veterans. The lab is devoted to one of the hottest topics in computing right now, social networking, a field led by companies like Facebook and Twitter. Microsoft dares not miss out on the intersection of computer science and social science, which underlies so much of what we do in the networked world, and is staffing the lab with an eclectic group of computer scientists, physicists, psychologists and sociologists.
A pure research lab, NERD scientists are encouraged to pursue their academic careers without regard to Microsoft’s bottom line or product plans. It’s a plum job that attracts academic superstars like Danah Boyd, a social scientist best known for her sharp analyses of online social behavior. Boyd couldn’t resist joining Microsoft, despite publicly criticizing the company in her blog: “Even though they’re really no worse than any other large corporation/country, you can’t help but distrust them permanently because, well, you always have.”
Nonetheless, Boyd was attracted by the prospect of continuing her research without toeing any company line. Boyd, a self-described “Mac fiend,” is allowed to keep her Mac. “Surprisingly,” she wrote, “Microsoft respects this and is willing to let me continue to work on a Mac.”
She also doesn’t have to relocate to Microsoft’s HQ in Redmond, Wash. And that’s a key point. Microsoft has long known that it needed a presence on the East Coast. That’s why it founded the lab in Cambridge, to tap the expertise of New England’s world-class universities and research labs.
Social media is not just a hot topic in Boston. It’s also buzzing in New York’s Silicon Alley, which is back in action after being decimated in the dotcom crash of 2001.
Boston is a center of academia, but New York is where the media and advertising industries live. In the late ’90s, New York’s media industry got the technology bug and Silicon Alley was born—a hotbed of overfunded startups like StockObjects.com and Razorfish, a Web design company.
Silicon Alley was a pure bubble phenomenon. Flush with cash, it became notorious for easy money, bacchanalian parties, and the oversized egos of its dotcom millionaires. But when the dotcom bubble burst, the Alley’s lavish boom times were over. By 2002, working in technology was embarrassingly passé.
But Silicon Alley has come roaring back. Manhattan is now home to some of the hottest companies in social networking. From Tumblr, a fast-growing blog tool founded by 21-year-old David Karp, to Silicon Alley Insider, a popular business blog run by disgraced Wall Streeter Henry Blodget, New York is home to myriad hot Web 2.0 companies.
Banking on the Stim
President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan is packed with tax breaks and spending packages for hundreds of projects, from modernizing bridges to child-care subsidies for low-income families. But incentives for the clean energy industry emerged as one of the biggest wins.
Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $61.3 billion for renewable energy programs— the biggest surge in green-energy capital in U.S. history. The focus on clean tech was evident from the start. Obama signed the massive stimulus after touring the solar-panel-covered roof of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The bill “will double the amount of renewable energy produced over the next three years,” the president said, and “transform the way we use energy.”
Here’s a summary of the major clean-energy and other technology spending provisions in the stimulus package:
$11 billion for “smart
grid” investments
$6.3 billion for state
and local govern-
ments to modern-
ize buildings, with
an emphasis on
improving energy
efficiency
$5 billion for low-
income weatheriza-
tion programs
$3.4 billion for
“clean coal” pilot
programs exploring
carbon capture and
sequestration
$2 billion for next-
generation battery
research for electric
vehicles
$500 million to
help workers train
for “green-collar”
jobs
A three-year exten-
sion of wind-energy
tax breaks
$2 billion to fund a
$7,500 tax credit
for consumers buy-
ing new plug-in
hybrid cars
$400 million to
set up the Ad-
vanced Research
Projects Agency—
Energy, supporting
research and devel-
opment projects on
energy.
References:
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