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April 22nd, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Events, Technology

Hawaii Geek Meet

Every year I look forward to organizing the Hawaii Geek Meet. And every year I get so wrapped up in it that I only get around to blogging about it after it’s over.

This year was the sixth year, and I think the most diverse yet. A lot of the perennial favorite groups were there (from professional and amateur astronomers to ham radio operators to sci-fi costumers), but there were some new faces as well, from solar power firm Greenpath Technologies to medieval fighting troupe Schola St. George Honolulu to local players of the alternative reality geolocation game Ingress (which I’ve recently become obsessed with).

Here are my photos from this year’s Geek Meet:

You can also check out photos by Kyle Nishioka (@madmarv), Russ Sumida (@parkrat), and Burt Lum (@bytemarks).

The Hawaii Geek Meet was also featured on Hawaii News Now, KITV, and Hawaii Public Radio!

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March 15th, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Business, Technology

2013-02-18 12.48.57

Earlier this year, retail job postings on the Microsoft web site revealed the company’s plans to set up its first Microsoft Store in Honolulu. Sure enough, shoppers at Ala Moana Center soon spotted the future location of Microsoft’s island invasion, positioned almost directly across from the state’s first and largest Apple Store.

It’s one of six Microsoft Stores opening this year, and only the second outside the contiguous 48 states (along with Puerto Rico), bringing the total number of locations to 50. Of course, that’s compared to Apple’s nearly 400 stores around the world.

Indeed, it also looks like Honolulu’s three Apple stores (Ala Moana, Kahala, and Waikiki) are about to get some reinforcements from Cupertino.

Thanks to retail job posting’s on Apple’s website (spotted by a job-hunting friend), we can surmise that there may soon be an Apple store in Aiea and — at long last — on Maui. (There’s been talk of a Maui location for nearly as long as Hawaii’s had any Apple stores.) The Aiea location could be at Pearlridge Center, which could be a nice leeward counterpart to the Kahala location. And the Maui location appears to be in Upcountry Maui at Makawao… perhaps at Pukalani Terrace Center?

Apple Store Aiea

Apple Store Maui

Job postings don’t necessarily mean a store is in the works, but it’s been a pretty good indicator in the past. I think Maui is long overdue for an Apple Store, given the demographics and typical traveler profile. And I certainly wouldn’t mind having five locations on O’ahu to choose from (though I suspect windward residents will start to feel a bit left out).

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March 8th, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Technology, The Web

Lasso App

The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival is now underway in Austin, Texas, starting with SXSW Interactive, which draws thousands of startups and entrepreneurs hoping to make connections or launch the next big thing. And as usual, there are creative and talented people from Hawaii in the mix.

This year, Chad Podoski and Jason Skicewicz are at SXSW to officially launch their new company, and their new app, Lasso. It’s a photo sharing app with an interest twist: rather than serving as yet another tool to push pictures out to friends on other networks, Lasso is designed to help you request, or pull, photos from your friends.

For example, if a bunch of friends had a party on Saturday, and were connected on Lasso, they could “lasso” each other to get photos taken that day. After getting sets of photos from friends, you can easily browse them in the app, “like” them, add or request more photos, or save them to your own collection.

Podoski and Skiecewitz have collaborated before as Shacked Software, and I’ve enjoyed trying earlier apps like FlickPad, Gube, and TeleTweet. But Lasso is definitely their most complex, and most elegantly designed, app yet.

“We co-founded Lasso with the former founder and CEO of Photobucket, Alex Welch, who happens to be a part time resident of Hawaii Kai,” Podoski tells Hawaii Blog.

You need to make a little mental shift to think in terms of “lassoing” (requesting or pulling) photos from people rather than pushing it to them. And it’s a little odd to start with a largely empty app (as you wait to connect with friends and request photos from them). Finally, I’d actually like to see more “push,” like sharing sets to Facebook or Flickr or simple web galleries of lassoed photos… but that would probably dilute the secret sauce.

Ultimately, Lasso is a promising new way to tackle the “how to compile other photos from an event” problem… a problem that even well-funded startups like the ill-fated Color couldn’t solve.

Even better, Lasso is already available for both iOS and Android, and a Mac desktop client is in the works.

lasso-1 lasso-2 

Lasso isn’t the only startup with local ties in Austin. On Wednesday, Burt Lum and I featured Austen Ito and Ryan Kanno on Bytemarks Cafe. The founding members of HI Capacity, now living in D.C. and NYC respectively, were on two separate teams participating in the Startup Bus program. The challenge? Building new startups while taking a three-day bus trip from New York to Texas. Ito pitched Jobber.io, and Kanno worked on Readin.gs.

While their pitches didn’t earn them passage into the final round, the trip did deliver them to SXSW, where they’re no doubt reveling in the annual maelstrom of tech.

I really enjoyed SXSW Interactive the couple of times I was able to attend as part of the Wondermill team. The energy was so infectious, I rushed to get my own web app built, just to have something to talk about with the interesting people I met. And Austin was a great city to visit. I hope to return someday!

 

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March 3rd, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Events

The sixth annual Unconferenz, a grassroots, peer-driven technology gathering (where the agenda is set by attendees the morning of the event), was held on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Sessions covered topics like planning a Hawaii Maker Faire, the digital media arts industry, open data, and journalism. The grand finale was another set of Ignite! presentation focused on STEM.

In addition to my photos above, you can check out a gallery of Unconferenz images by lead organizer Burt Lum.

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February 27th, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Government, Media, Video

UH journalism professor Gerald Kato recently dug up this old video that SHOPO, the Honolulu police officers’ union, made in 1995 during the fight over the Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA), or HRS 92F, which defined public records and codified the public’s right to access them in Hawaii. They argued that releasing police misconduct records would mean “the community as a whole would suffer.”

It’s quite a piece of work on many levels: as a Hawaii time capsule (the fashion!), as a quaint example of propoganda (the fake TV newscast!), and as a reminder of the mindset that law enforcement officers are a special class of government worker. A mindset that really hasn’t changed. While most laws presume that the police should be held to a higher standard, SHOPO lobbied that they deserved more protection. Recall that their salaries were excluded from the list of city employee salaries released in 2010.

The video emerged as part of a multi-part special report by Civil Beat, “In the Name of the Law,” focusing on police misconduct in Hawaii. Definitely worth a read.

But it had additional resonance for me, as this battle over 92F was going on when I was getting sucked back into journalism in college. After trying to flee newsroom burnout at UH Hilo, I ended up running the student newspaper there, then coming back to run the then-daily, then-independent student newspaper on the UH Manoa campus. There, our motley crew of troublemakers got into information access battles of our own (including with the campus security office, which fortunately worked with us most of the time).

Even after all that practical experience, it would take me four more years to get my journalism degree. I’m proud of that degree, and those crazy college newspaper days, even though I never had what it took be a journalist for a living. And I still enjoy putting on my muckraker hat from time to time, and still support sunshine laws and other transparency initiatives.

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February 10th, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Links

When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on February 5th:

Check out all my bookmarks on Delicious.

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January 25th, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Hawaii, Pop Culture, Television

scott-chelsea

Scott Caan, star of the CBS crime drama reboot “Hawaii Five-0,” appeared last night on Chelsea Handler’s late-night talk show “Chelsea Lately.” And not surprisingly, they talked about what it’s like living in Hawaii. Caan says that he can take Hawaii about six days at a time, but that otherwise, “I like to hustle and there’s no hustle there.”

Chelsea: She gets to live in Hawaii now, you like that right?

Scott: No I don’t. She doesn’t either. That’s why she should get the purple heart. She’s just sticking it out…

Chelsea: What’s wrong with Hawaii? There are no snakes in Hawaii?

Scott: Everything’s very slow motion. I pick up the cup, and they slowly pick up the cup, you know what I mean. Everything’s too relaxed for me. I like to hustle and there’s no hustle there.

Chelsea: There is no hustle there, that’s for sure. And there’s a lot of crystal meth there.

Scott: A lot of crystal meth. Which, you know, is not my thing.

Chelsea: I once went there. It’s not my thing, either. I went there. And the driver offered us, ’cause usually the driver, the guy at the hotel, will offer you weed or something, but the guy offered me crystal meth. And I was like, What? First of all, Now that I know you’re on crystal meth, I don’t want you driving us, A. And B, what does my face say to you that I like crystal meth? What kind of impression am I giving you? I had to really look at myself that weekend.

Scott: I don’t think it’s personal. I think that’s the routine.

Chelsea: Did you at least learn how to surf while you were out there?

Scott: I’ve been surfing my whole life.

Chelsea: I can tell by your hairdo that you’re a surfer.

Scott: Thank you. This is what I try to do, I try to paddle out and not get it wet.

Chelsea: How does that work out for you?

Scott: It never works. But surfing in Hawaii is different. It’s more like survival. It’s different. Here surfing is surfing, there it’s…

Chelsea: You grew up in Malibu surfing, right?

Scott: A little bit, yeah.

Chelsea: Well, there’s no other beach to surf at, so I don’t know …

Scott: On the planet, I think it’s the greatest place in the world. But literally…

Chelsea: Well, yeah. Surfing in Hawaii is like serious stuff.

Scott: Yeah, they ask you how was your surfing, and you say, “I made it, I’m here. So that was a good one.”

Chelsea: I mean swimming in Hawaii can be difficult, so surfing is very difficult.

Scott: I like that aspect of it. And I like Hawaii as a place, but for about six days at a time.

Chelsea: Yeah, I know, I know, it’s very slow. And the food isn’t great.

Scott: It sucks, yeah.

Video:


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January 5th, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Food, Video

One of my favorite New Year’s traditions is mochitsuki, or mochi making, which is a Japanese tradition that’s common in Hawaii. Last Saturday, the Jodo Mission of Hawaii in Makiki (where I serve on the Board of Directors) held its annual mochitsuki, or mochi making event, which puts out hundreds of pounds of mochi that’s sold to temple members, their families, and the broader community.

For a brief few minutes, they pull out the traditional stone mortar (usu) and long wooden mallets (kine) and let people pound mochi the old fashioned way. But as you see above, most of the conversion from rice to mochi is handled by the temple’s 50-year-old machine. It’s an electric, belt-driven grinder, and suffice it to say, they don’t make those anymore.

Still, the operation requires dozens of volunteers spread across several steps to make the mochi, and I confess, people almost twice my age were able to hustle much longer and harder than I could. Even our youngest son, Alex, gave it his all, trying his hand at every job.

You can also view this video on Vimeo or Blip.TV. Music is “Chillin’ with Jeris” by Copperhead. Also, here are some photos from the mochitsuki event:

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January 2nd, 2013 by Ryan Ozawa · Links

When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on January 2nd:

  • 2013 set to be an exciting year for astronomy: The comet Pan-STARRS will be visible in March – an unexpected visitor from the depths of the solar system. The automatic Pan-STARRS telescope system in Hawaii spotted this chunk of ice in March 2011.
  • Sempra and BP Complete Hawaii Wind Farm: Sempra U.S. Gas & Power and BP Wind Energy today announced the full commercial operation of the 21 megawatt (MW) Auwahi Wind facility. The power project includes eight new wind turbines on the southeast ridge of Maui's Haleakala volcano.
  • $9.2 Million Gift Commitment to Transform our Community: An inspired donor has made one of the largest gift commitments to the University of Hawaii by a private individual to benefit UH students and research. Through endowed and expendable accounts, this donor's impact will be immeasurable for many years to come.
  • Huge Asteroid Will Miss Earth in 2040: Astronomers solidified the asteroid's harmless status during an observation campaign in October using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, bolstering a NASA study that came to a similar conclusion in June.
  • Potentially Habitable Planet Detected Around Nearby Star: A sun-like star in our solar system's backyard may host five planets, including one perhaps capable of supporting life as we know it. Astronomers have detected five possible alien planets circling the star Tau Ceti, which is less than 12 light-years from Earth.
  • Hawaiian Islands are dissolving from within, study says: Someday, Oahu's Koolau and Waianae mountains will be reduced to nothing more than a flat, low-lying island like Midway. But erosion isn't the biggest culprit. Instead, scientists say, the mountains of Oahu are actually dissolving from within.
  • UH biosafety lab on Kalaeloa site gets federal OK: The National Institutes of Health has given its approval to a biosafety lab planned for Kalaeloa. The NIH accepted an environmental assessment last week for the University of Hawaii's proposed $47.5 million Pacific Health Research Laboratory.
  • National project examines online learning patterns: The University of Hawaii System is participating in a national project to bring the power of big data to online learning. UH and 15 other higher education institutions will share information to look for patterns that predict success in online learning.

Check out all my bookmarks on Delicious.

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December 14th, 2012 by Ryan Ozawa · Technology

StoryTree, the app startup co-founded by Hawaii-born Matt Sullivan (@MattHawaii), has recently released two new complementary apps. The first, SimplePrints [iTunes]  helps you easily turn your photos into printed books. The second, SleepyTime Photos [iTunes], is “a playful way to have a little fun with your child while they are asleep.”

Sullivan grew up surfing and skateboarding in Kailua, then struggled to stay in touch and share news with his family while attending college on the East Coast. He pondered the challenge of staying connected to people who may not be as connected as a web- and app-savvy student, and the idea of StoryTree was born as part of his masters design project at Stanford. That’s also where he met co-founder  Zach Weiner (@zweinz), who had worked with leading design firm IDEO.

IDEO senior designer Purin Phanichphant (@purincess), who also worked on the popular news app Pulse, is also part of the StoryTree team.

“Storytree is about the people you love, and we realize that stories make families and loved ones what they are: unique, inseparable groups,” Sullivan wrote last October in a job posting on TechHui. “Storytree allows loved ones young and old to capture and share the stories that matter.”

While still in Silicon Valley, Sullivan has said he hopes to make StoryTree a Hawaii company.

“Too many companies take the most talented people in Hawaii and move them to California,” he wrote. “Why not take the best companies in California and move them to Hawaii?”

StoryTree got its seed funding from 500 Startups, after participating in its second round of pitches in August 2011. Earlier this year, the company found additional funding via AngelList. The team’s SimplePrints launch got coverage in TechCrunch yesterday. [Hat tip: @ikitajima]

  

iTunes App Store Links:

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