Items tagged with 'tech'
Ecovative in the New Yorker
The new issue of the New Yorker include a good article about Ecovative by Ian Frazier. Here's a clip:
Gavin McIntyre, the co-inventor of a process that grows all-natural substitutes for plastic from the tissue of mushrooms, holds a pen or pencil in an unusual way. Gripping it between two fingers of his right hand, he moves his arm across the paper so that his wrist grazes the inscribed line; because of this, he uses pens with ink that doesn't smear. When he draws an explanatory diagram of the chitin molecule--chitin is the principal component of mycelium, the white, rootlike vegetative structure of fungi--he bends over his work, then looks up earnestly to see if his hearer has understood. The gesture makes him appear younger than his age, which is twenty-eight. He wears glasses and has straight black hair, dark eyes, and several piercings, with studs in his lip and ears.
The other co-inventor, Eben Bayer, won't be twenty-eight until June. Bayer is almost six-five, and often assumes the benign expression of a large and friendly older brother. His hair is brown, short, and spiky, his face is long, and his self-effacing manner hides the grand ambitions that people who come from small towns (Bayer grew up in South Royalton, in central Vermont) sometimes have. When he says, of the company that he and McIntyre founded, "We want to be the Dow or DuPont of this century," he is serious. He is their company's C.E.O., McIntyre its Chief Scientist. People with money and influence have bet that they will succeed.
As you know, Ecovative is based in Green Island -- and both McIntyre and Bayer are RPI alumni.
The article highlight both of the founders' backgrounds, along with the key role of RPI professor Burt Swersey in encouraging them, and mycologist Sue Van Hook in helping to grow Ecovative's library of fungus. And it also includes a bunch of interesting bits about the company's beginnings, tech, and plans (fungal resistors for mobile phones?).
More than anything, though, Frazier elegantly lays out Ecovative's ideas alongside the history of Dow Chemical -- the producer of Styrofoam -- and explains why Ecovative could be such an important, industry-altering company.
Earlier on AOA: A whole bunch of items about Ecovative
Grow house
In progress at Ecovative, the Green Island-based startup that creates packaging and insulation from mushrooms: a small house that's growing its own walls. Blurbage:
We spent 5 years focused on protective packaging. Today it's a huge success, being used to package everything from servers to surf boards. Now we're looking ahead to what's next, and it may be time to return to our roots and dive back into building materials.
This project is a bold experiment to build and grow a house with Mushroom Insulation. We could have started by just building a simple wall assembly and subjecting it to lab tests. And we'll surely be doing that soon. But we thought that starting by building a whole tiny house would lead to more learning (possibly through failure) faster than anything else we could do. Also, we all just think tiny houses are really cool.
Basically, they've built a frame and are letting the mycelium (sort of like mushroom roots) fill in the gaps by bonding together agricultural waste. It's pitched as a environmentally friendly alternative to polystyrene insulation.
The company's set up a site with frequent updates tracking the construction and progress.
photo: Ecovative Design
Tech Valley Center of Gravity
At the corner of 4th and Fulton in downtown Troy, in what was formerly an OTB space on the ground floor of a parking garage, is now a workshop with metal and wood working machinery, racks of tools and parts, 3-D scanners and printers, and biotech equipment.
The new Tech Valley Center of Gravity is a makerspace -- a place for hackers, crafters, artists, geeks to build stuff, take things apart, hack new things to together, and to learn from each other.
But organizers see it as part of something even bigger.
Graffiti Buster
The city of Albany announced a new mobile app today: Graffiti Buster -- a way to report graffiti to the city. It's available for both the iPhone and Android.
The app is the creation of Troy Web Consulting's Tim Varney. You might remember Tim's name -- he also created the Albany: Then and Now history app, as well as the map of the vacant buildings in the city.
Tim explained to us how the app came about, and a little bit about how it works...
Forecast
A screenshot from Forecast.
This is good: Forecast, a new weather site from the Troy-based developers who created the mobile weather app Dark Sky. From the announcement:
About a year ago, we released a little app for the iPhone and iPad called Dark Sky, attempting to do something new and interesting for weather forecasting, a field we think had become pretty stagnant. Approaching 100k sales, it's been fairly successful; however, we've been continually asked for more: international support, longer-term forecasting, an Android app, and so on.
Rather than cram these things into Dark Sky, we decided to do something grander: create our own full-featured weather service from scratch, complete with 7-day forecasts that cover the whole world, beautiful weather visualizations, and a time machine for exploring the weather in the past and far future. You can access it from all of your devices, whether it be your laptop, iPhone, Android phone, or tablet.
A lot of the weather info on the site is available elsewhere, but what makes Forecast so good is the way it presents current conditions and forecasts: simply and without clutter. Even the more advanced features mentioned above -- like the time machine -- have a clean, straightforward presentation. It's just the main weather info you want without all the junk, all easily accessible. (We love the National Weather Service, but yow, can its website be hard to use.)
A few other cool things about Forecast: the predictions are based on an aggregation of multiple sources and -- for the nerdy -- they're sharing their info through an API (a way for other developers to make use of their data).
Forecast and Dark Sky are the creation of the Troy-based team headed up by Jack Turner and Adam Grossman. They released Dark Sky last year after raising more than $35k on Kickstarter, in the process snagging a bunch of media attention.
Troy Night Out app
Check it out: there's now a Troy Night Out mobile app. From the description:
Discover the wide variety of businesses in downtown Troy, New York. Troy Night Out happens on the last Friday of each month with things to do, see, touch, and taste. With the Troy Night Out app you can search for participating businesses, get directions, and find out what's happening while your in Troy for the night.
There are screenshots above.
The app is the creation of Troy-based Gavant Software -- it announced Monday that it's donated the app to the Troy BID. The app will have information for this Friday's TNO.
It's available for both the iPhone and Android.
Unsolicited suggestion: It's great to see a local company pitching in to help like this. +1. What might might also be good: a bunch of local arts/events orgs collaborating with a partner to create a multi-place, multi-event local app, one that would include info for events such as TNO and 1st Friday, along with other stuff like Alive at Five and other business improvement districts.
Speaking of Troy Night Out: The new decorated Uncle Sam statues are schedule to be formally unveiled around Troy at next month's TNO (April 26).
Earlier on AOA: Albany: Then and Now App
screenshots: Gavant Software
Life of Pi waves started in Colonie
Here's a large-format version.
Last night Life of Pi won the Oscar for visual effects -- thanks in part to a Cohoes company.
Aquatic Development Group -- which designs and makes equipment for waterparks and pools -- made the wave tank used to simulate the ocean in the film (which involves the main character being trapped with a tiger on a life boat). It was installed at former airport in Taiwan, where the movie was shot.
The photo above -- from a ADG press release -- is from the Life of Pi wave pool. During the acceptance speech, the Life of Pi effects team mentioned the tech "kept us from having to go out to the real ocean."
Here's a TU profile of the company from this past November.
ADG's tech was also used in Master and Commander and the 2006 Kevin Costner film The Guardian. The company has installed 90 percent of the wave systems in the United States, according to its website.
(Thanks, Erik.)
Amelia vs. The Marathon
Check it out: Trouble Impact -- a new indie game studio based in Menands -- released its first game today: Amelia vs. the Marathon.
Here's how Trouble Impact's Cat Musgrove described the game to us in an email:
In the game, you play as up-and-coming marathon runner, Amelia, whose recent wins have attracted the attention of the reigning running champion. The champ doesn't want to be outdone, so she has sent her henchmen to slow you down. It's a family friendly game, with mild cartoon violence (such as throwing hats or getting hit by objects like pizza and cake), and a strong female protagonist (and antagonist!)
The game is available for iOS (iPhones and iPads), Android, Nook (the B&N e-reader), PC, Kindle Fire and the Mac App Store. It's $1.99.
Trouble Impact is a two-person studio -- Cat Musgrove and business partner Issam Khalil both previously worked at Vicarious Visions. Cat tells us Amelia is their take on livening up the well-established format in which you and your enemy each take turns attacking each other (turn-based combat). So they've included things like timing challenges in the game. "With that in mind, we also wanted to take this sort of typical game concept and apply it to subject matter that isn't usually explored in more hardcore games. Issam and I are both runners (we both plan on training for a marathon someday!), so it seemed like a natural fit to make the game about running."
Poking around the studio's blog, it looks like they have some other interesting ideas cooking. One that caught our eye: Crush, which grew out of exploring "the heart-in-your-mouth sensation of actually trying to talk to [a romantic] crush." The prototype game recently got written up on Penny Arcade.
Car crashes, snow, crime, and public data
A clip from a map of vacant -- and no-longer-vacant -- properties in Albany, created by Tim Varney last year. See below.
Lots of interesting bits in this Daily Gazette article by Kathleen Moore about how police in Albany and Schenectady are using data*. Here's a clip, about how Schenectady police have been paying closer attention to car crashes:
By tracking car accidents last fall, Schenectady police pinpointed patrols in the Mont Pleasant neighborhood and saw certain crimes plummet by 12 percent in the last quarter of 2012. They are using the same system to respond proactively to crime throughout the city, in hopes of getting similar results everywhere.
Maps of crashes, drunken-driving arrests and other traffic violations are overlaid with maps of crime reports. Police patrols are sent to the hotspots -- locations where traffic problems and crime are high.
"What we know is, the driver that's risky enough to drive drunk ... is often risky enough to take other risks," said federal Highway Safety Specialist Shannon Purdy. "A lot of criminals are caught at seatbelt checks."
A section about the Albany police department mentions how the APD is using weather forecasts to adjust patrols.
Also: Schenectady mayor Gary McCarthy is working with UAlbany's Center for Technology in Government to build a platform that would allow city departments to share code enforcement data (say, about code enforcement), and share it with Albany and Troy.
More, please
That common platform is a good idea. And it's worth pushing even further: Why not created a Capital District consortium for publishing and sharing public data? The org could help develop tools, set common formats, and provide a clearinghouse for sets of public data. It would open the way for more orgs and people to get involved, and even maybe set the stage for new businesses. (NYC is already doing something along these lines.)
Sure, there are obstacles: time, money, attention. And civil liberties issues will probably crop up along the way. But having meaningful access** to data generated by your government is becoming a 21st century civil right.
____
* Yep, it's a Gazette article, but we have a feeling that link will work for you.
** A pdf that you have to file FOIL for is not meaningful access. It's a start, but we do a lot better.
Earlier on AOA:
+ A future timeline of Watson at RPI
+ Map: vacant -- and no-longer vacant -- buildings in Albany -- created by Tim Varney from data published in a city report last year
A future timeline of Watson at RPI
IBM announced this week that RPI will be getting a modified version of Watson, the artificial intelligence system that famously put the beatdown on human players on Jeopardy. Blurbage from RPI press release:
The arrival of the Watson system will enable new leading-edge research at Rensselaer, and afford faculty and students an opportunity to find new uses for Watson and deepen the systems' cognitive capabilities. The firsthand experience of working on the system will also better position Rensselaer students as future leaders in the areas of Big Data, analytics, and cognitive computing.
This is a big deal because systems like Watson -- along with other stuff like Siri, and Wolfram Alpha -- are both the future and The Future (you have to say it while looking off into the distance). They hold the promise of helping people make sense of the torrents of data all around us.
Now, via a flashforward, a future timeline of Watson at RPI.
GlobalFoundries building R&D center in Malta
The Cuomo administration and GlobalFoundries officially announced today that GloFo will be building a $2 billion R&D center at Luther Forest. The target date for completion is late 2014. The new center is expected to prompt another 1,000 jobs at the site.
The Cuomo admin noted that "no new incentives were provided from the State" for this new project.
From a statement by GlobalFoundries CEO Ajit Manocha:
... [W]e are making significant investments in strengthening our technology leadership, including growing our workforce and adding new capabilities to make Fab 8 [that's Malta] the hub of our global technology operations. New York State's continued support of the semiconductor industry has created a strong collaborative ecosystem and helped pave the way for this additional investment. ...
The long-held hope has been that the Malta fab and the multiple investments at Albany NanoTech would push this area to become a cluster of tech-related projects, with its gravity pulling other stuff to it. Maybe that's starting to happen now. (And if that mysterious Project Azalea takes root here...)
Another small bit that points toward the tech actually being in Tech Valley: The TU's Larry Rulison noticed that Samsung has recently started trying to recruit "semiconductor talent" from the Albany area -- to go work in Austin.
photo: GlobalFoundries
The Legend of Momotaro
Long, long ago...
Saratoga-based Ghost Hand Games has released an interactive storybook for the iPad called The Legend of Momotaro. From the description (link added):
The famous legend of Momotaro is brought to life with beautiful handcrafted illustrations, animations and narration. Ten panoramic scenes tell the classic Japanese story of an old man and an old woman who's only wish is to have a child. The gods grant their wish in a most surprising way!
As the story of Momotaro unfolds find the hidden interactive elements in each scene to learn about the Japanese culture and language. Watch and listen as subtle animations, authentic narration and sound tell a story of bravery and friendship.
As with Ghost Hand's other games, Momotaro looks great. There are a few more screenshots after the jump.
The storybook app is available for the iPad and iPad mini. It's $3.99
Earlier on AOA:
+ A Shatner app... developed... in Troy
+ Albany: Then and Now app
+ Snow Brawlin'
A Shatner app... developed... in Troy
Heh: 1st Playable -- a video game studio in Troy -- helped develop a new iPhone app released today: Shatoetry.
That's Shat as in William Shatner, and oetry as in poetry. Of course.
From the app's blurbage:
Shatoetry is an iPhone app that lets you arrange words - into statements, comments, messages, sentences, phrases, haiku, poetry, or even just random words... with this amazing payoff: whatever you arrange, you'll be able to hear William Shatner perform it for you.
And, of course, because it's William Shatner, there is the opportunity... for dramatic... pauses:
Though the dramatic pause has been a part of human communication for eternity, who else has mastered it like the man himself?
For more dramatic delivery to your Shatism, Shatoetry lets you add pauses between words with Space Bubbles.
Drop a Space Bubble into the Compose Field by simply giving the "Space" button a tap.
Drag it to wherever you want the pause to be... unheard ;)
1st Playable CEO Tobi Saulnier tells the Biz Review the app is part of her company experimenting with the iPhone app market. (1st Playable has done a lot of work developing games for platforms like the Nintendo DS.)
Oh, and his take on the app: it's "as different and as unique as a sunrise." [LAT]
The app is $2.99.
By the way: 1st Playable's office in Troy is gorgeous -- definitely worth a gawk if you ever have the chance.
Earlier on AOA: Kick Buttowski, launched from Troy
Albany: Then and Now app
Screenshots from the Android version.
This is good: Tim Varney has created a mobile app -- Albany: Then and Now -- that combines a map of Albany with historical photos and background. As he explained in an email:
The basic idea is that you can walk around downtown and find a spot where a photographer stood 100 (or so) years ago. You can then view the streetscape from his vantagepoint and visually see the changes that have occurred.
Here's a bit more detail from the app's iTunes page:
Make your way to downtown Albany. Open the "Albany: Then & Now" app on your mobile phone and click on the "View Map" button. On the map you'll see red arrows which represent the more than 130 historical photographs in our collection. Each arrow shows where sometime in the past a photographer stood and took a picture of the city's landscape. Most of the photographs are around 100 years old.
Using the map as a guide, walk to one of the marked locations. The center of the arrow indicates where the photographer stood. The direction of the arrow shows which way the photographer was facing. Do your best to stand in the same spot and face the same direction as the photographer did.
On the map, press the red arrow. Voilà! The image that you're seeing is exactly what the photographer saw years ago while standing in the same location! For more details about the photograph, press the "Details" button.
There's a video of the app in use after the jump.
The app is available for the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android. And it's free.
So, what prompted Tim to make this app?
Steve Wozniak in town September 6
Apple co-founder and general uber nerd Steve Wozniak will be in town next week for two public events. On September 6 he'll appearing on a panel at GlobalFoundries in Malta -- "What's Next For Tech Valley?" (link added):
An esteemed panel featuring Steve Wozniak, [fiber optics inventor] Peter Schultz and local technology executives will discuss innovation and technology development in Tech Valley. The focus will be on driving economic growth and jobs for the next two decades.
The panel is from 3-4:30 pm. Tickets are $75 / $25 students (with ID). Proceeds will "benefit a local charity as directed by Steve Wozniak." Registration is required.
Speaking of charities, Woz will also be appearing at a fundraiser that evening at Proctors for Peaceful Acres Horses:
Enjoy hors d'oeuvres, a cash bar and conversation with personal computer inventor "The Woz," followed by a concert featuring the wonderful Canadian artist Ariana Gillis.
Tickets for that are $60.
Peaceful Acres is in the Pattersonville. You might remember that Woz was in the area a few months back visiting the horse sanctuary. [CBS6 YouTube] [via TU]
Dark Sky version 2
The Dark Sky weather app -- created by Troy-based developers Adam Grossman and Jack Turner -- now has more than 35,000 users, according to the company. The app aims to provide very accurate weather predictions over the very near term -- minutes or hours instead of days. It's now on version 2.0, with new push notifications of when it's going to rain:
Push Notifications are a feature that our users have been requesting since we first launched last Spring. By enabling notifications within the app, we will tell you whenever it's going to rain in the next ten or fifteen minutes, so you'll never get caught in the rain -- even if you forget to check the app. We've actually been working on this feature since the beginning, but it's been very tricky to implement: we're not quite 100% confident that we've gotten it perfect. For that reason, we're currently considering the system to be experimental: if you find that notifications aren't behaving exactly the way you'd expect, we'd love to hear from you. As always, we strive to improve the app with every release.
There's also a now a national radar view (above).
The update is free. The app for the iPhone and iPad is $3.99.
Grossman and Turner funded development of Dark Sky in part by raising more than $39k on Kickstarter last year, and scoring a bunch of media attention in the process.
Earlier on AOA: The Dark Sky app is now available
A comparison of Albany area mobile service
One of these things is not like the other.
Check it out: a company called RootMetrics recently completed an assessment of mobile phone service reliability and speed in the Albany metro area.
Its overarching conclusion: Verizon is the best -- by a lot.
A few bits that jumped out at us:
+ Verizon dominated the data speed comparison because of its LTE network (4g), which is about 10x faster than 3g. See the chart is above. (AT&T hasn't rolled out LTE in this area, yet.) As it happens, Verizon is changing its mobile plans to focus on data service, and the ability to share data service across different devices. [AP/WSJ]
+ All the carriers did reasonably well on voice calling (Sprint was the worst). But Verizon was the only carrier to not have a single dropped call.
+ And the all the carriers were basically same for how long it took to receive text -- with one notable exception: Sprint was waaaaaay slower than the other carriers. Its average time was 68 seconds, compared 3-4 seconds for the other carriers.
How'd they measure all this? From the report's methodology section:
To evaluate the Albany area (the Albany Urbanized Area as defined by the U.S. Census), we performed 7,429 call, data, and text tests, covering all hours of the day and night. Tests were conducted using our RootScout app running from off-the-shelf, Android-based smartphones purchased from carrier stores. The phones were used as a typical consumer would use them and were not modified with any external antennas or other non-standard equipment. The data provided in this report reflect our findings in the Albany market during testing conducted from May 20 - May 24, 2012.
The company also makes an app that measures carrier performance. The results from the app are then aggregated with other users' results.
[via TU]
graph: RootMetrics
"The recession seems to be every place but here"
UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering was featured on the CBS Evening News last night. The angle: how the public/private partnership there is creating jobs -- "even for a blue collar guy." (It should be noted the "here" in the title quote refers to CSNE.)
The package was better than ABC's GlobalFoundries story from earlier this week. (Thankfully, Jim Axelrod did not feel the need the wear a clean room suit.) But, oddly, the CBS package didn't mention the GlobalFoundries chip fab. Maybe the two segments can be stuck together using some sort of cross-network nanotechnology.
Even though these sorts of stories often miss the mark, they're still spreading word of some of the stuff going on here. The same goes for the Obama visit next week. That's worth something -- how much is hard to say -- but something.
(Thanks, Fred! Thanks, John!)
The Dark Sky app is now available
The weather wasn't exactly exciting at this moment. Here's the outlook for a place that was a bit more interesting (meteorologically) at the time.
The Dark Sky weather app -- from Troy-based developers Adam Grossman and Jack Turner (Jackadam) -- is now available in the iTunes Store. The app aims to provide people with very specific weather forecasts for the near future based on location.
The question Dark Sky tries to answer is not "Will it rain tomorrow?" but rather "Will it be raining here during the next hour?" It can help determine if there's enough time for a quick bike ride before a thunderstorm, or how long you have might have wait before you can walk from your office to your car without an umbrella. It can also just satisfy the curiosity of bored meteorology nerds.
Speaking of meteorology nerds, we've been playing around with the app for the last day or so, and it's been kind of fun -- if not always accurate. The radar pictures are super clear and easy to read. And it shows whether the precipitation expected will be heavy, medium or mild. The no-precipitation predictions have been pretty good, and it did signal accurately a few times that rain was approaching. It failed to predict one light sprinkling of rain. (To be fair, we were in a moving car -- and Adam Grossman says that kind of light precipitation can be difficult to detect. And in general, this kind of stuff is harder than it looks.)
If the weather isn't interesting where you are, you can watch storms anywhere in the country.
Dark Sky is available for newer versions of the iPhone (4 and 4s), iPod Touch, and iPad. It's $3.99.
Jackadam funded the development of DarkSky in part by raising more than $39k on Kickstarter back in November. In the process, the app snagged a bunch of media attention (example).
We're looking forward to playing with it more.
Level at the Arts Center
From Everyday The Same Dream by Molleindustria.
Looks fun, interesting, and geeky: Level -- a new exhibition of independent video games -- opens this Friday at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. From the blurbage:
Level presents the games in an immersive environment that simulates a 1990s American video arcade. Each game has its own working cabinet, which allows visitors to play free of charge. The game cabinets are designed and fabricated by We Are Architects with assistance from regional game enthusiasts and friends. Collaborators include Donna Fitzgerald's class at Parson's Child and Family Center, circuit bending sound artist Peter Edwards, and regional furniture maker Leonard Bellanca.
The Friday opening is the Level Festival:
Alongside the exhibition's debut of a wide variety of video games in an immersive, arcade-style environment, Level Festival will feature a booth of vintage games and systems by local game enthusiast boutique Pastime Legends and genre bending electronic music. With support from iEAR Presents!, Level Festival features four intriguing performances by musicians that work in a range of electronic sounds, unconventional instrumentation, and take influence from games and other facets of pop culture. Level Festival performers include Evidence (Stephan Moore and Scott Smallwood), Matthew Carefully (Matthew Loiacono), Bubblyfish (Haeyoung Kim), and Extreme Animals (Jacob Ciocci and David Wightman).
The exhibition is organized by We Are Architects. The opening festival starts at 4 pm Friday and runs until 10 pm (it's free). The exhibit runs through May 25.
Speaking of Troy and video games: The annual GameFest symposium and exhibition at RPI is this weekend.
Yep, the Arts Center advertises on AOA.
RPI students send balloon to the edge of space
The view from about 90,000 feet.
This is great: a group of RPI students sent a weather balloon to the edge of space -- almost 90,000 feet. The balloon was equipped with three HD cameras and the video is remarkable (a few versions are embedded after the jump).
The students are part of a club called "RPI Students for the Exploration and Development of Space" (RPI-SEDS) -- it was founded by Orian Breaux, who recently graduated with an undergrad degree in aeronautical engineering. They launched the balloon from the Class of '86 field on campus -- and it ultimately landed in Maine after reaching 89,777 feet (well into the stratosphere).
So, why? (Other than than the fact it's awesome.) Breaux explains in a blog post:
Let's face it: space isn't sexy anymore. The zeal for the cosmos that once pervaded the American public consciousness has gone flat, and we're not going to rediscover that passion through politicians or NASA administrators. It will reemerge through the efforts of entrepreneurs in the private space industry and through the legions of professionals and students inspired by their actions ...
Our first effort, the high-atmosphere balloon, is an innovative variation on this increasingly common project. The idea that regular students can realize grassroots space projects like this embodies new opportunities to inspire people unlike ever before. That is the central idea behind presenting the high-atmosphere in a 360-degree interactive medium.
Breaux's name might sound familiar -- he's one of the founders of the Swing Syndicate in Troy. As he told AOA last fall about his career plans: "I'm not losing focus on getting into the space industry. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I want to be involved in the movement to privatize space flight. Maybe I'll start a dance studio on the moon -- go back to my roots."
Ecovative in Wired
There's a profile of Green Island startup Ecovative in the February issue of Wired -- the article is now online via Wired UK (which explains the Britishisms in the linked story above).
You've read some of it before, but there are some interesting new (to us) bits that touch on how good ideas come about, and what it takes to foster them. Also: Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre may be the first Wired profile subjects who grew their own headline.
We've posted a bunch about Ecovative, in part because it's an interesting local story with a fun angle (Packaging! Made from mushroom roots! By two good-looking nerdy guys!). But the company also has big potential. The polystyrene packaging business is a $20 billion a year industry (according to the Wired article) -- and Ecovative is looking to disrupt it with a product it says costs the same and doesn't harm the environment. That's an enormous opportunity. And it's growing from the ground up here.
Sure, it's not a multi-billion dollar chip fab or sprawling nanotech campus. But maybe it could be, someday. Upstate New York benefited greatly over the last century thanks to companies that created new industries -- names such as Kodak, Xerox and GE (many of which are now faded). If this part of the country ever finds that sort of prosperity again, it most likely will involve people and companies that have disruptive, industry-creating or shifting ideas.
Is it likely that Ecovative ever becomes as big as Kodak (once was) or GE? The odds are extraordinarily long. But all those companies started somewhere. Why not a warehouse in Green Island?
thumbnail: Chris Crisman / Wired
Kirsten Gillibrand, SOPA/PIPA, 2016, and cake
There was some interesting blowback today for Kirsten Gillibrand on SOPA/PIPA -- federal legislation touted as a way for copyright holders to crack down on piracy, but in practice would muck up much of the internet. Under pressure from widespread online protest this week, Congressional leaders took the bills off the table today. [TechDirt] [Wired]
Both Chuck Schumer and KG were co-sponsors of PIPA (basically the Senate version of SOPA), and tech industry people in NYC organized a large protest (with actual, in-real-life people) outside the senators' office there on Wednesday. [BetaBeat]
Apparently in response to the protests and the pulling of the bill, KG (or her office) posted on her Facebook page today:
Whether passing the 9/11 Health Bill, repealing DADT, or my call to action for women, I have always urged New Yorkers to make their voices heard. There has been an outpouring of democracy in action over the last several weeks on PIPA & SOPA. While many of my colleagues and I have worked hard to address concerns with the current bill, it is clear this proposal will not create consensus on how to crack down on the real problem of online theft that threatens tens of thousands of New York jobs in a balanced way that ensures our tech companies will continue to flourish. It is time for Congress to take a step back and start over with both sides bringing their solutions to the table to find common ground towards solving this problem. New talks between stakeholders -- media companies, music and film companies, Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley here in New York is a critically needed step forward. Make no mistake, we must act to protect the theft of intellectual property that costs our economy billions in revenue -- but we must get it right without unintended consequences that could stifle the internet.
Which, in turn, prompted Markos Moulitsas (the Kos in Daily Kos) to argue that KG is "trying to have her cake, and eat it too, on PIPA." And the overarching reason, in his view: she's looking ahead to 2016 and a run for a White House.
[via @patrickboegel]
GlobalFoundries: now making chips in Malta
Fab 8. Or, that enormous factory in Luther Forest.
GlobalFoundries announced today that its chip fab in Malta has started making chips. The company is working with IBM on an initial production run of chips at both the Malta fab and IBM's fab in East Fishkill.
GloFo says the chips are based in part on technology that was researched at UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. And here's where the "nano" part of this comes in: the chips make use of transistors that are just 32 nanometers wide. To say that's tiny doesn't quite cover it -- 4 million 32 nm transistors could fit on a period at the end of sentence. The GloFo fab in Malta -- Fab 8 -- was built to make chips with 32 nm and 28 nm transistors, and smaller.
The company says it expects to be ready for volume production by second half of this year. Once Malta is at full production capability, the fab will be able to produce 60,000 chips a month.
GloFo says it's created 1,000 jobs at the Malta fab -- with another 400 expected this year. It's having a job fair this Thursday at the Saratoga County admin building.
photo: GlobalFoundries
A ShopRite for Slingerlands, and a tech park
Right now there's not a lot there besides dirt.
Thursday was the official groundbreaking for the Vista Technology Campus in Slingerlands. A lot of the attention was focused on one of the tenants already signed up: ShopRite. That makes three stores now officially announced/open for the area (there's a fourth planned for Colonie). ShopRite continues what appears to be a strategy to go to head-to-head with Price Chopper -- the Vista ShopRite is pretty much be right across the road from the Slingerlands Chopper. [Spotlight] [YNN]
Planning for the Vista site has been going on for a few years -- but Thursday's announcements would seem to indicate it's picking up momentum. It's a potentially significant development project. The site includes 150 acres of land planned for development. And the developer -- Columbia Development -- says its plan includes up 1.4 million square feet of office, research and manufacturing facilities, medical office, and retail space.
A few quick thoughts about all this...
UAlbany researchers working on video games to change the way people think
Interesting: a UAlbany research team has gotten a grant to develop a computer game that aims to train people how to recognize their own cognitive biases. From the UAlbany blurbage:
In partnership with the local game company 1st Playable Productions, the CYCLES project will develop a computer game that will teach players how to recognize six common cognitive decision-making biases: confirmation bias, fundamental attribution bias, bias blind spot, representativeness bias, anchoring bias and projection bias. The goal is to reduce players' dependency on bias in real decision-making situations by as much as 65 percent. "The problem is one that psychologists have been working on for a very long time with limited success," said [psychology researcher Laurie] Feldman.
The interdisciplinary team is headed up by Tomek Strzalkowski from UAlbany's College of Computing (that's him on the right, not impressive-looking whiteboard diagrams) and Information and Jennifer Stromer-Galley from UAlbany's Department of Communication.
The $8.7-million project is funded by US Air Force. And arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is involved -- that arm, called IARPA explained earlier this year, why it's looking to these sorts of games:
Dark Sky app funded, and other local Kickstarter projects
Dark Sky, the weather-just-ahead app from Troy-based web developers Jackadam (Jack Turner and Adam Grossman), reached its $35,000 goal on Kickstarter over the weekend. Its deadline was the end of this month -- and the project is still accepting funding through then.
Here are a few other local Kickstarter projects that caught our eye that are looking for funding -- or recently met their goal...
Park and plug in
The future. Maybe.
Kristofer spotted this electric vehicle charging station at the new ShopRite in Niskayuna. There are four spots in supermarket's parking lot designated for electric vehicles. Apparently Niskayuna town officials requested that ShopRite include the spots as part of its design for the store. [Spotlight]
The ShopRite charger brings the number of EV charging spots in the Capital Region to five, according to Dan Gibson at Our Energy Independence Community. In addition to ShopRite, there are stations at the Holiday Inn Express in downtown Albany, NYSERDA in Guilderland, the Saratoga Technology and Energy Park in Malta, and the HVCC Tec-Smart facility also in Malta.
Here's the thing, though: there are extraordinarily few electric cars on the road. The two currently for sale -- the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf -- are new on the market, and the technology -- especially for batteries -- could use some improvement. Most people probably aren't going to be keen to drive a car with a range of at most 100 miles in ideal conditions -- and much less in normal conditions. (To clarify: the Volt also has a gasoline engine, which can kick in after the batteries run out.) [NPR] [USA Today]
It's interesting/fitting that Niskayuna has an EV charging station made by GE, in an everything-new-is-old kind of way. Ace GE scientist Charles Steinmetz had an electric car all the way back in 1914. He used to drive it to his weekend home.
The Edison Exploratorium in Schenectady still has Steinmetz's electric car. There's video of it embedded after the jump.
(Thanks, Kristofer!)
Dark Sky
Check it out: Troy-based web developers Jack Turner and Adam Grossman have launched Kickstarter funding for a new app called Dark Sky. From the blurbage:
Dark Sky is an app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch that predicts the weather.
Using your precise location, it tells you when it will precipitate and for how long. For example: It might tell you that it will start raining in 8 minutes, with the rain lasting for 15 minutes followed by a 25 minute break. ...
Using the same techniques we've developed for predicting rain, we can show you what the storm looks like in between the individual radar snapshots. We replace the jerky slideshow with a beautifully smooth interactive animation. And it's not just pretty... it's easier for your brain to process and understand a smoothly flowing video than a series of images that jump from point to point.
Be sure to watch the video embedded above. It's a good, quick intro to what they're planning.
Jack and Adam are aiming to raise $35,000 (there's a lot of stuff necessary behind the scenes to make this sort of thing work). The pledge levels include a pre-order of the app and various other whatnot.
Capital Region Google Streetview images updating
It seems like everyone's seen the Google Streetview car driving past sometime during the last few months. We recently emailed Google to find out when the images might started being updated online and got the "anywhere between a few months to a year" answer from a spokesperson.
Well, for parts of the Capital Region, the actual answer appears to be "right about now."
We checked a few theater marquees around the area to get a sense of when they were last recorded. It appears Proctors was captured in August (wrong, it's still the old one), and The Spectrum all the way back in June (also now online). In Troy, the old city hall is now partially demolished on Streetview. And there's a capture of the beginning of construction at the Albany NanoTech expansion. Also: the capture from the original Google crawl of the area that included one of the Editors is no longer online. It's too bad -- we were waving to the car.
A Google spokesperson says the old Streetview images aren't made available online. That's unfortunate -- it'd be fun to compare. You gotta think that will eventually make it online.
We had a handful of other questions for Google about how long it takes to crawl a metro area this size and stuff like that. Unfortunately, its spokespeople very politely said they couldn't answer most of the questions. And they wouldn't hook us up with the local drivers because "they work for us on a short-term basis. They're folks who are familiar with the local roads, but might not be familiar with Google's overarching project or mapping efforts." So it goes.
Here's a recent "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit with someone who says they were a Google Streetview driver.
(And if you were/are the local Streetview driver, we'd love to talk/email with you.)
photo via Google
The Northway Reporter
Mark Delfs, the creator of the local fill-in musician site GigSavers, emails:
With the knowledge I gained from teaching myself how to construct [GigSavers], I made a followup site called "The Northway Reporter," which will allow the typical Northway driver an opportunity to report all the traffic incidents they see on a daily basis--the radio is too slow with reports and while I was stuck in traffic the other morning, I figured on making a site that we could all use to report (and get reports) about why we are all still getting stuck in traffic on I-87.
The site is formatted for mobile browsers (is it texting-while-driving if traffic's not moving?) and includes links to traffic cams. There's also a Twitter feed. More features are listed after the jump.
This kind of thing usually only becomes useful if a bunch of people use it. But even if it never reaches that point, we give credit to Mark for building it. A lot of people say "Wouldn't it be great if (fill in possibly useful thing) existed..." -- very few actually do something about it.
The Paper Battery Company
An interesting Troy company announced today it's gotten a $1 million grant from NYSERDA, the state's renewable energy agency. [Paper Battery]
The Paper Battery Company says it's getting the money to build a pilot production line for its "fully printed energy-storage device that is as thin as a piece of paper."
Yep, the company is developing batteries that can be printed onto a paper-like surface.
Tiny Face
Go small.
A handful of local companies have created mobile apps. But this one might be the craziest -- and most fun.
Tiny Face is an app that tests your ability to make your face small. Yep, you read that correctly.
As its website proclaims: "The definitive mobile application for quantitative face-reduction analysis is now available to the general public." Tiny Face uses the camera on the iPhone and iPad to take before and after photos, then it measures the difference. (Just be careful your face doesn't freeze that way.) It's 99 cents in the iTunes apps store.
It's the creation of jackadam, a Troy firm that specializes in building all sorts of creative digital whatnot.
[via Renée]
images: jackadam
Latest mobile app developed locally: Undecided
The first app from Deadmans Productions, a relatively new mobile app company in Troy, now available for both iPhone and Android. "Undecided" includes a handful of virtual methods for making choices: rolling dice, flipping a coin, drawing straws -- that sort of thing.
The app costs 99 cents. It's a little rough around the edges. Some of the touch objects (if that's the phrase) are a little hard to grab. But it is kind of fun to flip a quarter by giving your phone a little flick (screengrab right). The company is holding a contest to rename the app -- but the current name fits it pretty well.
Zooming out, there's a bit of a mobile app development scene sprouting in the Capital Region. Among the players:
+ Ghost Hand Games in Saratoga has developed a couple of successful (and great-looking) games.
+ Axeva, a Clifton Park company, developed a sudoku-like game called Cohabit and a coloring book app.
+ A group of RPI students created a popular Android utility app.
+ And 1st Playable, a well-established games studio, recently produced its first mobile app game.
Michael Ridley, the founder of Deadmans, told the TU he started the company specifically to develop mobile apps. "Undecided" is the first in a string of five that they're planning to produce.
It's not surprising a lot of companies are dipping their toes in the mobile app pool -- it's projected to become a zillion-something-dollar market over the next few years.
[via Troy Record]
Big new customer for Ecovative Design
Dude, you're getting a Dell.
Dell, the giant computer company, announced today that it is running a pilot program that will use the mushroom-based packaging made by Ecovative Design, the Green Island based startup.
Ecovative has developed a styrofoam replacement material called EcoCradle -- or, as the company points out, it's grown EcoCradle. The packaging material is composed of agricultural byproducts and the thread-like roots of mushrooms called mycelia. And, unlike styrofoam, it's compostable and biodegradable.
Dell says it will be testing EcoCradle in shipments for one of its servers. In 2009, the company started using packaging made from bamboo.
Ecovative already had a deal with office furniture company Steelcase to supply to packaging material. And it's also developed an insulation material based on the same technology.
Ecovative was founded by Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, both RPI grads. The company's gotten a lot of attention -- it was even name-checked on CSI:NY. Last year it was named a "technology pioneer" by the World Economic Forum.
Earlier on AOA:
+ A (very cool) fungus grows in Troy
+ and a whole bunch of other items about Ecovative
photo: Ecovative Design
The code for reservations
That business card to the right is for Aperitivo Bistro in Schenectady. And the blocky graphic on the card is a QR code (yes, we know you know, but other people might not). If you scan the code with your phone (you might need an app), it takes you to Aperitivo's OpenTable reservation page.
QR codes have been touted as the next big thing (or at least a next thing) for a few years now. This is the first time we've seen a local restaurant use one this way (we bet there are more). On a mobile it is easier than typing in a url (not so much on regular computer).
Lou dropped a great comment explaining more about QR codes a few months back.
Earlier on AOA: "The funky tags"
Kick Buttowski, launched from Troy
Launched high enough, Kick even flies into space.
Check it out: 1st Playable, a video game studio in Troy, has built its first game for the iPhone/iPad. It's called "Kick Buttowski: Loco Launcho" -- it's based on a cartoon that airs on a Disney Channel about a kid who wants to be a daredevil.
The game is a "see how high and far you can fly" challenge. Kick gets launched in the air and you maneuver him to new heights, distances and tricks. Along the way you can earn new add-ons for Kick's sled, allowing him to go higher and farther. It's fun (probably more so if you're in the cartoon's target demo). The game is free.
Up to this point, 1st Playable has focused on building games for the handheld platforms such as the Nintendo DS. Its latest game for that platform is called "Pet Zombies," in which players raise their own zombies -- yep, you even get to feed them brains (what else would they eat?).
By the way: 1st Playable sometimes has kids come in to test games -- which we're guessing would score a few points for parents.
Earlier on AOA:
+ Cohabit, developed by a Axeva in Clifton Park
+ Snow Brawlin', developed by Saratoga-based Ghost Hand Games
iArt: Dan Burkholder's iPhone Artistry
A time-lapse of Dan running through how he creates an image.
Dan Burkholder is an accomplished photographer and artist. His recent canvas of choice? The iPhone.
Dan has managed to coax the iPhone into creating works with rich textures and sweeping panoramas. He's become so good at it that he wrote a book on the subject that will be out in a few months.
We first heard about Dan's work through an exhibit in Troy last year -- his images were being shown at the Martinez Gallery.
We recently took a trip down to the Catskills to visit Dan in his home studio. He lives there with his wife, Jill (another accomplished photographer), and four cats. He was kind enough to show us how he turns an iPhone snapshot into a work of art.
(Video of how Dan creates an image, plus a handful of his works, after the jump. And the youtube versions can be found here and here)
A bowl (made) of mushrooms
Ecovative, the Green Island-based startup that's developing a styrofoam replacement material made from mycelia (fungus roots), introduced its first consumer product today: the Myco-Bowl.
It sounds like the uses for the Myco-Bowl might be a bit limited:
Keep in mind that these bowls are made of natural materials. Appearance may vary slightly from bowl to bowl. You can fill them with water or plant things in them, but this will cause them to biodegrade. We don't recommend eating out of these.
If that doesn't float your boat, there are also Myco-Ducks.
OK, so consumer products might be the killer app here. Ecovative has developed packaging material for an office furniture company. And it's also developed an insulation material.
Ecovative was founded by Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, both RPI grads. The company's gotten a lot of attention -- it was even name-checked on CSI:NY. Earlier this year it was named a "technology pioneer" by the World Economic Forum.
Earlier on AOA: a whole bunch of stuff about Ecovative
photo via Ecovative
A peek inside Vicarious Visions
This is fun: local filmmaker Mike Feurstein shot a piece about a school field trip to Vicarious Visions, the video game studio in Menands. It likes it could be a fun place to work.
Mike's piece is part of series trying to get kids interested in science, math and engineering. He tells us the piece was also crewed by local high school students.
Also: Sandra over at Albany Kid has put together a short list of local resources for kids interested in learning about video game development. Both Vicarious Visions and 1st Playable in Troy sometimes have kids come in to test games. She's hoping you might know have a few other ideas.
By the way: the next season of Mike's eScape series, shot here in the Capital Region, recently premiered.
Cohabit: two neighbors puzzle over an app
Check it out: Axeva, a company in Clifton Park, has released an iPhone app puzzle game called Cohabit. From the press release:
Cohabit, the brainchild of neighbors Ken Malsan and Bryan O'Malley, challenges the player to "think twice" and is specifically designed to test a player's ability to solve two puzzles at the same time. Players must fill in a single board with numbers and colors without repeating any of them in the same column or row, similar to Sudoku. The additional challenge lies in the fact that every number/color combination must also be completely unique. Taking it one step further, the game's in depth scoring system rewards strategically minded players for placing a number and color in the same space at the same time - hence the name, Cohabit.
The release says Malsan came up with the idea and then pitched it to O'Malley -- the president of Axeva, and his next-door neighbor in Rexford -- and they often discussed the app while standing in their driveways.
The app works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It's $1.99.
We downloaded the app and played it a few times on the iPhone. It is very much like Sudoku. The 3x3 puzzles are relatively easy, but it gets harder as the puzzle size increases. We could see this being a fun way to pass the time while you waiting for something.
Axeva released another iPhone app this past summer -- a color book app called Colortoons. The company's main business is building websites.
There are a few other local developers that have dipped their toes into the app pool. Both Ghost Hand Games in Saratoga and Spiral Design in Cohoes and have built apps alongside their regular businesses.
Earlier on AOA:
+ The CDTA iPhone app
+ Spiral Design's Split the check
+ Ghost Hand Games' Snow Brawlin'
image: Axeva
... said Jason about HAF: We're handing St. Joseph's back to city of Albany