BusinessWeek is focusing again on Google and its cloud computing efforts this week. An interesting read, some of which will be familiar to folks around here. The story kicks off with an anecdote about thinking big at Google -- what if you had 1,000 times more data? -- and a University of Washington grad's efforts to help would-be job applicants do just that.
Google engineer Christophe Bisciglia, a Gig Harbor kid who earned a computer science degree at the UW in 2003 and is featured on BusinessWeek's cover, launched a pilot course at his alma matter in large-scale computing. It started as an educational effort but has turned into much more. From the article:
"Call it Google 101. [CEO Eric] Schmidt liked the plan. Over the following months, Bisciglia's Google 101 would evolve and grow. It would eventually lead to an ambitious partnership with IBM, announced in October, to plug universities around the world into Google-like computing clouds.
"As this concept spreads, it promises to expand Google's footprint in industry far beyond search, media, and advertising, leading the giant into scientific research and perhaps into new businesses. In the process Google could become, in a sense, the world's primary computer.
"'I had originally thought [Bisciglia] was going to work on education, which was fine,' Schmidt says late one recent afternoon at Google headquarters. 'Nine months later, he comes out with this new [cloud] strategy, which was completely unexpected.' The idea, as it developed, was to deliver to students, researchers, and entrepreneurs the immense power of Google-style computing, either via Google's machines or others offering the same service."
The coverage goes on to explore cloud computing at Google as well as competitors Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon. It also includes a nice nod to UW man-about-technology Ed Lazowska (formal title: Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering) who is described in the article as Bisciglia's mentor.
Yesterday, the Nielsen Company -- famous for its TV audience measurements -- put out a series of top 10 in 2007 lists. There are close to 30 different lists covering most-watched TV shows, DVDs, movies, etc. View them yourself (13 page PDF.) Here are some that interested me:
Among major markets, Seattle/Tacoma had the fourth highest percentage of "adults who have used the Internet to read or contribute to blogs within the past 30 days." The top market was Austin, Texas, with 15 percent of adults reading/contributing; followed by:
Among the most-purchased packaged consumer goods, measured by the "percent of homes who purchased each category within past year," fresh bread was the leader (97 percent), followed by refrigerated milk, toilet tissue, fresh eggs, cookies, ready-to-eat cereal, canned soup, chocolate candy, potato chips and batteries (86 percent).
The same list, if measured by sales instead of percentage of homes that purchased the category, is lead by carbonated soft drinks ($17.6 billion) and also includes cigarettes ($7.8 billion) and light beer ($5.1 billion).
With the exception of the bread, milk and eggs, it sounds a lot like the presumed shopping list of the stereotypical American gamer, including the batteries to keep the remote and wireless controllers charged up.
And what games were we playing? This list is based on "the percent of PC gamers playing title in the average minute." Nielsen also reports average minutes played per week, from April to November 2007.
No. 1, by a long shot, "World of Warcraft" with 0.792 percent of PC gamers playing in the average minute and 1,023 minutes played per week (I'm guessing that's per individual.)
Nielsen doesn't break out console titles, but it does give a list of the most-played platforms based on usage minutes, "a percent of all measured console minutes." Interesting to note that taken together, all the other consoles on the list (excluding the "other" category, which "consists of any other console systems found in the home") are used about as much as the PlayStation 2.
PlayStation 2, 42.2 percen;
Xbox, 13.9 percent
Xbox 360, 11.8 percent
GameCube, 7.1 percent
Wii, 5.5 percent
PlayStation 3, 2.5 percent
Other, 17.1 percent.
SEATTLE -- If you tuned in this weekend, you found that I had hijacked this blog. I took off on Saturday to see the damage that the more than week-old storm did on the Washington coast.
For them, it mostly wasn't the flooding, it was the wind. Residents talked about how it started Sunday, and didn't relent until late Monday. Sustained winds averaged 60 to 80 miles an hour. Gusts went up to 120.
Everyone tried to put into words the noise that kind of wind makes. It was a roar. It was a freight train, gathering speed far off the distance, until it finally reached your house with a flurry.
Most people lost shingles, many roofs were destroyed down to the plywood. In some cases, you could see insulation. On the radio, a contractor was offering to come by for free and drape a tarp over your roof -- many had already done so.
I spoke to a lot of people who were really eager to tell their story. To them, it seemed no one was talking about them on the radio, on the TV or the Internet. During and following a storm that is scary. Most had received electricity by Wednesday or Thursday, but pockets were still out on Saturday, and likely some people are in the dark today.
For me that is now all in the past. I arrived back home in Seattle to a warm shower, a hot meal and all of my possessions. I saw that people have lost a lot, and the rebuilding has only begun.
The Red Cross was just opening up mobile feeding units yesterday in Raymond, Pe Ell and Elma, recognizing that it was going to be a long haul.
Perhaps, as a segue, I can take a minute to tell you how I filed from the road, as a transition for this blog, which is normally focused on technology.
If it were not for technology, the kind of reporting I did this weekend would not have been possible. I choose the blog format so that I could immediately post interviews and observations moments after I had them. I published directly to the Web, no editor made sure I had perfect grammar or punctuation.
The blog format also let me post photos, include maps of where I was, and links to previous stories. That's not possible for me to do using our normal publishing software.
The photos were all taken with my 2 megapixel camera phone. As soon as I shot one that I thought I'd like to use, I emailed it from my phone to myself. Later, when I logged in, I could pull that photo off email, and upload it to the Web.
And, finally, it definitely wouldn't have been possible, without my laptop, a fully powered battery that I conserved to my best abilities, and a cellular PC card. The card allowed me to connect -- at high-speeds -- over cellular lines to the Internet.
Last night, when I was writing my final two posts, I was in Aberdeen, and as luck would have it, I had the option of two Starbucks (one on each side of the street). There, I had a warm place to sit, Wi-Fi and an outlet.
But when a town doesn't have electricity, it doesn't normally have Wi-Fi or cellphone service. That was the case in Tokeland, and coverage was spotty elsewhere, as well. In the those circumstances, I had to wait to post something until I drove to another community.
I thought it was good to hear that the cafe I visited in Ocean Shores, prioritized offering Wi-Fi, using a generator so that people could feel connected.
NORTH COVE -- In September, reporter Jonathan Martin wrote a story about Washaway Beach, a stretch of coast 12 miles south of Westport that is believed to be the fastest-eroding beach on the Pacific Coast.
In last week's storm, the ocean took at least one more home. Ladonna Hartke, owner of a blue, four-bedroom house with a two-car garage and an amazing view of the water, was the latest victim.
Here is the "before" photo, taken by Times staff photographer Steve Ringman for the September story:
Here is a picture I took today:
I found Hartke next to the house, almost standing guard. She had made a makeshift camp, helped by her son and his girlfriend who also live on the property. A blue tarp hung overhead, and a claw-foot bathtub had been placed on its side. A fire burned in the tub where a frozen pizza was warming.
Belongings were strewn everywhere. Living-room furniture was underneath the tarp. A lemon lay on the ground next to a battered head of lettuce.
There was no evidence of where the two-car garage had been; Hartke's red minivan was swept off in the waves and landed down the beach. Several cars and camper vans had been destroyed by falling trees.
To give you a sense of how unusual this portion of the coastline is, let me quote Martin's story that ran three months ago:
"This two miles of shoreline at the northern confluence of the Pacific Ocean and Willapa Bay, 12 miles south of Westport, is believed to be the fastest-eroding beach on the Pacific Coast. It has lost about 65 feet a year to the sea since the late 1800s. More than 100 homes, including the entire town of North Cove, have already disappeared, many of them in the past 20 years."
On Sunday night, the Hartke family, including her two sons, 18 and 33, and her oldest son's girlfriend, went to sleep as usual. Yes, the winds were howling, and the waves were enormous, but life 30 feet from the ocean is often like that, Hartke said.
Just before sunrise, the household woke up to water at the doorstep. The ground had been eaten away from underneath the house. For two years, the water has been at least eight feet away from the bank, and Monday the family couldn't step out their front door.
They started removing their possessions, storing them in nearby trailers and in neighbors' houses.
"I've lived here for 12 years, and it happened in three hours," Hartke said. "I had faith that it would stay because I wasn't ready to leave."
She had 100 boxes packed from previous storms, and she had started to pack more boxes the day before, but she didn't take the additional step of hauling them away.
She even lost six of her 12 chickens.
For now, she is staying in a motel. Her next move is uncertain.
At times like these, you think the worst.
"I lost a home. Hopefully I'm covered by insurance. If not, I'll probably be on welfare the rest of my life," she said. "My friends told me 'don't worry, you are going to be there for years.' I wanted to believe it, and I did."
This morning, I started off in Ocean Shores, and then decided to head south to Raymond, a little town on the Willapa Harbor.
It's a pretty central location at the intersection of Highway 101 and Highway 105, which heads west to the coast.
On the drive south on 101, the number of trees down is stunning. If you can imagine a forest being somewhat like a spiky haircut, it looked as if someone took a hairbrush and combed over sections of trees along miles of highway. The wind treated the trees, which were one- to two-feet thick, like matchsticks.
And weaving through these matchsticks were power lines, which utility crews were still repairing this afternoon.
Melody Gerber, who I spoke to last night, said she and her husband drove from their home in Tokeland to Raymond after the storm. They counted between 75 and 100 trees that had fallen in the road.
Judy Hinkman, a Raymond resident, said that because the community is made up of many loggers, they were quite self-sufficient. They took to the highway with their chainsaws and started cutting down trees or hacking off limbs so cars could drive underneath.
Raymond, like Centralia and Chehalis, also flooded. The water on the main street rose above people's knees.
One building, in particular, was destroyed by both the wind and rain. On the corner of Duryea and Third streets, the three-story American Legion building that housed at least eight businesses, was ripped open like a can of sardines. The flat roof blew off in the wind.
The corner yarn and weaving shop -- A Willapa Connection -- was one of the worst hit.
Ruth McCully, who owns the shop with her mother Edna Latta, was still in the midst of dealing with soaked carpets, destroyed inventory and ruined display cases when I arrived around 2 p.m. And, she had been dealing with it for a week.
McCully is tired and the days are starting to blur together, but she recounts as best she can how she had to deal with fallen trees, floods and torrential winds that destroyed her business, and partially flooded her home.
It started Sunday night when the roof blew off of the business. The water started to seep in, soaking one story at a time. It destroyed the second floor, where she stores seasonal items, and additional inventory. Then, it started falling to the first floor, where she had her office and computers and main retail area.
Buckets, rubber bins and garbage cans were placed all over the two stories collecting gallons of rain water.
After bagging up some inventory -- and not truly knowing how bad it was going to get -- the family returned to the house for some rest and food. Hours later, the family came back to find the buckets full. Because they were so large, they were impossible to take outside to empty.
Again, they went home, thinking that her husband would have to work the next day and he needed to get sleep. Still, they did not anticipate the amount of rain and wind to come.
At home, they faced the second disaster. Encircled by large forest giants, trees started to fall down, trapping them in their driveway. Knowing that they had to get to the store, neighbors helped them clear a path with chainsaws. Once cleared, they faced flooding, keeping them from being able to travel the roads.
"We couldn't get to town," McCully said. "All the trees were down, it was a jungle. Six times we tried to get out."
On Monday, some of the neighboring business owners, along with her mom, collected things and salvaged as much as they could. Her mother asked a building owner a block away if they could store the merchandise in an empty storefront. The owner agreed.
"We spent five years building this up, and it was taken away just like that," McCully said.
McCully does have insurance, and since it was not caused by flooding but by the wind, she suspects she'll be covered. An insurance agent has already been by. She now has to itemize everything.
She recalls a week ago Saturday, when the town was having a parade down the main street. She was standing on the porch of her business, and remembers thinking: "My gosh, we have done such a good job. It was so pretty with everything in the window. It was so nice," she said.
And, now she's tallying up her losses, probably $150,000 to $200,000, including the missed sales she won't be getting from the upcoming holidays.
Already there to help is Disaster Solutions Group, a firm out of Texas, that arrived on Thursday. Hired by the building owner, they are there to help dry the building out and get it back up and running.
Scott Hinton, who is with Disaster Solutions Group, drove out from Colorado to help with the clean-up.
He said in a situation like this, they will get rid of everything in the building, pull up the carpet, or anything else that can't be salvaged, use disinfectants, and then run 300 to 400 dryers and dehumidifiers, powered by generators, to get the building dry.
The process will take about 10 days.
Because it wasn't flooded, and was drenched by rainwater, it doesn't have to be gutted.
"This is different since it was clean water," he said.
OCEAN SHORES -- At the southern tip of Ocean Shores is Damon Point State Park, a spit that juts into the ocean. As you can see from this Google image, it's narrow and long. And, as it turns out, very susceptible during storms.
In fact, the locals have already renamed it Damon Island.
In this first picture, you'll see that the road is closed. The waves came crashing over the sand bar, breaking up the asphalt as if it was peanut brittle.
It also did extensive damage to the cement path that ran down the center of the spit. You can hardly tell it was ever there.
And, although the water receded some, it seemed like a temporary situation. While I was there, the waves kicked up, and the water started crossing the entire width of the sand bar and connected. Here's a series of photos of it happening.
OCEAN SHORES -- The cute coastal town is largely intact. A lot of restaurants are closed, or only serving partial menus because most had to throw their food out because they lacked refrigeration.
But the lights came on two days ago, so people are starting to get up to full speed.
I talked briefly with Paige Holt, one of the managers at Caffe Amici, which is designed to look like a comfy, stylish Seattle coffeehouse.
The cafe normally serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, but was only serving breakfast today.
Holt said they had to throw out at least $3,000 worth of food, probably 15 gallons of milk alone. The cafe was closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday, they felt it was important to get a generator going so they could provide coffee and Internet access to the community.
"So many people were having [coffee] withdrawals," she said.
But Internet access was the most important thing they wanted to provide. On the radio, or the limited TV people were able to get with generators, "no one ever talked about us, and we didn't have power for six days," she said. "We wanted people to come in and be able to hook up their laptops."
The community was pretty disconnected, they weren't able to get out the first day, they started to run out of gas because they gas station didn't open until Wednesday. And cellphones weren't working.
She said the storm has affected tourism. The town is a destination for people she called "storm watchers." They rent hotel rooms, eat at the local restaurants, and when the the rain and wind hits, they run down to the jetty and watch the waves crash. By not having power, she said, the town has been quiet and slow.
"Normally we are pretty busy on the weekends, and on Saturday and Sunday we we have been dead," she said.
This was also the community that treated 17 people who got carbon monoxide poisoning at the IGA grocery store.
Grocery store employees say the business is almost back to normal, except for the frozen and refrigerated sections. They had to throw all the food out.
It's a little eerie to see the shelves empty. Take a look:
The sign at the IGA now reads: "Our community's compassion shines brightest during adversity. Thank you Ocean Shores."
From Aberdeen, I decided to drive the 20-or-so miles north to Ocean Shores, the tourist beach destination.
On the way, I saw numerous trees down on power lines -- at least a dozen but probably more.
Downtown Ocean Shores got its power back on two days ago, so I'm not sure what these lines are supplying power to, if they are indeed power lines at all.
Since Tokeland sits on a narrow peninsula, it would be an obvious location to get hit hard. Tons of trees have fallen, and in the town just north of Tokeland, two houses reportedly slid down a cliff into the ocean. The more residual effects are that it is still without power after a week, making residents among the 4,000 people in Grays Harbor county that are don't have electricity tonight.
Crews are expected to work through the night, and Tokeland hopes to get power tomorrow.
Ask Melody Gerber what will be the first thing she will do?
Take a shower.
That's right, no one has water either because it must be pumped from wells into the house.
I found Gerber at the Shoalwater Bay Casino, the one bright spot in the town, running solely on generators. The casino has become the community center, one ne of the places you can go for heat, lights and a warm meal. Of course, plenty of gambling, too.
Gerber, who has been living full-time in Tokeland for 13 years, said it was the largest storm she'd ever experienced.
Patches of her roof, down to the plywood, blew off, and her wind meter topped out at 75 miles per hour, although she suspects winds were much stronger. The only thing that saved the community, she suspects, is that there was a low tide. The low tide gave them about another 10 feet to store all the rainwater that was falling.
As a fan of impressive natural wonders, she said: "It was awesome."
The not so cool part, though, is losing power for the next week. And, since Tokeland is at the very south end of Grays Harbor county, it seems they are always the last pocket for crews to get to.
Gerber said without water or electricity, her routine changed.
A generator helps her out by running the fridge, freezer, a light and occasional microwave usage, but that means no TV.
"I'm a reader, but for people who are TV-aholics, they are banging their heads against the wall right now," she said.
And since there's no electricity to run the well pump, there's no running water, meaning no flushing toilets, and taking showers is out of the question.
To partially solve that problem, she can go outside to the well, skim water off the top, and bring it inside to manually flush the toilet. Showers are a more delicate matter, using a wash cloth and cold water to clean off.
In general, she feels like without the luxuries of water and power, you get lazy.
"Water rules your life," she said. You don't notice it until it's gone, but she says you stop washing down the counters and crumbs accumulate. It's the little things.
And, she acknowledges, they are little -- many more people have it worse.
WESTPORT -- The volunteers at the school that I just wrote about impressed several messages on me, one of which is: not a lot has improved since Hurricane Katrina.
They said communication fails so easily and they feel like they've been forgotten.
For instance, at a neighboring senior center, there has been a 35-bed shelter. Only a handful of people showed up the last couple of nights because the radio reported wrongly that it was full.
They also had their two cents that say about FEMA, the federal emergency service that was blamed for a lot of the delays in responding to the victims in New Orleans.
They said that FEMA arrived bringing blankets -- with the caveat that they had to be returned, or else the school would have to pay for them.
That required each person who took a blanket to sign for one. They said that a lot of people, especially those who are undocumented, felt uneasy doing that, so they went home without one.
"We didn't get rescued by FEMA, or the Red Cross, we got rescued by the Boy Scouts," said Ocosta Elementary School Principal Dana Stedman.
However, the crew of volunteers hadn't heard the latest news -- President Bush declared the storm a major disaster in several counties, including Grays County.
Upon hearing the news, the group clapped and breathed a collected sigh of relief.
"The blankets are now freebies," one said.
The designation means they will not have to be returned.
WESTPORT -- Since the lights were on in Aberdeen, I decided to head south to Westport, where I knew some people were without power.
On the main road in Ocosta, right before getting to Westport, a sign said "hot meals," so I pulled over to take a look.
There was a major operation at the school, supported mostly by school employees, the National Guard and the Boy Scouts.
Inside about 200 people had been gathering for breakfast, lunch and dinner since Thursday. Outside, the National Guard was unloading an entire truck of food delivered by Top Foods, and off to the side there was a bus that served as a central kitchen.
Here's the pretty amazing part about this story -- the bus was brought to the school by Boy Scout Troop 835 of Pacific, led by Jim Brass. It was the one-year-old Boy Scout Troop's first project, and it stores 300 to 400 meals onboard so it can be deployed at a moment's notice.
It arrived Thursday, and when another local troop found out about it on the radio, they were at the school waiting for them.
Together, they have been cooking up stews, chili, scrambled eggs, and serving salads and fresh fruit for the residents of Westport who had been without electricity going on five or more days.
The old school bus looks a little bit more like something that would tour with the Grateful Dead than respond to emergencies, but is a tight-running ship.
One of the four Boy Scouts was keeping watch when I boarded. The first area had a sleeping area and a table with a small TV. The next area had a three burner, industrial-looking gas stove, microwave and mini-fridge and a full sized sink. There was also a bathroom. The whole thing was running on a monster-size generator (compliments of Lowe's).
In the far back, there was room for shelves, where food and cooking supplies were stacked in big rubber bins. There was also a full-sized freezer.
In front, there was a staging area where additional supplies could be dropped off. Large items were kept for cooking food, and smaller items were separated so that families could take food home.
The operation will wind down tomorrow. A lot of residents got their electricity back on this morning at 3:30, however, most of their food in their fridges and freezers have gone bad. So volunteers still expect to get a fair number of people.
"It's for anyone who needs it," said Westport Fire Captain Dave Bell. "You have people with really nice cars pulling up, but you also have people arriving on bikes and by transit."
Bell said the area was really hammered. Everyone has been talking about how loud the roar is when there's sustained winds of 80 miles per hour. The metering equipment in Hoquiam broke at 84 mph, but gusts supposedly rose to 120 mph.
The evidence is here. Trees have literally snapped in half, and have been pulled straight out of the ground, falling on their sides to expose their roots.
National Guard Staff Sgt. Joseph Bons of Everett said because the wind knocked down so many lines, there's been a lot of demand for food and water.
If the grocery store has electricity, it's picked over. If it gets re-stocked, it's gone again.
Bons came from Everett, delivering 100 cases of MREs, which have about 12 meals per case, and half of a pallet of water. The water here is deemed potable, except for in Central Park, where there's a boiling advisory.
The donations have also been pouring in from a number of stores, including Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Dominos and Grocery Outlet. While, I was there Top Food delivered a truck of 12 pallets of food, including peanut butter and jelly and bread.
Brass, the Boy Scout troop leader, said that these are the types of things that make people feel like they haven't been forgotten (even if they have been).
They even brought a small TV and VCR to play children's movies and a case of yarn and knitting needles for seniors.
"You want to give them your best so they don't feel forgotten" he said. "This is a poor community that is suffering from an economic downturn in the fishing and logging industries. It means a lot for someone to remember them."
As Brass and his four Boy Scouts prepare to cook their ninth meal, he says: "I think it was a success."
But he's not totally content. They need a bigger water supply on the bus -- it only lasted a day, and probably should have enough food on hand for 1,000 meals.
Even now, I can overhear him telling other volunteers that he just secured milk for additional meals. He said, "We have to get this community up and running."
I just drove Highway 8 West from Interstate 5 to the coast on the southern border of the peninsula. If you are not familiar with the area, the road takes you through tiny towns such as Elma, Montesano, before getting to Aberdeen, which sits on Grays Harbor.
It's a beautiful drive, especially on a cold, clear day.
On the way in, I wondered if there wouldn't be any evidence of a huge wind storm. It doesn't leave muddy tracks like floods do. But amazingly enough, there were signs, and they came in the form of, uh, signs. Every metal freeway post was bent to the side or completely folded down. The ones that seemed particularly susceptible were the larger ones with two posts. Those folded down, as if they were bowing.
The other sign came in the form of utility crews. I saw six of the large, white bucket trucks lined up in a row on Highway 12, diligently working on what looked like major transmission lines.
The lights in downtown Aberdeen are on from what I can tell. A reader board at a gift store said: "Thanks Power Crews; preorder your baskets."
I haven't spent a lot of time in Aberdeen, but I've heard plenty of stories. My mother lived both here and in Westport. My grandfather still visits regularly. As an ex-fisherman captain, he checks on his boat when my uncle returns from Alaska in the summer. And as of three months ago, he comes to visit my grandmother's grave.
So, when my mom heard I was off to Aberdeen, she suggested I talk to her best childhood friend, Elizabeth.
From her stories, the wind was the worst part -- not the rain.
She said it howled so loudly, she didn't hear anything when two large trees blew over in the backyard. Her electricity remains out, but stays warm by a fire, and she says: "Thank god for peanut butter and jelly." She said her lights are supposed to go on today.
Without electricity, there's not much to do. She said she went to the grocery store today, which was absolutely packed. Everyone just wanted to talk to someone.
And everyone is trying to keep up their sense of humor. She said a man was talking about how he had to hurry home before it got dark, when he realized that was a silly statement because it was dark at home.
My day-to-day job at the paper is to cover technology news -- blogging on Tech Tracks is part of my daily routine.
But today is not routine, and this blog will not be about technology.
In fact, I've hijacked Tech Tracks to tell you another story -- one that has been forgotten to be told.
This entire week I drank in most every story written, unable to fathom how much devastation a rain storm can bring. A lot of the attention was centered on the hardest hit area -- Thurston County. The coverage was justified. The closure of I-5, an artery that supports tens of thousands of travelers today, is huge by itself.
But I kept waiting to hear stories about the Washington coast, one of the state's most well-known tourism gems. It was whipped by winds that reached upwards of 100 miles per hour, and as of last night, when I last checked, 16,000 people still didn't have power in communities such as Westport. When I called yesterday looking for a hotel room, none had electricity in Westport. In Aberdeen, they were full of people, likely seeking heat and electricity.
I'm going to call the people there the forgotten storm victims.
So, I'm embarking on a mission to tell you the story that I haven't read yet. I have no idea what I will find, but I want to find out.
Can you imagine not having power for almost a week? When the sun goes down at 5 p.m., the flashlights come out. It's bone cold. And despite not having anything better to do, you can't even watch TV!
If there's stories you know need telling, please post a comment to let me know about it, and I'll do my best.
The World Economic Forum announced today it has named 39 companies as Technology Pioneers of 2008.
Among the 23 based in the U.S. are two local companies: Kirkland-based Clearwire and Seattle-based Medio Systems.
The list was narrowed down from 273 nominees. To be selected, the World Economic Forum said, the company must be "involved in the development of life-changing technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society."
Previous winners include Business Objects, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Corel, Encore Software, Google, Mozilla and Napster.
The Forum said Clearwire, founded by Craig McCaw, "clearly has tomorrow in mind." The company is building a high-speed wireless broadband network in the U.S. and in several markets abroad.
As for Medio Systems, run by Brian Lent, the forum said: "Medio Systems is the leading provider of mobile search and advertising solutions that help mobile operators implement the best customer experience and allow advertisers to reach their intended target audiences."
I'd heard raves about Artemis Cafe & Bar from a few people at Microsoft. The new Capitol Hill restaurant is the effort of Microsofties Oscar Velasco and Boris Gorodnitsky.
In his review today, Seattle Weekly's Jonathan Kauffman is pleasantly surprised at the software guys' first effort in the restaurant biz, writing at some length about the "recipe for failure" that is "well-funded food lovers with no restaurant experience who chuck great careers to open their own bistro." That doesn't appear to be the case at this Mediterranean-themed spot.
I wonder how long before Velasco and Gorodnitsky get on board with the Microsoft PRIME card to drum up more business. Though from Kauffman's description, it sounds like they hardly need it.
Bill Clinton went before a crowd of "several thousand" Microsoft employees in person, and tens of thousands who watched via the company's intranet, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said today in introducing the president to a gaggle of reporters earlier today.
After his remarks to the assembled employees, he took questions and waded into the crowd.
Clinton provided a somewhat unsatisfying response to the biggest question involving his presidency and Microsoft: How does he feel about the outcome of the U.S. antitrust case against Microsoft, initiated during his administration?
"I don't know enough about the outcome to know," Clinton told reporters. "You know, in our administration, we had no contact between the White House and the Justice Department over the enforcement of the law, so, I knew, the first time I heard about the Microsoft case is when I read about it in the paper, literally. I had no knowledge of it.
"And I guess, I'm not dodging, this question. If I knew enough to give you an answer, I would, but, then, since I'm so ignorant about this, there's no point in demonstrating it by giving you an answer that would only show that I don't know what I'm talking about."
Clinton also praised Microsoft for matching employee charitable contributions, which, according to Ballmer reached $72 million this year, up from $63 million last year.
"Companies that can afford to do so should follow this company's lead and match their employees' gifts," Clinton said.
He also thanked Ballmer and Microsoft for the company's support of causes he has championed, including www.ninemillion.org, a United Nations effort to provide an education for 9 million refugee children by 2010.
"The problem is that, believe it or not, even after all these years of dealing with climate change, there is no commonly accepted clear measurement of the impact of specific actions on the problem," he said. "So what Microsoft is doing for us, with Infosys and [the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives], they're developing the baseline so that we can go into every major building and say, 'OK, here's what your carbon footprint is now and then we'll be able to measure every specific thing we do to say how much it's reducing.'"
Clinton devoted most of his comments to answering attacks on Sen. Hillary Clinton during Wednesday night's Democratic Presidential Debate, particularly an implication that President Clinton had attempted to delay releasing archived records from his administration pertaining to his wife.
Bill Clinton's statements at Microsoft today provoked a response from the Republican National Committee, which alleged, in part, that the Clintons continue to distort the facts and hold back documents.
Computer security and safety advocates are gathering Tuesday to promote Internet safety in Seattle. Didn't you know that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month? Be careful out there. The event is at the Seattle Public Library downtown beginning at 10 a.m.
To draw attention to the shindig, which will include Microsoft and Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, the National Cyber Security Alliance released a survey of attitudes toward online safety nationally and in select cities, including Seattle. Security software vendor McAfee teamed with the NCSA on the study, so take it with a grain of salt.
Some interesting findings from the Seattle survey, which polled roughly 200 people, ages 18 to 49, online:
-- 22 percent of respondents or someone close to them were victims of an Internet crime or identity theft in the past 12 months.
-- More people (42 percent) are concerned about Internet crime, such as identity theft, than physical crime, such as robbery or stabbing (29 percent).
-- Time spent online in an average day:
3 hours or more 51%
1 hour to up to 2 hours 21%
2 hours to up to 3 hours 17%
30-59 minutes 8%
-- Computers in the home:
1 computer 37%
2 computers 35%
3 computers 15%
4 computers 4%
5 or more computers 8%
I do not have a computer in my home 2%
-- Not surprisingly, most of us think we're either "intermediate" (54 percent) or "advanced" (10 percent) when it comes to knowledge about cybersecurity. About 36 percent described their knowledge as "beginner."
A man in China dropped dead after playing online games for three days straight, according to reports from Chinese media today and this story.
The 30-something man from Guangzhou died Saturday after being rushed to the hospital from the Internet cafe, the Beijing News said. Exhaustion was given as the most probable cause.
CANCAN CHU/GETTY IMAGES
Most of the customers at this Internet cafe in China are students.
It's hard to know how much of this is real and how much is state propaganda designed to discourage Web addicts. Chinese authorities have been cracking down on Internet content and Web-surfing activities, including banning new cybercafes and limiting the time users can spend playing games online.
As for this poor guy from Guangzhou ... maybe his avatar can live on in Second Life.
How many people have companies like Microsoft lost over the years because of the commuting nightmare between Seattle and the Eastside? Maybe none, maybe only a few. Considering the worsening traffic situation for people who need to work on one side of the lake every day, but want to dwell on the other, life is definitely not easy.
THOMAS JAMES HURST / SEATTLE TIMES
Arteries clogged daily
Now it sounds like some tech companies are finally getting wiser because our local transportation officials are not.
Today we're seeing a stream of news about Microsoft's possible plans to expand along South Lake Union and F5 Networks building up its waterfront campus and opening a new R&D center in Bellevue. Meanwhile, Google is serving up perks on both sides of the water. The locations all seem aimed at lessening employees' commuting woes.
If more companies would match F5's incentive program, which gives employees up to $300 a month if they bike, walk, bus or carpool to work, the traffic situation just might improve a bit more.
With the 2008 Olympics in Beijing now less than a year away, we're getting in the mood for medals. And we can consider Microsoft's Imagine Cup, a global technology and creativity competition among students from around the world, the Olympics of software. So, with the winners of this year's cup announced today, let's do a "medal count" -- admittedly an imprecise measure because of inconsistent factors from country to country such as population and resources -- and see which countries have the top young technology talent.
The Imagine Cup has nine events from Algorithm to Short Film. Microsoft lists the top three finishers in each category. There's also an interactive map of the world showing all finalists by category and country.
Both China and France had four teams finish in the top three, the most of any country, but each had only one first place. China's was in the IT Challenge, which asks competitors to "demonstrate proficiency in the science of networks, databases, and servers, as well as the areas of analysis and decision making in IT environments." The French team took first in Web development. (Taiwan also had a second-place finish.)
Poland had three winning teams, all of which finished first. The country dominated the visual arts, winning the photography and short film categories, as well as the algorithm category -- perhaps the most demanding of the event. It's an individual competition comprised of "brain teasers, coding challenges, and algorithmic puzzles."
Romania and Brazil had two top-three finishers each.
In the high-profile software design category, in which teams of students used Microsoft technologies to design applications to improve education, Thailand took top honors, followed by Korea and Jamaica.
The United States had several finalists, but no top-three finishers. Those so inclined to do so might read this as another piece of evidence that the U.S. is lagging the rest of the world in math and science education.
I listened to some excerpts from the Aspen Ideas Festival, which took place early last month, and one quote caught my attention.
Randy Heinrichs introduced himself as a former Microsoft Research employee and the CEO of a new company, 2b3d (more on that in a second). He promptly got something off his chest:
"I am formerly from Microsoft Research, and I've been waiting to say this for a long time after 10 years: I love Apple. I love Sony. I love Linux. I love open source," Heinrichs declared, to big laughs from the crowd of intellectuals at the event.
(You can listen to Heinrichs' brief speech, along with several others that kicked-off the festival on American Public Media's Word for Word, which is where I heard it. Heinrichs' comments begin at 3:39.)
"What I really love is education," Heinrich continued.
He related a story of his son asking permission to play at a friend's house. When granted, the son went to his room, and logged on to World of Warcraft.
That got Heinrichs asking himself what motivates kids to play video games -- particularly the increasingly immersive online multiplayer games -- and, "What motivates us, as adults, to continue to buy them Xbox, Sony PlayStations, Wiis, telephones, all of this digital equipment that is changing these children and building them into a new culture of digital natives, where all of us sitting here, as I look across the sea, are digital immigrants."
Heinrichs' Big Idea is to "build an interactive serious gaming and media grid to support a high-definition learning environment for these kids." His company, 2b3d (to which I could find no link online) is working on doing just that.
"I would like to get these kids to be new citizens of the world by combining our institutions of education with these digital institutions," he said.
A number of Seattle-area companies were nominated or awarded with an American Business Award last night during a ceremony in New York.
The honor, also called a "Stevie," recognizes the efforts, accomplishments and positive contributions of companies and business people worldwide.
Winners from the area included: Seattle-based CleverSet, Satsop-based SafeHarbor Technology and Leisure Care of Seattle.
Here are the categories and other local companies that were nominated:
Best New Product or Service - Computer Software MessageGate, Seattle, MessageGate E-mail Governance Suite v.4.2
Best New Product or Service - Telecommunications Envision Telephony, Seattle, Envision Identity Protection Solution
Best Overall Company - Up to 100 Employees Another Source, Seattle. SafeHarbor Technology, Satsop. (A Stevie winner).
Best Overall Company - Up to 2,500 Employees Mithun, Seattle. Talisma Corporation, Bellevue.
Most Innovative Company - Up to 100 Employees CleverSet, Seattle. (A Stevie winner). Intelius, Bellevue.
Best Sales Organization - All Other Industries MILA, Mountlake Terrace.
Best Chairman SafeHarbor Technology, Satsop, Annette Jacobs, chairwoman and CEO.
Best Newspaper Ad or Campaign Leisure Care, Seattle. The Bellettini branding campaign (A Stevie Winner).
Brand Building/Promotion Leisure Care, Seattle, Leisure Care Web site.
Training Microsoft, Redmond, Standards of Business Conduct 2006 Online Training.
More than 2,000 entries from companies of all sizes were submitted for consideration in more than 40 categories. Members of the Awards' board selected Stevie winners from among the finalists.
The Wall Street Journal over the weekend took a look at a look in men's fashion being popularized by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama: Suit and no tie.
It's a fashion trend that can be seen in the c-suite of several large companies, including Microsoft and Boeing. The Journal story, which deems the suit-no-tie look difficult to pull off, calls Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's look (no tie with a button-down collar as pictured in one example) "slouchy."
"Choose the wrong collar -- button-down instead of spread -- and the resulting casual effect might say middle management, not corner office," the story posits.
Boeing boss Jim McNerny is pictured tie-less, but with a pocket square, which, according to the story, takes the look "a step up."
For the record, a spokeswoman told the Journal that Ballmer usually wears a tie. I took a quick look at photos in our archives. During his recent visit to Asia, Ballmer was in a tie. At Microsoft's CEO Summit in mid-May, he was tie-less (pictured with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, also tie-less, and Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, who sported an orange tie).
Joe Nicholson/AP Photo
Bezos, Ballmer and Premji.
Ballmer went tie-less again in November when he announced a major open-source deal with Novell.
Ballmer tends to go with a V-neck sweater over a button-down collar, which is a look Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates also favors, and which both men wore at an event celebrating the launch of their biggest product, Windows Vista, in January.
It's a beautiful almost-summer day outside, which makes it even harder to leave Seattle. Today is my last day at The Seattle Times. I'm moving to the Bay Area with my husband, who has accepted a job in the video game industry.
Thank you to all the readers who have helped Tech Tracks grow from a wee bloglet into what it is today. I'll miss all your snarky comments and witty observations about Microsoft and the tech industry in general. It's been a lot of fun! Have a wonderful summer.
Unemployment in Washington fell to a record-low 4.4 percent in April, the third straight monthly decline this year, we reported today based on information released by the state Employment Security Department.
The jobless rate, adjusted to account for seasonal variations, declined from March's 4.6 percent.
Some of the noteworthy job categories that added jobs include the construction industry, up 900 positions in April; administrative and support services, which added 1,600; and bars and restaurants, up 500.
But what about high-tech? And, telecommunications employment?
The short answer is: not much has changed.
According to the Employment Security Department, software publishers saw zero change in April, compared with a month ago, maintaining 47,000 jobs. In the last year, the sector has added 3,000 jobs.
For the wired telecom carrier sector, zero jobs were added in April compared with last month -- maintaining 6,700 jobs. Compared with last year, the number of wired telecom jobs dropped by 800.
Employment at wireless carriers saw the most dramatic change. In the month of April, 100 jobs were added for a total of 12,900. In the last year, that category has added 1,100 jobs.
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cellphones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.
Pew created this quiz to see where people fit in its new tech-user typology. It's tied to a report the group released Sunday about Americans and technology.
Some good lunchtime reading from our Sports department today on this afternoon's match up between the Mariners and Red Socks.
Deep down in this story -- which focuses on the competitive history of Mariners' hit machine Ichiro and the Socks pitching phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka, who will face off today for the first time since they played in the Japanese leagues -- there's a quote on competition. Ichiro is talking about what it will be like to face Dice-K, who has matured since the two last squared off in August 2000.
"I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul," Ichiro says. "I plan to face him with the zeal of a challenger."
Wow. Now that's a quote. I would love to hear the all-stars of business and technology talk that way about their competition.
When the forecast calls for a lot of white powdery stuff to fall from the skies, it's hard not to get a little bit antsy.
For some time, the Washington ski slopes have provided Web cams to visitors of their Web sites so they can check out the snow conditions. But now the Summit at Snoqualmie has an even more high-tech option.
The Summit is providing a site where riders and skiers can post home videos from the slopes. Some of the videos were obviously posted by the Summit and feature music tracks in the background, but others show look like 30 seconds from a cell phone.
I can see how this could really catch on with people vying to show off the best jumps and tricks. After all, typically the only people to catch it are the few taking the lift overhead.
Check out "Four year old Jarod's first time skiing," and "WHOOHOO," in which a snowboarder lands a sweet jump.
Paccar makes the hulking Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks used to haul goods along the world's highways. But it wants to be known for more than that.
Today the Bellevue company said it's giving $2 million to Gonzaga University to construct a new engineering center. The funds will go towards building the Paccar Center for Applied Science, a 25,000-square-foot facility that will house robotics and artificial vision labs as well as classrooms and offices.
A lot of big ambitions seem to be riding on the gift.
When it opens in fall 2008, university President Robert Spitzer said the new center would "become the technological heart of our campus." Dennis Horn, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, predicted it would lead to "a significant jump in interest in Gonzaga among engineering students from around the country."
Company CEO Mark Pigott said Paccar is recognized as "one of the leading technology companies in the world. Hmm ... not exactly software or brain research, but these days designing a semi is also a high-tech process.
And it looks like Paccar can afford to be generous. Last quarter its profit was up 22 percent to $380 million on sales of $4.23 billion.
If you look into the archives of Tech Tracks (see the panel on the right), you'll find that the earliest posting occurred Jan. 30, 2006. It was an item by Kristi Heim on online censorship in China.
That was nearly 1,200 posts ago.
By our count, in the past year, our technology team has written 1,178 posts, nearly 100 a month. In a sheer quantitative sense we've succeeded, I think, in presenting you with more news, information and analysis than we ever have.
As with a lot of what we cover, Tech Tracks is a work in progress. It may not be obvious from a day-to-day perspective, but there's been a lot of experimenting going on here -- in subject matter, in producing online material and in writing styles, especially in what we somewhat pretentiously call "voice."
It's not surprising that what we write about most is Microsoft and wireless technologies, the two pillars of Seattle's tech industry. But another area that commands our attention has been digital technology. Seattle tech is turning into a three-legged stool.
One major reason we started Tech Tracks was to get immediate and ongoing reader feedback to what we do. That has been slower to develop, but of late we've seen more online conversations surrounding items here through the Comment button. Keep it up. We really do want to hear from you and engage with you.
The bottom line is the first year has been illuminating and interesting. And where we head in this next year is, at the outset, as intriguing as things were last Jan. 30. The newspaper industry, as we are reminded everyday, is undergoing transformation. Tech Tracks is one tiny part of that change -- and a part that's forward-looking.
Meanwhile, we look forward to giving you more tech things to read about and think about over the next 1,200 posts. We hope to hear from you.
According to this month's Fortune magazine, employees ranked Google as the best company to work for.
The perks are epic: free shuttles equipped with Wi-Fi to pick up and drop off employees; annual all-expenses paid ski trip; climbing wall; onsite doctors, notaries and washer and dryers; onsite oil changes and car washes; lap pool and free gourmet meals.
The average salaries for both hourly and salary workers were not disclosed, but the cover of the magazine shows how ecstatic the employees are. A dozen or so are all lifting one particularly thrilled woman up in the air.
Here are the Washington state companies that made the list of 100 top companies to work for:
16. Starbucks: Ranked No. 29 last year. The average for a salary worker is $43,598, while hourly employees make an average of $35,797. Part-time employees are eligible for full benefits if they work 240 hours a quarter.
24. Nordstrom: Ranked No. 46 last year. Average for salary workers was $48,500. Hourly workers make $35,200. In 1988, people of color made up 24 percent of staff, and now it's 41 percent. In managerial ranks, 31 percent are people of color, and 72 percent are women.
27. REI: Ranked No. 9 last year. The average for salary workers is $87,519; hourly workers make $22,453. Last year it started offering health insurance to all part-timers.
30. Russell Investment Group: Ranked No. 63 last year. Salaries were not disclosed, but Russell has pumped 15 percent of pay into retirement accounts every year since 1975.
50. Microsoft: Ranked No. 42 last year. Average for salary employees is $118,500. Hourly workers make $52,560. New perks in 2006 included free grocery delivery, dry-cleaning service, valet parking. Annual summer picnic drew 30,000 employees and family members to the Cascades.
64. Perkins Coie: Ranked No. 48 last year. The average for salary workers is $142,027; hourly workers make $58,807. The law firm has anonymous happiness committees that roam through the office spreading cheer, often in the form of gifts left on desks.
Interesting that only one tech company from the state made the list. What perks would you want?
The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group, two of the leading organizations promoting Linux, said today that they will merge to form The Linux Foundation.
The organization saidthat together they will speed the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms.
Founding members include Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell and Oracle. Other members include every major company in the Linux industry, including Red Hat, as well as community groups, universities and industry end users.
Jim Zemlin, former executive director of the Free Standards Group, will lead The Linux Foundation.
"Computing is entering a world dominated by two platforms: Linux and Windows. While being managed under one roof has given Windows some consistency, Linux offers freedom of choice, customization and flexibility without forcing customers into vendor lock-in," Zemlin said. "The Linux Foundation helps in the next stage of Linux growth by organizing the diverse companies and constituencies of the Linux ecosystem to promote, protect, and standardize Linux."
The Linux Foundation, which will have offices in Beaverton, Ore. and San Francisco, will continue to sponsor the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Torvalds is a Portland resident, who our columnist, Brier Dudley, describes as a cult figure among computer enthusiasts worldwide.
Brier has written many stories on the rivalry of having Seattle be the hub for Microsoft's Windows and Portland the center for open source.
Forget carpal tunnel, the new computer-induced ailment is called "Mouse Rage Syndrome."
I wish I were making this up.
But Information Week is reporting today that Social Issues Research Centre in the United Kingdom identified "Mouse Rage" as a new medical syndrome. Signs include: quickening of the heart, profuse sweating, and furious clicking and bashing of the mouse. In extreme cases, the ailment can be identified by loud screaming at video screens.
According to a study of 2,500 Web users, these symptoms affect all Internet users sooner or later. The study was released Tuesday.
The primary cause of Mouse Rage is "badly designed and hosted Web sites," according to the research center. That includes slow-loading pages, layouts that are difficult to navigate, pesky pop-ups and unnecessary ads, including banners. The most evil, however, is "site unavailability."
"The test results indicate that users want Google-style speed, function, and accuracy from all of the Web sites they visit, and they want it now," according to the SIRC report. "Unfortunately, many Web sites and their servers cannot deliver this."
So, make it your New Year's resolution to design your Web sites better.
Jeanne Dietsch of MobileRobots said several robotics bloggers have been chattering about a line in my robotics story earlier this week that suggested the price of the company's P3-DX is $40,000. Turns out, it's more like $4,000. The executive at Microsoft who told me the price of the robot was apparently wrong. (I placed a call to him today to check that he wasn't referring to something else, but I haven't heard back so far.) Sorry for the confusion.
Update: Both the Microsoft exec, Tandy Trower, and Dietsch said today that $4,000 is the base price for the P3-DX. Microsoft bought four of them outfitted with "advanced laser mapping and autonomous navigation software, laser bumpers, gyros, wireless, etc, etc for $76,000, or $19,000 each," Dietsch said, adding, "We did give them a reduced price, however. We didn't charge them for the Windows OS!"
Yesterday it felt like the world was searching for James Kim. The digital world that Kim knew so well pulsed with information, and we wanted to know more, captivated by his plight and the image of his instantly likeable face.
Today we are searching for answers that may never come. When a reporter here saw the first story that his body was found and read the news to our small tech team, the sadness and disappointment struck like a physical blow. More than 2,000 comments followed CNET's announcement Wednesday, and many people who never knew the man were in tears.
Earlier this week, when the search for Kim dragged on, I began to feel angry. Why with all the technology we glorify was there not an easier solution for finding him? Others lamented: if only he had OnStar or GPS.
Now I wonder whether we all put too much faith in technology. Maybe it makes us feel invincible. Sure we can operate a BlackBerry while driving. Sure we can get to our destination in 4.5 hours; it says so in the convenient directions we pulled up in seconds over the Internet. If not, we have a mobile phone, so we can just call.
Kim lived in ultra-wired San Francisco, where he wrote about tech gadgets and was "always connected," as his friends described. What epic struggle must happened out there when he was all alone fighting to find any help for his family?
At the end of the day, we are all just flesh and blood, capable of wrong turns, vulnerable to even small variations in temperature, fortunate for every day we can take a breath. As the virtual world mourns James Kim, that might be something to remember.
Some good news out this afternoon about the family of CNET tech editor James Kim, which had been missing since Nov. 25 after a Thanksgiving visit to Seattle.
Kim's wife and two daughters have been found alive and were airlifted to a local hospital, authorities said in a 3 p.m. press conference. The search continues for Kim, who, according to this story, left the family car on snowshoes two days ago to get help.
Another press conference has been scheduled for 5 p.m. to release more information, and it can be viewed live here.
Could Microsoft and Google eventually compete in the realm of philanthropy? Google.org, the search giant's charitable arm, looks to be beefing up its Mountain View, Ca-based operations and has seven new job openings posted. They show that Google is building teams to address poverty and sustainable development, climate change and energy and global public health. The philanthropic work will make use of Google's own projects, technology, partnerships and other resources.
With initial funding of $90 million, Google.org is dwarfed by the $2.5 billion in charitable contributions by Microsoft in 2005, and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose assets are expected to grow to about $60 billion with help from Warren Buffett.
But Google.org has a pretty ambitious goal: eclipsing Google itself in its impact on the world.
A driver crashed his car into RealNetworks' front entrance on Elliott Avenue this morning. Luckily, no workers were outside the building when this happened, according to a RealNetworks spokeswoman.
According to our story, the driver went through a green light at the T-intersection and crashed into the building. That's a pretty steep slope leading down to Elliott Avenue. He was pulled from the vehicle, unconscious, and needed CPR from medics. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center.
The world is shrinking. This week two free programs on nanotechnology explain how advancements in the science of structures smaller than one billionth of a meter promise revolutionary change in many fields, from drug delivery to electronics. The events take place tonight and Tuesday at the University of Washington, the first school in the nation to offer a PhD. in the field. Both are held in UW's Bagley Hall, Room 154.
Tonight at 6:30, the Northwest Science Writers' Nanotech-O-Rama features talks by Francois Baneyx, director of the UW'S Nanotech center; bioengineering professors Xiaohu Gao and Patrick Stayton, who will talk about applications for cancer diagnosis and treatment; and Valerie Daggett, professor of medicinal chemistry, who will speak about computer simulation methods.
Tuesday afternoon, Intel Senior Fellow Robert Chau, who directs nanotechnology research at the world's largest semiconductor company, will speak from 12:30 to 1:20 on "Extending Moore's Law Using Nanotechnology."
--The Wall Street Journal has some not-so-nice things to say about Seattle's BillMonk in its profile today of blogger Michael Arrington:
Some of the companies Mr. Arrington writes about are tiny and have questionable business models, like BillMonk, a company owned by Code Monks LLC that lets people use its online service to settle small debts between friends -- free of charge. The site may soon impose a small fee for fund transfers, though, and BillMonk co-founder Guarav Oberoi says he's confident the site will be successful. Mr. Arrington concedes he gets pitched about some "heroically dumb stuff," but he says many companies "deserve their moment in the limelight."
-- The Electronics Entertainment Expo has been significantly scaled down for next year to a smaller and more intimate video game trade show. But a second show just announced today promises to revive blustery theatrics of E3 next October. Organizers of the GamePro Expo show are predicting it will draw 30,000 attendees to Los Angeles -- that's about half of E3's attendance.
-- A new phrase, "Web science," enters the techie lexicon today with an announcement from MIT and a U.K. university that they plan to begin researching the field. The research will be led by Tim Berners-Lee, widely credited with creating the Web's basic infrastructure.
Web science will try to study the big picture of the Web, including social networks and the way people behave on the Web.
Minority students ranked Google as their ideal employer in a survey this year by Universum. The company polls undergraduate and MBA students every year to find out what they want in a future employer. Turns out that Google placed first overall, followed by Walt Disney, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Microsoft. The results are based on surveys of about 13,000 minority students from 115 schools in the U.S.
Five out of the top 10 companies were tech companies. See the full results here.
Craigslist began charging people to place job ads on its Seattle site on Oct. 22. Job listings now cost $25. Already, there is a marked decrease in the number of ads.
