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Monday, July 1, 2013

AltaVista. What’s That?

There’s an alternate universe where someone would ask you a question you don’t know the answer to and you would respond, “I don’t know, why don’t you AltaVista it?” Instead, in the real world, you reply, “Why don’t you Google it?”

AltaVista, once the most advanced and comprehensive search engine on the Web, is just days away from its last breath.

Yes, like you, I thought AltaVista had been extinguished years ago, but apparently not.

Last week, Jay Rossiter, executive vice president of platforms at Yahoo, which owns AltaVista, said that the search engine would be closed on July 8. Anyone who still uses AltaVista â€" I’m not sure who that is â€" should instead go to Yahoo Search, Mr. Rossiter said.

Readers who are 18 years old and younger will probably ask, “What’s an AltaVista?” In short, it was one of the first and most successful search engines. It was founded in 995 by Digital Equipment Corporation.

Since then, AltaVista has been through a number of confusing acquisitions. Digital Equipment Corporation was acquired by Compaq in 1998, which merged with Hewlett-Packard in May 2002. AltaVista itself was purchased in 2003 by Overture Services, then the leading seller of online search advertising. Overture, in turn, was purchased by Yahoo, once also a leader in search, in 2003.

Both Yahoo and AltaVista were decimated by Google, which was founded in 1998 and quickly became the biggest and most popular search engine in the world.

AltaVista didn’t go down without a fight. In 2002, the company tried to reinvent itself, and as Wired wrote at the time, “AltaVista is out to prove that troubled Internet companies can have second acts.” Wired said the com! pany planned to battle Google by rolling “out a dramatic overhaul of its site and indexing methodology.”

It didn’t work. So 18 years after its birth, AltaVista is about to be laid to rest.

As the company approaches its final hours, entrepreneurs will look at the history books to find out what went wrong. Although there are likely many lessons to be learned â€" bad management and not innovating quickly enough â€" the end probably began in 2000, as the technology bubble started to go pop.

AltaVista was supposed to raise $300 million in December 1999 in an initial public offering, but canceled the I.P.O. after the technology stock market started to implode.

In 1995, when AltaVista made its debut, the company said it was processing 2.5 million search requests a day. Today, Google, processes 5.1 billion searches each day.

It’s a fascinating story from greatness to the end. If you want to learn more, you can always Gogle it.



Xbox Chief Is Leaving Microsoft

Just months before Microsoft plans to release a new video game console, the head of its video game business, Don Mattrick, plans to leave the company for another position elsewhere in the games industry.

Mr. Mattrick has been in discussions with Zynga about taking the chief executive job at the struggling San Francisco-based social games publisher, according to a person familiar with the discussions who declined to be named because the talks were private.

Mr. Mattrick has also talked to Electronic Arts, the video game publisher where he spent most of his career, about becoming chief executive of that company, said another person who also declined to be named because the discussions were private.

All Things Digital first reported news of Mr. Mattrick’s departure from Microsoft.

Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to coment. Dani Dudeck, a spokeswoman for Zynga, declined to comment.

The timing of Mr. Mattrick’s departure is particularly bad for Microsoft, which plans to release a new game console, the Xbox One, in time for the holiday shopping season. Mr. Mattrick, the president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, has had a rocky few weeks since the unusual public outcry that followed the unveiling last month of many important details about Xbox One at the E3 game conference.

Gamers denounced Microsoft’s plan to let game publishers prevent the resale of Xbox One game discs in used-game stores, forcing the company to reverse its policy. Although the controversy looked like a setback for Mr. Mattrick, his departure did not appear to be directly related to it, according to one person.

Mr. Mattrick’s job at Microsoft was likely to change soon in the coming weeks. The company is plannin! g a reorganization that could result in a major shifting of responsibilities for the heads of its main business.

Mr. Mattrick, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, joined Microsoft in 2007, after a long career at Electronic Arts. While many top game executives have management backgrounds in other fields, rather than rising from the creative side of the games business, Mr. Mattrick started out as a developer of games. He sold his company, Distinctive Software, to Electronic Arts in 1991, at the age of 17.

Last month, Zynga announced that it was laying off nearly a fifth of its work force as it faces slowing growth and increased competition.



Today’s Scuttlebot: Celebrating Orwell’s ‘1984,’ and Uber in Taipei

The technology reporters and editors of The New York Times scour the Web for important and peculiar items. Friday's selections include a Dutch group decorating surveillance cameras in Utrecht in honor of George Orwell's 110th birthday, and a taxi app opens for business in Taiwan's capital.

Daily Report: Making Apps in the Motor City

The old-line carmakers are suddenly hungry for information technology specialists who can create apps for the next generation of connected vehicles.

Egyptians React to Army’s Ultimatum

Live video from Egypt’s ON TV shows the reaction in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and across the country, to the army’s ultimatum giving President Mohamed Morsi 48 hours to resolve a political crisis.

As our colleagues David Kirkpatrick, Kareem Fahim and Ben Hubbard report, the head of the Egyptian military, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, gave President Mohamed Morsi 48 hours “to respond to the people’s demands” or the armed forces would move to impose its “own road map for the future.”

Reaction to the general’s warning, in a statement read aloud on sate television, was swift, both online and on the streets of the capital, Cairo, where supporters and opponents of the president were still massed, one day after huge protests.

Reporting on Twitter from the scene of the anti-Morsi protest outside the presidential palace in Cairo, our colleague Kareem Fahim uploaded images of the mainly joyous response, tempered slightly by fears of a return to direct military rule by the Supre! me Council of the Armed Forces.

According to the Cairene blogger who writes as Egyptocracy, the president’s Islamist supporters could be seen on local television chanting defiantly about continuing to rule despite the threat.

The Dutch journalist Rena Netjes reported on Twitter that a television channel allied with the Musli! m Brother! hood warned that any threat to the Islamist president’s legitimacy as an elected leader was a line that should not be crossed.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian journalist Ahmed Ateyya noted, there were signs that state television appeared to have thrown its lot in with the opposition to Mr. Morsi.

Bassem Sabry, a Cairene film producer and political commentator, suggested that the timing of the military declaration, coming only 24 hours before the next round of opposition protests, seemed certain to encourage the president’s opponents.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a commentator on Arab affairs, observed on his popular Twitter feed that the deadline could mean that Mr. Morsi’s opponents now have little reason to compromise with him and his Islamist allies.

Mostafa Hussein, a psychiatrist and bloggr who has worked with torture victims, was quick to remind readers of one of the most notorious incidents of abuse during the period of military rule that followed the revolution, posting looped video of soldiers stomping on a female protester who had been stripped down to her blue bra and beaten in December 2011.

Writing on Twitter and Facebook, another activist, Omar Kamel, suggested that Egypt’s military was aiming to defend the “two-state solution,” by which it has been allowed to maintain f! ull contr! ol over its own affairs, including wide-ranging economic interests.

A third blogger and analyst, Mohamed El Dahshan, was more succinct in his comments.

As speculation about what might happen in the next 48 hurs ramped up, Egyptians were counting the cost of clashes between Morsi supporters and protesters that accompanied Sunday’s demonstrations.

Omar Robert Hamilton, an activist filmmaker, pointed to graphic footage from the local media collective Mosireen that appeared to show shots being fired on Sunday from inside the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, where an attack by protesters was repelled with deadly force.

Another member of Mosireen, Sherief Gaber, reported from the morgue in Alexandria that the grim task of trying to sort out exactly what happened to those killed in clashes was once again under way.



Egyptians React to Army’s Ultimatum

Live video from Egypt’s ON TV shows the reaction in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and across the country, to the army’s ultimatum giving President Mohamed Morsi 48 hours to resolve a political crisis.

As our colleagues David Kirkpatrick, Kareem Fahim and Ben Hubbard report, the head of the Egyptian military, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, gave President Mohamed Morsi 48 hours “to respond to the people’s demands” or the armed forces would move to impose its “own road map for the future.”

Reaction to the general’s warning, in a statement read aloud on sate television, was swift, both online and on the streets of the capital, Cairo, where supporters and opponents of the president were still massed, one day after huge protests.

Reporting on Twitter from the scene of the anti-Morsi protest outside the presidential palace in Cairo, our colleague Kareem Fahim uploaded images of the mainly joyous response, tempered slightly by fears of a return to direct military rule by the Supre! me Council of the Armed Forces.

According to the Cairene blogger who writes as Egyptocracy, the president’s Islamist supporters could be seen on local television chanting defiantly about continuing to rule despite the threat.

The Dutch journalist Rena Netjes reported on Twitter that a television channel allied with the Musli! m Brother! hood warned that any threat to the Islamist president’s legitimacy as an elected leader was a line that should not be crossed.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian journalist Ahmed Ateyya noted, there were signs that state television appeared to have thrown its lot in with the opposition to Mr. Morsi.

Bassem Sabry, a Cairene film producer and political commentator, suggested that the timing of the military declaration, coming only 24 hours before the next round of opposition protests, seemed certain to encourage the president’s opponents.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a commentator on Arab affairs, observed on his popular Twitter feed that the deadline could mean that Mr. Morsi’s opponents now have little reason to compromise with him and his Islamist allies.

Mostafa Hussein, a psychiatrist and bloggr who has worked with torture victims, was quick to remind readers of one of the most notorious incidents of abuse during the period of military rule that followed the revolution, posting looped video of soldiers stomping on a female protester who had been stripped down to her blue bra and beaten in December 2011.

Writing on Twitter and Facebook, another activist, Omar Kamel, suggested that Egypt’s military was aiming to defend the “two-state solution,” by which it has been allowed to maintain f! ull contr! ol over its own affairs, including wide-ranging economic interests.

A third blogger and analyst, Mohamed El Dahshan, was more succinct in his comments.

As speculation about what might happen in the next 48 hurs ramped up, Egyptians were counting the cost of clashes between Morsi supporters and protesters that accompanied Sunday’s demonstrations.

Omar Robert Hamilton, an activist filmmaker, pointed to graphic footage from the local media collective Mosireen that appeared to show shots being fired on Sunday from inside the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, where an attack by protesters was repelled with deadly force.

Another member of Mosireen, Sherief Gaber, reported from the morgue in Alexandria that the grim task of trying to sort out exactly what happened to those killed in clashes was once again under way.



Video of Arizona Wildfire That Killed 19 Firefighters

A local television news report of the Yarnell fire, from ABC affiliate KNXV-TV in Phoenix.

As our colleague Fernanda Santos reports, 19 firefighters died while battling a fast-moving wildfire that continued to rage out of control Monday over thousands of acres about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix.

The firefighters killed were members of a highly trained elite team known as the Granite Mountain Hotshots, based in Prescott, Ariz. They are among 100 specialist teams from around the country that travel to battle wildfires. This fire was near their home base in entral Arizona.

Of the 20 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, only one firefighter survived, officials said, in what is the deadliest wildfire in 80 years.

Video of the Yarnell fire Sunday as it spread across thousands of acres.


On the City of Prescott’s Web site, the Granite Mountain Hotshots describe their commitment to rigorous training and their “common bond.”

Our common bond is our love of hard work and arduous adventure. We believe in rigorous physical and mental training, which allows us to perform at the optimum level in any location and under any circumstances. We are routin! ely exposed to extreme environmental conditions, long work hours, long travel hours and the most demanding of fireline tasks. Comforts such as beds, showers and hot meals are not always common. Problem solving, teamwork, ability to make decisions in a stressful environment and being nice are the attributes of our crew members. We are grateful for our opportunities to excel and proud to represent the citizens of the City of Prescott and the Prescott Fire Department.

In a 2012 profile of the Granite Mountain Hotshots,, Connor Radnovich reported on the team for Arizona State University’s Cronkite News Service. The report details how crew members prepare to battle wildfires and includes a video showing them in training.

Video of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

Officials said they believed that a lightning strike on Friday started the fire, which has spread to 8,000 acres, destroying dozens of homes and decimating the town of Yarnell, which had been previously evacuated. From nearby Peeples Valley, Ariz., a video was uploaded onto YouTube showing the spread of the flames.



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