Technology Futures

Jimmy Wales, the guy behind Wikipedia, is developing an open source search engine that will be ready for testing later this year. It would be nice to see some competition to the commercial engines, some of which have a bit too much advertising. An open source search engine might still need ads to survive, as the cost of indexing a portion of the Web and then dishing out results without bogging down requires a lot of hardware and even more electricity, to say nothing of a massive connection to the Internet.

The key difference between an open source search engine and a privately owned one would not be advertising, but in search algorithm transparency. There has been much speculation over the past several years that Google and other engines tinker with results to favor some sites and information. An open source search engine would be driven by search algorithms that could be examined by anyone, and so there would be full transparency of search results.

If the airlines are losing money, they have no one to blame but themselves. The systems they use to process their customers are so arcane and inefficient it is a wonder that they work at all. On Friday, I was in New England, which was having a typical bad weather day. I had a noon flight out of Manchester, New Hampshire, and discovered via email at 9 AM that Delta had rebooked me on a flight out of Boston instead, also leaving at noon.

There were so many problems that it is hard to list them all. The email looked suspiciously like a phishing email gimmick--please logon to the Delta site to check your flight status. I tried to call Delta but after a half hour on hold, gave up. I logged into Delta (I am a Delta frequent flier), but could not print a boarding pass--no explanation. At nine-thirty, I decided that I better head to Boston, even though I had not been able to verify the change.

When I got to Boston, I could not print out a boarding pass from the Delta kiosks, because the system "could not find my ticket." Oh joy. I had to get at the back of a very long line to go wait for a ticket agent, and realized I would miss my flight--it was going to take an hour or more to go through the line. I was finally able to flag down a passing Delta agent who let me jump the line and get help. After the agent "found" my ticket, she spent a full minute punching away at her terminal just to print a boarding pass. Huh?

Repeat the problems I had by thousands or tens of thousands of passengers every single day, adding in all the extra Delta staff time needed to work around bad systems, and you have passengers fleeing to other airlines and greatly increased staff costs. My ticket was obviously in the system, since it was able to send me an email, but how can one terminal or access point not be able to "find" it? This is a catastrophic failure by the Delta IT department, and the whole group should be sacked for nearly bankrupting the company with garbage software.

Too many IT departments love expensive, hard to use and hard to maintain systems because it justifies their existence, justifies larger staffs, and justifies bigger budgets. Don't let IT staff hijack your school system, business, or organization. Demand excellence, simple systems, and low costs.

Last night, I got to see what I think may be one of the best high school technology programs in the country. Mike Kaylor, a teacher at Blacksburg High School, convinced the school to convert the old high school woodworking shop into a multimedia design space, set up for professional digital photography, digital movie making, 3D modeling, online game design, and movie special effects. Kaylor's classes are mobbed--student demand is three times higher than the capacity of his classes. His students are already working in high paying jobs in the movie and entertainment industry. And hundreds more are leaving his courses with a solid understanding of digital technology that will help them be successful no matter what career path they choose--business, government, or the nonprofit sector.

The sad truth is that most of our kids have a grasp of technology that is about as deep as a layer of tissue paper. Being able to text message and find a song quickly on an iPod does not prepare our youth for the work world, and too many adults, who tend to feel a bit inadequate, assume incorrectly that facility with email, the Web, and iPods somehow is enough.

Every high school in America ought to have a program like Kaylor's, and it should have the same vision as Kaylor's. When Kaylor wanted movie special effects software, he did not settle for low budget programs. Instead, he insisted on getting the same software that is used in the major studios to produce the special effects in movies like The Lord of the Rings. So Blacksburg kids in Kaylor's class are leaving with a solid foundation in digital media and the skills and training in demand by potential employers.

Not all of these kids will end up working in Hollywood. Some of them will settle down right here in the New River Valley, and the businesses in the area will benefit from having an ever expanding pool of job candidates with the right stuff.

Economic developers: How about your community? Worried about having a pool of workers ready for Knowledge Economy jobs? How about skipping the next shell building project and starting the kind of multimedia program that Mike Kaylor has at Blacksburg High School? From an economic development perspective, there are few other things that would be more interesting to a high tech business looking at your area for relocation.

The rising cost of energy is going to have strange side effects, like a black market in light bulbs. Australia has just announced that the country will force light bulb users to switch to fluorescent bulbs in a gradual switch over three years. Just as the U.S. requirement to use more efficient toilets led to bootlegging "old" toilets from Canada, Australians may end up resorting to smuggling light bulbs into the country--conjuring up images of rubber rafts coming ashore in the dead of night piled high with no-name three-ways and the always popular GE 'Reveal' 100 watt incandescent.

The problem is that the replacement fluorescents are still mediocre at best, and at worst provide light that makes everyone in the room look like an extra from Night of the Living Dead. And the still too-expensive LED lights, which are really low power, are not much better, with a stark white light that is okay for desk work but also casts a kind of hospital operating room pall in larger spaces.

The savings are enormous; incandescent bulbs waste more than 90% of the energy used as heat, not light, making them spectacularly inefficient. But the Australian experiment raises the stakes for light bulb manufacturers, who now have more incentive to develop a low power bulb with the nice yellow light that we all prefer. The first one that does is going to make a lot of money.

For economic developers: Have you inventoried your local and regional businesses lately? Companies that design and manufacture energy efficient devices have huge market potential, and if you have firms working in that area, you may want to make sure they have all the resources they need to leverage their core capabilities.