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September 28, 2007

Emerging tech: Location, location, location

“I’m really low-tech,” laughs Kathleen Weldon nervously in front of the MIT audience at the EmTech meeting. She’s here to explain how she launched NewEnglandGrown.com, a website connecting customers interested in local, fresh produce with New England farmers. “And the farmers are even more low-tech than me!”

Kathleen used software provided by Platial – described by its founder Di-Ann Eisnor as ‘the people’s atlas’ – to map hundreds of farms. The site allows farmers to update their lists of fresh produce online and reach more customers then they would by sending out print newsletters. Kathleen also provides news, links and recipe ideas, and with the help of another Palatial user she just met – Pauric O’Callaghan – she is adding month-by-month views, so users can understand how farm produce changes with the seasons.

Platial is about 18 months old and piggybacks on Google Maps to provide ordinary users the tools to create whatever map-based content they want. Eisnor says they have some 5 million unique users and the software is now being used on some 60,000 sites and blogs. Most users are into travel stories, local history and community groups.

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Posted by Sarah Tomlin at 08:31 PM |

September 27, 2007

Emerging tech: not yet diggin it?

Have you ever used news aggregator sites like Digg, Slashdot or Reddit? This was the question posed to EmTech attendees this morning, during a panel discussion with three founders of popular social media sites -- Kevin Rose of Digg, Tariq Krim of NetVibes, and Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon. Thanks to live audience voting using our interactive name tags, the MIT audience revealed that 61% have yet to try user-driven news services.

Is this supposedly tech-savvy audience behind the times? Or have these sites yet to reach beyond the niche audiences that post and comment on specialized content? Not so, say the panelists, preferring to see their users as early adopters. And the numbers back them up.

Kevin Rose claims that Digg has 20 million unique visitors a month. Compare this to 69 million unique visitors to Facebook during August, and a whopping 210 million visitors to Wikipedia, and its clear that social networking and user generated websites are unstoppable. Back in 2004 explains Rose people didn’t believe they could have control over the content on a news homepage. Now he says Digg has more page hits than the New York Times.

All the sites are evolving beyond ‘just text’ by adding photos, video, audio and flash. They are also getting into ‘microblogging’ services like twitter which allow users to post short status updates (where you are, and what you are doing right now) that are sent to your friends cell phones. Rose has recently helped to launch Pownce, which is a way for friends to share news stories they are reading with each other.

And what about those late adopters at MIT? Kevin Rose explains to me that there is still a lot of work to be done attracting non-techie users. “My mum and dad don’t have a Digg account,” he admits. “There’s a reason for that.”

Posted by Sarah Tomlin at 03:09 AM |

Emerging tech: local networking

My second night in Boston I attended the Nature Network Boston pub night. Hosted by Corie Lok at a bar on Mass ave, there was a good turn out from young Cambridge area scientists. The discussions ranged from yeast genetics, to neuropathology, Finnish baseball (yes, really, we didn't believe it either) and beer brewing (coming back full circle to the yeast genetics :). If you're in the Boston area check out the pub night next month.

Back at MIT, the Technology Review team have tracked down other bloggers at the EmTech meeting. Follow the links here for more conference stories.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin at 02:54 AM |

September 26, 2007

Emerging tech: amazing grace

So what did I learn about women in technology from today’s workshop? I learned that despite many smart and impressive women in technology – including CIOs, CTOs and research managers – there is still a long way to go.

I also learned more about the early history of computer science: yes, women PhDs dropped sharply from around 38% in 1985 to about 28% today. One explanation offered was that once personal computers were available in the home and schools, and the timing for this applies to China as much as to the USA, then boys began playing computer games and women’s interest declined.

But there were some great women computer scientists in those early years. Grace Hopper, a US naval officer and computer programmer, created the first compiler, and developed the philosophy behind COBOL. Next month there is a meeting celebrating Amazing Grace, as she was sometimes known, and women in computing today. Fran Allen, a computer scientist at IBM, was the first woman to be awarded the Turing Award (the Nobel Prize of computing). Other early female computer pioneers are listed here.

Bob Birgeneau, the chancellor of UC Berkeley, also updated workshop attendees with the latest follow-up data to the 2006 National Academies report: Beyond Bias and Barriers.

In fields with few women, Birgeneau reports, such as physics, electrical engineering and computer science, women now apply for faculty positions in similar numbers to women pursuing PhDs. But the pipeline is much leakier in fields with far greater numbers of women PhDs, such as biology and chemistry. Here there is still a two-fold drop between women achieving PhDs and later career paths. How many Grace Hopper's or Fran Allen's are leaking away..?

Posted by Sarah Tomlin at 04:26 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Emerging Tech: it sure aint TiVo

My personal benchmark for transformative technology is TiVo. Like many women I approach new technology as a tool, with the modest hope that it will enhance my life, but no expectation that it will define or transform me. TiVo was different. When this personal video recorder entered my world it changed the way I viewed TV forever. Now I watch shows on my schedule and skip all the boring commercials. What's more it had a smart and intuitive user interface and a remote control I could care for. Thanks to its friendly curves and intelligent fastfwd and rewind I was hooked.

None of which can be said about the interactive name badge technology - nTAG - being offered to attendees of the EmTech meeting. Sure, it is kinda like wearing the TV remote control around your neck. But who wants to do that? After a 15 minute tutorial I learn it means I can swap contact info with other attendees electronically: once we've lined up the consoles and figured out which buttons to press. And I can review the meeting schedule, receive messages from the organisers, or take part in feedback surveys. Oh and there may be some instant voting later.

Hmm, I'm underwhelmed. It's clumsy to use and ugly to look at. By the end of the first session I've already decided the device is too heavy to hang round my neck. I spy other attendees swapping business cards, the old-fashioned way. An earlier generation nTAG device was twice the size of this one(!) and required a neoprene neck support. Can I have a paper name badge please?

Posted by Sarah Tomlin at 02:53 AM |

September 25, 2007

Emerging Tech: Geeks and gendertyping

Who are the stereotypical geeks in movies? The nerd wearing glasses, with bad skin and poor social skills? We all remember the 80s movie Weird Science. Of course they are always male.

The Emerging Technology conference this week at MIT is organized by Technology Review magazine and is a chance to showcase some young hip geeks, the TR35, young innovators, all under 35 years old, who the magazine has honoured for their contributions to business, technology, and the arts. How many of the TR35 are women? It’s a good question, especially as the conference is being trailered this year by a one day workshop on women in technology.

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Posted by Sarah Tomlin at 02:29 PM |

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