Blogs are conversations, and like all discussions, sometimes the talk gets ugly. This panel discussion brings together mobile technology blogger mobile jones, computer science professor Ellen Spertus and journalist, novelist and blogger Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez with moderator Liza Sabater to discuss flames and how to deal with them. [ | more ]

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Ann Winblad, co-founding partner of Hummer-Winblad Venture Partners and Laura Merling, CEO of SDForum. They discuss the global reality of both funding new software and then building it. Is it surprising? All roads lead to Silicon Valley. [ | more ]

Moira also interviews Peter Boatwright, professor, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, and the author of "The Design of Things to Come -- How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products." [ | more ]

And on Biotech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. David Gee, Commercial Director, MNL Pharma, Ltd., about how simple sugars might yield a therapeutic effect in the fight against everything from diabetes to cancer. [ | more ]

Convergence is one of the great buzzwords of our time, ususally referring to the connection between voice and data. But there's a whole lot more to convergence, accoring to Burton Group Research Director David Passmore. Learn about five areas of convergence that will affect most enterprises in the next several years and how to prepare for the future of networking.
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Open-source robot dogs, rescued from eBay and reworked, to investigate environmental contamination. A robotic goose lets people interact with wild geese on their turf. Natalie Jeremijenko investigates how robots can be used to change the ways humans participate with the environment and the natural world in this entertaining session. From ETech 2005. [ | more ]

Larry Magid interviews Ernie Allen, President and CEO of National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The Center's usual mandate is to help find abducted or exploited children, but has now become involved in reuniting families separated by Hurricane Katrina. [ | more ]

Jeremy talks about open source software scales at Yahoo!, and specifically how Yahoo! leverages open source software to scale its system. Yahoo! recently acquired Konfabulator and Flickr, and Zawodny explains how Yahoo! is changing internally to become a Web 2.0 company. [ | more ]

From last year's Web 2.0 Conference:

After Mark Cuban made a billion or so selling his company to Yahoo! during the height of the Web 1.0 craze, he decided to buy a basketball team. Fortunately, he bought the Mavericks, a team whose name suits his style: brash, out there, and unconventional. Now he's back in the media business with HDNet. [ | more ]

Don't miss this year's Web 2.0, October 5-7 in San Francisco.

Before AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) had a name, there was Laszlo Systems, a software tools developer using AJAX-like methods along with with Macromedia's Flash Player to deliver richer Web experiences. In this conversation with Laszlo founder/CTO David Temkin, learn why he chose the Flash Player as a platform and why Laszlo went open source choosing IBM's Common Public License. What is planned for Laszlo Mail and Laszlo Calendar and how he plans to leverage rich client environments other than Flash Player. [ | more ]

In a world where information overload is common, attention is a very scarce resource and there is an increasing need to manage it efficiently. In this panel discussion, Steve Gillmor, Glenn Reid, Dorée Duncan Seligmann, David Sifry and Linda Stone talk about the problem of coping with more information than one can handle and the possible solutions. [ | more ]

In this keynote speech at Burton Group's 2005 Catalyst Conference, Anne Thomas Manes lays out the issues to consider when dealing with the rise of network-application platforms packed with features and functionality. More functions sounds good, right? Well, Anne looks at the benefits but also points out negative implications like vendor lock-in and high barriers to entry for new developers. [ | more ]

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Graham Hawkes, an engineer and explorer, the solo ocean dive record holder, and president of Hawkes Ocean Technologies. They talk about his quest to drive a submersible to the very bottom of the ocean, some seven miles down, as well as the very different experience of his underwater flight school. [ | more ]

Moira also interviews Brad Matsen, National Geographic producer and author of "Descent -- The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss." [ | more ]

And on Biotech Nation, Moira speaks with Amit Sachdev, the Executive VP for Health BIO, They talk about proposals for increased measures to ensure safety *after* a drug has been approved. [ | more ]

The discussion about whether bloggers are journalists is one that inspires heated opinions. In this conversation from BlogHer, several blogger/journalists discuss the relationship between blogging and so-called traditional journalism. Moderator Lisa Stone asks Anastasia Goodstein, Chris Nolan and Evelyn Rodriguez to share their experiences of the relationship between independent online publishing and traditional media. [ | more ]

Designing websites is different from traditional media such as print and television. In spite of the usability guidelines being fairly well known, some of the common mistakes recur even on popular sites. Designers need to be careful and follow these guidelines to improve a website's interface. Web-usability guru Jakob Nielsen speaks with Larry Magid about designing websites that capture and sustain the user's attention.
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This week's pick is from the SDForum Distinguished Speaker Series in 2003.

The software industry is shifting from large-scale, prescriptive processes that mandate rigorous procedures and policies to lighter, more agile methodologies. Are these agile processes appropriate for your organization? If so, which should you consider adopting? [ | more ]

The increasing availability of free map and imagery data and services comes at a time when GPS and other location sensors are becoming ubiquitous. This has brought geospatial applications programming within reach of a growing number of developers and the results, exciting in themselves, point the way to a fully network-enabled future. Tim O'Reilly's talk identifies trends in mobile and location-based applications, while drawing parallels with other software markets. [ | more ]

David Bornstein is a leading expert in the global rise of "social entrepreneurism." In this program, host Tim Zak asks how we would even know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we even care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?
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In a new collaborative business climate, there need to be connections between technologies and between people. IBM is creating "autonomic computing systems" and IBM Vice President Alan Ganek discusses how to develop an ecosystem of technologies and relationships to support collaboration between applications and corporations. In this talk from Supernova 2005, learn about how to ensure that your company and its applications are ready to be part of something bigger. [ | more ]