TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

About ten years ago, I fell in love with a German board game called "Settlers of Catan." A group of friends and I would gather on weekends to trade brick, iron, sheep, wood and wheat in order to declare the "Lord of All Catan." Unfortunately, my game-playing buddies moved away and we stopped playing.

But my interest was renewed in the dice game last month when The Wall Street Journal's Pui-Wing Tam wrote about how "Settlers of Catan" was gaining favor among technology executives in Seattle and Silicon Valley. The story quoted Redfin's Glenn Kelman -- an experienced player -- and Wetpaint's Ben Elowitz -- a newbie who was looking to learn the ropes.

Goodbye 2009. Hello 2010. Thanks to everyone who checked out TechFlash over the past year. And for those who didn't, here's your chance to catch up with the most read posts of the year. Enjoy!!

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1.) "Rule No. 1: Hide the iPhone from Ballmer at the Microsoft meeting" (143 comments)

2.) "iPhone app wins top honors at Microsoft sponsored event" (19 comments)

3.) "Microsoft sues TomTom over Linux and other patent claims" (105 comments)

4.) "One force of nature vs. another: Bill Gates tries to stop hurricanes" (76 comments)

5.) "Pioneering Internet 'detox' center looks to cure online addicts" (47 comments)

Lawmakers in a number of cash-strapped states are poised to revive efforts to make Amazon.com and other internet retailers collect sales tax — efforts that, if successful, could have far-reaching consequences for Amazon’s fast-growing e-commerce business.

Seattle-based Amazon only collects sales tax in a handful of states. But last year, a variety of state legislatures, looking for new sources of revenue to fill budget holes, tried to force Amazon and other internet retailers to collect sales tax on web purchases.

Amazon pushed back and managed to stomp out or neuter most of those efforts in 2009. But with many states continuing to face acute budget crises, some state lawmakers appear likely to raise the topic again in the new year.

Update, Friday morning: Check out this Microsoft Research video that shows the concepts discussed in the patent filing -- including a demonstration of how to use muscle movement to play Guitar Hero, air-guitar style. (Thanks, Manan for pointing this out.)

[Original post follows.]

We've covered lots of offbeat Microsoft patent applications in 2009, and here's a doozy to round out the year. According to a newly surfaced filing, the company is seeking patents on a method of controlling computers using Electromyography, or EMG -- a system that translates electrical activity from muscles into instructions for the computer.

One of the filings suggests doing this by attaching sensors to a user's forearm, but another goes further by proposing a completely wearable system of sensors on the head, chest, arm and leg. Here's how one of the filings describes the overarching concept.

A lousy economy. An up-and-down year for Microsoft. The rise and fall of media. There was certainly plenty to cover in 2009 when it came to technology news. But what was the biggest story of the year? We're winding down The Flashies, our year-end online awards of the biggest events in technology. Today marks the last category -- Tech Story of the Year -- so make sure to cast your vote.

As you can see, we're focusing not on individual posts but rather on overarching stories that we followed throughout the year. Continue reading for our take on each story. As with previous categories, feel free to offer a write-in candidate in the comments below. We'll announce all the Flashies winners in a post next week.

As a technology consumer, my requirements of technology providers are actually pretty modest. Innovate, don't overcharge me, treat me fairly, protect my privacy, and don't construct artificial barriers for the sole purpose of benefiting your business. I'm sure there are more, but those are the basics.

With that as background, here are five things I'm hoping to see in 2010 from the tech industry. This is a personal list, not meant to be comprehensive. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Amazon.com has never revealed sales data for its Kindle electronic readers, and CEO Jeff Bezos has said the company may never do so. But Amazon's recent string of press releases (see here, here and here) touting Kindle sales records, without revealing any actual numbers, is starting to get on Wall Street's nerves. Reuters, in an analysis piece, says "investor patience with the lack of details has begun to wear thin."

The Twilio team

Twilio, which helps companies create nifty Web-based applications around phone calls, has scored a $3.6 million round of capital led by Union Square Ventures. The Founders Fund and angel investors such as Mitch Kapor, David Cohen and Chris Sacca also participated in the deal.

Twilio moved its headquarters from Seattle to San Francisco earlier this year after founder Jeff Lawson's wife received a fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. But the company -- which Lawson founded in 2007 -- still has operations and ties to Seattle. For example, marketing director Danielle Morrill is an active member of the Seattle startup community. Lawson previously worked at Amazon.com.

“By opening the Xbox Live entertainment network to the entire universe of Windows and mobile gamers, we’re creating unparalleled gameplay opportunities that will drive incredible growth of the online community. Our vision is to deliver consistent, compelling experiences that make it easy for consumers to jump in and play, from any device at any time. It’s a vision that only Microsoft can deliver.” -- Bill Gates, May 2006.

That promise by the Microsoft chairman, made at the E3 video-game convention more than three years ago, popped into my mind yesterday as people got worked up over the "news," first reported by MobileTechWorld that the company is seeking someone to bring Xbox Live to Windows Mobile, including games, avatars and social interaction. [Credit corrected; Thanks, Mike]

Of course, the interesting part isn't the job posting but the fact that the vision from '06 still isn't a reality as the decade draws to a close.

Microsoft Bing, like an uninvited guest on a BlackBerry home screen on Verizon.

PC buyers are all-to-familiar with crapware, those unwanted icons and trial programs that litter the desktops of some new computers -- so much that Microsoft has started offering "Signature PCs" whose main selling point is their lack of all that garbage.

And now, thanks to Microsoft and Verizon Wireless, some BlackBerry users are getting a crapware experience to call their own.

The icon for Microsoft's Bing search engine has been showing up, unrequested, on the home screens of BlackBerry users on Verizon's network in recent days. In an era when people carefully decide what and what not to put on their phones, the move is angering many Verizon customers -- particularly savvier users who treat as sacrosanct the contents and arrangement of their mobile home screens.

Catalano

Frank Catalano: If you want to experience the gulf between cutting-edge technology then and cutting-edge now – just try getting rid of it.

Take several items that were state-of-the-art for turn-of-the-century mobile and communications tech: An IBM WorkPad z50, Intel AnyPoint Wireless Home Network adapters, and a 3Com USRobotics ISDN Pro Terminal Adapter. I purchased these around 1999-2000, thoroughly used them, bought replacements, and put them and their manuals back in the original boxes several years ago, intending to sell them.

Rule number one: Boxes, when in a garage long enough, become invisible.

Then there was a move this year. I rediscovered the devices and reconfirmed I didn’t need them. But ten years, and the turn-of-a-new decade later, did anyone?

Is Amazon.com planning to offer its call center technology to other companies? A new job posting from the online retailer seems to indicate so. Amazon is seeking engineers to work on its "internally developed Call Center Platform" who will help take the technology "to the next level, making it available to organizations outside of Amazon."

That would be an interesting addition to Amazon's growing suite of cloud computing services.

Update: The job posting was briefly taken down yesterday following this report but is back up now.

What buzzword most defined the past year in technology? That's the intriguing question in today's Flashies category, as we get close to wrapping up our year-end community choice awards.

And the nominees are ...

Continue reading for our take on each word. As with previous categories, free to offer a write-in candidate in the comments below. Other readers will be able to support your nomination by logging in and clicking the "like" button next your comment. We'll announce all the Flashies winners in a post after the end of the year.

This holiday season is shaping up to be a decent one for online retail, but looks like the big players may have been the real beneficiaries.

ComScore just came out with a new batch of numbers, which shows online spending from November 1 through Christmas Eve increased 5 percent from the same period a year ago, to $27 billion. That's a big improvement over last holiday season, when online spending was down 3 percent. But this season's sales uptick may have not have been evenly distributed.

The end of the year has brought a reshuffling of executives within Microsoft's Dynamics business software group. The company confirmed this week that it has promoted Microsoft veteran Hal Howard from general manager to corporate vice president, responsible for research-and-development across the Dynamics ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) product line, which includes Dynamics AX, NAV, GP and SL.

Microsoft also confirmed the departure of Dean Lester, another company veteran and Dynamics general manager, who had previously been general manager for Windows graphics and gaming technologies. The company didn't disclose Lester's reasons for leaving but said, in response to our inquiry, that they were not related to changes in the Dynamics organization. We left a message for Lester at a publicly listed home number but haven't heard back.