Team Member: Sathyaish Chakravarthy

Web developers will need an ample supply of RUM to ensure their applications are performing to users' satisfaction. Patrick Lightbody, Director, Product Development, Neustar Web Performance, advises developers that beyond nav timings the core things users care about are performance, availability, and functionality. In this talk Patrick describes the tools developers can use to evaluate critical web metrics, and how to produce a meaningful score card from the data they produce.

Dr Peter Hartwell discusses Hewlett-Packard's project to form a new information ecosystem called the Central Nervous System for the Earth, or CeNSE. The system will include a planetary system of a trillion nano-scale sensors and actuators embedded in the environment and connected via an array of wireless networks with computing systems, software and services to exchange real-time information among analysis engines, storage systems and end users. Applications include food safety, energy use and factory operations.

The very standards and conditions that made the Web a permissive, open environment have come under an attack from an onslaught of legal regulations and the monopolistic aspirations of bandwidth and software providers. Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, takes us on a journey of why the Web has proved successful for us, what made it interesting and open, how the very conditions that helped the Web flourish are under a threat, and what we can do about them.

What are the hidden motivations in all the decisions we make about technology? Pamela Rutledge, Co-Founder/Director, A Think Lab/Media Psychology Research Center, spells out why our intrinsic ability to get things done is really what gets us up in the morning. Hear in this talk what what drives creativity and innovation, what technology does with motivation, how this has implications at multiple levels, and how giving people more control over their lives increases commercial success.

All systems suffer from failures, but less frequently than expected. Why is it we have so few accidents in a world that behaves so badly? Dr Richard Cook speaks to this issue and what we learn from it based on twenty-five years of research beginning with the medical field in emergency rooms, surgical theaters and application of anesthesia. His scope then expands to other complex systems in such critical and dangerous human endeavors as aviation, power generation and distribution, and military operations.

Consultant Larry Downes discusses why the old utility regulatory model has not kept up with the new communications system, with its greater speeds and capacities. In this talk from the 2011 Emerging Communications Conference, he argues that the communications industry cannot succeed if it is forced to deal with slower legal processes.

"Since the 10th of November 2010, Amazon has not used a single physical web server. Everything is hosted on EC2 hosts," announces a proud Jon Jenkins, the Director of Platform Analysis at Amazon. Until now, the Velocity conference has laid the focus of their spotlight on Web velocity, i.e. Web performance. Jenkins moves the spotlight in the direction of "Web operations." He argues that optimizations in operations too can lead to greater business profits.

Nokia Research teams up with Sesame Street to improve communications for dispersed families. "Would you like to be able to read Sesame Street books with your child when you are far away from home? Or have your child's grandparents or other loved ones read with your child from afar? The furry friends from Sesame Street have teamed up with Nokia Research Center to help children connect with their long distance loved ones." Jofish Kaye from Nokia describes the development and value of this project.

The ideal social network of the future, for Alan Duric, co-founder of Telio, will be one that leverages real-time communication, provides data privacy and is based on a peer-to-peer governance system. Today's social networks, while evolving at a rapid rate, are still a far cry from this ideal, says Alan. After founding and selling two successful starts up to Skype and Google, Alan's new vehicle Telio is about bridging this gap between social media and real-time communication systems.

Solid-state drives or SSD's are much better than electromechanical drives such as the Hard Disk Drive or HDD. Low boot-up time, no audible clicks or spinning noise, low access time, less power consumption, no vibration -- these are only some of the advantages that SSD's offer. Hacker and technologist Artur Bergman tells us about them. Artur is the VP of Engineering and Operations and Wikia. Warning: This talk contains strong language and may not be suitable to listen to at work.