Sweden, U.S. and piracy (CNET News.com

For Swedes who read this blog this article will take you back to last year. When former minister of Justice Thomas Bodstrom and state secretary Dan Eliasson were accused of taking orders from the U.S. government and executing them ordering the Swedish police to shut down the site Pirate Bay. It caught a lot of media attention as well as the Swedish Pirate Party. Their leader was here trying to raise money for their next election campaign. We, me and a co-worker, interviewed him and I also talked to others in Sweden.

The innovation process of music and movie distribution is an ongoing issue widely discussed. This story raised a fair amount of attention among the readers, read it here!

I was also on News.com's daily podcast and talked about the story, listen to it here (it's in the end)!

Pitch stream at AlwaysOn (CNET News.com, Webware.com)

A couple of weeks ago I attended AlwaysOn at Stanford. A showcase of companies were there to present, both startups in earlier stages and those who are already on their second round raising capital.

Read about some of them here!

Newsmaker: Generation Y are hitting the workplace (CNET News.com)

They are young, talented and immersed in technology!

Generation Y are now hitting the workplace mixing in with Generation X, Baby Boomers and even a few of the World War II generation. Gen Y are kids born from 1980 - a digital elite, continuously checking their MySpace and Facebook accounts, wearing flip-flops to work and listening to their iPod while working.

Those techie savvy youngsters want to take the fast-track thinking they’ve already accomplished a lot, and that the company which hires them should be happy to have them. But they’re at the same time hard-working and willing to learn if they’re empowered, engaged in and given responsibility. They have the future in their hands and will be the ones molding innovations and changing the companies and the society.

They’re said to take for granted the attention and feedback they think they’re worth. Entitlement seems to be a keyword. Words on F – freedom, flexibility and free time, seem to be needs.

I interviewed psychology professor Larry D. Rosen at California State University, Dominguez Hills who has been studying this group. While Rosen has studied the impact of technology on people for 20 years, he specializes in the effects of technology on kids and parents.

Read my newsmaker here, which was on CNET News.com's front door a few weeks ago.

Creating web apps at iPhone camp (CNET News.com)

Innovation at its highest level -- The iPhone Developer Camp this weekend was all about innovation and processes to get there. About 300 Web developers, testers, designers and people with or without an iPhone gathered in San Francisco to hack into Safari and create new apps for the iPhone. The outcome of the weekend was more than 50 new applications.

I went there Saturday and Sunday and talked to techie people about software, coding and hacking. Read my article here!

I also took pictures that were published in a photo gallery (look at it here) in CNET's front door.

RoboGames feature robotic wizardry (CNET News.com)

The RoboGames competition, which pits bots from around the world in more than 70 challenges, hit San Francisco during the weekend of June 15. I did a video news story for CNET News.com and talked with robot builders competing in the combat challenge.

Check out the story:
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6193189.html

This car moves without a driver (CNET News.com)

On June 14, the Stanford Racing Team tested Junior, a Volkswagen Passat that has been programmed to drive on its own for the upcoming DARPA Urban Challenge. I did the video story for CNET News.com.
The team leader of Stanford Racing Team, Sebastian Thrun said that this technology of driving a car without a driver can be used commercially, and it may cost no more than $ 6000/= per vehicle.
Here is the link:
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6191954.html

An sunny hiring season for job seekers within technology (CNET News.com)

What are the companies looking when they hire and what are graduating students looking for in companies? Unemployment within tech is down to levels comparable to the dot-com era. Big companies tries to be innovative and find new ways to attract the best talents.

Read article here!

Together with the story I made two videos. One about a small startup who created a social networking site to help graduating students to find job opportunities. See it here!

The other is with Judy Gilbert, Staffing Programs Director at Google, about the strategy the web giant uses to get talented students to work for them. See it here!

Innovative self-publishing model (CNET News.com)

Do you want a tactile proof of something you wrote or took pictures of? It no longer has to be printing your book in multiple copies for a high cost and then piling them up in your garage. New sites as Lulu and Blurb offer self-publishing models that allow you to make one copy prints.

The innovation process within publishing has moved to another path and the book market can be compared to the music industry. It has changed a lot during the past years. More books than ever are being published, and even though more are being sold the titles get published faster but vend in fever quantities and online bookstores has pushed out traditional stores for quite some time.

Blurb recently launched there service in Europe. Read article here. They also announced a partnership with photo-sharing site Flickr. Read article here.

Gallery Stanford Racing Team/DARPA (CNET News.com)

Try outs for DARPA -- Urban Challenge have started and I went with a team from CNET to the Stanford Racing team's first testing to reach the competition.

Se my photo gallery here!

American money + Swedish greentech (CNET News.com)

My article on Michael Wood's visit and the meeting between Fredrik Reinfeldt and George Bush was posted on the 14th May, day before the meeting.

An example of how Swedish innovations in renewable energy gets U.S. attention.




U.S. Ambassador in Sweden, Michael Wood

Article: http://news.com.com/Matching+American+money+with+Swedish+green+tech/2100-11395_3-6183700.html?tag=item

IM generation is taking over (CNET News.com)

At the OnHollywood conference founder of AlwaysOn and media entrepreneur Tony Perkins introduced the theme of the year (second time the conference was held in Hollywood):

Web 3.0. 2007 is the year when Web 2.0 will be professionalized and mobilized. In the same sentence he said that the next generation is driving innovation. The IM (instant messaging) generation.

"Adopt or die as a company, said Tony Perkins. "Offer interactive content on every platform: PC, cell phone and TV".

Thursday at the conference a panel of younger professionals talked about the power of the IM generation. It resulted in a blog on www.news.com:

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9716046-7.html?tag=bl

Digging down Kevin Rose from Digg.com in Hollywood

Last week I attended the OnHollywood conference by AlwaysOn. In one of the panels (on Wednesday) was Kevin Rose, co-founder of the blog Digg.com. They had problems with the blog the day before (Tuesday night) because of users putting up postings with illegal HD-TV codes. Kevin Rose and other founder Jay Adelson with staff, decided to take the postings off the site. Then the readers and creators of content revolted against them. They then decided to put the postings back up.

Everyone including NY Times and Fortune wanted to talk to Kevin or Jay, but couldn't get through the PR-people. I did. After the panel I ran up to the stage, cornered him, introduced myself, gave him my cell phone and got him to talk to one of our reporters who was writing a story. It ended up in the only interview Digg.com founders gave that day and the days to follow.

Caroline McCarthy's article:
http://news.com.com/Digg+in+tough+spot+with+DMCA+debacle/2100-1025_3-6180998.html?tag=item

Seems like Wired had a hard time getting hold of the Digg people:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/05/digg_battening_.html

On the Thursday Caroline (who is based in NY) happened to meet Jay Adelson at an event in NY. Part of her e-mail to the CNET Newsroom:

"Of note re: Kevin Rose not talking to anyone but us...
Randomly saw Jay Adelson at a tech thing tonight (yeah, I know, random, had no idea why he was in NYC) and he said, "Yeah, we're going to keep Kevin indoors for a while," and then added that K-Ro is "getting better" with media stuff by the day, which (according to Adelson) is surprising for a guy who was in TV before he was a Web guy. Basically, he confirmed that they are concerned about him verbally screwing up..."

Intel's Andy Grove wants to change the U.S. health care system (CNET News.com)

Andy Grove, co-founder, former CEO and president of Intel as well as a numerous award-winning and best-selling author, gave a speech at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health on how information technology could change the U.S. health care system.

He thinks internet health files and online tracking of patients' medical conditions being treated at home can lower the costs of health care, which today stands for 16 percent and the largest segment of expenses in U.S. economy.

An example of how innovation can contribute to different fields.

Link to story:

http://news.com.com/2061-11204_3-6176094.html

Link to video:

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6175070.html

The innovation process of a robot taking shape (CNET News.com)

Some weeks ago I visited an incubator, Ycombinator, for start-ups in Mountain View and I found robot Dexter. The start-up Anybots is run by Trevor Blackwell who started building Dexter six years ago, also one of the founders and co-workers of Ycombinator. I thought a walking robot could make a story, a good example of something you were initially covering leading to new ideas.

I introduced it to CNET and we decided to go back to Ycombinator's office and talk to Anybots. It became a joint-project of me and Zamir working together, he interviewed on camera and I interviewed for a story.

The innovation processes of what robots will be used for in the future are in progress. The robotic industry is a ongoing innovator of creating products to facilitate people's life. Majority of the robots are still at the research and prototype stage such as the Anybots robots.

Link to the story:

http://news.com.com/Baby+steps+for+Dexter+the+robot/2100-11394_3-6174922.html

Link to the video:

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6173790.html

Link to the photo gallery:

http://news.com.com/2300-11394_3-6174225-1.html

Tomorrow's products on display at Stanford (CNET News.com)

Cool Products Expo 2007 at Stanford University was one event to know as how Start-ups, students and big companies are going innovative. The most interesting innovation was by young boys from Palo Alto High School who had invented laser-guided equipment for disabled persons.

Watch the video report at this link:

http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6176027.html

(Added Apr 21: This story has been picked up by Engadget /David N.)

NASA wants to find another Earth (CNET News.com)

NASA's Kepler spacecraft will search for earth size planets orbiting distant stars. Kepler is scheduled to be launched in November 2008.
NASA held a press conference on April 12 to discuss its plans for using its new spacecraft, called Kepler, to search for planets that may have extraterrestrial life. The Nasa scientists briefed about the mission concept and goals, what Kepler discoveries would mean.

Link to the video report:

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6175714.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc

Anybots' humanoid robot trains to do the dirty work (CNET News.com)

Anybots is a start-up company in Mountain View, Silicon Valley. The company is in the process of making humanoid robots. Me and Miriam Olsson were assigned to go there and talk to the creators of these humanoid robots. Miriam did a detailed story for the CNET News and I did a video story for CNET TV.
I spoke with Trevor Blackwell, founder of Anybots, and saw humanoid robots that may one day be used to perform dangerous tasks. We had a close look at walking robot Dexter and its pneumatic limbs. After Dexter, Anybots' team built robot Monty, which is on wheels and has arms. Trevor said that humanoid robot would be the mixture of these two robots. He plans to put upper body of Monty on the lower part of Dexter.
It was interesting to know something about the innovations taking place in the field of robotics.

Here is the video report:

http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6173790.html?tag=ne.video.6175714

Link to Miriam's story:

http://news.com.com/Baby+steps+for+Dexter+the+robot/2100-11394_3-6174922.html

Old innovation becomes available to public (CNET News.com)

A family of a videogames collector donated all his games to Stanford University. The collection contains more than 25,000 titles. Henry Lowood, curator for the history of science and technology collections at Stanford University libraries, and his team are in the process of filing all the videogames and make them accessible for people to play them.

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6174194.html

Al Gore wants more engineers (CNET News.com)

Last week I blogged from a keynote Al Gore, former vice president and Oscar-award winner, held at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose. He talked about the need of new engineers when the old ones retire, and that they have to build new systems to help up the climate crisis and make this a better world to live in.

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6173081.html

Humans fiddle while the planet heats up (CNET NEWS.com)

I interviewed Ms Terry Root, a Stanford Professor on the issue of Global Warming and Climatic Changes affecting Plant and Animal Kingdoms and Humans. The interview lead to a whole lot of interesting debate in the Talkback. Check out the Video links and Newsmaker link.

Newsmaker:
http://news.com.com/Humans+fiddle+while+the+planet+heats+up/2008-11392_3-6172739.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc

Video:

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6172567.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6172550.html?tag=ne.video.6172567
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6172249.html?tag=ne.video.6172550
http://news.com.com/1606-2-6172237.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc

From Pakistan to S.F., it's a whole new tech world (CNET News.com)

This is the story I did to compare high-tech USA and Pakistan. This cannot be termed as more of a Injo story but could give you fairly a good idea where Pakistan stands as far as high tech is concerned. Check out the link


http://news.com.com/From+Pakistan+to+S.F.,+its+a+whole+new+tech+world/2100-1041_3-6171019.html?tag=nefd.top

Pictures of Office 2.0 (CNET News.com)

Friday I went to the Under the Radar, "Why does Office 2.0 matter" conference on Microsoft's Mountain View campus, and I was able to shoot some pictures. CNET's blogs from the event shows what's new within office 2.0 tools.

http://news.com.com/2300-1012_3-6170901-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

Round up of blogs:

http://news.com.com/A+new+generation+of+office+tools/2009-1012_3-6170034.html

Working without a paycheck (CNET News.com)

Yesterday I posted a story on our workplace blog about an innovative way of recruiting people for startups. I meet Max Shapiro, CEO of Peopleconnect that the story is about, at a Clean Tech conference I went to with Michael Kanellos.
This shows how innovation can lead to sucess during hard times such as when the "bubble" burst.

http://news.com.com/2061-10788_3-6170460.html

Intel bridging the distance from doctor to patient (CNET News.com)

Michael Kanellos, the editor-at-large at Cnet asked me to come along to this exhibition at Intel Research Laboratory at Berkeley. At the exhibition Michael talked to some of the researchers and I found this project interesting and I did my first on-camera report for Cnet.com.
This is one innovation, I believe, that would help people living in rural or far flung areas in the developing or under-developed countries.

http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6170044.html

Salamander robot (CNET News.com)

Harry Fuller, Executive editor at CNETNews.com asked me to do a story on the Salamander Robot. He forwarded me the links from where we can use the Videos. , since this Salamander Robot was created at the Swiss Federal Institute of Tech at Lausanne.
This is one innovation in the field of Biologically inspired robotics that would help lead to a better understanding of biological systems. I talked to one of the creator of this robot through e-mails and got some detailed information like the autonomy of the robot etc.

Salamander Robot story:
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6169725.html?tag=ne.video.6164102

Pictures of Innovations (CNET News.com)

Friday I went to Fujitsu's North American Technology Forum 2007 in Sunnyvale, California, where developers showed off innovation by Fujitsu. I got to be the photographer:

http://news.com.com/Photos+Fujitsu+peers+into+the+future/2300-1041_3-6168125.html?tag=nefd.lede

Myspace account sold (CNET News.com)

Yesterday I posted a short story on our Missing Links blog. EBay has now become a forum for selling Social Networking accounts like the Myspace account I wrote about, sold for more than two grand. This is just a short take on what innovation can lead to - buying friends.

http://news.com.com/2061-10786_3-6166799.html

Green Harvest Technologies (CNET News.com)

Tuesday the 20th of February I went to the SF Clean tech Forum. One part of the conference was "new" companies within the field of clean tech presenting themselves in five minutes in front of the audience. They also had an exhibition hall with all the companies represented where I went and asked questions to different companies which ended up in a blog about a company called Green Harvest Technologies. They want to produce, among other things, healthy water bottles. The blog got a few reader comments and also got picked up and linked to from the Boston Globe.

http://news.com.com/2061-11128_3-6161597.html

Boston Globe link:

http://www.boston.com/business/blog/filter/2007/02/pure_water_toxi.html

Meet the YouTube Stars (CNET News.com)

Saturday the 17th of February me and another reporter from CNET went to Pier 39 in San Francisco to interview "YouTube"-stars - the most subscribed to YouTubers and their fans in the YouTube community. They were meeting for the first time in real life at their first official YouTube event called "As one". The interviews were filmed by Vincent the cameraman and ended up in a video published online.

http://news.com.com/1606-2-6160398.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc

Grid Computing (CNET News.com)

Friday the 16th of February I went to the AAAS annual meeting - a science and technology conference in San Francisco. The conference covered existing and coming innovations in science and technology. I attended a session about grid computing, which ended up in two blogs; one about grid computing and projects within that field and one about sharing your computer power for research. The latter one was commented on by a few readers.For the blogs I used quotes from the session and did some background checks on former research.

http://news.com.com/2061-11204_3-6160365.html
http://news.com.com/2061-11204_3-6160356.html