Google’s Schmidt Talks Future Tech, World Connectedness at Princeton Turing Centennial

Princeton University celebrated the centennial of Alan Turing’s birth in grand style from May 10-12, 2012. Turing, known as the “father of computer science,” earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton in 1938, before there was a computer science department at the institution.

The university hosted addresses by some eight winners of the Turing Award, considered to be the “Nobel Prize of computing,” as well as lectures by many other distinguished computer scientists. The range of topics was breathtaking, from quantum computing to modern programming languages and beyond.

A centennial celebration highlight was a public address by Eric Schmidt, Princeton graduate and executive chairman of Google. While not a Google founder, Schmidt has helped grow the search giant from startup to global entity and is credited with finding a way for the company to scale its infrastructure and diversify product offerings while attempting to hold on to a culture of innovation.

Princeton Tech Meetup members gathered beforehand at the local Panera Bread to walk together to Schmidt’s talk at McCosh Hall. Tickets had been reserved earlier. The event was so popular that it was being simulcast to several overflow rooms.

At the heart of Schmidt’s lecture was the belief that technology can be used to benefit all classes of society, including the 5 billion unconnected people on this planet, most of whom live in underdeveloped areas. He called this group “the majority” and was sure that “one day they, too, will be connected.”

Princeton Payment Solutions Acquired, But Jobs Stay in NJ

22 Feb 2012 | by Esther Surden |

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NJTechWeekly.com learned at close of day Friday that Princeton Payment Solutions (PPS), Princeton, N.J., had been acquired by Financial Transaction Services (FTS), an electronic transaction-processing services provider based in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. FTS processed more than $5.5 billion in bank card volume in 2011.

“We can’t discuss the value of the offer,” Stephanie Levine, marketing manager at PPS, told us, though she did say the company will continue to operate under its original name. PPS “is absolutely staying in New Jersey,” and no significant changes to the firm’s ongoing operations are anticipated. In fact, Levine said, “we are looking to quickly expand with top-notch talent across the board.” Asked what that meant, she explained the company “is expecting to hire a few people,” but declined to give specifics.

The only major management change to the company is that Robert Nathan, FTS director of business development, will be joining PPS as president, taking over the company’s day-to-day operations, Levine said. Everyone else is continuing on in their positions, she noted.

PPS CEO Kevin McGuire said the acquisition would “allow us to combine our enterprise-level gateway and payment technology” with FTS’s “acquiring platform.” This should benefit both companies, he said.

In a press release, FTS said the purchase of PPS further increases FTS’s offering in the payment-processing marketplace. “To join forces with a payment engine that already handles processing for companies like Adobe and General Electric, etc., has been a goal of ours for several years now,” FTS president Jeff Shanahan said. PPS has been able to integrate into complex ERP systems and provide myriad solutions, he added.

“We can take their products and solutions to our current distribution channels, and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. We have already started development on the FTS Merchant Center, which will offer all of the PPS products in a hosted gateway environment that we plan to make available to all of our merchants and agents,” Shanahan said.

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