The tech sector in Washington accounts for 22% of the state economy and ranks first…
Weekly News Roundup: March 20, 2015
Schools Blamed for Lack of Female Tech Talent
Computer Business Review | Eleanor Burns | Mar. 20
“The lack of female role models in technology was a hot topic at this week’s Rethink Media conference, igniting an audience-led digital debate. The Rethink event, held this past Wednesday at Birmingham City University, saw leading figures in media and technology blast the education system for not doing enough to get young women interested in technology…A third of 14-18 year-olds are being pushed into non-STEM subjects…Just one in five A-level physics students are female, a proportion that hasn’t improved in 20 years. Rethink Media host and Gadget Show presenter Jason Bradbury emphasized that for the digital landscape to move forwards, there needs to be an appreciation that arts and technology go hand in hand. ‘Schools need to be concentrating on STEAM, with the A being for arts, rather than just focusing on STEM, so that we can address the issues facing the creative and tech industries too,’ said Bradbury.”
Elon Musk: New Tesla Software Update will Enable Self-driving Cars this Summer
GeekWire | Taylor Soper | Mar. 20
“Tesla vehicles will be able to drive themselves this summer. Tesla founder Elon Musk announced on Thursday that a software update will enable autonomous driving in Tesla’s Model S sedans. Musk didn’t reveal too many details about “Autopilot mode” — the press conference was focused on a new feature that eliminates “range anxiety” for Tesla cars — but said that drivers will initially able to summon their vehicles and automatically park on private properties.”
Amazon’s Drone Delivery Dreams Just Took a Step Closer to Reality
TIME | Alex Fitzpatrick | Mar. 19
http://time.com/3751696/amazon-drones/
“Amazon’s hopes of delivering shipments to customers via drones got a little more real Thursday as federal regulators granted the company approval to test its unmanned aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration gave Amazon’s drones what’s called an experimental airworthiness certificate, which lets the company fly its aircraft for research, testing and crew training purposes…However, the FAA is not yet allowing Amazon to conduct commercial drone flights. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos first said back in late 2013 that he wants to use drones to deliver packages directly to customers’ doorsteps in a program dubbed ‘Prime Air’… In February, the FAA proposed new commercial drone rules that would make it significantly easier to legally operate a drone for money in the U.S…However, the plan would require drone pilots to fly their aircraft with ‘unaided vision’ and avoid flying over people, rules that would seem to preclude Amazon’s drone delivery concept. The FAA is expected to vote on those new rules later this year.”
Economist: Seattle is in the ‘Sixth Inning of Recovery,’ Not the Edge of a Bust
Puget Sound Business Journal | Jacob Demmitt | Mar. 19
“Jim Glassman, managing director and head economist for commercial banking at JPMorgan Chase, says he’s been predicting good things to come for the Seattle region for years…‘I think we’re in the sixth inning of recovery, so I don’t think we’re there yet…I think the Washington economy is more diverse than you think. Oregon is more dependent on the home building business because of the building products. So when housing gets down, they get hurt. But the guys that are carrying the Seattle economy are becoming really fundamental parts of our economy globally. So I don’t think you have the same vulnerability… I’m anticipating faster growth this year than what we’ve been getting because declining oil prices are a windfall for consumers and businesses. So there’s a real windfall for anybody who uses more energy than they produce, like the U.S. Washington for me, looks a lot like what I’m forecasting for the nation economy: slightly better, slightly faster.’”
Women Were a Major Force at SXSW
USA Today | Jon Swartz | Mar. 19
“A major force emerged this year at South By Southwest: Women in technology. A greater number of women made keynote speeches, were featured speakers, spoke on panels and attended the conference than in years past, making their presence known amid the robots, geeks, Meerkatters and virtual-reality demos at this sprawling tech and marketing confab… The tech industry is at an important crossroads for making its workforce less homogeneous. Women, like African Americans and Hispanics, are dramatically underrepresented in tech. And the venture capital community, even more of a white male bastion, is under fire for its treatment of women…‘South By organizers set the tone by making a conscious effort to ensure diversity on panels, and the show had more of an international feel,’ says Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder of website-services provider CloudFlare. Zatlyn said she was heartened by an equal mix of women and men in the audience at panels…Many of the panels with women speakers weren’t about gender issues but about the tech innovation that the festival is known for.”
Starbucks Delivery is Real and It’s Coming to Seattle and the Empire State Building
Re/code | Jason Del Rey | Mar. 18
“Starbucks is announcing today that it is introducing two pilot tests in the second half of this year to deliver its food, coffee and other beverages. One test, which will be based in Seattle, will allow customers to order and pay for delivery through the Starbucks mobile app in a partnership with Postmates, a delivery startup that uses a network of contract delivery people to ferry goods from stores to people’s homes or offices…The other way Starbucks has recently tried to make patronizing Starbucks easier for customers is by introducing an order-ahead feature to its mobile app. The feature lets customers place an order — and pay — for any Starbucks food or beverage from their mobile app and then pick it up at a nearby store a few minutes later. The company announced that it has expanded the rollout of this feature to all Starbucks stores in the Pacific Northwest.”
J-Shaped Tower Looks to Lure Seattle Tech Firms
Wall Street Journal | Max Taves | Mar. 17
http://www.wsj.com/articles/j-shaped-tower-looks-to-lure-seattle-tech-firms-1426614763
“In Seattle, as in many large cities, young, fast-growing technology companies often lease space in older, low-slung buildings in sometimes gritty parts of town…But Wright Runstad & Co. says the design of its planned building will impress the techies enough to convince them to move to city’s traditional financial district. The longtime Seattle developer’s plans for Rainier Square, unveiled last year and now awaiting final city approval, will span an entire city block and will feature a 58-story tower, a separate 12-story hotel as well as retail space. The first 40 floors of the tower are slated for 765,000 square feet of office space; 180 apartments will occupy the top 18 floors. If built as planned, the 849-foot tower will be Seattle’s second-tallest building…The building’s highest office floors are significantly smaller compared with most skyscrapers. The developer and its architect say smaller floors of 13,600 square feet will appeal to younger, smaller companies, which can lease an entire floor rather than sharing it with other companies—something they couldn’t do in a typical building.”
Diversity in Entrepreneurship: The Emerging Face of Tech
Forbes | Drew Hendricks | Mar. 16
“Laura Weidman Powers, CEO of CODE 2040, and Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and CEO of Thurgood Marshall College Fund, actively search for talent in underrepresented populations. As firm believers that diversity is not a luxury but a necessity in the tech space, Powers and Taylor advocate for finding, retaining, and promoting talent from communities that have been overlooked for years. Bringing diversity into the workplace is fairly simple, Taylor believes. It’s simply a matter of going out and finding people, then bringing them into the work environment. Keeping those people around is a much more complex issue, since workers will not remain in a workplace if they feel unwelcome or uncomfortable.”
Tech Industry’s Future Rooted in Blend of Design, Computer Science
CNET | Nick Statt | Mar. 15
http://www.cnet.com/news/tech-industrys-future-rooted-in-blend-of-design-computer-science/
“While the world’s first coders helped build the tech industry, its designers will define the industry’s future, said graphic designer and computer scientist John Maeda…Before 2010, Maeda said, design played a secondary role in the technology industry. How a product or service looked or worked, and the ways users interacted with it, were typically an after-thought that focused mostly on cosmetics. Design only ever grabbed attention when companies like Apple pushed outside the norm. But that’s changing fast. Startups and large tech firms all recognize that their products need to be both visually appealing and deliver great user experiences — and that means thinking about design from the beginning. It also means the industry needs people who can communicate those ideas and create more satisfying experiences. In other words, it needs designers who contribute from the start of a project — not the end.”
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