TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

REDMOND -- Hundreds of people gathered here this morning for the annual Microsoft Puzzle Hunt, sizing up the competition and preparing to spend hours immersed a series of mind-bending brain-teasers.

But first they faced a more basic challenge.

"You can figure out how to find the number for Pizza Schmizza on your own," said Peter Sarrett, one of the organizers of this year's event, during the opening orientation session. "If you can't," he joked, "it's going to be a long weekend for you guys."

Paul Andrews

Paul Andrews: Preparing to leave town for three months recently, I called Comcast to reduce my TV (not my Internet) service. I was shocked at the conversation.

The rep on the other end apparently did not believe my story about being gone. Instead, he seemed to think I was making up an excuse to cut back my service, perhaps because of affordability. He said Comcast would nearly triple my broadband speed to 16 mbps. Then he said I qualified for a reduced billing rate, nearly halving my Internet tab. Finally he said I could get three times as many channels for the minimum TV package I was requesting. He didn't offer to detail my car and prune my hedges, but I was tempted to ask.

After years of suffering what I felt were inflated rates for mediocre content, I was puzzled by Comcast's sudden magnanimity. Then I moved temporarily to Silicon Valley, and it all became clear.

Volt Workforce Solutions, believed to be the largest provider of Microsoft temporary workers, informed them tonight that it will be cutting their pay by 10 percent as a result of the Redmond company's decision to reduce the amount it pays employment firms. Volt joins most but not all of the other firms in deciding to pass some or all of the impact of the cuts on to their workers.

Read on for the full text of the message Volt sent to its Microsoft workers Friday evening.

Daptiv, the Seattle online project management company, laid off an undisclosed number of staffers today. A spokeswoman confirmed the cuts in an email, but didn't provide details on the number of jobs lost or why the company was trimming its staff again.

T-Mobile USA announced solid fourth quarter results, with the Bellevue wireless carrier posting double digit increases in operating income and service revenue. The unit of Deutsche Telekom reported operating income of $1.5 billion, up 18 percent over the same period in 2007. Meanwhile, service revenue increased 12 percent to $4.9 billion, a significant increase even though new customer additions are slowing.

The Kindle 2 is only a few days old. But Amazon.com is already making changes to the device. In response to criticism from the Authors Guild and others, Amazon.com issued a statement this afternoon saying it would now allow authors and publishers to decide whether to utilize the text-to-speech function on select book titles.

With Microsoft's Windows 7 preview getting positive reviews, and Windows Vista riding into the sunset, the computer industry is enduring a lame-duck period -- that moment in time when people wait to buy for fear of missing out on the next big thing. And the economy isn't exactly helping, either.

Microsoft and PC makers are expected to juice up the market later this year with offers of free or discounted upgrades to Windows 7 for people who buy Windows Vista machines in advance of the new operating system's release. But in the meantime, one Seattle-area computer builder is taking matters into its own hands.

The Kindle

Publishing giant Hearst -- which has announced plans to sell or close the Seattle P-I and the San Francisco Chronicle -- has developed a new electronic reading device that is expected to debut later this year, reports Fortune.  The new device is interesting for Seattle readers, not only because of its implications for the future of the Seattle P-I but also because the device could compete with Amazon.com's Kindle. The Kindle already offers electronic versions of some of the top newspapers in the country, including The New York Times, LA Times and The Seattle Times.

Despite the struggles in the economy in the latter half of 2008, members of the Alliance of Angels still invested near record totals last year. The Seattle angel group said today that its members invested $6.4 million last year, a 64 percent increase over 2007 and the second highest investment total since the organization was founded 11 years ago.

Newspapers are going down the tubes fast, but some enterprising journalists in San Francisco are turning to a new technology to try to come with with ideas to help save the industry. Following the news this week that Hearst may shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, Sarah Rich and Alexis Madrigal set up a wiki on Seattle's Wetpaint called The San Francisco Post-Chronicle that makes pleas for suggestions to save the city's largest daily newspaper.

The writers from Dwell and Wired.com are asking designers to submit mock ups on what a new-and-improved Chronicle Web site could look like as well as possible distribution methods for the content. And then, of course, there's the tricky question of the business model.

With the first Kindle 2s hitting doorsteps this week, is Amazon already planning a Kindle 3 launch? DigiTimes writes that Amazon plans a new version of its electronic book reader by the end of this year, saying it will be "larger in size and equipped with touch functions."

Could this be the long-rumored student version of Kindle, designed to replace textbooks?

Pre-money valuations in millions (Source: Cooley Godward)

It's getting ugly out there. Two surveys released by law firms this week show that venture capitalists are demanding strict terms before they part with any money.

We took a tour the city of Bellevue's data center yesterday, and got to see one of the technologies the city is using to protect against earthquake damage. The platforms sit beneath the big data center racks and let them shift independently of the building during a quake. Here's Dylan Mason from WorkSafe Technologies, the company behind the system, showing how it works.

Microsoft has quietly finished and begun using the gigantic parking garage beneath the new Entertainment & Devices campus under construction in Redmond. Four stories deep, with room for a few thousand cars, it's one of the largest underground garages in the Western Hemisphere. Here's an inside look.

Lawyers for PC buyers are trying a new approach in an attempt to get U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman to reinstate the class-action status that she recently removed from the lawsuit over Microsoft's Windows Vista Capable marketing program. According to a document filed today (PDF, 5 pages), the lawyers are asking the judge to certify a narrower class of plaintiffs than before.