IT Conversations

Despite misconceptions to the contrary, early state AI systems are working in the real world and creating a lot of value for the companies that use them. Neil Jacobstein discusses practical uses of AI in many diverse industries and tasks. He compares the technology around early AI systems with the modern ones being developed today, and tells what has and hasn t worked based on 50 years of perspective.

Joshua Tauberer is the creator and operator of govtrack.us, a website that helps people track the activities of the U.S. Congress. In this conversation with host Jon Udell he discusses his ongoing efforts to acquire official information from various sources, provide useful tracking and analytical services, and encourage citizen participation.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Dr. Colin Garner, CEO at Xceleron, about new technologies which would reduce the need for animal testing.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Stanford Law School s Lillick Professor Paul Goldstein, about his latest legal thriller: A Patent Lie.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with UCLA s Dr. Marco Iacoboni about mirror neurons: the cells in our brains which enable us to comprehend how others are feeling.

It s the special listener question show! Joel and Jeff answer questions from the audience on making the transition from developer to manager, how to Get Things Done, the hidden value of in-person code reviews, and more.

A year ago, Apple released the iPhone to both critical and consumer acclaim. On July 11, 2008, the company came out with an upgraded version that promised faster speeds as well as third party applications. Tech geek and blogger Robert Scoble joins Phil and Scott to discuss both the device itself, as well as the social phenomenon that has people lining up for a second year in a row.

On this episode of IEEE Spectrum, learn about controlling a computer mouse by voice, a better alternative to electroshock therapy, and citizen clean water activism. A new software program designed to compliment voice recognition software lets users control a mouse by making vowel sounds and clicks. Also, magnetic seizure therapy has been as effective as electroshock therapy in patients who don t respond to medication, but without the threat of amnesia.

Lada Adamic, assistant professor at the University of Michigan, discusses the psychological impact of online social communication on individual behavior. She relates how information flow and information diffusion through the channels of online blogs, question and answer forums, and email communication on the Web can influence the choices we make.

Physician and medical informatician John Faughnan is an eclectic and engaging thinker and writer. On this edition of Interviews with Innovators, he converses with host Jon Udell about the progress of knowledge representation and information exchange in the field of health care, and about personal strategies for memory management and effective communication.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Dr. Lee Goldstein, from Neuroptix Corporation, about a problem five million Americans cope with, and for which there is no definitive diagnostic test - until possibly now. Goldstein explains what we know today about Alzheimer s, and that which we didn t five years ago.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with William Gibson, author of the books Neuromancer and Spook Country, about where we are headed in this post-internet age.

Joel and Jeff discuss hiding and disabling of menu items, whether conversational communication styles are destroying writing on the web, and the eternal flame of software engineering: the object to relational mapping problem.

Scott Lemon is not happy with Firefox 3.0 and he, Ben, and Phil use his dissatisfaction to begin a discussion of browsers and other tech topics. Phil gives some statistics of browser usage on his blog Technometria, and they talk about Canvas (the HTML element, not the material), as well as a number of other related subjects.

At the Emerging Communications Conference 2008, Jonathan Christensen, General Manager of audio and video at Skype, speaks about the development of IP communications over the past 10 years, giving a brief history of VoIP. He talks about its evolution from being a technology for geeks only, to a mainstream application, and concludes the talk by discussing the threats and opportunities for the IP communications industry.

At the Tools of Change Conference 2007 Tim O Reilly interviews Bruce Chizen, then CEO of Adobe Systems Inc., about the revolution in the publishing industry and Adobe s products. Through their publishing solutions, Adobe has a strong influence on both the print and online worlds. Listen to the story of the transition from Postscript and PDF to Adobe AIR and Digital Editions, which can be seen as the transition from print to electronic publishing.

On this edition of Interviews with Innovators, host Jon Udell speaks with VisiCalc co-creation Dan Bricklin. They talk about one of the key challenges of capturing and publishing spoken-word audio: enabling non-experts to make good audio recordings. Discussed are tools and techniques for recording, and strategies for getting other people up to speed with them.

On BioTech Nation, Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with BIO s Jim Greenwood, and Josh Boger from Vertex Pharmaceuticals during the anual International BIO Conference 2008.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with author Carl Zimmer about Ecoli: the good, the bad, and the under appreciated.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Paul Tan, CEO of Living Cell Technologies, who have a new innovative approach to diabetes.

Joel and Jeff discuss whether or not Joel is a Kiwi, how to have a meaningful beta (with versioning, even), some techniques for building engaging social websites, revisit the classic 12 part Joel Test, and the amazing-- but all too short-- life of Alan Turing.

Puppet is an automated administrative engine for systems, performs administrative tasks (such as adding users, installing packages, and updating server configurations) based on a centralized specification. Luke Kanies, who founded Reductive Labs, has been doing server automation for years, and Puppet is the result of his frustration with existing tools. He joins Phil, Scott, and Ben to discuss it.

If you re a software developer, you probably already know who Steve Yegge is. Developers all over the world spend a lot of their time reading or commenting on his blog when they re not writing code. A senior software engineer at Google, an ex-Amazon employee, one of the most widely read bloggers, an excellent hacker, and an outrageously funny chap, Steve talks about why branding is so important.

Dr. Stephen Omohundro tells what characteristics a self improving artificial intelligence will need and how we can shape it to include human values. The economic rational theory that has trouble explaining many human actions is the key theory that will guide the actions of a self improving AI. He explains the emergent attributes such an AI with preferences and beliefs will exhibit, and how to prevent the nightmare scenarios that movies and fiction writers have long feared.

Rick Falkvinge is a Swedish politician who recently founded a new party. Its values include freedom, upholding laws, and rights to privacy. These may sound like safe and just laws - things that are constant and don t need defending; so what s jeopardizing them? According to Falkvinge, that would be copyrights and patents.

Joel and Jeff discuss Macbook Air overheating and undervolting, constructive criticism, and engage in an extended discussion of Joel s management training program reading list. If you love classic books, this is the podcast you re looking for.

Sony s Blu-Ray defeats HD-DVD, but will downloadable movies make that victory moot? On this edition of IEEE Spectrum Radio, targeted trojan horse attacks are a growing security threat and have expanded the spyware vocabulary. Also, an interview with Ash Nehru of UnitedVisualArtists on their interactive light exhibits.

Cell phone handset manufacturers don t know what features future applications will use, and developers can t build those applications without having hardware support. In this talk from the Emerging Communications Conference, Michael Shiloh of OpenMoko tells how their open hardware platform solves this chicken and egg problem.

During the first stage of Linux, openness and a superior development methodology created a new technology product that changed the world. The next stage will be a battle between two platforms and ideologies, with Linux representing openness and Microsoft representing closedness. Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation tells how Ubuntu is leveraging the strengths of the Linux platform while buttressing its weaknesses.

With the web upending traditional distribution models, publishers need to understand how their content is valued by the audience. In this talk, Jeff Patterson, CEO of Safari Books Online, shares research on the information seeking habits of their client base of IT professionals. As users weigh the worth of information in exchange for their time, money and attention, publishers must grasp not just what is sold, but what is read, used and reused.