Aqua Regia - Big Data, AI, Entrepreneurship

My “Big Data” talk at Gluecon 2012

elliot — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:34:29 +0000

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk at this year’s Gluecon, “Efficient Big Data Analysis: RAM, RAID, SSD”.

I’ve posted the presentation deck to slide-share for those who didn’t have time to write down all the optimization tips contained within:

Efficient Big Data Analysis (Gluecon 2012)

View more PowerPoint from alchemyapi

3d Visualization of Semantic Data using MS-Kinect

elliot — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:02:00 +0000

Here’s a fun little demo app myself and a co-worker built:

This application leverages the MS Kinect to manipulate 3d visualizations of social media data. The application tracks 3d motion of a person’s hand, using it as a virtual mouse cursor.

Social media data mined from tens of millions of news articles and blog posts over a period of 1+ month, using natural language processing algorithms to analyze article/blog contents, identify named entities and trends, and track momentum over time.

Info on this app:

real-time 3d visualization of social media data, represented as a force-directed-graph.
social media data was mined from tens of millions of news articles and blog posts over a 1+ month period.
news / blog data analyzed using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms including: named entity extraction, keyword extraction, concept tagging, sentiment extraction.
high-performance temporal data-store enables visualization of connections between named entities (eg, “Nicolas Sarkozy -> Francois Hollande”)
system tracks billions of data-points (persons, companies, organizations, …) for tens of millions of pieces of content.

This is an example “20% time” employee project at my company, AlchemyAPI. We do fun projects like this to spur the imagination and as a creative diversion. Other projects (which I’ll get around to posting at some point) involve speech recognition, robots, and other geektacular stuff.

Web 3.0 & Disruptive Technology

elliot — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:11:32 +0000

I’ve always been fascinated by data — both of the companies I’ve founded have addressed aspects of the “data overload” problem. The first, MimeStar, developed NIDS (Network Intrusion Detection System) technology that analyzed gigabits of network traffic every second, reconstructing every IP frame, TCP session, and application-layer protocol stream — looking for computer intrusions and other inappropriate activity. MimeStar was acquired in early 2000 and our products are still protecting government and corporate networks 10 years later. NIDS is fascinating technology, reducing massive packet flows down to intelligible event/activity streams & security alerts.

My present company builds natural language processing (computational linguistics) technology to make sense of the huge quantities of unstructured text residing across the web and within company data warehouses. We’re helping build the semantic web, by “bootstrapping” unstructured content into a form that is understandable by machines. NLP is an exciting space, with real disruption potential. It’s becoming a critical technology for Semantic & Web 3.0 applications/services.

What’s that? You haven’t heard of the Semantic Web? Check out this fantastic video, created by Kate Ray of NYU. Her short documentary does a great job of summing up many of the drivers behind the Semantic Web (such as data overload), and touches upon many of the future applications of this technology.

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

If disruptive innovation, artificial intelligence, and Web 3.0 are your bread-and-butter, AlchemyAPI is currently hiring. We’re based in Denver, CO and are growing rapidly. Join our team and help build the next generation of semantic technology!

Colorado Technology & Entrepreneurship

elliot — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:02:05 +0000

Colorado has a truly vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. Everywhere you look, new startup companies are being formed to solve interesting technology and clean energy problems. I cannot stress how much this is truly the case — in my neighborhood, on my street, there are at least three entrepreneurs involved with startup companies. Truly amazing.

Some talented folks put together a video that details aspects of the startup / technology scene in Boulder, a close neighbor of Denver, CO. Boulder is a fantastic place (my company has a number of customers in Boulder, so I’m up there quite often). If you’re interested in what it’s like to work in a technology startup in Boulder, check out this video:

If you’re interested in forming a technology / clean-tech startup and are looking to plant some roots, check out Colorado. Denver, and its northern cousin, Boulder, are fantastic places to run a startup.

AlchemySnap – OCR+Photo Search for TMobile G1

elliot — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:56:17 +0000

Here’s a demo app I created for the T-Mobile G1, to show off my company’s AlchemyAPI image / text mining infrastructure service.

Watch the video for more info:

Jan. 20th, 2009

elliot — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:05:26 +0000

43rd peaceful transfer of power. 44th president. democracy in action.

It’s November 4th..

elliot — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:30:40 +0000

Go Vote!

- posted from the Defrag ’08 conference

American President

elliot — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:56:10 +0000

Colorado has been buzzing with political activity this year: the Democratic National Convention, rallies, protests, volunteers knocking on doors — you name it.

Yesterday my wife and I went to an Obama rally in Denver. We were two of around 100,000 folks in attendence.

Regardless of your political persuasion, stuff like this should make you proud. People taking part in the political process at this level is just amazing.

Colorado Early Voting Starts Today

elliot — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:36:14 +0000

Early voting in Colorado starts today! To find your closest polling location go here.

Get out and vote!

I want an OmniGlobe!

elliot — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:37:37 +0000

OK, the OmniGlobe is just super-cool (and made by a Colorado company! — go Colorado!):

(right-click above and choose “Play” to watch the OmniGlobe in action, or just click here)