Apple Engineer

ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup —

The news this week was dominated by announcements coming from Google's two-day I/O event, some of which was highly applicable to startups. The most popular story by far this week was the Big G's introduction of their big data APIs, which may make the process of sophisticated computations easily attainable to startups. Aso this week we discuss some ideation tips from Twitter's Jack Dorsey, a program linking college interns with startups and some factors for the success of mobile coupons. Additionally, we pour over some data from a survey of over 500 mass customization companies, as well as building communities around co-working spaces.

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Google's New Big Data APIs a Big Gift to Startups?

The flood of news from Google I/O continues as the company has announced a pair of services available to developers that provide public access to some of Google's internal data-analysis tools. BigQuery, a service for analyzing massively large sets of data, and Prediction API, an interface for utilizing Google's prediction algorithms, are now available to developers in the Google Code Labs. To break down these heavy new tools, we spoke with former Apple engineer and big-data geek Pete Warden.

Warden believes these new tools from Google could commoditize previously close-guarded technologies, allowing startups to quickly and easily leverage things like sentiment-analysis. "Assuming it does what it says on the label, this opens up a lot of technology problems to bootstrapped startups that previously required serious funding to tackle," he told ReadWriteWeb.

Draw It Out, and Other Tips for Success from Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey

Having a great idea is one thing. But being able to realize and execute on that idea is what matters.

At the 99% Conference last month in San Francisco, Twitter creator and co-founder Jack Dorsey gave a talk on how he was able to do just that: take a good idea and turn it into a flourishing company. In his talk, Dorsey identifies the three keys to success as he built and launched both Twitter and his latest project Square:

Online Community YouTern Links College Interns and Startups

YouTern, an online community to link interns with startups, has launched their pilot program in California, with plans to expand nationwide.

While there are many programs that assist students with finding internships with large, established companies, until the launch of YouTern, there was no similar service helping entrepreneurial-minded students find a position with a startup. And now in turn, startups will have a resource to identify and recruit talented students for internship positions, a move that may help build a "startup culture" so college graduates don't feel as compelled to only seek employment with major corporations.

Success for Mobile Coupons Begins at the Register

One of the more interesting discussions I had with attendees at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit a few weeks ago was about the future of location-based mobile advertising and why it has so far failed to take off. The speed-bumps we uncovered during that session included the burden of building an ad network and finding unique ways of engaging users, but one other key hurdle that stands in the way is the physical interaction at the point-of-sale.

Survey of 500 Mass Customization Startups Reveals Fascinating Trends

A growing startup trend that we have been keeping a watchful eye on here at ReadWriteStart is mass customization and co-creation. Startups in this sector provide customizable products to the end user, like t-shirts, bags, jewelry and even food. Back in March we suggested that the U.S. may be on the verge of a co-creation invasion from Europe, where these kinds of startups are more prominent. This week the Smart Customization Seminar is being held at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts and some fascinating stats and trends have emerged from the discussions and talks.

Co-working Spaces: Building a Startup Community

As our "Never Mind the Valley" series demonstrated, startup communities are thriving outside of Silicon Valley. A panel at WebVisions 2010 today in Portland< Oregon made a strong case for fostering community not merely in a city in general, but in specific working environments. Bac'n.com's Jason Glaspey, Silicon Florist's Rick Turoczky, Urban Airship's Scott Kveton, and Nedspace's Josh Friedman shared their experiences with co-working.

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The flood of news from Google I/O continues as the company has announced a pair of services available to developers that provide public access to some of Google's internal data-analysis tools. BigQuery, a service for analyzing massively large sets of data, and Prediction API, an interface for utilizing Google's prediction algorithms, are now available to developers in the Google Code Labs. To break down these heavy new tools, we spoke with former Apple engineer and big-data geek Pete Warden.

Warden believes these new tools from Google could commoditize previously close-guarded technologies, allowing startups to quickly and easily leverage things like sentiment-analysis. "Assuming it does what it says on the label, this opens up a lot of technology problems to bootstrapped startups that previously required serious funding to tackle," he told ReadWriteWeb.

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One of the advantages to BigQuery, which can analyze billions of lines of data from trillions of records in mere seconds, is that it is written in a simple SQL-like language. This makes BigQuery a "user-friendly way to harness the power of massively distributed computing," much like the Hive interface to Hadoop, said Warden.

"Both Hive and BigQuery are exciting because there's millions of people who know SQL, though even a friendlier syntax doesn't stop you from banging your head on the limitations of MapReduce," he said.

But Warden seems more interested in the new Prediction API, which "promises to open up a lot of Google's proprietary algorithms to startups," he said.

"There's a lot of meat in the list of examples they give, a lot of hard-to-solve problems that would previously have required an internal engineering team to tackle," he said. "Imagine being able to get sentiment-analysis on all your customer emails at the touch of a button [...] or integrating product recommendations into your small e-commerce site with almost no engineering effort."

With the new Latitude API announced earlier today, startups have a whole new slew of developer toys from Google with which to play. Warden says with the new BigQuery and Prediction API, Google is providing access to these services on a silver platter.

"This is more than just Google opening up access to their infrastructure," said Warden. "They're offering something with intelligence about problem domains baked-in, which is much more valuable."

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Lost iPhone case enters Dilbert territory —

The case of the missing iPhone is a story that can’t decide whether it wants to be serious or ridiculous.

In the circle of Apple bloggers, the story about how an Apple engineer lost a valuable prototype of an iPhone that may reveal secrets about the company’s future models is serious business. And a police search of a Gizmodo editor’s home shows that local authorities in Silicon Valley are not treating it as a laughing matter.

But the comics among us want to turn the affair into a circus. First, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak created a stir with a gag T-shirt that said “I went drinking with Gray Powell and all I got was a lousy iPhone prototype.” (Powell is the Apple engineer who lost the phone.) Then today, Scott Adams lampooned the matter in a cartoon released on his website.

“I found this story too delicious to resist, but I worried that the story would become stale before my comics would work through the pipeline. I think the soonest I can get something published is in about a month, perhaps a bit sooner, but I’ve never tested it,” Adams wrote.

He wrote the comics exclusively for his blog readers, and he noted he didn’t need to invent any part of it.

It’s a story you just can’t make up.

[image credit: Scott Adams]

Tags: lose iPhone prototype

Companies: Apple, Gizmodo

People: Gray Powell, Scott Adams, Steve Wozniak

Woz has fun with leaked iPhone T-shirt (photo) — Gray Powell was "devastated" after losing a prototype iPhone in a bar, but Woz makes light of the situation and shows solidarity with fellow Apple engineer.

It’s been an interesting few days for the digerati. First Engadget posted some pictures over the weekend of what was purported to be the next iPhone. They came from a source who had apparently acquired the phone after it was left in a bar. Other sites first debunked them as a KIRF but later analysis looked like they were real. Yesterday, Gizmodo published a lengthy piece, including video of them with the device along with details of the Apple engineer who apparently left the device in a bar by accident. Finally, the incident appeared to have ended with a letter from Apple politely asking Gizmodo for their device back. Just to show how silly the whole story got, the NY Times reported on the whole process of the reporting. As we say on Twitter #sheesh

It seems for most of the day, this was a key story for the digerati. Was what Gizmodo did ethical? Was this a marketing ploy by Apple to take some of the attention of the launch of the HTC Incredible? were among the many topics debated.

Here’s my $.02 for what it’s worth.

I find it interesting that a non working prototype device gets more attention than most shipping products do. Anyone not taking Apple seriously in the mobile space is making a huge mistake.
The idea that Apple somehow orchestrated this is just silly IMHO. Some folks are just watching too many Oliver Stone movies. Seriously, do you think Apple could somehow magically time this so the story broke the same day that Verizon launched the HTC Incredible? Apple conspiracy theories are fun and this may be among the funniest.

I have mixed feelings about how Gizmodo handled the scoop. Brian Lam is someone I consider a friend but I’m not sure I agree with how the site handled the story. It is easy, however for me to criticize his actions. I’m not in his shoes and I don’t have to make the same calls he did under a tight deadline. Brian and his staff do have an obligation to their organization and their readers. I’ve talked in the past that I’m not fond of the whole “race to be first” that’s taken over much of the tech blogging world. I’m not sure that if I were in Brian’s shoes I would have handled things differently, although I like to think I would have.

At the end of the day, if there weren’t audience for this type of story, the story wouldn’t be written. Given the amount of traffic that’s at stake (and the dollars that traffic generates) I wonder how many would have passed on the scoop given the chance. One thing I’m pretty certain of, there was no reason for Gizmodo (at least as far as I can see) to put a public face on the Apple engineer who left the device in the bar. I expect that poor fellow has enough to deal with without the need to be embarrassed in public.

When all is said and done, we don’t really know all that much about the next device. Any device is about the sum of all the parts both hardware and software. Sure, we have a pretty good idea what might be coming but I suspect there’s still a lot more that we don’t know.

So what do you think? Did Gizmodo or Engadget step over a line here? What would you have done if you were the editor in chief of those sites? And perhaps a better question, did you follow the stories as the events broke? If you did, perhaps that’s one reason why the stories got written.

App Brings Centuries of Great Art to the iPad —

The iPad makes a perfect coffee table book and photo browser but a new application called Art Authority sends the touchscreen interface back through centuries of humanity's finest imagery.

Built by 1980's Apple engineer Alan Oppenheimer, Art Authority (iTunes link, $9.99) is a beautiful way to get some art education and ponder the human condition while flipping through more than 40,000 historic works of art on your iPad. Oppenheimer calls the app a public domain and web art browser. It makes good use of Wikipedia, has a great breadth of Western art and is the kind of app that just makes sense for this platform.

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The app isn't perfect, Oppenheimer reminds us almost no one has developed iPad apps on a real iPad yet, but it's pretty good and will presumably get better. The resolution of the art ranges from fabulous and sharp to a little disappointing, but is generally pretty good.

Some additional settings would be nice; like the ability to change the duration of caption overlays and to save favorite artists and images in the app for later enjoyment. Artists from outside the Western world and a better sculpture section would be great, too.

The iPad's interface is just big enough and just sharp enough, and these images are just clear enough, that it can be frustrating to be so close and yet so far away from the art. It certainly isn't the same as standing in front of the great paintings of the world - but let's not fool ourselves: browsing the world's museums in your lap is an experience unlike any other and is not to be missed. Personal computing has come a long way in a hurry if our expectations can be higher still for a whirl-wind tour of centuries of human expression.

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