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End of 'Get a Mac' and more...

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sun, 23 May 2010 21:00:00 +0000

I've been watching the piling on against Apple recently and wondering what it is that's allowed Adobe and Google to position Apple as the new Microsoft. And maybe it's... victory?

Or perhaps it's letting go of Justin Long and the 'Get a Mac' ad series - which effectively signals that Apple's head-to-head battle with Microsoft is over. Now I'm not a HUGE fan of Justin's but I have liked him since his time on Ed so... I'm guessing that by becoming *the* computer company of the current age means they can't really play the upstart any longer.

While Steve and company may have real business and technical reasons to be unhappy with Adobe and Google, it seems they can't expect the wider public to be on their side anymore... and may want to do some work on their role as an *industry* leader.

End of 'Get a Mac,' end of an era | Technically Incorrect - CNET News
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20005630-71.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple
Apple has removed all Get a Mac ads from its site, redirecting visitors to a more prosaic explanation of the Mac's benefits. What next? Read this blog post by Chris Matyszczyk on Technically Incorrect.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20005630-71.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple

Figuring Budgets for Kickstarter

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:13:00 +0000

Anyone out there using Google Buzz?

How about Twitter?

The system I'm using this second can't do Twitter (please don't ask), but I found a post from Randy Nargi on Buzz that's well worth checking out.

I think I've mentioned this before, but just in case, Randy is a local filmmaker who's had some success with the funding site Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/), "a new way to fund ideas and endeavors". It's a site and process that's well worth checking out for indie filmmakers and others financing smaller projects (I forget if there's a cap, but I think I've only seen projects for $10K and below).

If you're thinking of going this route, there's a very useful post at the Coffee & Celluloid blog that lays out the processing costs and other considerations in using Kickstarter -- pretty valuable stuff for other kinds of projects as well. Visit the blog at: http://coffeeandcelluloid.com/2010/03/04/how-to-figure-the-true-cost-of-a-kickstarter-project/

@ewhitmore

Popcap Games on OReilly Radar

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:25:00 +0000

Very good interview (both audio and text format) with the Jason Kapalka, founder of Popcap Games, on the OReilly Media's Radar column. If you're interested in the production and distribution of (highly addictive) casual games, and how the companies that make them grow... this is very useful stuff.

If you're interested in game development close to home... our next local IGDA chapter meeting (that's the International Game Developers Association) is this coming Wednesday at 6PM. All are welcome -- more info at http://www.igda.org/albuquerque

Meanwhile, the article is here:

The Minds Behind Some of the Most Addictive Games Around
If you've wasted half your life playing Peggle, Bejeweled, Zuma or Plants vs. Zombies, blame these guys!
by James Turner

The gaming industry tends to focus on the high end products, first person shooters that crank out a bazillion polygons a seconds and RPGs which spend more time developing the plot in cut scenes than in actual gameplay. But for every person playing Borderlands, there are scores playing casual games like Bejeweled and Zuma. PopCap Games has been at the forefront of casual game development, with a catalog that includes bestselling titles like Peggle and Plants vs Zombies, in addition to the two previously mentioned. I recently had a chance to talk to Jason Kapalka, one of the founders and the creative director of PopCap. We discussed the evolution of PopCap, how the casual gaming industry differs from mainstream gaming, and the challenges of creating games that can be engaging, without being frustrating...

Full article and audio at: The Minds Behind Some of the Most Addictive Games Around

Cultural Media, Lasers & More

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:50:00 +0000

For the Maya Skies fulldome project, the production team here at ARTS Lab had the privilege of working with INSIGHT Digital in capturing Mayan temples in the process described below. That project, INSIGHT's work and a few other things have re-emphasized the idea that this is an area where New Mexico really excels: using some of our high tech & media skills to preserve and translate culture using various media.

From the New York Times:
Scots Aim Lasers at Landmarks

...cultural expertise transcends national borders. The Scottish team of four or five will spend a few days setting up and moving around their various scanners to capture all of Mount Rushmore’s nooks and crannies, collecting billions of bits of digital information, which will then be brought back here, to be crunched and sorted out by computer.

What results should be the most complete and precise three-dimensional models ever of the site, millions of times more detailed and accurate than the best photographs or films, precise down to the tiniest fraction of a millimeter.

In an era of computer animation, with gamers navigating virtual universes at the click of a mouse, making laser scans of old monuments may not sound special, but the Scottish team has achieved some unprecedented levels of sophistication with their models. Through scanning, the experts can conjure up what objects looked like ages ago, in effect turning the clock back on ancient sites. They can simulate the effects of climate change, urban encroachment or other natural or man-made disasters on those same sites, peering into the future.

Given a proposal for a new building in a city like Edinburgh, they can also create virtual realities, almost microscopically accurate, so viewers might see what the building looks like from all angles in the place where it’s intended to go, including the shadows it might cast at different times of day.

The technology isn’t brand new or unique to Scotland, but the Glasgow team is on its cultural front line. Douglas Pritchard, a Canadian-born architect by training, is the wizard behind the Digital Design Studio at the art school. He heads the Scottish laser expedition with David Mitchell, director of Historic Scotland’s Technical Conservation Group. Describing how fast laser modeling has progressed and how far it might soon go, Mr. Pritchard said, “We’re no longer a million miles from the ‘Star Trek’ holodeck.”

More at Scots Aim Lasers at Landmarks

Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:37:00 +0000

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Twitterous

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:47:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

It still comes up fairly often, perhaps as it's reached the next wave of adoption -- no longer just for a few technogeeks, but reaching the mainstream. And that might not really be true either -- Twitter still has a fairly small user base -- but if you're in the worlds of media and tech-related business, colleagues are using twitter, even if you aren't yourself.

It was one of the topics on the menu at a recent Webuquerque event on social media and in the new column from the New York Times David Pogue:

State of the Art: Twitter is What you make of it

Writing can be solitary work, but not when you write a tech column. Feedback pours in so quickly — by e-mail, on blogs, in online comments — that it’s almost real-time performance art.

For the longest time, my readers kept nagging me to check out this thing called Twitter. I’d been avoiding it, because it sounded like yet another one of those trendy Internet time drains. E-mail, blogs, chat, RSS, Facebook. ... Who has time to tune in to yet another stream of Internet chatter?
True, there’s nothing quite like Twitter. It’s a Web site where you can broadcast very short messages — 140 characters, max — to anyone who’s signed up to receive them. It’s like a cross between a blog and a chat room. Your “followers” might include six friends from high school, or, if you’re Barack Obama, 254,484 of your most tech-savvy fans. (Incidentally, he hasn’t sent out a single Twitter message since taking office. Where are his priorities?)
Meanwhile, you sign up to receive the utterances of other people. Eventually, your screen fills with a scrolling display of their quips — jokes, recommended links, thoughts for the day, and a lot of “what I’m doing right now” stuff.
Even so, I was turned off by the whole ego thing. Your profile displays how many followers you have, as if it’s some kind of worthiness tally. (See also: Facebook friend counter.)
Then one day, I saw Twitter in action.
I was serving on a grant proposal committee, and I watched as a fellow judge asked his Twitter followers if a certain project had been tried before. In 15 seconds, his followers replied with Web links to the information he needed. No e-mail message, phone call or Web site could have achieved the same effect. (It’s only a matter of time before some “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” contestant uses Twitter as one of his lifelines.)
So I signed up for a free account name (pogue) and stepped in...

More at State of the Art: Twitter is What you make of it

Global Game Jam | New Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:55:00 +0000

yet another great opportunity for cool people to have fun working together...

Asynchronous Multiplayer Mobile Gaming

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:21:00 +0000

Hi folks... been a while. got a little busy.

We're planning to have some fun with iPhones and mobile games at the upcoming NM Media MIX (January 17th). Here's a little hint of what's going on from O'Reilly Radar and Wired.com:

Asynchronous Multiplayer Mobile Gaming
by Raven Zachary

With all the news on Friday about Apple's release of iPhone OS 2.2, there was another iPhone news item that got less attention than it deserved. Two young iPhone developers, Danielle Cassley and Jason Citron, released the sequel to their much-acclaimed iPhone puzzle game, Aurora Feint. Aurora Feint II: The Arena (iTunes link) introduces the concept of 'casual asynchronous massively multiplayer online gaming' for iPhone. That's a mouthful, merging a number of distinct terms into one. Let's break that down into its individual pieces:

Casual games have simple rulesets and can be played in a short amount of time, such as Blackjack or Mindsweeper.
Asynchronous games allow for people to participate without playing at the same time, such as turn-based games like Chess or Scrabble.
Massively multiplayer online games have persistent, shared worlds, such as World of Warcraft or for you parents of youngsters out there, Club Penguin.

This combination of gaming elements is very appealing in the mobile market. It's a perfect lifestyle fit. People want to play games in short increments of time. This may be during a commute on public transit or waiting in the doctor's office. People want to play games on their own schedule. Not every player in a game can dedicate the same period of time to participate. People want to play games with real people, especially people they know. A shared game world provides this opportunity.

Aurora Feint II accomplishes this through the use of 'ghosts'. A human player builds up a character in the game world that has the ability to act autonomously while the player is offline. The player's ghost can be challenged in the game world at any time, and when the player returns to the game world, the ghost can be controlled directly. It's a novel approach and solves a number of problems with people wanting to play with their friends on their own schedules.

Casual asynchronous massively multiplayer online gaming is going to be a hot market for game developers and it's a natural fit for mobile devices. Expect to see more iPhone titles like this in the near future.

From Wired:

Halo Wars Devs Form iPhone Game Studio
The potential for success on the iPhone was a strong draw for brothers Paul and Dave Bettner, so much so that they left Microsoft's Ensemble Studios to form Newtoy, a small Dallas-based studio focusing on games for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
"My brother and I quit our jobs working on Halo Wars for Microsoft two months ago. We quit our jobs because we believe in the iPhone," Paul Bettner said. "We believe it has the potential to be as revolutionary to handheld gaming as the original Gameboy was."

The brothers' goal with Newtoy is to create "the next generation of truly connected games," and they've kicked things off with their first title, Chess With Friends.

Players connect and play a turn-based "asynchronous" game of chess on their iPhones, meaning moves are made play-by-mail style. As Bettner describes it, "it's like text messaging meets gaming."

And from Techcrunch:

SGN Launches Wii-like iGolf for iPhone
Once you’re done turning your iPhone photos into works of art that Monet would be envious of, check out iGolf, a minutes-old app created by Palo Alto-based Social Gaming Network.
The application uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to detect a golf-swing like motion with the phone. Choose a club and swing the iPhone just like a golf club. Save your high scores and challenge your friends to beat your distance. Our best score with the driver so far is 406 yards.

The app is free, which will be appreciated by those of us who’ve spent untold numbers of quarters playing Golden Tee at the local bar. TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid tests the app - see the video below.

Try not to throw your iPhone through the window while playing. But if you do throw your iPhone through a window, please send us a video of you doing it.

From Mobile Entertainment:

CASUAL CONNECT: 'Innovate, don't Iterate' says Microsoft Casual Boss

You might also check out Social Gaming Network (SGN), which offers games and a social gaming platform that leverages people’s social connections.

a few little updates: G1, MySpace & Red

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Hey...

Between other responsibilities -- and my actual job -- things have gotten a little busy.

A few things on my radar in the meantime:

GOOGLE / ANDROID / G1

Google, T-Mobile and HTC release with some video at Valleywag: Brin and Page Show Up Late, Wing it at GooglePhone Launch

Meanwhile, Tim O'Reilly weighs in on Is Google Spreading Itself too Thin?

MYSPACE
Over on TechCrunch, News about the launch of MySpace' Music. Since MySpace has probably become *the* main site for music networking, this could be big. MySpace Music to Launch Tonight (from Michael Arrington)

RED
And in Video news, the RED folks are pulling back on their plans for RED Scarlet. From Callbox Live: RED Blinks: Scarlet Camera Goes Back to the Drawing Board.

Another Cool Albuquerque Start-up!?

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:03:00 +0000

Quite a few interesting things came up at this weekend's BarCamp Albuquerque, and I'm still following some of the threads.

One I found particularly interesting is StupidFilter, a new local startup backed by Flywheel Ventures. It's been covered very nicely in most of the right blogs, gotten some TV interviews, and it's a pretty cool idea (and nice demo). More below...

Stupid Filter Site: http://stupidfilter.org/main/index.php?n=Main.HomePage

From Gabriel Ortiz, writing at the Metafilter site: http://projects.metafilter.com/1621/StupidFilter-Beta-Release

So, I'm not sure who remembers my little StupidFilter project-- the one were I decide to cure stupidity on the internet with fancy-pants algorithms, but we kind of actually did it. It's not quite perfect, but it really works. So, without further ado, here's The Press Release and The Demo.

Abq BarCamp 3: Day Two

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:19:00 +0000

And we're back...

Really good event yesterday. About 20-25 attendees, most of whom stayed throughout the day. We're in a new room now, and ready to go...

Abq BarCamp 3: Day One

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:53:00 +0000

Another small experiment, trying to capture bits and pieces of this weekend's 3rd Albuquerque BarCamp...

No Infrastructure Start-up

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:49:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
Fast Company has a neat profile/interview of one of the new flock of start-ups enabled by cloud computing and the evolution of outsourcing. Will we be seeing more of these? Yes.

Can you think of other areas where this technique might apply?

Animoto: The No-Infrastructure Startup
By: Kermit Pattison

Fast Interview: In this Q&A Animoto co-founders Brad Jefferson (CEO) and Jason Hsaio (president) discuss the crazy week their Facebook app caused traffic to spike from 25,000 users to 700,000, how their business couldn't have existed before the advent of cloud computing and how, thanks to outsourcing, their biggest piece of hardware is an espresso machine.

In the old days, tech companies faced the substantial capital expense of buying lots of expensive hardware, not to mention hiring IT people to maintain them. Animoto represents a new type of company -- one that outsources virtually all of its computing needs. Animoto is a Web service that automatically creates videos from your personal photos and favorite songs. According to the company, the site has drawn 250,000 registered users, more than 10 percent of whom upgrade to paid service, and another two million have used the free Facebook application. And in July, Animoto was the top Facebook app in terms of active percentage of users...

Spore Begins to Take Over the World

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:37:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
It's possible that Spore won't take over the world, but its imminent release has some of the geekier gameplayers worldwide pretty excited. You might be hearing more about this...

From the New York Times:

Playing God, the Home Game

What is the difference between a game and a toy? Does a game that feels more like a toy — even a scintillating, empowering toy — fall short on its own terms? Or is it enough just to be a great toy?

Those questions came to mind again and again as I spent more than 60 hours recently with Spore, the almost impossibly ambitious new brainchild of Will Wright. Best known for his popular evocations of urban sprawl (SimCity) and suburban Americana (The Sims), Mr. Wright has spent the last eight years trying to figure out how to convey the vast sweep of evolution from a single cell to the exploration of the galaxy as an interactive entertainment experience. His answer, Spore, is being released in stores and online for PCs and Macs in Europe on Friday and in North America this weekend...
Most important, The Sims is profoundly noncompetitive and open ended. The Sims is structured so you can help your family putter around the house forever. There are other families in the neighborhood to interact with, but they aren’t trying to eat your children or burn your house down.
Spore, like real life, is largely about the survival of the fittest. In each stage your species either becomes dominant and evolves, or it becomes extinct (meaning you try over and over again until you “win”). In The Sims making a family dysfunctional is half the fun. In Spore a dysfunctional species basically loses the game. That competitive nature is one reason why, despite its cutesy looks, Spore is aimed both at adults and children. And that competitive aspect is why a relative dearth of rich and interesting play mechanics hurts Spore more than The Sims.

From IGN:

Spore AU Review

Nature has never been so unnaturally fun.

by Nick Kolan, IGN AU

Australia, September 3, 2008 - Drifting through the vastness of space, a lone asteroid breaks apart as it descends on a planet, exploding on impact. A tiny fragment, almost microscopic, flies into the vast ocean, and as the ice keeping it together melts; life is borne where once there was none. Welcome to Spore.

Will Wright's fascination with letting people play god -- from SimCity in 1989 to the game that garnered Will -- and Maxis -- worldwide fame and cemented EA as the top-dog in game publishing for over half a decade, The Sims -- has led to Spore, the first game where your actions truly feel godlike. But a new Sim game this is not, and this is apparent right from the moment your asteroid fragment breaks apart and you lay eyes on the amoeba-like creature you're going to manifest.

No longer a mouse pointer magically setting fire to the denizens of an arbitrary city, or moving some poor guy's sink to the back of his yard, forcing him to forgo sleep in favour of washing his dishes -- rather, you are this single-celled organism, and you need to fight for survival amongst a multitude of other simple creatures...

Harvard Business Review, Games & Digital Media

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:08:00 +0000

As our friend David Breecker has reminded me occasionally, Harvard's a pretty good place to get your MBA. And their Harvard Business Review is interesting not only for its high quality and focus on innovation (not that that's so unusual), but also for its familiarity with Digital Media.

From its recent interview with Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull (on effective leadership) in its Making Innovation Work issue, to ongoing classes and articles focusing on simulation work and role plays, HBR reminds us that digital media provides not only tools to support successful business, but also innovative ways of thinking. Another recent article applies the movies' 'blockbuster' model to developing major new products.

How to Create a Blockbuster

The importance of blockbusters has been challenged recently by Chris Anderson's long tail theory that you can make money in many creative industries by selling specialized products to niche markets identified via the internet. For example, the new CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceuticals giant, likens the search for blockbusters to "finding a needle in a haystack when you need it." He also worries that a company is at risk if sales depend too much on one or two megabrands that could run into lawsuits from generic competitors or regulatory challenges.

On the other hand, the president of Warner Brothers (think Batman etc) aims "to take advantage of what has become a very global market by focusing on bigger films that require a bigger commitment." He believes in blockbusters and his strategy is to create more of them...

In an excellent article last May, they review the way consumer games are being used to develop business leadership skills.

Leadership's On-Line Labs

Tomorrow’s business landscape could well be alien territory for today’s business leaders. At many companies, important decision making will be distributed throughout the organization to enable people to respond rapidly to change. A lot of work will be done by global teams—partly composed of people from outside the institution, over whom a leader has no formal authority—that are assembled for a single project and then disbanded. Collaboration within these geographically diverse groups will, by necessity, occur mainly through digital rather than face-to-face interaction.

What on earth will leadership look like in such a world—a world whose features have already begun to transform business?

Suspend your skepticism for a moment when we say that the answers may be found among the exploding space stations, grotesque monsters, and spiky-armored warriors of games such as Eve Online, EverQuest, and World of Warcraft. Despite their fantasy settings, these online play worlds—sometimes given the infelicitous moniker MMORPGs (for “massively multiplayer online role-playing games”)—in many ways resemble the coming environment we have described and thus open a window onto the future of real-world business leadership.

True, leading 25 guild members in a six-hour raid on Illidan the Betrayer’s temple fortress is hardly the same as running a complex global organization. For starters, the stakes are just a bit higher in business. But don’t dismiss online games as mere play. The best ones differ from traditional video games as much as universities do from one-room schoolhouses. In fact, these enterprises are actually sprawling online communities in which thousands of players collaborate with and compete against one another in real time within a visually three-dimensional virtual world—one that persists and evolves even while a player is away.

The organizational and strategic challenges facing players who serve as game leaders are familiar ones: recruiting, assessing, motivating, rewarding, and retaining talented and culturally diverse team members; identifying and capitalizing on the organization’s competitive advantage; analyzing multiple streams of constantly changing and often incomplete data in order to make quick decisions that have wide-ranging and sometimes long-lasting effects. But these management challenges are heightened in online games because an organization must be built and sustained with a volunteer workforce in a fluid and digitally mediated environment.

Getting a look at how leadership works in online games isn’t easy. To see the best players in action, you need skills that allow you to participate at the highest levels of play, and those can take 400 or 500 hours to acquire. When IBM commissioned Seriosity to study leadership in games, Seriosity used a team of a half-dozen veteran players, with more than 50,000 hours of cumulative experience, to observe and record the actions of leaders in this rarefied setting. The eight-month study also included interviews with more than a dozen prominent gamers about their leadership endeavors in this arena. A follow-up survey at IBM of people with both gaming and business leadership experience helped validate some of our findings and suggested how they might be translated to fit real-world corporate contexts.

A number of our conclusions about the future of business leadership were unanticipated. For one, individuals you’d never expect to identify—and who’d never expect to be identified—as “high potentials” for real-world management training end up taking on significant leadership roles in games. Even more provocative was our finding that successful leadership in online games has less to do with the attributes of individual leaders than with the game environment, as created by the developer and enhanced by the gamers themselves. Furthermore, some characteristics of that environment—for example, immediate compensation for successful completion of a project with nonmonetary incentives, such as points for commitment and game performance—represent more than mere foreshadowing of how leadership might evolve...

It's worthwhile to read the whole article at Leadership's On-Line Labs (charge for non-subscribers).

There's also a helpful rundown of the article at GigaOm.

Google News: Android & New Browser!

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:27:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
Been a while.

I'd been wondering what was up with Google, having been a fan -- or at least avid watcher -- of their business strategy, and thinking their success has lessons to teach most people in the tech and media fields. But there hasn't been too much to see recently... until this past week or so.

Android/App Store Update
The success of Apple's iPhone has threatened to make similar phone development organized by Google an also-ran. While it's still early to tell, the photos of forthcoming models, Android Developer Challenge Winners and plans for its own App Store are looking pretty good.

From the Android Developer Blog:

When we talk to developers, a common topic is the challenge of getting applications in the hands of users. That's why today I'm happy to share early details of Android Market—an open content distribution system that will help end users find, purchase, download and install various types of content on their Android-powered devices. The concept is simple: leverage Google's expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers like you.
Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. We chose the term "market" rather than "store" because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it. We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.
I also wanted to share some early details to help with planning your efforts so that you can be ready as our partners release the first Android-powered handsets. Developers can expect the first handsets to be enabled with a beta version of Android Market. Some decisions are still being made, but at a minimum you can expect support for free (unpaid) applications. Soon after launch an update will be provided that supports download of paid content and more features such as versioning, multiple device profile support, analytics, etc. Below are some screenshots that illustrate some of the security features and workflow.

More at the Android Developer Blog.

Google's support for open source and its developer community is one of the qualities that seems to offer great opportunity, and is already helping change the game across the board.

Meanwhile, somewhat unexpected and even more exciting news. Google's new Browser (?!) will be released tomorrow.

Post from Chris Kenworthy at Duke City Fix:

Google announced today that they will be releasing "Chrome", their very own open-source web browser to the world tomorrow (Sept 2) sometime during the day.

You'll be able to get the browser here: http://www.google.com/chrome

They also released a comic that hints at some of the features: http://books.google.com/books?id=8UsqHohww...tcover#PPA10,M1

More at the Duke City Fix Web Geeks Group.

And... nice write-up on the "7 Really Awesome Features of Google's Chrome" at Mashable.

Smartphones and Touch Screens Changing the Game

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:46:00 +0000

Well, 3D is still cool and pretty amazing, but it looks like the Touch Screen might be the next big thing that's going on now.

From the Jeff Han demo at TED in 2007 to Microsoft's Surface display, we've been on the cusp of even more fun things with touch displays for a little while. The success of the iPhone and other products getting these devices out to wide ranges of users is really changing the game.
(btw... if you're interested in similar start-up development, you might also checkout the Albuquerque BarCamp coming up soon.)

From the New York Times:

Turning Point for Touch Screens

BREAKTHROUGHS often beget other breakthroughs, and Apple’s slick use of touch technology on its iPhone has set touch-screen makers to salivating. An industry once relegated to niches now sees the potential for riches.
The market for touch screens has grown quietly for years, both in commercial applications like restaurant point-of-sale systems, credit card signature readers or automated teller machines, and in consumer devices like global positioning systems and game platforms. But touch screens haven’t created much excitement as the main way for people to use things like phones or computers or other consumer electronics — until now.
“Apple changed everybody’s mind about touch,” says Geoff Walker, global director of product management at Tyco Electronics’ Elo TouchSystems unit, a big seller of touch screens. That iPhone users can so easily resize photos with just a pinch or a flick of their fingertips is “supercool,” he says.
In particular, Apple changed minds about what is called multitouch technology. A multitouch screen is exactly what it sounds like: a screen that can accept input from multiple touches at once. If you haven’t seen an iPhone in action, you might have seen CNN commentators zipping around the “Magic Wall” during election coverage; the wall uses technology developed by Perceptive Pixel, a start-up in New York.
Apple uses multitouch screens in which a slight electrical charge reacts to the human body’s own electrical field, rather than pressure. There are other kinds of multitouch technology, but all are among the more expensive types of touch technology, industry observers say. High prices had caused multitouch to languish before the iPhone’s introduction.
...more at Turning Point for Touch Screens

One of the things helping push touchscreen development into hyperdrive though is a range of opportunities for funding for developers. There are lots of mini events and funds, but check out this at the New York Times:

Smartphone Start-Ups Have a Friend in This Fund

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Matt Murphy eats at expensive steakhouses, likes to watch his kids play soccer and is a loyal fan of Peet’s Coffee and Tea. And if he has his way, mobile phone users will know as much about each other as readers now know about him.
Mr. Murphy is a venture capitalist overseeing the iFund, a $100 million investment fund created earlier this year byKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Byers to invest in start-ups specializing in iPhone applications. One is Whrrl, a mobile location-based service where users can be tracked on their iPhone by friends, who can also critique and share their favorite restaurants or events.
Kleiner is hoping to tap into the popularity of the Apple iPhone, whose owners have already downloaded 60 million applications from Apple’s App Store. So far this year, Mr. Murphy and his partners at Kleiner have received 2,500 business plans for potential iPhone application start-ups and they have invested in four.
Mr. Murphy, 41, has for the last seven years focused on finding hot mobile start-ups. But until the iPhone emerged, it had not been easy. Much of the control over what is on a cellphone has been in the hands of the wireless carriers, not entrepreneurs. The iPhone, of course, and other smartphones on the horizon like the T-Mobile Dream, powered by Google’s new Android operating system, are sparking creativity among software developers.
“I was frustrated along with everyone else about how slowly everything was moving,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview at his office on Sand Hill Road not far from Stanford, where he attended business school in the 1990s. “Until the iPhone came out and you got to use one, it was hard to imagine how impactful it could be,” he said.
So far iFund has financed the companies Ngmoco and Gogii, a company called iControl that makes it easier to monitor homes while away and a soon-to-be-announced company that creates virtual worlds that one enters through the phone. (Kleiner made a pre-iFund investment in Pelago, Whrrl’s parent, but follow-on financing will come from the iFund, Mr. Murphy said.)
Three companies — Gogii, Ngmoco and the unnamed company — are expected to begin selling products in the fall. IControl’s applications are likely to come early next year.
The popularity of the App Store has spurred other investors and phone makers to advocate funds of their own. Research in Motion is expected to announce soon a fund for those developers who want to create applications for the BlackBerry. JLA Ventures, which is based in Canada, along with RBC Venture Partners, is co-managing the $150 million BlackBerry Partners Fund. Google announced a $10 million challenge for software using its Android operating system.

More at: Smartphone Start-Ups Have a Friend in This Fund

And even more in depth analysis of the business opportunities here at Jack Myers.com

New Mexico's Nano & Energy Connection

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

One of the items that's percolating out there in talks about the possibilities of new, clean and renewable energies are related needs for improved storage and transmission. Some of the reasons that's good for New Mexico are:

It's a crucial area for research.
It's an area that both Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Labs are already doing great work in.

Want to know more? LANL's Frontiers in Science Lecture Series will help explain things.

From nanowerk research and General news:

How nanotechnology benefits the science of renewable energy storage

(Nanowerk News) The science of renewable energy storage and how nanotechnology can benefit that science is the subject of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s next Frontiers in Science Lecture beginning August 26 in Los Alamos.

Albert Migliori of the Laboratory’s National High Magnetic Field Lab will give the series of public talks, titled, “Use It, Lose It, or Save It: The Science of Renewable Energy Storage.”
“The science will take time to mature, but with legislative and economic shelters to nurture it, scientists and engineers can develop better ways to store electrical energy,” Migliori said.

The lectures begin at 7 p.m. and are free of charge.

Lectures are scheduled at the following dates and locations:
August 26, Duane W. Smith Auditorium, Los Alamos High School, Los Alamos
August 28, James A. Little Theater, New Mexico School for the Deaf, 1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe
September 2, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 1801 Mountain Road N.W., Albuquerque
September 4, Nick L. Salazar Center for the Arts, Northern New Mexico College, 921 Paseo de Oñate, Española.
The Frontiers of Science lecture series is sponsored by the Fellows of the Laboratory. Frontiers in Science lectures are intended to increase local public awareness of the diversity of science and engineering research at the Laboratory.

For more information go to http://www.lanl.gov/science/fellows/lectures.shtml or contact the Community Programs Office at 665-4400 or (888) 841-8256 toll free.

The big question for scientists working to bring renewable energy like wind and solar to consumers is how to store the energy so that it can be used when the wind dies down or the sun isn't shining.

Migliori and other scientists around the world are looking for new ways to store energy, which will enable alternative energy to play a dominant role in energy production.

The issue of energy storage has been a hot topic among politicians this campaign season as they grapple to find a way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and lower energy costs for consumers.

Migliori says renewable energy storage will require many different ideas, but he hopes a Los Alamos lab technology aimed at storing electricity and converting it into ammonia or methane will play a helpful part in that mix.

"At some point, we will reach a point where renewables make up the largest portion of our energy sources, but we have to solve this storage problem first," Migliori said. "We have a chance to get in on the ground floor now, though, before we create a big mess."...

More at How nanotechnology benefits the science of renewable energy storage

iTunes Store Apps Update

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
Been a while :)

A few positive life changes and the wrap-up of this year's Duke City Shootout have taken a bit of time lately, but as summer winds up and the school year begins to begin... things are good.

One of the best recent experiences I've had (in addition to the Shootout) is the opportunity to work with two classes at The Art Center Design College as part of efforts to promote the next NM Media Industries Conference (January 16th and 17th, don't miss it). Hearing pitches from their Marketing and Graphic Design classes, it was really heartwarming to see the effort and creativity each student applied -- and their interest in helping grow New Mexico's Media Industries. I look forward to the opportunity to share some of their work -- and to see more of what our film and media students are doing statewide.

But... about iPhones and application development. O'Reilly Radar has an update on the kinds of applications being put up for sale, and it's great information. Additionally, I think we're seeing one of the first nearly market-wide releases of software to the general public; by enabling such a wide range of application developers access to a wide channel of fairly early adopters, I think Apple has done a really good thing for software developers.

It's also something I think media-makers (whether its movies, music, games or other software) should be thinking about -- what can the distribution models in one industry learn from another?

But, in the meantime, here's the word from O'Reilly Radar:

The U.S. iTunes App Store

With the iTunes App store now over a month old, I decided to look closely at data from the U.S. store over the last three weeks. While sales numbers are not publicly available, Apple publishes overall as well as category-level rankings. There are currently just over 1,800 (paid and free) applications in the App store, double what it was three weeks ago. Games is the largest category with about 500 applications (roughly 27% of all apps), up 87% from three weeks ago. Puzzles, Arcade, and Board games are the three largest Gaming subcategories:
The fastest-growing category, Education, more than tripled over the last three weeks.

The average price per paid app is around $5.50, with 94% of apps priced at $10 or less. Prices vary considerably by category with expensive apps skewing the average price in a category: a single application priced at $449 drove up the average price of Finance apps to more than $22. Excluding the top and bottom 1% priced apps, the average price of an iPhone application is about $5.20. Similarly, by removing the top and bottom priced app in each category, we get a more reasonable estimate of the average price per app within a category (click here for details).

More at: The U.S. iTunes App Store

Cinnafilm HD: Go Big or Go Home

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:26:00 +0000

Thinking of a few events such as the Duke City Shootout, Motion 08, Media Industries (MISP) Conference and several others, I've really been wrestling with the idea that some events and companies need to Go Big or Go Home. It's certainly that way in the entrepreneurial world, and that's one reason it's great to see Lance Maurer's Cinnafilm making real headway with its new product for HD.

If you're in LA the next couple weeks or attending SIGGRAPH (or know of others who are), please check this out...

Cinnafilm HD1 Launch in Los Angeles

Cinnafilm (TM) HD1: Digital Alchemy in Your Studio

You are invited to be one of the first in the industry to see our new product, the Cinnafilm HD1.

We will be showcasing this breakthrough technology in Los Angeles throughout the first half of August (http://www.cinnafilm.com/press-STD-20080627.php). If you would like to reserve a private demonstration at our Beverly Hills satellite office (week of August 4th through the 8th), please make your reservation at http://www.cinnafilm.com/LA-RSVP/BH/.

I also invite you (and guests) to our happy hour social during SIGGRAPH 2008 the following week; please go to http://www.cinnafilm.com/LA-RSVP/TB/ for more details.

WHAT IS CINNAFILM?

The HD1 is the industry’s first all-in-one, software-based format conversion platform, designed exclusively for film simulation and unlimited frame rate conversion of digital video. Powered by the latest in graphics processing technologies, the Cinnafilm HD1 tower is a new paradigm shift in digital video processing. The HD1 delivers an array of unparalleled quality format conversions and celluloid simulations in REAL TIME. Cinnafilm HD1 solves the most common problems facing digital productions today in a single, affordable workstation.

The HD1 delivers:
High quality, believable simulation of celluloid film for DV (up to 10-bit uncompressed)
Freedom from render time - allowing fluid, full-resolution workflow visualization
Motion-compensated de-interlacing and re-cadence solutions with accurate scene-cut detection
Infinite Frame rate, scan rate, and format conversions, including seamless super slow motion effects
An intelligent timeline allowing stylistic control and key-frame animations
Color enhancement and fully adjustable organic effects like film grain
High quality up res and down res output – ranging from web quality to 4k uncompressed
We look forward to seeing you at our Beverly Hills satellite office and/or at our SIGGRAPH social hour.

Sincerely,

Lance Maurer, CEO
Cinnafilm, Inc.
www.cinnafim.com
(505)242-6626 ext. 111

For additional information on Cinnafilm, please visit http://www.cinnafilm.com 600 Central Ave SE – Suite 229, Albuquerque, NM 87102, USA

Twitter Founder talks with Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:18:00 +0000

AMAZING little (well, nicely in-depth) article at Tech Crunch yesterday between Twitter fan/critic (and super influential Tech Blogger) Michael Arrington and Twitter (and Blogger) founder Evan Williams at O'Reilly Media's Foo Camp after Twitter acquired Summize. It doesn't get much better than this (hence all the links).

Two things I really like:
1) that after staying away from Twitter for days, I checked in long enough to see Evan Williams' hint that something big was afoot.
2) I think this article does an especially good job at capturing the thoughts and struggles of a young entrepreneur, grappling with issues of how much to open up data, how to monetize services (and where not to)... it's pretty cool.

From Tech Crunch:
Interview With Evan Williams: Summize Acquisition, API Issues And Their Revenue Model

A brief taste:

MA: What is your revenue model? Do you know yet? Have you thought about it?

EW: We’ve though about it. We had to do some thinking about that to raise a bunch of money, but it’s not actively in development right now. The broad strokes on the matter are obviously Twitter is being used for a lot of commercial purposes right now, in addition to social purposes. We think that works pretty well. We think there’s a lot of companies that we’ve talked to that seem to be getting a lot of value out of it. If that continues, if that becomes a rich world for users and the companies, we think we can extract some revenue from that.

Innovation, Music & Creative Business

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:48:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia
I'm often thinking of Google, but the single biggest reason that drives those thoughts is the capability to experiment with and develop strategies based on the volume of users. In terms of core business, that really feels pretty conservative; aside from a few world-changing events, that revenue stream seems very stable.

Similarly, many of the other internet startups haven't made huge leaps in their business models either: build a strong and consistent user base through some viral strategy, then sell ads and get revenues through referrals, and maybe sell to a larger outfit.

The real interesting experimentation in ways to monetize media still seem to be coming from the music world, and that, a new release from Radiohead, and perhaps a viewing of Music & Lyrics over the weekend led me to think of the perfect nature of the pop song for experimentation -- not just artistically, but in terms of other processes as well.

Earlier today, Radiohead released its new music video. They've done some creative work (and worked with some other creative artists) in previous video, but one clue that this is a little more interesting is its release in the Google Code section (http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/). You can also check in at the Google Blog here:

No cameras. No lights. Just data.

7/14/2008 07:47:00 AM
Posted by Ola Rosling, Product Manager

A few weeks ago we heard about a project Radiohead was working on. The band was making a new video, but they weren't using any cameras, just lasers and data. As you might imagine, we were intrigued.

The song is called “House of Cards,” from Radiohead’s recent “In Rainbows” album. In this new video, there were no cameras on set. Instead, two scanning technologies were used to capture 3D images. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produced structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne LIDAR system that uses multiple lasers was used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In the video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Whether you're a music fan or a developer (or both), we agreed with the band that it would be great to give you a deeper look into how all of this was done, and even a chance to play with the data yourself, under a license that allows remixing.

You can view the video, watch a short documentary about how it was made, interact with the video in 3D, download some of the data, and download an iGoogle theme and gadget - all at http://code.google.com/radiohead.

The technologies they're using are really interesting -- I know there are more than a few people doing sweet things with Processing -- but... what I find especially cool is that I think this experimentation with ways creative fans can work with materials developed by artists like Radiohead, Trent Reznor and Moby, isn't just a cool (or callous) business ploy (for instance OpenCut which is cool, but definitely business), but may actually be honest attempts to engage with their audience.

And if true creative engagement could be sustainable, that would be pretty cool.

Over at TechDirt, another artist finds other cool ways to connect...

Trent Reznor Continues To Show Different Ways To Connect With Fans
from the send-'em-on-a-treasure-hunt dept

Back when Trent Reznor was still signed to Universal Music, he tested out his own form of a promotional campaign for his latest album: he started hiding USB keys with songs off of the album in the bathroom at his various concerts. Fans would find the USB keys, bring them home and upload the songs -- making it into a huge event, generating much more interest around the album. Now that he's independent and testing out all sorts of interesting business model experiments, he's also doing plenty to connect directly to his biggest fans. Take, for example, this story in the LA Times about Reznor hiding concert tickets around Los Angeles, under rocks and in drainpipes, and then putting up coordinates and clues on the Nine Inch Nails website, sending fans racing across the city to see if they can find the free tickets. While it may be a little silly, it is yet another way for Reznor to build up a really loyal fanbase. He's making being a fan fun. Sure, it's not for everyone, but it's certainly adding value to the "true fans" that support Reznor.

A bit of a tangent, but back to the point. If we think in terms of scale, it's tough for me as an individual to really comprehend how millions of microtransactions work. A pop song though... feels like it has the right size for a number of things: experimentation on price (a la Apple), and experimentation by its creator on ways to distribute and use.

I you're a large corporation releasing only a few new products a year, they may have some variety and level of customization, but they'd better all work pretty well. If you're a band producing 8-16 songs every year or so, and maybe 4-6 videos, the scale of that competition encourages some innovative thought for each release, but also encourages you to keep moving on.

It's a balance I'd love to achieve.

btw... thanks to Will Reichard for the original link!

And... perhaps the best write-up on the process is at CREATIVITY (the making of video is pretty cool too).

Google enters Virtual World

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:48:00 +0000

In Venture Beat they're reporting on Google's entry into the 'virtual world' market (?) with it's "Lively" product. I'm a big fan of Google's approach of course, but some of their latest cool products and innovations (for example Gears, Open Social and Android) are yet to be fully realized. Will this move pay off?

Updated: Google unveils its long-awaited virtual world technology

Google is going into the virtual world business today as it unveiled “Lively by Google,” a product that lets users create highly personalized 3-D virtual rooms on the web. Users can create their own custom characters, or avatars, and interact with friends through text chats or animations.
The long-awaited move has been expected by rivals such as IMVU, Habbo, WeeWorld, and Gaia Online – all of whom offer virtual rooms and avatars targeted at young people. Lively by Google users will be able to embed videos or photos in the walls of their rooms. And the Lively rooms themselves can be embedded on a blog or web site with just a snippet of code. It will also be a Facebook application.

When Google moves into a new market, it’s a blessing and a curse. The small start-ups in the market can welcome the validation of their space. But then they have to watch out for some serious competition. In this case, Google signaled its interest early.

In 2005, the company made a secret bid to buy IMVU. The company turned Google down. The search giant did manage to hire one of IMVU’s five founders, Mel Guymon. Rivals such as IMVU and Gaia Online — which we wrote about here and here — have head starts with millions of members, but Google has a lot of marketing power to ease its entry into the market.

From GigaOm isn't too impressed yet either:

The other virtual shoe finally dropped today– after a year and a half of rumors, Google (GOOG) now brings us Lively, a web-driven mini-virtual world. Not a contiguous, immersive, fully user-created metaverse like Second Life, as it turns out– so it’s not really a direct competitor– but a series of virtual world chatrooms more akin to IMVU. (However, IMVU has a virtual economy of user-created content, while Lively does not, least not yet.)
...

Of course, all this doesn’t answer the most salient question: why would a search engine company create a virtual world in the first place? Does it even fit into their larger plans? As Mel Guymon, Google’s Head of 3D Operations, suggests to Virtual World News, the real takeaway is to validate a growing market for this space. “We’re basically saying this is a real space and everyone is doing this.” Sounds like the 800 lbs. gorilla is just saying, “Me too.”

TechDirt has two takes ---

From Mike Masnick:
Google's Lively Seems Lifeless; Joins A Big List Of 3D Chat Providers

Google's latest product launch, Google Lively is a 3D chat room offering that has plenty of people comparing it to Second Life, though in its initial version, it seems a lot closer to IMVU, a popular 3D chat solution that is apparently growing like mad. It's really no different than your everyday chat room other than the fact that your text chat takes place in a 3D animated room with avatars who can do a few different pre-designated actions. The Google version requires a software download, but after that apparently will appear in a browser, meaning that it can be included as parts of any site. It's still not clear what the actual advantage of such an offering is beyond traditional chat -- or what sort of advantage Google may have in providing a similar solution to what's already out there, beyond just the Google brand name. Perhaps there's more to this offering, but at a first pass, this seems like a me-too effort by Google without any significant advantage (yet).

This isn't say it won't get usage, but I'm having trouble figuring out what about this is really all that useful compared to other solutions out there. Google's successes all seem to be about a new and different take on something out there that makes is significantly more useful: Google search made search better, faster and cleaner. Gmail massively increased storage while providing a much cleaner, faster and more useful interface. Google Maps took the tired interface of internet mapping and made it (again) cleaner, faster and more useful. It's not clear that Lively really does any of that. It requires a download, and seems to merely copy what else is already out there without a significant advantage over any of them. Perhaps people will use this just because it's from Google -- but it still seems like it should be more compelling then just adding 3D avatars to chat.

As for Mike Ho's claims that this follows the same path as Gmail and Google Maps, I disagree. Both of those were instant sensations that attracted instant attention and usage do their differentiation. I also disagree with the assertion that Google is doing this just to add in contextual ads. While that may happen, contextual ads on chat seem a much more difficult proposition than on email, where there's a lot more content. Plus, it's difficult to see how ads would fit unobtrusively into such a scenario. Despite what some assert, Google doesn't try to stick ads everywhere, knowing that too many ads will often upset users. Finally, it's difficult to see how ads stuck into a synchronous process such as chat ad value. It would seem like they do more to detract value.

From Mike Ho:
Will Google Cultivate Its Virtual Worlds To Make Them Lively? Definitely

Google has been working on virtual world environments for about a year, and now they've announced Lively -- which has an unfortunate moniker that could inspire lawsuits from Microsoft Live branding folks. The descriptions of Google's new service have made Lively sound like a watered-down version of Second Life, aimed at people who can't figure out how to install an application. I'm a Mac user, so I can't even try it out -- but I'll take a stab at justifying Google's "me-too" avatar project.

Obviously, the main difference between Lively and any other virtual chatroom is that Google has access to a nearly instant critical mass of global users. But that doesn't mean Lively will be an sure-fire success. What will help ensure a Google hit is the consistent development of features that cater to users -- and then some text analysis magic that will provide relevant virtual world advertisements based on the Lively chat discussions. This is basically the same game plan that Google has used for Google Maps and Gmail (and Gtalk, too) -- start off with a sort of lackluster service and then add features that are compelling -- while sneaking in ads to monetize the service.

I'm not really disagreeing that Lively seems a bit lame at its start, but I'm slightly more optimistic that Google will be able to cultivate Lively and bring contextual ads into the environment. It just has to be entertaining enough to attract people to use it -- and I guess I don't see extraordinarily high barriers to keeping a Web audience entertained (see Youtube). Additionally, Google can build upon Gmail and Google Maps and its other offerings to enhance Lively -- which is something that Second Life and other virtual worlds can't necessarily do. On the other hand, it is also entirely possible that Lively could follow Orkut -- and miss out on the G-branding (why isn't it called Glively? or Google Life?) and the popularity of Google's more successful products. But I think Lively has a very good chance of tying together many Google services and reaching out to a younger audience...

It's been a while since I put on my Google hat to use that "What Would Google Do" thought process, and maybe that process (is there really a process?) has changed over time. It's certainly different than Apple's process for wide fully supported releases of products that are nearly always baked to perfection. (Maybe it's inherent in having a semi open source -- yet ultimately capitalistic -- mentality.)

If we take a long view (something possible with Billions in the bank), the immediate product is not really the point. If Lively works well, and makes more inroads into a general population not buying Second Life, that's great for Google. Regardless of that, if they can learn how best to monetize use of these spaces through ads... then they're very well positioned for whenever wider adoption of this or the tools mentioned above does happen.

Sports & Growth, Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:20:00 +0000

The idea of spending lots of time and effort (and $$$) on sports is something I have mixed feelings about. UNM President Schmidly's focus on Lobo sports and Mayor Chavez' desire for a (sports) event venue downtown have raised some valid concerns, but... when you're looking for the qualities of a first rate city (or a top tier university), sports are on the list.

They certainly are for Seattle's tech community, saddened by the loss of their beloved Supersonics. From Xconomy, a Seattle/Boston Tech Innovation blog:

Sonics Leave “High-Tech Shining City of the Future;” How Will Innovation Fare?
Gregory T. Huang 7/3/08

It is a gloomy day in Seattle. First real rain in weeks, eerie echoes of thunder in the air—the city is in mourning. Yesterday, the Seattle Supersonics’ deal went down, with the NBA team set to leave town for Oklahoma next season. I had thought when I moved here that I’d get to enjoy at least one full season of the Sonics. I was wrong.

The Seattle Times has a moving editorial today, which begins, “Seattle sports fans can only feel despair as the high-tech shining city of the future loses its 40-year basketball franchise and a ton of civic pride to a group of dishonest brokers from Oklahoma City.” The article serves as an appropriate bookend to the way I first heard about the situation back in February, from Bill Simmons at ESPN (who will always be the Boston Sports Guy).

The emotional response from fans says a lot about the city. We’ll see if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, a basketball fanatic, can help bring another Sonics team here (Seattle gets to keep the team name).

It’s impossible to measure, but as my colleague Luke points out, how many techies, entrepreneurs, and VCs have bonded over the years while catching Sonics games, and formed relationships that led to new ideas and ventures? We all know that innovation thrives in a well-connected community, and the community has now lost one of its key gathering points.

Sometimes it isn’t just about the money.

What key gathering points do we have here in New Mexico? What do we need?

Androidable

noreply@blogger.com (e) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:56:00 +0000

Google's Android platform... could change the frickin' face of telecommunications forever!

Well, with hype like that, the expectations are enormously high. With the success of Apple's iPhone and similar capabilities expected from Android (along with an easier path for homebrew applications and widgets, etc. to be shared, bought and used), I'm still on the optimistic side.

However, there've been a spate of rumors about troubles behind the scenes this past week (here's one from ReadWriteWeb), so... what's the deal?

From John Gruber @ Daringfireball:
Android Expectations

The new issue of Wired has a nice 5,000-word piece by Daniel Roth offering a behind-the-scenes look at Google Android. More about Google’s (and their Android team’s) motivation and goals than about specific details of the platform, but interesting.

One thing I should make clear, given some of the email I’ve gotten this week, is that I’m rooting for Android, big-time. My obsession is with wonderful, thoughtful software and gadgetry. I love the iPhone because it’s fucking amazing, not because it’s from Apple. It’d be fantastic if even one Android-based phone is as good or better than the iPhone. And Android’s “code what you want to code, install what you want to install” openness is a fascinating contrast to Apple’s tightly controlled iPhone software platform.

If things work out ideally with Android, it’s easy to imagine how Android, as an overall platform, could wind up being better than the iPhone, or at least could force Apple to open the iPhone software platform further. But that’s an enormously big if...
I have high hopes for Android, but my expectations are pretty low.

(The Wired article is really worth ready, btw... it's here.)

One fun thing about attending the Google IO conference was seeing the real energy programmers and developers have regarding Android -- and the few really cool apps that could be played with in test models (check out more links to top apps and the open handset alliance here).

From a different perspective though -- referred to in the first day's keynote -- as with the spectrum auction and the open social initiative, Google doesn't need the actual Android product itself to be a huge success (though that would be nice -- and it's been a while since they hit a real home run); if they succeed in getting more telecoms to provide more of a web experience -- and hopefully inject a little more hacker mentality into the fray -- that will drive more (mobile) web traffic, thus more (targeted) ads, and more revenue.

So... I'm really hoping the Android project is a homerun (like, say, the iPhone), but continuing to hit double and triples isn't bad either.

e mergent

End of 'Get a Mac' and more...

Figuring Budgets for Kickstarter

Popcap Games on OReilly Radar

Cultural Media, Lasers & More

Flickr

Twitterous

Global Game Jam | New Mexico

Asynchronous Multiplayer Mobile Gaming

Asynchronous Multiplayer Mobile Gaming

a few little updates: G1, MySpace & Red

Another Cool Albuquerque Start-up!?

Abq BarCamp 3: Day Two

Abq BarCamp 3: Day One

No Infrastructure Start-up

Spore Begins to Take Over the World

Harvard Business Review, Games & Digital Media

Google News: Android & New Browser!

Smartphones and Touch Screens Changing the Game

New Mexico's Nano & Energy Connection

iTunes Store Apps Update

The U.S. iTunes App Store

Cinnafilm HD: Go Big or Go Home

Twitter Founder talks with Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington

Innovation, Music & Creative Business

No cameras. No lights. Just data.

from the send-'em-on-a-treasure-hunt dept

Google enters Virtual World

Updated: Google unveils its long-awaited virtual world technology

Sports & Growth, Innovation

Gregory T. Huang 7/3/08

Androidable