TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

A trend dubbed Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has popped up in the workplace. BYOD policies, which allow employees to use personal devices such as cell phones, tablets and laptops in the workplace, can be a low-cost way for companies to incorporate new technologies into the workplace and minimize the number of devices employees must carry. However, the fact that employees are now mixing business with pleasure on their mobile devices has raised a slew of security concerns for businesses.

A recent study by the ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) found that more than half of the IT leaders in the U.S. believe that employee-owned mobile devices pose a greater risk than mobile devices supplied by the company.

"One of the risks of being portable is that I’m going to be communicating over wireless networks and many times those wireless networks aren't secure," said Ken Vander Wal, the international vice president of ISACA. "Or, I might lose (the device) and there's a potential of storing data on those devices in an unencrypted format. So if I do lose that device any corporate data that is on the device is exposed as well."

No surprise here: Sprint has filed a petition with the FCC to bock rival AT&T’s bid to acquire Bellevue-based wireless provider T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion.

In its formal complaint, Sprint says the FCC should not allow the sale to close because it’s the agency’s “responsibility to protect consumers and the industry against precisely the kind of anti-competitive market control that will result from this transaction.”

Sprint says if the FCC approves the takeover it would “let the wireless industry regress inexorably toward a 1980s-style duopoly.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner

Continuing the weekend's hacking theme: Gennette Cordova, a 21-year-old college student in Bellingham, has been propelled into the media spotlight, after Rep. Anothony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, fell victim to what he says was a Twitter hack.

Last week, the congressman's Twitter account was reportedly hacked and Cordova received a graphic picture of a man's crotch, followed by a message that said the account had been compromised.

Cordova, who has since issued a statement through the New York Daily News, has been rumored to be Weiner's mistress and responsible for the hack over the course of the last week. In her statement, Cordova said she's never met the congressman, but she does follow him on Twitter (and he follows her).

The most interesting thing about Amazon.com’s recent list of most “well-read” cities across the U.S. was how many of the top spots were college towns. From Cambridge, Mass., (No.1); to Gainesville, Fla., (Go Gators!); to Berkeley, Calif., (home, of course, of UC Berkeley); students are flocking to the ecommerce giant to buy online books and ebooks for Kindle.

So, this makes Amazon.com’s legal tactic against its major competitors for student consumers all the more interesting.

Amazon.com recently sued the National Association of College Stores in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. In the suit Amazon blamed the 3,100-member association for supporting a monopoly and reaping profits off of students and their families.

Paul Allen

What does Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen have in common with the popular book on the financial crisis: "The Big Short"? The answer is multi-billion dollar hedge fund FrontPoint Partners, a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley.

FrontPoint founding partner Paul Ghaffari works as chief investment officer at Vulcan Capital, the Seattle investment firm charged with managing Allen's billions. Ghaffari has previously worked as a portfolio manager for Soros Fund Management, an investment firm chaired by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros.

Ghaffari took over Vulcan's asset allocation strategy completely earlier this year when former managing director, Daniel Kingston, left the firm. Though Ghaffari was actually hired in November as CIO.

Many of you who have read Michael Lewis' 2010 book, "The Big Short," would more than likely associate FrontPoint Partners with its outspoken manager Steve Eisman. Eisman, along with a handful of other investors, said pre-recession the subprime market would cause a meltdown at the Wall Street firms who sold billions of now-worthless bonds backed by poorly underwritten home loans.

Semiconductor company Micron is the latest in a series of high-profile companies to enter a licensing agreement with Nathan Myrhvold's Intellectual Ventures. Under the agreement, Idaho-based Micron, which makes memory chips and devices, will gain access to over 30,000 patents to help defend its intellectual property and develop new products. Companies, including Research in Motion, HTC and Samsung have turned to IV's patent portfolio in recent years for similar reasons. The firm has drawn much criticism (as well as heavy funding) for its practice of purchasing patents, which it then licenses.

Students at the University of Washington are already facing 16 percent tuition hike over the next two years. And now here’s another way tight funding is impacting the UW experience: no more student email service.

UW Information Technology is booting students from its UW-hosted email, and asking students to opt for email hosted by UW Windows Live or UW Google Apps.

Apple has officially announced the name of its soon-to-be-launched cloud service: iCloud. The company plans to unveil its competitor to Amazon's Cloud Player and Google's Music Beta at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 6th.

Though Apple has been close-lipped as to iCloud features, it's expected that the service will allow syncing of email, contacts, files, photos and videos across multiple devices, in addition to Apple's cloud music service.

The music service has been the source of much speculation, coming on the heels of similar offerings from Amazon and Google. The feather(s) in the cap for Apple -- despite iCloud's late arrival to market -- are licensing agreements Apple has inked with three of the four top record companies.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop -- a former Microsoft executive -- and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Citing heavy competition from Google’s Android and Apple, Nokia has downgraded its sales forecast for the second quarter.

The announcement -- which caused the company’s stock to tumble -- underlines how much is at stake as Nokia readies to release its smartphone on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform.

Nokia issued a statement Tuesday morning saying multiple factors are negatively affecting its sales, including competition, especially in China and Europe. Nokia also said it was feeling the pinch from lower prices for devices and lower sales volumes.

Nokia said it expects its second-quarter net sales of devices and services to be “substantially below” its previously projected range of $8.8 billion to $9.5 billion.

While some people spent the long weekend barbecuing and enjoying the sun, a group of hackers known as LulzSec was busy hacking PBS servers and posting fake stories, including one that said Tupac is alive and living in New Zealand.

Screenshot of PBS hack (Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

The group, also known as the Lulz Boat, took responsibility for the act, claiming it was in response to an episode of PBS Frontline, called "WikiSecrets," that cast a critical eye on WikiLeaks.

Apptio CEO Sunny Gupta

Apptio CEO Sunny Gupta is looking to transform the way chief information officers (CIOs) of Global 2000 companies manage the business of IT. The Bellevue startup, which provides business management software that helps CIOs manage and understand the cost of their IT services, has seen exponential growth since its founding in 2007. Apptio currently counts more than 65 large enterprises as clients, including Cisco, Facebook, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Boeing. Gupta's leadership, and Apptio's services, were recently recognized at the Seattle 2.0 Awards, where Gupta took top honors as Startup CEO of the Year.

Why do you think you were named Seattle 2.0's Startup CEO of the year?

"My belief is that a lot of these awards are a reflection of the (team as a whole) -- while I can take the honor to be awarded as a leader and a CEO, this award is as much a recognition of the milestones which Apptio has been able to accomplish. And in order to do that, me being the CEO and the leader, I've played a pretty big role, but a big part of the role has been played by the many employees and management team of Apptio who work tirelessly every day to bring Apptio to the point where it is growing at a very, very fast past."

A baker shapes a pretzel at the Brave Horse Tavern in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood. (Glenn Drosendahl photos)

OK, they aren't exactly starving masses, but there's a population boom under way in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood — fueled largely by incoming Amazon.com workers — and those folks need places to eat. Luckily for them, chef and busy restaurant builder Tom Douglas has produced three good ones in a single structure.

Fitted together nicely in the renovated 1905 brick building on Terry Avenue between Thomas and Harrison are a handsome semi-fancy Italian place, Cuoco; a cozy Tibetan café, Ting Momo; and a sprawling saloon complete with shuffleboard tables, Brave Horse Tavern.

Each features a hand-formed ingredient. At Cuoco, it's pasta. At Ting MoMo, it's dumplings. At Brave Horse, it's pretzels.

Pretzels ready for the oven at the Brave Horse Tavern

Pretzels? When I first heard they were a signature part of the plan, I was curious. Now, after seeing them reverently produced at a prominently placed counter and baked in a special, maybe one-of-a-kind oven, and still coming out pretty much like your average street-vendor pretzel, I'm bemused. What was Douglas thinking?

At a media event in the then-newly opened tavern, he said he wanted all three restaurants to be places where cooks were out in the open, practicing their artistry.

Larry Kirshbaum

In a series of public moves, Amazon.com has signaled its determination to enter the book publishing business, a move with broad implications for the online retailer as well as the traditional publishing industry.

Seattle-based Amazon in recent weeks has rolled out two new book imprints, announced a roster of best-selling authors whose books will be published under those imprints, and hired a prominent publishing executive to set up an office in New York.

The stakes are enormous. Amazon is moving more aggressively into a mature industry that posted $14 billion in sales for the United States alone in 2009, according to Simba Information, a market research firm based in Rockville, Md. The sector has been dominated for years by six publishing houses, mostly based in either New York or London.

Amazon is likely to encounter plenty of resistance, especially from established publishing houses. Many are owned by larger corporations with deep pockets. They have durable business relationships and strong brand identities that will make them difficult to dislodge.

Literary agent Steven Axelrod

Though we've seen only glimpses until now of Amazon.com's interest in the publishing world, the online sales giant is finally demonstrating some of its intent, begging the question, could Seattle be the next publishing city?

Respected literary agent Steven Axelrod, who has been an agent for more than 30 years and represents seven No. 1 New York Times bestselling writers, including Seattle romance author Jayne Ann Krentz, said the Seattle-based online retailer's ability to corner the e-book market could be one of the biggest concerns to other publishers.

“I think Seattle will be extraordinarily vibrant," said Axelrod, of New York. "It’s a great reading town, it’s a great book-selling town, and will be a great publishing town."

The same week that Washington announced the launch of an online university, a for-profit company that runs a virtual high school is struggling.

Insight Schools, an online high school with an office in Bellevue, has notified Washington state that it will be laying off 168 employees as of July 18.

Insight sent the state Employment Security Department the notice, as required 60 days before a mass layoff, defined as 50 or more employees at a single location.