As a freelance writer, I write for publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Fortune.com, Popular Science and San Francisco magazine. I regularly report from Silicon Valley for the L.A. Times. Links to my most recent work, with the first couple of paragraphs from each, are below:
San Francisco: April 2010
In this 4,500-word feature for San Francisco magazine, I explored why so many high tech high achievers choose to send their children to Waldorf elementary schools, where there are no computers in the classrooms. The bottom line: The kids don’t need it, they learn the tech later, they build a great foundation for imagination and creativity, and computers are filling their brains with mindless junk that is often worse than anything we used to worry about from television.
The earthquake rips through the streets, swallowing trees and cars and people—everything except John Cusack and his family. Cusack, of course, expertly navigates the destruction that stays just an inch or two behind them. His limousine careens past falling buildings and over huge gaps in the roadway, but the audience knows it’s way too early in director Roland Emmerich’s end-of-the-world disaster flick 2012 for anyone vital to perish.
Gary Yost, creator of the groundbreaking software 3D Studio Max, sits in a darkened Fairfax theater and laughs. Afterward, he marvels, horrified: “Some people will take their kids to that movie.” Yost says he would lock his nine-year-old daughter, Ruby, in a closet before he’d let her near it—or anything like it. He came to see the film at the invitation of some old colleagues who worked with him on 3D Studio Max, which he created in the early 1990s as a design tool for architects and engineers, but which is now owned by Autodesk (and sold as 3ds Max) and widely used to make video games and movie special effects, like the earthquake sequences in 2012.
You’d think a guy like Yost would be the coolest dad at his kid’s school, what with all the whizbang, exploding action effects he helped create. But he keeps that part of his life quiet, because Ruby goes to Greenwood School in Mill Valley, a Waldorf-inspired institution that bases its curriculum on the teachings of early-20th-century philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who emphasized an experiential type of learning. You won’t find a single computer in any of the classrooms at Greenwood, which runs from preschool through eighth grade. Not only that, but Waldorf schools—and there are several ringing the San Francisco Bay—discourage “screen time” of any kind, both at school and at home, and especially before sixth grade. That means no TV, no texting (OMG!), no Facebook, no IMing or surfing the Net, and no video games like the ones made with Yost’s software.
It’s easy to imagine the typical Waldorf parents in the Bay Area: some earthy-crunchy-green types, some old Deadheads sipping kombucha and driving Priuses. And it does have its share of those. But you’d be surprised to learn just how many Waldorf mothers and fathers come from the exalted world of high-tech, like Yost does. In fact, a significant number of parents at Greenwood—and at San Francisco Waldorf and the Waldorf School of the Peninsula—work at some of the very companies whose products the Waldorf schools train their students to avoid. Their ranks include an executive speechwriter at Google, a former Apple marketing manager whose job it was to get computers into classrooms as early as prekindergarten, the chief technology officer of eBay, a cofounder of legendary children’s-software maker Broderbund, and the CEOs of several high-tech startups—all folks you might expect to enroll their kids at schools like those in Tiburon’s Reed Union School District, where even kindergartners get lessons on computers. Instead, these digital-age parents have opted for a homespun environment where children handwrite their own textbooks, learn to knit in first grade, and spend two years in kindergarten communing with gnomes and fairies (no ABCs in sight). Then these parents push against the currents of the culture and their own industry by continuing an anti-tech lifestyle at home.
Edutopia: April 2010
In this 2,000-word feature for the magazine of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, I explored a variety of programs that are trying to lead America on a path to learning global languages.
In the quickly evolving world of global-language learning, America is waking up to a new reality. Though we once asserted a sense of world dominance that relied on foreigners learning English, the United States is starting to hear the clarion call of a connected world in which knowing how to communicate in multiple languages is crucial.
We are at a pivotal point in what is increasingly called world-language education, poised to regain a measure of competitiveness with innovative tools and programs that promote crosscultural understanding. But unless we shed our reluctance to speak any language other than English, the potential of this renaissance may not take hold, and we could lose our edge.
Los Angeles Times: March 5, 2010
High-tech industry is powering up again
Los Angeles Times: March 5, 2010
Trendy technology leads to new jobs
These two stories are an early look at the potential for tech to lead the way out of our “jobless” recession. From the mainbar:
It looked as if the economy had dealt a powerful blow to L.J. Mottel, a 35-year-old father of two, when his employer, the Fontainebleau hotel and resort in Las Vegas, filed for bankruptcy and laid him off.
But unlike other victims of the downturn, Mottel had the luck of a high-roller on a hot streak: He was the Fontainebleau’s director of information technology, and that made him a hot commodity. He didn’t have to wait long before getting a new job at Service-now.com, a Solana Beach, Calif., tech firm that develops Web applications to help companies automate their IT departments.
“I never got the panicky feeling,” Mottel said. “I felt the IT field is the right place to be.”
While unemployment continues to limp along at nearly 10% nationally and more than 12% in California, the high-tech industry is on a roll. Sparked in part by a series of acquisitions, start-ups are getting funded again, giving them the cash infusion needed to hire.
Some tech companies are even having a hard time finding qualified employees to fill their openings, a reflection both of the competition to hire talent and of some workers’ unwillingness to move.
“Due to the recession and the economy, people are reluctant to seek change,” said Robert Greene, a tech recruiter in San Mateo, Calif. “They become more risk-averse in times when the economy is not good. People got burned. They went to companies and then got laid off. They don’t want to have that situation happen again.”
Los Angeles Times: Jan. 27, 2010
No surprise: Apple unveils long-awaited tablet computer
Steve Jobs shows off the unfortunately named iPad. Credit: Tony Avelar / Bloomberg, via the LA Times.
I live-blogged the unveiling of the iPad in San Francisco for the Los Angeles Times, using my Twitter account.
After years of speculation that Apple Inc. would bring to market a new tablet computer, the company today took the covers off its iPad. And visual impressions aside that it looked like a big iPhone, the new product will also incorporate aspects of e-readers and netbooks.
But it won’t make phone calls.
The iPad — with a 10-inch screen and weighing 1.5 pounds — will run all the more than 140,000 apps that can be used on the company’s iPhone or iPod touch. But the big addition is an iBook application that — with Apple’s own online iBookstore — positions iPad as an e-reader to compete with Amazon.com’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook.
Apple hopes to do for books what its iTunes store has done for music, and so far it has signed up five publishers.
Los Angeles Times: Oct. 28, 2009
Google co-founder Sergey Brin wants more computers in schools
High school dropout Sergey Brin has a few ideas on how the educational system should be improved. Not surprisingly from a guy who co-founded Google, where he still serves as president of technology and one of the company’s three key decision-makers, a lot of those ideas center on computers.
“It’s important for students to be put in touch with real-world problems,” Brin said. “The curriculum should include computer science. Mathematics should include statistics. The curriculums should really adjust.”
He advocated putting all textbooks on computers, to make for easier access, and for putting high school students to work — writing Wikipedia articles, and teaching technology to senior citizens and middle school students. In teaching, they will learn.
Brin spoke today at a conference on Google’s campus, Breakthrough Learning in the Digital Age, which the tech company is co-hosting with Common Sense Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. By and large, speakers passionately spoke of the advantages of equipping schools with the latest in digital technology, and of engaging students on their home turf — computers.
Los Angeles Times: Oct. 27, 2009
Facebook becoming big friend of small business
Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes, manages the Beverly Hills company’s presence on Facebook and other social media Web sites.
Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / Oct. 14, 2009.
Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes, the Beverly Hills baker to the stars, doesn’t have a Facebook profile. Nelson, who works seven days a week, has no time for chatting online with Facebook friends.
But Nelson is logged on to Facebook all the time. That’s because more than 70,000 people have declared themselves fans of Sprinkles’ Facebook page, which has its own “vanity URL” at www.facebook.com/sprinkles.
Each day on the website, Sprinkles announces a secret word, such as “ganache,” or “bunny,” or “tropical,” or “love,” and the first 25 or 50 people to show up at any of its five stores and whisper that word get a free cupcake.
“On Facebook, we can ask our customers what’s the next location they want,” Nelson said. “What do they think of our next flavor? It’s an amazing way to communicate with our fans.”
Facebook is not just for friends anymore. The free social networking site — blocked in many workplaces as a potential time-waster — is increasingly becoming an inexpensive marketing tool for small businesses.
Sprinkles is among a growing number of mom-and-pop businesses taking advantage of a relatively new program on Facebook, one that allows them to claim their name, become visible even to folks who aren’t on the site, and stay in close contact with their customers. The business, in effect, can act like any other person on Facebook, posting status updates and seeing what its fans are doing.
This story ran with a sidebar:
Los Angeles Times: Oct. 27, 2009
Facebook serves as portal to customers’ thoughts
Perhaps the most compelling reason for a business to get on Facebook is the likelihood that its customers are already there — and talking about it.
Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes in Beverly Hills, said it’s crucial to pay attention to what people are saying about your business online. He and others at Sprinkles respond to every person commenting on its Facebook page.
“Requests. Complaints. We’re watching. It’s not just me, it’s our entire team — store managers, the corporate team — who are paying attention,” Nelson said. “If you think about it, businesses used to have a small suggestion box near the door that mostly housed dust bunnies and an occasional piece of gum. Rarely would someone get back to you. But people can now make a post from an iPhone or a BlackBerry while they’re sitting in your restaurant.”
Los Angeles Times: Oct. 22, 2009
Microsoft hoping that Hollywood touch makes Windows 7 a hit
TEAM LEADER: Jonathan Wiedemann, former managing director of Propaganda Films, led the effort to improve the user experience on Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, the successor to the much-maligned Vista. Credit: Kevin P. Casey / For The Los Angeles Times / October 21, 2009.
Almost no one found Microsoft Corp.’s last attempt at a new operating system, Windows Vista, very entertaining.
So when it came time for the software giant to create the sequel, it hoped a little Hollywood touch would bring audiences back to its screens.
Jonathan Wiedemann, the former managing director of Propaganda Films, which made groundbreaking MTV videos as well as films such as “Wild at Heart” and “Madonna: Truth or Dare,” has for the last three years been leading a team responsible for a key feature on the Windows 7 operating system, the much-hyped upgrade to Vista that Microsoft will begin selling today.
If the early reviews are any indication, Wiedemann and Microsoft may have a hit. Critics who have tested preview copies seem to like it, and businesses say they plan to buy it.
The stakes are high. Sales of the operating system — essentially the software on top of which all other software runs — brought in more than $10 billion in profit last year, more than half of Microsoft’s net income.
But Windows sales have been slipping, in part because of the economy and in part because Vista was so poorly reviewed that many customers decided to keep their old computers, running Windows XP. In addition, rivals Apple Inc. and Google Inc. continued to eat into Microsoft’s market share and mercilessly mock the company for being “user-unfriendly.”
“If we started to hear the things about Windows 7 that we heard about Vista, people would have turned their backs on it,” said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at Information Technology Intelligence Corp., a research and consulting firm in Boston. “That would have been disastrous for Microsoft.”
In developing Windows 7, Microsoft needed redemption, and that meant re-booting the way it developed software, including wresting some control away from engineers and working more closely with computer makers.
“One of the issues with previous operating systems, Vista for example, was that you had a lot of people doing smart things without thinking of the larger picture,” said Wiedemann, who also once modeled for Richard Avedon and was married to actress Isabella Rossellini.
Montel Across America: Oct. 5, 2009
I went on Montel Williams’ radio show to discuss ICANN’s new deal with the U.S. government, which I wrote about in a blog post for the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 1, 2009.
Los Angeles Times: Sept. 17, 2009
TechCrunch50 Conference: Fewer toys, more tools
Dan Fost in “the pit” at TechCrunch50. Credit: Renee Blodgett, DownTheAvenue.
Never mind the pie-in-the-sky business plans. Forget about the ambitions to change the world. It was all about financial discipline and making money at a conference for start-ups in San Francisco this week.
Instead of cool-looking mousetraps, start-ups that drew the most attention at TechCrunch50 were focused on pragmatic solutions such as websites that save consumers money on concert tickets or help them track expenses.
“The companies this year are extremely focused on building businesses — not just features, not just products, but businesses,” said Jason Calacanis, a conference organizer and the founder of Mahalo, a Santa Monica search engine. “When the economy crashed, people got very focused on the business side.”
In addition to the above story, I filed on the LA Times tech blog seven posts in two days from the conference. I’ll put just the links here:
TechCrunch50: Women get short shrift
TechCrunch50: Easy expense filing
TechCrunch50: SeatGeek advises you when to buy tickets to the big game
TechCrunch50: MySpace looks for friends
TechCrunch50: Mint makes a mint
TechCrunch50: Penn and Teller, the iPhone app
Los Angeles Times: Sept. 10, 2009
Apple’s Steve Jobs makes first appearance since liver transplant.
It was supposed to be about Apple Inc.’s dazzling new products. Instead, the company’s press conference on Wednesday was about the man.
Grinning like a kid in a toy store, Chief Executive Steve Jobs stole the spotlight with his first official public appearance in nearly a year. He received a liver transplant about five months ago and returned to work part time in late June.
Hundreds greeted Jobs’ surprise attendance at Apple’s product unveiling event, held at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, with a standing ovation.
“I have the liver of a twentysomething person who died in a car crash and who was generous enough to donate their organs,” said Jobs, 54, who appeared markedly thin and spoke in a scratchy voice. “I wouldn’t be here without such generosity, so I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to be organ donors.”
An earlier version of the story ran online only, co-bylined with David Colker. This story was co-bylined with Alex Pham. The photo is by Tony Avelar, Bloomberg
Los Angeles Times: Sept. 9, 2009
Apple’s Big Event (liveblog)
I filed reports to David Colker in Los Angeles, who posted live to a blog during Steve Jobs’ comeback presentation.
Los Angeles Times: Sept. 8, 2009
Apple: It’s Only Rock and Roll, Not a New Computer
“It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” Apple says in its invitation to the media for its announcement tomorrow of something new and unspecified. So we probably shouldn’t expect something other than rock and roll, like the tablet computer Apple is said to be working on.
And considering that “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)” is a Rolling Stones hit, we probably shouldn’t get our hopes up that Apple is ready to put the Beatles’ catalog on iTunes. Those hopes are already fairly high, considering that the complete Beatles catalog at long last came out today, and The Beatles: Rock Band game comes out tomorrow.
Marin-Sonoma Here: Sept. 4, 2009
Big problem with nanotechnology?
Roger Roberts of the Marin Conservation League would like to see more investigation for nanotechnology. Credit: Jeff Vendsel, Marin-Sonoma Here.
Chances are nanomaterials are starting to show up in many of the objects of your daily life, without you even knowing it. The products of the tiniest technology can be found in power tools and paint, bath towels and batteries, sunscreen and suitcases, beer bottles, refrigerators, plastic wrap and more than 1,000 other items. Yet questions are starting to arise about the increasingly pervasive incredible shrinking world of technology. We already know computers get smaller, faster and cheaper every year. But now everyday materials are getting infinitesimally smaller.
Scientists working in nanotechnology are making objects at a molecular level - motors that can only be seen through a microscope, chemicals that change the makeup of a lotion, or a garment or a medicine, yet are invisible to the naked eye.
While many of these advances are hailed as the next great thing in technology, and something that will improve people’s quality of life for generations to come, some groups and researchers are starting to sound alarms about the potential unintended consequences of nanotechnology.
“The jury is still out on the environmental and health hazards associated with nanotechnology,” says Roger Roberts of San Rafael, a retired banker and the former president of the Marin Conservation League.
“It’s got lots of potential, of course, for delivering medicines of various purposes because it will go through membranes and the like, but who knows what the long-term effects would be if this got into the environment and got into the food chain? It might be equally insidious to mercury, who knows?” he says. “And the studies haven’t been done to understand the risks. Until we understand the risks, we ought to be very careful with how we proceed with nanotechnology.”
Los Angeles Times: July 25, 2009
Ukuleles have gone viral
Thanks to the Internet, the humble ukulele is pushing its recent popularity well beyond anything that old-time performers Don Ho, Arthur Godfrey or even Tiny Tim could imagine.
From YouTube to manufacturers’ websites, from bulletin boards to iPhone and BlackBerry applications that mimic ukes and teach chords, the Internet has been stoking the craze for nearly two years and unveiling fresh talent.
“The number of new players keeps going up,” said Mike DaSilva of Berkeley, who ditched a 20-year software career to make ukuleles.
Guitar maker C.F. Martin & Co. stopped producing ukes in 1994 because they had become so unpopular, but resumed in 2001 and is selling some of the handmade instruments for as much as $10,000 — even in these tough economic times.
Photo is by Robert Durell for the LA Times. He produced an excellent slide show of ukulele maker Mike DaSilva in his workshop that ran with the story’s online version.
Los Angeles Times: July 1, 2009
Facebook simplifies its privacy policies
Go ahead, share that status update – not just with all your friends on Facebook but with the whole wide Internet.
Facebook unveiled some incremental changes in its privacy policies today, giving users the ability to make some of what they put on the site available to the entire Internet. Sort of like what Twitter has already been doing for a couple of years.
Although the name Twitter didn’t come up in Facebook’s conference call, it had to be on the company’s mind, as the two firms vie to become the main platform where people share details of their lives.
Facebook had first announced the “everyone” option in March and shed some more light on it today. It also said it planned to streamline the process to make it easier for people to control who can see their activity on the site, and that it would provide a transition to give people time to learn the new rule.
Los Angeles Times: June 25, 2009
Walt Disney — the man, not the company — was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.
He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through places like his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World’s Fair of 1964.
The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.
Museum organizers — particularly Disney’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller — gave the press a preview today, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in San Francisco’s Presidio National Park.
About the photo: Walt Disney driving the Lilly Belle with four passengers
© Disney Enterprises, Inc. / Courtesy Walt Disney Family Foundation
In 1947, Walt Disney attended a railroad convention and then designed his own 1/8th scale steam locomotive with the help of the studio machine shop. Walt named his engine the Lilly Belle. Completed in 1950, the half-mile railroad track ran around his backyard and was an inspiration for Disneyland. The Lilly Belle and part of the track will be installed in the Museum.
Los Angeles Times: June 24, 2009
China blocks Google over porn, again
Some Google websites, including the popular search engine, were blocked by Chinese authorities today as Beijing expressed unhappiness with Google serving up porn in its search results.
The issue has long been a contentious one between the company and the country. Google said last week that it would block pornography on its Google.cn site, but Chinese censors said porn was still accessible through Google.com.
The outage may have been short-lived as some reports on the Internet show that spotty access to the sites returned shortly after 8 a.m. Pacific time.
YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Google, has been blocked in China since March. China also blocked Twitter and some other Internet services before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown this month.
Los Angeles Times: June 24, 2009
Intel and Nokia team up to create mobile device
As cellphones become ever more like computers, two giants in communications and computing have come together to hasten the process.
Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of computer chips, and Nokia Corp., which has a 40% share of the handset market, say they will work together to create a new mobile computing platform.
The companies did not release many specifics about the deal, other than to say they hope to develop products “to define a new mobile platform beyond today’s smart phones, notebooks and netbooks.”
“Cellphones need powerful computers inside,” Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s ultra mobility group, said Tuesday. “It’s natural, therefore, that the leaders in computing and communications come together.”
The move was hailed as a major step for Intel, which has struggled to cash in on the fast-growing demand for cellphones. “Everybody who sells chips is keen to get into the handset market,” said Joseph Byrne, senior analyst with the Linley Group, a semiconductor research and analysis consultant in Mountain View. “More than a billion units ship every year, much more than PCs.”
Los Angeles Times: June 9, 2009
At the Apple iPhone 3G S unveiling, AT&T gets lousy reception
In the secrecy that often surrounds Apple Inc.’s every move, industry cryptologists had plenty to study in Monday’s otherwise widely hailed unveiling of the company’s newest iPhone, the 3G S.
The focus was on AT&T Inc., the only U.S. provider of the iPhone. That’s because Apple left its partner in an uncomfortable position.
Some of the new features that iPhone users have clamored for, including the ability to use photos and video in text messages and to tether the phone’s Internet connection to a laptop, won’t be immediately available on AT&T’s network.
But they will be available in many countries around the world.
“Poor AT&T. They got totally flayed today,” said Rana Sobhany, vice president of marketing for Medialets, a New York firm that sells ads on cellphones. “Apple was positioning them as the villain.”
Los Angeles Times: June 1, 2009
‘Clean-tech’ start-ups are pushing the green button
Reporting from San Francisco — Amit Chatterjee worked for three Silicon Valley start-ups and software company SAP, but he was growing increasingly intrigued by global warming and climate change. The more he delved into the issue, the more he became convinced that there was a way to use software to help tackle the problem.
His idea — to help companies track and manage their use of energy, water and other resources — drew the backing of the valley’s most prominent venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Today, thanks to Kleiner’s $6-million investment, Chatterjee unveils his latest start-up, Hara, which monitors and manages companies’ water and energy consumption, and helps them plan ways to mitigate their environmental effects.
Los Angeles Times: May 7, 2009
iPhone app firm SonicMule puts music at users’ fingertips
Reporting from Palo Alto — Ge Wang blows softly, his fingers move lightly, and “Auld Lang Syne” comes floating out in ethereal electronic notes.
Then his instrument rings, so he answers it and starts chattering away.
It’s an iPhone, transformed through Wang’s software genius into an ocarina — a computerized version of an ancient Aztec flute. Wang, an associate professor of computer music at Stanford University, is the co-founder of SonicMule Inc. The Silicon Valley start-up also known as Smule has sold the Ocarina iPhone application at 99 cents apiece to more than 900,000 people.
To play the Ocarina, you blow into the iPhone’s microphone and press four dots on the touch screen, with different combinations creating different notes.
Wang, 31, came to the endeavor almost accidentally — more as an artist experimenting in the arcane field of computer music than with any sense of building a business.
“Making music is so satisfying, regardless of the result,” Wang says. “That is mirrored by my love of computer science.”
Photo of Ge Wang by Peter DaSilva for the Los Angeles Times.
I also wrote a companion piece for the Times’ tech blog:
Los Angeles Times: May 7, 2009
The Mule of Smule: Marketing the ocarina and leaf trombone iPhone apps
Sure, Smule — that Silicon Valley start-up featured in today’s Times — has an unusual pedigree, melding computers and music to create applications that turn the iPhone into a musical instrument. But how does it get the word out? Who drums up the fervor among its fans?
That would be the Mule. The company’s name is a contraction of SonicMule — the Mule was a character in science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series — and when Ge Wang and Jeff Smith were starting the company, Smith said, “We need a Mule.” And instantly, they knew who that would be.
Turner Kirk, 23, had been studying at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics — CCRMA — at Stanford University, where Wang and Smith had met and hatched Smule. Housed in the original Stanford president’s mansion, the center embodies the eccentricity of its field. It has a state-of-the-art heptagonal listening room, with no parallel lines and a sunken floor for optimal sound, and stacks of laptops for making music. Speakers are embedded in IKEA salad bowls or attached to wrists for playing in cellphone orchestras… (more online)
Photo of Turner Kirk courtesy of Gene Kosoy.
The Ithaca Journal: April 22, 2009
City editor Payne Peterson left her mark on the Journal
You never forget your first city editor. I was lucky to have a great one. I wrote this tribute after Payne Peterson died.
As society bemoans the troubled state of the newspaper, struggling to survive in the Internet age, it’s worth pondering what once made newspapers so vital to civic life. In my belief, it was journalists like Payne Peterson.
Twenty years ago, Payne, who died April 5 after years of living with multiple sclerosis, ruled the newsroom of The Ithaca Journal as its city editor. She brought a steady hand, a principled ethos and a commitment to reporting the news for the people of this city. I had the privilege to work for Payne during my three years in Ithaca.
She was an unlikely editor. She had worked as a technical writer for the Army Corps of Engineers and landed in Ithaca in 1981, taking a job at The Ithaca Journal literally at ground level, delivering the paper. I remember her stories of frozen mornings spent stuffing the paper into those familiar red boxes along the rural routes of Tompkins County. Once, someone left a bottle of whiskey in the box for her, a welcome gratuity.
Los Angeles Times: April 22, 2009
Hulu goes old school, loves living room TV
Hulu believes in the power of television. Naturally it loves television content – putting those shows online is a big part of Hulu’s raison d’etre, and its founding investors include News Corp. and NBC Universal.But Hulu loves TV ads as well. “Television works really well,” Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said in a speech at the ad:tech trade show in San Francisco this morning. “We are spending millions of dollars to be in your living room right now.”Thanks to those ads, including a satirical Super Bowl spot (above) in which Alec Baldwin called Hulu a way to “reduce your brains to a cottage-cheese-like mush,” Kilar said that “our business jumped 49%.”
Los Angeles Times: April 22, 2009
Yahoo plans more cuts as sales, profit fall
Reporting from San Francisco — Yahoo Inc. posted drops in revenue and profit in new Chief Executive Carol Bartz’s first quarter on the job, and announced plans to cut about 675 workers from its payroll, as the tech industry showed signs of continued economic battering.
Although Yahoo met analysts’ estimates, its revenue fell to $1.58 billion for the first three months of 2009, down 13% from $1.82 billion a year earlier. Net income was $118.7 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with $536.8 million, or 37 cents, a year earlier….
Bartz, the former CEO of software maker Autodesk Inc. who took over for Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in January, offered some colorful commentary in her call with analysts, at one point getting so impassioned that she uttered an obscenity in explaining how she’s streamlining the company.
“We have engineers almost in every country, and we have way too many product people,” she said. “We had one product management person for every three engineers. There were a lot of people running around telling engineers what to do, but nobody was [expletive] doing anything.”
As soon as she said it, she seemed to regret it. “Excuse me,” she said. “I knew that would slip out one of these times.”
Los Angeles Times: April 17, 2009
Google’s growth slows in first quarter amid recession
Reporting from San Francisco — The nation’s economic ills have infected even the Internet moneymaking juggernaut Google Inc., which Thursday reported slowing revenue growth and an increase in profit aided by sharp cost-cutting.
“No company is immune,” Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in announcing the company’s first-ever quarter-to-quarter drop in sales. In an interview, he added, “There are people who somehow thought that we were.”
Consumers are spending less, so advertisers don’t need to bid as much money to place ads on Google’s search page, Schmidt said. “Advertisers and users are behaving rationally,” he said.
The Mountain View, Calif., company that runs the Internet’s most dominant search engine still managed to post a bigger profit than Wall Street expected.
Google’s first-quarter revenue was $5.51 billion, down 3% from the fourth quarter but an increase of 6% over the first quarter of 2008.
Net income was $1.42 billion, or $4.49 a share, for the three months ended March 31, up 9% from $1.31 billion, or $4.12, in the same quarter last year.
Los Angeles Times: April 14, 2009
Skype founders may try to buy service back from EBay
Reporting from San Francisco — If the Skype founders succeed in buying back the Internet calling service from EBay Inc., it would dissolve a marriage that made little sense to customers or investors.
EBay bought Skype from Scandinavian entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in 2005 for more than $3.1 billion. The pair are reportedly seeking private equity partners to help them regain the service.
Trying to focus on its core auctions business, EBay did return an acquired Web service to its founders Monday, but it wasn’t Skype. The San Jose company sold StumbleUpon, a start-up it acquired for $75 million in 2007, back to its founders and other investors for an undisclosed price.
Los Angeles Times: March 30, 2009
Job seekers turning to online social networks
Almost as soon as Guang-Yu Xu was laid off from his engineering post at a Silicon Valley Internet company last month, he visited LinkedIn.com and updated his job status from “current” to “past.”
Through their interconnected contacts, he soon heard from headhunter Robert Greene, one of more than 530,000 recruiters trolling the professional networking site for job candidates. Within a few weeks, Xu had three offers. He started at Mint.com, a personal finance website, two weeks ago.
Welcome to the well-connected recession. As economic woes deepen and more people compete for fewer jobs, personal introductions to potential employers are more important than ever. Millions of Americans are turning to social networking sites such as LinkedIn, which has 37 million members, to seek an edge in landing work.
(Photo is of Dave Stewart, who used LinkedIn to find a job. Photo by Randi Lynn Beach for the Los Angeles Times.)
Los Angeles Times: March 18, 2009
Tech ventures running lean but upbeat
Reporting from Austin, Texas — With tech-savvy entrepreneurs planning their next ventures and pulsating parties packed with digital hipsters, this year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival didn’t feel like an event on the verge of Great Depression 2.0.
But underneath it all lingered the reality: Tech company valuations have tanked, venture capital has grown scarce and Americans are obsessed with conserving cash.
Nevertheless, many techies here this week felt, if not quite insulated from the economic shock wave battering the country, then at least hopeful that they could help the recovery.
Los Angeles Times: March 17, 2009
Dennis Crowley: Foursquare doesn’t use Google’s Dodgeball code
Several years ago, attendees at the South By Southwest Interactive Festival loved keeping track of each others’ whereabouts using a service called Dodgeball. They could enter their location on a mobile phone, and it would be broadcast to their friends.
Google Inc. bought Dodgeball in 2005, but the service never took off, and the company pulled the plug on it (and other services) two weeks ago. Undaunted, Dodgeball founder Dennis Crowley and a partner, Naveen Selvadurai, have released a new similar service called Foursquare. Once again, the faithful are eating it up.
“Foursquare is blowing up,” said Tara Hunt, a blogger and consultant.
Los Angeles Times: March 17, 2009
Media companies learn to mash up at SXSW
It’s been a few years since mashups became a hot thing in the tech industry. Companies would open their programming tools, known as APIs, to the public, and then enterprising developers would come up with new tools built on the company’s platform. Think of the way people merged apartment listings from Craigslist with Google Maps, or the way companies built applications that make it easier to read, post and search on Twitter.
Mashery, a San Francisco company, is now taking the concept to other companies, including some unlikely candidates. At the Circus Mashimus, a lounge the company set up at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, Mashery is showing off how it’s building APIs for the New York Times, Best Buy Co., Netflix Inc. and others.
Los Angeles Times: March 17, 2009
Author Julia Angwin talks up “Stealing MySpace” at SXSW
For all the dirt that gets dished on the MySpace social network, very little of it has spilled about MySpace itself. But in a new book out today, and unveiled at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, author Julia Angwin unveils the somewhat tawdry story of the company’s roots in spam, porn and spyware.
“When I started reporting on MySpace, as I discovered its history, I couldn’t believe it had never been told,” Angwin, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, said in an interview. “The founders kept it hidden. You had to dig to find it.”
Despite her best efforts, the founders, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, did not talk to Angwin for her book, “Stealing MySpace: The Battle To Control the Most Popular Website in America.”
“They were always polite and nice,” she said. “They never said, ‘No,’ but they never said, ‘Yes.’”
Los Angeles Times: March 15, 2009
SXSW to AT&T: Free our iPhones
For all practical purposes, the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, is a de facto iPhone convention. People who don’t have the white-hot Apple device often feel left out.
But not this year. With so many iPhone users descending on Austin, the convention center has become an almost impossible place to make a call or get a data connection — on AT&T, the only U.S. network providing service to iPhones. People with Sprint and Verizon Wireless won’t stop gloating.
Scott Beale is owner of Laughing Squid, a Web hosting company in San Francisco, as well as a blogger and photographer who’s popular with the Web 2.0 crowd that populates SXSW. He says he tried updating his status on Twitter and Foursquare (a new mobile service), but he couldn’t connect to the network. He had to walk a mile back to his hotel to get onto the Wi-Fi network there.
“If AT&T was smart, they would come in with a big antenna. It would be a huge PR opportunity,” Beale said. “Some day, we will have choice on our iPhones. And will we choose AT&T?”
Los Angeles Times: March 14, 2009
SXSW lesson: How to fake authenticity
Actor George Burns is reputed to have said, “The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
The quote came to mind this morning at a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, “What Your Start-up Can Learn From Barack Obama and Howard Dean.” Moderator Clay Johnson of Sunlight Labs, a veteran of the Dean campaign from Blue State Digital, said companies that send out e-newsletters generally just annoy their customers. But the Obama campaign cleverly created the illusion of intimacy.
“You would get an e-mail from Barack Obama,” Johnson said. “And it’s not to everyone. It’s to you.”
When he tells people that he helped write those e-mails, people often looked stunned. “People would look at me and say, ‘Barack didn’t write those e-mails?’ And they look really sad,” he said.
Mary Katharine Ham — a regular in the Weekly Standard and on Fox News and the only Republican on the panel — seized on the revelation and put her own spin on it: “Obama lied, and lonely liberals with lots of cats cried.”
The New York Times: March 13, 2009
In Hard Times, Freelancers Turn to the Web
WITH layoffs mounting daily, the ranks of independent contractors appear ready to grow. People who have lost full-time jobs are seeking work on their own, and businesses that once hired full-timers and paid them benefits are turning to more affordable freelancers.
Several online companies are easing the transition to a freelance economy for workers and employers. Freelancers in a wide range of fields can use sites like those operated by Elance, oDesk and Guru to advertise their work and bid on jobs; employers can use the sites to assemble a contract work force.
Karen Swim, 45, of Sterling Heights, Mich., left a successful career in corporate marketing four years ago to write for a living. “I found Elance through a Google search,” she said. “I was amazed. I thought, Oh my God, there’s a whole underground of people making a living, and they’re not going to a corporate office every day.”
Instead of donning a suit and knocking on doors, Ms. Swim discovered, “You could sit at your computer and within an hour create 10 to 15 proposals.”
Los Angeles Times: March 11, 2009
In-your-face Web ad formats popping up all over
They’re bigger, they’re bolder, and soon they’ll be covering up large swaths of some of your favorite Web pages.
The Online Publishers Assn. on Tuesday released several new in-your-face advertising formats designed to be both more obtrusive and interactive.
Twenty-seven top Internet publishers — including the New York Times, CNN, CBS Interactive, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal — say they’ll try the supersize ads in an attempt to get the attention of Web surfers who have learned to ignore banners.
The websites, which collectively reach two-thirds of the U.S. Internet audience, must walk a fine line so they don’t bug visitors so much that they stop returning.
“Studies show we ignore banner ads,” said Jose Castillo, a new media consultant in Johnson City, Tenn. “Making them bigger and more intrusive won’t work. We will tune those out as well.”
The New York Times: Dec. 2, 2008
Robots in a Box
THE days when robots fold laundry, dust furniture or do other domestic tasks still lie in the future. But even if robots can’t baby-sit our children, technology has advanced so rapidly in recent years that our children can build robots.
A variety of kits, for different ages and budgets, enable youngsters to create all kinds of automatons, including frogs, orangutans and classic mechanical humanoids.
The New York Times: Nov. 13, 2008
For Former Google Employees, Start-Ups Are A Family Affair
Many former Google employees, now entrepreneurs, have tapped into a network of affluent and technically skilled investors — their former co-workers.
AS befits a company whose name is a play on words, Google (named for the mathematical term “googol”) has come up with playful names for its workers. Employees are known as Googlers, new employees are Nooglers and gay employees are Gayglers. Now that the company has been around for a decade and employs upward of 20,000 people, another group has earned its own name: former Googlers are known as Xooglers.
Many of the Xooglers (the name is a contraction of ex-Googlers but is pronounced “zooglers”) are young, entrepreneurial and, thanks to Google’s soaring success, wealthy enough to start their own second acts. Some are starting companies in Silicon Valley and beyond, and others are helping to finance those ventures.
With investment money scarcer because of the financial crisis, many Xoogler entrepreneurs have tapped into a network of affluent and technically skilled investors — their former co-workers, some of whom still work at Google.
(Photo by Peter DaSilva for The New York Times)
The New York Times: Oct. 29, 2008
Long May You Run: Neil Young’s Fuel-Efficient Lincoln
Neil Young wants fuel-efficient cars, and as a politically active rock star, he wants everyone else to have them, too. But Mr. Young is not ready to give up his love of big cars, and he doesn’t think many other drivers are, either.
So Mr. Young, the iconoclastic godfather of grunge, has assembled a team to turn a nearly 20-foot-long, 5,000-pound 1959 Lincoln Continental into a vehicle that will run on natural gas, electricity or some other form of clean energy. His aim is to win the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, a $10 million challenge to develop a vehicle that can get 100 miles per gallon or better by 2009.
The New York Times: Oct. 1, 2008
Likes Taking Risks, Profitable Returns: Online Matchmakers Introduce Entrepreneurs to Investors
EVAN SHEFTEL of New York knew he could grow his business of buying and refining old jewelry. All he needed was capital, and quickly. But he had exhausted his credit with conventional lenders.
Across the country, in Los Angeles, Jay Turo and his company, Growthink, were looking for profitable investments.
Thanks to the Web site RaiseCapital.com, founded in March 2007 and based in Port Washington, N.Y., they found each other. Without even a face-to-face meeting, Growthink, a venture investment firm, put $500,000 into Mr. Sheftel’s business, eAssay, this year and is already seeing returns.
In a financial counterpart to online dating services, companies like RaiseCapital, Go4Funding and Go Big Network are giving small businesses a new way to meet prospective investors. And with turmoil in the financial markets, credit tightening and uneasiness about the conventional financial system, these companies hope to provide opportunities to invest, to lend and to borrow — and to find a market for these services.
(The photo is of, from left, Manoj Duggirala, Priyank Chodisetti and Jan Leeman at the California offices of GiveandTake, by Jessica Brandi Lifland for The New York Times.)
Plenty: October 2008
For the annual cover story on the Plenty 20, I profiled 20 businesses that are helping change the world in ways large and small.
A123 Systems
Applied Materials
Arup
Bon Appétit Management Company
Coskata
Environmental Working Group
Forest Stewardship Council
Google
Home Depot
Iberdrola
IBM
Innovest Strategic Value Advisors
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
Nike
Patagonia
Pizza Fusion
RecycleBank
Swiss Re
TransFair USA
Plenty: October 2008
Fresh Take: Ozone technology may keep foods fresher longer
Each year, $7.5 trillion worth of food is moved around the planet, and 30 percent of it spoils before it ever gets to market. But more than edibles is wasted along the way—all the water and energy used to grow and transport the food also goes down the drain. If goods could be kept fresh and healthy for longer periods of time, famines and rice riots could become a thing of the past. The price of food might drop as more of it becomes available. And if a natural preservative were introduced that didn’t compromise organically produced food, Mother Nature would profit all the more.
One company—Purfresh, a firm based in Fremont, California—thinks it has found such a solution in ozone. Ozone is a key ingredient in urban smog and forms an atmospheric layer whose depletion is hastening climate change. It’s also a gas with many industrial uses, including as a potent antibacterial. Just a tiny spritz of ozone in water can kill E coli and salmonella bacteria more effectively than chlorine and without any significant residual effects. It can also keep produce fresher longer.
Plenty: August 2008
A Smarter Spark: The start-up companies that will build the smart energy grid
The electric meters on the outside of your house haven’t changed in nearly a century. They’re stark symbols of a utility system that’s riddled with outdated practices and age-old inefficiencies. But now a handful of startups are pushing to create a “smart grid” that could discourage excess energy use by both utilities and consumers.
These companies stand at the heart of a broad and powerful push to reduce energy consumption and deliver it more efficiently. In the fight to reduce global emissions, this initiative could prove even more critical than developing new and renewable forms of energy; it tackles the demand-side issues, where people use it, rather than the supply side, where it’s generated.
New York Times: Aug. 10, 2008
Too Animated? (From the Suits column)
Edwin Catmull (above), who runs Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios, just got back from his first meditation retreat, at the Shambhala Mountain Center in northern Colorado.
“I almost flunked meditation,” he said. “When things are intense and there’s a lot at stake, I have no trouble focusing. But when they’re not intense, my brain starts popping off in all sorts of places.” (The rest of the story is at the Times site; third item in column.)
Popular Science: June 2008
Charging Ahead
A new type of charger called the Green Plug aims to replace the pile of power bricks under your desk with a hub that powers multiple devices at once, but only when they need it. The idea behind the system, due out early next year, is that software in gadgets would let them tell the hub exactly how much power they need. When its battery is full, the device tells the Green Plug to cut the juice. Current chargers keep drawing a small amount of power as long as they’re plugged into an outlet. (This overcharging also reduces battery life.) The company estimates that large homes could save up to $30 a year by replacing their standard chargers with smart hubs.
The Green Plug uses the USB ports common on small gadgets such as MP3 players. For bigger items, like laptops, it has proposed a modified USB connection with extra wires that delivers more power. The company says it has signed on manufacturers that, early next year, will sell gadgets such as monitors and digital picture frames with traditional chargers and the Green Plug software. A five-port charging hub will sell for about $100, with possible rebates from utilities.
Also from Popular Science, June 2008: Green Your Office
Replace your guzzling supplies with these workplace sippers: HP Deskjet D2545 printer, Xerox high-yield paper, Lenovo ThinkVision L200p monitor and Watt Stopper Isolé IDP power strip. (Follow the links to the images in the Photo Gallery.)
New York Times: May 25, 2008
A Change in the Lineup (from the Suits column)
Peter A. Magowan, 66, has worn many hats in his life. He is a scion of the founders of Merrill Lynch and is a former chief executive of Safeway, and he is now the president and managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants.
Mr. Magowan announced last week that he would take off his baseball cap at the end of this season and hand it to William H. Neukom, president of the American Bar Association and former general counsel at Microsoft.
Mr. Neukom, also 66, helped steer Microsoft through its toughest antitrust battles. Next season, he will take up the challenge of trying to lead the Giants to their first World Series title after 50 years of frustration in San Francisco. The team has suffered three consecutive sub-.500 seasons, and is near last place in its division.
(The photo of Peter Magowan is from the European Pressphoto Agency.)
New York Times: May 21, 2008
“The Coffee Was Lousy. The Wait Was Long.”
THE Rooz Cafe, a restaurant and coffee shop in Oakland, Calif., signals its distaste for patrons who post reviews on Yelp.com with a small sign: No Yelpers.
The sign is routinely ignored by devotees of Yelp, a San Francisco Internet company that enables average folks to write reviews of everything from restaurants to plumbers to parks.
“If you want good coffee and a comfy place to work, I’d recommend this place,” wrote Stephanie S., who gave Rooz four stars. “And the No Yelpers sticker made me laugh.”
Rooz’s owner, Steve Ranjbin, said he put the sticker up as a joke, but added that he had a complaint about Yelp.
“Yelp does not respect us as business owners,” Mr. Ranjbin said. “They don’t listen to business owners unless you’re an advertiser paying Yelp.”
Mr. Ranjbin, who said that amateur reviews can hurt his business, said some had misquoted him or called his employees names, but that Yelp had refused to take these comments down. Yelp rarely removes reviews, even when advertisers complain, preferring to let the crowd have its say.
The proliferating reviews of Mr. Ranjbin’s establishment offer a good illustration of people’s newfound love of comparing notes via reviews online.
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 2.5 percent of all Internet users in March went to Yelp.com, and traffic there quadrupled over the last year. Yelp tracks its users through Google Analytics, and the company, which is almost four years old, said it had 9.5 million unique visitors in April, nearly double the 5 million it reported last October. There are more than 2.6 million reviews on the site.
(The photo is of Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp co-founder and CEO, by Jim Wilson, The New York Times.)
New York Times: May 21, 2008
Using the Web to Draw in Crowds
NIKI RUSS FEDERMAN feels that her 94-year-old family business, Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side of New York, is fighting for survival in a retail environment under assault by chain stores and generic tastes.
The delicatessen cases loaded with caviar, smoked salmon, pickled herring and homemade cream cheese, not to mention the dried fruits, chocolates and halvah at the sweets counter, signify a bastion in a battle to keep Jewish food culture from disappearing.
Ms. Russ Federman, 30, whose great-grandfather, Joel Russ, founded the store, says that business is thriving — thanks, at least in part, to Web sites that attract young cosmopolitan crowds to the Houston Street store. Those sites include Chowhound, where food lovers flock, and Yelp, which enables anyone to review a business.
“Sites like Yelp make places like us seem hip, as opposed to being seen as stodgy old-school places,” Ms. Russ Federman said.
New York Times: May 21, 2008
A Movement and a Market Converge at a Bank
FOR 14 years, Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco has been making award-winning organic cheeses and growing — to more than $8 million in sales last year. Yet no bank had ever actively sought its business until New Resource Bank came calling.
“A bank has never been excited about us,” said Sue Conley, a co-founder of the creamery, which is based in Petaluma, Calif. “Banks just haven’t understood what we’re doing or how it might be successful. We were really taken aback when New Resource said they’d like to work with us.”
New Resource opened in San Francisco in 2006 with the theory that helping green businesses like Cowgirl Creamery would be good for its own bottom line. Peter Liu, the founder of New Resource, had worked as a vice president at Credit Suisse First Boston and at Chase Manhattan Bank, but he was also an environmentalist who saw sustainability as a long-term trend.
“Green is going to evolve from a social movement to a market opportunity,” Mr. Liu said. “There will be real opportunities for new businesses, new technologies, new products and new services that are demanded by consumers.”
Make: magazine, June 2008 (Issue 13)
If the headlamp on a classic Vespa can illuminate a twisting Italian roadway at night, why couldn’t it light up a desk?
This short feature, about an Italian artist who makes beautiful lamps out of automotive parts and other objects, is not on Make’s web site, but other people have posted it online.
New York Times: April 21, 2008
Hot Time, Living in the City
One night, not long after Joan and Bob Johnson had moved from suburban Beaverton, Ore., to downtown Portland, they saw a sign for a concert at a local church and decided to stop in. It was just the sort of urban experience that the Johnsons, who are retired, had moved to the city for.
The concert was marvelous, Mrs. Johnson said, and they stayed for the church service afterward. But the walk home was another kind of urban experience.
“It was quarter to one, and Portland was as dead as a doornail,” said Mrs. Johnson, 78. “Here were two people out walking, all alone. I could hear people ask, Have you got any money? — and I didn’t know where the voices were coming from.”
The Johnsons made it home safely, and, like many of their peers, continue to enjoy the new life that came with their move from the suburbs into the city. Many retirees and people near retirement find cities not only vibrant and full of culture, but also loaded with easily accessible services, from first-rate hospitals and doctors to grocery stores that deliver.
And as David Downs, a professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Real Estate and Land Development program, put it, a condominium in a downtown area “is a whole lot more exciting and invigorating, and charges one’s batteries a whole lot more, than being surrounded by geezers.”
(The photo is of Clara Villarosa, who moved from Denver to Harlem, by Ruby Washington, The New York Times.)
San Francisco Business Times: April 18, 2008
Mayor, UCSF envision science-focused K-8 school
Joining all the high-priced development in Mission Bay, if all goes according to plan, will be one of the most unlikely of new urban buildings: a public school.
The San Francisco Unified School District has reached an agreement with a variety of other Mission Bay stakeholders to build a science and technology school that would not only serve children from kindergarten through eighth grade, but would also have a top floor devoted to science labs for high school students from throughout the city.
(Photo is of Hydra Mendoza, at the site where a school will rise, by Najib Joe Hakim, SF Business Times)
New York Times: April 14, 2008
Despite Silicon Valley Optimism, a Disease Resists Cure
SAN FRANCISCO — In Silicon Valley, an unshakable optimism holds that the right combination of money, brains and computing power can solve any problem.
Mike Homer, a hard-charging executive at Netscape Communications in the 1990s, and his friends certainly subscribed to that belief. It is what led them two years ago to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars, along with powerful new computers, to the University of California, San Francisco, where some of the nation’s top researchers are trying to solve intractable medical mysteries.
In a cruel twist of fate, however, the group is getting a sober lesson in the limits of technology and money. Last May, Mr. Homer, 50, learned he had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare brain-wasting disorder sometimes likened to mad cow disease. A cure has not been found.
Similar lessons, under different circumstances, were learned last year when technological search-and-rescue operations, using the power of distributed computing, came up empty in the hunt for a computer scientist lost at sea and for an adventurer whose plane had disappeared in the desert.
Yet instead of discouraging the people involved, these failures have nourished an even stronger belief that if the person in front of them cannot be cured or helped, then the technology developed or refined in the effort will at least help a much broader section of society.
For more information: Here’s a link to UCSF’s Fight for Mike, which is raising money for the battle against Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease.
San Francisco magazine: April 2008
Lords of No Rings: After 50 years in San Francisco without a single World Series title, the Giants have now passed all the pretenders. Stay in denial if you wish, but this is America’s most heartbroken baseball team.
In hindsight, you could see trouble brewing. The moment the Giants’ final game in New York ended, the players bolted for the clubhouse and a mob descended onto the field. A teenager ran straight for second base, tearing it from its moorings. The crowd kept cops away from the fans prying home plate loose. The bullpen roof splintered beneath scores of battering hands. A small group pried off the bronze plaque honoring Eddie Grant, the most prominent Major Leaguer to die in World War I. The next day, September 30, 1957, a Daily News full-spread headline proclaimed, “The N.Y. Giants Is Dead.” Funny to most of the world—but not to these fans. Their team was moving to San Francisco.
Out west, buoyant city officials had already placed Polo Grounds sod under glass in city hall. But the rioting fans in New York, at once despondent and angry, couldn’t have cared less about the team’s new life on the ascendant West Coast. They tore the Polo Grounds to pieces, yanking out chunks of turf as if they could replant them the following spring and see their beloved team grow tall again.
Out of this agony, the San Francisco Giants were born. This year’s home opener, on April 7, will mark the team’s 50th anniversary. While we’ll celebrate its great stars, from Willie Mays and Willie McCovey to Barry Bonds, and the 32 winning seasons (compared with only 18 losers), there remains a subject so inherently miserable, it rarely bears thought or mention: The most heartbroken team in baseball is now ours, the boys in black and orange, from San Francisco.
The story was accompanied by several sidebars. (I recommend getting the magazine itself, for the fantastic layout and full page photos of the Polo Grounds in ruins, Juan Marichal clubbing John Roseboro, Will Clark dejected on the field, and Dusty Baker in tears. But I can only link to the text here.)
Pick a Curse, Any Curse: How the most superstitious of all sports handles failure. Five potential supernatural causes of the Giants’ West Coast futility, including my own favorite, the Curse of Coogan’s Bluff.
The Heartbreaks: Nine hair-pulling events that drove Giants fans to the brink of collapse. From McCovey’s line drive that ended the 1962 Series, to the 2002 meltdown that came after Dusty Baker handed the game ball to Russ Ortiz, the Giants know how to hurt a fan.
The Greatest Losers of All: Illustrator Mark Ulriksen plays “What If” as he chooses his all-time favorite Giants. Ulriksen, a frequent New Yorker cover artist and lifelong Giants fan, illustrated the story with his dream lineup including Willie Mays and Barry Bonds — with a cloud hanging over their heads.
Plenty magazine: April/May 2008
Solar Synergy: Dot-com meets green in Sun Microsystems’ Blackbox
The computing industry likes to brag about how much power it puts at our fingertips, but what it doesn’t mention are the megawatts all those computers draw off electrical grids.
Jonathan Koomey, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, announced in a February 2007 report (funded by Advanced Micro Devices) that the servers and associated infrastructures that run US data centers consumed about $2.7 billion in energy bills in 2005. That’s as much as all the country’s color television sets and more than double the amount servers consumed five years before. Because of concerns about that consumption, demand from the public, new legislation, and scarcity issues tied to maxed-out grids like the one that serves Wall Street, green technology is sweeping Silicon Valley. Visions of promising new markets have Valley investors thinking in both shades of green—ecological and economic.
Tech giant Sun Microsystems is one of those firms retooling its business around the environmental movement. “We are reshaping our product portfolio to be more energy efficient and eco-friendly,” says Subodh Bapat, a vice president and distinguished engineer at Sun, responsible for driving the company’s systems level energy strategy.
New York Times: April 9, 2008
Closing the Doors That Virtual Sprawl Leaves Open
The advent of virtualization software has made it possible for companies to use virtual computers to run various critical tasks, wringing more work from their computers. The software enables a single computer to run several different operating systems, or several copies of the same system..
Once a company has a network of “virtual machines,” its data center can run much more cost-efficiently, with fewer computers and lower power costs.
New technology, however, often brings new problems, and the rise of virtual machines also makes it harder for corporate I.T. managers to track everything the machines are doing. The risks run from security lapses to not even knowing what programs are running, which can expose companies to licensing liabilities and knock them out of compliance with some federal rules.
Release 2.0: March 2008
Virtual Worlds: The Next Generation
In a report for O’Reilly Media’s Release 2.0 entitled, “Virtual Worlds: A Business Guide,” I wrote a story on how children are growing up remarkably adept in virtual worlds. The publication is available in PDF format for $249, so the story is not available for free online.
Virtual worlds aimed at kids attract far more people than those aimed at adults. Webkinz or Club Penguin may not look very interesting to the average adult, but the six-year-old set can’t get enough of them. Virtual worlds for children are making money and drawing the backing of big media companies. And you can bet that the kids who are populating these worlds will be manipulating avatars in the grownup virtual worlds of the future.
The New York Times: March 12, 2008
Killer Statue — Psyched About the Site!
The Indianapolis Museum of Art has its own video channel on YouTube. The Oakland Museum of California reaches out to online tastemakers to help push events. The Brooklyn Museum of Art has built its own application on the social networking site Facebook, allowing people to share images of museum artwork. These and other museums have discovered social media in a big way. It’s no longer enough for a museum to put up a Web site and hope that people find it. Many museums are discovering that the Web 2.0 world lets them advance their mission online to bring in new and often younger visitors and to educate a wider audience.
“We used to engage people through catalogs, but coffee tables aren’t where people are engaging anymore,” said James G. Leventhal, director of development and marketing at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, Calif., which is focused on Jewish life and culture. “Sincere social engagement happens on computers now.”
(Copyrighted photo above by Don Pollard from a toga night in the Met’s new Greek and Roman Galleries, one of the events that the College Group at the Met organized and which is documented on the Met’s Flickr page. The photos is used here with permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
Fortune.com: March 11, 2008
Welcome to Conference 2.0: Social media is putting an end to the passive role attendees traditionally play at business gatherings
AUSTIN, TEXAS — We’ve all been there: the dull business conference. A half-empty room of half-asleep attendees answer their e-mail on laptops and BlackBerries, while some hapless speaker lumbers through a PowerPoint speech.
That scenario is about to change, thanks to the growing ubiquity of social media. Consider author Sarah Lacy’s disastrous interview of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival here. Lacy, a Business Week columnist and author of a forthcoming book on Zuckerberg and other Web 2.0 titans, drew the crowd’s wrath by asking Zuckerberg too many questions about his age and his company’s outrageous $15 billion valuation and not enough questions about issues more fundamental to how Facebook operates - things like trust, privacy, and accessibility to software developers. On top of that, Lacy interrupted Zuckerberg, seemed to flirt with him, and then grew hostile as the crowd turned against her.
And did it ever turn. Many in the audience started posting their thoughts on Twitter, a service that broadcasts instant messages, and the ire built. The crowd began hooting and jeering.
(Above photo of Zuckerberg and Lacy by Julio Fernandez, oraclejulio on Flickr, reproduced here under a Creative Commons license.)
The New York Times: March 16, 2008
Technology Makes Life Easier?
In a room packed with new-media devotees last week, Mark Cuban, the founder of the HDNet television network, emerged at one point as a digital doubting Thomas compared with Michael D. Eisner, the former chief of Disney.
The New York Times: Feb. 25, 2008
On the Internet, Everyone Can Hear You Complain 
A San Francisco start-up called Get Satisfaction is the latest online ombudsman to try to mediate customer service complaints. Get Satisfaction allows people to post feedback about their experiences with any company they choose, and it encourages companies to visit its site, www.getsatisfaction.com, to respond publicly. Since September, when the site began, people have posted complaints or comments regarding 2,000 companies, and 40 percent of the companies have answered, at no charge to either side.
(The photo is of Thor Muller, left, chief executive and a co-founder of the start-up company Get Satisfaction, and Lane Becker, a co-founder, by Thor Swift for The New York Times.)
The New York Times: Feb. 20, 2008
They’re Working on Their Own, Just Side by Side
CONTEMPLATING his career path a couple of years ago, a young computer programmer named Brad Neuberg faced a modern predicament. “It seemed I could either have a job, which would give me structure and community,” he said, “or I could be freelance and have freedom and independence. Why couldn’t I have both?”
As someone used to hacking out solutions, Mr. Neuberg took action. He created a word — coworking, eliminating the hyphen — and rented space in a building, starting a movement.
While coworking has evolved since Mr. Neuberg’s epiphany in 2005, dozens of places around the country and increasingly around the world now offer such arrangements, where someone sets up an office and rents out desks, creating a community of people who have different jobs but who want to share ideas.
Inspiration Strikes Only a Desk Away
Sidebar to the Coworking story above: One of the most frequently cited advantages of coworking is the cross pollination that takes place. People share ideas rather than actually drum up business.
(The photo is of Eddie Codel, John Vlahides and a friend at the Hat Factory, by Randi Lynn Beach for The New York Times.)
The New York Times: January 7, 2008
Some Brand-Name Bloggers Say Stress of Posting is a Hazard to their Health
Om Malik’s blog, GigaOm, regularly breaks news about the technology industry. Last week, the journalist turned blogger broke a big story about himself. Mr. Malik, 41, blogged that he had suffered a heart attack on Dec. 28.
“I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and have been recovering here ever since,” Mr. Malik wrote. “With the support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery. I am going to be O.K.”
His heart attack — and his blogging about it — raises the issue of what happens when a blogger becomes a name brand.
“The trouble with a personal brand is, you’re yoked to a machine,” said Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik’s who runs the Infectious Greed blog. “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”
The New York Times: December 17, 2007
Once broke, GameStop moves up to S.&P. 500
Just over a decade ago, the company now known as GameStop was bankrupt, and analysts in the video game industry predicted that people would buy games online rather than in its mall stores.
But instead the franchise grew, pulled from its financial woes by a group of investors led by Leonard Riggio, the founder and chairman of Barnes & Noble. Spun off from Barnes & Noble in 2004, GameStop calls itself the world’s largest video game retailer.
Now the company can add a new distinction: member of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. On Thursday, after Dow Jones & Company was acquired by the News Corporation and lost its berth in that index, GameStop took its place, moving up from a midsize index.
(The photo is of shoppers in a GameStop store in Manhattan, by Don Hogan Charles, The New York Times.)
USA Today: December 12, 2007
Watch out for the ‘evil twin’ when using public Wi-Fi
For the modern nomadic worker, few things are more enjoyable than heading to a cafe, ordering a cappuccino and firing up the laptop to get some work done. As far as anyone you’re e-mailing knows, you’re at the office.
Unfortunately, few things expose your work to greater security risks than latching onto a public Wi-Fi service. Most people don’t realize the risks, and even fewer have the ability to perform the geeky tasks that would fix it.
The New York Times: December 5, 2007
There Are Ways to Help Lassie Come Home
Who let the dogs out? And who is going to find them? Well, you can call off the hounds because a new breed of gadgets helps dog owners track their wayward pets.
Two types of G.P.S. devices are battling it out in the marketplace. Some use cellular technology, sending messages to phones and e-mail accounts that Fido has wandered outside his virtual fence. Others use radio technology, which does not require a cell tower but has a more limited range.
Fortune.com: December 3, 2007
The fate of a Murdoch-owned MarketWatch
Among the prizes that Rupert Murdoch gets when the Dow Jones deal closes next month will be a highly trafficked Web site that could boost his fledgling Fox Business Network - and it has nothing to do with the Wall Street Journal. MarketWatch.com, the fifth most popular financial site on the Web, according to Hitwise, remains a largely unexplored part of the Dow Jones deal.
USA Today: November 21, 2007
One more thing cellphones could do: Replace wallets
Instead of reaching for your wallet in the next few years, you’ll be able to pull out your cellphone and wave it over a scanner to make a payment. Convenient? You bet. Secure? Companies working on this new system say it is rock solid.
The New York Times: November 14, 2007
Personal Assistants on Call, Just Not in the Next Office
Entrepreneurs in India are trying to build a new market for the offshore services they offer: helping small businesses cope with even the most mundane day-to-day tasks.
Nantucket Today: May/June 2006
Cowgirl Creamery
(Only the first 300 words are available online; a subscription to the magazine is required for the rest)
Hand-crafted, creamy, luscious rounds of Cowgirl Creamery cheese melt hearts and palates across the San Francisco Bay Area. The oozy rich cheeses spread across homemade crackers and brick-oven bread so smoothly that it’s easy to forget that it’s made with something as ordinary as the milk of cows.
Yet the cows behind this cheese are not exactly ordinary. In many ways, they’re the secret ingredient – the Cowgirls’ very reason for being.
The cows belong to the Straus Family Creamery, a small but pioneering organic operation in the hills above Tomales Bay, nearly two hours’ drive from San Francisco but only 10 miles from the Cowgirls’ rural cheese-making operation. These coddled cows, blessed with million-dollar views, are not given any hormones or antibiotics, and their pasture is not treated with any herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
Every other day, a tanker full of the milk pulls up outside the Cowgirl Creamery and fills up a vat, and the process of making the cheese begins.
From 1998 to 2007, I was a technology reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. My beat changed from time to time, as I specialized in media, Web 2.0, semiconductors, and software, as well as pitching in on profiles of people inside and outside of the tech world. I helped start two of the paper’s most popular blogs, the Culture Blog and the Technology Chronicles.
My posts to the Chronicle’s technology blog, aptly named The Technology Chronicles, are listed here in reverse chronological order.
Some of my feature stories include:
Where Neo-Nomads’ Ideas Percolate: New ‘bedouins’ transform a laptop, cell phone and coffeehouse into their office
Sunday, March 11, 2007
A new breed of worker, fueled by caffeine and using the tools of modern technology, is flourishing in the coffeehouses of
Monday, March 19, 2007
I was one of the first reporters in the mainstream media to write about Twitter, thanks in part to getting totally addicted to it at South by Southwest 2007. My story said: “A simple little technology has the digerati all atwitter. Make that the twitterati. Twitter, a way to broadcast short text messages to large groups of people, is growing about 20 percent a week and in only seven months is already up to 60,000 users. More than a million messages, known as “twitters” to those in the know, have been sent out. The technology, from small but cutting-edge Obvious Corp. in
WHERE OLD AND NEW MEDIA COLLIDE
March 16, 2007
Two worlds collided at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival this week. Online media of all sorts is coming of age, and the festival was one of its biggest defining moments. The event aims to bring together new technologies and their practitioners to spur innovation. While the mainstream press was barely present, the conference-cum-weeklong-party was more thoroughly reported on than some national political conventions. And central to the whole movement are companies from the Bay Area, ranging from San Francisco news aggregators like Digg.com to giant video-sharing sites like Google’s YouTube.
DIGITAL UTOPIA - A new breed of technologists envisions a democratic world improved by the Internet
Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006
Behind the random silliness of YouTube videos and the juvenile frivolity of MySpace Web sites lies a powerful idea: Everyday people are using technology to gain control of the media and change the world. At least that’s what a new breed of Internet technologists and entrepreneurs want us to believe. The new Internet boom commonly referred to as Web 2.0 is really an exercise in digital democracy. Dubbed Digital Utopians by some, and Web 2.0 innovators by others, this latest wave of tech gurus champion community over commerce, sharing ideas over sharing profits.
Nov. 6, 2006
Although I was raked over the coals for this blog post, which was supposedly inconsistent with the Digital Utopians story that ran the day before (see above), I remain proud of the way we deflated a little of the bubble that is growing around Web 2.0. Witness number 2 on the list: “This is not a bubble. Hot parties, overheated PR pitches, and five or six dozen social networking sites are just healthy indicators of a new boom.”
Valley’s ‘Mr. Web 2.0′ seeks next big thing - TechCrunch blog ruffles feathers on the Internet beat
Dec. 6, 2006
Michael Arrington’s influential blog TechCrunch — where startups get pimped and big news sometimes breaks first — has vaulted him into the post of “Mr. Web 2.0,” a kingmaker among
Do they have a good marriage? You can take that to the bank
June 4, 2006
He’s tall, has wispy red hair and is given to wisecracks. She’s shorter and more serious, with dark hair and a dark complexion. But don’t mistake Herb and Marion Sandler for a study in opposites. Instead, this couple, now in their 70s and making headlines for selling Golden West Financial Corp. to Wachovia Corp. for slightly more than $24 billion in cash and stock last month, achieved extraordinary success by working as a team.
Microsoft’s CEO: Fight continues - Ballmer says Google tough search foe but not unbeatable
May 12, 2006
Steve Ballmer, the excitable and often combative chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., came to Silicon Valley in a somewhat conciliatory mood Thursday, tipping his hat to archrival Google Inc. for building a powerful lead in Internet advertising.
Jan. 25, 2006
When Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Walt Disney Co., I wrote a profile of the man, even though he wouldn’t speak to me (or most other reporters). My story said that, “In the wake of Disney’s blockbuster acquisition of Pixar, Steve Jobs brings his quest for perfection to an even grander stage. He is the largest individual shareholder in the storied Walt Disney Co. And he remains the head of Apple Computer, the revolutionary computing company he founded and later reinvented as a digital music powerhouse. Not bad for a man who was considered washed up 20 years ago and was battling cancer a mere 18 months ago.”
STEVE JOBS: Live blogging from the Macworld floor
On the floor of Macworld Expo 2007, I live-blogged Steve Jobs’ keynote speech in which the Apple CEO first unveiled the iPhone.
