The Seattle Times: Brier Dudley's blog

"Dark Void" scores: Brad Pitt buys rights, may star in movie version

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:30:59 PST

Airtight Games debut title, "Dark Void," doesn't go on sale until January but it just hit one out of the park.

Publisher Capcom just announced that movie star Brad Pitt's production company bought Dark Void's film rights and are developing it "as a sci-fi action franchise and potential starring vehicle for Pitt."

It won't take much to turn "Dark Void" into an awesome movie. The game features a '50s pilot who crashes into the Bermuda Triangle and enters a realm where survivors are assembling weapons and jetpacks from salvaged parts and battling aliens and flying saucers.

"Dark Void" is the first major title from Airtight, which was started by a group of mostly ex-Microsoft game developers in 2004 and backed by former Microsoft game studio boss Ed Fries. A rendering of Will, the main character:

The film rights were acquired by Pitt's Plan B Entertainment company and its partner, Reliance BIG Entertainment, part of the Indian Reliance conglomerate.

"As a game, Dark Void was developed with a wide-screen mentality - a world full of adventure presented in cinematic scope and scale," Germaine Gioia, senior vice president of licensing at Capcom, said in the release. "Plan B recognized the potential of our newest property and are as excited about bringing Dark Void to life in cinemas as Capcom is to bring the interactive experience to home theaters."

The game is being released Jan. 19 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation3 and PC.

Google's free Chrome operating system: Details, video emerge

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:15:00 PST

Google's sharing more details of its planned Chrome operating system - and the early code as well, through the Chromium open source project it announced this morning.

The company said its OS will be ready for consumers a year from now and invited developers to help finish the project.

Google's calling it a "fundamentally different model of computing" although it seems to share concepts with the thin client-network computer model that Silicon Valley floated a decade ago. Instead of hosting desktop applications, it's a browser/portal to apps that are hosted on the network. From today's official announcement:

First, it's all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

The explainer video:

Maybe it's less like a direct assault on Microsoft's PC franchise and more like an attempt to polish and Google up Linux for netbooks and mobile computing devices.

Google said the software won't support PCs with hard drives and it's aimed at netbooks and secondary computing devices, according to The Register's report, which called it "essentially Google's own Chrome browser running atop a Googlized Linux":

Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM chips - though it only runs on x86 today - and Google is working with multiple partners on commercial devices, including Acer, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. Google has very specific ideas on how these machines will be designed. As said, the OS does not support hard drives, and (VP Sundar) Pichai said there would be other hardware restrictions as well.

Sounds like a fundamentally different model of open-source computing.

Startup fever returns? Seattle adds 17 new companies

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:05:07 PST

Seattle 2.0's monthly list of Web startups has one significant change this month - 17 new companies appeared in October, compiler Marcelo Calbucci reports.

The list gets an average of six new companies a month but startup activity has picked up in the last four months, he said.

New startups on the list include: HasOffers, BigStartups, Team Apart, Boxoh.com, EnergySavvy.com, Couchsoft (Mentby), Osnapz, Social Kind (TweetToCall, Escape My Date), Fotozio (PicTranslator), Adometry (Veracity), Qbiki Networks (iPhoneSeattle), HotelsOutlook, BuzzMinder (2Reminders), Splitts.com, Data Applied, Baldy Beanbag (The Big Magoo) and Megosi.

The top ranked sites, traffic-wise, remain the same:

1. Cheezburger Network

2. Zillow

3. Picnik

4. BuddyTV

5. Wetpaint

6. Robot Co-Op

7. Survey Analytics

8. ActiveRain

9. PayScale

10. SEOmoz

Microsoft alum grants to Ashesi, TAF & Room to Read

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:04:03 PST

The Microsoft Alumni Foundation awarded its first "Integral Fellows" awards to three nonprofits started by company alumni.

Each receives a $25,000 grant "as well as access to the talents and skills of alumni to help support their ongoing efforts."

Winners include Patrick Awuah, founder of Ashesi University in Ghana; Trish Millines Dziko, founder of the Technology Access Foundation in Seattle and John Wood, founder of San Francisco-based Room to Read.

Bill and Melinda Gates recognized them and other nominees during the alumni group's Founders' Gala last night.

"It's really about helping Microsoft alumni maximize and leverage resources. The Foundation provides the framework to bring people, ideas and organizations together to help address our world's challenges," Jeff Raikes, chair of the Microsoft Alumni Foundation Board, said in the release. "These three award winners, along with all of our nominees, exemplify what it means to give back. Their work is deeply rooted in service and making a difference in people's lives."

Microsoft alumns have started more than 150 nonprofits, generating over $100 million dollars a year in more than 100 countries, the release said.

"The Integral Fellows, and all of the sixty-six nominees, remind us that the Gates Foundation is just one of the hundreds of nonprofits that grew out of the Microsoft experience. We are moved and humbled to be a part of this community," said Melinda French Gates said in the release.

High-profile judges included former President Jimmy Carter, Ashoka Chief Executive Bill Drayton, Bill Gates Sr., eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Bridgespan Group co-foudner Thomas J. Tierney.

I wonder if all that exposure to Gates Foundation bosses and other notable philanthropists will lead to additional grants for the winning nonprofits.

WTIA predictions for 2010: Twitter bashing, Google at $720, MSFT to $40

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:36:03 PST

The Washington Technology Industry Association held its annual predictions dinner tonight at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle, with a group of tech entrepreneurs and investors sharing a few thoughts on what may happen in 2010.

Speakers include Greg Gottesman, managing director of Madrona Venture Group; Bill Bryant, venture partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Redfin Chief Executive Glenn Kelman; Curious Office founding partner Kelly Smith and entrepreneur and investor Andy Sack. John Cook of the Puget Sound Business Journal's tech blog moderated.

A few of their predictions:

How does Twitter make money?

Kelman: Charge for search. "In general, I think that Twitter is overvalued. I think people are paying too much attention to Twitter and not enough to Facebook."

Sack: Twitter's going to make more money than Facebook in 2010. "It is a promotional vehicle. ... I think the potential to make more revenue dollars is with Twitter."

Bryant: "Twitter's not mainstream and the traffic numbers suggest it's not going to be."

Gottesman: "I'm not sure how much money they can make but my sense is there's a lot of buyers out there who have a perception they could do a lot more than Twitter" than twitter itself as a relatively small startup.

Smith: "Twitter's going to sell a bill of goods to a buyer with deep pockets ... it's going to be absorbed by a big company" and "go nowhere."

Google's stock price at the end of 2010?

Sack: $701.

Smith: $720. The Google phone "is going to go crazy."

Gottesman: About where it is now (around $577).

Kelman: $650, driven by enterprise products.

Bryant: $500. "To me Google is still a one-trick pony."

Where will Microsoft's stock be at the end of 2010 and will Ballmer still be CEO then?

Sack: $31.75, Ballmer stays.

Kelman: $32, Ballmer stays.

Gottesman: About where it is today after a Windows 7 run-up. Ballmer stays.

Smith: $40. "Windows 7 is a giant step forward for them."

Bryant: It will at least touch $40. Win7 Mobile, Azure and desktop factors.

Amazon.com is at around $130. Where will it be?

Sack: I think AMZN is a juggernaut. $155-160.

Kelman: I'd second that. I think it's the most entrenched brand on the Internet.

Gottesman: Around where it is today - the market feels rich to me now.

Smith: Probably $150.

Bryant: $152, after buying Netflix, Blockbuster and Hulu.

Mergers and acquisitions happening around here in 2010?

Gottesman: Microsoft buys RIM, Cisco buys F5.

Sack: Picnik will get purchased by Adobe, Icanhascheezburger will be bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Smith: Adobe adds analytics.

Bryant: Every mid-size technology company ... will likely be acquired in the next few years.

When will Chinese companies start gobbling up U.S. technology companies?

Smith: I don't think it's going to be a factor in 2010.

Gottesman: I don't know if it will be 2010 but in the next couple of years they'll be a force to reckon with.

Bryant: Domestic markets are so robust in China you don't have to look outside the borders for growth opportunities.

What is going to be the dominant cloud architecture in 2010 and going forward?

Gottesman: Next year, Amazon.

Kelman: I think Google's going to deploy more resources than Amazon.

Smith: It's going to be Google on price, Amazon on features and flexibility and Microsoft's always going to be more interesting for people deploying on Windows infrastructure.

What sort of startup would you invest $2 million in during 2010?

Smith: I would start a fun, online site that basically is a music creation service in the cloud - pro-tools in the cloud for consumers.

Sack: Put it in Founders Co-op and invest in three or four - $2 million today is too much to start a company with. I like P.R. 2.0, lead-generation companies and healthcare.

Gottesman: Location-based entertainment - experiences you can have in the physical world but with your mobile phone.

Kelman: I'd start a newspaper. I think more people are reading more than ever before. In 10 years, 20 years, 50 years .... every community is going to need it's own authoritative voice, people will pay for that authoritative voice.

Bryant: Augmented reality, combining that with location-based services.

What ideas would you shoot down?

New social networks, iPhone Apps, video management.

What new consumer platforms may emerge in 2010?

Gottesman: Google on mobile devices in 2010 could be huge.

Sack: Crowdsourcing will transform radio, TV and video.

Kelman: Someone sooner or later needs to challenge Microsoft's living room franchise.

Smith: Games are too expensive - gravity is pulling the cost of the gaming experience to basically zero.

Will mobile web change so it's a mobile web experience versus an app experience?

Sack: Let's hope so.

Smith: It's not going to happen anytime soon in terms of the process being easy. For the forseeable future you're going to have to work hard to make stripped down duplicatory experiences for the mobile phone.

Kelman: Developers want to work on mobile apps. They're going to do cool things and then the money's going to follow.

What's going to happen with power meter graphing services from Microsoft and Google?

Gottesman: I think there's an opportunity there.

Sack: The price of oil has to go back up.

Kelman: I worry about green tech being emphasized more in Silicon Valley than Seattle. No one has really been interested in green tech here.

Gottesman: There is some cool stuff going on at the University of Washington.

Big, bold prediction for 2010?

Kelman: There's an enormous amount of pressure from investors on startups to sell, not to build them.

Gottesman: It depends on who you're talking to.

Smith: Venture capital market's concept of "our business is built on big hits" will change to "our business is built on base hits."

Gottesman: Stanford is going to the Rose Bowl.

Bryant: Cisco buys Dell.

Sack: Microsoft buys Twitter and New England will win the Super Bowl.

Ka-ching! Microsoft execs cash options after stock hits $30

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:17:03 PST

Apparently $30 was a magic number for some Microsoft stock holders, including a few longtime executives who cashed in stock options that are finally in the money.

Senior Vice President Bob Muglia flipped 922,422 shares that have been exercisable since February 2006.

Muglia bought them for $25.14 and sold them today and Tuesday for $30, according to an SEC filing this afternoon.

Muglia's not fully divesting -- he and his wife and family foundation still have about 600,000 shares -- but an extra $4.48 million is nice for the holidays.

Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie also pounced this week. He acquired 367,000 shares exercisable since February 2006 at $25.14 and sold them Tuesday for $30, clearing $1.78 million.

If they'd waited until Wednesday's close they could have netted another 11 cents per share.

But they timed it better than Bill Gates, whose regularly scheduled stock-sale plan unloaded 20 million shares in recent weeks in the $28 range.

Microsoft lawyer skids and squeals Tesla for Xbox sound team

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:21:03 PST

When a team of sound engineers at Microsoft Game Studios needed sounds of a squealing, skidding and revving Tesla Roadster, they didn't have to look far.

Deputy General Counsel Tom Burt just happens to commute in Roadster No. 203 and volunteered his ride for a day.

Burt filed the details in a great post on Tesla's official blog today. An excerpt:

The team then asked for "longer" squeal segments. We did tight circles just fast enough to keep the tires howling continuously for 30 seconds or so. The team then asked for very faint continuous squeals that they could use in games and simulators to audibly indicate when the edge of adhesion was approaching. More tight circles, with just a bit less [what -- Throttle? No. Accelerator? Awkward. Right foot?] did the trick. ... More right foot and the stock front tires -- before pushing out of the turn -- would eventually yield a loud "shudder" while squealing that the sound team really liked and had not heard before.

Burt said it was "a chance to really burn some electrons, all in the interests of better gaming experiences for the masses."

His tires and brake pads may not last much longer but their sounds will live forever in future versions of "Forza" and "Project Gotham Racing."

Burt was part of this story on Tesla's coming to Seattle.

Here's a sound clip and a few pics of the recording session:

NSA helped secure Windows 7

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:53:09 PST

This is a little spooky: The National Security Agency worked with Microsoft to "enhance" the security of Windows 7.

From Computerworld's report:

"Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector," Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security yesterday as part of a prepared statement.

The NSA has worked with Microsoft before to develop secure configurations of Windows and Internet Explorer for federal and military users, but this time it started the process during the Windows 7 beta so it was ready when the software launched.

It's still a little unnerving. Electronic privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg told the publication, "When NSA offers to help the private sector on computer security, the obvious concern is that it will also build in backdoors that enables tracking users and intercepting user communications."

Now the agency is trying to work with Apple, Red Hat, Sun and others on "secure baselines" for their products, Schaeffer said in his prepared testimony.

Maybe they should have a logo program so buyers know which systems have the NSA seal of approval.

Jeff Bezos dukes it out with Whole Foods boss

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:33:03 PST

Not because Amazon.com is getting into the grocery business, but because both are tied in a poll running through Thursday for MarketWatch's CEO of the Year.

It's a dead heat between Webmeister Bezos and Whole Foods Chief Executive John Mackey, who also knows his way around an online forum ...

Googlepalooza: Phones, operating systems and CES?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:20:09 PST

Google is apparently trying to steal some thunder from Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference this week by releasing more details of its Chrome operating system.

So far the Chrome OS has been mostly FUD since it was announced in July but that may change at a Thursday press event where the company is promising demos.

But the buzz around that event is already being drowned out by unconfirmed reports that began Tuesday about Google planning its own mobile phone-handheld computing device.

TechCrunch said the gadget will be made by a Korean company such as LG, carry only Google's brand and probably use AT&T's 3G network.

Google is building their own branded phone that they'll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding.

A big ad campaign promoting Google's first consumer hardware will begin in January, TechCrunch added.

My guess is that Google will surface the device at the Consumer Electronics Show, which begins Jan. 7 in Las Vegas, where co-founder Larry Page last gave a keynote in 2006.

Maybe he'll take the place of Yahoo boss Carol Bartz, who canceled her appearance at the show last week.

At a press dinner last night in Seattle, Dan Cole, vice president of the trade group that organizes CES, hinted that another major keynote may be added but he didn't name names.

Here's a Chrome sign hanging in Google's new Kirkland campus, where they get quiet and change the subject if you ask if former Microsoft talent is working on the new operating system:

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in third battle for his life

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:19:50 PST

You can't say "some people have all the luck" when you see Paul Allen's mansion on the shore of Mercer Island, his airplanes, superyachts and vast land holdings in Seattle.

The son of a Seattle librarian became one of the richest people in the world when he and childhood pal Bill Gates struck it rich after starting Microsoft in 1975.

But today Allen's sister disclosed that he's been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer similar to the one he battled 25 years ago, a life-changing experience that prompted him to retire early from Microsoft.

The cancer follows a tough bout with heat disease that sidelined Allen, 56, earlier this year and led to a heart valve replacement. Details were largely secret until he confided in an Oregonian sports columnist who had seen Allen accompanied by a doctor to Blazers games.

"I'm fine, finally," Allen told John Canzano in September. "I'm much, much better. I hit a few bumps in the road."

Now he's hit another bump.

Allen's sister, Jody Allen, notified employees of his Seattle holding company that the cancer returned earlier this month.

"He received the diagnosis early this month and has begun chemotherapy. Doctors say he has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma," she said in the e-mail, which was disclosed by Allen's spokesman.

"This is tough news for Paul and the family. But for those who know Paul's story, you know he beat Hodgkin's a little more than 25 years ago and he is optimistic he can beat this, too," she wrote.

"Paul is feeling OK and remains upbeat. He continues to work and he has no plans to change his role at Vulcan. His health comes first, though, and we'll be sure that nothing intrudes on that."

Allen and Patton were not available for interviews. Their spokesman, David Postman, said Allen's still active at Vulcan.

"He remains just as involved as always," he said.

Gates issued a statement of support.

"Melinda and I have Paul and his family in our thoughts and prayers," he said. "Paul is among my closest friends, and I know to him be a strong and resilient individual."

Lymphoma is a cancer that starts in cells called lymphocytes in the body's immune system, according to the American Cancer Society.

Non-Hodgkin's "is a fast growing lymphoma, but it often responds well to treatment with chemotherapy," the society's Web site says. "Overall, about 3 out of 4 people will have no signs of disease after initial treatment, and about half of all people with this lymphoma are cured with therapy."

Risk factors include a weakened immune system, which can result from drugs taken during a transplant procedure.

Allen's also been under considerable stress over the past year as his biggest investment, St. Louis-based Charter Communications, filed for bankruptcy with $21.7 billion in debt.

Majority of consumers would pay for online news, study says

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:15:03 PST

I wish I'd had this study in hand for today's column on the decline of free content and other Web freebies coming in 2010:

More than half of consumers are willing to pay for news online, according to a new report from the Boston Consulting Group that's likely to be referred to a lot as media and Web companies finalize their 2010 plans.

The firm surveyed 5,000 people in nine countries to find out what they would pay for online news, among other things. It said the average amount ranges from a low of $3 a month in the U.S. and Australia to a high of $7 in Italy.

"The good news is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, consumers are willing to pay for meaningful content. The bad news is that they are not willing to pay much. But cumulatively, these payments could help offset one to three years of anticipated declines in advertising revenue," John Rose, a senior partner in the firm, said in the release.

Rose told The New York Times that willingness to pay is lower in the U.S. compared to other countries because it has so much free online content available.

Cray "Jaguar" nabs fastest supercomputer title

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:25:51 PST

While PC users were upgrading to Windows 7 and quad-core processors this fall, Cray and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge, Tenn., lab upgraded an XT5 supercomputer nicknamed "Jaguar" to more than 224,000 processing cores.

That boosted the Jag to more than two petaflops of computer power and Top 500 list, ranking it the world's fastest supercomputer.

Cray CEO Peter Ungaro, in a news release:

"While we are thrilled to have designed and built a supercomputing system that has broken a number of firsts in the industry, we are most proud of the fact that Jaguar is used day-in and day-out to solve real-world scientific problems at sustained speeds that no other system in the world can match -- including the first two scientific applications in the world ever to break one petaflops in sustained performance."

Maybe they should rename it the Jaguar XKE. It even has a six-cylinder motor like the original XKE -- it's based on AMD Opteron six-core processors.