The brilliant Paul Graham is offering to seed some summer projects that could turn into start-ups. Take a look… [Technorati tag: PaulGraham]

Be the first to comment »

Join the IRC: irc.freenote.net #pcforum [Technorati tag: pcforum]

Be the first to comment »

Companies who get their own positions have 2 mins each to give us an overview. Here are my one sentence summaries of their 2 min summaries:

Trumba: We help people build calendar networks.

EVDB: (Brian Dear, yay!) Did you ever find out about an event after the fact?

Endeca: Guides users through complex sets of choices. (= faceted classification)

Siderean: Guides uesrs through complex sets of choices. (= faceted classification, but also manages ontologies)

Impinj: Chips the size of a grain of sand for RFIDS.

Grouper: Share music and videos to “socialize your media.”

Epocrates: Deliver info to doctors’ handhelds.

Brightcove (Jeremy Allaire): The Internet for television

Rearden: Agent technology.

Opera: We have the fastest, most secure browser and now it’s on a browser.

JotSpot: Integrated application platform (i.e., not just a wiki) [Technorati tag: pcforum]

Be the first to comment »

What will computing be like in 5 years?

Jayshree Ullal (Cisco): There are no secure perimeters. We need to be much more real-world. It’s going to be based on defining trust domains — the school you’re from, the location you’re from — which will be different than now when everything is separtae, e.g., you anti-virus, your firewall, etc.

Esther: Will we be able to go to an Internet cafe and anonymously log on?

Ullal: You shouldn’t be allowed to now. We need authentication and feedback mechanisms, etc. [Ack!]

John Thompson (Symantec): We should keep the Net environment diverse and learn where the bad parts of town are.

Scott Charney (Microsoft): We need both accountability and anonymity, so it should be done on the application layer. I want accountability when on-line banking but anonymity when engaging in political speech.

Thompson: We’ll be in trusted communities but not only in trusted communities.

Bob Frankston: How do we make computers secure without limiting outlandish and outrageous innovation?

Steven Levy: How do we do this without losing our civil liberties?

[No time for answers.] Thompson: Phishing has gone up exponentially. The question is whether the info that’s gathered is going to be used in the near future.

Ullal: We need better enforcement and more centralization.

Thompson: We can’t turn back democracy. [I’m liking him!]
[Technorati tag: pcforum05]

2 Comments »

Diana Schaub is against cloning in part because of what she’s learned watching Star Trek, which is, basically, that death is a part of the great circle of life:

The show has “left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least the necessary foundation of other very good things,” she wrote in an article last year. “There is something misguided about the attempt to overcome mortality.”

…”Both Lincoln and the Enterprise argue that there ought to be certain moral limits to the scientific project, and they help us articulate what those limits are.”

…Cloning is an evil,” she wrote in an article published in 2003. “It is slavery, plus abortion.”

This would be mildly loony and uninteresting except that she’s on the President’s Council on Bioethics, which advises President Bush.

[Thanks to Andrew McLaughlin for the link.]

1 Comment »

Steve Ward of IBM talks about its Chinese business. He says it’s an international team with more women than men. [He also says he keeps a list of attendees at meetings and checks people off as they talk, which, although it’s undoubtedly a good management technique, I find slightly creepy.]

Anne Mulcahy (Xerox) talks about the partnership with Fuji.

Jonathan Schwartz (Sun) talks about doing business in China.

[I found little unexpected in their responses, so I zoned out. Sorry.]

Esther asks what you do about corruption? Ward says that you make clear that your company has certain beliefs, and if you’re a mega-corp, they’ll be honored.

Schwartz says that Sun left a country because it was too corrupt. He also reminds us that Enron et al. have destroyed far more value in this country than any other country’s corrupt practices have.

Mulcahy says that they no longer have a business in South Africa — they are mere distributors there — because of “reputational risk.”

Q: What’s going to happen to our Thinkpads?

Esther: How many of you have Thinkpads? [About a third of us…very different from a tech conference/]

Ward: We’re going to innovate even more! “Thinkpads will be forever.” We’re trying to decide if the branding will be “Thinkpad” or “Lenovo Thinkpad”

Doc: Will Lenovo market a linux desktop?

Ward: Lenovo ships several million linux clients today, mainly cell phones and pdas. But there’s a lot to do to get linux accepted by the mass market.

Schwartz: And we’re committed to working with Lenovo to provide a mass market, desktop linux….

Q: When will you have a woman as CEO of Fuji-Xerox in Japan?

Mulcahy: Fuji-Xerox does a good job hiring women managers, but it will be a long time before there’s a woman CEO. But Japanese companies that hire women have a competitive advantage over companies that don’t take advantage of half of the work force.

[First use of the word “synergy”: 8:15am] [Technorati tag: pcforum]

Be the first to comment »

Google is hiring someone to work on a UI for blogging… (Thanks to Steve Garfield.) [Technorati tags: google blogs]

1 Comment »

The Sifry boys, Dave and Micah, are out like lights — they are so cute when they’re asleep! — so I’m writing this from under a “tent” I made with my blanket and my knees. I told them I wouldn’t be blogging this, but, what the heck, I don’t think they’ll mind. We’re sharing a room at PCForum, and I know their many fans would love a peek into what they’re like when they’re not out indexing blogs or fighting for our rights.

I was in bed reading when I heard them fumbling at the door, so I quick as a wink switched off my light, closed my eyes, and began lightly “snoring.” As soon as they opened the door and saw that I was “asleep,” they dropped into whispers, but I could still hear every word.

Sifraniacs — and aren’t we all! — will be excited to know that what you’ve heard is true. Dave — the outgoing Sifry — calls his brother “Mikey” and Micah — the thoughtful one — calls his brother “Dave-a-Rooty-Tooty”! It’s true! And I learned exactly why: Dave sat down on the end of his bed, took off his shoes, and rubbed his toes, saying “Rooty-tooty” for each one. It was all I could do to keep from running up to him and giving him a big hug! But I stayed quiet as a mouse so I could gather more 411 for all my fellow Sifrifans!

You wouldn’t believe what happened next! After Micah went into the bathroom to change into his pajamas — blue with little firemen (or what Micah would call “firefighters”) all over them — Dave was waiting for him with a big fluffy pillow. Then, boom, that pillow came down on Micah’s head and Micah quick as a wink grabbed Dave’s NetLink Portable Wireless Router by its electrical cord and began whirling it over his head. Dave still managed to get in a couple of good ones on Micah’s tush, but then the router clonked him on his head — what a big sound it made because Dave is so extra smart! — and Micah said how sorry he was and went with him into the bathroom. I heard running water and then, to my relief, a laugh which I think was Dave but maybe was Micah, and the two bros came out fast friends again. Boys will be boys!

Then Dave went into the bathroom and I could hear him counting his toothbrush strokes — 100 even! — and he emerged in shorts pajamas and a snoopy nightcap. Is there a word for so cute that you pull a tendon holding yourself back, because that’s just half as cute as Dave looked!

Then the two boys sat on their beds and told ghost stories. My favorite was the one Dave told about the time Google didn’t say it wasn’t going to index blogs in real time — scary! — but I also liked Micah’s story about Jeb running for president in 2008. He made it sound almost real! I had trouble going to sleep last night, I’ll tell you that for sure!

Then the two boys got all quiet and serious, and Dave said, “Well, my brother and best pal, it’s time we said our thanks.” So the two boys got down on their knees by their bed, and Dave, the younger one, led them in a prayer to Jesus, Santa and Tim Berners-Lee.

I thought they’d go to sleep, but, no they had just a little more fun stored up in them waiting to get out. “Tag!” Dave said, “Tag, you’re it!” “No, you!” said Micah, tagging him back. Well, you can guess what happened after that. Sure enough, in a few minutes Dave was pummeling Micah with his pillow and Micah had wrapped the Netlink wrapped around Dave’s neck, and then it was back into the bathroom for cold compresses and some butterfly clamps.

Then the two boys came over to me and — you won’t believe it! — each gave me a kiss on the cheek and whispered goodnight. It was all I could to continue pretending to snore so they wouldn’t know I’d seen them both as they REALLY ARE!!!!!!

I slept all night, thanking my lucky stars that somehow I had won the “Win a Night Bunking with The Sifrys” contest. You can bet I’m going to enter again next year! [Technorati tags: sifry technorati humor]

5 Comments »

JD Lasica‘s and Marc Canter‘s OurMedia.org has launched, “a grassroots media organization, site and registry.” Here’s the one-line explanation from the home page: “Share your videos, audio files, photos, text or software – for free – with a global community of creative individuals.”

Looks good, especially for an alpha release. [Technorati tag: media]

2 Comments »

After a hair-raising ride from the airport — I was driving, ’nuff said — I’m here at Esther Dyson’s PCForum. Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union is the second speaker. (I got too late to see Howard “multiple intelligences” Gardner.) It’s unusual for PCForum to have a union represented. It’s part of the theme, “The World Wide World.” It’s not just about tech. I don’t know how I’m going to manage…

(Gender Note:: Of the 31 featured speakers, 10 are women.)

Stern talks about the importance of unions to the American dream. [My father was a pro-union lawyer for NY State.] The largest employer 30 years ago was GM. Now it’s Wal-Mart, and it takes multiple Wal=Mart jobs to earn a living wage. Our children are on the way to being the first generation to do worse economically. He says unions havew made big mistakes, such as focusing on work rules when employers need flexibly. We’ve gone from 1 in 3 to 1 in 12 union members in the private sector.

We should try something else, he says. We should follow Diana Farrell of the McKinsey Group Institute. She suggests that we use some of the savings gained from off-shoring to supporting our unemployed workers.

Esther inteviews Jerry Yang of Yahoo!

Yahoo has hit its tenth anniversary. Jerry says that, as is typical in tech, we think that in the next ten years we’ll get to do what we thought we would have been doing in the past ten years.

Esther pushes him on whether he finds any ethical problems dealing with China. Jerry refuses to say Yes absolutely. He says that when Chinese officials explain their position, it make sense to him: China doesn’t have a tradition of free press, so when people have access to sites, they worry about the “lack of veracity.” They’re trying to do an “orderly transition” to an open Internet. “That transition is going to be managed by the government.”

Esther: “My sense is that they’re terrified of disorder.” Jerry points to the scale of the changes they’re managing, in order to say (I think) that they, and we, don’t want the disorder that would come from not “managing” the change.

Esther: Which way are you heading? Personalization and community? Or are you going to turn Hollywood on us?

“We are good example of a company trying to figure out how to marry content to this new medium.” Yahoo is only concerned with “the best stuff,” wherever it comes from. “To be able to build your personal networks, that’s really hard to do. No one’s done it right.” We have to be good at both: Watch the latest content and be a “place where users congregate and discuss things.” It’s an integration process.

How much by acquisition and how much by in-house development? Both. Acquisitions are primarily for the people. Well, also for the product. [Yahoo bought Flickr today, as everyone already knows.] He refers to Flickr as a community site, which is [imo] better than talking about it as a photo site.

Esther brings up Andy, Howard and Jerry and asks them about courage. They all talk about the courage of others and deflect the idea that they have any particular courage themselves. Howard says that he’s surprised at the distance between what his colleagues are saying about Larry Summers in private and in public. He says that courage is a muscle that needs to be developed, and points to Ralph Nader and Margaret Thatcher. But, he says, both over-reached.

Howard says we’re too big a country to have one best educational system. The Jesse Test: Is there a school that would be right for Jesse Helms, Jesse Jackson and Jess Ventura.

Jerry wants regulation to increase trust, although he thinks that’s not going to be enough without community norms. [Ack]

Scott Heiferman (meetup.com) asks how unions work as organizations become napsterized. Andy responds that they’re trying to figure it out.

Mitch Kapor comments that the folks in this room who run companies should wonder if the standard 80-hour work week gets in the way of education. “This stuff isn’t abstract. The way we run our companies has a direct impact…” [applause] Bob Frankston says that the best educators teach students how to learn. He does this in response to Andy’s repeated references to Catholic schools as models. Andy responds that we need to measure if we’re going to have an impact.

Howard says he’s working on a book about the five minds we need to cultivate: Disciplined, creating, synthesizing, respectful and ethical minds.

Mitch Ratcliffe asks Andy unions perpetuate the idea that employees can be treated as a fixed aset. We should recognize that all the industrial age models are broken. would the SEIU be willing to be treated as a group of contractors… Andy says the premise is right, and that we should think of unions as a community and ask what we can do with such an entity.

2 Comments »