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Comment Re:Down with video (Score 0) 25

Sigh. We supply text transcripts with almost all videos. Look for the link -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... tells you how to use a hyperlink (or 'link' for short).

To see that link, click on the video's title or on the "read more" link below the video where it appears on the main page.

Have a nice day, and may everyone you meet be as courteous to you as you are to Slashdot staff!

Thanks,

- Robin

Comment Re:What is this (Score 2) 25

Unless a story or video is marked SPONSORED CONTENT or ADVERTISEMENT it is not a paid ad on Slashdot. Sometimes a Slashdot editor -- Tim in this case -- gets interested enough in a person, group, service or product to do a video interview with the person/people behind it. The theory behind the Dan Shapiro interviews (and we have two more to run after a while) is that they're a great primer on how to use crowdfunding to kickstart your company. His Glowforge product is obviously not unique, and we have said so and linked to several competitors, which should be a clue that it's not an ad.

We looked at what Shapiro had to say as good info for entrepreneurial Slashdot users who may want to start their own businesses one day. You may not be one of them. Please understand that many thousands of people hit Slashdot every day, and stories that interest you may not interest each and every one of them. And stories that interest some of them may not be your cup of milk.

A funny datum for you: We ran an excerpt from an interview at http://passionatevoices.org/ - whose owner Erik first contacted me about our videos; he wondered if they were paid ads. Obviously they're not, because when Erik submitted his first video on passionate voices, this is what happened: http://news.slashdot.org/story...

We are happy to accept and run reader-submitted videos and we love suggestions for people we should interview. You can use the submission form or email me, robin at roblimo dotcom.

Got any good ideas? :)

- Robin
Hardware Hacking

Video More About Dan Shapiro and the Glowforge CNC Laser Cutter (Video #2) 25

Posted by Roblimo from the tom-swift-and-his-cnc-laser-cutter-would-make-a-great-book-title dept.
Yesterday Glowforge Co-Founder and CEO Dan Shapiro told us that the Glowforge machine is a CNC laser cutter and engraver, not a 3-D Printer -- even though the first words on Glowforge's main page are, "The First 3D Laser Printer," a description Dan says is there for people not familiar with things like laser cutters and 3-D printers, who want to call the Glowforge a 3-D printer even though people who know about this stuff know what it is at first glance. He also talks about his previous startup, Robot Turtles; what it is, how it came to be, and why kids like it so much. This interview is worth watching (or reading) for the Robot Turtles section alone, especially if you have children or are thinking about designing board games for kids.
Hardware Hacking

Video Glowforge is a CNC Laser Cutter, not a 3D Printer (Video) 45

Posted by Roblimo from the some-machines-add-material-while-others-cut-it dept.
Co-Founder and CEO Dan Shapiro says, right at the beginning of the interview, that the Glowforge machine is a CNC laser cutter and engraver, not a 3-D Printer. He says they've "simplified the heck" out of the hardware and software, and are making an easy-to-use, non-costly ($2500 has been bandied about as the unit's likely price) device that can fit on a kitchen table -- or, more likely, a workbench at a maker facility. Although Dan did very well on Kickstarter (and afterwards) with his previous venture, Robot Turtles, this time he seems to have raised his first $9 million in the venture capital market, with participation from several MakerBot executives.

Glowforge is not the only CNC laser cutter/etcher device out there (or about to be). In Australia, Darkly Labs appears to have raised $569,397 (AUD) on Kickstarter to bring their LazerBlade to life, and already makes a small laser device called the Emblaser. There are others, too, including Boxzy, which did the Kickstarter thing and will now sell you a device that "rapidly transforms into 3 kinds of machines: CNC Mill, 3D Printer & Laser Engraver while enhancing precision & power with ballscrews." All this, and their top-of-the-line "does everything" machine sells for a mere $3500. Obviously, devices to give makers and prototypers the ability to make ever more complex and accurate shapes are coming to market like crazy. We'll continue to keep an eye on all this activity, including a second video interview with Glowforge's Dan Shapiro tomorrow.
Open Source

Video Building Hospitable Open Source Communities (Video) 117

Posted by Roblimo from the the-tirades-will-continue-until-morale-improves dept.
This is an 11 minute excerpt from an hour-long video, contributed by long-time Slashdot user Erik Möller. This video is the moving picture equivalent of the typical Slashdot summary of a text article, complete with a link to the main article, which in this case is a video (over an hour long) at PassionateVoices.org. Erik's interviewee, Sumana Harihareswara, is also a long-time Slashdot reader who claims (admits?) that she met her husband through a Slashdot link, albeit indirectly. She's spent most of the past decade working with open source, much of it as a community leader. If you are in a leadership role in an open source community or plan to lead one someday, you may want to listen to the complete interview. Sumana has many useful things to say about how open source communities should -- and shouldn't -- be run.
Cloud

Video A Conversation with Druva Co-Founder Jaspreet Singh (Video) 39

Posted by Roblimo from the doo-wop-is-now-de-dupe dept.
This was originally going to be an interview about the state of enterprise-level backup software in an increasingly edge computing-focused world, but we rapidly drifted into talking about how Druva started in Pune (near Bangalore) and ended up moving to Silicon Valley. We hear plenty about American software companies moving to India, but not a lot about Indian software companies moving here. Druva had good reasons for the move, the chief one being a financing deal with Sequoia Capital. Aside from that, though, Jaspreet says the talent pool -- not just developers but software marketing people and other important staffers -- is more concentrated in Silicon Valley than almost anywhere else in the world. 'It's like Hollywood for geeks,' Jaspreet says. This doesn't mean business is necessarily easy in the USA: Jaspreet ended up laying off his entire staff. Twice. And he made other mistakes as a young, new CEO bringing a company to life in a crowded field.

Those mistakes, which Jaspreet shares freely with us, are like a business school 'Start-Up Pitfalls' class. You may never want to do your own startup, but if you're a developer or otherwise involved with the software industry, there's a good chance that you'll have a chance to work for one at some point. And if you have that chance, you'll be glad you watched this video (or read the transcript) before you take the startup plunge.
Education

Video Learn About The Technology Education And Literacy in Schools Program (Video #2) 11

Posted by Roblimo from the how-can-you-be-in-four-places-at-once-when-you're-not-anywhere-at-all? dept.
Quoting our intro from yesterday's 'Part One' video: 'The Technology Education And Literacy in Schools program (TEALS to its friends), started with one volunteer, a Berkeley CS grad named Kevin Wang who taught high school for a while, then went to Microsoft for a much higher salary than he got from teaching. But before long, he was getting up early and teaching a first period computer science class at a Seattle-area high school that was (sort of) on his way to work.'

TEALS is now in 130 high schools and has 475 volunteers in multiple states but still has a long way to go (and needs to recruit many more volunteers) because, Kevin says, fewer than 1% of American high school students are exposed to computer science, even though "Computer science is now fundamental in these kids' lives." He doesn't expect everyone who takes a TEALS class to become a computer person any more than chemistry teachers expect all their students to become chemists. You might say that learning a little about how computers and networks work is like knowing how to change a car tire and cook a simple meal: skills that make life easier even for people who don't want to become mechanics or cooks.
Google

Video Inside Google's Loon and Wing

Posted by Slashdot Staff from the IDG dept.
We got up close with Project Loon and Project Wing, delivering Internet and packages from the sky.
Security

Video Symantec Data Protection 1

Posted by Slashdot Staff from the IDG dept.
Symantec makes security, storage, backup and availability software and offers professional services to support its software.
Education

Video Learn About The Technology Education And Literacy in Schools Program (Video) 17

Posted by Roblimo from the computer-science-for-the-high-school-masses dept.
The Technology Education And Literacy in Schools program (TEALS to its friends) started with one volunteer, a Berkeley CS grad named Kevin Wang who taught high school for a while, then went to Microsoft for a much higher salary than he got from teaching. But before long, he was getting up early and teaching a first period computer science class at a Seattle-area high school that was (sort of) on his way to work. Then some other local high schools came to him and wanted similar programs. Kevin's a smart guy, but not smart enough to be in four places at once, so he recruited coworkers to join him as volunteer computer science educators. Today (as this is being written) TEALS is in 130 high schools and has 475 volunteers in multiple states. Kevin works full time on the program, sponsored by Microsoft, but 78% of the volunteers now come from other companies.

TEALS has stuck with Kevin's original 1st period (usually somewhere between 7:30 and 9:30) schedule not just because it's convenient for many of the volunteers, but because (contrary to teen-nerd stereotypes) 60% of their students are in after-school sports and 20% are in band. The program is growing steadily and they're looking for more volunteers. We'll have another video with Kevin tomorrow, and that's when the transcript of both videos will appear. Meanwhile, you can read the TEALS FAQ and see how you might fit in with this group or one of many other similar ones either as a volunteer, as a student or as a teacher or school administrator interested in giving your students at least a basic grounding in Computer Science. (Coincidentally, today's 'Ask Slashdot' is about tech skills for HS students -- an unintentional but excellent tie-in.)

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