脑力风暴

    上个月在阿斯彭召开的年度《财富》科技头脑风暴大会（Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference）上，４００多位企业家和高官济济一堂，讨论科技给我们的生活、通讯和娱乐消费方式带来的改变。在这种场合下，一定会听到很多人谈及职业社交网站LinkedIn、Facebook、Twitter和Spotify等公司的繁荣——Spotify是一家刚刚登录美国的在线音乐服务公司。但是这种繁荣是否已经快到了不合理的范畴？尤其是考虑到这些公司的估值。不过看起来人们对这个问题的一般看法是：“那得看是谁了。”弗兰克•夸特隆是一名经验老道的科技银行家，他并不认为科技界将面临大范围的泡沫。不过有些私人公司挣到了太多的钱，这让他隐隐感到不安。就连一向以心直口快闻名的前财政部长拉里•萨默斯在这个问题上也表示出了模楞两可的态度。他指出，与工业股票相比，科技公司的市值还是很低的。而且科技公司的潜在商机非常大，因为全世界差不多有20亿互联网用户和20亿移动电话用户。萨默森先是问道：“回头看看历史，谁能拍着胸脯说现在肯定没有泡沫？”不过他补充道：“但那些表示肯定有泡沫的人，他们肯定没有注意到我刚才说的那几点事实。”您站在哪一边？在您下决定之前，不妨先回顾一下我们对本次科技头脑风暴大会的报道。

    ——斯特凡妮•梅赫塔

Brain Power

    When you assemble more than 400 executives and entrepreneurs to discuss how technology is changing the way we work, communicate, and consume entertainment -- as Fortune did for its annual Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen last month -- you're sure to hear a lot of exuberance for companies such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify, the music service that just launched in the U.S. But is that exuberance verging on irrational, especially where valuations are concerned? The consensus seems to be: "It depends." Frank Quattrone, the veteran tech banker, demurs on the question of a broader bubble but says he frets about the premiums some private companies are commanding. Even Larry Summers, the usually blunt former U.S. Treasury Secretary, is equivocal on the matter. He notes that the value of tech companies relative to industrials is quite low. Yet the potential market opportunity for tech -- some 2 billion Internet users and 2 billion mobile phones worldwide -- is huge. "Who can look at history and be confident that things aren't a bubble?" he asks. But, he adds, "those who are confident that it is a bubble don't seem to me to have looked at some of the kinds of facts that I just cited." What side are you on? Check out our coverage of Brainstorm Tech before you make up your mind.

    --Stephanie N. Mehta

华裔神童

    本次盛会的嘉宾中不乏科技神童，华裔女孩杰斯•李就是其中的一个佼佼者。她今年28岁，是一名电脑科学家，原本在谷歌（Google）任职，后来跳槽到知名网站Polyvore。Polyvore是一家赢利的网站，用户可以在把网络上的时装照片进行“混搭”，搭配成一套行头，然后通过Polyvore的合作伙伴 （如Zappos.com）进行网购。杰斯•李在香港长大，从斯坦福大学毕业（Stanford）后便留在美国，加盟了谷歌的产品副经理计划。这是一个两年制的精英计划，旨在把有前途的年轻人放在关键岗位上锻炼一番。前谷歌高管、LinkedIn的高级副总裁迪普•尼沙尔评价道，杰斯•李在谷歌展现出了“既能领导产品设计，也能领导产品研发”的罕见能力。在谷歌地图（Google Map）以及其它一些项目上工作了四年后，杰斯•李与三个原雅虎（Yahoo）人员共同推出了Polyvore。她说：“在原型阶段，我就爱上了Polyvore，无可救药地对它上瘾了。”现在她的工作就是确保各色时尚潮人也能像她这样想。

    ——杰西 •亨佩尔

Polytalented

    Even at an event filled with wunderkind tech stars, Jess Lee stands out. Lee, 28, is a computer scientist and Google alum who went on to help run Polyvore, a popular (and profitable) website that lets users mix and match pictures from all over the web to create outfits that they can then purchase through Polyvore partners like Zappos.com. Raised in Hong Kong, Lee stayed in the U.S. after graduating from Stanford and joined Google's elite, two-year associate product manager program, which places brilliant kids in key jobs. She exhibited a rare ability to "take the lead in product design as well as product development," says LinkedIn senior vice president Deep Nishar, a former Googler. After four years working on Google Maps and other things, Lee joined three ex-Yahooers in 2008 to introduce Polyvore. "I fell in love with the prototype and was hopelessly addicted to it," she says. Now her job is to make sure fashionistas feel the same way.

    --Jessi Hempel

CEO wish list

    多年前，托尼•贝茨曾列出有意接手的四家公司，其中一家就是Skype。2010年，贝茨如愿以偿地被Skype聘为首席执行官。贝茨曾在思科系统公司（Cisco）任职。后来微软（Microsoft）斥资85亿美元收购Skype，而贝茨也将由此成为微软高管队伍中的一员。在本次峰会上，贝茨给与会嘉宾们留下了深刻的印象，许多人纷纷议论道，贝茨很有可能成为微软现任总裁史蒂夫•鲍默的继任者。可能有些人会好奇，在当年的“愿望清单”上不是还有三家公司吗？里面有没有微软的名字？——贝茨没说。

    ——斯特凡妮•梅赫塔

CEO wish list

    A few years ago Tony Bates wrote down the names of four companies he'd like to head; one of them was Skype, where he was hired as CEO in 2010. When Microsoft completes its $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, Bates, formerly of Cisco, will become part of the software giant's senior management team. Attendees were so impressed with Bates that some started talking about him as a possible successor to Steve Ballmer. No word on whether Microsoft was one of the other three names on Bates's wish list.

    --S.M.

创业偶像

    Clever Sense公司凭借“数字好朋友”应用程序获奖

    如果你幸运的话，你可能会有一位食客朋友，他知道城里所有热门的餐厅。更贴心的是，他还知道你对贝类过敏，喜欢南方菜。如果你没这么幸运的话，不要紧，你可以下载一款名叫Alfred的应用。它能了解用户的口味和偏好，向您推荐吃美食的去处。

    这款应用是一家名叫Clever Sense的公司研发的。头一次听到Alfred这个名字的时候，你可以会觉得它和其他推荐类应用没什么区别。但是这项技术的特别之处在于，它的推荐结果完全基于你的口味，（而且只需要不到一秒钟的时间）。它的潜力可不只限于告诉你下顿饭吃什么。正是由于Clever Sense的这项技术拥有广阔的前景，因而在本次峰会的“创业偶像”竞赛环节上，它获得了风投公司的最高票数。

    Clever Sense的共同创始人巴巴克•帕勒万和尼玛•阿斯加尔贝基是在2008年认识的，当时他们二人都在斯坦福大学学习数据挖掘和人工智能。经过两年的研发，他们在2010年创立了Clever Sense，并且聘请了诺伯托•吉马拉伊什作为产品主管。

    Alfred与亚马逊（Amazon）或网飞（Netflix）一样，也可以告诉你，你的同好都喜欢什么。而且就像其它移动应用一样，Alfred可以确定用户的地理位置，并能让用户根据价格和菜系对餐厅进行筛选。不过它的过人之处在于，它的搜索引擎可以不断地在网络上收集、组织和更新餐厅的信息，而且它的人机对话方式跟人与人之间的对话几乎没什么差别。然后系统会生成一份图表，将具有相同属性的餐厅汇总在一起。28岁的帕勒万解释道：“我们的系统甚至能理解‘Badass’这句脏话什么时候能用在正面的语境中。”用户提供的反馈越多，Alfred就会变得越智能，它会识别出用户的偏好模式，然后将用户的偏好与它的兴趣图谱进行比对，最后给出建议。

    Alfred登录苹果（Apple）的应用商店短短两周就已经挤进了iPhone最受欢迎的生活类应用的前20名。Alfred是Clever Sense的第一款产品，或许在未来的某一天，它的技术可以用来帮用户寻找最喜欢的电视节目，或是最喜欢的旅游胜地。如果你没有一个对各种美食餐厅都门儿清的朋友，那么Alfred也是一个不错的替代品。不过到目前为止，Clever Sense还没能把它打造成一个非常健谈的机器人。所以最好还是多交些人类的朋友吧。

    ——杰西卡•沙姆波拉

Startup idol

    Contest winner clever sense scores with a digital "BFF"

    If you're lucky, you have a friend who knows all the hot restaurants in town -- and also knows you're allergic to shellfish and like Southern food. If you're not that lucky, there's Alfred, an app that learns tastes and preferences and recommends venues for dining out.

    At first pass, Alfred, from a startup called Clever Sense, may sound like a raft of other recommendation apps out there, but the technology that powers it delivers results specifically for you (in less than a second), and has the potential to help you discover much more than your next meal. Indeed, Clever Sense's vast prospects helped it earn the most votes in Brainstorm Tech's Startup Idol competition for companies raising money.

    Clever Sense co-founders Babak Pahlavan and Nima Asgharbeygi met in 2008 when both were studying data mining and artificial intelligence at Stanford. After two years of research and development, they set to work building Clever Sense in 2010, and hired Norberto Guimaraes as head of product along the way.

    Like Amazon or Netflix, Alfred can show you like-minded customers' preferences. And as with other mobile apps, it can figure out where you are and allows you to filter by price or cuisine. But the real secret sauce is an engine that constantly crawls the web gathering, organizing, and updating information on places in the way that human beings actually talk about them. The system then creates a graph that connects those places based on similar attributes. "Our system understands that the word 'badass' is actually being used in a positive context," Pahlavan, 28, explains. The more feedback you provide, the smarter Alfred gets, recognizing patterns in your preferences and then matching them to its interest graph to come up with suggestions.

    After a couple of weeks in Apple's app store, Alfred has ranked among the iPhone's top 20 free lifestyle apps. And it is just Clever Sense's first product; the technology could someday help you discover TV shows or vacation destinations. But while Alfred is a good substitute for a friend who knows all the hot spots, Clever Sense hasn't figured out a way to make it a good conversationalist. Until then, you'd best keep cultivating human friends.

    --Jessica Shambora

传统模式卷土重来

    硅谷银行家弗兰克•夸特隆表示，企业科技正在走向复古。在80年代末，企业IT被专业公司所垄断——例如微软长于软件，思科长于网络设备。但近年来，许多专业公司都失去了市场价值，或是增长陷于停滞，行业也正在重返垂直整合的模式。“自从2007年以来，甲骨文（Oracle）和IBM是唯一两家市值还在增长的老牌公司。这毫不奇怪。”夸特隆说道：“这是由于这两家公司都采取了这种垂直整合战略。老式的微机模式又回来了。”那么业务较为单一的公司如何才能扩展他们的业务？最近宝开公司（PopCap）以13.5亿美元的价格被电子艺界（Electronic Arts）收购，美国国家半导体公司（National Semiconductor）以65亿美元的价格被德州仪器（Texas Instruments）收购，背后都离不开夸特隆的Qatalyst Partners咨询公司的帮助。所以如果你有这方面的疑问，夸特隆的公司一定可以帮到你。

    ——斯特凡妮•梅赫塔

Old School

    Silicon Valley banker Frank Quattrone says enterprise technology is going retro. In the late 1980s specialists -- Microsoft in software, Cisco in networking equipment -- dominated business computing. But in recent years many of those specialty companies have lost market value or stalled, and the industry is going back to a vertically integrated model. "There's no surprise why Oracle and IBM are the only two of the legacy companies on this list that have added market cap since 2007," he says. "It's because they both have embraced and put forth this vertical strategy. The old mini-computer mainframe model is coming back." So how can narrowly focused companies broaden their portfolio? Surely Quattrone, whose boutique advisory firm, Qatalyst Partners, has recently helped sell PopCap to Electronic Arts for $1.35 billion and National Semiconductor to Texas Instruments for $6.5 billion, would be happy to help.

    --S.M.

颠覆性相机即将登场

    在过去的10年里，数码相机的像素越来越高。在摄影界，最新的创新当属Lytro公司即将推出的光场相机，它使用户可以在完成照片拍摄之后再对照片进行对焦。在《财富》科技头脑风暴科技大会上，Lytro的创始人兼首席执官吴仁（译音）展示了这款相机，并介绍了它的原理：相机里有一个小型传感器，可以记录下比传统相机更多的光束。这些额外信息被存储在每张照片的影像档案里，哪怕时间过了很久，用户仍然可以调整照片的焦距。该公司表示，今年晚些时候，该公司会面向消费者推出一款“价格有竞争力的”的相机。谁会买这样的相机呢？星巴克（Starbucks）的首席信息官史蒂芬•吉列特也许会就买一台。他在看了吴仁的展示后，在Twitter上写道：“新的Lytro相机非常具有颠覆性，它将导致相机公司陷入严重的‘创新者困境’”。

    ——麦克•列夫•拉姆

Camera ready

    Cramming more and more megapixels into digital cameras is so last-decade. The latest innovation in the world of photography is Lytro's upcoming light field camera, which lets users focus a picture after it's been taken. In a demonstration at Brainstorm Tech, founder and CEO Ren Ng shows how it works: A tiny sensor records more light beams than conventional cameras. The extra information, saved in each image file, allows photographers to tweak their shot long after the "Kodak moment" has passed. The company says it will come out with a "competitively priced" camera for the consumer later this year. Who'll buy one? Perhaps Starbucks CIO Stephen Gillett, who, after seeing Ng's demo, tweeted, "New Lytro camera is so disruptive it is going to cause major 'innovator's dilemma' headaches for camera companies."

    --Michal Lev-Ram

谷歌财务总监的电子钱包

    手机何时会取代的钱包？移动商务将何时出现、如何出现的问题，在此次峰会上一再被人提起。这个市场上的玩家包括Visa、eBay的贝宝（PayPal），以及威瑞森（Verizon）和AT&T。他们竞相向消费者推出自己的移动交易平台。移动支付公司Square的首席运营官基思•拉布伊斯认为，消费者不一定会接受大厂商的模式，因为他们的模式往往包含某些功能特别繁琐的手机，或是新奇的现金出纳机等。不过现在至少还是有一位高管承认，在某种程度上，他已经在把手机当钱包用了。比如谷歌的财务总监帕特里克•皮切特在谈及谷歌打算如何利用科技改变世界，包括改变人们的支付方式时，他说道，传统的皮夹子简直就是“中世纪”的玩意儿：“我周末出门的时候只带着我的安卓手机，然后用橡皮筋把它和我的驾照和信用卡绑在一起。”

    ——斯特凡妮•梅赫塔

Pichette's pocket

    When will your cellphone replace your wallet? The question of how and when commerce will go wireless came up repeatedly at Fortune's tech conference, as players ranging from Visa to eBay's PayPal to Verizon and AT&T vie to provide platforms that consumers will use for their mobile transactions. Keith Rabois, chief operating officer of Square, a mobile payments company, isn't convinced that consumers will embrace the big players' model, which often involves specially tricked-out phones and newfangled cash registers. But at least one tech executive confessed to already using his cellphone as a wallet -- in a way. In the course of commenting on how Google aims to use technology to transform the world, including the way we pay for things, Google CFO Patrick Pichette (right) called traditional leather billfolds "medieval," adding, "I spend my weekends with my Android phone and an elastic band that has, tied to my Android phone, my driver's license and my credit cards."

    --S.M.

音乐狂人

    “Spotify要说的是，所有权固然很好，但该问权才是音乐产业的前途。人们只想拥有访问世界上所有音乐的权利。”

    ——丹尼尔•埃克，Spotify在线音乐服务公司的创始人兼首席执行官。Spotify已于7月14日登陆美国。

Music man

    "What Spotify is saying is, ownership is great, but access is the future. People just want to have access to all the world's music."

    --Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of Spotify, which launched its services in the U.S. on July 14

通过电视上Twitter

    “人们在星期天早上会做两件事：先是买百吉饼，然后去五金店。你希望在五金店同时买到百吉饼吗？同理，你想在电视屏幕上看到Twitter吗？”

    ——劳伦•扎拉尼兹，美国国家环球广播公司娱乐、数字网络与集成媒体部总裁

The multitasker

    "People do two things on Sunday morning: They buy bagels, and they go to the hardware store. Do you want to buy your bagels at the hardware store? Do you want Twitter on my television screen?"

    --Lauren Zalaznick, chairman, Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media, NBC Universal

科技繁荣即将到来

    在会前的意见调查中，许多高管表示，科技界的繁荣期即将到来（左图），同时也表示许多科技公司的市值并没有被高估（右图）。

    译者：朴成奎

The Bubble Question

    In a preconference opinion survey many executives said that a tech boom was coming (left) but that companies weren't overvalued (right) -- yet.