Joshua Schachter just finished peppering us with little nuggets of wisdom in his “Lessons Learned in Scaling and Building Social Systems” session. His talk was not focused on the technical aspects of scaling social systems, but on the human/social aspects. He focused on the little bits of knowledge that are easy to dismiss as unimportant details but in the end can have large consequences.
Computerworld’s Eric Lai reports on a new device designed to power the $100 laptop from the One Laptop per Child project. The new generator is powered by a pull string instead of the crank in the original design, which ended up having major drawbacks. The pull string device can generate enough power to run the laptop for about 40 minutes after being pulled by an adult for 10 minutes.
ETech attendees had the opportunity to view this innovative generator at the O’Reilly Radar Executive Briefing earlier this week.
To read Lai’s interview with Brian Warshawsky, vice-president of manufacturing for Potenco, the manufacturer of the device, visit Computerworld.com.
Ewan Spence points us to the latest ETech Podcasts:
Our second show from O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference 2007 and the good and the bad of the future are here. The dangers of RFID, the progressive carbon offsetting of Java libraries, and the wonder of Heirarchial Brain functions. It’s all here in your daily round up of some of the more interesting talks and speakers from San Diego.
Marc Orchant interviews Mike Shaver, one of the founders of the Mozilla Organization, about the newly created Mozilla Manifesto–a document describing the company’s vision of the internet as a global resource and Mozilla’s role within it.
Listen to the podcast and read Marc’s report on ZDNet’s Talkback.
The good folks over at the EFF held their Pioneer Awards fundraiser ceremony in conjunction with ETech this year. Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson covered the event, which not only recognized the efforts of award winners Bruce Schneier, Yochai Benkler, and Cory Doctorow, but also featured a debate between the EFF’s Fred von Lohmann and HDNet Chairman Mark Cuban on YouTube and the
future of copyright:
Wearing jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt that read “I’d rather be fighting the man,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban last night defended his view that YouTube is eroding support for copyrights and that its actions should not qualify for “safe harbor” under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Calling it the “cockroach in the kitchen,” Cuban argued forcefully that YouTube, like Napster before it, is training up an entire generation to think that “anything goes” in the realm of copyright, and that Google’s recent purchase of the company only gives their actions more legitimacy.
Hear Cory’s acceptance speech over on the USC Center on Public Diplomacy site.
Today I attended two more presentations that focused on Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services. I also spoke with the Amazon Web services team at length yesterday to find out more about their offering and how I might be able to use it. After asking many more questions and sleeping on their offerings I have a few more thoughts to share about how to use these promising services.
For those of you who read German, journalist Janko Rottgers has posted several ETech articles on Heise.de. You can find these here:
–ETech: Wikia als meinungsstarke Schwester der Wikipedia
–ETech: Mark Cuban im Copyright-StreitgesprÃĪch
–ETech: Grenzenlose Ressourcen mit Amazons Webservices
–ETech: Magie und Morddrohungen
He also wrote a fun piece in English about the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s EFF Awards, which took place Tuesday night in conjunction with ETech.
–EFF Awards: YouTube Celebrity Deathmatch
The Wired team has been covering a number of sessions and events here at ETech this week. Here are several of their most recent posts:
–ETech 2007: Don MacAskill Saved $922,000 Using Amazon for Storage
–ETech Community?
–Magic is in the eye of the beholder, not the creator, danah boyd says.
–Words of wisdom from the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Awards
Eric Lai reports on Seth Goldstein’s presentation about Atten.tv at ETech. This software takes voyeurism to new extremes, allowing others to view a webcast of the sites that a particular user is visiting.
“Not only will Attent.TV users eventually be able to sell their clickstreams to marketers, they will also be able to sell them to fans. For instance, groupies might pay to view the clickstream of their favorite singer or actor. Or investors might pay to view the clickstream of a superstar stock picker like CNBC’s James Cramer, sifting for clues to his next investment decision.”
To read the complete article, visit Computerworld.com.
Chad Dickerson’s keynote speech this morning talked about how he hacked Yahoo!. Hacked Yahoo! the company itself and not code, mind you. In his speech, “Big Company Hacks at Yahoo!, Chad talked about the Hack Day that Yahoo! hosted last year.
Phil Windley continues his excellent coverage of ETech, posting summaries of Wednesday’s keynote sessions that you won’t want to miss:
–The Core of Fun: Ralph Koster
–Danah Boyd’s Learning from Muggles
–Mike Kuniavsky’s The Coming Age of Magic: Ubiquitous Computing User Experiences
Read all about it on Technometria.
“I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn’t come through any kind of [legal/government] regulation it would come through self-regulation,” Tim O’Reilly said in an interview with BBC Radio Five Live yesterday.
In town to cover ETech, BBC was able to participate in the conversation happening about how to prevent the kind of incident which happened to Kathy Sierra and which has made many others victims of blogging harrassment as well.
For the complete story, visit BBC News.
Ewan Spence from the Podcast Network pointed me to the his first podcast covering ETech 2007:
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The first ETech podcast is up. Our opening show sees Tim O’Reilly talk about the themes of the 2007 Conference, along with a great start up blogsearch company, a mathemagician (just listen…) and a discussion on the ramifications of the Kathy Sierra situation.
Amazon.com has a history of making good presentations at O’Reilly Conferences. Today’s “Amazon Web Services: Building a “Web-Scale Computing” Architecture to Meet the Variable Demands of Today’s Business” keynote by Werner Vogels from Amazon was another eye opening keynote speech.
In the last few years Amazon has created some of the most compelling web services in order to extend the reach of their massive online store. In the process of doing so, they have become the experts on web services and now the bring their extensive experience to the software hacker public.
I really enjoy going to O’Reilly conferences — you always meet new and interesting people, while at the same time catching up with cool people you met in the years prior. And this ETech promises to be no different — I’m excited to see that Jeff Hawkins from Numenta is giving a keynote and a session about his new venture today.
I have a lot of respect for Jeff Hawkins and his business partner Donna Dubinsky. Jeff is the creator of the original Palm Pilot in the 90’s and the Treo Smartphone when he founded Handspring. To hear him talk about Numenta excites me, since Jeff has proven that he can take his lofty ideas and turn them into usable and successful products in short order.
Enterprise reporter Chris Boulton offers a provocative look at BEA’s new enterprise products that will be demonstrated at ETech this week. Interviewing Jay Simons, senior director of product marketing at BEA, Boulton describes the implications the three new social computing products are designed to have in the corporate workplace. To find out more about AquaLogic Ensemble, AquaLogic Pages and AquaLogic Pathways, visit Internetnews.com.
“Open-source, object-oriented development, personalization, even hacking, are presaging and inspiring new manufacturing methods that will overhaul today’s plodding techniques born during the Industrial Revolution, according to panelists speaking Monday at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego,” writes Eric Lai of Computerworld.
Lai gives an excellent assessment of the amazing strides being made in manufacturing that were discussed in the O’Reilly Radar Executive Briefing yesterday. Find out more on Computerworld.com.
Brady Forrest caught Bill Tancer’s presentation at the O’Reilly Radar Executive Briefing yesterday, where he revealed his picks for the next four up and coming Web 2.0 sites. Bill works for Hitwise, a research firm that is able to measure the web activity of millions of internet users.
You can review Bill’s predictions on Brady’s O’Reilly Radar post: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/etech_hitwise_s.html
“Technology is so embedded in many people’s lives that it can be hard to step back and recognize the small shifts in the world brought about by adoption of new applications or gadgets,” writes Stefanie Olsen of CNET.
Stefanie’s report highlights some of the ideas and technologies that are being presented at ETech this week, along with a few of the unusual events for attendees to enjoy in the evenings. For her full report, visit:
CNET News.com
Dan Farber writes about BEA’s new enterprise products which are being announced at ETech today. AquaLogic Ensemble and AquaLogic Pages are Web 2.0 revisions of BEA’s enterprise software formerly known as Project Runner and Project Builder, respectively.
Read more on ZDNet’s Between the Lines or check out BEA’s complete announcement, “BEA Systems Showcases New Web 2.0 Products for Enterprise Users at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference” : http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070327/cltu113.html?.v=18
“I never thought Microsoft would lose the email war, but now I’m starting to wonder….Zimbra is an exceptional piece of software,” reports Matt Asay of Infoworld. “And now that it’s fully usable offline as well as online…why not switch from Exchange to Zimbra?”
Zimbra is demonstrating the latest version of its internet-based email program this week at ETech. Read Asay’s review in his “Open Sources” column and find out why he’s ready to switch:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/03/having_your_zim.html
Brady posted this message on the O’Reilly Radar blog today:
Kathy Sierra, a Foo and speaker at many of our conferences, has had to cancel her appearance at ETech today. Unfortunately, it’s not the usual travel or calendar mishap that typically befalls speakers. Kathy has been threatened and is handling the situation from her home. I have some trepidation about giving the offenders in Kathy’s post any more attention — but I have no trepidation about supporting Kathy in this. She absolutely deserves to never be treated this way. She has posted her story on her blog.Best of luck Kathy. You have our support. We all hope that you post again, that we’ll see you soon and that you’ll be able to make next year’s ETech.
Martin LaMonica reports that Zimbra has released an early version of Zimbra Deskrop, it’s Web-based email program that can run both online and offline.
Zimbra Desktop is an open-source program that uses Ajax and runs on any browser and operating system. It offers a viable, web-based alternative to traditional email programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. Zimbra Desktop will be demoed this week at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
Read more about Zimbra Desktop on CNET News:
Attensa will be previewing a new attention driven RSS reader - Attensa for Outlook 2.5 Beta 2 - that automatically pulls articles from RSS feeds that are most important to users to the forefront of their attention.
This is the first attention driven enterprise RSS reader that automatically and intelligently prioritizes articles, not just feeds, for a user. Attensa’s unique AttentionStream Learning Engine observes and learns from the user’s feed and article reading behaviors and works on the principle that past and present actions predict future behavior.
But wait. There’s more…
The word is out. Just Google “Outlook 2007 is slow” and you’ll see what I mean. The new version of Attensa for Outlook also significantly improves Microsoft Outlook 2007 speed by bypassing the Outlook 2007 RSS bottleneck.
Get the details on Attensa.com:
Though Richard MacManus is unfortunately unable to attend ETech this year, he held a popular photo caption contest, with the grand prize a ticket to ETech. Out of the many hilarious captions submitted, Kevin Jones’ reigned supreme. Congrats, Kevin, see you in San Diego!
Can’t wait until the conference to find out what Avi Bryant’s “Applied Heresies” session is all about? Read Conference Chair Brady Forrest’s preview of Avi’s theory and why cooking up your next creation without onions may give you a more delicious experience!
“Accepting GeoRSS and making KML a standard are very significant moves for Google and the geoweb,” writes Brady Forrest, Where 2.0 Conference Chair. “These moves are going to bolster the importance of both formats, lead to more web content being geotagged and keep Google feeling love from geohackers for a while.”
Read more about the implications of Google supporting this simple, yet powerful technology on O’Reilly Radar > Geo.
If you’ve been stumped trying to decide which of the hundreds of sessions to attend at the MySQL Conference next month, check out this super cool guide geared to the DBA written by Robin Schumacher, MySQL’s Director of Product Management. With his 13 years of database management experience, Robin provides excellent insight to help you to map out the perfect schedule that will give you the knowledge you need to take MySQL to new heights of performance.
You won’t want to miss his post on the MySQL AB site.
Apparently OSCON program chair Nat Torkington has been donning his remote viewing goggles to map out the future of Web 2.0. His latest Radar post is an incredibly wry look into the next several years of high-tech (and I mean HIGH).
WARNING: This column is only for the ultra-geeky. But if you’re savvy enough to read through Nat’s razor sharp predictions, you’re guaranteed a good laugh. I ask you - what other program chair could come up with such an imaginative look into the future? Our Nat is so smart. . .
Read his post on O’Reilly Radar.
David Pogue sang the praises of Launch Pad success story, GrandCentral, in his column last week, calling the service,
“a rather brilliant melding of cellphone and the Internet.”
If you aren’t familiar with GrandCentral’s “One number for life” app, check out Pogue’s excellent review. He does caution that the service is still in beta, and has a couple of drawbacks, but you may be tempted to give it a try anyway after reading about the amazing features that GrandCentral has to offer.
Dennis O’Reilly of PC World found a number of ground-breaking start-ups on tap at this year’s ETel including GrandCentral, Jaiku, ReQall, and After Hours Doctor’s Office.
Find out why he believes these companies are on the verge of success on PCWorld.com.
“The phone number is dead,” proclaims Nathan Halverson of The Press Democrat. “Instead, callers will likely speak or type a name and be routed to your voicemail, home phone, cell phone or some other form of communication.”
Halverson was able to explore this concept at ETel with a few telecom industry executives he found there. Read his informative report on PressDemocrat.com.
Carolyn Schuk explains why she was pleasantly surprised by what she learned at ETel. Read her insightful report on OpenMoko, the Linux-based open software stack that powers the FIC Neo 1973 mobile smartphone. You can find her blog on Voxilla.com.
Uberpulse reports on GrandCentral’s ETel announcements, including a video interview with GrandCentral’s COO, Vincent Paquet, who explains the latest features and functions added to the company’s personal assistant service.
Watch the video on UberPulse.com.
Vance McCarthy reports on the Telephone Mashup contest at ETel, and adds an interesting interview with Dave Nielsen of StrikeIron, one of the contest organizers. Nielsen deftly explains what a mash-up is, as well as the implications and how-to’s of this evolving technology.
Read all about it on Integration Developer News.
TMCnet web editor Spencer D. Chin hails Jaduka’s new API:
Introduced at the OReilly Emerging Telephony Conference (ETel), the Jaduka API eases development of virtually limitless voice-enabled business applications that can be used with any existing telephone wired,VoIP or wireless.
Read his coverage on TMCnet.com.
. . .re-usable, existing open-source software components can enable OpenMoko developers to radically re-think phones, creating “new life forms,” or “neos,” because “collective experimentation leads to new life forms.”
Read more about Sean Moss-Pultz and Mickey Lauer’s “OpenMoko” open-source phone software project, on: LinuxDevices.com
The platforms powering the Web today are the enterprise infrastructure of tomorrow. What we learn from those platforms is the enormous power of open source, open standards, and user involvement … and one more thing — that the future belongs to data. Every killer app on the Internet is a database application. And that makes MySQL the ‘Intel Inside’ of the next-generation of computer applications.
So writes Tim O’Reilly, in case you needed confirmation about the importance of MySQL in the tech ecosystem.
Need to learn more about how to maximize what MySQL can do for you and your business? Join us at the upcoming MySQL Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, happening April 23-26.
(Andy Oram has also posted a few thoughts about MySQL too.)
“The cell phone of tomorrow will be a map, a credit card, a TV remote and a taxi stand,”
reports Nathan Halverson of The Press Democrat.
Nathan met with a number of the leading innovators of mobile technology at ETel yesterday, and identifies some of the amazing applications they are developing that will change the way we use our cell phones in the future. Don’t miss his excellent article in The Press Democrat today.
Josh Lowensohn highlights some of the really cool features of GrandCentral’s phone service, including customizable voicemail widgets and the ability to share voicemail with others. Read his report from ETel on CNET’s Webware:
Ken Camp reports on the fabulous networking experience at ETel, capturing one of the most valuable aspects of attending this conference:
“Lots of material. Lots going on. Great event,” writes Ken.
He’s promised more photos, podcasts, and videos as soon as he gets the time to post. Keep checking his site for more news and information:
Watch Phil Wolff’s short, but interesting video chat with Benoit Schillings, CTO of TrollTech, as he explains how the company is actively working with developers to further expand the capabilities of mobile phones.
Phil also interviewed Janahan Vivekanandan of SayNow, a startup that’s making it possible for sought-after creative types (musicians, bloggers, and perhaps soon, politicians?) to initiate a two-way conversation via phone with their fans. You’ll find this post on Skype Journal.
“Just imagine the potential of being able to index, search, and cross-link your phone calls to other business data.”
