The main event at Tuesday night’s Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup (Boulder) was presentations from six companies in the 2009 TechStars class. With TechStar Investor Day coming Thursday, RockyRadar will wait until tomorrow to offer the company descriptions. But before TechStars took the stage, the crowd was introduced to an artist with work featured at Burning Man and a technology icon.
Jen Lowan spoke of her interactive exhibit called “The Pool.” The Pool consists of over 100 circular pads which are laid out in a circular pattern with a 120 foot diameter. Each pad contains sensors and 24 LEDs that will light up when pressure is applied (i.e. someone steps on them). The pads communicate with each wirelessly allowing for pressure applied to one pad to cause other to illuminate – similar to ripples travelling across water. The Pool will be on display at Red Rocks this year and will be tested in Boulder in August.
Dan Bricklin, one of the creators of VisiCalc (the first computer spreadsheet program) spoke of what has and has not changed in the past 30 years of coding. Even three decades gone by coding featured all nighters to finish previously promised applications. After announcing VisiCalc to the press in May 1979, significant effort was still needed to complete the sine and cosine functions the program was purported to contain before it shipped in the fall of the same year – a press cycle which Bricklin noted is vastly different than today’s. Bricklin also read excerpts from his new book entitled “Bricklin on Technology.”
The BDNT is designed to provide a time and place for technologists and entrepreneurs to showcase the new technology developing in the region. The next meeting will take place at the Tivoli Turnhalle on August 18th at 6:00. If you seek to attend please register for the event here. Check back tomorrow evening for a recap of TechStars Investor Day.
