The Week in Geek™ – June 12, 2010

NOTE: The Week in Geek will publish less regularly, as I’m on sabbatical until January 2011.

June is Innovation Month in New England
Innovation in New England is experiencing a renaissance, and this month, a gaggle of events spotlight our awesomeness, while offering great networking and top-notch learning. Although this blog post comes out half-way through the month, there are still lots of fantastic events to attend, including the Boston Biotech CEO Conference, the InnoBeer Boston Meet-Up, EurekaFest, the Global Pitchfest, the XSITE Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, the Momentum Summit (How Startups Get Big), Health IT and the Cloud, and more.

And Eagles – let’s finish the month with Tech on Tap, the Boston College Technology Council networking event held at the Hotel Indigo Watch City Brewery in Waltham (NEW VENUE), Wed., June 30th, 6pm-8pm.  If you’re a 21+ yr. old student, or alumnus or parent, e-mail [email protected] to get on their mailing list.  Hope to see you there, and at any of these other great events!

Boston College Venture Competition Produces Startups
Sophia Monroe ’11, Hanyin Cheng ’12, and Meredith Malm ’12, all alums of Undergrad TechTrek ’10, were interviewed in this video piece for the San Francisco Chronicle.  Sophia will be helping steward the Boston College Venture Competition (BCVC) next year.  Sophie, Hanyin, and Meredith were volunteering at TechCrunch Disrupt, one of the premier tech conferences on the East Coast.  We’ve got TechTrekkers interning with True Venture startups in the Valley, at Polaris Dogpatch Labs in NYC, at SCVNGR in Boston, and with WePay (co-founded by BCVC co-founder Bill Clerico, and which recently enjoyed an Oprah-powered boost).  Look for BCVC ’09 winner WakeMate’s product to ship this summer, and keep an eye on PIQC.net (the ’10 winner). In just a few short years, Boston College has become a sort of Miracle Grow for startups!

Behind Foursquare and Gowalla: The Great Check-in Battle
Dennis Crowley (@Dens) founded Dodgeball, and sold it to Google in ’06.  Despite being GOOG’s first notable acquisition after its IPO, Dodgeball never broke 75,000 users and was shuttered by the Search Sovereign in 2009. Crowley tweaked the idea and launched Foursquare at South by Southwest in 2009.  Now at over 1 million users, Foursquare is the darling of the social media moment.  Crowley has made the covers of Wired UK (left) and New York Magazine (see “Tweet Tweet Boom Boom” for a profile of the increasingly hip NYC startup scene).  Now with deals from Starbucks, Bravo, The History Channel and others, Foursquare looks ready for breakout success.  The Wired article also profiles Gowalla, but I don’t see evidence that Gowalla has traction with our students or with those bestowing geek-cred.  There are of course competitors.  As Wired points out, “reward-based achievement games have begun to blossom as a means of encouraging specific behavior: plusoneme.com gives “gold stars for adults” for displaying “strengths” such as “kindness”, “listening” and “generosity”, ChoreWars makes weekly household duties less dull by framing them as a medieval-style grail quest”.  Here in Boston we’ve got RunKeeper, which has made fitness social. But right now location looks like Foursquare’s game to win or lose.  The service still has little to offer those who aren’t constantly out and about and ready to be social, but with some tweaks, Foursquare has the potential to be a killer location-based promotions and loyalty program platform (look to what Tasti-D-Lite is doing for an early indication on where this could go). Rumor has it the firm has turned down acquisition offers as high as $120 million.  Get the model right, Dens, and your firm could be much, much bigger. By the way, now that I’m on sabbatical, my Foursquare mayorships (Boston College and Fulton Hall among them) are up for grabs.  By the time I return in January we’ll see if Foursquare has evolved to hipster-fun to must-have, or if it really is, as initially envisioned, “Friendster for Mobile”.

SCVNGR – About Having Fun, Not Just Checking In
On a local note – be sure to try SCVNGR (pronounced Scavenger).  As we’ve profiled, the profitable Boston-based, Highland Capital & Google Ventures-backed startup has A-list clients, and our students use the service as part of orientation.  New challenges this summer should bring huge fun to those interested in location-based gaming, and a Builder is now live.  Check ’em out!

Open Source: An Open Door for Hackers?
Not only do I get to work with great students (see above), I get to be part of one of the nation’s best IS research groups. Case in point: the work of Prof. Sam Ransbotham (an ’09 Google Grant winner) was recently profiled in MIT’s Technology Review.  By examining 400 million intrusion detection system alerts with known attributes of the targeted software and vulnerabilities, Prof. Ransbotham’s research supported the assertion that flaws in open-source software tend to be attacked more quickly and more often than vulnerabilities in closed-source software.  Dynamite in the classroom, Ransbotham previously ran his own international consultancy, is recognized as a leading scholar on IS security issues, and is the chief user of our campus’ Linux cluster.  While we’re on the subject of BC IS Dept. media coverage, check out Prof. Jerry Kane being profiled by PBS’s Miles O’Brien.

The Killer iPhone 4
iPhone 4 will start at $199, will offer a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 5x digital zoom, optional iMovie for on-the-fly HD video edits, a front-facing camera, “Facetime” video conferencing software, a new ultra-high resolution “retina” display (960×640 vs. 480×320 on previous models), longer battery life, a wrap-around antenna (better reception?), thinner body, voice control, a gyroscope (look for cooler games), iBooks integration (syncing across devices), and the iOS4 (complete with Apple’s incantation of multitasking). It’s still tied to AT&T, but there are enough enhancements (check out Apple’s website for more) to please most iPhone addicts in need of an upgrade.

Dark Side Arises from Phone Apps
The WSJ poses a scenario where hackers in the Droid store could issue an app that harvests bank account information.  The FBI and Air Force already bar employees from downloading apps on smart phones issued by the agency. Android’s open marketplace, with ‘reactive’ barring of apps is considered to be the most vulnerable App marketplace, but even Apple’s closely-monitored iPhone walled garden has had issues.  The game Aurora Feint was pulled from the App Store in summer ’08 when it was discovered that the app was uploading contact lists to the developer’s website. Apple has since banned or pulled several apps over security concerns. So while the tech industry echo chamber continues to grill Apple for its tight control over App Store approval, the vast majority of users don’t find apps overly restrictive.  My bet is they would, however, think twice if app-related breaches became more common place.

Tabnabbing – a New type of Phishing Attack
This article on Mashable features a chilling demo of a browser exploit dubbed “Tabnabbing”.  In the video, created by Firefox Creative Lead Aza Raskin, malicious code changes the content of a tab and the page associated it as soon as a user clicks another tab.  Return to the tab and you may see a familiar screen like a gmail, Facebook, or bank login.  If you don’t look at the URL, you could be duped and your pseronal info could be harvested.  A great demo for those teaching with our Security and/or Telecom chapters.

A New Type of Phishing Attack from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

A Manager’s Guide to the Internet and Telecommunications
Ever wondered how the Internet works?  Check out the first draft of the Internet and Telecom Chapter that’ll be polished and released in the July 2010 version of my textbook.  Do share with others!

What Can You Do with HTML5? Check out Apple’s Showcase
Apple’s Safari-only (for now) demos highlight some impressive examples of things you can do using only HTML5, including snazzy effects involving Video, Typography, Gallery, Transitions, Audio, 360, and VR.  Remember, HTML is an open standard, so what you see in Safari today should be available elsewhere.  For more on HTML5, see the InfoGraphic: “What is HTML5 And Why Should We All Care?”

One Tablet Per Child
For two years straight, the former President of the One Laptop Per Child effort, Chuck Kane (who has also taught finance at BC) has been kind enough to speak to my classes.  We’ve also got several students interning with OLPC this year. Chuck’s talk this past spring mentioned the non-profit’s new tablet platform.  Here’s a sneak peek, as offered by Technology Review.  The projected $75 device looks like a stunner.

Is This a Facebook You Can Trust?
Facebook revamped its privacy settings in the wake of a huge dustup following the firm’s April service rollout.  GMSV reports the new settings are four fold involving:

• A one-click option to set most of the privacy controls, while retaining the ability to set them individually.
• The ability to hide your list of friends.
• The ability to block apps from getting your information.
• Retroactive application of new privacy selections to older content

And here’s a video from AP.  The site also offers a great recap of media opinion on the changes. Privacy is important, but the mass Facebook exodus was a non-event. A recent episode of the podcast This Week in Tech offered comments by Cory Doctorow with a great analogy – privacy is like smoking.  The impact is often so far displaced from the action, that it’s easy to act irresponsibly since you don’t see the consequences until much later.  As a faculty member, I think the Facebook privacy debacle has been positive in that it’s increased awareness of what can be exposed.  Anyone active with social media may one day discover that some of their public posts don’t reflect them in best light (“sharer’s remorse”).  But as someone who’s written a case on Facebook, visited the firm’s HQ on several occasions, and has extensively studied the firm, I think any ‘echo chamber’ talk of Facebook’s collapse over privacy gaffes is bogus (The “Quit Facebook” campaign was a dismal failure).  The site’s simply too powerful, important, useful, and let’s face it, fun for it to vanish.

More for those teaching with or studying Facebook: In our Facebook Case we talk about the firm’s envelopment strategy.  As a hub of all things social, Facebook is able to turn on features and immediately gain significant traction.  Facebook used this to become a dominant messaging platform, to become #1 in online photos, and is poised to expand into many other areas, including document sharing, e-mail, and more.  Facebook has recently acquired a group IM service ShareGrove, and TechCrunch reports that Facebook Video is now bigger than CBS, Hulu, Microsoft, and Viacom.

Google’s Latest Launch: Its Own Trading Floor
With $26.5 billion in the change purse, Google’s sitting on the tech world’s third largest cash pool.  Microsoft & Cisco are bigger, although at least one other report put Apple at $40 billion. Oh yeah, and you probably heard – Apple’s worth more than Microsoft. So Google opened its own trading floor to try to push returns north of the 2.5% it was expected to have earned on cash last year. And its hired Wall Streeters from Goldman, JPMorgan Chase, and others.  According to BusinessWeek, The “crew works in a recently remodeled finance building on the company’s corporate campus in Mountain View, Calif., complete with a rock climbing wall, massage chairs, murals of tropical sunsets, and bamboo wall panels. In a second-floor space accessed by key card—the trading room—the Wall Street vets tap out trades at desks with six computer screens.”  Most treasury software is crummy – but code written by Google’s geeks to give the ex-Wall Streeters working for Sergey and Larry the best systems in the biz. Most firms know can see only 60-70% of their position value in real time.  At Google finance jocks have a 98% real-time picture.  So finance majors, do you *really* want to work 100+ hr. weeks on Wall Street? As for what Google’ll do with all that cash, expect more M&A.  And Google’s not in its shopping spree.  IBM said it’d spend $20 billion over five years doing deals. And with billion dollar coffers commonplace among top-tier tech firms, we’ll be seeing high profile buyouts in the industry just about every week, for the next few years at least.

Google Quietly Brings Twitter Feeds to Display Ads
A new Google ad format is being rolled out. The new “Twitter-enabled” ads feature a Twitter bird in the left-hand corner, the advertiser’s latest tweet, and a “Follow on Twitter” button that allowing users to follow the advertiser without leaving the page.  C’mon, Google, open up that change purse and buy Twitter.  You already bought one of Twitter co-founder Evan William’s startups (Blogger) and you need a stronger social media strategy.  Twitter’s the right fit and you’ve got the coin.

How Starbucks Used Social Media to Get 1 Million to Stores in One Day
Right now there’s no bigger company embracing social media than Starbucks, and for the past two years I’ve been able to give our grad students a front-row seat for insights from the gurus behind this effort.  As our students learned, Starbucks brought in over 1 million users via last year’s Free Pastry Day.  They’ve also had 80,000+ ideas suggested via MyStarbucksIdea.com, they are the biggeset firm on Facebook, they were the in the first crop of adopters in the Twitter “sponsored tweets” advertising platform, and their Foursquare campaign (discounts for mayors, a “Barista” badge) is by far the service’s largest. You’ll also soon be able to use Facebook to reload friends’ real-world Starbucks cards, moving the virtual gifts economy into the real-world realm. Cool!

Intel’s New CPU Chip Is More Super Than Yours, With 50 Cores Aboard
You won’t have 50 cores in a desktop, but the 50 core “Knights Ferry” chipset along with development tools will arrive later in 2010.  Look for room-sized supercomputers to boil down into something you’d slip under a desk. Oh, and thanks to Intel Hudson for hosting a visit with me, Amy, and Joanne from Career Services.  I hope to send more of our best & brightest your way!

BC iPhone App
The new app, available for free via the iTunes App Store, has 16 modules that include a campus map, monitors of BC twitter feeds, even a rendition of “For Boston”, the BC fight song! Download it here.

Most Beautiful College Libraries
Bapst is ranked the most beautiful university library in the U.S.