Over the past ten years, Americans have enthusiastically embraced and adopted broadband Internet. Although we have made significant progress, a real digital divide still exists in the African American community. The Obama Administration’s $7 billion stimulus investment in broadband and technologies like web-enabled smart phones are helping to close this divide, but we must continue to do more to ensure that our community gets connected.
Previously Google’s mobile application had the best service for voice recognition and search capability. That is no longer the case with the introduction of Siri. A virtual personal assistant has been born and they should be hired after the first interview. A quote from Siri’s website offers some interesting information on the birth of this app.
“Siri was born out of SRI’s CALO Project, the largest Artificial Intelligence project in U.S. history. (CALO stands for Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes). Made possible by a $150 million DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) investment, the CALO Project included 25 research organizations and institutions and spanned 5 years. Siri is bringing the benefits of this technology to the public in the first mainstream consumer application of a virtual personal assistant.”
Powered by Nuance’s voice recognition software, this free application is legit. Despite the fact that Siri is optimized for the iPhone 3GS, it was impressive on my jailbroken 3G. A few days ago, I was looking for the nearest soccer store to my home. I opened up Siri and asked where the nearest soccer store was. Within 20 seconds, I had a list of six different stores with 4.2 miles of my location. One “tap” further and I can call the store, see reviews via Yahoo Local, send the info about the store to a friend, or get the navigation results as well. Very cool.
While at IA Summit 2009, I got a chance to sit down with a very cool person. Deone ‘Dee’ Adams is a Sr. Design Specialist at Yahoo! Inc., a Cornell graduate, and a well-known painter.
She has an eye for many things, whether its practical design or inspiration simplicity. All in all, she is a great YBP to know and you can follow her on twitter at @deebadgurl.
Enjoy the video interview! The other half can be found over at Black Web 2.0.
Going In
I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I was invited to speak on a panel a few weeks prior and knew with that premise came uncertainty. I didn’t have any speakers I had to see, so I anticipated that my unfocused intentions would get swept away in the white water rapid of geeky madness.
First Hours, Days
I got there really late on Friday, and I chose to not dive into any drunken debauchery since I was really tired. By the morning, the number of people who accidentally ran into me because they were on their iPhones rivaled the number of choices of panels that morning. I chose Bootstrap Your Startup in an effort to understand how poor you really have to be for your ideas to eventually make money. Awesome.
Mr Spam with Fredric of YBPGuide
Cool Stuff
There was a lot of swag and a lot of technology, either walking around with people or hemmed up in booths on various floors. The Microsoft Surface was pretty neat, but seemed immediately pointless, especially since it crashed and most people use a table for food, but I digress. The tradeshow showcased emerging companies (shout to @mrspam), cool hardware, and video games. While I did manage to squeeze in a few more panels, the sheer number of geeks frothing at the mouth over Call of Duty 5 and Street Fighter 4 was comical.
The Fam
If you’ve read other’s recaps on South By, you’ll start seeing a theme that most of the quality from this conference is in the margin. Yes, the panels are decent and you get to see your favorite internet star, but for the first time, I got to meet the #blck fam. Not since college, really, has mobbing up to eat, drink, talk, and pontificate about life happened in mass form. Of particular power was the chemistry and love oozing from my gay brethren. I’m so proud of our generation, our open mind, our love, and really enjoyed my time with @corvida, @lynneluvah, and @jbrotherlove. I’m hopeful the b.s. homophobia attached to #blck will cease, especially if we get more push from old heads like Rev. Sharpton.
Overall
I came away a little overwhelmed. I’m not really a fan of hype for hype’s sake, but the conversations, feedback, and lessons from experienced participants coupled with the reconciliation of people’s avatars to their physical faces was worth it. The ubiquity of Twitter is real, so you might want to get on that. The genius of #blck talent is real, and I’m really excited about that, even if Turn My Swag On surfaced as the anthem of the weekend.
Note: Below are videos from my panel ‘Can the Afrosphere Survive in the Age of Obama?’ as well as various photo galleries swiped from the #blck fam. Enjoy!
Just in case you haven’t heard or seen my twitter updates, I’ll be live and in the flesh at South by Southwest 2009 in Austin, Texas with a slew of the black blogosphere this Friday, March 13th through Tuesday, March 17th.
YBP Guide @ SXSW 2009
If you’re in Austin, be sure to stop by the panel I’ll be participating in with Denise Jacobs, Liz Burr, Markus Robinson, and Corvida Raven entitled Can the Afrosphere Survive the Age of Obama?. We’ll be talking about our lovely community within the community, and how the age of Obama affects, if any, our daily, technical routine.
If you’re not going to be in Austin, but still want to partake in the festivities, I’ll be doing my best to stream our panel and other panels live on our chat page. Depending on how solid the connection, we may even take a question or two from those in the chat room!
This is a Guest post by David Sutphen. David is the co-chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance. This article originally appeared on EbonyJet.com.
