The Seattle-Search.com Blog

Can you name seven things the Seattle Central Library has in common with Internet Social Media?

Just ask CollinsWoerman’s sustainable development specialists Steve Moddemeyer, and Lucia Athens who led the city of Seattle’s green building program for 10 years. Your answer is just one of the insights and features you’ll find at the new Northwest hub for sustainable architecture.

At Green Central, you’ll find the future of sustainable architecture is as emerald green as the city of Seattle. Drop by the Green Newsstand for constantly updating headlines from around the world of green architecture and the best of green tweets from the online Twitterverse. Check the latest on the Green Central blog. Bookmark or download one of numerous green guides, features and reports including “Top Ten Trends in Green Building” fresh off the presses from Lucia Athen’s upcoming book.

Explore Seattle’s next green design and construction project at www.collinswoerman.com/green-central.

Are we happy being No. 16?

That was Washington’s ranking among U.S. states (and territories) in a report cited by the Seattle PI based on a study by the Communication Workers of America. The CWA Web site speedmatters.org measures users’ Internet speeds. Washington has the 16th-fastest average Internet speed in the nation.

Would you be surprised to learn that the United States itself is ranked just 28th among all industrialized countries? America’s average download speed was 5.1 megabits per second, according to the report. The world’s leader, South Korea, sends data packets flying a the speed of 20.4 mbps.

The U.S. also ranked 15th in high-speed Internet adoption - countries such as Canada, Britain, Japan, France and Germany have more people with high-speed Internet than the U.S. Washington’s average download speed was 6.2 mbps, according to the report. While our state is ahead of the average U.S. speed, it lags behind leaders Delaware (9.9 mbps), Rhode Island (9.8 mbps), New Jersey (8.9 mbps), Massachusetts (8.6 mbps) and New York (8.4 mbps).

Nearly half of Washingtonians had Internet speeds of 768 kilobits per second (the Federal Communication Commission’s definition of broadband) to 6 mbps, the report states. Fourteen percent had slower Internet (mostly dial-up), 23 percent had screaming-fast (10 to 25 mbps) speeds, and 12 percent had speeds of 6 to 10 mbps. Just 1 percent had Internet faster than 25 mbps.

The full report, including individual state rankings, can be found here. [24x7]

While fireworks were cancelled this year in downtown Seattle for the Fourth of July, the Seattle Space Needle towered above a minor inferno late Thursday night that created major headaches at one of Seattle’s most modern data centers, located directly across the street.

Seattle’s Fisher Plaza, home to KOMO TV, KOMO Radio, the Internap Data Center, and several other area Internet companies including Seattle Web host provider, Adhost, was the scene of an electrical blaze triggered by a blown transformer at around 11pm July 2nd  that shut down internet access in the East Data Center of the Fisher complex and knocked out dozens, if not hundreds, of area Web sites until the afternoon of July 3rd.

Among the largest sites affected, Authorize.net, and Microsoft’s BING Travel, were laid low, the former a critical link in many e-commerce transactions and the latter among the slowest to be restored because of special configuration requirements. A list of other blacked-out sites, including Big Fish Games, AllRecipes.com, the Pacific Science Center, and this site, Seattle24×7.com, among others, were disabled.

Seattle tech reporter Todd Bishop lamented that this is the second time a fire has created an outage at the  world-class Fisher Plaza facility, and the problem underscores the question of uninterrupted Web services, cloud computing, SaaS and e-commerce in an age where power outages can vanquish whole city blocks.

The early pioneers of Internet design used to point to the Net’s virtuallly indestructible capacity to survive in a catastrophe by routing around an outage. But until such time as the decentralized Web creates a protocol for a global 301 redirect that automatically forwards users to a secondary, off-site server location, a single co-location solution will always be vulnerable.

This isn’t a criticism of any of the companies in Fisher Plaza because the same situation can happen anywhere. Imagine a plane crash, an explosion, or a fire taking place in your Web hosting facility. If you don’t have a duplicate copy of your Website in another building or at another facility you are flamed out, like a spent fuse on the Fifth of July. [24x7]

Last Tuesday, the Washington state Senate passed ESHB 2075, the digital goods tax bill by a vote of 28-20. What does the bill mean to you?

The bill that requires sellers of digital goods and “digital automated services” to collect sales tax on Washington consumers for such items as ringtones, digital music, digital audio and video, digital books as well as web services such as online expense reporting, online subscriptions of all types and other online services where an end user pays for an item that is a digital product or service.  Nothing changes if an online business receives advertising revenue.

There are a number of exemptions for business use of digital goods, although not complete.

For sellers of digital products, the B&O tax rate drops from 1.5% to .471%, which is about 68% lower.  There are a number of other provisions including an amnesty for uncollected sales tax on sales that were deemed by the Dept. of Revenue to be equivalent to tangible personal property.

The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) announced it will be working with the Dept. of Revenue to help companies comply with the new law. Workshops and seminars are being planned.

The bill as it passed the legislature is online at http://www.washingtontechnology.org/community/blogs/wsagovtaffairs/attachment/514.ashx

Medical students and interns/residents from the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the nation’s oldest and largest independent association for more than 67,000 physicians-in-training, are now available to answer online health questions from the public for free on Healia Communities (http://communities.healia.com).

Where once people looked to friends and acquaintances for advice on topics such as where to find reputable medical information and what kind of doctor to visit for a particular set of symptoms, a trained group of medical students will now be available to answer many of people’s common health questions. Healia and medical students are working together to make trusted health information available — anywhere, anytime, and at no cost.

“The problem is that many people are rightly hesitant to use the Web for health questions because they have little or no confidence that their questions will be answered by someone who is actually qualified to do so,” said Tom Eng, Founder and President of Healia. “Through this partnership with AMSA, we hope that people will take advantage of this unique opportunity to get trusted information and learned insight from doctors-in-training who are actively studying the latest research and developments in medical science.”

In addition to asking health questions, Healia Communities members can share their experiences and knowledge and make connections with others who have similar health interests and concerns. There are more than 250 active communities including allergy, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, breast cancer, diabetes, exercise and fitness, heart diseases and weight management.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is using Twitter to broadcast Seattle area traffic incidents and other statewide related traffic and travel information.

The Seattle area incidents service also includes a link to a traffic camera image if one is available.

Direct messages are in the works which will return current mountain pass conditions, Seattle area travel times and Canadian border wait times.

Visit <http://twitter.com/wsdot>

Can a mosquito be transformed into a “flying syringe,” so that when the insect bites a human, it delivers a vaccine instead of transmitting a disease?  That is one of the ideas which received a $100,000 award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation this week. The awards were made to 104 scientists from 22 nations in the the first round of what is to become a regular practice as the foundation seeks to develop transformational ideas that will help revolutionize health care. The notion  of a mosquito as an airborne syringe  was submitted by Hiroyuki Matsuoka from Jichi Medical University in Japan and was one of 4,000 proposals considered.  Evidently, that high-flying proposal had more bite.

Hotel 1000, downtown Seattle’s premier luxury hotel destination and a leader in hospitality IT, will feature one of the first customized versions of the latest Microsoft Surface applications for a truly state-of-the-art guest experience. Beginning the evening of Friday, October 3, 2008 guests will be able to engage in this completely unique interface by visiting Studio 1000 adjacent to the hotel lobby.

Microsoft Surface simultaneously recognizes dozens of movements such as touch, gestures and actual unique objects that have identification tags similar to bar codes. Guests of Hotel 1000 will be able to intuitively engage with various entertaining experiences by the touch of their fingers.

A new virtual concierge will offer hotel guests 100 points of interest for the downtown Seattle area, including restaurants, museums, parks, landmarks and other must-see attractions near Hotel 1000. The Microsoft Surface is connected to a networked printer for easy production of directions, maps and other visitor information.

Guests will also be able to view and interact with photos and videos by browsing previously loaded albums. Hotel 1000’s Microsoft Surface is also loaded with Card Reader, which allows guests to insert memory cards from their own digital cameras, while vacationing or on business in Seattle. This feature is also a beneficial tool for the Hotel 1000 staff to provide an interactive sales experience.

In addition, guests will be able to listen to an array of music on Hotel 1000’s Microsoft Surface application, which can load up to 100 albums.

The partnership between IdentityMine and Hotel 1000 on the Microsoft Surface platform was ideal for both parties, who are each dedicated to improving user experiences within the hospitality sector. The Hotel 1000 team’s vision and commitment to continually provide groundbreaking and enabling experiences for their guests fit perfectly with IdentityMine’s dedication to utilizing the latest technologies to improve user experiences.

“Our goal with this customized version of Microsoft Surface application is to make the guest experience more interactive,” said Denny Fitzpatrick, general manager, Hotel 1000. “Exploring our city becomes more collaborative for our Concierge staff and guests can interact with each other and this new technology in a way that is fun. Our goal at Hotel 1000 is always to provide what is next in hospitality technology. The custom application on our Microsoft Surface is another example of that commitment.”

Boasting a multi-million dollar technology infrastructure, Hotel 1000 is the industry leader for state-of-the-art services and personalized guest room amenities, including an intelligent private bar, touch screen VoIP phones, user-friendly ambiance controls and 40-inch LCD televisions with virtual surround sound and dual performance capabilities as computer screen, digital art gallery and Satellite radio. The installation of this customized Microsoft Surface experience is just another example of how the hotel is revolutionizing the hospitality industry with service-enabling technologies.