Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

ACLU of Pennsylvania — The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania will be hosting an event about Internet privacy on May 4 at the Center for Architecture. Be sure to check out Internet privacy, You’ve Got Friends You Never Requested: How Corporations and the Government Are Invading Your Privacy Online for more details.

Alteva — Reduce your total cost of telecom ownership and improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction with Alteva’s cloud-based Voice over IP phone systems and services.

The University City Science Center — The Science Center will open Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn in May.

Caffeine Fish – Caffeine Fish develops the Trainboard iPhone app and offers iPhone development consulting in the Philadelphia area.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.

Update: Official Philly Tech Week 2011 Program & Magazine, now in 60 locations and much more

Call us old-fashioned, but we’ll be the first to admit that there’s something special about print and radio.

With that in mind, we’re excited to announce that the official Philly Tech Week 2011 Program & Magazine is being delivered to 60 locations around the city today, thanks to the distribution reach of Philadelphia Media Network, a media sponsor of PTW. The kind folks at Red Flag Media (publishers of Grid magazine) helped us design and print the mag.

The publication includes nearly the full Tech Week calendar, which since it was sent to the printers has grown to 60 events organized by 50 organizations.

It also features content we’ve been working on as part of our Transparencity series on open government data, an update on the Videogames Growth Initiative, more from Entrance Exam — our partnership with Independents Hall and Young Involved Philadelphia — and a cover feature about the focus of Philly Tech Week: collaboration. And more.

The magazine should be put on display over the next couple days, but If you can’t find it sitting out in these locations, someone behind the counter should be able to help. And as an alternative, we’re offering the mag here in PDF form for those digital-savvy readers. And if print or PDF aren’t your jawn, grab the iCal version of our calendar instead.

Over the next week, you may also hear Philly Tech Week’s radio spot on WHYY, above, which runs today through next Friday, April 29. WHYY’s Old City location at 6th and Race streets is the official headquarters of Philly Tech Week, hosting our free lunchtime series (and all-week laptop drive with Nonprofit Technology Resources). WHYY is also hosting our Signature Event, a Friday, April 29th evening cocktail reception to celebrate and close the first annual Philly Tech Week.

The city’s Managing Director Rich Negrin will be speaking about government transparency, and we have programming related to collaboration including a video featuring nearly two dozen local technology leaders, and a fun (and hopefully actionable) way of looking at the future of Philly collaboration. Not to mention the fully-catered food and drink offerings, with help from the wonderful event planners at Little Giant. It’ll be a wonderful time. We hope you’ll join us.

After the jump, a map and list of the locations where you can grab the print edition of the Philly Tech Week Program & Magazine.

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Comcast and NBC prepare for Olympics bid, pledges profit on new $2B NHL deal

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscri ption for our Comcast news updates.

• Olympic$ hurdle for Ebersol and Comcast [New York Post] — “As US television networks put the finishing touches on Olympic TV rights bids due next month, there’s growing friction between NBC Universal’s longtime Olympics chief, Dick Ebersol, and network brass..” H/T Philly Tech News
• NBC Sports Chief Says Network Will Make Money on $2 Billion NHL Deal [Hollywood Reporter]
• Comcast SportsNet pilots NBC O&O plan [Variety] — “Three months into its joint venture with NBCUniversal, Comcast is moving fast on the synergy front, announcing Wednesday that starting in June its regional sports network in the Bay Area will provide sports news for NBC’s owned and operated station in San Francisco, KNTV, Channel 11.” H/T PTN
• NBCUniversal diversity executive Paula Madison to step down [LA Times Company Town] — Paula Madison leaves to focus on family’s investment business, replaced with Maria Arias
• NBCU Head of Washington, D.C., Office Exits [The Wrap] — Bob Okun leaves, noted in a list of shuffles since the Comcast acquisition
• Comcast’s ‘Extreme’ 105 megabits service in Philadelphia, other regions [Philadelphia Business Journal]

Music playing leading role at Philly Tech Week

Acclaimed DJ RJD2, who is headling the Future of Music event during Philly Tech Week.

There might be no clearer example of how far reaching technology is than three prominent, much hyped music events to be held during Philly Tech Week.

Philly’s eclectic, underground 8static scene is showcasing the city’s best, two.one.five magazine is hosting one of the world’s most celebrated DJs to talk about the future and Drexel University is showing off how its research is impacting where music will go. [Find all events at phillytechweek.com/events]

Startup Roundup: DuckDuckGo partners with Wolfram|Alpha, Google buys Duck.com

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated newsletter or RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

Gabriel Weinberg’s DuckDuckGo search engine has officially partnered with Wolfram|Alpha, according to duel posts on Wolfram’s blog and Weinberg’s personal blog. DDG will include Wolfram’s results into its search results and maintain Wolfram’s Perl binding. Thing’s are getting’ serious for the Valley Forge company. If Google isn’t worried, we’re wondering about that Duck.com redirect to Google, and owned by Google Inc., pointed out by TheNextWeb. Oh, and no biggie, but Portfolio covered the search engine on Monday.

The University City Science Center announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded it a $1 million grant for its QED proof-of-concept program for life science technologies.

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City Controller launches iPhone watchdog app

Call it a righteous start.

The Office of the City Controller this morning announced that it has launched a free iOS app that allows Philadelphia citizens to submit photos, video and text of alleged fraudulent or misappropriate uses of city taxpayer money.

The app, Philly Watchdog — the design of which is certainly a result of functionality over form — is a welcomed concept. Should a citizen run across questionable municipal happenings, he or she has the ability to submit a photograph or video accompanied by text describing the event and address information or geocoded location. There’s also a button that gives users the chance to call the Controller’s office directly, should they not have the number saved in their phone (tell us who does). The app cost $5,400 to develop, according to a Philly Clout report from the press conference.

What it lacks is a call to action defined for the average citizen who, frankly, might not understand what the Controller’s office is responsible for. Examples of fraudulent street-level activity could help, instead of a link to office press releases. And an Android application could help the office connect with the growing number of iPhone-alternative smartphone users.

The email response from a non-anonymous submission was a nice touch. “An investigator from my office will contact you if additional information is needed. All information and contacts will be kept confidential to the extent possible by law,” said the automated email, signed by City Controller Alan Butkovitz.

Several attempts to submit photos and video to test the application earlier this afternoon failed over 3G and WiFi connections with two different iPhone 4 devices. A spokesperson for the Office told Technically Philly that the “city’s server has been on and off all day.” Subsequent attempts were successful.

Switch Philly presented by InterDigital is only one week away

A friendly reminder that Switch Philly presented by InterDigital, the event that showcases five local companies for seven minutes each, is only a week away. Get your tickets at Ticketleap today to see cWyze, Laan Labs, Ohanarama, Coursekit and Catapulter show off what they’ve been working on.

Taking place during Philly Tech Week, Switch Philly prides itself on no powerpoints or Q and A – just straight demos. We’d like to thank InterDigital, Genacast Ventures, Morgan Lewis and VC Deal Lawyer for their support of Switch.

Read more about the companies below:

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VC roundup: Comcast invests in Flipboard, FRC could have invested in Twitter

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

Comcast Interactive Capital has invested in Flipboard, the iPad application that forms content into a magazine-like interface. The round was for $50 million at an $200 valuation.

Philly Tech News has a break down of the latest First Round Capital exit. Portfolio Company Jingle Networks has been acquired by Marchex for $62.5 million. The only problem? Jingle had over $90 million of VC money invested.

Josh Kopelman reveals that First Round Capital could have invested in Twitter. Whoops.

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Catapulter aims to be Kayak.com for ground travel

A screenshot

For being a company focused on travel, Catapulter‘s journey to Switch Philly will be quite simple: they’ll only have to walk down the hall.

The company, founded by Penn students and based in Wharton’s VIP incubator aims to pick up where Kayak.com leaves off, allowing users to search across mass transit lines, bus routes and taxi services to provide cheap door-to-door ground travel.

For example, a Catapulter user can easily determine that its cheaper to buy tickets from Philadelphia to New York and from New York to Boston then it is to buy a direct route to Boston, even if the tickets are all for the same bus. The site can also help determine the cheapest (or fastest way) to take trains, cabs and busses to your destination.

Chief marketing officer Jenny Cheng says Catapulter was born when she gave up her car and realized the amount of research needed to piece together a cheap route from city to city.

“Plus my brother always uses me as his personal travel assistant… so I’m always on the computer looking for cheap busses and cheap trains,” says Cheng.

Cheng enlisted the help of Adam Waaramaa, an old coworker from another startup and got to work.

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Green Tech Showcase: four environment innovations take stage at Philly Tech Week

Launching of the Battleship U. S. S. New Jersey, at the Navy Shipyard, Dec. 7, 1942.

Sustainability has a tech angle beyond composting, and Philly Tech Week has an event to show that off.

For Arbor Day, on Friday, April 29, four of Philadelphia’s biggest, most promising environmentally-themed innovations are taking the lunchtime stage at WHYY, the official headquarters of PTW, for the Green Tech Showcase and brown bag lunch — highlighted by CityPaper.

(1) Christine Knapp, formerly of PennFuture, will discuss the Navy Yard-located Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy Efficient Buildings, one of three Energy Innovation Hubs the U.S. Dept of Energy has funded throughout the United States with goals of improved energy efficiency and operability, reduced carbon emission, stimulation of private investment and quality job creation.

(2) The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and Azavea will unveil PhillyTreeMap.org, a website that enables organizations and the public to collaboratively build and map an inventory of the Philadelphia urban forest.

(3) Mark Group has developed a proprietary technology that marries high speed thermal imaging with satellites. The result is a mobilized vehicle that can capture a thermal image of a home’s exterior (illustrating the energy loss of the home from the exterior) at the rate of 1,000 homes per hour. Check out our recent coverage here.

(4) Micah Gold-Markel, the CEO of Solar States, will discuss the technology behind and immediate lessons from the company’s first major commercial installation on top of the Crane Arts Building in Kensington.