10 Comparisons Between Star Trek and Modern Technologies

For those of us who were around to watch the original Star Trek series on television, we remember thinking how cool it would be to have some of the great gadgets they used. The future is now! Many of their ‘futuristic’ ideas have become available in some form, since then.

1. Communicators to cell phones – Flip open devices that allowed you to communicate with others from almost any location. Of course, there was the occasional atmospheric interference that cut off your connection to the other person. Lots of similarities in these two.
2. PADDs to tablet computers - Personal access display devices were used in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were flat panel touch screen devices that were used for a multitude of tasks and gaining access to all kinds of information. Although the PADDs were a bit undefined at the time, they have definite similarity to the ipad and other tablet computers.
3. Ear piece headset to bluetooth technology – Wireless headsets were worn on the bridge of the Enterprise. They were small and attached to one ear. Bluetooth headsets are used in environments today that are not near as sophisticated as the star ship’s command deck.
4. Portable data disks to floppy disks/data drives – Thin, small pieces of plastic were inserted into the computer consoles of the star ship, which were close in size to the 3-1/2 floppy disk. Today we have even smaller USB data drives for transporting data.
5. Voice commands to voice commands – The ability to give verbal commands to electronics is a true reality today, even though it isn’t used as often as it was on Star Trek. Computers and many cell phones have the capability of being directed by voice command.
6. Tricorder to modern thermometers – The tricorder could scan a person’s body and provide readings on a number of different things. There have been some similar devices created, but the closest one to be seen in many homes today is the modern digital ear thermometer. The thought of getting a temperature reading from an infant so easily was not even thought of by mothers during the first years of Star Trek.
7. Transporter to GPS – No, we haven’t been able to ‘beam’ anyone up or down, but we can locate people just as specifically with a GPS as the transporter was able to lock into the location of people it was called on to retrieve.
8. Diagnostic scan to CAT, MRI and ultrasound – Dr. McCoy could lay you on his diagnostic table and perform a scan of your body to come up with a diagnosis. We use several different scanning technologies for diagnosis today.
9. Phasers to Tasers – In Star Trek, they pointed their phasers at the enemy and were able stun or disable them with a blast of energy. The reaction to being struck by a taser looks very similar to what you saw by those who had been hit by the beam of a phaser on the television show.
10. Video Screen Communication to Skype – We may not talk to people on a screen quite the size of the one Captain Kirk used on the Enterprise, but we easily communicate from screen to screen using Skype. The big screens are used, though, for teleconference speaking, all the time.

No one guessed at the time that Star Trek first aired, just how fast some of those technologies would develop. We still aren’t traveling at ‘warp speed’, and we haven’t found the Vulcan’s with those pointed ears, but Spock could show up any day now.

Please feel free to read other articles from Internet service providers 

Why Starting Justin.tv Was A Really Bad Idea, But I’m Glad We Did It Anyway

Editor’s note: The following guest post was written by Justin Kan, founder of Justin.tv. 

Right now I’m neck deep in product launch mode, putting the finishing touches on our new mobile video application—Socialcam. Of course, I’ve been here before . . .

Years ago when we launched the Justin.tv show we had no idea what we were doing. This much was obvious to anyone who watched. Outsiders attribute far more strategic thought to the venture than we gave it. Some think that we planned all along to start a live platform, and that the Justin.tv show itself was a way of promoting that platform. While this ended up happening, none of it had crossed our minds at the time.

Emmett Shear and I had been working on Kiko, the first Javascript web calendaring application in the Microsoft Outlook style. We prototyped the application in our final year at Yale, went on to raise money from Y Combinator, then continued working on it for over a year.

Then Google Calendar was released—boom—absorbing most of our nascent user base and capturing most of the early adopter mindshare. But to be perfectly honest, Kiko would have failed regardless. We were too easily distracted and hadn’t really thought through the strategic implications of owning a standalone calendaring property (hint: no one wants a calendar without email). A short time later we were burned out and spending most of our time playing Xbox with the Reddit guys in Davis Square—hardly a startup success story.

Emmett and I started thinking about possible ways to get out of the calendar business. At the same time, I was startup fatigued. We had spent over a year paying ourselves nothing. The seed and angel investment market conditions were the polar opposite of what they are today. It had been a struggle to even raise a paltry $70,000, and we had failed to build a product with real traction. I was starting to think about moving back to Seattle to try something new, maybe in a different industry.

Still, we learned a ton and it was fun to be part of the early Y Combinator startup community (then largely in Boston). We became friends with Matt Brezina and Adam Smith (of Xobni), Trip Adler, Tikhon Bernstam and Jared Friedman (of Scribd), and many others. It’s amazing to see how many of those friendships persist today, and even more amazing how well many of those companies are doing.

Coming back from one particular YC dinner, Emmett and I were discussing strategic ideas for Kiko, and I remember telling Emmett an idea that popped into my head: what if you could hear an audio feed on the web of our discussion? Wouldn’t that be interesting to other like-minded entrepreneurial types? We kept going, and eventually the idea morphed into a video feed. Then it became a live video feed. Then it became a continuous live video feed that followed someone around 24/7. Then it had chat, and a community built around watching this live show, which was now a new form of entertainment. I was hooked.

I couldn’t stop talking about the idea. I mentioned it at YC dinners and to other friends. I even came up with a perfect name for it: Justin.tv. On one trip to DC, I told my Dad and my college friend Michael Seibel what I was thinking. Eventually, in-between drinking sessions, we thought of a brilliant idea for divesting ourselves of Kiko, which is a story for another day. After that, Emmett and I were coming up with other startup ideas (I guess we got excited about staying in the industry after all). One particular favorite was the idea of a web app that would ingest your blog’s RSS feed and then allow you to layout and print physical magazines from it. Excitedly, we drove one afternoon to Paul Graham’s house to pitch it.

We explained the idea to Paul and Robert Morris, who just happened to be at the house visiting. I vaguely recall there also being a “this will kill academic publishing” angle, although I can’t figure out how that sensibly fits in now. Paul didn’t particularly like the idea: he didn’t think people would use it. “Well,” he said, “what else do you have?”

I said the only thing I could think of: “Justin.tv.”

Because it was something I was clearly passionate about, and because creating a new form of entertainment was clearly a big market (if you could invent one!), Paul was actually into it. Robert’s addition to the conversation was “I’ll fund that just to see you make a fool of yourself.” Emmett and I walked out of there with a check for $50,000.

Six months later, we’d recruited two other cofounders (Kyle Vogt, our hardware hacker, who we convinced to drop out of MIT on a temporary leave of absence, and Michael Seibel, my college friend from DC, who became our “producer”). We built a site with a video player and chat and two prototype cameras that captured, encoded and streamed live video over cell data networks, negotiated with a CDN to carry our live video traffic, and raised an additional couple hundred thousand dollars. Our plan? Launch the show and see what happens.

Now, let me just tell you why this was a bad idea:

• We didn’t have a plan. We loosely figured if the show became popular we could sell sponsorships or advertising, but we didn’t have a plan to scale the number of shows, nor did we understand what our marginal costs on streaming, customer acquisition, or actually selling ads were.
• We didn’t understand the industry. We didn’t know what kinds of content advertisers would pay for. We didn’t have good insight into what kind of content people wanted to watch, either.
• We relied on proprietary hardware that we were going to mass-produce ourselves. Smart angels told us to drop the hardware and figure out how to do it with commodity equipment, but we wouldn’t listen because we thought hardware would be easy (or at least, doable). Ironically, months after we were told this we switched to using a laptop.
• We were trying to build a “hits” based business without any experience making hits. We knew a lot about websites, but little about content creation. Smart VCs (who took our calls because Paul referred us) told us as much: nobody really likes investing in hits based businesses, because it requires the continual generation of new hits to be successful (instead of, say, building a platform like eBay or Google whose success is built on masses of regular users).

How did we get as far as we did?

• We were passionate. We honestly believed we could create a new form of reality entertainment. Put to the side that we had no experience with creating video (or any kind of content), by God, we were going to make this work.
• Early stage investing is often about the people, not the idea. Paul has said as much about what he looks for. As two-time YC founders he knew that we worked well together and even if we were working on something totally inane we were going to stick it out with the company and iterate until we found a business model.
• We sold the shit out of it. Everyone we knew was excited for Justin.tv. Why? Because our excitement was infectious. That’s how we got Kyle to drop out of school. That’s how we got Michael to quit his job and move across the country.

Ultimately, the show failed. But all told, I’m thankful every day that things went the way they did. Why?

• We built a strong team. The four of us started, and the four of us all still have leadership roles in the company. Along the way we recruited the smartest engineers and best product designers we could find.
• We were willing to learn, and to pivot. After quickly realizing the initial show wasn’t a sustainable model, we decided to go the platform route, and built the world’s largest live video platform (both on the web and in our mobile apps, which have millions of downloads).
• It got us started. Some people wait until the stars are aligned before they jump in. Maybe that’s the right move, but plenty of businesses get started with something that seems implausible, stupid, or not-a-real-business but turn into something of value (think Groupon). If we hadn’t started then, would we have later?

Today, I’m more excited about Justin.tv than I’ve been at any time since we launched the initial platform. Why? We’re taking everything we’ve gathered and learned over the past four and half years building the largest live video platform on the Web (17 million monthly unique visitors in Dec according to comScore’s MediaMetrix), and applying it to tackle a new generation of problems in mobile video. Our world class web and mobile engineering team, all of our product development knowledge, our substantial, scaled video infrastructure, and everything we’ve learned about building engineering teams has all been put to work on a new app that we think is going to change everything.

Our new app is called Socialcam, but that’s another story.

Mobile gaming company MoboSpace eyes up MySpace deal

MySpace could be snapped up by a giant US-based mobile gaming startup.

According to the New York Times this weekend MocoSpace, a mass market mobile social networking and gaming company, has issued a statement expressing interest in purchasing the struggling social media site from News Corp. It is believed the two companies are already in talks to reach a deal.

MocoSpace has been gaining ground fast in the mobile gaming industry. It started out as a mobile web social networking tool, and has since moved into producing casual games and smartphone apps, targeting youth audience from around 14 years of age.

One analyst predicted that MocoSpace was the fourth most visited mobile online website, serving up 3 billion mobile web pages each month. It has already raised $6.5m (£4m) in venture capital.

The price that MoboSpace would be prepared to pay for MySpace has not been disclosed. News Corp paid $327m (£203m) five years ago, but considering the site’s struggle against the migration of its core audience to Facebook and Twitter, it would likely be sold for considerably less.

The move is interesting because if a deal is done, MySpace could potentially be repositioned as a mobile network for listening to music on.

News Corp told Myspace employees last month that it was considering selling the site, and has already culled half of its 1000 employees.

Tech world stunned at Egypt's Internet shutdown

The Egyptian government's unprecedented shutdown of Internet and mobile phone access Friday stunned the world's technology community, which questioned whether the country can quickly recover from cutting such a vital link for commerce and communication.
The government's surprising move came in the face of widespread civil unrest, but essentially wiped the country off the world's online maps, said Jim Cowie, chief technology officer and co-founder of Renesys, a New Hampshire firm that monitors how the Internet is operating.
"It is astonishing because Egypt has so much potentially to lose in terms of credibility with the Internet community and the economic world," Cowie said. "It will set Egypt back for years in terms of its hopes of becoming a regional Internet power."
He said the long-term economic effects are unclear because "we've never seen a country rebooted on this scale before."
The shutdown illustrated how ingrained the Internet has become for everyday global communications.
Moreover, the unrest in Egypt, and that in Tunisia the week before, have once again highlighted how vital online social networks like San Francisco's Twitter Inc., and Palo Alto's Facebook Inc. and the video-sharing site YouTube Inc. of San Bruno have become in exporting ideals such as freedom of speech.
Protesters, for example, used a Facebook page to list their demands and rally support.
"A world without the Internet is unimaginable," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an e-mailed response to the Egyptian shutdown.
"Although the turmoil in Egypt is a matter for the Egyptian people and their government to resolve, limiting Internet access for millions of people is a matter of concern for the global community. It is essential to communication and to commerce. No one should be denied access to the Internet."

Facebook and Twitter

Both Facebook and Twitter reported diminishing traffic to and from Egypt as the protests escalated this week, presumably as the government sought to filter those sites.
The precise "surgical" targeting of Facebook and Twitter wasn't surprising, though it failed to quell the uprising. But Cowie said he was astonished when the country began cutting all access, especially because Egypt has aspirations to become a Middle East hub for Internet operations.

'Obliged to comply'

Renesys watched as about 93 percent of Egypt's Internet traffic began to shut down after midnight Friday in Cairo. Cowie said he could track each of the country's major Internet service providers as they began a shutdown and data suggest government officials made a series of quick phone calls within a few minutes.
In a statement on the company's website, Vodafone Egypt also said that "all mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selected areas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it. The Egyptian authorities will be clarifying the situation in due course."
Cowie said there was only one other similar government-ordered online shutdown, in Burma in 2007, but that did not compare to the outage in as large a country as Egypt.
"What happens when you disconnect a modern economy and 80 million people from the Internet?" Cowie wrote in a Renesys blog. "What will happen tomorrow, on the streets and in the credit markets? This has never happened before and the unknowns are piling up."
The nonprofit Internet Society of Reston, Va., said that shutdown was "an inappropriate response to a political crisis" and "a serious intrusion into its citizens' basic rights to communicate."

'Ones that will suffer'

"Ultimately, the Egyptian people and nation are the ones that will suffer, while the rest of the world will be worse off with the loss of Egyptian voices on the Net," the group said.
Eva Galperin, international activist with the San Francisco digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the situation shows what can happen if laws are enacted to "put the power to shut down a portion of the Internet in the hands of a single person, whether it's the president of Egypt or the president of the United States."
Galperin also said that while social networking has given activists in Egypt, Tunisia and Iran a "powerful voice" heard beyond their own borders, the Bay Area is also home to companies that provide computer security tools that governments can use to identify and retaliate against them.
Activists living in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes should take precautions to not reveal personal information that could jeopardize their lives, she said.

Narus singled out

In an article published by the Huffington Post, Timothy Karr, campaign director of the Washington media reform group Free Press, singled out Narus Inc., a Sunnyvale computer security firm, for selling the Egyptian government tools for monitoring Internet and mobile phone traffic.
"What we are seeing in Egypt is a frightening example of how the power of technology can be abused," Karr said.
A spokeswoman for Narus did not return voice and e-mail messages requesting comment.

Where the money is: 3 giants launch venture to fund energy tech startups

GE, Conoco­Phillips and NRG Energy have partnered to create a venture to invest $300 million in early-stage energy technology firms.

The partnership, Energy Technology Ventures, will help fund 30 companies over the next four years, focusing on investments in North America, Europe and Israel.

Target technologies will include renewable power generation — an area where GE is already busy - as well as smart grid technology, energy efficiency, oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, emission controls, water and biofuels. 

"Ten years ago energy was getting just a fraction of that venture capital, one-tenth of one percent," said Kevin Skillern, the head of venture capital investing at GE Energy Financial Services. "The statement these three companies joining together makes is that there is a lot of opportunity for such investments today. And it's not just a one- or two- year trend, it's a generational thing."

Skillern said oil's return to around $90-a-barrel and ongoing talk of regulators wanting to reduce industry emissions is creating demand for new energy technology.

"And it's not just clean-tech we're talking about," Skillern said, "but advancements in conventional energy technologies too." 

The deals will give the three partners minority equity stakes while allowing the 30 firms a chance for commercial scale collaboration. The partners didn't disclose how much each is contributing to the $300 million pot.

Already 3 commitments

GE Energy Financial Service's investment team will be at the core of Energy Technology Ventures, but Conoco­Phillips and NRG will have input into how the $300 million is invested. 

The fund already has made commitments to three companies in which GE previously has invested:

Alta Devices of Santa Clara, Calif., which is aimed at improving the production economics of advanced materials for high-efficiency solar energy.

Ciris Energy of Centennial, Colo., which is developing technology to biochemically convert coal to methane.

CoolPlanetBioFuels of Camarillo, Calif., which is developing technology that converts biomass into high-grade fuel and carbon that can be sequestered.

NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips are new to the venture investing business, but GE, through its GE Energy Financial Services and GE Capital Equity units, has been one of the most active investors in early stage energy technology. 

Princeton, N.J.-based NRG operates nearly 450 megawatts of wind power and 20 megawatts of solar power, and also is rolling out a network of electric vehicle charging stations in Houston and Dallas. GE is a technology partner on the electric vehicle system.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips is not as well-known for its energy technology investments as other super majors, such as Exxon Mobil Corp., which has made a major biofuels push, or Chevron, which has run a technology venture investment fund for more than a decade.

Personal connections

But Richard Germain, manager of alternative energy at ConocoPhilips, said the company does have a number of projects in the works, including wind energy storage in North Texas, advanced biofuels and biomass, and producing electrodes for advanced lithium-ion batteries. 

"Energy innovation is at the core of the company," Germain said.

The combination of the companies may also be based, at least in part, on personal relationships.

NRG Chairman and CEO David Crane and ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Jim Mulva have gotten to know each other through the United States Climate Action Partnership, a group of businesses and environmental organizations that called for strong national legislation on reducing emissions.

Facebook introduces 'sponsored sites' to updates

Next time you mention a product or store on Facebook, your friends might see it not as a status update, but as an advert.

Facebook's new 'Sponsored Stories' initiative allows advertisers to take users' updates and "repurpose them as advertisements", reports tech news site Cnet.

The scheme began yesterday, and for Facebook users, there is no opt-out. If you 'like' an advertister's brand, they will be able to use your updates in their ads.

"Facebook's presumption is that a like or check-in implies explicit interest in a product or brand, and that an advertiser should be able to make money from the action," writes Clint Boulton on eweek.com.

They will also be able to post updates to your news feed when a friend of yours mentions the brand, or interacts with the brand's page or applications.

The idea is that companies have struggled to find ways to effectively use word-of-mouth in their marketing.
"When we make decisions about the products we want to buy, the places we want to go, we're basically looking for cues from our friends about what those things should be," says Facebook product manager Kent Schoen.

"The reality is when we make a decision, we're looking for information. And we want that information to come from people we trust."

Advertising website adage.com points out how this could backfire, however - "If a user checks into Starbucks with a "I hate this place, but it's the only coffee around" then that's exactly what the 'ad' turns out to be."

To counter this, advertisers can choose just to have 'likes' come up as adverts.

Coca-Cola, Levi's, Unicef and Amnesty Interational have already signed up to the service.


'Sponsored Stories' has already drawn comparisons to Facebook's ill-fated Beacon service, which let Facebook users know what their friends were buying from affiliated stores, often without their knowledge.