NEW NET Weekly List for 30 Aug 2011

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 30 August 2011, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1. Google+, Facebook duel is big boon for users http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219470/Google_Facebook_duel_is_big_boon_for_users “Industry analysts have suspected that adding Google+ to the social networking mix would force Facebook to up its game. And it looks like that prediction is coming true. Facebook announced Tuesday that it tweaked its privacy settings, making them more intuitive and more clearly informing users of who will be able to see the posts and links that they put on the site. It's a move that is making Facebook's privacy settings more like those found on new rival Google+…when users hover over the +1 button on a Web page or article, it will show them a list of friends and online contacts who already have clicked on it. This makes Google's +1 button a lot like Facebook's Like button…"Facebook and Google, as direct competitors, are the best thing that's ever happened to social networking in terms of fueling innovation and improvements," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group…both companies will be quick to upgrade their sites, respond to frustrated users and even steal strong points from their competitor…moves by Google+ and Facebook to better each other will likely spill over to other social sites, such as Twitter and Quora…Olds expects both sites to build in more tie-ins with localized content, as well as local deals…He also expects both Google+ and Facebook will continue to beef up their mobile platforms. "From a user perspective, this kind of competition is exactly what the social networking world needs…”

2. The Social Network Paradox http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/28/the-social-network-paradox/ “…there is a new trend happening: We’re not really paying attention to our friends we’re connected to online. Take Twitter, for example…It wasn’t so long ago that there were few enough people on Twitter that you could read every single tweet in your stream. But as…people found more people they knew and liked on Twitter, they began following hundreds of people, and reading all those tweets became impossible…Therein lies the paradox of the social network that no one wants to admit: as the size of the network increases, our ability to be social decreases…As the number of bits, photos and links coming over these networks grew, each of those invisibly began to decrease in worth…as the number of friends begins to increase…the spell begins to wear off…we simply can’t easily keep track of it all. When our number of connections rises above 150 everything becomes simply comments…The only reason the network ever felt meaningful was because, at small scale, the network operated like a community. But that breaks apart at large scale…Communities…are the only way we are able to work with the network of the physical world. Our soccer team, our school, our workplace, our street, our town, all have their own communities. And I suspect that these are the only things that will make the digital world similarly manageable. Communities give us an audience and a perspective…If the pattern of all our networks is to grow larger, as Facebook has pushed others around it to become, consumers will hit these limits on the meaningfulness of these networks…we need to create products that encourage discussion, experiences, and lasting, meaningful relationships…the future of the social web is no longer on a network, it’s within communities…”

3. Greplin Releases Must Have iPhone App To Organize Your Life http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/23/greplin-releases-must-have-iphone-app-to-organize-your-life-and-avoid-rabid-googlers/ “…Greplin…an incredibly useful search engine that indexes your online email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Calendar, Dropbox and other stuff (22 services are currently supported)…The goal is to reduce typing by anticipating what you need – if you open the app on a way to a meeting, Greplin can use your location and the date/time to make an intelligent guess you want an address or phone number relevant to that meeting…When Gross opened the app in my office yesterday “Arrington” was the top suggested search. The app knew he was having a meeting with me per his calendar and emails, and knew a search for me was likely. After clicking my name there were additional refinements to find a phone number, or my location…You could do all that in email or calendar…but Greplin makes it so much easier. Instead of opening email on my phone and searching for the name of the person I’m meeting and then scrolling through an email or two to find a phone number or address…Greplin just seems to know what I want and put it front and center for a click. It then highlights relevant information from emails as well. It’s those two features – suggested searches and highlighting – that make the app so easy to use…”

4. Codecademy is web development education for the rest of us http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/26/codecademy/ “Web development and basic coding skills shouldn’t be the mysterious domain of a handful of overpaid engineers, and if the Codecademy founders have anything to say about it, the boundaries of that domain will soon be rapidly expanding. This small group of young hackers…built a company that aims to teach anyone how to code. Their interface is simple and even fun to use. Their traction is through the roof; Codecademy.com has seen more than 250,000 visitors in the first four days since launching. Those visitors spend around an hour each on the site, and together, they’ve completed more than 2.75 million coding exercises…The site is free to use. It’s social — you can learn along with your friends — and incentivized with badges and friendly competition. Learners can also track their progress through the various lessons on the site. Best of all, the site is completely interactive…This is the first time programming has been truly democratized. It’s available to anyone with a computer and it’s easy to follow. We think creating a new generation of programmers will help to raise employment and the standard of living for those individuals. It’s preparing the world for the future…”

5. First Details About Lift, the Next Social Network From the Founders of Twitter http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_twitters_co-founders_appear_to_be_building_ne.php “The recently-departed co-founders of Twitter - Ev Williams, Biz Stone and Jason Goldman - now working together again…announced their latest product today, a stealth alpha app called Lift. It's described as a way to help users achieve their goals through positive reinforcement. It sounds like Twitter in its simplicity…What's called Lift today was apparently called Mibbles just weeks ago and was described then as "a very simple tracking and encouragement tool."…Obvious Corp. has long said it was a new kind of organization seeking to foster startups that would help make the world a better place…Lift…is a way to share the daily accomplishments that mark progress towards your goals, with friends interested in the same sorts of goals…It's also not something Lift will be alone in trying to do. See, for example, Healthmonth, Bud.ge, Streak.ly, L ove Machine and others…In the Group #presentationskill, user Tonystubblebine (the company's co-founder) gives himself an Award for remembered to say my name…in the Group #health, user c_t_montgomery…accomplished the Award ran for 20 minutes. He cross-posted to the groups #workout and #forrealthistime…It's a really simple service - it's not hard to see why it resonated with the Obvious team…you're shown a stream of accomplishments by people who have similar goals, you're encouraged to give yourself an award for any accomplishments you're willing to claim publicly - then you get simple positive re-enforcement for those accomplishment…”

6. Bellstrike Launches “Instant Websites for Nonprofits” http://www.prweb.com/releases/bellstrike/nonprofit-website-launch/prweb8727888.htm “…Bellstrike has launched a new service that provides turnkey, branded websites to US nonprofits of all sizes…by 2015 online donations should account for 1/3 of all charitable giving in the US. After that, it won’t be long until online giving makes up the majority of all donations…Our goal is to provide great looking websites…to small nonprofits that otherwise can’t afford it or don’t have the technical skills or time to implement it. It can be tough for a small nonprofit to maintain a great website that drives online donations…Bellstrike does not charge any setup or monthly fees, but instead receives 9.5% of online donations with all transaction costs included so that small charities do not incur any out-of-pocket expenses…we designed our system to be like fill-in-the blanks so that directors, employees, or volunteers can make changes without any training. We don’t use a traditional Content Management System – that can be overkill…In user testing, the entire signup process for Bellstrike has averaged between 1-2 minutes. Bellstrike piggybacks on payment processor WePay.com. Nonprofits can set up a WePay account during the signup process…”

Gigabit Internet

7. Fiber optics making telecommuting easier http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705389677/Fiber-optics-making-telecommuting-easier.html “…Wilsker, who is on the Adoption Advisory Board for Broadband for America, says “broadband is the missing link of telecommuting because significant bandwidth is needed for real video collaboration.”…telecommuting is emerging as a standard business strategy to lower costs and improve productivity…only 2 percent of the U.S. workforce is telecommuting full-time, with another 9 percent doing so part-time and 8 percent running their own businesses from home…doing some sort of work remotely today via smartphones, tablets or laptops and that this will become mainstream when ultrafast broadband is deployed in communities…the 16 Utah cities involved in the UTOPIA fiber project are an example of where telecommuting can really blossom due to enormous upload and download speeds. This community effort provides gigabit-enabled fiber optic lines directly to homes and businesses and is already seeing teleworkers benefit from the large bandwidth…Steve Freebairn chose his neighborhood specifically because of the availability of UTOPIA fiber. He has been a digital imaging technician for a number of blockbuster movies and was recently the data management supervisor for "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides." Freebairn needs to upload and download enormous amounts of data as part of his job. “My Hollywood co-workers are envious, because while they are battling L.A. smog and traffic, I’m enjoying my family and the quality of life in Utah because of my fiber connection,” Freebairn said. “I literally could not telecommute in my job without the enormous bandwidth.”…A recent Telework Coalition study demonstrated that companies empowering employees to work from home save an average of $20,000 per year per employee…”

8. Zyxel intros true 450Mbps dual-band router http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20096175-1/zyxel-intros-true-450mbps-dual-band-router/ “Zyxel announced today the NBG5715, its first router that offers the higher 450Mbps ceiling throughput speed on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands at the same time. This is the second router to offer this concurrent high-speed feature, the first being the TEW-692GR from Trendnet. The new 450Mbps standard is also known as the 3 by 3, in which the router broadcasts the signal in three spatial streams at a time, as opposed to the dual stream of most existing 300Mbps routers. While 3 by 3 Wi-Fi is not new, most other routers that support it, such as the Linksys E4200 and the Netgear N750, offer the technology only on the 5GHz band, leaving the 2.4GHz in the regular 300Mbps standard. Zyxel says that, in addition to the higher speed, the NBG5715 also features two USB ports to accommodate sharing both a printer and a storage device over the network. The new router is equipped with Zyxel's SmartRange technology, which the company says pinpoints wireless clients like laptops and tablets and transmits directly to them and helps extend the range and enhance signal penetration. For the wired network, it has four Gigabit Ethernet ports…”

9. Hawaii Broadband Initiative Makes Debut on Maui http://mauinow.com/2011/08/23/video-hawaii-broadband-initiative-makes-debut-on-maui/ “…the Hawaiʻi Broadband Initiative…seeks to provide statewide access to affordable ultra high-speed internet by 2018…it’s going to take us, and take everyone who’s associated with it into a new world of accessibility and communications with one another that’s literally going to be unprecedented,” said Gov. Abercrombie…the teleconference was broadcast to the neighbor islands in coordination with the state’s high-tech partners…on Maui, key players and partners were able to participate at the Ka’aike media building located at the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College campus. Deidre Tegarden, the Governor's Maui Liaison (in foreground) was among the Maui attendees…The target…for the Broadband Initiative is…to bring 1 gigabit per second of broadband connectivity to all public schools, libraries, public universities and college campuses in the state…” http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/08/23/12628-abercrombie-banks-on-high-speed-broadband/

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

10. The impact of Oracle's use of API copyrights in Google lawsuit http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/196381/impact-oracles-defense-api-copyrights “…Oracle's strategy in its Java copyright infringement case against Google…could seriously jeopardize the US software industry…The broad issue of the lawsuit, launched in August 2010, is this: Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems' Java technology when it bought Sun in 2010. Google needed to use Java-like technology in its Android mobile operating system. Rather than licensing Java from Oracle to use in Android, Google developed a "clean room" version of the Java virtual machine, Dalvik, for Android instead. Oracle now claims that Dalvik deliberately infringes on Java, despite efforts to build Dalvik from scratch…If Google's motion for summary judgment were granted, it would blow a pretty big hole in Oracle's case. If APIs were found to be non-copyrighted, then Oracle could hardly claim Google caused a problem by using the Java APIs…Oracle's response to the August 1 motion is to challenge the entire premise of API copyrights (or lack thereof)…Oracle's motion of opposition argues that APIs do indeed fall under copyright. If Oracle's motion is upheld, then this would have enormous consequences for the software industry in the US, which--like other nations--has traditionally held that APIs are not enforceable by copyright…”

11. China's telecom patent boom heralds innovation era http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-china-patents-idUSTRE77O0VX20110825 “China's telecom giants are building up a war-chest of patents to help give them an edge in the legal battles raging between the world's smartphone makers, aided by Beijing's push to transform the country from workshop to innovator. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp, China's top two telecommunications equipment makers, are stealing a march on rivals both in traditional network gear and, increasingly, high-end phones. ZTE was the second highest filer of international patent applications in the world last year…Huawei was the fourth most active filer with 1,528 applications, having been in the top spot in 2009. Patent filings are soaring across most sectors in China -- last year there were 313,854 patents registered in the country…China was the third highest filer of patents in 2010, just behind the U.S., which registered 326,945 and Japan with 337,497…The China telecom space in particular is seeing a lot of action as the likes of ZTE and Huawei, along with Taiwan's HTC move from being contract manufacturers for big foreign firms to making smart phones and tablets under their own brands. "A lot of know-how flows through the contract manufacturer…as they move up the value chain, they use patents to protect some of the knowledge and ideas they've picked up as contract manufacturers in order to give them room to manoeuvre in the increasingly competitive market…”

12. Who killed the fake-antivirus business? http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/who-killed-the-fake-antivirus-business/3832 “The fake-antivirus business went from boom to bust in record time. Early this year, the bad guys were making money hand over fist with scareware and rogue security products. Then, suddenly, the business dried up. The event that caused the sudden plunge? A high-profile bust by Russian authorities. On June 23, a network of web sites that were distributing fake antivirus software for Windows PCs and Macs suddenly went offline when the head of the company that processed payments for the group was busted…Russian police arrested Pavel Vrublevsky, co-founder of Chrono­Pay, Russia’s biggest processor of online payments and a lead player in several fake AV scams…McAfee has tracked more than a 60 percent decrease in the number of customers dealing with fake AV since late May…”

13. Five best free Android apps for smartphone security http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features/software/3299983/the-five-best-free-android-apps-for-smartphone-security/ “Malware on Google Android devices is becoming more and more of a problem for smartphone owners…The safest course of action is to avoid apps that you've never heard of and to research apps and their publishers thoroughly before pressing the Download button…if you are concerned about the software already installed on your Android smartphone, then there are a number of free security apps available in the Android Market that will scan your phone and identify any rogue apps. Here's five of the best…Lookout Security & Antivirus…AVG Anti-Virus Free…Bitdefender Mobile Security…Norton Mobile Security Lite…Webroot Mobile Security Basic…”

14. ICE Screws Up, Seizes Tor Exit Node; Vows Not to Learn From Its Mistake http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110825/13360915683/ice-screws-up-seizes-tor-exit-node-vows-not-to-learn-its-mistake.shtml “Given the various domain seizures and other efforts by ICE to act as Hollywood's personal police force, it long ago became clear that they're not particularly technically competent. As if to demonstrate how technically illiterate they are, ICE recently seized six computer hard drives from the home of Nolan King…ICE's evidence in getting a warrant? Solely an IP address…if ICE were even mildly technically competent, it would have been able to tell before it seized the machines that King was running a Tor exit node, and thus was not the person connected to the IP…after the EFF gave ICE agents basic remedial training in how the internet works, it returned King's hard drives, but told him "this could happen again…”

15. Defending Against The 'Apache Killer' Exploit http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/Defending-Against-The-Apache-Killer-Exploit-3939081.htm “An HTTP attack emerged this week against Apache Web servers…The Apache HTTP web server is the most widely deployed Web server on the Internet today and it's at risk from a serious denial of service (DoS) attack. The 'Apache Killer' tool is now out in the wild enabling attackers to consume all of the memory on a Web server creating a DoS condition. Apache has issued multiple security advisories on the issue and are planning on releasing a patch this weekend. While Apache Web servers are vulnerable by default, that doesn't mean that there aren't defenses against the attack. One of those defenses is by using an intrusion prevention system (IPS) like Snort…"The Snort engine's HTTP Inspect preprocessor has an option to detect oversized HTTP headers, one of the key pieces of the Apache Killer tool…”

16. Snort 2.9.1 improves protocol handling http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Snort-2-9-1-improves-protocol-handling-1332549.html “The Snort network intrusion detection system has been updated with HTTP and DCE/RPC protocol aware flushing and improved SIP, POP and IMAP3 preprocessors. Updates to the HTTP and DCE/RPC preprocessors now allow Snort to reassemble requests and responses, even when spread over many packets, and to intelligently flush the results. Snort performs realtime analysis on IP network traffic to detect attempts to probe or attack the network by using a user-defined ruleset which characterises those attacks…Snort 2.9.1 is available to download as source or binaries for RHEL6, Fedora 13 and Windows…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

17. Apen Writes On Paper, Smartphones, Tablets http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/apen-writes-on-paper-smartphones-tablets/ “Apen is a neat and simple take on getting paper notes into your computer, phone or tablet…they work with the iPhone and iPad (A4) and Blackberry/Android devices (A3). The kit consists of an electronic pen that contains real ink, and a receiver…The receiver records your scribblings and either beams them direct to your computer, phone or tablet, or you can hook the receiver up later via USB to copy everything across. The unit can remember the content of up to around 100 pages, so you can write most of a (short) book before needing to dump the data…you can write and draw on paper and later everything is available in software. The main difference between the A3 and A4 (apart from their device compatibly) is that the A3 includes Bluetooth for sending your notes direct to your Android or Blackberry in real time. I have settled on writing directly onto my iPad using a stylus, and snapping photos of anything I write on paper and sending it to Evernote for handwriting recognition…”

18. Wyse PocketCloud Pro Creates Personal Mobile Cloud for Android http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/239107/wyse_pocketcloud_pro_creates_personal_mobile_cloud_for_android_windows.html “Wyse is introducing the concept of a personal cloud--a seamless connection between your mobile device and your PC--with the launch of the latest version of Wyse PocketCloud Pro for Android. The new PocketCloud Pro challenges file syncing and transfer services by providing drag and drop file sharing between Android mobile devices and Windows PCs. Smartphones and tablets continue to evolve into more powerful and capable platforms as time goes on, but they are not PCs. We often need to access tools and data that are still sitting at our desk inside our PC, and Wyse PocketCloud v1.3 for Android takes that connectivity to a new level by connecting and sharing data as if the mobile device and PC are one…”

19. SEED: Travelogue with Total Recall http://www.uasvision.com/2011/07/13/personal-autonomous-mobile-camera-balloon/ “…The SEED is an autonomous, mobile camera balloon created to take photos and video of you while you’re on vacation. This design project was created by Moonhwan Lee, Nakamura Shohei & YoungWook Jung. SEED is like a total recall agent that captures the essence of your travels (sights, sounds and smells), re-live your favorite vacation…Basically the unit has three purposes: sharing, remembering & guide. As a sharing device, you can instantly share your entire environment with family and friends using Sync Experience Service. The balloon-shaped device hovers in the air, capturing an aerial view of the place. The device features a Total Recall Service that amazingly captures the sights, sounds, smells and the mood of the place it records. Kinda like a 4D service! SEED is a complete tourist guide and can give you a personal tour of your destination…”

20. The IPad Takes on Manufacturing http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/239074/the_ipad_takes_on_manufacturing.html “First it won accolades as the next killer consumer device. Then it slipped into the backpacks and briefcases of white-collar information workers, and in some cases it's becoming a corporate-sanctioned alternative to the laptop. Now the Apple iPad – and…competitors in the burgeoning tablet market -- are starting to pop up on the plant floor and in distribution centers and warehouses…"With a relatively small investment, companies can re-create the whole information-on-the-fly scenario that was nearly impossible before unless they made enormous investments in PCs, cable networks and ruggedized PCs."…workers strolling the plant floor…with a tablet device can, for example, readily track key performance indicators, get real-time alerts on potential equipment failures, tap into corporate data and even control machines remotely…a tablet could steer a worker to an area where there's a problem on a production line or in a warehouse. The worker could then use the tablet to record a video of the problem and send the video to the corporate office…"consumerization of IT" trend is prompting manufacturing and IT execs to consider tablets as a economical and accessible replacements for expensive ruggedized PCs or hard-to-use Windows-based dedicated mobile devices…major vendors of manufacturing, warehousing and logistics software are busy working with key customers to pilot experimental apps and to explore how to best leverage the technology…The navigation paradigm lends itself to a more casual user than the typical user interaction…While he's happy with the Apple products, Formella emphasizes that it's the tablet form factor, rather than the brand, that works for MBX. "We did evaluate other tablets, but at the time there wasn't anything competitive…If we were to do the project today, I think we may have chosen one of the Android-based tablets, mostly because they don't seem to have the same issues…associated with making the Bluetooth scanner work…”

21. This is a joke, right? HP to bring back TouchPad for last production run http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20099398-64/hp-to-bring-back-touchpad-for-last-production-run/ “Hewlett-Packad will bring back the TouchPad for one last production run in the wake of the explosion of consumer interest in the platform. On August 19, HP slashed the price of the 16GB TouchPad to $100, setting off a buying frenzy online and at electronics stores such as Best Buy. HP's action came after announcing the shuttering of its WebOS device business…In a post on an HP Web page, the company said a limited supply of TouchPads will arrive in the coming weeks…As we know more about how, when, and where TouchPads will be available, we will communicate that here and through e-mail to those who requested notification…HP will be manufacturing a limited quantity of TouchPads with WebOS during our fourth fiscal quarter 2011, which ends October 31…HP is discontinuing the development of WebOS devices and is winding down device operations within our fourth fiscal quarter 2011…”

Apps

22. Quixey: A Functional Search Engine For Apps http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/28/quixey-raises-3-8-million-for-a-functional-search-engine-for-apps/ “…We’ve all heard (and perhaps even mocked) the quip “there’s an app for that”. It’s actually a wonderful quality of the mobile revolution: There really is an app for just about everything you can think of, from calling a taxi to managing your schedule to scanning for skin cancer or heart murmors. But…searching for the app that you want isn’t easy…Quixey entered the game with the intention to build a new type of search, molded specifically to the unique characteristics of searching for those ubiquitous but sometimes elusive apps. Their solution, coined “functional search”, which not only scans the major app stores, but crawls blogs, review sites, forums, and social media sites to build a truly comprehensive picture of what an app can do — through reviews, word of mouth, and demos…”

23. Scarcity of smartphone app developers stifles a growing industry in Michigan http://www.freep.com/article/20110830/COL41/108300342/Mark-W-Smith-Scarcity-smartphone-app-developers-stifles-growing-industry-Michigan “…There's so much more that these things can do," he says of smartphones. "It's just not a camera anymore. It's not just a phone." Hilla, 36, of Grand Rapids, created CollabraCam, an app for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that allows four of those devices to record video simultaneously, sending the live feeds back to a fifth Apple device that acts as a director. The director can switch from camera to camera, creating a multi-camera video production in real time. The app ($5.99) has been featured heavily in Apple's App Store and was a nominee for this year's Webby Awards for Best Use of Mobile Video…Hilla, who has a degree in film and video from Grand Valley State University, didn't know how to write the code for the app himself. He contracted a firm in Indiana to create the app at a cost of $50,000. As more people like Hilla get ideas for smartphone and tablet apps, Michigan stands ill-prepared to help them realize their visions…The problem: A lack of developers here who know how to create apps…Itai Ben-Gal, chief executive of Detroit-based iRule, has two unfilled positions for mobile developers. But there are so few in Michigan that they can command astronomical rates…Ben-Gal's experience is not uncommon, says Linda Daichendt, executive director of the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan, a trade group set up to help build the mobile industry here…"The industry has moved so fast that the schools are having a hard time staying caught up,"…Henry Balanon, co-founder and director of mobile at app development firm Detroit Labs, has been able to have his pick of clients, often having to choose to turn down work from smaller companies…"If we could find a reasonably paid mobile developer in the area, we would hire them in a second," he says. Small businesses are increasingly looking to mobile devices to spread their message and sell their wares, creating a need for developers…"If you are not accessible on a mobile device, your business is just going to be left behind," Grubbs says…Hilla has sold more than 4,000 copies of CollabraCam since its February launch. That has been enough to sustain the development needs for the app, but has not been enough to support him. "We have not yet met ramen profitability," Hilla says, a term used to describe when a start-up can support the bare necessities…He plans to launch another video-centric app this fall. An Android version of CollabraCam is planned for early 2012. And in the meantime…he's also working through books and Web sites to learn how to develop apps himself…”

24. Bloodhound Is On The Scent Of The Perfect Conference App http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/24/bloodhound/ “…I go to a lot of conferences. For each and every one I fumble around at the last minute to figure out the schedule, who’s going to be there, etc. When I get there, I trade business cards that I’ll probably never look at again…The logistics surrounding just attending are a pain. And it’s a much bigger pain when you’re helping to actually put one together. Enter Bloodhound…a new mobile app launching today that aims to alleviate the pains of conference-going — for both attendees and those participating…It’s…a little surprising that one app hasn’t caught on in this space yet given the pain points…Bloodhound focuses specifically on large events/conferences in aggregate…they give anyone (ideally an event organizer, but it can be just an attendee too) a simple web-based tool to add an event to their directory…you can input more detailed information or if it’s publicly available, Bloodhound will look for it…the app shines as a way to access and trade information leading up to and at the event. Did you meet someone there that you’d like to connect with later? Instead of trading business cards, why not use the app to follow them on LinkedIn and/or Facebook. Or you can just shoot them a pre-populated email with your information with one click. Bloodhound also focuses on realtime recommendations for things you might like at a particular event…it may recommend that you check out certain sessions at the event you’re currently attending…these recommendations as well as connections are also interesting to the exhibitors at the events…promotion of the events themselves within the app will be interesting to conference organizers. There’s certainly potential revenue to be had for Bloodhound …”

25. Bizness Apps Adds HTML5 Platform To Let SMBs Create Their Own Apps http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/27/native-or-web-bizness-apps-adds-html5-platform-to-let-smbs-create-their-own-apps-for-both/ “Bizness Apps, the startup that gives small businesses the tools to quickly and easily build mobile apps, launched in October 2010 and has been growing like gangbusters, reaching over 1,000 applications, 10 languages, and over 20 countries in less than 9 months. It also recently partnered with WuFoo to give SMBS the ability to create and seamlessly add contact forms, online surveys, and invitations to their apps…Bizness Apps’s value proposition is simple: The startup wants to make mobile apps affordable, customizable, and simple to make for the small business owner. Thus, the startup offers a DIY iPhone, iPad, and Android app platform that enables SMBs to create, edit, and manage mobile apps without any programming experience required. You start with a template, customize them to suit your business, and then Bizness Apps makes them native apps and distributes them on iTunes and the Android Marketplace…”

Open Source

26. March of the Penguin: Ars looks back at 20 years of Linux http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/08/march-of-the-penguin-ars-looks-back-at-20-years-of-linux.ars “The Linux kernel was originally created by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish computer science student, and first announced to the world on August 25, 1991—exactly 20 years ago today. At the time, Torvalds described his work as a "hobby" and contended that it would not be "big and professional" like the GNU project. But the Linux kernel turned out to be one of the most significant pieces of open source software ever developed. Over the past two decades, it has grown from a humble hobby project into a global phenomenon that runs on everything from low-cost e-book readers to a majority of the world's supercomputers. Here's how it grew…Torvalds had modestly rejected the idea of naming the new kernel after himself, instead calling it Freax. The name "Linux" was selected by Ari Lemmke, an employee at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT)…Lemmke reportedly disliked the name "Freax" and thought that "Linux" sounded more appealing. The original 0.01 release of Linux could not actually run. Torvalds published the source code—despite its technical shortcomings—for the benefit of Lemmke, who had expressed interest after the initial announcement. Not until the 0.02 release on October 5, 1991 could the OS function…The code was transitioned to GNU's General Public License in 1992 following the release of version 0.12, and the Linux kernel is still distributed under that license today. Other prominent UNIX clones were already under development at the time of Linux's birth, including some that were distributed in source code form for the benefit of academics and hobbyists…”

27. Open source flight sim, FlightGear, reaches 2.4 http://www.i-programmer.info/news/144-graphics-and-games/2943-open-source-flight-sim-flightgear-reaches-24-.html “If you think that flight simulators are a dying breed then you have missed out on the rise of FlightGear, an open source flight simulator started in 1997 that can be regarded as a game or as a research tool. The latest version 2.4 has just been released and it has some significant improvements…the system will generate weather based on the state of the atmosphere and the local terrain. This can result in fog, thermals and topographic clouds. Clearly fun if you are flying a glider and taking the weather into account is now an essential part of the experience…There is also a 3D rendering option which provides a good reason to go out and buy some new hardware. The experience of flying has been improved with better autopilot control, a new heads up display and many new cockpit systems…You can also select any of 500 aircraft. The system also includes an AI module that can generate flight plans and control the trajectory of other flying objects and simulate flight traffic…source code is available for download and binaries are available for Windows, MacOS 10.5-10.7, Linux…”

28. 10 Secure Linux Distributions You Need Know About http://www.serverwatch.com/server-trends/10-secure-linux-distributions-you-need-know-about.html “…Perhaps you think you've done due diligence by keeping your patches updated, installing security fixes, and maintaining a corporate firewall. Those methods are effective about 50 percent of the time. For the other 50 percent, you need to do more. You need penetration testing, security audits, intrusion prevention and intrusion detection, and you need to plug security holes…by using the tools they use to compromise your systems…This list of 10, in no particular order, security-enhanced Linux distributions can give you peace of mind by beating hackers on their turf…Astaro Security Appliance…BackTrack Linux…is a security-oriented system built solely for the purpose of network and computer penetration testing. BackTrack can be run from a bootable DVD, a thumbdrive or a hard disk…IPFire - IPFire is a firewall distribution that is small, highly secure and easy to use…Lightweight Portable Security…boots a thin Linux system from a CD or USB flash drive…LPS provides secure browsing during banking transactions or other security-sensitive sessions…Live Hacking DVD…EnGarde Secure Linux…NetSecL…features GrSecurity, chroot hardening, auditing, and includes penetration testing software…SmoothWall Express - The SmoothWall Open Source project began in 2000 and continues to be an excellent business firewall solution. SmoothWall Express…Openwall GNU/Linux…Vyatta…”

29. Canonical Releases First Ubuntu With Linux Kernel 3.0 http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ubunto-linux-11-10-linux-kernel-3,13192.html “Canonical has released the third alpha version of Ubuntu 11.10. The distribution includes the Linux Kernel 3.0 for the first time…The current alpha still integrates Gnome 3.1.4 while the final version is likely to get Gnome 3.2…Ubunto 11.10 alpha 3 is available for download for 32-bit and 64-bit systems…Canonical intends to release two more beta versions for September 1 and 22. The final version of the distribution is scheduled for a October 13 release…”

30. Three Open Source Project Management Apps http://olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2011/three-worthwhile-open-source-project-management-apps/ “…Here’s a survey of several useful open source project management applications suitable for collaborative enterprise use that stand up well against…Microsoft Project…OpenProj is a standalone application written in Java, which means it can run on Windows, Mac OS, or Linux desktops. It supports features such as…Gantt chart creation, PERT graphs, resource breakdown structure charts, task usage reports, and work breakdown structure (WBS) charts…While OpenProj runs on a user’s desktop, Redmine is a web-based project management application…RedMine includes useful features such as flexible role-based access control; flexible issue tracking; Gantt charts and calendars to better follow project timelines, news, documents, file management, feeds, and email notifications; per-project wiki and forums; simple time-tracking functionality; custom fields for issues, time entries, projects, and users; multiple LDAP authentication; and support for user self-registration, multiple languages, multiple databases, and plugins…Though dotProject has been around since 2000, it has, within the past few years, come into its own as a viable competitor among open source project management applications. Written in PHP, dotProject, like Redmine, is a web-based project management application compatible with a variety of platforms and browsers, with Mozilla Firefox recommended for best results…”

31. Oracle retires licence for distributing its Java with Linux http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Oracle-retires-licence-for-distributing-its-Java-with-Linux-1332835.html “…Oracle has retired the "Operating System Distributor License for Java"…that was created by Sun in 2006. The non-free licence had allowed Linux distributors to package and distribute Sun's, and later Oracle's, Java versions in their Linux distributions. Sun made this licence available after releasing Java as open source at the JavaOne conference in 2006. It was designed to ensure that users had easy access to packages containing the well-tested Sun Java during the development of the free OpenJDK…”

SkyNet

32. Google's +1 button finally becomes useful for sharing content on the web http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/googles-1-button-finally-becomes-useful-for-sharing-content-on-the-web-2343674.html “Since launching in June Google’s +1 button has been integrated on more than a million sites around the web and garners more than 4 billion views per day, but up until now there has been little incentive for users to click on Google’s answer to the Facebook “Like” button…several new features that will appeal to Google+ users and and web publishers alike. The +1 button has been given “sharing” and “+snippets” functionality, meaning that users can easily comment on, share and post about web content they “+1” with their Google+ circles. Clicking the +1 button is a great way to highlight content for others…we're making it easy for Google+ users to share webpages with their circles, directly from the +1 button. Just +1 a page as usual and look for the new "Share on Google+" option…the +1 button will automatically create a “+snippet” - a link to the web content, an image and a short description - that can be posted in a user’s Google+ sharebox…A global roll-out of Google’s +1 sharing and +snippets will take place over the next week…”

33. Google asks for user help to wipe out scraper sites http://www.pcworld.com/article/239007/googles_war_against_scraper_sites_continues.html “…Scraper sites are usually operated by spammers. They copy almost all the content of the scraper site from other websites. By doing so, they hope to exploit the popularity of the material from original content makers to steer search engine traffic to their sites to make money through advertising…Tell us about blog scrapers you see... We need datapoints for testing," Google's web spam leader Matt Cutts said in a recent tweet…Along with his tweet, Cutts included a link to a form that allows web surfers to report scraper pages to Google. Some of that information may be used to test and improve Google's algorithm, the company said…Some scrapers are so successful in what they do that their sites achieve higher search engine rankings than the sites of the content makers from whom they pinch their material…”

34. How to Deal With Annoying People on Google+ http://googleplus.wonderhowto.com/blog/deal-with-annoying-people-google-facebook-0129614/ “…Google has added the ability to ignore specific user accounts and strengthened its option to block accounts on its new social network Google+, the company announced in a note Friday. The new ignore feature should help calm down the often noisy feed of updates some critics have complained about, while the improved blocking option will no doubt provide Google+ members with a better overall experience…Posts from ignored accounts won’t be displayed in your incoming stream. You also won’t be notified when they interact with your posts and you won’t see ignored people on your Circles page…the stronger blocking option eliminates all interaction from a blocked account across the entire social network…Google+ doesn’t notify users when they’ve been ignored or blocked…Letting Google+ members anonymously block and ignore accounts makes sense — especially since the company is planning to launch a business version of the social network in the coming months that will no doubt flood the space with marketers and unapologetic self-promoters…”

35. Google Docs: Android photos, keyboard shortcuts, new look, more http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-Docs-for-Android-Lets-Users-Add-Photos-to-Documents-594897/ “Google enhanced its native Google Docs for Android application, adding the ability to drop photos users take from their Android smartphone right into a Google document…With the Docs for Android bump, users can now tap the camera icon from the Docs widget icon on their Android phone, shoot a photo, and then select "send to Web Clipboard" and press "OK." Then users can open any Google document from their computer, click the Web Clipboard icon and pick the item to paste into their document.…” http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/08/try-out-new-look-and-keyboard-shortcuts.html “…try out a new look for the documents list that's rolling out to users…If it's available to you, you'll be able to preview the new look by clicking on Try the new look under the gear icon in the upper right. You’ll be able to return to the classic look using the same menu…you may want to see more of the items in your documents list on the screen at one time. To do this, click on the gear icon in the upper right and go to Documents settings. Under Row height, you’ll be able to select the option to use a denser view…we’ve also added keyboard shortcuts to help you easily navigate your documents list without a mouse…The Create new shortcuts are also convenient for creating new docs while you’re working. Simply hit Shift + T to create a new text document, Shift + S to create a spreadsheet, or Shift + C to create a new collection. Can't remember all those shortcuts? Just remember the question mark. Type ? when you’re not in the search bar, and a window will appear showing all available shortcuts. These shortcuts will only be available if you’re using the new interface…” http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20097455-285/how-to-get-notifications-of-changes-to-your-google-documents/ “Google Docs makes collaboration simple, but if you are monitoring more than a couple of files…it can be a pain to keep track of…E-mail notifications are fine, but if you want to keep your inbox clean, there's a great Chrome extension that can make your life easier…Download and install WatchDoc…When one of the documents you watch changes, you should see a red number indicating the number of changes in the WatchDoc icon. Click it to bring up a list of docs that have changed and, if you like, open them up in new tabs…” http://lifehacker.com/5834650/quickly-look-up-the-definition-of-any-word-in-google-docs “When you're in Google Docs and want to check the definition of a word, all you need to do is type the word (or select an existing one) and perform a quick keyboard shortcut. For Windows users, that shortcut is Control+Shift+Y. For Mac users, it's Command+Shift+Y. That'll bring up the definition and provide you with the ability to look up more words if you like…”

36. How to Send Faxes From Google Docs http://www.bnet.com/blog/businesstips/how-to-send-faxes-from-google-docs/12316 “We can argue all day as to why faxes and fax machines still exist, but the stark reality is that they do…if you’re a Google Docs user, all you need is InterFax, an Internet fax service that now supports faxing directly from Docs…To send a fax, just open your Google Docs document, then click the “Fax This” bookmarklet (which you can add to any browser). Type or paste in the fax number and presto: the document gets delivered…You can also configure InterFax so that inbound faxes land in your Google Docs account, where you can view and/or share them…If you want to give InterFax a test-drive, you can do so for free for 14 days. After the trial period expires, you’ll have to pony up for a prepaid faxing plan. These start at $10 for roughly 90 pages…If you want to receive faxes (via an assigned toll-free number), you’ll need a monthly subscription, which is $12.95…”

37. Iowa partnering with Google to get small businesses online http://easterniowagovernment.com/2011/08/29/iowa-partnering-with-google-to-get-small-buisinesses-online/ “Google will offer free website development and hosting for small businesses in Iowa, Gov. Terry Branstad announced Monday…The search engine giant has entered partnerships with the several business groups in the state, including the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry to launch its program in Iowa. John Cacciatore, who represents Google in Iowa, said Iowa’s partnership with the company is “toward the beginning” of an eventual cross-country rollout for its service. “Google started with places where it already has a physical presence or existing relationship, in this case it would be Council Bluffs,” Cacciatore said…”

38. How Google+ will succeed and why you’ll use it http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/08/24/how-google-will-succeed-and-why-youll-use-it-whether-you-want-to-or-not/ “…critics don’t understand that G+ has a public, Twitter-like component to it. This new school of G+ critic seems to only see one side of G+ — its private side — and then concludes that because “their friends” aren’t rushing to join G+, no one ever will…These writers are really missing something crucial. Unlike, every other competitor in the social networking space, G+ has a unique advantage: google.com, youtube.com, blogger.com, and gmail.com. These four domains are some of the most trafficked in the world…at the top of these four humongous websites there is, or will be, a little black bar and a little red notification indicator…Google does want to take market share from Facebook…But it also wants to take market share from Twitter. G+’s Twitter-like aspirations combined with their big-4 domain / notification-reach makes all the difference…When the 140 character wunderkind launched in 2006, it was only used by tech nerds. Just one community, that knew each other by name, if not in person. Then John Mayer signed up. Now there was two communities. The tech nerds, and the John Mayer fan club. Then there was Diddy…One celebrity at a time started to build sub-communities on Twitter. And make no mistake, Twitter went out and recruited them…Like Twitter, G+ is going to keep growing as it attracts one niche community after another…G+ has currently gathered together a network of three kinds of tech nerds: early adopters…Google fanboys…and “Facebook fed-ups”…these three examples aren’t the only communities on G+. A nascent photographer community is already forming — G+ is on the way to becoming a place for serious photographers to engage with “regular folks,” taking away market share from Flickr and other smaller photo sites…we’re going to see certain celebrities choose G+ as their platform of choice…Rose McGowan did a Hangout (video chat) on G+ this week. Can you imagine what pandemonium would break loose if Justin Bieber did that?...unlike a private-oriented social network (Facebook), a public network like G+ (with its Twitter side) doesn’t require that your friends join for it to be useful and engaging…G+ doesn’t need you to have a critical mass of your friends or users in a certain area to be interesting…G+ will continue to grow & grow and as a critical mass of your friends start using it, you’ll then be able to use it in a more Facebook-y fashion…G+ basically is a combination of Facebook & Twitter…It serves both purposes: private communication among friends, and public shouting to the world…Google’s massive scale…and the domains it owns: google.com, youtube.com, blogger.com, and gmail.com — have given Google a weapon no one else has: the power of accretion, via that little black bar and red notification…You may not use G+ today. But someone you know is. It may be your friend from work, it may be your favorite photographer, blogger, or rock star…when you’re minding your own business checking your Gmail or doing a Google search, you’ll see that little red notification box…Your friend will use G+ and you’ll be forced to visit the G+ site to look at the content. While you’re there on G+, you may just notice that your notification bar shows there’s even more posts & content waiting for you. It may take you 2 months or 2 years, but gradually you’re going to get pulled in…That’s why Google+ doesn’t have its own distinct domain like “Orkut.com” — Google’s growth strategy and master plan is that Google+ will just be a part of everything you do on Google’s collective websites…”

39. Chrome Extension Translates Google+ Posts & Comments http://mashable.com/2011/08/29/google-translate-for-google-plus/ “…Google Translate for Google+…is a simple browser extension for Chrome that translates posts and comments into more than 50 languages. “We’ve heard from a lot of Google+ users wanting an easier way to understand posts written in other languages. I’m an engineer on Google Translate and thought we could do something about that…Once you’ve installed the extension, refresh Google+ and you’ll see Translate links next to posts and comments…”

General Technology

40. Steve Jobs no longer Apple CEO http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/steve-jobs-the-man-and-his-muse-170832 “Lots of CEOs make products. Many make millions. Very few make history. Steve Jobs is one of the latter. Like Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller, he's left a mark on his times that goes far beyond the creation of shiny new widgets…for more than a decade I've been Steve Jobs's muse…when Steve was trying to make a go of the NeXT machine, he called me at some ungodly hour of the night. He didn't introduce himself. He didn't have to. Only one man could possibly be calling at that hour. "Apple wants to buy us. What do you think? Should I go back?" I cursed and left the phone off the hook. But I think he understood my meaning. Of course, within a year he was CEO again…A few years went by without much contact. Then sometime in early 2001 I got an email out of the blue. It read: "We're coming out with a portable music player in a few months. I'm thinking of calling it the 'iPod'. What do you think?" I told him the Sony Walkman had the portable music market sewn up. Nobody in their right mind would spend money for a device that only played MP3s…Two years later, another call. This one was about the iTunes Store. Steve sounded so excited I really hated to burst his bubble. The music industry will crush you like a bug, I said…The iPhone? A horrible mistake, I told him. The wireless companies will make you sorry you ever came up with the idea. And could you please drop the little "i" in front of everything?...In late 2009 I warned Steve against introducing a tablet PC. I was certain the iPad was a terrible idea that would sink his company…” http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/ “…Below, a compendium of some of the best Steve Jobs quotes…We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build…Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people…That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it. Take desktop video editing. I never got one request from someone who wanted to edit movies on his computer. Yet now that people see it, they say, ‘Oh my God, that’s great!’…Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it…The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament…innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea…Playboy: Are you saying that the people who made PCjr don’t have that kind of pride in the product? “If they did, they wouldn’t have made the PCjr.”…”The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products. I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success — I have no problem with their success. They’ve earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products…” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903596904576520690515394766.html “…Steve Jobs, who stepped down as CEO of Apple Wednesday after having been on medical leave, reflected on his life, career and mortality in a well-known commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. Here, read the text of of that address…” [Steve’s commencement address is an excellent inspirational read for young people – ed.] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/08/24Letter-from-Steve-Jobs.html “…I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee…” http://www.cringely.com/2011/08/cupertino-two-step/ “…With a couple hours to think on my flight to Charleston it became clear to me that this story is far from over and the long-term leadership of Apple has not yet been determined…a week ago the publication date of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs was changed from March 6, 2012 to November 21, 2011. This shocked me, because the last I read Isaacson was still writing his book…the publisher’s part of this process — the copy editing, designing, formatting, building indexes…is being reduced from a normal minimum of at least six months to less than six weeks…I suspect that force accelerating the publication may be Steve Jobs…Jobs will remain an Apple employee and chairman of the board…one who is on the job every day. And that job he’ll be doing every day is overseeing Tim Cook’s execution of the corporate strategy designed by Steve Jobs…Cook can’t fill Jobs’ visionary shoes, so I’d look for another leadership change, maybe tied to the release of Isaacson’s book. I say this based not only on my understanding of Steve and the way things work in Cupertino, but also based on my reading of Isaacson’s last book, a very good biography of Albert Einstein. That book is what attracted Jobs to Isaacson as his biographer…In his Einstein book Isaacson tried…to take us into the mind and ideas of the German physicist who changed the world. He’ll do the same with Jobs…Where is Apple going? What’s the grand plan? We know there is such a plan — there has to be…I believe Walter Isaacson’s book will also function as Steve’s technology manifesto, part of his legacy. Once we have the grand plan, then it may make more sense just who should lead that plan’s execution…Steve Jobs is setting-up this (and us) for another grand reveal… just one more thing…”

41. Paris airport tests 'virtual' boarding agents http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110818/ap_on_hi_te/eu_france_airport_holograms “An airport in France is experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents in a bid to jazz up its terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don't need breaks and never go on strike. The pilot project at Paris' Orly airport began last month... images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent — a real live human — presses a button to signal the start of boarding. They are actually being rear-projected onto a human shaped silhouette made of plexiglass…which the airport hopes will be more eye-catching and easier for passengers to understand than traditional electronic display terminals…Airport authority AdP came up with the idea for what it calls "2-D holograms"…when it was brainstorming ways to modernize…Paris' second airport…Similar virtual agents are in place in airports in London and Manchester since earlier this year…one small boy of about five years old approached the hologram, this one showing a middle-aged man in a striped shirt and neatly trimmed beard. "Hello!" the boy greeted it. The pre-recorded image smiled, blinked, folded his hands, glanced to the left but said nothing…” watch video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZlFlrvW4Ds [just imagine all the ways holograms will be interacting with their environment ten years from now – ed.]

42. Wacom’s Inkling Captures What You Draw On Paper Digitally http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/30/wacom-inkling/ “Wacom has announced a pretty amazing product today, the Inkling. This so-called Digital Sketch Pen allows you to capture whatever you draw or write on a sketchbook or any kind of paper in digital form, “stroke by stroke”. Just insert a sheet of paper or a notebook into the receiver, use the Inkling Digital Pen and transfer your works to your computer to refine them digitally…Inkling even lets users create layers in the digital file while sketching on paper, with the push of a button. Works can be stored as JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PNG, SVG and PDF files…Inkling offers direct transfers to Photoshop, Illustrator, and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro/Designer. Wacom plans to start selling the Inkling…in the next few weeks…for an MSRP of US$199.99…” [watch the video – ed.]

43. Smart mobile and the thin cloud http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/27/smart-mobile-thin-cloud/ “…something far bigger…will transform the entire software ecosystem over the next 5 years…Huge companies will fail and even bigger new companies will be formed. The fundamentals of the era we are at the birth of have the following characteristics…Desktop computing devices, including laptops, are being reduced to machines that are used to perform serious work tasks. Less people will buy them in future, and those who do will use them less of the time…Software written for…people sitting at desks with browsers, will be increasingly less relevant and used less often…Mobile devices, and especially smart phones, will accomplish more and more of the things an individual will want to get done, and will do so more easily and productively…Software and services will run on these devices and use the cloud for storage and delivery…Apple’s iPhone architecture is best suited to this emerging human experience…Google’s Android, being mainly a thin client to Google’s thick cloud (Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, Picasa, G+) will please geeks but will need to change to be the mainstream choice of discerning consumers. Its large volumes will be driven less by passion and more by commodity price points…Facebook…will be very vulnerable during this transition…Anybody building almost anything in 2011 should be thinking “mobile first” and possibly “mobile only”…This entire shift is being driven by the ecosystem that started with the iPhone. Android, by contrast, is a backward looking architecture. It is a means of distributing old web services to a mobile audience, but it is not transforming software to meet the opportunities mobile affords…HP is right to want to get out of the hardware business…Google still has a shot at being relevant because of Android, but it needs huge changes to the Android philosophy…A new ecosystem is emerging, driven by user delight with a more decentralized, user-centric mobile application ecosystem…”

44. i2R E-Paper Doesn’t Require Electricity for Reading and Can be Reprinted Over 250 Times http://inhabitat.com/new-i2r-e-paper-doesnt-require-electricity-for-reading/ “…Taiwanese researchers have developed re-writable “paper” that allows you to channel the benefits of an e-reader, all without the need to keep it powered up…The newly developed “i2R e-paper,”…is a liquid crystal panel…no backlighting is required to make the text legible, so you can read without using electricity...the paper 2.0 can be rewritten up to 260 times…The new paper could also prove to be a reusable solution for all those posters and signs printed by the millions for bus stop ads and store front displays…”

45. Liquid metal shoes harvest massive amounts of power http://dvice.com/archives/2011/08/liquid-metal-sh.php “We're tired of hearing vague promises about how our shoes will one day be able to power our gadgets, but this particular vague promise got our attention for two reasons: one, it involves liquid metal, and two, the amount of power that it can harvest from walking is ridiculously huge. Most systems that harvest energy from movement use piezoelectrics…piezoelectrics generally produce power measured in milliwatts. Milliwats of power can potentially run low-power sensors, trickle charge a battery…Researchers at UW-Madison have been working on an energy harvester that they say can deliver watts of power…up to 10 or 20. This is a huge amount of power to get from a "free" energy harvester; we're talking thousands of times more powerful than the current generation of pizeoelectrics. An iPhone, for example, typically consumes under five watts. This means that 10 watts could power two iPhones…the researchers ditched the piezoelectric idea entirely, and instead invented a new energy harvesting processes they're calling "reverse electrowetting." A liquid metal…is stored in pouches at the heel and sole of a shoe. As you walk, you pump the nano-sized droplets of the liquid metal through tiny channels, creating a electricity which is stored in a battery at the center of the shoe. It's a completely sealed system that requires no maintenance: all you have to do is walk…”

DHMN Technology

46. “Eyeborg” Replaces Eye With Functioning Wireless Video Camera http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/26/video-eyeborg-replaces-eye-with-functioning-wireless-video-camera/ “You might remember Rob Spence, known online as the Eyeborg for his project to create a working bionic eye…the project has advanced to the point where even a seasoned tech blogger is left speechless with amazement. Spence has worked with a team of engineers to adapt an endoscope into a working in-socket video camera…Watch the video from Sky News below, but be warned that it is slightly graphic…this is more of a general achievement in miniaturization, not bionics…the enclosure and ergonomics of the device would be the hard part of this build. What’s yet to be accomplished with an artificial eye is hooking it up effectively to the visual cortex, and that is still years away…Existing cortical microelectrode arrays just don’t have the density required…The timing of this new info is part of a media push for the new Deus Ex game (of GameStop infamy), in which cybernetics and prosthetics figure prominently — which doesn’t diminish the wonder of the thing…”

47. Libyan Rebels Are Flying Their Own Minidrone http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/libyan-rebels-are-flying-their-own-mini-drone/ “The Libyan revolutionaries are more of a band of enthusiastic amateurs than experienced soldiers. But it turns out the rebels have the kind of weaponry usually possessed by advanced militaries: their very own drone. Aeryon Labs, a Canadian defense firm, revealed on Tuesday that it had quietly provided the rebel forces with a teeny, tiny surveillance drone, called the Aeryon Scout…the 3-pound, four-rotor robot gave Libyan forces eyes in the sky independent of the Predators, Fire Scout surveillance copters and manned spy planes that NATO flew overhead…The rebels needed barely a day of training to use a technology that many national armies would love to acquire. “We like to joke that it’s designed for people who are not that bright, have fat fingers and break things,”…the Aeryon Scout sounds user-friendly enough to be operated by the car dealers, medical students and teachers who formed the impromptu Libyan rebel army in the west…the Scout isn’t controlled by a joystick. It’s run by a touchscreen tablet…The interface divides the screen among imagery (still or video) that the drone collects and displays in real time, a control dashboard and a programmable map of the area to fly over. “You simply press on the screen and that’s where the vehicle goes,” McVicar said. “Press where you want the camera to focus on, and you’re done.” It also gives the rebels another advantage that lots of armies desire: night vision…”

48. Inside the secret world of hackers http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/24/inside-secret-world-of-hackers “Hackerspaces are the digital-age equivalent of English Enlightenment coffee houses. They are places open to all, indifferent to social status, and where ideas and knowledge hold primary value…It was in the coffee houses that information previously held in secret and by elites was shared with an emerging middle class. They were held responsible for many of the social reforms of the 18th century, when English public life was transformed. Hackerspaces could prove to be as important for reform in the digital age. While collectives of rogue hackers such as Anonymous and Lulzsec have grabbed headlines with their mischievous hacks…hackerspaces have quietly focused on creating alternatives to the things they see wrong in society: secretive government, unfettered corporate power, invasion of privacy…As part of the research for my book, The Revolution Will Be Digitised, I travelled to Berlin to meet the group of hackers known as the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). The Club was so named not because…one of the founders, Wau Holland, felt chaos theory offered the best explanation for how the world actually worked…just after Christmas last year, more than 2,000 hackers and information activists gathered at the CCC's annual conference to discuss technology and the future…The hacker community may be small but it possesses the skills that are driving the global economies of the future…the best hackers are those who build things. The ones who break them are known as "crackers"…If Anonymous and Lulzsec are the id of hacking, then physical hackerspaces are the heart of the higher-minded hacking ideals: freedom of information, meritocracy of ideas, a joy of learning and anti-authoritarianism. The CCC is Europe's largest hacker organisation and also one of the oldest worldwide, having been set up in 1981 by Wau Holland and others…CCC's hackers are often older and run their own businesses. They hold conferences and even consult with the German government…”

Leisure & Entertainment

49. Sony Alpha A77 says goodbye to DSLRs http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/sony-alpha-a77-says-goodbye-to-dslrs/ “Don’t feel ashamed if you thought the new Sony Alpha A77 is a DSLR. But it’s not. It’s a glimpse as to what may make DSLRs obsolete. The A77 is exactly the kind of expensive ($2000 kit), hulking (weather-sealed magnesium body) piece of camera hardware with ridiculous specs (24.3 megapixel APS-C sensor, ISO 50-16,000) that photographers everywhere drool over…the coolest part, the real game-changing bit of tech, is inside: the A77 has no traditional mirror, which makes it something altogether different than your average DSLR. Instead, Sony’s designed a translucent replacement that offers ridiculous fast autofocusing with less bulk…The ‘reflex’ part of a digital single lens reflex camera refers to the mirror situated behind the lens that both sends an image to the viewfinder and, more importantly, allows the laser-fast autofocusing of the modern DSLR. If you’ve ever wondered why a point-and-shoot takes a second to fire while a DSLR snaps away near-instantaneously, it’s because of that mirror system…having a mirror flip-flopping around inside a camera means that camera must be big enough to hold it, and offers more complexity and more parts to break…when a camera is in burst or video mode, the mirror stays flipped out of the way, making continuous focus difficult. Sony’s new tech goes a long way towards eliminating all of that…the translucent mirror setup the A77 has reflects just enough light for focusing needs while letting the image pass through to the sensor normally…The A77′s translucent mirror allows it to always use its most accurate focusing system. It’s a huge breakthrough for DLSR videographers, who now have a viable option for seriously fast and accurate focusing (read: great for sports)…”

50. The Razer Blade Might Not Just Be the Future of PC Gaming—It May Be the Future of PCs http://kotaku.com/5834795/i-cant-believe-it-the-razer-blade-might-not-just-be-the-future-of-pc-gamingit-may-be-the-future-of-pcs “…I think Razer may not just save PC gaming—I think they may save Windows laptops entirely…The Blade doesn't go up against other gaming PCs—it's going toe to toe with the world's best hardware manufacturer. They're going to fight Apple. You can build a perfectly decent gaming PC for less than a grand. The new Razer Blade costs $2,800. (I'll get to the price in a bit. It's a big deal—and something Razer is going to have to bring down.) But here's something that PC gamers don't want to hear…PC gaming hardware is approaching a dead end…it's not smartphones and iPads that are killing them—it's the lack of systemic innovation in the PC hardware space itself…There aren't dozens of companies making PC hardware anymore, especially the sort that gamers need with real graphics horsepower. There are three: Intel, Nvidia, and AMD. And really, if you want to get right down to it, there's just Intel. They're the only company with the capital, resources, and engineering prowess to move forward in the industry…But oops, here comes Apple using lovely mobile hardware that is fast approaching Good Enough status for even "real" computing in their mobile hardware…In another generation or two, those iPhone chips are going to be fast enough to power a decent laptop…So where does that leave the PC hardware world? HP just bailed on PC hardware…Apple's moving through the consumer space like crazy, becoming the laptop of choice for not just students and creatives, but everyone but PC gamers. What PC gaming needs are platforms…Console games look close enough to PC games, despite PC gaming hardware being ten times as computationally powerful. Don't believe me? Ask id Software's John Carmack, who just a few weeks ago noted that one of his hopes for PC hardware was more standardization within the platforms…It's time to buck and realize that the Apple model of hardware isn't just one way to do it—it's the way hardware has to go to move forward…The Razer Blade is the first credible competitor to Apple from the PC hardware world in five years…I'm not sure that Razer even knows what they have on their hands…But I'm sure Intel knows; the dedicated an entire engineering team to the project with Razer…”

51. Otoy’s cloud tools can render stunningly realistic games and films http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/30/otoy-cloud-video-games/ “…the folks at Otoy — including some of the best computer film animators and graphics experts in the world — believe they’ve taken the first step toward the Holodeck…it’s all part of a plan to democratize game and film development so just about anybody can create outstanding animations. Otoy’s team has created cloud-based animation tools that can create hyper-realistic imagery like the pictures in this story, which are stills from Otoy animations….they will put this technology in the hands of people who could otherwise never afford such special effects. These technologies can be used to create imagery that accurately creates lighting in an animated scene without requiring a huge amount of supercomputing power or programming know-how. Otoy uses a combination of server technology and a user’s own computer to calculate 3D graphics scenes…”

52. Life Is Crime http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/26/life-is-crime/ “There’s a simple fundamental reason why Grand Theft Auto exploded into a phenomenon. Everyone has criminal tendencies…virtually indulging them is…better then actually indulging them and dealing with the moral…or…physical consequences. Like prison…what if you could make the Grand Theft Auto concept even more immersive by tying it to the real world? That’s what Life Is Crime is all about. The new mobile game…allows you to put a life of crime onto your phone. It’s a location-based game launching today for Android devices…Think of it as Foursquare meets Grand Theft Auto meet Spymaster…The point is to go around your city and battle others to control properties. The point isn’t to “check-in”, it’s to attack other players with everything you’ve got…Life Is Crime uses real maps that are custom-tailored by the Red Robot Labs team to include virtual representations of key landmarks in a city…Seattle…is built out. Soon, San Francisco and other cities across the U.S. will be too…But any location is fair game. The team added the TechCrunch office, for example…You find someone you want to fight and it becomes a battle backed by your weapons and stats. If you have a higher reputation score than your opponent, you’re likely to take them down…maybe they have a better weapon than you to even that out a bit. At first, the game will mainly be a single-player experience. But down the line, the Red Robot guys hope people form virtual gangs to battle other gangs for location supremacy…”

Economy and Technology

53. Intuit Partners With Verizon Wireless To Sell Square-Competitor GoPayment At Retail Stores http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/24/intuit-partners-with-verizon-wireless-to-sell-square-competitor-at-retail-stores/ “…GoPayment reader, which competes directly with Square, is making a significant move in the mobile payments space today, partnering with Verizon Wireless to sell its credit card readers in Verizon Wireless’ 2,300 retail stores…Launched two years ago, GoPayment offers a complimentary app and credit card reader to allow small businesses to conduct charges via their smartphones. GoPayment is available for iOS, Android and Blackberry phones and the card reader simply plugs into the audio jack of a phone or tablet…GoPayment will be offered in retail outlets and on Verizon Wireless’ website for $29.97 but you can receive the reader for free with activation of a GoPayment account and a mail-in rebate for the purchase price. Similar to Square, the GoPayment mobile payment app is free and the basic service has no monthly, transaction or cancellation fees, and offers a 2.7 percent rate for swiped transactions…While Square’ reader has been free for some time now, it was only in the past year that Intuit shifted its model to offer the its GoPayment card reader for free. A paid version of GoPayment is also available for more high-use businesses for $12.95 a month and provides rate of 1.7 percent for swiped transactions…”

54. Why QR Codes Are Here to Stay http://mashable.com/2011/08/26/qr-codes-viability/ “…Some people think QR codes, those scanable black and white squares on everything from billboards to product packaging, are on an unstoppable growth trajectory, while skeptics are quick to dismiss them as a fad. This reaction is common whenever new technology formats or standards are being decided upon…QR codes, in particular, make great fodder for debate because the codes are inherently big and ugly. So far, they have not experienced the same popularity in North America as they have enjoyed abroad…In my opinion, there is little question that these real-world hyperlinks are increasingly going to be part of our reality and everyday life…”

55. Fortune First, Fame Later—Why You Should Aim For The Enterprise http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/27/aim-for-the-enterprise/ “…as a startup entrepreneur…you’d first think about doing a consumer web product. But…the one thing we’re not told is that unless you’re in one of four or five places on the planet, you’re almost certainly doomed to fail in the consumer web…consumer web plays, for all their allure, require two ingredients you’re not going to find in Sydney, Vancouver, London, Johannesburg, or pretty much anywhere else: they need big markets and big money. In the United States, if you want to reach a million users in a consumer play, you need to convince one in 260 people to use your product…unless you are in Silicon Valley, New York, Shanghai, Mumbai or perhaps São Paulo the deck is stacked very much against you…if you want to raise consumer web funds, you’ll need to head to one of the handful of places in the world to get it…If you’re thinking about what to do for your next venture, my opinion is that you are better off looking to businesses as your users…The biggest reason why business customers make a great market for your startup is that they have money, and aren’t afraid to spend it to solve a real problem. There are lots of unsolved problems in business today in areas such as sales, marketing, finance, operations, management and more where technology can be disruptive and highly valuable…”

56. This 26-Year Old Founder Is Raising $100 Million To Take On Giants Like Microsoft http://www.businessinsider.com/this-26-year-old-entrepreneur-has-raised-more-than-100-million-to-slay-the-giants-2011-8 “Aaron Levie is unusual for a 26-year-old CEO—he's much more excited about business software than consumer products like Foursquare. Levie founded Box.net, an online service for sharing and collaborating on documents and other files…About three years in, he looked at the company and saw a split between consumers and business users. He realized he would have to choose one or the other, and banked on enterprises. It turned out to be the right move: Box.net has made the turn from being used by individuals and small departments to selling directly to CIOs, and is winning contracts away from giants like Microsoft—the company just got an 18,000-seat deal with Procter & Gamble…the company's customers are growing so fast that Box recently filed for a new $35 million round—just months after closing a $48 million round in February…It's also overflowing its current headquarters with more than 240 employees…”

57. HP prefers to spin off PC unit http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20099027-64/hp-prefers-to-spin-off-pc-unit-report-says/ “Hewlett-Packard said today that it prefers to spin off its PC business rather than sell it outright…Earlier this month, HP announced that its board of directors had "authorized the evaluation of strategic alternatives" for its Personal Systems Group (PSG)…"We prefer a spin-off as a separate company, and the working hypotheses is that a spin-off will be in the best interests of HP's shareholders, customers, and employees…”

Civilian Aerospace

58. Farming their way to Mars: Gardeners and chefs likely to join astronauts http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2031300/Agricultural-life-Mars-Farmers-chefs-likely-join-astronauts-trip-Red-Planet.html “Astronauts on the first manned mission to Mars are likely to number horticultural experts and chefs as well as more traditional ex-military personnel. Supplying enough food for a round trip to the Red Planet is one of the greatest challenges facing mission planners…Astronauts going to Mars would be far more food-savvy than their International Space Station colleagues…a five-year mission to Mars would require almost 7,000lb of food per person…we are looking at the possibility of implementing a bio-regenerative system that would involve growing crops in space and possibly shipping some bulk commodities to a Mars habitat…'This scenario involves much more food processing and meal preparation than the current food system developed for the space shuttles and the International Space Station.' Bio-regenerative systems involve growing 'multi-task' plants that not only provide food but also release oxygen for astronauts to breathe, remove the carbon dioxide they exhale, and even purify water…Ten potential 'space crops' that pass the test for a Mars mission are lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, green onions, radishes, bell peppers, strawberries, fresh herbs and cabbages…”

59. Japan firm vying for lunar X Prize unveils moon rover http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110830p2a00m0na010000c.html “A Tokyo company has unveiled what it hopes will be the first privately built unmanned rover on the moon, and win it U.S. $30 million in prizes from the X Prize Foundation in the process. The Japan-Netherlands joint venture firm White Label Space Japan…hopes to launch the final version of the rover as soon as 2014…Thus far 28 teams from 18 countries around the world have announced their participation in the contest, which will expire on New Years Eve, 2015. White Label Space…is Japan's only entry in the contest. The small rover unveiled on Aug. 29 was designed and built by Tohoku University professor Kazuya Yoshida…The rover itself is 49 centimeters long, 46 wide and 55 tall, and weighs just 10 kilograms. The robot has a top-mounted camera that can rotate 360 degrees…While Yoshida has been working on the rover itself, White Label Space's European staff are looking for the best rocket to get the little robot into space, as well as developing the craft that will put it on the moon…”

60. Space exploration initiatives from the private sector http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1916/1 “Where is the US commitment to space exploration? Lack of leadership in our government and the resulting disarray in NASA has created a vacuum…The space station was built, but the visionary long-range programs have all faltered…The Administration seems to have given up, and Congress is focused only on special interests. But there have been two recent infusions of fresh air into the human space exploration vacuum. They are competing initiatives, but they both are interesting and worth pursuing…Elon Musk…has made the bold suggestion that his Dragon capsule can be a Mars lander for both humans and their robotic precursors…the suggestion here is that the Mars lander will not be driven by such requirements but by whatever capabilities it may offer for the robotic precursor. The precursor will be an explicit pathfinder for humans…The proposal for a Red Dragon (the SpaceX capsule to Mars) is a shot in the arm and ought to stimulate some new thinking for the future of Mars exploration. Maybe it can be a private-public partnership like those being planned for post-shuttle US Earth orbit transportation…Equally bold is the proposal by Lockheed Martin engineers for a mission they call “Plymouth Rock”: sending humans to a near Earth asteroid (NEA)…I like the name a lot…Plymouth Rock is not the ultimate human destination, no more that the original Plymouth Rock was for the Pilgrims. But it is a perfect stepping-stone as are other NEAs as we move outward into the solar system…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

61. Rise of the GPU http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/268047,rise-of-the-gpu.aspx “Over recent years graphics processing has become more and more important on the PC. Processors that were once only used to make games look pretty are being utilised in…varied ways, carving out a role that could become as key as the CPU is…Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are incredibly good at dealing with some types of processing workloads. GPUs are effectively massive arrays of floating point processors, which complement the CPU’s integer focus…only 15 years ago…3dfx kickstarted 3D gaming with the launch of the Voodoo Graphics chip. Computers in 1996 had graphics cards (usually an S3 Trio), but these were purely designed to let the PC output to a monitor. The CPU was where the processing happened, and any attempts at 3D graphics were done using CPU-friendly techniques like Voxel Shading…With the rising popularity of first person shooter titles, a bunch of companies came out with ‘3D Accelerator’ add-in cards, which sat alongside the 2D card and were designed solely to output rudimentary 3D environments…quality 3D rendering was the domain of…Pixar and Silicon Graphics. It was done on massive computing clusters, using techniques like Ray tracing to emulate the effects of lighting on objects. This type of rendering would take hours or even days per frame…several ‘real time’ rendering techniques…were pushed in the early days. STMicroelectronics pushed Tile Based Rendering and Bitboys had its own quad-based renderer, but it was triangle-based rendering that won out…and it still forms the basis of real-time 3D graphics today…various 3D accelerator players tried to push their own software development APIs…eventually the industry settled upon OpenGL as a standard programming language, thanks largely to the efforts of id Software’s John Carmack, who went with OpenGL for the 3D accelerated version of Quake…a lot of the pioneers of 3D fell by the wayside, leaving Nvidia and 3dfx to battle it out…3dfx went bust in late 2000, its assets ending up sold to Nvidia…Nvidia’s hardware was beginning to outpace the slow advances being made in OpenGL…This led to…a watershed moment in the history of GPU computing. Firstly NVIDIA moved to focus on Microsoft’s DirectX graphics API, leaving OpenGL behind. Then it moved from an architecture designed to accelerate a fixed set of functions…to one designed to be programmable. It also marked the moment when ATI went from relative 3D unknown to major player with its first Radeon cards…With this design the 3D accelerator evolved into the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU was actually an Nvidia marketing trademark initially…These highly customised floating point processors were actually more efficient than CPUs when faced with certain workloads…This led to…more interest in what was becoming known as GPGPU (General Purpose GPU) computing…This emergence of GPGPU computing has been a massive influence on the PC industry, even if GPGPU has yet to truly take off…GPGPU processing has manifested in some mainstream programs. The most prominent of this is the latest release of Adobe’s Premiere software, which is built around a CUDA-based rendering engine called Mercury…The difference between Premiere running on CUDA and it running on a CPU is like night and day. Nvidia may have some design wins with CUDA, but AMD is betting on OpenCL and DirectCompute..Intel…has largely ignored the GPU and focused on CPU…Intel has confirmed that future revisions will support DX 11 but…this won’t necessarily be the same implementation as Nvidia’s and AMD’s…Instead Intel is focusing heavily on CPU extensions called AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) that allow for speedy, high-precision floating point processing…More than ever the line between CPU and GPU is blurring…”

62. Nvidia Teams With HP To Offer Massive "GPU Starter" Kit http://hothardware.com/News/Nvidia-Teams-With-HP-To-Offer-Massive-GPU-Starter-Kit/ “Nvidia and HP have developed a limited edition GPU Starter Kit meant to provide a drop-shipped means for anyone interested in developing for HPC applications. The term 'starter kit' is very nearly a misnomer, as the package deal provides a system more than sufficient to get the ball rolling. The system contains eight ProLiant SL390 G7 servers, packed full of 24 M2070 GPUs, 16 CPUs, and its preconfigured with CUDA 4.0…The M2070 GPU that's included in the package is a Fermi-based part, with 6GB of RAM per GPU…"Growing demand for GPU computing has fueled the need for a fully integrated, robust and affordable development platform that enables developers to easily create new, accelerated applications," said Sumit Gupta, manager of Tesla products at NVIDIA. "As a result, NVIDIA and HP developed the GPU Starter Kit to remove some of the last hurdles to the mass adoption of GPU computing -- namely, the cost and time of system implementation…”

63. In computer programming should more cores equal less accuracy? http://gigaom.com/cloud/in-computer-programming-should-more-cores-equal-less-accuracy/ “We are moving from the information age to the insight age, where it’s not just data that matters, but finding ways to use it. These are uncharted waters…the computer industry is building chip with more cores to keep up with influx of data and the need to process it faster…with more cores, we need to think differently about programming…The crux of the issue is how to program ma ssively multicore chips so performance can scale along with the number of cores. I’ve covered MIT’s efforts on this as well as laid out how IBM is taking the programming…IBM researcher David Ungar is apparently thinking that making less accurate computers is an answer…If we cannot skirt Amdahl’s Law, the last 900 cores will do us no good whatsoever…Ungar’s solution is to accept that a lack of synchronization also means that the computer will then give back less accurate results…This runs counter to the love of accuracy that is the current rage in scientific and parallel computing, but it also seems in line with several other predictions about computing future. For example, Rice University is looking at probabilistic computing which sacrifices accuracy for more energy-efficient computers…for every many-core architecture out there, a programming model must be found to optimize it…Nvidia is a perfect example of this. Until it created CUDA, a tool that helps scientist write C-level programs for the GPU, using its computers for anything other than games was super niche. But after CUDA more and more scientists picked it up, and now it’s even being deployed in supercomputers and specialty server…”

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