AllThingsD » Princeton

FTC Gives Ed Felten Freedom to Tinker

John Paczkowski — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 18:55:20 +0000

Looks like the Federal Trade Commission got its first choice of Chief Technologist, because it’s hard to think of anyone better to serve in that capacity than Princeton computer science professor Ed Felten, a guy whose CV makes everyone from Microsoft to Diebold shudder in embarrassment. A renowned computer researcher, Felten has over the years led charges against some of technology’s most ill-starred concepts, chronicling them in his widely read Freedom to Tinker blog.

In 2000, his team dropped the hammer on the Hack SDMI challenge by demonstrating how easy it was to crack the decidedly mediocre Secure Digital Music Initiative.

Dragged into the Sony BMG CD copy-protection scandal in 2005, he discovered that Sony’s “fix” for the Digital Rights Management rootkit it used to protect some new music CDs furthered inflamed an already bad situation.

And then, of course, there were Felten’s various investigations into electronic voting machines, the most notorious being the one that revealed Diebold’s machines could be opened with a standard office furniture key. “The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine–the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus–can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet,” Felten wrote at the time. “The exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars.”

Thank God for Felten, right?

And thank God the FTC has seen fit to hire him. There’s a lot of good he can do there. As Felten described it, “My main job will be to advise the FTC leadership on technology policy issues. My goals are use my technical expertise and knowledge of the tech world to help the FTC make the best decisions on tech topics, and to contribute to building up the agency’s technical capabilities.”

Said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, “Ed is extraordinarily respected in the technology community, and his background and knowledge make him an outstanding choice to serve as the agency’s first Chief Technologist. He’s going to add unparalleled expertise on high-technology markets and computer security.”

Seven Reasons Tech Start-Ups Are Setting Up Shop in New York

Alexander Hotz — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:12:52 +0000

When Carter Cleveland, the CEO of the art-trading website Art.sy, moved his fledgling company from Palo Alto, Calif., to New York City he left behind arguably the best place to start a tech business in the U.S.

Home to giants like Facebook, Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Intel (INTC) and eBay (EBAY), Silicon Valley is well known as the Mecca for high-tech companies – and entrepreneurs hoping to start one. One third of US-based venture capital investment happens in the Valley, according to PriceWaterhouse Coopers and the National Venture Capital Association. By Cleveland’s own admission, he “couldn’t go into a cafe without hearing pitches” in San Francisco.

So why go east? A recent Princeton grad, Cleveland said he left primarily because of his customers. Art.sy is an online trading post for fine art and, according to Cleveland, over half of his market is in New York City. But Cleveland added that location isn’t everything. New York’s tech scene is booming, and Cleveland wanted to join the party.

“Palo Alto is like Google,” he explained. “Big and established. New York City is like Foursquare. Not as big but tons of hype. It’s going through a growth period and very exciting.”

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Kindle on Campus, Fall 2009: Will You Be One of the Lucky 300?

Peter Kafka — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:24:42 +0000

God bless the poor folks at Pace University, who had to walk around their own auditorium today and tell reporters one by one that they were indeed involved in the college launch of the Kindle DX next fall.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, you see, neglected to mention this during his presentation this morning on the Pace campus. But I’m glad the Pace people were out there pressing the flesh. Because in doing so, they got to explain to me exactly how the Kindle will show up on campuses next year.

In a word: Barely.

Just 50 Pace students (out of a 12,000+ student body) will get Kindles next fall, says Geoff Brackett, provost and executive vice president of academic affairs. Brackett says he believes the other five schools trying out the gadget–Case Western, Princeton, Reed College, Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State University–will get a similar number.

So if you’re geared up about the thought of using a Kindle DX when you come back to campus next fall, think again (or use whatever connections you have): Only about 300 students will be testing out the machines.

OK. So how will those students actually use the Kindles? There are lots of details to work out still, says Brackett. For instance, there’s the matter of footing the bill: He thinks Pace and Amazon (AMZN) will cover the $489 cost of the machines, but the students will pay for any Kindle texts. But that’s not yet set in stone.

Another big issue: Which classes and curricula will be able to use the Kindle DX? Also unknown, at least right now. One of the things that will make integrating the Kindle into academia a slog is that in addition to the schools and students, individual faculty members, who assign reading for their classes, will have to sign on as well.

So even for this initial test, Brackett can’t say how many classes will offer Kindle-compatible courses. But he’s optimistic. “A typical undergrad takes five classes,” he says. “If we can get three or four of those on the kindle, we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

The takeaway: The Kindle DX, or some version of it, holds a lot of potential for the college setting. It makes a lot more sense, I think, than the notion of a Kindle as a newspaper-saver. But it’s going to take a very long time to get there.

I also talked to Amazon exec Ian Freed, who provided very little detailed information, but also managed to convey the same impression: Unlike the earlier versions of the Kindle, Amazon seems to be launching the DX with lots of hedge words, like “early” and “experiment.”

Perhaps that’s because I spent most of my interview time asking him about price, price and price. But see for yourself, below. Apologies for the brief iMovie caption glitch in the first few seconds of the clip. Also sorry about the overly close shot of Freed, who was a good sport about the whole thing.

[ See post to watch video ]

Yahoo: Songe d'Automne

John Paczkowski — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:40:42 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Yahoo: Songe d'Automne

John Paczkowski — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:40:42 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Clearspring Plus AddThis–But Does That Add Up to a Real Business?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:45:05 +0000

In a move to dramatically increase its traffic and give it more tools to offer publishers, Clearspring Technologies said it will acquire AddThis, the top bookmarking and content-sharing tool on the Web.

As with many social-networking start-ups, whether this disparate traffic can be easily translated into a reliable revenue-generating business remains to be seen.

The McLean, Va.-based Clearspring–one of several widget networks seeking to connect publishers and advertisers with social tools by helping them embed small pieces of content across the Web and monetize that content–would not disclose the price it paid for the Princeton, N.J.-based AddThis.

My guess: A few million dollars in cash and maybe more in some kind of stock swap.

What exactly is Clearspring getting for this?

For starters, a tiny icon with a lot of popularity to help it toward its goal of being the universal sharing standard in the new socially-networked Web paradigm.

Clearspring claims the pair together will reach 20 billion views per month and more than 200 million unique visitors, noting it would now have a “worldwide audience comparable to the seventh largest Web property.”

While adding up such piecemeal traffic is not quite the same to advertisers as a major central Web site like Yahoo (YHOO), for example, AddThis is the most used tool for sharing Web pages through email or from Web site to Web site.

Its main competitors are ShareThis and Yahoo’s Del.icio.us, even though it has only a handful of employees.

Of course, that viral success around universal sharing might not mean massive revenue generation, even if it is a popular consumer tool.

But Ted Leonsis, chairman of the board at Clearspring, and CEO Hooman Radfar said revenue would come via advertising and, eventually, valuable data analytics the services collect about Web behavior.

Currently, said Leonsis, AddThis has negligible revenue and Clearspring has about $10 million in annual sales. Neither is currently profitable.

Nonetheless, Radfar said, “AddThis is the biggest small thing on the Web,” referring to its tiny icon that expands to offer users a choice of Internet sharing services and updating tools to a variety of social networks.

And indeed, AddThis icons are widespread across the Web, seen mostly at the bottom of content items on big sites like Time.com and MySpace.

While some question whether a big business can be created through such a far-flung network, Leonsis–one of the early execs at AOL in its glory days–said it was how the Web is evolving.

“If you said to me 10 years ago that you were going to be successful by sending people away from your site, I would have said you were crazy,” said Leonsis. “But that is what the Web is about now, and having a central network that can track this is important for advertisers.”

Well, we’ll see about that, but Clearspring certainly has a lot of money to try.

The company has received more than $35 million in funding since it was founded in 2004. Investors include former AOL head Steve Case, as well as the venture firm New Enterprise Associates.

Clearspring has about 100 employees.