Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

December 2008 Blog Posts (11)

Featured Techie: Kaz Hashimoto, President of Avatar Reality

Kazuyuki "Kaz" Hashimoto has the most exciting job on the island: Overseeing the genesis of Blue Mars, a massively multiplayer virtual world (MMVW) set on a futuristic terraformed Mars. Blue Mars sports graphics that make Linden Lab's Second Life look like 1980's Ultima. Kaz has all the… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on December 29, 2008 at 1:00pm — 13 Comments

Are Hawaii's Tech Tax Credit Worth the Cost?

Today, the Honolulu Advertiser ran an article on 221/215. The article is primarily a strong attack on the prudence and viability of the tax credits. The article cites a new 25 page report by the Department of Taxation that is well worth reading.

The numbers look bad and the public reaction (both in quotes and… Continue

Added by John on December 29, 2008 at 9:45am — 226 Comments

Finding & Retaining Talent in Hawaii

In Dave Takaki's forum post Action Committee for Threatened Hi Tech Tax Credits John raised an excellent point, "But maybe the issue is: Hawaii has insufficient tech talent so we are simply throwing money at the wrong problem." This is definitely a serious issue for a number of reasons.

1)… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on December 24, 2008 at 9:30am — 57 Comments

Lobbying to protect Acts 221, 215 HI Tech Tax Credits

This year’s legislative session will prove to be critical for those of us who find the current tax credit laws integral to our development plans.

Georgia Skinner over at DBEDT had confirmed a number of weeks ago that the Lingle Administration was going to look at these Hi Tech industry tax credits in attempting to balance the state budget. Rumblings have also been heard from a number of Senators and Reps.

The Honolulu Advertiser ran an article on the upcoming budget and it contained… Continue

Added by Dave Takaki on December 23, 2008 at 10:50am — No Comments

Anyone in Hawaii doing development on top of Twitter's APIs?

Just curious. I wanted to talk to someone about what's involved in building something out that piggybacks on microblogging networks. For reference, see www.stocktwits.com. Happy holidays!

Added by Alex Salkever on December 20, 2008 at 11:34am — 11 Comments

the internets won't answer my question

I thought Google and Yahoo knew everything. Where are the lyrics to the Copper Nickel song Come Run With Me? This Internet thing is useless, just a passing fad.

Added by Wayne Hirata on December 15, 2008 at 9:22pm — 2 Comments

Launching a Niche Social Network

Aloha TechHuians. Fresh off the plane from Tokyo, we are going through the familiar ritual of adjusting to our home time zone. We had some interesting conversations during our trip with companies thinking about launching niche networks. Over the past few months we have had similar conversations with companies and academic institutions in Hawaii interested in launching new social networks or adding social… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on December 13, 2008 at 2:00pm — 1 Comment

Renowned T-Shirt shop needs web site upgrade

A renowned local t-shirt shop would like to get their web site upgraded. They currently sell shirts by having customers fill in an online form with the product name, quantity, size, etc., then submitting. They also have customers manually fill in the form, print and mail, or they ask you to call their shop.

They would like to upgrade to some kind of shopping cart system with cost/shipping/tax logic.

And the rest of the site could do with some ono local-kine Web 2.0… Continue

Added by Blaine Fergerstrom on December 13, 2008 at 1:36pm — No Comments

iPhone App Competition for Hawaii? Quick Way to Get UH Undegrads Build Experience in Software Dev for Commercial Products

Dan Leuck and I were talking a while back about this. I wonder if some angels here in Hawaii could underwrite summer programs that would select two or three teams from UH or other local university students to develop a commercial iPhone app over the course of a summer. This could be a paid internship. The iPhone market has really blown open the commercial software market because it completely solves the distribution platform problem and it lays bare how cheaply and quickly quality apps can be… Continue

Added by Alex Salkever on December 7, 2008 at 3:02pm — 9 Comments

Hawaii Science, Tech, Engineering and Math Workforce Development Survey On Facebook

The STEM Workforce Development Program at UH-Manoa needs your help. We are currently trying to find out how well science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) school programs and activities have prepared Hawaii's students for careers in these fields, and discover what happens to former participants after they enter the workforce.

If you attended any school in Hawaii--any grade between kindergarten and graduate school--we would greatly appreciate it if you would take our survey,… Continue

Added by Kate Dohe on December 4, 2008 at 9:04pm — 5 Comments

Great Video on Software Startups from Hubspot Founder Dharmesh Shah

The key take-aways from this excellent video:

*VC money is really expensive because you spend so much energy getting it. Build a product instead.
*Write a blog not a biz plan
*Your ideas suck. So get started anyway.

Added by Alex Salkever on December 1, 2008 at 7:37pm — 1 Comment