Archive for 2005

The audio from my keynote presentation at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo is now live on the Expo’s site. We hope eventually to have most if not all of the audio from the sessions available on IT Conversations.

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs Last Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• Balaji Prasad – The Future of the Computer in Your Car (rated 2.9 by listeners) Microelectronics is increasingly being used as a way to control critical systems in vehicles. Wireless sensors, speech recognition systems, and location- determination technologies are being employed to help navigation and improve the driving experience. In this talk from Where 2.0, Balaji Prasad of EDS explains how automotive telematics is helping create a more "Connected Vehicle."
• The Future of Africa – at Pop!Tech 2005 (3.2) In partnership with Sun Microsystems and the United Nations, Pop!Tech brought together ten young thought leaders from Africa. With moderator David Kirkpatrick, they discussed their perspectives on the issues explored at Pop!Tech 2005, including the role of technology in changing communities, and new and innovative ways to deal with poverty and disease.
• Peter Norvig – Inside Google (3.3) At Google, engineers and researchers are not two different groups of people. Engineers research products and researchers build products; their functions overlap. At ETech 2005, Google’s Director of Search Quality, Peter Norvig, speaks about how this helps Google increase the interactivity of search tools and relevancy of search results using products such as Google Sets and Google Suggest.
• The New Legal Landscape for Digital Media (3.4) In June of 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Grokster and Streamcast (providers of Morpheus peer-to-peer software) could indeed be sued for infringement for their prior activities. But what brought us to this point in time and what will the decision mean for current peer-to-peer companies and software? What does the decision mean for developers in the future? This panel discussion looks to the past in order to discover the legal landscape of the future for digital media.
• Richard Morgan (3.4) Dr. Moira Gunn spoke with Richard Morgan, author of the science fiction / future noir novels featuring the character Takeshi Kovacs. They talked about what he sees a society’s future social issues.
• Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty (3.5) On BioTech Nation, Moira spoke with Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty, a Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Twenty-five years ago, thanks to the Supreme Court, he was awarded the very first American patent on a gene. We’ll find out exactly what he did — and what he’s working on now.
• Shrinking the Planet – Accelerating Change 2005 (3.5) With every passing day, it feels like the world is getting smaller and smaller. We have the ability to share photos and ideas with anyone in the world almost instantly, and the tools to find cheap gasoline on the road. Peter Barrett from Microsoft’s IPTV and Scott Rafer of Wireless Ink talk about how people and technology create and foster community.
• Rick Jones (3.5) On another BioTech Nation segment, Moira interviewed Dr. Rick Jones, Vice President for Product Development at BioRexis Pharmaceutical Corporation. He reviews many of the new breakthroughs in treating diabetes.
• Graham Flint – The Gigapxl Project (3.5) Modern digital cameras take high resolution pictures measured in megapixels, but cutting edge photography is now being measured in gigapixels. These photographs are so detailed you can zoom in to 1/10,000th of the original image and still retain high quality information. Graham Flint of the Gigapxl Project talks about technology and applications of super-high resolution pictures.
• Ethan Zuckerman – Why Should We Care About Africa? (3.6) Ethan Zuckerman address the direct question: "Why should we care about Africa?" As a technologist, Ethan has spent much time on the ground working with the new generation of African entrepreneurs, programmers, organizers and young people who are hooking up the countinent to the web. These new netizens are changing the way that villagers and urban dwellers learn, organize, network and face the challenges of poverty, AIDS, political strife and making a living.
• Jack Dangermond – ESRI (3.7) Jack Dangermond has been at the forefront of evolving geographic information services (GIS) for nearly 40 years. In this talk, and in a subsequent discussion with Tim O’Reilly, he outlines his vision for the geospatial industry, reviews emerging geoweb technology, and imagines future directions for the GIS community.
• John Clippinger – The Social Web (3.9) What is the social web? According to John Clippinger in his talk at Supernova 2005 it’s about creating new ways to help link people, organizations and concepts in a trusted way. Using multidisciplinary analysis and open source software developed by his organization, SocialPhysics.org, he explores new ways for "digital individuals" to interact.
• Tom Kelley (3.9) Moira Gunn also interviewed Tom Kelley, author of "The Ten Faces of Innovation — IDEO’s Strategies for Beating the Devil’s Advocate. Tom is the managing direcor of IDEO, that innovative design firm known worldwide for its originality.
• Candice Millard (4.0) Then Moira interviewed Candice Millard, former National Geographic writer and editor and author of "River of Doubt." They take us down the River of Doubt, the uncharted and dangerous river deep in the Amazon Jungle, first charted by Teddy Roosevelt.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a program from early 2004:

• Steve McConnell – Software Engineering (3.7) In an interview with me, Steve explains the important distinction between software engineers and computer scientists. Hear what he thinks of XP and why software seems to be so much less reliable than the hardware on which it runs.

We’ve started rolling out more information about The Conversations Network. There’s a basic-info web page, and a public Google Groups discussion list. If you’re interested in volunteering or just staying in touch with the latest developments, the list is the place to be.

We’ve posted the QuickCast audio edition of Pop!Tech 2005. $5 for each individual recording or $100 for the complete set.

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs Last Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• Trent Henry – Enterprise Security Architecture (rated 2.5 by listeners) Trent proposes crafting and implementing an enterprise security architecture over a two- to three-year period. But he points out that an architecture is a living thing that must adapt, for example, to a merger with another organization with different principles or to a change in the regulatory environment.
• Rick Rashid – From the Labs at Microsoft Research (3.0) From capturing everything that you experience to digitizing any physical item, Microsoft Research Labs covers a lot of ground in many areas beyond computer science and software. Microsoft Research Senior VP Rick Rashid discusses some of the more off-the-beaten path technologies Microsoft is exploring.
• Patrick Grady – Global eCommerce (3.0) For the last 15 years, the corporate workforce has become increasingly mobile and distributed. This has led to the phasing out of traditional administration support for large numbers of workers. However, as knowledge workers assume the burden of administration and attempt to leverage improvements in technology, they have reached the point of diminishing returns. Patrick Grady sees the creation of a "services-on-demand" grid as the only viable solution for this information overload.
• Gerd Leonhard (3.1) Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Gerd Leonhard, music industry strategist, professional musician, and author of "The Future of Music…Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution." As a music-industry entrepreneur, he tells us it’s been a great ride, but the hugely profitable economics of the music industry — as we know it — are over.
• Jason Pontin (3.2) Moira also interviews Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Technology Review, the tech magazine that comes to us from MIT.
• Todd Young – TV: Location Without GPS (3.2) Our society is becoming increasingly reliant on GPS signals for outdoor location positioning and tracking, but these signals don’t reach indoors or into urban canyons. To resolve this problem, a new location technology using commercial broadcast television signals provides reliable location information to augment or replace GPS.
• Sergey Brin – with John Battelle (3.6) Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. With this in mind, the company recently launched video search to make visual content such as TV shows and online videos more easily accessible. In an unscheduled and wide ranging interview with John Battelle at Web 2.0, Google co-founder Sergey Brin describes his belief that the company is a technology leader rather than a content-rich portal like some of its competitors.
• Paul Hallenbeck (3.8) On BioTech Nation, Moira interviews Dr. Paul Hallenbeck, founder, president and CEO of NeoTropix, who tells us about his work uncovering the mystery between viruses and cancer.
• Ray Kurzweil – When Humans Transcend Biology (4.1) Most watchers agree that the complexity of hardware is increasing at an exponential rate and that this has significant implications for the future of humanity. But what about the software that will guide the systems, and how do we prepare for a future that includes nanobots, engineered biology and artificial intelligence. Ray Kurzweil offers his vision for such a future, showing how much of it is happening now and how we can all benefit.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a program from earlier this year:

• Google’s AutoLink Feature – Sound Policy (3.0) Denise Howell hosted a spirited debate about Google’s controversial AutoLink feature. Her guests were Cory Doctorow, Robert Scoble and Martin Schwimmer. Google is no stranger to providing invaluable services to users of the Web, and the Google Toolbar has been no exception. However, the beta release of the Google Toolbar 3, with its link-adding AutoLink feature, has many wondering if Google has forgotten its "don’t be evil" credo. What might AutoLink mean for Web publishers and users, and how it might be impacted by intellectual property law?

Thanks to a fun new Google Maps-based app named Frappr, you can now see photos of the members of Team ITC as well as where they live.

In case you missed it, there are a huge number of problems with the upgrade to 10.4.3. See the Apple discussion forums. Unfortunately, I didn’t read them first, so since my upgrade I can’t run Mail, NetNewsWire or even Software Update.

Update: Things are finally back to normal and 10.4.3 is working. Thanks to all who emailed with suggestions. As best I can figure out, the problem was caused by a failure during the installation process. It left things in limbo. I was able to repair the permissions and re-install the update from a standalone disc image rather than through Software Update.

Still, there are an unusual number of people reporting problems with this update, so just make sure you backup everything first, as always.

Wow! How flattering. I feel honored just to be considered:

Doug Kaye, the creator, host and executive producer of the popular technology podcast website IT Conversations, has received the Person of the Year Award. In 2005, in an effort to produce a greater amount of quality content for his listeners, Doug brought together a diverse team of volunteer podcasters to assist in recording, editing and producing audio sessions from technology conferences and events around the country. Team ITC’s podcasts are widely recognized for excellence in both audio quality and depth of content. Doug recently launched an even more ambitious effort to recruit and train volunteer podcasters from around the world to record and produce podcasts from any spoken word event including conferences, lectures and meetings. Through the non-profit “Conversations Network,” Doug’s goal is to record and archive content globally from as many events as possible. Respected among his peers, Doug has done a tremendous amount of work to make a wide variety of quality audio content available via podcasts. IT Conversations can be found at www.ITConversations.com. [Source: eMediaWire]

I wonder who was on the “anonymous committee of podcasters, journalists and opinion leaders.” Thank you.

Finally (!) got around to adding a link to Technorati’s link search results to all of our detail pages. (It’s the “Who’s linking to thie>” link.) I had to disable trackbacks due to spam. This should work much better.

I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Coates at FOO Camp ealier this year. Although he has just left the BBC, he was allowed to post this description of an awesome internal project he and others worked on to build an audio annotator in Flash and AJAX. Check out the demos linked to in his blog. [Source: Mitch Ratcliffe]

We need something like this for IT Conversations, don’t you think?

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs Last Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• Gary Flake – Yahoo!’s Research Lab (2.8) Yahoo!’s research department of scientists is busy creating new products and developing new ideas. At the time of this talk, Dr. Gary Flake was Director of Yahoo!s Research Lab, and he discusses the philosophy behind the Research Lab. He also demonstrates some of the new tools being developed a Yahoo!, including a collaborative prediction system (with prizes!) in which you can participate.
• Richard Monson-Haefel – Java Superplatforms (2.9) In this session from the Application Platform Strategies track at Burton Group’s 2005 Catalyst Conference, Richard Monson-Haefel compares J2EE "superplatforms" — application platforms packed with integration, deployment, and management frameworks. Richard gives advice on choosing a superplatform and lays out how Burton Group sees this market developing as superplatforms add still more features demanded by enterprise IT developers.
• William Terrill – WLAN Technology Update (3.0) In this session from the Network and Telecom Strategies track at Burton Group’s 2005 Catalyst Conference, Burton Senior Analyst William Terrill gives an overview of protocols and products for enterprise deployment of Wireless LANs. Quality of Service (QOS), security, and centralized management are all available now. New 802.11 suffixes will standardize features that are still vendor- specific, such as mesh networking. Bill gives recommendations for your enterprise wireless deployment.
• Eamonn Kelly (3.6) On Tech Nation, Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Eamonn Kelly, the CEO & president of the Global Business Network, and the author of "Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World." He takes us through the major impacts on the world today. It’s his contention that we are in the midst of a great leap forward, not unlike what history has called The Enlightenment.
• Vernor Vinge – Accelerating Change 2005 Keynote (3.7) The idea that a superhuman machine intelligence could be created within our lifetimes is one that captures the imaginiations and fears of many. How can we plan for something which, by definition, changes the world in unimaginable ways? Vernor Vinge is the populizer of the term "Singularity" to describe the point at which technological progress advances so much that we cannot predict anything beyond that point. He discusses how we could prepare for this type of event.
• Peter Ax – On-Line Pharmacies (4.0) Ever wondered about those on-line pharmacies? Drugs like Viagra and even narcotics prescribed without even a face-to-face office visit? Peter Ax is the CEO of KwikMed and claims it’s the only on-line pharmacy to have been granted regulatory approval in the U.S. (by the state of Utah in this case). Larry Magid presses him for the real story.
• Bindu Varghese (4.0) On BioTech Nation, Moira interviews Bindu Varghese, Graduate Research Assistant in Biochemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Purdue University. They talk about her research and new strategies for auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
• Paul Graham – An OSCON 2005 Keynote (4.5) Paul Graham, popular essayist and Lisp programmer, discusses what business can learn from open source. According to him, it’s not about Linux or Firefox, but the forces that produced them. He delves into the reasons why open source is able to produce better software, why traditional workplaces are actually harmful to productivity and the reason why professionalism is overrated.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a new program from 2004:

• Marc Fleury – JBoss (3.4) JBoss married J2EE to an open source business model and came up with something that revitalized the enterprise Java world. Scott Mace talked with JBoss Founder, Chairman and CEO Marc Fleury at JavaOne. Listen to Marc’s views on the push to open source Java, the importance of aspect-oriented programming, rich Internet clients, and much more.

We need one or two volunteers with MiniDV video cameras (with tripods!) to videotape the full day of sessions at the Podcast Academy on November 10 in Ontario, California. We’ll be recording the laptops, but we also want some talking-head video to intercut as well as shots of things that speakers hold up, etc.

If you have a good MiniDV camera, a solid tripod, you know what your’e doing and you’re willing to contribute your recordings to the non-profit Podcast Academy, I can offer to cover your $50 registration fee. Email me at doug@itconversations.com.

At the one-day Podcasting Academy event, we’ll have the usual presenters with their Windows and Apple laptops feeding a VGA projector. Here’s my challenge. I want to record the audio and video (screen video, not camera video) and create online archives of the presentations. I don’t need to see the talking heads, just the screens. I’m on a tight budget, of course; that’s a given.

What would you recommend in the way of software and hardware to (a) record the sessions, (b) edit the recording, and (c) encode the files in a format that’s pretty tightly compressed (for Internet download, not discs) and playable on both PCs and Macs by the largest number of people?

My first choice would be to record and edit on a PowerBook, but I could use a PC if necessary. I’ve got a fair amount of experience in the world of broadcast-quality video, but when it comes to images on little screens, I’m a newbie.

We’ve just added an Advanced Audio Editing class to be taught by Daniel Steinberg (O’Reilly Media) at the Podcast Academy on November 10. There are still some seats left in the 100-seat amphitheatre-style classroom. Only $50 and that includes refreshments and a box lunch.

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs Last Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• JC Herz – Flickr for Satellites (rated 2.4 by listeners) The military often uses overlays on top of satellite images for strategic purposes. However, the same images can also be used for civilian purposes, in cases such as monitoring reconstruction activity in regions hit by disaster. JC Herz discusses how these "Flickr for satellite" images are used in combination with geographic data-mining to extract enormously detailed area-specific information to save lives in war zones and rebuild towns in devastated areas.
• Eddy Cue — The Video iPod (2.4) It’s hard to know what’s more significant about Apple’s video iPod. Is it the hardware — thinner device, more storage, larger screen and video for the same price — or is it the deals that Apple struck with Disney/ABC for television content? Host Larry Magid grills Eddy Cue, the VP of iTunes at Apple, to try and find out what the secret sauce might be that has given Apple a 75% marktet share in portable audio players despite what should be competitive devices from other vendors.
• Richard Oste (2.8) On BioTech Nation, Dr, Moira Gunn interviews Dr. Richard Oste, Food Chemistry professor at Lund University. They talk about the widespread prevalence of lactose intolerance and the new science which offers an alternative for everything from milk to ice cream.
• Legal Tips: What You Can Get Away With (3.0) As blogging becomes more mainstream, bloggers need to be aware of the legal implications of their work. What are your rights as a blogger, what can you write about legally and what should you avoid? At BlogHer 2005, moderator Jennifer Collins speaks with Lauren Gelman and Wendy Seltzer about legal issues facing bloggers.
• John Smart – Accelerating Change 2005 (3.3) We are all ambassadors to the future — this is the guiding principle behind the Accelerating Change conferences. In this opening address, kicking off the IT Conversations of this terrific event, organizer John Smart introduces the speakers presenting and the ideas discussed at the conference. For early access to our audio files, see our new QuickCast service.
• Ray Kurzweil (3.4) Moira is on-stage with prolific inventor Ray Kurzweil. You know him best as the inventor of speech recognition systems and music synthesizers. In more recent years he’s moved his focus to artificial intelligence, human consciousness and biological intelligence. They talk about his latest book: "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology."
• SDForum’s SearchSIG – Media Search (3.4) Audio is exploding on the internet, and now even video is becoming easier to create, download and view. However, finding the content you want to consume is still a challenge. Join IT Conversations’ own Doug Kaye as he talks with Evan Williams of ODEO, David Marks of Loomia, Eric Rice of Audioblog and Jeff Karnes of Yahoo! at SDForum about the current state of search for audio and video.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a new program from OSCON 2005:

Paul Graham – An OSCON 2005 Keynote Paul Graham, popular essayist and Lisp programmer, discusses what business can learn from open source. According to him, it’s not about Linux or Firefox, but the forces that produced them. He delves into the reasons why open source is able to produce better software, why traditional workplaces are actually harmful to productivity and the reason why professionalism is overrated.

What can I say? Pop!Tech so far is everything I hoped it would be. Terrific and inspiring presentations and discussions. Try to join us on the live audio stream Friday, Saturday and even Sunday morning.

Ian Forrester has even found a way to listen on his Xbox.

Tomorrow (Thursday) through Sunday IT Conversations will be bringing you the free, live audio stream from Pop!Tech 2005 at the Camden, Maine, opera house. Even if you’ve got to work Thursday and Friday, make sure you tune on on the weekend. This is arguably the #1 event of the year.

Of course, we’ll publish the sessions for download over the next eight months, but if you can’t listen to the stream or can’t wait for teh free podcast, check out our new QuickCast™ service.

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs Last Week

Listed in increasing order of listener rating.

• Peter Marcus – Online Gambling (rated 2.2 by listeners) To most of us, online gambling means email spam and other annoyances. But to Peter Marcus and his customers it’s a $6 billion/year legitimate business that represents more than 5% of the total gambling market worldwide. You may be surprised at the legitimacy of this operation. (Did you ever imagine that they might be audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers?)
• Highes and Keeler – Blog Design (2.5) You have started a blog and you’re writing great articles, but how do you attract and, more importantly, keep readers? According to Lynda Keeler and Gina Highes, a key aspect of your blog is its design. At BlogHer 2005, they share tips and tricks to take your blog from blah to bang!
• Daniel Blum – Managing Security (2.9) Every enterprise using information technology today needs to be concerned about security. As IT becomes more important to business, the number and severity of security threats also increase. Daniel Blum of Burton Group kicks off the Security stream of the Catalyst 2005 conference with this overview of topics in IT security.
• Wen Jiang (3.3) On Biotech Nation, Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Dr. Wen Jiang, Professor of Surgery and Tumour Biology and the Head of the Metastasis & Angiogenesis Research Group at the Cardiff University in Wales. He tells us how he developed a new predictive test for those with the unfortunate diagnosis of breast cancer.
• Kartik Subbarao – Enterprise IT: Open Source Powerhouse (3.7) How can enterprise IT organizations embrace open source but still meet their critical individual business requirements? This presentation from Kartik Subbarao at HP provides a successful framework illustrated with numerous real- world examples in production at HP.
• Jacqueline Winspear (3.8) Moira Gunn speaks with Jacqueline Winspear, the author of "Maisie Dobbs" and "Pardonable Lies." They discuss the social impact of The Great War on Britain, and medical breakthroughs which shaped a generation.
• Robert Kaplan (4.1) Moira also interviews journalist and author Robert Kaplan, who wrote "Imperial Grunts" about the vast reach of American military presence worldwide.

The O’Reilly Pick of the Week:

This week’s IT Conversations/O’Reilly Pick of the Week is a new program from OSCON 2005:

• Larry Wall – State of the Onion 2005: The core design of Perl 6 is largely complete, to the extent that the language is now being implemented in earnest. In Larry Wall’s ninth annual State of the Onion address, he explains Perl 6′s Five Year Plan, how Perl programmers are like spies (or vice versa), and how open source can learn from the intelligence community.

Here’s the preliminary updated curriculum for the Podcast Academy on Thursday, November 10, in Ontario, California:

Registration is still open: Only $50 for the whole day, including refreshments and a box lunch.