FREE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BLOG FOR PROFESSIONALS

Drones can help apple growers survey their orchards to gauge their health. (Innov8 Ag Photo) In the old days, farmers kept track of their crops’ vital stats in logbooks and on whiteboards — but in the new days, that’s just not going to cut it. “Shun analog,” said Steve Mantle, the founder and CEO of Innov8 Ag Solutions , a farm management venture that’s headquartered in Walla Walla, Wash. “Digital first. If a grower is still putting things in logbooks, they have to shift to it.” Mantle and other experts and entrepreneurs surveyed the state of agricultural tech today during Washington State University’s Digital Agriculture Summit — and it’s clear that the field is in a state of flux. The panelists gave a shout-out to technologies ranging from sensor-equipped drones and 5G connectivity to robotic harvesters and artificial intelligence. But at the same time, some in the virtual audience complained about not being able to get even a 4G signal down on the farm. Much more needs to be...

RealNetworks’ SAFR arms schools with facial recognition technology. (SAFR Photo) The Portland City Council on Wednesday unanimously passed a groundbreaking ban prohibiting use of facial recognition in privately-owned places accessible to the public such as stores, banks and hotels, as well as on use by city bureaus. The legislation saw pushback from a bevy of organizations, including Seattle tech giant Amazon, which spent $24,000 to lobby against the ban . Some expect Portland’s ban to influence other cities to take up similarly tough legislation. The ban is part of Portland city government’s broader efforts to devise policy for emerging technologies and data use that could have adverse impacts on marginalized groups. In a joint letter sent before the vote to SmartCityPDX, the city’s data and tech use advisory group that drafted the legislation, the Portland Business Alliance and Technology Association of Oregon called the ban on private facial recognition use “harmfully too bro...

High-tech exports are a major strength in Washington state. (Source: ITI) A new report from the Information Technology Industry Council paints a detailed picture of the importance of the high-tech industry in the U.S., including Washington state which is home to Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile and thousands of startup companies. “The data make clear that technological innovation is woven through the entire U.S. economy—including every congressional district,” according to the report which measures states and districts on 34 economic indicators. Washington state ranks at the top of the list in several categories, including IT services exports. In fact, a whopping 57% of all services exports are related to technology — nearly twice as much as the second place and third place finishers of Massachusetts and Oregon, which showed a roughly 28% share. Washington state also ranked fifth in terms of technology workers as a share of the overall workforce at 13.2%, behind the District of Colum...

White House chief technology officer Michael Kratsios speaks at the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Tech Prom in 2018. (OSTP Photo / Erik Jacobs) White House chief technology officer Michael Kratsios ⁠— who enlisted Amazon, Microsoft and other key players in artificial intelligence and cloud computing to fight COVID-19 ⁠— has himself been enlisted for another role as the Defense Department’s top official for technology. President Donald Trump is designating Kratsios to serve as the acting under secretary of defense for research and engineering — in effect, the Pentagon’s CTO . Kratsios will also keep his CTO role in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy . The previous under secretary in charge of defense tech, Mike Griffin, stepped down last week to pursue “a private-sector opportunity” along with his deputy. Kratsios will be in the prime position to help the Pentagon pursue opportunities in emerging technologies such as AI, automation, quantum computing,...

Oracle founder CTO Larry Ellison. (Oracle photo) Oracle unveiled a new service that promises to make all of its public cloud services available as a fully managed cloud region in its customers’ data centers, developed by an Oracle team based largely in the company’s Seattle engineering office. Announcing the new “Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer” service in a virtual event on Wednesday afternoon, Oracle executive chairman, CTO and co-founder Larry Ellison called out the  company’s cloud rivals in his trademark competitive style. Oracle is now unique, he said, in offering all of its current-generation cloud services, including its Autonomous Database and Software as a Service apps, in customer data centers. “No one, not Amazon, not Microsoft, not Google, nobody gives you a complete public cloud, behind your firewall, dedicated to you,” Ellison said during the Zoom presentation, highlighting a recent customer win for the venerable database technology company. “This is a ...

Yaminee Patel, a robotics intern at Amazon, in the kitchen that serves as her workspace in Troy, Ohio. (Photo courtesy of Yaminee Patel) After receiving an offer letter in February to work as an intern at Amazon, Yaminee Patel envisioned a summer “running around Seattle.” Having lived in small towns and cities her entire life, Patel said she always felt like a big fish in a small pond and she was interested in discovering what size city she should live in after graduating from college. “I feel like the vibe of Seattle would match me very well,” Patel said. “The pace of the city seems bustling and exciting, which is exactly what I wanted summer 2020 to be.” She spent time looking for housing near her soon-to-be office and got an idea of just how big Amazon’s urban campus is. She was excited to work in the “modern, beautiful buildings.” Instead, because of a massive shift in plans for students and workers everywhere because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Patel is on the other side ...

Avery Wagar of Zipwhip with the Textspresso IV robotic coffee machine that he helped develop for the company’s Seattle office. (Zipwhip photo) Avery Wagar isn’t just some kid around the office who will get you a coffee. He’s the teenage software developer who helped build a text-enabled coffee robot that will get you a coffee. Wagar, a junior at Seattle’s Ballard High School, is the youngest full-time employee ever at Zipwhip , the business texting startup. He just accepted a position as an IT systems programmer, less than a year after joining the company as a robotics intern tasked with building the Textspresso IV. Wagar, our latest Geek of the Week, is a teacher’s assistant for AP Computer Science and CS Projects. He studies digital filmmaking and also runs his school’s virtual reality club, which he founded in 2017. “I take the rest of my classes through the Running Start Program at North Seattle College, which gives me the flexibility to work at Zipwhip,” Wagar said. “Of cour...

City of Seattle’s new map highlight delivery and takeout services. (City of Seattle Image) As residents continue to grapple with the effects of the coronavirus, the City of Seattle is hoping to ease some of that burden by connecting locals with businesses trying to survive in the current climate. Mayor Jenny Durkan on Monday unveiled the new #SupportSeattleSmallBiz map , which helps residents find restaurants, bars and cafés offering delivery or takeout services. In additional to contact details, the map also provides links to third-party delivery services such as Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Caviar. Both the state and King County issued orders earlier in March prohibiting in-person dining. Food establishments can still offer delivery or take-out. Many small businesses and workers are already noticing a dramatic impact, with roughly 40% of all jobs in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties projected to cut wages or have temporary layoffs, according to a study by the Business Health Tru...