TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

In the latest episode of Media Space, The University of Washington's Hanson Hosein chats with video game designer and entertainment pioneer Elan Lee. Described as the godfather of alternate reality gaming, the former Microsoft game designer and founder of Fourth Wall Studios discusses some of the unique tactics that he's used to tell stories in order to promote movies, video games and TV shows.

"If you want to manipulate someone, telling them to do something is almost 100 percent ineffective," says Lee.

Avvo has built one of the most comprehensive online directories and rating sites for attorneys over the past four years. Now, the Seattle startup is hoping to build on that success with a new site which rates more than 800,000 doctors in the U.S. In addition to the new directory, Avvo also is introducing online health guides and a question and answer forum where doctors can answer medical-related questions from consumers.

"Consumers are lost when trying to find a doctor, let alone trying to understand the doctor’s background and reputation," Britton wrote in a blog post explaining the new service. "Because there are so few unbiased resources willing to truly help them ... many prospective patients spend more time researching vacations and car purchases than researching doctors."

Not everyone has warmed to Avvo's approach in the past.

Continental Airlines is looking to make it a little bit easier for travelers to find gates, restaurants and restrooms at the airport. The airline has licensed mapping data from Seattle startup Point Inside, data which is embedded in Continental's newly-released iPhone app. It marks the first airline to utilize the interactive and searchable airport maps from Point Inside, the companies said.

And while that's certainly compelling stuff, something else caught my eye in the press release announcing the new service. Quoted as CEO in the release is Point Inside founder Josh Marti.

That's interesting because Kevin Foreman had served as CEO, and his departure from the company had not previously been reported by us. Foreman's bio also is no longer on the Web site, and in a press release from two months ago Foreman also was noticeably absent. (We've reached out to Foreman for comment and we'll update the post when we learn more about what is going on).

This week on the TechFlash Podcast we immerse ourselves in real technology, "not all this consumer Internet crap we talk about all the time," as John jokes at the outset of the show.

Just kidding, of course, but it is refreshing to delve into something as scientific and potentially game-changing as the ability to transmit power via lasers -- which is the technology being developed by LaserMotive, a Seattle-area startup whose president, Tom Nugent, is our guest.

We start with our weekly news roundup, including Microsoft's latest financial results, the rise of the next-generation barcode, and the latest stealthy startup from Seattle entrepreneur Dan Shapiro. And in our final segment we bring back our popular Name that Tech Tune trivia contest. Click here to submit your answer.

Listen above or subscribe to the podcast using this RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/techflashpodcast), or via iTunes or Zune. Call 206-876-5465 to leave a message for our next show, and continue reading for links related to this week's episode. Here's the MP3 file.

Our popular new "Name That Tech Tune" contest returns this week in the trivia segment of the TechFlash Podcast. To play, listen to the audio clip below. Which classic arcade game is this?

Name That Tech Tune 2 sound clip

Click here to submit your answer. From the pool of correct answers, we'll select one person at random to win a limited edition TechFlash shirt. We'll give the answer and name the winner next week.

This one isn't nearly as easy as our previous "Name that Tech Tune" installment (which was the Windows 95 startup sound, by the way). So we gave several clues during the segment. Among them: This game debuted in 1982, and was the first to introduce parallax scrolling, in which the background moves more slowly than the foreground to create the perception of depth.

Here's the full trivia segment, in which we also rule out several classic arcade games as possibilities, including Centipede and Galaga.

TechFlash 'Name That Tech Tune' 10/30/10 sound clip

Weekend news and notes from the Microsoft beat ...

Apple has reached another symbolic milestone in its resurgence, surpassing Microsoft in quarterly revenue for the first time. The score on the top line: $20.34 billion to $16.2 billion.

However, Microsoft still leads on the bottom line, thanks in large part to Windows, Office and other traditional software businesses with high profit margins. Microsoft reported profits of $7.12 billion for the quarter. Apple, which gets most of its revenue from hardware sales (PDF), reported $4.31 billion in profits by comparison.

Despite beating Wall Street's expectations for the quarter, Microsoft's earnings weren't enough to convince Goldman Sachs to change its outlook on the Redmond company. The firm, which previously made headlines for downgrading Microsoft's shares to a "neutral" rating, told clients in a note that the company remains challenged by "long-term structural headwinds including the rise of new mobile platforms that threaten Window’s dominance and (will) likely eat into core PC growth.

Microsoft's Silverlight interactive technology and development platform received barely a mention during the company's keynotes at the Professional Developers Conference this week, and it sounds like there's good reason. Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet.com quotes Microsoft Server & Tools chief Bob Muglia saying that the company's "strategy has shifted" to focus more on HTML5 as a way of running applications across platforms.

Microchip technology company Canesta Inc. confirmed late yesterday that it has reached an agreement to sell its products, technology, customer contracts and intellectual property to Microsoft for an undisclosed sum. The New York Times had reported the news earlier in the day. Canesta's technology allows devices to sense objects in a room in three dimensions, which is expected to help with Microsoft's push into natural user interfaces, such as the Kinect motion-sensing control system for Xbox 360, launching next week.

A report by Moody's this week cited Microsoft among U.S. companies that are continuing to hoard large sums of cash in the face of the uncertain economy. The company's balance of cash and short-term investments rose to $44.1 billion as of Sept. 30, up from $36.8 billion three months earlier, even as it spent $4 billion to repurchase its own shares during the September quarter.

And on a lighter note, Microsoft's Channel 9 developer community site is back with another gory and funny Halloween slasher movie spoof. This year's installment has a great title: "The Killer App."

Redbox, the $1-a-day movie-rental kiosk business owned by Bellevue-based Coinstar, made news this week by outlining, in general terms, its plan to expand into Internet-based digital movie streaming next year. The move promises to strengthen Redbox vs. Netflix, which supplements its DVD mail business with online streaming.

Another notable tidbit from the Coinstar earnings conference call: Redbox is widening its testing of video-game disc rentals at its kiosks, although it's taking a "measured approach," according to Coinstar CEO Paul Davis. He called the opportunity "promising," but said the company wants "to continue to expand our test to a larger market to make sure there is strong consumer interest ... and a viable business."

Video games go for $2 a day, and are currently available in 4,500 automated Redbox kiosks.

Microsoft's executive team is having some fun in honor of next week's launch of the Kinect motion-based control system for Xbox 360, swapping out their traditional corporate headshots for Xbox Live avatars.

Some of the most amusing "likenesses" are on the senior leadership team. A few of them are eerily accurate, such as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's avatar, pictured here. Meanwhile, others are a bit generous, such as the liberal interpretation of COO Kevin Turner's hairline. (Don't feel bad, Kevin, we know the feeling.)

[Update, Saturday: Canesta has now confirmed the deal.]

Microsoft plans to acquire Canesta Inc., a chip company in Sunnyvale, Calif., whose technology lets electronic devices sense and react to nearby objects in three dimensions, according to a New York Times report today.

The companies aren't confirming the report, but the move would make sense in light of Microsoft's push into natural user interfaces, the ability to control computers with common gestures. The launch of the Kinect motion-sensitive control system for the Xbox 360 next week is the most high-profile step to date in that initiative.

Election day is just around the corner, which means many Washington voters are scrambling to get their ballots in the mail. Filling out a ballot with an ink pen and submitting it via the mail may seem like an antiquated system. We chatted with Democracy Live founder Bryan Finney -- whose 9-person Issaquah company is looking to bring voting into the 21st century with technologies such as ballot tracking and multimedia voting guides -- for the latest installment of Startup of the Week.

What’s your elevator pitch — in 140 characters or less... Reducing the cost of elections, while answering the question that every voter has in common: 'Who are these candidates on my ballot?'

Nancy Xiao

Nancy Xiao: Twitter, tweet, twit. Sure, we’ve all seen that troublemaking blue bird floating around, but none of us actually bother to use him.

Growing up in a generation surrounded by technology and media influence, it comes as a bit of surprise that only 11 percent of Twitter’s users are aged 12 to 17. Though the bulk of Twitter users are less than 35 years old, the scale is tipping more towards the older end despite its supposed appeal towards Generations Y and Z.

So what’s going on here? Are teens simply not interested in social media? Is the service hard to use?

Kyla Fairchild, publisher of NoDepression.com. (Photo: Dan Schlatter/PSBJ)

Kyla Fairchild is the publisher of NoDepression.com, the Seattle-based site about roots and Americana music, which survived the popular No Depression music magazine after it ceased print publication two years ago. It takes its name from the J.D. Vaughan song, “No Depression In Heaven,” recorded by the Carter family in the 1930s.

In a recent interview, Fairchild discussed the evolution of the No Depression community over the past two years, and the site's role in the changing music landscape. Continue reading for excerpts.

David Truong

David Truong, a 21-year-old University of Washington student from Kirkland, faces an uncertain future as he looks ahead to entering the work force, hoping to remain in the region where he grew up. His biggest challenge: Choosing among the multiple companies interested in hiring him.

“The job market seems really great,” he says.

That might sound nuts, with Washington state’s unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent. But Truong is a computer science major who has already started making his mark with internships at Intel, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft. And the competition for people like him is only becoming more fierce.

Ari Steinberg, head of Facebook’s Seattle engineering office, in the social-networking company’s new digs near Pike Place Market. (Photo by Julie Franz, PSBJ)

Grappling with a talent crunch in Silicon Valley, California-based tech companies including Facebook, social gaming firm Zynga, web-based software provider Salesforce.com, and internet TV service Hulu are establishing a new wave of engineering branches in the Seattle region. Their arrival promises to boost wages and create more opportunities for software developers and others with coveted technology skills — while causing headaches for some of the region’s established companies and spotlighting limits on computer science and engineering education.

The University of Washington has raised $13 million of a $20 million investment fund, a bold attempt by the state's largest public research institution to turn cutting-edge technologies into new startup companies.

The news was disclosed this week by UW Vice Provost Linden Rhoads at the Computer Science & Engineering's Industrial Affiliates Meeting, and first reported yesterday by Xconomy. According to the Xconomy report, the new fund -- to be called the Husky Bridge Investment Fund -- will utilize UW business students to commercialize technologies. It has raised the cash from wealthy individuals, venture capital firms and foundations.

Expedia's net income rose 51 percent during the third quarter to $176 million as the Bellevue online travel giant experienced growth in both hotel and air bookings and at its TripAdvisor unit. Revenue for the quarter rose 16 percent to $987.9 million.

"Now while these Q3 results are quite good, we still have a ton of work to do to address our opportunities and to continue to grow our business over the long term," said Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a conference call with analysts.