10 questions: ‘Existence’ author David Brin on science fiction, science and geeks

David Brin

One could successfully argue that modern geek culture wouldn’t exist in its current form without 20th century science fiction and its fan culture, the true Ancient Geeks. Tech’s unconferences have their roots in PowerPoint-free, volunteer-organized, fan-driven science-fiction conventions run by organizations such as the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS), which go back nearly eight… Read More…

The Geek’s Guide to Air Travel

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You say you know what it’s like to live like a geek. But do you know how to fly like one? I do. And not like the annoyingly self-important “look at these cool-expensive-huge headphones that I just bought with the red light that make me look like a Star Wars Cloud City administrative aide“ road warriors…. Read More…

Two GeekWire weeks, three entrepreneurial lessons

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Twice in the span of one month I did something I hadn’t done for a decade — worked in a newsroom. Those two partial weeks that I spent enfolded, tauntaun like, in the guts of GeekWire taught me more about the current state of journalism and entrepreneurship than a year of reading armchair opinions ever… Read More…

Magic: The Gathering creator to crowd-fund mobile game

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The designer of the iconic collectible physical card game Magic: The Gathering has a new venture in the virtual mobile game world — and has launched a crowd-funding initiative to make it happen. The game business site Gamasutra writes that Richard Garfield is preparing a new location-based mobile game, Map Monsters. Garfield has teamed with Seattle-based independent… Read More…

Hacking Edu: tech’s role in the future of higher education

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Call it a noble experiment: only a month to re-imagine institutions with centuries of tradition and, some might say, baggage. But that’s exactly what the University of Washington’s Master of Communication in Digital Media program pursued as it re-thought higher education in April. Hacking Edu wrapped up this week, and MCDM Director Hanson Hosein said it… Read More…

The latest influence score to obsess over: Klouchebag

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If you say nothing else about social media, you can at least say it’s developing a sense of humor. Mean? Maybe. Self-deprecating? Definitely. But it’s a sense of humor. The latest evidence is Klouchebag, a parody of Klout’s influence score that launched earlier today. And if the name of the site isn’t enough to clue… Read More…

Ben Huh news startup Circa raises $750K seed funding

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Cheezburger Network founder Ben Huh has been uncharacteristically quiet about Circa, his online journalism startup. Now word is out that Circa has raised $750,000 in seed funding. TechCrunch reports that the seed money comes from eonCapital, Quotidian Ventures, TechStars’ David Cohen and David Tisch, Tumblr’s David Karp, Eric Norlin’s SK Ventures, Manesh Arora, Pedro Torres-Picon,… Read More…

Expedia sees room nights rocket 24% year-over-year

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That hotel room you booked in Cabo may have just helped pay for office space in Bellevue. Expedia has released its financial results for the first quarter of 2012. And perhaps in an indication of how the broader travel industry is recovering from the depths of the recession, the Bellevue-based company highlighted that room nights booked… Read More…

Clearwire announces LTE rollout cities, including Seattle

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Clearwire says it will launch its new LTE 4G network in 31 cities in the first half of next year, including Seattle, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. The Bellevue-based wireless broadband provider says the network, which it calls TDD-LTE, will serve high-demand 4G “hot zones” in its markets. Initial launches are set… Read More…

Free Klout trips a success, says Seattle tourism bureau

twodaysinseattle

What’s the price of influence? It may just be a free trip to Seattle. While the digerati, including Wired in its May issue, debate the true influence of high-scorers on the social media ranking site Klout, the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau declares its Klout-centric experiment a rousing success. Early this year, the SCVB invited 30 individuals… Read More…