. His job today is to “advise start-up companies and teach at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley”.

As far as internet companies are concerned, the author notes that they “have steadily taken advantage of the falling costs of getting up and running — often spending just hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of the millions that were required several years ago”. He also adds that “the lean start-up formula adds management practices tailored to exploit the Web environment”.

The goal as seen through the eyes of Mr. Blank is to “accelerate the pace of learning. A start-up is a temporary organization designed to discover a profitable, scalable business model”. The author further comments that “many young Internet businesses have embraced the lean start-up principles of beginning small and getting products into the marketplace quickly in pursuit of paying customers.”

Finally, the change that Ries and Blank have been part of is affecting the investors themselves. These venture capitalists will have a shrinking role in seeking and backing promising young entrepreneurs.

Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/business/25unboxed.html?ref=technology

Second Article:
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/09/lean-startup.html

Article 13; Getting What You Pay for on the Mobile Internet

This week’s article response is to an article written by Kevin J. O’Brien of the New York Times. The article delves into the current craze for mobile data sharing via the mobile networks that are becoming more and more popular these days. The subject is mainly of deciding whether or not to continue down the road of “all you can eat” type mobile plans for consumers. This type of plan is what the industry calls plans that include unlimited services on smart phones.

The spotlight on the subject falls on a Nordic Telecommunications operator. “When TeliaSonera, the Nordic telecommunications operator, switched on the world’s fastest wireless network last December, customers quickly ratcheted up their consumption of mobile data tenfold”. This network is called L.T.E, or “Long Term Evolution”. It is with this relatively new technology that researchers feel the all you can eat mentality will not hold.

The problem is that “network operators fear that flat-rate plans will eat into profits or even fail to cover costs”. Obviously, before too much of that would be allowed to happen, the market would shift to higher pricing to balance with the huge upswing in demand. “Finding a way to make mobile profitable in the medium and long term is one of the industry’s big priorities,” said Mike Roberts, an analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

To better explain the effect of L.T.E in Sweden, I quote Anna Auguston of TeliaSonera: “In 2009, the mobile data on our network in Sweden increased by 200 percent but the number of subscribers increased just 60 percent”. According to Anna, “Clearly, it was not a sustainable model from a business perspective to have a single, flat rate”. As it stands, “top executives at AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica have all recently called on the industry to move away from flat-rate data plans, although only Vodafone so far has attempted a tiered pricing plan.”

Main Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/technology/internet/19iht-tiered.html?pagewanted=1&ref=technology

Second Article:

http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2006/12/will-flat-rate-pricing-make-mobile-data.html

Article 12; Apple Edges into Selling of App Ads

This week’s article was obtained from the New York Times website, and was written by Brad Stone. The article is titled: “Apple Edges into Selling of App Ads”. The article discusses the new desire that Apple Inc. has to include ads in all of the applications that function on their products.

New software has been developed called iAd which can be used on the iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. The offer from Apple to application developers was to give them 60 percent of all revenue obtained from the ads that ran on their programs. Steve Jobs, chief of the Apple company, commented that unlike Google: “Search is not where it’s at” on phones, he said. “People are not searching on a mobile device like they are on the desktop”.

For this reason, Apple looked to adding ads to applications for maximum exposure to mobile device users. To the consumer, this is good news in terms of cost. “This is not a get-rich-quick scheme for Apple,” Mr. Jobs said. “This is us helping our developers make money so they can survive and keep the prices of their apps reasonable.”

Michael Gartenberg, a partner with the consulting firm Altimeter Group, added the comment that “It shows that Apple is really committed to building out a rich apps ecosystem, which has always been their main differentiator from competitors”.

The iAd software will be part of version 4.0 of the Apple iPhone Operating system. “That software will also include one much-anticipated feature, the ability to run multiple non-Apple applications at the same time”. This feature will not fully run on “older iPhone 3G.” That is, some features of the new 4.0 version will not work. As for the release date of the new OS version, “the new software will be available for owners of recent iPhone and iPod Touch models this summer, and for the iPad later in the year”.

Main Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/technology/09apple.html?ref=technology

Second Article:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-iAd-Could-Generate-Billions-in-Revenue-Says-Analyst-136641/

Article 11; Across the Country, Fans Gather for iPad

The apple iPad is a new device that hit the streets early on Saturday April 3rd. The article chosen for this week’s blog discusses the significance of the release of the new device and why people react the way they do to electronics produced by the Apple Corporation.

The title of the article is “Across the Country, Fans Gather for iPad”, and was written by Brad Stone of the New York Times. The fact that people are becoming so infatuated with the release of the iPad can be explained by nothing other than “it’s a culture”. One fan quoted in the article was reported saying: “No other company can drop a device and generate this much energy. Every big brand is envious of what Apple can do”. That statement cannot be too far from true. Specifically for this new iPad device, there has been an enormous amount of buzz in the media anticipating its release.

Jessica Pansica, a 30 year old married woman living in San Francisco further strengthens the claim that Apple followers are part of a culture and a community. “I have no idea what he’ll do with it”, she said of her husband. “I’m sure he’ll use it a lot, whatever it is. He told me I’m not allowed to open it”.

Another Apple customer, Tracy Kahney, was reported saying: “We’re totally excited. It’s going to change everything”. She was there in line with her nine year old son Lyle, who “fidgeted uncomfortably in the cardboard iPad costume she had made for him”.

As far as the actual performance of the product, the author says that the iPad has generally reviewed well. There is one major drawback however that does not seem to faze the number of folks anxiously awaiting its release. “The ability to run more than one application at a time, for instance, and lack of support for Adobe’s Flash, which means video on many web sites will not play”.


Main Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/technology/04ipad.html?ref=technology

Second Article:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-04/apple-s-ipad-probably-beat-estimates-signaling-tablet-revival.html

Article 10; Portable Real Estate Listings – But with a Difference

This week’s article is titled: “Portable Real Estate Listings – But with a Difference”. The article was written by Scott Macintosh of the New York Times. In a time where it seems like thousands of mobile phone applications are used everyday, it seems silly to write an article about portable real estate listings. The difference between a Google search for real estate and the service described in this article, however, is the introduction of A.R., or “Augmented Reality”.

The application was engineered by Layar, “a 10-month-old company based in Amsterdam”. The technology uses real images mixed with “elements like statistics and 3-D images”. The technology uses a phones camera, GPS, and compass to provide the user with information about a specific location. Some examples of the current uses of the A.R. Technology are: “displaying information about tourist sites, chart subway stops and restaurants, allowing interior designers to superimpose new furniture or color schemes on a room, and give crime statistics for a specific area”.

The technology has certainly caught on in other places as well. Since Layar is an open platform, “it has attracted 1,000 developers who have created 2,000 programs for the iPhone 3GS and Google’s Android operating system”. Leslie Tyler, A Zip Reality Spokesperson, commented on the real estate use of the technology: “You can look at a map and see what properties have sold around you and for how much. But with augmented reality, it’s easier to see,” she said. “As opposed to seeing the home as a pin on a map, you get it in 3-D. It’s the same info. But the experience of looking at it is more interesting.”

An example of an already very successful application is Zillow, Which started as a website based in Seattle. Their job is to provide links for 3-D mapping of property values. The service is so popular, “their application for the iPhone has been downloaded one million times”.

Main Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/greathomesanddestinations/26iht-rear.html?pagewanted=2&ref=technology

Second Article:

http://gizmodo.com/5292748/layar-first-mobile-augmented-reality-browser-is-your-real-life-hud

Article 9; Is voice becoming the new text (again)?

Today’s blog is a review of an article written by John D. Sutter of CNN. The article is titled: “Is voice becoming the new text (again)?” In the article, the author delves into the subject of voice recognition in mobile phones and other devices. Discussion as to how advanced the technology has become is looked at first. David Nahamoo, IBM's chief technology officer for voice research, had something to say about it. He said that current technology works by “listening to a voice, translating it into digital data and then anticipating what sorts of sounds or words will come next”. The major difference between this style of voice decoding and the original technology delivered years ago is that the early versions “tried to understand every sound and used huge amounts of computing power as a result”. Obviously, due to the sheer magnitude of the required data storage and handling in those days, the technology did not take the world by storm.
The new technology uses a totally new approach to lessen the amount of data needed to be analyzed and dealt with. “It’s more of a guessing game. Each voice-recognition program has a number of equations that analyze speech and use statistics to decide what noises match up to what letters”. The question that still remains however is “Are we at a point in the advancement of this technology that voice could actually replace or be an alternative to texting?”
The author leaves it to you to be the judge of that, but does inform the reader of a recent study done to determine the accuracy of the technology. “Meisel found that technologies that translate voice into text are roughly 80 to 90 percent accurate. That's good enough for many common functions, like transcribing voice mail, he said.”
One of the main concerns for supporters of the technology is the required processing power. Even with the major strides to reduce the burden, it would still take “a better, higher-end phone to do it.” The other problem is that different people “speak with accents or colloquialisms or different languages or stuff like that, which provides some challenges as well”. In spite of the hurdles, Meisel said “We're already able to have a conversation with the technology to some degree”.

Main Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/19/voice.recognition/index.html

Second Article:
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/scivw/EVE/I.D.2.d.VoiceRecognition.html

Article 7; Redrawing the Route to Online Privacy

Today’s article is titled: “Redrawing the Route to Online Privacy”. Written by Steve Lohr of the New York Times, the article aims to address the issue of online privacy. The current system of notifying the internet user of the implications of entering personal information seems to be very ineffective to most people. “It is an artifact of the 1990s, intended as a light-touch policy to nurture innovation in an emerging industry”. There the author was describing the old system of “notice and Choice” currently in use on many sites.

The solution to the problem has not been totally pinned down. Instead, multiple variations exist. “Lorrie Faith Cranor, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon, supports developing "privacy nudges," like short on-screen messages that remind users of the implications of data they're about to send”. There is no shortage of possible solutions such as hers, but the majority seems to fall under the category of “rules and tools”.

An example of the “rules” change the author speaks of is: “For example, the government might ban the use of recorded trails of a person’s Web-browsing behavior — so-called click streams — in employment or health insurance decisions”. Regulations need to be enforced and updated to make forward progress in internet privacy.

The other part of the solution, “tools”, is where Lorrie Faith Cranor’s idea comes in. Tools such as her “privacy nudges” would cause “people to naturally react more strongly, in a visceral way, to anthropomorphic cues”. For example, Ryan Calo of the Center for Internet and Society at the Stanford Law School is “exploring technologies that deliver “visceral notice.” His research involves voice and animation technology that emulates humans”. Calo refers to a study that was done involving free coffee but where bins were placed out for donations. Different bins were used on separate occasions, one had eyes on it while the other had flowers. “Time and again, he said, people paid more often for coffee when the box had eyes instead of flowers”. “Our brains are hard-wired to respond to images that look human, alive,” Mr. Calo said”.

Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/technology/internet/28unbox.html?ref=technology

Second Article:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/10/is-online-privacy-a-generational-issue/

Article 6; Cries for Help via Text Messages Are Used to Direct Aid to Haiti

This weeks’ article is titled: “Cries for Help via Text Messages Are Used to Direct Aid to Haiti”. The article is focused on the natural tragedy that recently occurred in Haiti. Where technology comes into play for this particular article is in the form of text messaging. The article follows through the eyes of a man whose job it is to sift through thousands of text message requests from Haitians in need of food and suffering from loss of family members and their homes.

Many of the requests given by Haitians seem quite horrific. “I’m hungry and I have no one,” says one Haitian. “People are unable to breathe due to the smell of the dead,” says another. As a member of the Coast Guard, Ryan Bank says that he has received nearly 18,000 text messages from Haitians. He added that many of them are “utterly heartbreaking”.

Mr. Banks job, after the text message is received and the need is identified, is to relay that information to “military personnel at the United States Southern Command in South Florida.” The reason for the decision of basing the emergency network on text messaging was because of the “damage Haiti’s telecommunications system suffered in the quake”. According to the author, “Fallen cell towers and overloaded networks made telephone calls nearly impossible”. Mr. Bank noted that the bandwidth required for phone calls is much higher than that required for simple text messages. For that reason, text messaging became the best means of communication.

The texting program was brought into play very rapidly, and has evolved into a messaging service to deliver key information to those who had previously used the service. "The joint program has expanded to include regular news and information updates to those who have reached out through the emergency line, telling them where to find food relief and seek medical attention”.


Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/world/americas/21text.html?ref=technology


Second Article:
http://www.samasource.org/haiti/

Article 5; Plans Unveiled for World's Largest Yacht

This week’s article is titled “Plans unveiled for world's largest yacht”. The article discusses a new design for what would be the largest Yacht in the world. The design took place in London, England, and stretches a whopping 656 feet. The current longest Yacht in existence is owned by “Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich”. That Yacht seems small in comparison to this new design at 99 feet.
“Berkeley March, the yacht's naval architect, told CNN the boat could cost up to $1 billion (£650 million) to build, “depending on the needs of the clients””. A wide range of possibilities exist with the needs of a client. For example, the client could request gold furniture”. Regardless of the details the cost of building such a machine would be insurmountable to most. Despite being in a recession, some rich people with about 1 billion dollars to spare see this as an opportunity. “The people left with a lot of money have more power now, as there is less demand”.
Some amenities included in the monstrous boat include it “a drive-in-garage, a 100-foot swimming pool, a casino, a health spa and numerous bars and nightclubs”. The goal of course is to include “features that would make even the most blasé billionaire take notice”.

Main Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/12/project.1000.super.yacht/index.html

Second Article:
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/02/worlds-largest-5.php

Article 4; A Search Engine That Relies on Humans

The article titled “A Search Engine That Relies on Humans”, written by Joshua Brustein of the New York Times, is the subject of today’s post. The main focus of the article is to compare and contrast social search engines such as Aardvark to the other search engines that have no social component, such as Google.

The article briefly explains the difference between the two types of search engines. “Aardvark uses various factors to identify who it thinks are the best people to answer a question, then poses the question to them.” Whereas Google was said to “take questions, break them into keywords, and then find web sites that have the most relevance to these keywords”.

Neither of the methods for searching on the web was considered superior to the other. Proponents to the social search regime stated: “Social search will not replace conventional search. Instead, it will become another tool for web users”. Aspects of both types of search engines are still needed for web users. The benefit that the relatively new social search has is with subjective searches. Aardvark writes: “We demonstrate that there is a large class of subjective questions — especially longer, contextualized requests for recommendations or advice — which are better served by social search than by web search”.

Main Article:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/a-search-engine-that-relies-on-humans/?ref=technology

Second Article:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091020-124311

Article 3; When Phones are Just Too Smart

This article, written by Katie Hafner on January 29th, 2010, touches on the mobile phone applications craze so prominent today. The author addresses a young woman’s experience with her own iPhone. Caroline Cua, the woman the author speaks of, has owned an iPhone for approximately one year. Despite the abundance of available applications for her phone, Caroline “has downloaded precisely five programs”.
The author brings to light the fact that there is a multitude of available apps; somewhere in the range of “140,000 and counting”. The fact that there are so many applications available to iPhone users but only 5 have found a place on her phone makes her feel self conscious around friends. “I said to him, ‘O.K., now I’m officially feeling like a loser,’” She recalled saying this to a friend after being asked to see which applications she had.
“According to Flurry, the average Apple iPod Touch user regularly uses 5 –10 apps”. With this fact, it makes Caroline’s self consciousness seem superfluous. Instead of being an exception, “she is the rule”. The author arrives at a conclusion about why so few apps are used regularly by the average person: “The next generation of gadget users might prove different, but for now it is clear that people prefer fewer choices, and that they gravitate consistently toward the same small number of things that they like”. Despite so many choices that could potentially make life more convenient, the author suggests that we really only desire a very small percentage of the available technology (apps) today.
Another article written by Stuart Dredge suggests that the average user has downloaded approximately 65 apps to their mobile device. “A survey of 1,200 iPhone owners commissioned by US firm AppsFire claims that the average owner has downloaded 65 apps for their device, spending around $80 in total”. Although this figure seems to greatly contradict the former Flurry figure, it does not. Just because a user has downloaded an app, they don’t necessarily keep it or use it regularly.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/34261/The-average-iPhone-user-has-spent-80-on-apps

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/fashion/31apps.html?ref=technology

Article 2; Simulators Prepare Soldiers For Explosions of War

The article I have chosen to write about this week is called “Simulators Prepare Soldiers for Explosions of War”. The article starts by addressing a device used for war simulation in Virginia. The device, a Humvee attached to programmed actuators, acts as the basis for the simulation apparatus. The purpose of the device is to give real soldiers an advantage in the battlefield. The device can simulate an I.E.D (improvised explosive device) using its complex hydraulic actuator system. Visual effects are made with state of the art “high-definition video sharp enough to discern rocks on the roadside and leaves on the scrubby bushes”. The goal of the entire system is to improve the most valuable resource the military has. “We’re not going to armor ourselves out of this problem. But if we can, we take the most valuable, flexible resource we have, the human being, and maximize it, that will make a significant difference.”
CBS8 news from San Diego, California, posted an article on a similar subject. The writer mentioned how footage was taken from a set in Hollywood to be used with the simulator program. “At first glance it looks like authentic war footage shot in the snowy mountains of Afghanistan, but the village is a Hollywood movie set. What appears to be Afghani citizens are paid actors filming scenes that are being used in what may be the most realistic simulator ever made”. The producer for the filming also commented: "Thanks to a touch of Hollywood, before young recruits head off to war and make mistakes, this training helps them learn to scan with their eyes and communicate with their peers". He was referring to a war training system that uses actual video footage rather than graphics along with an interactive video game to sharpen soldiers' awareness in the field.

Main article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23simulator.html?ref=technology

Second article:
http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?S=11779587

Other:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_simulator

Article 1 ; Electromagnetic Manufacturing

This article pertains to a new manufacturing process discovered by a group of Engineers from "Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology in Chemnitz, Germany". The new process for manufacturing that is discussed involves a modification to an existing technology. EMP technology has been used mainly for purposes of mass destruction in warfare. "The idea is to use a blast of energy to fry the enemy’s computers and telecommunications gear."

The blast of energy found to be so useful in destruction now shows great potential for altering many manufacturing processes. a process already used in manufacturing for forming soft metals was modifeied by the group. "Verena Kräusel and her colleagues performed their trick by beefing up an existing electromagnetic-forming machine." The goal was to produce a machine with enough distortion power to punch a hole through solid steel. They accomplished that goal and were able to put a 30 mm hole in 1mm thick steel.

The process could be compared to a punch currently used in industry today. Although punching out holes in metal is very fast, "the tearing action at the edges of the holes leaves ragged, sharp tailings, known as burrs. This means that parts stamped out this way have to be cleaned up, usually by hand, which increases production costs."

The impact that an improvement like this could have on our society would come mainly in the form of speeding up and eventually lessening the cost of metal forming production. Less man hours would be needed to de-burr metal pieces and that entire step whether by machine or by hand could be eliminated from many processes in manufacturing.

Just like any improvement or advancement in industry, it has the potential to eliminate the need for some jobs. Some jobs would likely be created in other areas, likely on the development side of things for the new process and the evolution of the machines themselves.

Main Article:

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15268879

EMP info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse