NEW NET Weekly List for 13 Nov 2012

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 13 Nov 2012, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N. Westhill Blvd., Appleton, WI, USA, near Woodman's. Ignore the chain if it's across the stairs; come on up and join the tech fun!

The ‘net

1.        Lawdingo Makes It Easy To Find And Instantly Consult A Lawyer Online  http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/09/lawdingo-makes-it-easy-to-find-and-instantly-consult-a-lawyer-online/  “Companies like LegalZoom try to replace the basic services offered by attorneys, but sometimes you still need to talk to a real, live lawyer…a startup called Lawdingo makes it easier to find one…you search the site based on your legal situation and your location…you get a list of applicable lawyers, along with their Yelp ratings (Lawdingo is also building a review system of its own) and their rates. You can schedule an appointment to talk to a lawyer directly from Lawdingo, either through video (using TokBox) or voice chat (using Twilio). If they’re online, you can even hit a “talk now” button. The main selling point of Lawdingo seems to be convenience — you don’t have to track down an attorney, schedule an appointment, then drive across town to meet them…even though the company allows lawyers to set their own rates, founder and CEO Nikhil Nirmel said it can still save users money…lawyers are encouraged to offer free consultations for a duration of their choosing (the average is 20 minutes)…users can consult with lawyers even if they aren’t nearby, giving them a broader selection and potentially connecting them with lawyers who charge less because they live in lower-cost cities…” [have you ever used legal information or forms from online sources; if so, what sites have been most helpful? Would you chose a lawyer via a website? – ed.]

2.       Why it’s Worth it to Purchase Your Own Domain Name  http://lifehacker.com/5958893/why-its-worth-it-to-purchase-your-own-domain-name  “…We have the opportunity to purchase millions of desirable domain names, from our own FirstnameLastname.coms to good LocationBusiness.coms and Singleword.coms…the most important domain name is your own FirstnameLastname.com; those are the ones I'll be focusing on for this post…the most "valuable" domain name I own is HarryGuinness.com. Neither of the other two Harry Guinness's can have it; they're going to have to settle for some alternative like TheAustralianHarryGuinness.com or maybe HarryGuinnessRandomJobDescription.com…Whoever wants HarryGuinness.com is going to have to pry it from my cold dead, keyboard gripping, hands…my name is rare enough that I was able to get its domain. But the odds are that someone shares your name somewhere in the world…you need a domain name. You might not need it today but in a few years time you'll want it. The way people think about websites is changing, and more personal landing page services like flavors.me and re.vu are popping up…In a few years it may well be common to send a link to your online CV. It's worth future proofing yourself now…It doesn't need to link to your own website, you can forward it…Set up Google Apps on it and get Firstname@FirstnameLastname.com as your email address. Save yourself from giving out that ridiculous hotmail address…what are the advantages of having your own domain name?...You gain control of what people see when they search for you…You prevent it being used against you…you can get a domain name for 7 quid (about $11) a year…The price of a drink or two gets you endless benefits, an awesome email address, and control over your online image…If you don't have your own domain name, I urge you, go out and get one…” [what % of the people you know have their own domain, especially one they use for email? Do you know anyone who checked available domain names before naming their new child (and registered the domain before the child was born)? – ed.]

3.       Google Fiber installations under way  http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/13/3915115/google-fiber-installations-under.html  “Google Inc. officially kicked off installations today of its long-promised ultra-fast Internet to Kansas City homes…the company said it was moving its home installations from the pilot to the launch stages…the company said it had studied hard on delivering good customer service. For instance, the company said its installers, won’t show up between certain hours, they’ll show up at a specific time…The company has installed service to a handful of Kansas City, Kan., customers under a sort of “beta” test phase. With installations beginning today, they’re at it for real…Google Fiber is promising to wrap up installing its service through most of Kansas City, Kan., by the end of next year. It also expects to wire much of Kansas City south of the Missouri River and north of Interstate 435 by the close of 2013. From there, it has said it will look to expand its network into the rest of Kansas City…After that, it has deals to move into the smaller north Johnson County communities of Westwood, Westwood Hills and Mission Woods…Bargain customers can sign up for what Google calls “free” Internet service. A customer who pays the $300 installation fee — payable in $25 monthly installments — gets a fiber optic connection to the home and Internet downloads of five megabits per second and downloads [should be ‘uploads’ – ed.] of one megabit per second. That might be slightly slower than customers can buy from cable or telephone companies over copper wires, but experts say the fiber optic technology should offer more reliable speeds. After installation, Google will charge nothing for Internet service for seven years. The first household to get wired, in fact, chose this option. “It’s just a much more consistent connection,” Devon Teran, a Kansas City, Kan., teacher who’s had the hook-up for a few weeks, told the Star…For $70 a month, customers get a far more robust Internet connection of up to a gigabit-per-second. That’s fat enough broadband to upload or download high-definition movies in just a few minutes, as opposed to the hours such data transfers take over more conventional broadband. Google is waiving installation costs for that service to customers who sign up for one-year contracts…”

4.       Priceline.com acquiring KAYAK for $1.8B  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578109350360286998.html  “Priceline.com's…"Name Your Own  Price" travel site has built its astounding $31 billion market valuation—up 100-fold since 2003—in large measure thanks to small, international, hotel-focused acquisitions. The best was its European hotel business…Kayak is an online travel-search tool as opposed to an online travel agency like Priceline itself. Compared with past Priceline acquisitions, Kayak is larger and focuses on the U.S. and less-lucrative airfares…Priceline…is paying a 54% premium relative to the $26 price where Kayak was finally able to sell shares to the public. The sudden urgency could have something to do with the speed of the mobile revolution…Kayak has a popular mobile app, ranked No. 12 among travel apps for Apple mobile devices and No. 10 for Google's Android…Priceline's own mobile app is…ranked No. 11 on both leaderboards. Considering that mobile users tend to access content via apps instead of the Web, it makes sense that Priceline would want to own more than one…”  http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/the-priceline-kayak-deal-what-it-means-for-travelers.html?id=13112919  “…According to reports, Kayak may be ahead of Priceline technologically…Priceline's move may have been partially motivated by a desire to preempt Kayak from acquisition by potential future competitors such as Google…Priceline will…continue to build its position in the opaque hotel and rental-car markets, where it can locate some really good deals for consumers, and Kayak will continue to provide third-party fare…comparisons…”  http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/08/priceline-com-acquiring-travel-company-kayak-for-1-8b-in-cash-and-stocks/  “…Kayak was launched in 2004 by Steve Hafner of Orbitz, Terrell Jones of Travelocity and Greg Slyngstad of Expedia…”  [what online travel sites do you use or  recommend for airlines, hotel and car rental? Is Google a major online travel tool for you or do you think it will become one in the future? – ed.]

5.        Astronaut uses space internet to control robot on Earth  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20270833  “The interplanetary internet has been used by an astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) to send commands to a robot on Earth. The experimental technology, called Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol, could be a future way to communicate with astronauts on Mars…The DTN is similar to the internet on Earth, but is much more tolerant to the delays and disruptions that are likely to occur when data is shuttling between planets, satellites, space stations and distant spacecraft…delays can be due to solar storms or when spacecraft are behind a planet…The work on the DTN was first proposed a decade ago by Vint Cerf…The system uses a network of nodes - connection points - to cope with delays. If there is a disruption, the data gets stored at one of the nodes until the communication is available again to send it further…With the internet on Earth, if something is disconnected, the source has to retransmit everything, or you lose your data…DTN has this disruption tolerance…to be much more robust over the kind of distances and the kind of networks we're talking about...Currently, to communicate with Curiosity, the latest rover…on the Red Planet…Nasa and Esa use what is called "point-to-point communication"…the rover on the surface of Mars is commanded directly from Earth, or in some cases using spacecraft orbiting Mars as data relay satellites - but it's still considered single point-to-point communication…There are several rovers on the surface of Mars, many spacecraft orbiting Mars, but they are all seen as individual items…the idea is that in the future rovers on Mars and spacecraft orbiting it will be treated as a network…”

6.       Top online video sites for September 2012  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2220743/Maker-Studios-Takes-Third-Place-in-YouTube-Partner-Channels-Ranking  “…181 million U.S. Internet users watched more than 39 billion online content videos in September 2012…Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube, ranked as the top online video content property in September with 150.3 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo sites with 57.4 million, AOL with 53.8 million, VEVO with 50.3 million and Facebook.com with 46.4 million…Americans viewed 9.4 billion video ads in September, with each of the top 5 video ad properties delivering more than 1 billion video ads. Google sites ranked first with 1.8 billion ads, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with more than 1.3 billion, Hulu with 1.2 billion, Liverail.com with more than 1.1 billion and Adap.tv with 1 billion…September 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO (48.8 million viewers) maintained the top position in the ranking, followed by Warner Music with 24.4 million…Maker Studios Inc. climbed into the third position for the first time with 23.5 million viewers, followed by Machinima with 22.7 million and FullScreen with 21.2 million…”

7.        Reddit Considering Accepting Bitcoin as Payment for Subscriptions  http://betabeat.com/2012/11/reddit-considering-accepting-bitcoin-as-payment-for-reddit-gold-subscriptions/  “…Reddit is still far from profitable, so it’s betting on a subscription model to keep the site free of traditional advertising…For $3.99/month or $29.99/year, users can buy a Reddit Gold account…to entice as many users as possible to join the gold rush, Reddit is considering accepting alternative methods of payment, including Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer cryptocurrency…Reddit CEO Yishan Wong…has long held an affinity for the digital currency…If Reddit does choose to accept Bitcoin, it could help to greatly improve the currency’s reputation…For Reddit, the move would also make sense and help support the site’s bottom line…it could also encourage Redditors who bank on their own anonymity to buy subscriptions while still remaining anonymous…”  [do you feel Bitcoin is a scam, an unsustainable experiment in digital currency, or a viable and anonymous way to pay for goods and services? – ed.]

8.       Tikly launches full Facebook integration  http://www.ticketnews.com/news/tikly-launches-industrys-first-full-facebook-integration-101215673  “Tikly, the first low-fee, flat-rate ticketing platform of its kind to give artists, venues, and events full control over their marketing and promotion…announced integration with Facebook…prior to the integration, artists and venues were often forced to deal with large corporations that charge fans up to 50 percent of the ticket price in fees — in 2011, Ticketmaster earned $1 billion in revenue from fees alone. With the full Facebook integration, Tikly allow artists, venues, and events to sell tickets to their fans directly through Facebook. Tikly was launched in May 2011…to enable artists to sell directly to fans without having to answer to a corporation charging costly fees…Tikly…included online and mobile cash payment option Dwolla in the Facebook integration. Dwolla…works with a user's bank account to allow them to send money from their computer or mobile device. Dwolla charges a flat rate of 25 cents for any payment over $10 and charges nothing for payments under $10…Fans who use Tikly to purchase tickets from their favorite artist via Facebook can expect to pay standardized, flat-rate fees. Tickets under $10 incur a $1 per ticket fee; tickets with a face value of $10 to $75 incur a 10 percent per ticket fee; and for tickets over $75, Tikly charges a flat $7.50 per ticket fee. On tickets listed at less than $100, Tikly covers the credit card or Dwolla transaction fee…”

9.       Dropbox’s 100M Registered Users Save 1B Files A Day  http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/13/dropbox-100-million/  “At this scale, when you help people save 10 minutes or an hour, you’re saving lifetimes of pain…And we’re just getting started.” That’s what CEO Drew Houston thinks about his company hitting 100 million registered users and 1 billion files saved a day…Dropbox will be the data layer connecting the future where every device is smart… “100 million registered users is a symbol, putting us in a new category with an elite handful of companies that have ever reached that audience” says Houston. That’s up from 50 million users and 500 million files saved every 48 hours as of May 2012, and 25 million users and 200 million files saved per day in April 2011. Dropbox is now on 250 million devices in over 200 countries, and is served in eight languages, including two new ones starting today: Italian and Castilian Spanish…The company’s independence might give it the best shot at becoming the data layer the way Facebook became the social layer. Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have their own cloud storage systems, but they don’t necessarily cooperate with each other’s devices…Anyone with a computer or a phone needs something like Dropbox…”

10.     Napster, Udacity, and the Academy  http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2012/11/napster-udacity-and-the-academy/  “Fifteen years ago…The Fraunhofer Institute announced…the Motion Picture Experts Group Format 1, Audio Layer III, a format you know…by its acronym, MP3. The recording industry concluded this new audio format would be no threat…Who would listen to an MP3 when they could buy a better-sounding CD at the record store? Then Napster launched…If Napster had only been about free access, control of legal distribution of music would then have returned the record labels…Instead, Pandora happened. Last.fm happened. Spotify happened. ITunes happened. Amazon began selling songs in the hated MP3 format. How did the recording industry win the battle but lose the war?...The people in the music industry…had access to the same internet the rest of us did. They just couldn’t imagine…the old way of doing things might fail. Yet things did fail…Once you see this pattern—a new story rearranging people’s sense of the possible, with the incumbents the last to know—you see it everywhere…It’s been interesting watching this unfold in music, books, newspapers, TV, but nothing has ever been as interesting to me as watching it happen in…Higher education…our MP3 is the massive open online course (or MOOC), and our Napster is Udacity, the education startup. We have several advantages over the recording industry…We are decentralized and mostly non-profit. We employ lots of smart people. We have previous examples to learn from…our core competence is learning from the past. And…we’re probably going to screw this up as badly as the music people…Last year, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, an online course from Stanford…attracted 160,000 potential students, of whom 23,000 completed it, a scale that dwarfs anything possible on a physical campus. As Thrun put it, “Peter and I taught more students AI, than all AI professors in the world combined…he quit and founded Udacity, an educational institution designed to offer MOOCs…Thrun and Norvig’s course…have many academics worrying about the effect on higher education…Elite high school students will not be abandoning elite colleges any time soon; the issue isn’t what education of “the very best sort” looks like, but what the whole system looks like…I was fortunate enough to get…four years at Yale, in an incredible intellectual community, where even big lecture classes were taught by seriously brilliant people…But you know what? Those classes…didn’t create genuine intellectual community…Higher education has a bad case of cost disease…The classic example is the string quartet; performing a 15-minute quartet took a cumulative hour of musician time in 1850, and takes that same hour today. This is not true of the production of food, or clothing, or transportation, all of which have seen massive increases in value created per hour of labor…An organization with cost disease can use lower paid workers, increase the number of consumers per worker, subsidize production, or increase price…For colleges, this means more graduate and adjunct instructors, increased enrollments and class size, fundraising, or, of course, raising tuition…Every college provides access to a huge collection of potential readings, and to a tiny collection of potential lectures. We ask students to read the best works we can find…but we only ask them to listen to the best lecture a local employee can produce that morning…the only thing that kept this system from seeming strange was that we’ve never had a good way of publishing lectures…Harvard…is our agreed-upon Best Institution…Harvard also educates only about a tenth of a percent of the 18 million or so students enrolled in higher education in any given year. Any sentence that begins “Let’s take Harvard as an example…” should immediately be followed up with “No, let’s not do that.”…The top 50 colleges on the US News and World Report list…only educate something like 3% of the current student population. The entire list, about 250 colleges, educates fewer than 25%...the other 75% of students…are enrolled in the four thousand institutions you haven’t heard of…these institutions are usually left out of the conversation, but Clayton State educates as many undergraduates as Harvard…City College of San Francisco enrolls as many as the entire Ivy League combined. These are where most students are, and their experience is what college education is mostly like…a good chunk of the four thousand institutions you haven’t heard of provide an expensive but mediocre education…The fight over MOOCs isn’t even about the value of online education…the fight over MOOCs is really about the story we tell ourselves about higher education…The possibility MOOCs hold out is that the educational parts of education can be unbundled. MOOCs expand the audience for education to people ill-served or completely shut out from the current system…In the US, an undergraduate education used to be an option, one way to get into the middle class. Now it’s a hostage situation, required to avoid falling out of it…Harvard will be fine. Yale will be fine, and Stanford, and Swarthmore, and Duke. But Bridgerland Applied Technology College? Maybe not fine…Udacity may or may not survive, but as with Napster, there’s no containing the story it tells: “It’s possible to educate a thousand people at a time, in a single class, all around the world, for free.”…The cost of attending college is rising above inflation every year, while the premium for doing so shrinks. This obviously can’t last…In the academy, we lecture other people every day about learning from history. Now its our turn…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

11.      Microsoft patents spying on you with your TV's camera  http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/this-kinect-patent-is-terrifying-wants-to-charge-you-for-license-violation/  “…Microsoft…wants to turn your Xbox 360′s Kinect into an instrument via which large companies can monitor your media usage and, if you’re found to be in violation of something, charge you for it…The patent application, titled “CONTENT DISTRIBUTION REGULATION BY VIEWING USER”, is a means of using Kinect to monitor not just what you’re watching (or listening to) on your Kinect, but more importantly, how many people…The technology…is a content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis…The limitation may comprise a number of user views, a number of user views over time, a number of simultaneous user views, views tied to user identities, views limited to user age or any variation or combination thereof, all tied to the number of actual content consumers allowed to view the content…when you buy or rent something like a movie, you’ll only be granted a “license” for a certain number of people to watch it. If Kinect detects more people in the room than you had a licence for, it can stop the movie, and even charge you extra…if Microsoft has its way, you won’t just be renting movies any more. You’ll have to decide how many people are watching, and no doubt pay more…”

12.     Video About Fair Use, Remix & Culture Taken Down Over Copyright Claim  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121107/18062520968/video-about-fair-use-remix-culture-taken-down-over-copyright-claim-course.shtml  “A few years back, we had a post highlighting an absolutely fantastic video by Julian Sanchez about the value of remix culture. The video made a key point that often gets lost in these debates: that remix culture is often more about the culture than the remix, but that copyright law makes that difficult. It focused mainly on a viral remix video that took a song from the band Phoenix, called "Lisztomania,"…It was really quite interesting, and showed how important remixing and fair use was to culture, and how it could take something and make more with it. Fast forward to the present, and even though this video has been up for years, Julian discovered that his original video was taken down on a copyright claim…it appears that it's the publishing company, rather than the band or its label. Kobalt…seems like a horrifically old school approach, killing off a popular viral video -- and doubly so with the Sanchez video which almost certainly qualifies as fair use. It was completely not commercial, only used a part of the song, included significant commentary, did not limit the market for the song and clearly was not a replacement…Sanchez appealed the takedown, which was rejected, and there appears to be nothing else Sanchez can do…”

13.     NEC outs cloud computing facial recognition service for merchants  http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/12/nec-outs-880-facial-recognition-system/  “NEC has launched a $880 per month service in Japan that lets merchants profile customers using just a PC and video camera. The system uses facial recognition powered by the company's cloud computing service to estimate the gender and age of clients, along with the frequency of their shopping expeditions across multiple locations. The firm developed the "NeoFace" tracking software in-house, claiming it was the highest ranked facial recognition system in NIST and that it plans to use it for other services like "intruder surveillance" in the future…face data is encrypted so it can't be "inadvertently disclosed," and is strictly to help retailers fine-tune their marketing…”

14.     Microsoft Inks More Android Licensing Deals  http://www.informationweek.com/software/windows8/microsoft-inks-more-android-licensing-de/240062679  “Microsoft…has long-claimed that Linux and Android, a Linux derivative, violates Windows patents, and in the past has threatened to sue alleged infringers that don't pay up…Industry analyst Rob Enderle…estimates that Redmond receives $15 for every licensed Android device sold…Electronics manufacturers that have previously struck licensing deals with Microsoft to cover their use of Linux or Android in their products include Barnes & Noble, Casio, Samsung, LG, Fuji-Xerox, HTC, Acer and ViewSonic…The big question is whether Microsoft will eventually go after Google directly for Android fees…such a contest would be lengthy and expensive, and Microsoft could lose…as long as Microsoft is making money from all these third-party sales, it might just decide to leave Google alone…”

15.     FTC Staff Said to Formally Recommend Google Patent Suit  http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/FTC-Staff-Said-to-Formally-Recommend-Google-4029732.php  “Google Inc. should be sued by the Federal Trade Commission for trying to block competitors’ access to key smartphone-technology patents in violation of antitrust law, the agency’s staff told commissioners in a formal recommendation, according to four people familiar with the matter…At issue are Google’s efforts to block U.S. imports of products made by Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. by claiming the devices, which rely on industry-standard technology, infringe patents owned by Google’s Motorola Mobility unit…The FTC opened a formal probe into the matter in June, when it began seeking information from companies including Microsoft and Apple about whether Google offered licensing for technology under patents that help operate 3G wireless, Wi-Fi and video streaming on fair and reasonable terms…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

16.     How to Upgrade to the Latest and Greatest Phone Every Few Months  http://lifehacker.com/5958446/how-to-upgrade-to-the-latest-and-greatest-phone-every-few-months-without-spending-a-fortune  “…You don't need to be independently wealthy to always have the latest iMac, or upgrade to the newest Nexus…Here's how to get on the upgrade treadmill and always have the latest and greatest gadgets…Before you do anything else, back up your data and put it in as portable a format as possible…we know that telling you to essentially jailbreak your media so you can use it wherever you choose is walking the line on the DMCA, but it's essential to getting the freedom we want…Once your data is free, make sure it's backed up and easily retrievable…Keep your data accessible and easy to restore so getting a new gadget and setting it up will be a joy, not a hassle…the upgrade treadmill requires you to start buying gear at full price, without discounts that tie you to retailers or carriers…That means the $99 Android phone you were going to pick up is now $599…but don't worry—you'll get a lot of that money back later…it gives you a lot more freedom in which phone and carrier you use…Plus, in the long run, it costs less…you always end up paying more when you sign a contract…Before you tear open the packaging, here are some things to remember…Save the packaging, documentation, and accessories…in as pristine condition as possible…Get a case, screen protector, sleeve…be careful with the condition of your device…you'll need to keep…in as good condition as possible so you'll make the most money when you sell it…If you're looking to upgrade soon…keep an eye on how much it's worth on the open market…Most frequent gadget switchers only upgrade every…six months to a year…here's where you can get the most cash back with the least hassle…Gazelle may not be the place to get you the most possible money for your gear, but they do so much of the work for you that selling with them is completely hassle-free…Glyde doesn't buy directly from you the way Gazelle does, but they will match you up with a buyer, and…they tend to offer more money for your gear than you can get elsewhere…Amazon makes the process of selling your gear via Marketplace so easy that it's worth the extra competition…they do have a huge audience, and listing an item there is easy, fast, and almost guaranteed to sell…Craigslist and eBay: No list is complete without these two stores…since Craigslist and eBay allow you to set your own price (and eBay Instant Sale buys your used gear outright), you can make more money if you sell wisely…the goal here is to sell for as much as possible so you can put that money to the purchase price of the new gadget you want…”

17.     More smartphones connect to Wi-Fi hotspots than laptops  http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4401046/More-smartphones-connect-to-Wi-Fi-hotspots-than-laptops--says-the-Wireless-Broadband-Alliance  “…smartphone-based hotspot connections now outnumber those from laptops for the first time…Next Generation Hotspots (NGH)…will make it even easier for the rapidly increasing number of smartphone owners to use the technology…hotspot connections are now led by smartphones (40%), followed closely by laptops (39%) and then tablets (17%) which have seen rapid growth…NGH dramatically simplifies public Wi-Fi access, especially from smartphones, by allowing secure connections without the need for usernames and passwords, and is seen as a vital tool for offloading busy mobile broadband networks. The telecoms industry is showing an increasingly positive attitude towards public Wi-Fi…NGH is a critical means of increasing international usage by allowing users to automatically connect to hotspots where their operator has a roaming agreement…future public Wi-Fi hotspot growth will be focused in four types of location: wide-area outdoor hotzones (e.g. parks); transport hubs (e.g. airports); and social venues (e.g. bars and cafes), with local-area outdoor hotzones (e.g. popular tourist attractions) expected to see the bulk of traffic…The report does highlight several barriers to wider adoption and use of public Wi-Fi hotspots including network authentication, availability of a common roaming standard and 3G/Wi-Fi interworking…several of these challenges will be overcome by NGH which is currently in phase two of an international trial project involving over 50 major industry players…public Wi-Fi is now a crucial part of the mobile experience and this is set to grow enormously with the impending NGH deployments…” [does your smartphone or tablet automatically switch from cellular to wifi when wifi is available, and if not, would this be a valuable feature for you? –ed.]

18.     My Ultimate Mobile Setup  http://samuelstern.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/my-ultimate-mobile-setup/  “I do 90% of my work on my Macbook Pro. It’s the 2011 model with the 15″ 1680×1050 antiglare screen, Core i7 processor, and 8GB of RAM…I wouldn’t want to use anything else at home. However, I also spend 4-6 hours a day in class and another 2+ just generally “out”, and it became a bit cumbersome to always carry a 6+lb laptop…So I decided I would get some better mobile gear…I made a list of what I want in a mobile device: Lightweight…All day or multi-day battery…<$600…Effortless sync with my other devices…Ability to take notes, browse the internet, and code…over the last few months, I figured out a setup that works for me. Part 1: Asus Transformer Pad TF300T – $399…Part 2: Asus Transformer Pad Keyboard Dock – $129…Part 3: Raspberry Pi Model B – $35…Part 4: Apps: TerminalIDE, PocketCloud VNC Viewer ($0)…For about $600, I have a device that weighs under 2lbs, has 12h+ battery life, syncs with all of my other devices, and allows me to do everything from read Hacker News to code in Haskell. It’s as good in practice as it is on paper…”

19.     Verizon’s 5” Droid DNA Wows With High-Def Display  http://mashable.com/2012/11/13/verizon-droid-dna/  “…HTC Droid DNA smartphone for Verizon, which was unveiled on Tuesday in New York City, has a laundry list of cutting-edge specs — not only is it the most high-definition smartphone yet, it runs lightning fast. Mashable snagged some hands-on time with the latest HTC smartphone, which runs on Android 4.1 Jellybean, to see if the promised features translated well to the real world. And upon first impression, the answer is yes. Oh, yes. Despite its 5-inch screen, the Droid DNA fits comfortably in your hand…it doesn’t feel as bulky as the Samsung Note II…But the real game-changer is its stunning Super LCD3 display, which is the first phone display capable of showing 1080p video at full resolution. Its pixel density (440ppi) blows away the rest of the competition by a long shot — the iPhone 5 has 326 ppi…the resolution was crisp, bright and colors popped in ways we didn’t even know they could on a small device. The Droid DNA packs a powerful punch, thanks to its quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor…If you’re taking pictures on the go and the lock screen pops up after being temporarily dormant, you don’t have to re-enter your password to log back in — you can bypass the lock screen entirely, so you don’t miss the shot you want. Another sweet perk is the countdown timer, which gives you a few seconds to prep before the picture is taken…we will have a longer, in-depth review of the Droid DNA in the next few days…”

20.    Verizon will offer free WP8 phone by end of year  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57549320-94/verizon-will-offer-free-wp8-phone-by-end-of-year/  “…Verizon will also offer one of its handsets for free by the end of the year. According to The Verge, Tami Erwin, Verizon's chief marketing officer, said that a phone from the carrier's WP8 lineup will come "in at the free [price] point." Currently, the HTC 8X retails for $199.99 with a two-year contract, and the Lumia 822 will be sold for $99.99 after discounts are applied. While it's still unknown which handset will be sold at the bottom-barrel deal, it doesn't surprise us that Verizon is getting competitive with its pricing…”

Apps

21.     The Humble Bundle for Android 4  https://www.humblebundle.com/?hb=4  “…Humble Bundle for Android 4 features a handpicked selection of the finest portable gaming ever seen for Android. Pay-what-you-want and dive into the creative physics puzzler Crayon Physics Deluxe; the plant-based interstellar RTS Eufloria; the cell-splitting microbial puzzler Splice; the future-retro audiovisual concoction Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP; and the side-scrolling planetary adventure, Waking Mars. Customers who pay more than the average price will also get the fantastic mechanical point-and-click adventure Machinarium!...Buying the Humble Bundle for Android 4 also gets you the games on Windows, Mac, and Linux!...On their own, buying this unbeatable collection of mobile and desktop games with soundtracks would cost around $119, but we're letting you name your price! The games are DRM-free and work great on Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux…”

22.    Microsoft’s Hackathon Attracts 17,000 Developers To Build Windows Apps  http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/09/microsofts-wowzapp-hackathon-attracts-17000-student-developers-who-want-to-build-windows-apps/  “Three weeks ago, Microsoft announced that it would hold a free global hackathon in over 100 cities around the globe. Today is the first day of this “Wowzapp 2012” event, and Microsoft just announced that it has managed to attract over 17,000 developers – many of them students – who are currently working on their Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Azure apps with the help of mentors from Microsoft. The event is scheduled to run until November 11. Wowzapp is mostly geared toward students, but it’s open to all developers who are interested in building for the company’s new platforms. Microsoft will provide all participants with the necessary tools to build their apps, including a free Windows Store registration code (this one is only available to students, though) so they can easily submit their projects to the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 store…With more than 16,000 students registered to participate, Wowzapp 2012 will be the largest simultaneous hackathon of student developers ever …”  [odds are pretty good that MS will have a similar event in 2013, so DHMN might want to consider collaborating with the Fox Valley .NET User Group, http://www.fvnug.org/, to participate in the 2013 event – ed.]

23.    Souping Up Your Smartphone's GPS  http://www.ectnews.com/story/76478.html  “…Do we need dedicated GPS devices anymore? Do smartphone advantages of cost, screen resolution and processing power outweigh a classic dedicated device -- even within professional sectors?...A dedicated GPS device that a buddy operated was spot-on when predeployed marker UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) co-ordinates were plugged in to both devices -- the Android smartphone and GPS -- and both were used to navigate to a flag marker. The smartphone was off by up to 15 feet. But does it matter? After a GPS device hardware failure…I opted to…build out my smartphone as a professional-grade GPS…You'll need a phone with a true satellite navigating GPS chip. Check the specifications…The first iPhone, for example, doesn't have GPS…GPS Essentials is available for free from the Android Play Store, or you can get iGPS All in One from iTunes for US$0.99…verify the GPS works by turning on Airplane Mode, rebooting the phone, going outside, and checking for a GPS location fix. The apps you just downloaded will display a location provider and co-ordinates gathered by the phone's location services…Switch Airplane Mode off, ensure you have a data connection by opening a Web browser and loading a test page, and download relevant map apps from the respective stores. Download $9.99 Gaia GPS (Andoid and iOS) or $9.99 BackCountry Navigator Pro (Android) if your interests are outdoorsy…Gaia allows for simple export of GPX and KML tracks and import of GPX files. BackCountry Navigator Pro allows for GPX and KML import but has no export function…you may want both…Round out your pro setup with free power apps like GPS Assist and GPS Status & Toolbox for Android…Extra batteries, or a Lithium Polymer battery pack, plus cable will keep you up for the duration. An in-vehicle cigarette lighter plug is a must for driving…” [do you have and use regularly a standalone GPS? How often do you use your GPS and what are your preferred GPS apps? – ed.]

24.    Curiosity: An Audacious Mobile Game You Just Can’t Help But Play  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671205/curiosity-an-audacious-mobile-game-you-just-cant-help-but-play   “…"Curiosity--What’s Inside the Cube?" is the newest game from Peter Molyneux…calling Curiosity a "game" requires a somewhat loose definition of the term. Essentially, players tap their smartphone screens to chip away at a massive virtual cube, its layers falling away in real time as people from around the world chisel away tirelessly with their fingertips. Until the last cubelet has been chiseled, that is, and a single player discovers the secret of what’s inside. Instead of drawing in players with…addictive mechanics, or meaningless high scores, here, mystery is the main attraction…You can gain multipliers with sustained tapping, earn gold for an in-game store that’s yet to open, and enjoy messages, patterns, and doodles graffitied in by other players. But the real draw is the big secret…Thousands of people play; only one wins. But it also represents a daring new idea of what a mobile game can be--a synchronous, shared experience where everyone is playing on the same team and there’s not really anyone on the other side…for Molyneux himself, the whole experience is an opportunity to get back to his indie gaming roots--and potentially a chance to steer mobile gaming into some more thought-provoking territory in general. In an interview…he made the case for smartphone games that reached beyond lowest common denominator distraction…we have to make money, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think you can make money…by making people fascinated…Curiosity is actually part game, part proof of concept--an exploration of the technical possibilities of having huge numbers of users interacting with a dynamic game environment in real time…”

25.    Yapp Lets You Build Apps for Any Event  http://mashable.com/2012/11/13/yapp-public-launch/  “…Yapp is a free tool that lets users quickly build and share their own mobile applications for events ranging from business conferences to sweet 16 birthday parties. The service has been in private beta since April, but on Tuesday, Yapp announced its public launch for Android and iPhone…Yapp lets users select from a set of themes and features to design a mobile experience, like event invitations, photo galleries, a news feed and bios of attendees…users can keep these apps private and share them…through a unique download link. The apps then show up in the inbox within Yapp’s app. Users must have a Yapp ID to share and download the event apps. In the six months that the product has been in beta, Yapp says nearly three quarters of users tried the product and more than half of those successfully created at least one app. Some of these…created event apps for secret dining experiences, fundraisers…”

SkyNet

26.    Acer C7 Chromebook unveiled for $199  http://www.slashgear.com/acer-c7-chromebook-unveiled-for-199-12256601/  “…Acer and Google have announced a new C7 Chromebook for $199…This machine has an 11.6-inch display and many of the same perks that come with the Samsung machine, starting with 100GB free storage for 2 years on Google Drive. This machine also has a beastly 320GB hard drive, so you’ll have no worries when it comes to keeping all your media safe. The C7 Chromebook comes with an Intel Core processor for awesome power – here with an 18 second boot-up time…This device is 1 inch thin and weighs in at 3 pounds. It’s got dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and ethernet access for the web, and both a VGA port as well as a full-size HDMI port for video output…It’s also got additional bonuses such as 12 free sessions of Gogo Inflight internet…This device is sure to add to the madness that is next-to-free notebook devices, especially and particularly because of it’s $199 price point…”  [the 6.5 hr battery life of the Samsung Chromebook, http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromebooks.html#ss-cb, seems highly preferable for only $50  more than the C7, but I’d want to compare video performance on the two Chromebooks before choosing between them – ed.]

27.    YouTube Preps Big New Round of Content Investments  http://adage.com/article/digital/youtube-preps-big-round-content-investments/238248/  “…a year after YouTube sprinkled $100 million across the online video ecosystem to create more than a hundred new "channels," it's doubling down. Google's video giant will provide a second round of funding to 30% to 40% of its original partners…"Our biggest objective was to kick-start the ecosystem, to bring in great creators, to deepen our relationships with advertisers and to grow viewership,"…In the first round, YouTube took a scattershot approach, funding a wide variety of producers and concepts that seemed to have promise as well as a lot of mainstream celebrities. A year later, YouTube has a better feel for what worked, namely programming that appeals to a young demographic in genres like humor, music, cars and sports…While channels failed for a lot of reasons, the ones that are succeeding have one common characteristic: they make building the audience as big a priority as creating content…The top 25 new channels now average more than a million views a week and the top 33 have more than 100,000 subscribers, a key indicator of repeat viewing…new investments will be roughly equivalent to the first; most channels received funding in the $1 million to $5 million range in exchange for producing a year of content that YouTube could sell exclusively…beyond the success of individual channels, YouTube's goal is to change perception among content creators and advertisers. "Everyone I talk to in the entertainment industry and a lot of people in the ad industry see YouTube in a different light than they did a year ago,"…Geico did its first upfront deal with YouTube for WIGS, a channel targeting women 25 to 48. While Geico had spent on YouTube before, the existence of a serialized, TV-like show made an upfront investment appealing…Ad deals that included the channels had a $3 million minimum, according to sources, but only a fraction of that was spent on the channels themselves, and the rest spread across YouTube…The bigger challenge for YouTube is to get people watching longer, which allows YouTube to compete for TV ad budgets. Overall time spent per viewer on YouTube has grown nearly 60% in the past year from just under three hours a month in September 2011 to four hours…YouTube is averaging 4 billion hours of viewing time a month compared to 3 billion a year ago…YouTube…has a long way to go to match that amount of time people spend in front of the tube. TV viewers watch more video in one day (4 hours, 38 minutes) than YouTube viewers do in a month…”

28.    Google Nexus devices go on sale, Nexus 4 sells out  “…new Google devices went on sale today…The new LG Nexus 4, Google's latest flagship smartphone, is sold out on the Google Play store after going on sale earlier this morning. The website's pages for the $299 8-GB and $349 16-GB models of the smartphone now say "Coming Soon."…the phone sold out in the U.S. in less than an hour…It sold out despite not being capable of connecting to LTE networks, which provide the fastest data speeds but are not available in all parts of the country…Also on sale today is the Nexus 10 tablet by Samsung. The Nexus 10…features a 2,560-by-1,600 high-resolution display with 300 pixels per inch…at $399 for a 16-GB model and $499 for a 32-GB model. Google…beefed up its line of Nexus 7 small-sized tablets today by adding a 32-GB model that is capable of connecting to AT&T and T-Mobile's 4G networks. It's available for $299. The…company also began selling a new Chromebook laptop this morning, the Acer C7. It costs $199…”

29.    Google Fiber:  A big week for Kansas City entrepreneurs  http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-big-week-for-kansas-city-entrepreneurs.html  “…next week, some of the top entrepreneurs and techies from the midwest and beyond will be in Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. for Global Entrepreneurship Week…an annual, week-long celebration of entrepreneurs, with hundreds of events around the world…we’re excited to participate in Global Entrepreneurship Week, KC by co-hosting three different events…Tomorrow we’ll be at the Compute Midwest Conference, where Brad Abrams…will give a keynote speech about the evolution of, and future of, Cloud Computing. Brad will talk about what the cloud computing means, how it works…Hackers and developers from around Kansas City will gather…on…Nov. 10th, to kick off the first-ever hackathon in the Google Fiber Space…a 24-hour app-building challenge, where hackers compete to develop the best new app…next Tuesday, Nov. 13th, we’re partnering with the Kauffman Foundation to bring you a day full of workshops and trainings to help you build and grow a successful business with the web and mobile…Google engineers and product experts will teach you about our platforms and tools that can help you create innovative applications and growing businesses …”

30.    Google Presents Google Ventures With $1.5B for Investments Through 2017  http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/11/09/google-presents-google-ventures-with-1-5b-for-investments-through-2017/  “Google Ventures got an early Christmas present, scoring $1.5 billion in new funds from parent Google to bankroll start-ups through 2017…Google Ventures invests in virtually every stage and sector from health care and energy to mobile and consumer Internet companies…Google Ventures previously invested $200 million a year in companies…the $100 million annual increase gives the firm extra gunpowder to fuel growth in existing portfolio companies and scout for new, later stage deals…We want to disrupt venture capital in a way that’s never been done before and we don’t want to be constrained by capital to do [the deals] we think need doing…You’ve scaled Google Ventures during the past year from 40 people to 60 and now offer a suite of services for start-ups like design, marketing and technical recruiting.  Will you continue to add new services and scale current ones with this new fund?...We’re  not competing to beat other VCs. We’re competing for the attention and mindshare of entrepreneurs …”

31.     Google’s Penguin 3 Update: Implications for Niche Bloggers  http://technorati.com/technology/it/article/googles-penguin-3-update-implications-for/  “Google’s Penguin 3 update has caught quite a few web-masters by surprise…in this update, the focus is on limiting spamdexing…what does it means to small bloggers, who do not depend on SEO practitioners and are bloggers by hobby. While the noble objective was to hunt down web-masters using black-hat SEO techniques, such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, participating in link schemes, deliberate creation of duplicate content, among others; the change has actually even benefited many of the small time bloggers even more who focus on a niche…All the web-masters who have used SEO tools to create huge volumes of backlinks from auto-submission have been penalized badly. The paramount importance to get the initial visibility through the web has become somewhat easier for new bloggers and websites due to Google’s focus to filter websites in terms of content quality and weed out link-farms…”

32.    Google declares Flash is now ‘fully sandboxed’ in Chrome for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS  http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/11/13/google-declares-flash-is-now-fully-sandboxed-in-chrome-for-windows-mac-linux-and-chrome-os/  “Google today announced that Adobe Flash Player is now “fully sandboxed” in Chrome on all desktop platforms it supports: Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. This is a big achievement on the security side of things, especially given the many vulnerabilities and 0-days frequently found in Flash…Sandboxing helps prevent malware from installing itself on your computer, or using what happens in one browser tab to affect what happens in another. The sandbox adds an additional layer of protection against malicious web pages that try to leave programs on your computer, monitor your web activities, or steal private information from your hard drive…the company today wanted to underline today that Chrome’s built-in Flash Player on Mac now uses a new plug-in architecture which runs Flash inside a sandbox that’s as strong as Chrome’s native sandbox, and “much more robust than anything else available…”

General Technology

33.    Throwable Camera Would Help Scope Out Dangerous Situations  http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/throwable-bouncing-sensors-scope-out-dangerous-situations/  “First responders may soon be adding small bouncing balls to their go-bags. Massachusetts-based Bounce Imaging has developed a series of small camera-equipped bouncing sensors that can be thrown into rooms to report back on what’s inside. Each device has six cameras, an array of sensors, and infrared LEDs. Once thrown into a space, the ball rolls to a stop and creates a panorama of the space around it, which it beams back to a mobile device. The sensors collect data such as room temperature and oxygen levels…Bounce Imaging’s founders…say that they expect it to have far-reaching applications for everything from search and rescue to military operations…”

34.    Teaching Programming To A Highly Motivated Beginner  http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/156836-teaching-programming-to-a-highly-motivated-beginner/fulltext  “…I'm going to…tell the story of how I spent nine months teaching computer programming to one student. Between July 2011 and March 2012, I taught basic programming to Brian Goler, a veteran San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur with an extensive background in marketing, sales, and product development. Brian started out with no prior programming experience, but within a few months, he was able to build SwearBuy, a free web application where people can share reviews of products that they love…My biggest contribution was guiding him over the hurdles that usually demoralize beginners…Here is an excerpt from the first email he sent to me in July 2011: We haven't met, but I'm reaching out to see if you might have some advice for me.  I found your website while searching online for a tutor who might be able to help me learn more about computer programming. Specifically, I'm looking for someone who would be able to meet with me 1-2 times/week for short, 1-hour tutoring sessions…I'm starting with MIT's OCW 6.00 course…I think I could advance more quickly and improve my understanding of concepts if there were someone I could turn to with questions and who could review my work and give me feedback…Since I wasn't too busy at the time, I offered to tutor Brian myself. We had our first one-hour session at his home and the second session at a nearby coffee shop…we did our third tutoring session over the Skype online video phone service. We used the screen sharing feature of Skype so that I could see the contents of his computer screen as we chatted. This format worked so well that we decided to do all subsequent sessions over Skype. I tutored Brian only twice in person, but we did over 50 hours of Skype video calls (spanning ~40 sessions)…”

35.    How To Become An Apprentice Developer  http://hugomelo.com/post/35533342698/becoming-an-apprentice  “As an experiment in self-education, I deferred admission from university to teach myself how to code. I moved to San Francisco and took a nine week coding bootcamp. After that, I interviewed for three weeks and got four job offers…I took a position as Carbon Five’s first apprentice. It’s been an amazing ride and the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Here’s what I learned…I lived at the office to get my burn rate down to about $20 / day for those two months. After App Academy, I crashed in the living room of a garage converted into two rooms at a Palo Alto hacker house…On the last day of App Academy, demo day, a bunch of companies came in to speed-date interview us…but I didn’t get any leads out of it. My interviews came from networking: strategically meeting the right people. I started off with going to interesting meet ups…with smart, cool engineers and entrepreneurs with the power to make hiring decisions…there are lots of meet ups that were a waste of my time. ‘Networking’ events empirically sucked. Events where I’m volunteering and teaching someone else, or someone’s teaching me something were really awesome and useful…Strategically, relentlessly follow up with the right people…Push…for in-person, informal chats over coffee over phone screens. Push for building test-apps over algorithm brain teasers…You don’t have time to waste on companies that are set against hiring junior developers…Large companies and two man startups were a waste of my time. I got a ton of rejections early on because I was talking to the wrong people. Then I changed focus to companies that were both able and willing to hire on growth…There are three ways to sell yourself: 1. Input. What degrees and accolades do you have? 2. Output. How much can you produce right now? 3. Growth. How fast do you learn?...As a junior developer, my trajectory was more impressive than my skill set…I ignored most requirements on job pages. If I could solve the problems that position was aiming for, I applied…All of my offers came from either unposted jobs or jobs I wasn’t ‘qualified’ for on paper…The people that made me offers said that my trajectory and enthusiasm were what won them over. For a hungry junior developer, your ability to learn fast and efficiently is your most valuable asset. If you can meet your basic needs, learning is a more valuable asset than a marginally higher salary. Choose a place where you’re going to be surrounded by developers better than you…”

36.    Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker Brings Video Remixing to the Masses  http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/11/mozillas-popcorn-maker-brings-video-remixing-to-the-masses/  “Mozilla has released Popcorn Maker 1.0, the company’s mashup-creating, video-editing suite for the web. Popcorn Maker makes it easy to pull just about any content on the web into a video container you can then publish back to the web. Despite the interactive nature of the web, video on the web remains…a passive experience in the midst of the otherwise interactive online world…The problem is that there aren’t a lot of tools that make it easy to create interactive web videos, which is where Popcorn Maker comes in. Popcorn Maker is a free online video editor for mashing up, remixing and adding outside content to web videos. Popcorn Maker’s drag-and-drop timeline interface makes it easy to pull all kinds of outside web content into your videos. For example, add photo overlays, maps, links, in-video pop-ups of Wikipedia entries…I’ve been playing around with Popcorn Maker for a few days now and it does indeed deliver on its promise to bring video editing to the people…”

37.    Sleek Pre-Fab Design For The Modern Homesteader  http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680809/a-sleek-pre-fab-design-for-the-modern-homesteader  “…A new wave of pre-fab home manufacturing is bringing inexpensive, sustainable homes to the eco-friendly masses. The latest design is a $52,000 home that can be shipped anywhere in the country and assembled for a just a few thousand dollars…Named the Solar Homestead, it’s a solar-powered, two-bedroom, one-bath unit with a porch. The manufacturer Deltec Homes says it’s net-zero--the home will produce as much energy as it consumes--thanks to a strategic design relying on solar panels, superior insulation, including triple-glazed windows and double-stud walls, and high-efficiency heating and appliances…Order the kit, and it’ll arrive ready to be assembled by local laborers at an estimated cost of $5,000 to $7,000…The design is a collaboration of students and professors at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, who originally submitted the project as an entry in the 2011 U.S. Solar Decathlon, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy…”

38.    Is JavaScript the Future of Programming?  http://mashable.com/2012/11/12/javascript/   “JavaScript is the programming language that makes a website interactive. Slideshows, advertising pop-ups and Google’s autocomplete feature are all examples of JavaScript at work…At first, developers didn’t take JavaScript seriously, because it wasn’t seen as a serious development language like Java, Ruby or Python, which are server-side languages…If you use JavaScript with a framework called Node.js, you can now actually use JavaScript as a server-side language. JavaScript is the only client-side scripting language. Therefore, it’s being used on nearly every website you see on the web…Codecademy offers JavaScript as the first language for users to learn…JavaScript will definitely be used on the job if someone begins working as a web developer…programmers don’t consider JavaScript the most refined of languages — it looks messy. CoffeeScript is an attempt to change this — it makes JavaScript look more like Ruby or Python…JavaScript can be used to build an entire site if used with Node.js and MongoDB (a database). Node.js is asynchronous, which makes it highly scalable…sending 600 emails with Node.js takes three seconds, and would take 30 seconds with PHP…JavaScript is now one of the preferred ways of developing applications for Windows 8′s new UI. It’s the top language used on Github. Lots of sites are built with Node…JavaScript is responsible for animations like pop-up windows and with AJAX, those websites that reveal new data without a page refresh…HTML5 was said to be the end of Flash, but if HTML5 is the organizational tool, it’s JavaScript that’s taking the place of the Flash element…videos or other visuals that used to be served in a plugin are now served with JavaScript, which runs in your browser, so you don’t have to download a third-party plugin…”

Leisure & Entertainment

39.    Google's JAM with Chrome lets users play in virtual rock bands  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57547488-93/googles-jam-with-chrome-lets-users-play-in-virtual-rock-bands/  “Google is trying an experiment: it's letting armchair musicians shred virtual guitars and bang animated keyboards with a new interactive Web app called JAM, which is on its Chrome browser…The way JAM works is it lets users invite friends anywhere in the world join them to play music online within the Chrome browser. The program gives users 19 different instruments to choose from, including bass guitars, drums, and keyboards…Google has been upping its music profile over the past few months…”  [Paul K of DHMN fame said he tried out ChromeJAM and really enjoyed it. What Google music tools do you use or would you use if they improved them? – ed.]

40.    Is console gaming dying?  http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/09/tech/gaming-gadgets/console-gaming-dead/index.html  “…Nintendo will release its new Wii U console on November 18, ushering in the eighth and possibly last generation of traditional home consoles as we know them…Dedicated gaming sales — including living-room consoles and handhelds — are in the midst of a four-year tailspin…Video game industry sales in the United States, including game discs, consoles and accessories, were down 24% in September when compared with the same period last year. Many experts believe these decreases in profits, the rise of casual and social gaming and waning consumer interest are affecting makers of the three big living-room consoles: Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii…Is the death of dedicated gaming upon us?...today's dedicated gaming business is arguably in its most tumultuous period since the 1983 gaming collapse. It's nowhere near ruin yet…But the console's influence is waning, and there's uncertainty about its future…Gaming consoles have transformed into entertainment hubs for people to stream movies or YouTube videos. So much, in fact, that gaming consoles no longer are being used primarily for gaming…40% of all Xbox activity now is non-game…Amazon and Netflix streaming accounts for most of that, as they do for Wii and PS3…game consoles account for half of all Netflix users. This is great news for the movie industry. Not so great for console gaming…a console isn't helping the gaming industry if it's mainly being used to stream…movies…gamers' tastes have evolved to include quick, bite-size gaming sessions -- something consoles have never been good at…It's much slower than tapping an icon on the smartphone you already carry in your pocket…When it's not taking a backseat to more convenient app gaming, some say the console has stagnated creatively…What were once graphical leaps in previous generations have now become bunny hops…Unless there's some futuristic holographic display or direct brain implement we don't know about, it's hard to get a lot better…In that sense, next-generation is no longer "next." We've arrived…There have been a lot of great games to be sure, but fewer must-haves — the kind that truly take the medium into uncharted territory…It's not so much that gamer interests have changed since the last generation, but that a whole group of new players have started playing games…Console makers so far have been ill-equipped to meet this demand, given their lucrative, 30-year-old model of selling games for $50-$60…In what has become a successful business model, many developers give away their games for free, then charge players later for status upgrades or gameplay perks…On top of that, 99¢ iPhone and iPad games are also taking a toll on the perceived value of dedicated gaming systems…The business model for a five-year life cycle isn't working for Sony and Microsoft…They spend billions to R&D and market these new systems, they sell them at a loss for the first few years and then they don't really have the software business to make up the cost…What might reinvigorate interest in living-room and dedicated handheld gaming? A first step would be fresher consoles themselves. The Xbox 360 is 7 years old, while the Wii and the PlayStation 3 are both 6…There will always be a big market for core game systems," he says. "It all comes down to how consoles can get back to taking creative risks again, and what the platforms can do to broaden their markets and offer innovative means of interaction…”  [for discussion at NEW NET – what’s the last console you bought, when did you buy it, how many hours/wk do you use it on average, what console do you think you’ll buy next and when? – ed.]

41.     Self-publishing on Amazon  http://beta.fool.com/leglamp/2012/09/01/what-no-ones-saying-about-amazon/10958/  “They say everyone has a book in them. That doesn’t mean it’s worth reading. But Amazon.com makes it possible for everyone to get that book out. This is the one thing no one seems to be talking about…Amazon…has revolutionized publishing. This is what intrigues me. You can publish within days instead of waiting months for a brick and mortar publisher…Another amazing thing is you can publish a physical book within days with an Amazon feature called Create Space and make the book available on demand…And the service is free…authors…can get up to a 70% royalty as opposed to the usual 7-10% for a debut book. Why anyone who can cobble 50,000 words together isn’t self-publishing is mind-boggling…In 2011, Newsweek featured a beaming Jeff Bezos…with the headline, “Books Aren’t Dead”…the takeaway of the story was that Kindle books had outsold all the paperback and hardback books together on Amazon. There is a renaissance in reading…and Amazon is outdoing Barnes & Noble by a country mile…”  [R.H. Watson, author of "Gladiator Girl", http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EEOM8E/, agrees that those who can cobble absolutely should self-publish - ed.]

42.    Mark Russinovich releases techno-thriller “Trojan Horse”  http://www.zdnet.com/geek-lit-microsofts-mark-russinovich-releases-trojan-horse-7000003702/  “…While novels are not usually of interest to IT professionals, this is an exception. Trojan Horse has been written by a Microsoft Technical Fellow and Azure expert Mark Russinovich, who is widely admired for utilities such as Process Explorer, which he developed as co-founder of SysInternals. Microsoft bought the company to get him.   Trojan Horse aims to be entertaining, of course. It's also trying to educate people about the risks of cyber-warfare, for which Russinovich knows corporate IT departments are not properly prepared. The book also might be considered compulsory reading for members of the US government. Last month, the senate killed the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (CSA2012), which would have obliged companies to increase the protection of critical networks such as electricity grids and water supply systems from cyber-attacks…Russinovich wrote what looks much like the Stuxnet story in his first novel, Zero Day. (Stuxnet hadn't appeared at the time.) Rather than being sponsored by a Western government, however, the attack in Zero Day represents a terrorist organisation's attempt to destroy the west. Trojan Horse is the follow up to Zero Day, and forms the middle part of what Russinovich calls "the Jeff Aiken trilogy"…”

43.    Artificial Intelligence Toys Are Just Around The Corner  http://z6mag.com/featured/artificial-intelligence-toys-are-just-around-the-corner-in-2013-1615501.html  “…current trends show that a new type of toy is coming right down the pipe and will be here soon. The Christmas 2012 holiday won’t see highly advanced AI Toys but if ToyTalk has anything to say about it, Christmas 2013 will. On November 1st, 2012 a video was released on YouTube under the account Toy Talk Inc showing a teddy bear that can talk with your kid and interact with them…The video was titled, “ToyTalk Trailer – Your teddy bear has so much to tell you.”…The artificial intelligence toy company is growing fast and is already posting engineering jobs for AI core development and more. In the job listing we found ToyTalk explains their company as this, “ToyTalk is a company with amazingly talented people trying to tackle a pretty radical idea. We are a family entertainment company. Our mission is to create entertainment powered by characters and conversatio…”

44.    Amazon-Skylanders Union Is Latest Move To Bring Online Gaming Offline  http://www.fastcompany.com/3002843/amazon-skylanders-union-latest-move-bring-online-gaming-offline  “Amazon on Thursday revealed a special offer that it says makes it the first and only game seller offering in-app purchases of physical goods that they'll deliver to your doorstep. It's a partnership with Activision and the mobile edition of its Skylanders game that bridges the gap between the virtual world and the real world…players of Skylanders Cloud Patrol on the Kindle Fire will be able to buy an exclusive version of one of the characters from the new Skylanders Giants console game--Flameslinger…it'll also unlock a digital character in the Kindle Fire game…it means the game never ends, even when the screen goes dark--you can play a game on your tablet and buy a product that you can play with in real life…in…Skylanders the player chooses their game character on the fly by placing a small plastic model of it on a "portal" that's plugged into the console. The game piece identifies its unique ID to the portal by NFC, and play continues. Extra game worlds and special powers are accessed in the same way. Each character costs $10, which ensures Activision a long tail revenue stream…No matter how clever this technology, or the business model is, the real trick here is that the game toys are very playable with by children in a completely offline mode…they are highly detailed, attractively crafted plastic models that can definitely fuel kids' imagination. The brand thus persists in games that have nothing at all to do with firing up a PS3 or turning on an iPad…Activision…has an upcoming fuller edition of its game that will play on iOS and actually connect to a "portal" by Bluetooth…That makes the game mobile, as well as expanding the brand…the physical-digital tie-up is so clever that "you can imagine the possibilities this opens up for developers and customers in the future…”

45.    Digital cameras change to beat smartphones  http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2012/11/13/camera-gift-guide/1695319/  “…digital cameras…manufacturers are struggling to come up with cool devices that match the ease and instant sharing capabilities of smartphones. The latest cameras…are trying really hard to morph into mobile devices…Camera sales are down 30% so far this year…the "drastic" drop is due to the popularity of the smartphone, which has replaced most point-and-shoot cameras as the camera consumers take with them when they leave home…smartphones…have improved to the point where for most folks, phone shots are as good as what they snapped with their digital cameras despite lacking superior flash and better zooming ability. To stoke sales, camera manufacturers…are dreaming up smaller, lighter and much sharper cameras that do things the old Nikon F and Pentax Spotmatics of years past could never dream of. Samsung's new Galaxy camera (not to be confused with Galaxy S III smartphone) will be available from AT&T beginning Friday for $499. The camera has a 4.8-inch LCD screen on the back…a 21x zoom lens, built-in Android software and a full range of apps. Customers will need a data plan to use the camera wirelessly and take advantage of the apps. While it's not a phone, if you plug a headset into the earphone jack and use a voice app such as Skype, you can make calls over the Internet…Samsung has 10 Wi-Fi-enabled cameras this year…"If you're taking pictures of a kid on a soccer field, or a recital in a low light, the images won't be as good on a smartphone as they would be with a camera," says…a product manager with Samsung…We want the camera to be your smartphone's best friend." Nikon's Coolpix S800c point-and-shoot camera has built-in Android software that lets you connect to the Google+ and Facebook social networks and check your e-mail from the back of the camera — if you have a Wi-Fi connection…Canon's $2,100 6D SLR (due out in December) and Sony's $400 DSC-HX30V have built-in Wi-Fi…to transmit photos. One of the hottest growing categories for cameras is the tiny rugged "actioncam," which can be attached to surfboards, bike helmets and even dog collars. GoPro, which makes the best-selling Hero cameras, just released the Hero3, sporting higher resolution for photos and video and a tiny camera body. The line starts at $199 (for a lower-resolution model) and goes up to $399 (with higher res and built-in Wi-Fi.) Competitors include a new model from Contour, the $399 Contour+2 and Sony's…$279 AS15 with built-in Wi-Fi…Canon's first mirrorless camera is smaller than its best-selling Rebel, and like most mirrorless cameras, it has interchangeable lenses…The $800 price tag might scare off traditional Rebel customers, but the camera has many of the same attributes of the Rebel — in a smaller package. While it doesn't have the flip-screen LCD, like the Rebel (great for video shoots), the M does have a hot shoe for an accessory flash and can shoot full 1080p HD video…While both Canon and Nikon…have low-priced SLRs to appeal to the lower end of the market…the big news is SLRs are sharper, cooler cameras with full-frame sensors — for better resolution and a wider point of view. The jewel of the full-frame movement is the Canon 5D Mark III, which began selling in March for $3,500. It produces sharp, sharp photos and videos, in the lowest of light, thanks to its big imaging chip and processor and 61-point focus points…”

Economy and Technology

46.    Galvanize: Part Incubator, Workspace & Code School  http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/09/part-incubator-workspace-code-school-galvanize-wants-to-turn-denver-into-a-startup-hub-uber-forkly-more-already-on-board/  “…Founded in Boulder in 2006, TechStars and other startup networks/accelerators like it have been on a mission to turn the Rockies — and the cities that lie in their shadows — into vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems. At least in Colorado. The latest initiative is Galvanize, a 30,000-square-foot workspace for digital startups that recently opened in downtown Denver. While most of Colorado’s entrepreneurial energy emanates from Boulder, the Galvanize founders are on a mission to bring Denver into the conversation by creating a shared workspace that will accommodate over 300 individuals and approximately 60 to 70 startups once it’s fully operational…the idea was inspired by other national startup communities and workspaces like RocketSpace in San Francisco and 1871 in Chicago. It offers support and office space for every phase of the business development process, from a shared area for small, one-or-two person teams in the ideating phase to suites for 10-person startups. Less than a month since the space officially opened, Galvanize already counts over 125 residents from both native Colorado and national companies…”

47.    Aha! Moments That Made Paul Graham's Y Combinator Possible  http://www.fastcompany.com/3002810/aha-moments-made-paul-grahams-y-combinator-possible  “In the summer of 1995, Paul Graham…was at a bit of a crossroads. After graduating from Harvard with a PhD in computer science, he had fallen into a pattern: he would find some part-time consulting job in the software business; then, with enough money saved, he would quit the job and devote his time to his real love…then he would scramble for another job…he was getting tired of the pattern, and he hated consulting…He called up his old programming partner from Harvard…and interested him in the idea of collaborating on their own startup, even though Graham had no clue where they would start or what they would develop…they had to confront a very large obstacle in their way…they loathed everything about Windows and had never bothered to learn how to develop applications for it…once the program was launched in Windows, they would…be forced to think and program in Windows for months, perhaps years…they seriously considered giving up. One morning Graham woke up with the idea that they might be able to control the software on the server by clicking on…various links on the web page to set it up…he and Morris would bypass the usual route of writing a program that users would download…It would cut out the need ever to have to dabble in Windows. There was nothing out there like this, and yet it seemed like such an obvious solution…Their application server provider was the very first Internet-run program for starting a business…they did not think to hire salespeople to do the pitching; instead, they made the phone calls to potential clients themselves…as they were the de facto salespeople, they were also the first to hear complaints or suggestions from consumers, and this gave them a real feel for the program’s weaknesses and how to improve it…in 1998 they sold their company, named Viaweb, to Yahoo! for $50 million. As the years went by and Graham looked back at the experience…It reminded him of so many other inventions in history…in all of these cases…the inventors had a chance encounter with the available technology; then the idea would come to them that this technology could be used for other purposes; and finally they would try out different prototypes until the right one fell into place. What allows for this process is the willingness…to look at everyday things in a different light and to imagine new uses for them…a flexible, adaptable mind…is often enough to separate a successful inventor or entrepreneur from the rest of the crowd. After cashing in on Viaweb, Graham hit upon the idea of writing essays for the Internet…These essays made him a celebrity among young hackers and programmers everywhere…Graham had…been the beneficiary of an angel investor in his project, and it was only right to return the favor by helping others. The problem was where to begin…he hit upon an idea that at first glance seemed ridiculous--he would synchronously invest $15,000 in ten startups all at once. He would find these ten prospects by advertising his offer and choosing the best among the applicants…It would be like an apprenticeship system for tech founders, but it really had another purpose--it would serve as a crash course for him in the investing business…he and Morris realized that they were actually on to something powerful…if Graham and founding partner Jessica Livingston were to devote their time exclusively to this…they would learn in leaps and bounds, and this exponentially increasing knowledge would lead to increasing numbers of successful startups…not only would they make a fortune, but they would also have a decided impact on the economy, unleashing into the system thousands of savvy entrepreneurs. They…considered it their ultimate hack to change the shape of the world’s economy…they discovered that what really makes successful entrepreneurs is not the nature of their idea…but…their willingness to adapt their idea and take advantage of possibilities they had not first imagined…what constitutes true creativity is the openness and adaptability of our spirit. When we see or experience something we must be able to look at it from several angles, to see other possibilities beyond the obvious ones…exploring and exploiting different branches and contingencies…The difference then is not in some initial creative power of the brain, but in how we look at the world and the fluidity with which we can reframe what we see…”

DHMN Technology

48.    How To Start A Hackerspace  http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/12/how-to-start-a-hackerspace/  “…I co-founded Washington’s first Hackerspace HacDC and founded Chicago’s first Hackerspace, Pumping Station: One…This How To Start A Hackerspace guide is…for everyone who has felt like I have and wanted to have a space to hack, to find community, to learn, to break things, to make things and to have a place to do it. Read How To Start A Hackerspace and find out everything you need to know to get started…and how to make a successful Hackerspace a reality…remember that Hackers are people who push the boundaries of their form and art, in whichever discipline that is. A Hackerspace is just a physical resource that is empty until you fill it up with tools, people, and projects…founding Pumping Station: One in Chicago and co-founding HacDC in Washington DC…took dozens of people with experience in many disciplines. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned…remember to let people help, be ready to admit when you are wrong sometimes, and always keep moving forward…”  https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/12/how-to-start-a-hackerspace-part-1/  “…Your first step is to identify who your space is going to be for: who is putting the space together, and what kind of hackers will be wanting to hack there? It’s essential to narrow down who the space is for when you first start out, even if you plan on including a lot of other kinds of hackers in the future – make a solid core! Is the space primarily for computer hacking, hardware hacking, or do you have people that hack in a variety of materials? The answer to “who” will come from you – and also the people you’re starting the space with. Nailing down who the space is for (you and your co-hackers) gives you key information to make important decisions about the space itself, the tools you need and the resources you need to put together…”

49.    DIY Fair for inventors, crafters, and makers in nation's capital  http://opensource.com/life/12/11/dc-public-library-announces-diy-fair-people-and-without-disabilities  “…To help bring makers and DIY enthusiasts together in the Washington D.C. area, the D.C. Public Libraries has announced a free DIY Fair that will be taking place in the Great Hall of Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library—located at 901 G St, NW, in downtown. The event will be held on Saturday, November 17th from 10am to 3pm and on Sunday, November 18th from 1:30pm to 4:30pm. Meet the two organizers of the event, Phil Shapiro and Patrick Timony, and learn about the origins, purpose, and scope of the event via this Google Hangout…” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_2HE6ZBqUU

50.    Arduino Micro shrinks your favorite DIY platform  http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/08/arduino-micro-shrinks-your-favorite-diy-platform/  “…the itty-bitty Arduino Micro…embed-friendly board was designed with help from Adafruit Industries…At the heart of the Micro is the same 16MHz ATmega32u4 chip that powers the Leonardo…the layout here is different, so you wont be mounting the Micro to any shields, but with 20 digital I/O pins, 12 analog input channels and seven PWM channels, there's plenty of room for wiring up your own expansions…it crams all that capability in a package just 48mm long and 18mm wide. The Arduino Micro will be available exclusively through Radio Shack and Adafruit first before becoming more widely available next month. The board is available with headers for…$27…”

51.     Kickstarting: Arduino-Powered, Kanye-Inspired Glasses With 174 Programmable LEDs  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671187/kickstarting-arduino-powered-kanye-inspired-glasses-with-174-programmable-leds  “Platforms like the Arduino are making it increasingly easy for people to dip their toes into hardware programming…The Bright Eyes Kit, a new project from the tech education collective Technology Will Save Us, might be just the thing to bring today’s dubstep-addled youth into the hardware-hacking fold. The kit, currently the focus of a new Kickstarter campaign, gives users a pair of programmable sunglasses outfitted with 174 LEDs. The more you learn, the more you can make them do. Out of the box, the shades will play low-resolution videos via a Micro SD card slot. But…the real aim of the kit is to inspire people to tinker. With some entry-level Arduino skills, users can make the LEDs light up in patterns or pulse to the beat of music, thanks to a microphone built into the frames. Part of the Kickstarter funding…would go to the creation of a platform where users could share Bright Eyes software…The TWSU team first started on the glasses when a friend, bound for Burning Man, requested something spectacular he could wear to the festival…”

52.    DIYbio at Manchester Science Festival 2012  http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Community-Live-DIYbio-at-Manchester-Science-Festival-2012-1746724.html  “…DIY biology is…essentially about applying the hacker ethic to the field of biology. Asa Calow, a director of Manchester Digital Laboratory (MadLab), explains that for the Manchester chapter of the DIYbio organisation “to have fun is the principle objective”…The motivation for setting up DIYBIO_MCR came when Asa attended the Real Hackers Program DNA session at the O'Reilly eTech conference in 2009, where participants got to program bacteria to glow, turn red or smell of banana…a joint application with Manchester Metropolitan University was submitted to the Wellcome Trust for a grant to make it a reality. Since then the group has built its own OpenPCR machine, and has run events on a diverse range of topics including building microbial fuel cells and creating a crowd-sourced microbe map of Manchester…When asked about ethics and the risk of someone doing something dangerous Asa said that a draft code of ethics had been produced and that guidelines were presently informal, but that groups “work on the same premise: no pathogens and no bioweapons”…the same as your typical hackerspace or makerspace…”

53.    Dwolla Sponsors Old  MacDonald Hackathon  http://blog.dwolla.com/cows-code-and-money-the-old-mcdonald-hackathon-haveacow/  “We’re inviting 50 developers and designers to join us and Silicon Prairie News at our Des Moines HQ to build in our first Iowa-based hackathon. It’s free and we’re giving away a cow, a pig and a rooster for prizes. Seriously. We’ll kick things off on Saturday, December 1 at 9am…we’ll be hacking all day and through the night until the 12pm deadline on Sunday…We’ll supply you with food, coffee, beer and entertainment,  you just need to bring the code and creativity…”

54.    Pi Crust breakout board makes it easy to get peripherals on Raspberry Pi  http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/10/pi-crust-breakout-board-makes-it-easy-to-get-peripherals-on-raspberry-pi/  “…a Chicago-based hacker…has just released a design for what he has dubbed the Pi Crust: a very cheap new hardware add-on for the Raspberry Pi…to make it easier to tack various hardware peripherals onto the cheap computer…The Raspberry Pi has the capability to do all this stuff, but it’s a bit inconvenient," Walnes told Ars. "[The Pi Crust] just makes it a little bit simpler…it’s just taking the pins on the RP and laying them out to make them more convenient to access and it’s nice and compact…Walnes isn’t selling the Pi Crust; he's just making the design specification available. He links to a circuit board printing shop where he says customers could have three of them printed for less than $14…”

55.     University of Michigan 3D Lab  http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/michigan-3d-lab-blurs-the-lines-between-virtual-and-reality/  “There’s a powerful room at the University of Michigan tucked away in the unassuming Duderstadt Center…The “room” — three white walls and a floor — opens doors that could allow to you to fly…what you have is not just one 3-D screen, but four…it creates a very strong feeling of immersion. The room, formally known as the Michigan Immersive Digital Experience Nexus (MIDEN, pronounced My-Den), is one component of the University of Michigan 3D Lab, a division of the U-M Library…Six staff members and 12 students work together in the lab, which receives its primary operating funds from the library system. The center’s budget is enhanced with grant money from collaborative projects with faculty and students…the lab…offers a range of services that includes 3-D “printing,” 3-D imaging and mobile app development…to “print” something in three dimensions…modeling is done for students and faculty for only the cost of materials. “Prints” cost 40 cents per cubic centimeter of material plus a $20 build fee. Maslowski said the lab printed about 6,000 prototypes and sculptures over the past year. “One of my favorites that we made is a mold of a child’s nose that surgeons use to practice removing peanuts from,” he said…The lab, founded in 2002 out of the imaging technology group, is using that same ability to create detailed 3-D renderings to digitally preserve artifacts owned by the university…the crown jewel of the lab is clearly MIDEN. Stepping into the cube while wearing special 3-D glasses with motion markers and an X-Box controller allows you to float through the air in a perfect scale model of the new Yost Ice Arena, glide through a visualization of data connecting different defective genes to hereditary diseases, or even paint in three dimensions…”

Open Source Hardware

56.    Build your own open-source machinery with plans at Jua Kali  https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/2012/11/07/build_your_own_open_source_machinery_with_plans_at_jua_kali.html  “…door hinges at a hardware store in Kenya…might offer two options: regular and “Jua kali” hinges. The jua kali pair could cost half the price, but they will not be finished or cleaned, and they are likely made by a cheaper, cruder manufacturing process…Jua kali is a Kiswahili term that literally means “hot sun.” But in Kenya, which shares English and Kiswahili as official languages, jua kali has taken new life as an adopted word in the English language that denotes the entire informal sector of goods and services…the Web site www.juakali.info...houses information on nearly a dozen farm tools and other devices, many with open-source construction guides…The site draws on the jua kali tradition of cost-cutting innovation and do-it-yourself manufacturing…Muckle is an 80-year-old displaced Englishman who lives in Kenya. He trained as an agricultural engineer…Muckle designs tools that are either hand-operated or hitched to animals, and his site provides free plans for building your own versions. The designs bear his own stamp of frugal engineering…He believes in the open source movement, and his lifelong interest has been in “small-scale technologies that work…Juakali.info, focuses on conservation agriculture, but Muckle has recently added an ambulance design – better described as a modified stretcher – that can be drawn by camel or donkey…”

57.     Open Source Servo Driver for Rockets  http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/white-label-space/blog/open-source-servo-driver-rockets  “Luke Weston…has kicked off an interesting open source hardware project called OpenServoDrive. This is a high-power servo driver for a pair of DC brush motors and will be used in the throttling mechanism for the valves on our lunar lander's main engine. This open source hardware projects consists of just a single Printed Circuit Board (PCB) which is relatively compact, lightweight, inexpensive, and fully open source without any dependence on a closed commercial product. The PCB plugs directly into both DC motors, the 60V power supply, the two rotary encoders on the backs of the motors, the CAN, and a 12-24V power supply (supplied on the CAN loom) and provides the motor control…The PCB layout is not finished yet but you can see the board's schematic in the project's github repository.  The first use planned for the hardware is on the AUSROC2.5 sounding rocket, and it could also be used for any other applications where precise servo control of two large high power brushed motors is desirable, for example large CNC plotting, engraving etc. machines…”

58.    3D Repo: open source Revision Control Framework for large 3D models  http://www.3ders.org/articles/20121105-3d-repo-open-source-revision-control-framework-for-large-3d-models.html  “…3D Repo is an open source 3D Revision Control Framework which is targeted at CAD and general 3D modelling. It is very suitable for storing, retrieving and versioning large 3D models for content production for a large scene. It includes a unique 3D Diff tool capable of 2 and 3way differencing and allows the users to interactively resolve conflicts…The role of the repository is to store 3D assets and to provide interfaces and conventions to add, modify and extract delta changes on them. By supporting a standard web-accessible front end, it enables connections to modeling packages via intermediary tools, or simply to a viewer…the framework supports retrieval of any full or partial revision that can be exported as a new 3D file…The framework is still in development, so the team is inviting interested users to sign up. More features will be added in the future, and it will be open source…”

59.    $57 micro-PC is like Raspberry Pi, but faster and fully open  http://liliputing.com/2012/11/olinuxino-a13-a-tiny-open-source-computer-for-under-60.html  “…a small single-board computer called the OLinuXino…looks a lot like a Raspberry Pi, but the OLinuXino has a faster processor, more built-in input and output ports, and the developers say the project is completely open source, including the hardware and software…There are two OLinuXino systems available right now. Both sell for less than $60. The A13-OLinuXino features a 1 GHz Allwinner A13 ARM Cortex-A13 processor and Mali 400 graphics, while the iMX233-OLinuXino-MAXI has a 454 MHz Freescale i.MX233 processor. While the iMX233 model is designed for embedded computing applications, the A13 model seems like something you could use as the basis for an Android or Linux computer. It has 512MB of RAM, 3 USB host ports, an SD card slot for storage, VGA output, audio jacks, and UEXT connector for additional modules as well as GPIO connectors for flash, LCD, or other devices…”

60.    Creation and copyright law: the case of 3D printing  http://theconversation.edu.au/creation-and-copyright-law-the-case-of-3d-printing-10305  “…Over the ages, copyright law has been confronted by the emergence of a range of disruptive, new technologies, such as the printing press; the pianola roll; the photocopier; the fax machine; the video cassette recorder; the personal computer; the MP3 player; and the internet. There has often been moral panics about the impact of new inventions, which can facilitate the reproduction and the dissemination of copyright works…One of the most notable emerging technologies is 3D printing, which presents both opportunities and challenges for copyright law…Copyright owners have been anxious and fearful about 3D printing, because they fear that it will enable the unauthorised reproduction and dissemination of copyright works. There have been already skirmishes over copyright law…The Games Workshop sent a takedown copyright notice to Thomas Valenty because he used a MakerBot to design figurines – a war mecha and a tank for use in the game Warhammer 40,000…The civil society group Public Knowledge…has sought to discourage the United States Congress from passing laws that would restrict or curtail 3D printing…Open hardware printers have been used for rapid prototyping of new inventions, to print replacement parts for household objects and appliances, by DIY scientists to turn a power drill into a centrifuge, for a game in which you can engineer your own pieces, and for thousands of other purposes…there is a need to ensure that 3D printing is not stifled by intellectual property litigation…”

Open Source

61.     Linux developer joins Humble Bundle team full-time  http://www.geek.com/articles/games/linux-developer-joins-humble-bundle-team-full-time-2012118/  “…Humble Bundles…do a lot not only to raise money for charity, but also to highlight a whole bunch of indie games everyone should play. In more recent bundles the Humble team has also been…getting the games to run on Android and Linux…When the Humble Indie Bundle 6 went live back in September, it promised Linux support for the 6 games on offer. However, one of those games, Vessel, has yet to appear in a working form on Linux due to a number of unforeseen setbacks mainly to do with porting between Direct3D and OpenGL…the Humble team is now offering refunds…they don’t want such a scenario to happen again and so have done something about it. Edward Rudd has joined the Humble team as a full-time Linux developer. He’s already credited with getting 17 Humble games to work with Linux…”

62.    Australian university joins Stanford's open-source online platform  http://phys.org/news/2012-11-australian-university-stanford-open-source-online.html  “The beauty of open-source technology is that people around the world can build things together…That is the case with Class2Go, Stanford's homegrown, team-built platform for hosting online classes. When the director of a software center at an Australian university caught a glimpse of the platform after its September launch, he immediately envisioned how his university could adapt it and at the same time contribute to it. He called the platform simply "revolutionary." David Glance, director of the Centre for Software Practice at the University of Western Australia (UWA), was at Stanford last week meeting with Class2Go's engineers and other Stanford Online staff members to share ideas and map out future collaborations…open source permits schools to adapt technology to their own needs…most students using Class2Go probably use it on their laptops. Glance is interested in mobile use that goes beyond squishing web page images down to the size of a phone screen…his group wants to reorganize the layout to change the student experience…Starting with iPhones, and then moving on to iPads and Android phones, the mobile app will enable students to take an entire course on the phone…Our students aren't bringing laptops to campus anymore anyway. So it would be really nice to be able to take a course on the phone, picking up where you left off in a seamless synchronization across devices…UWA's plan is to launch two courses on Class2Go by March 2013…One will be in sociology, the other in oceanography, drawing on the resources of the university's well-known Oceans Institute. They will be both for internal students (using "flipped" classrooms, with students watching videos before class) and for the general public as MOOCs. An astronomy course will follow, taking advantage of the university's proximity to the Square Kilometer Array, the largest radio telescope in the world…”

63.    On Open Ministry, Finnish Citizens Propose Laws for Parliament To Consider  http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/11/05/open_ministry_finland_s_open_source_project_to_let_citizens_propose_laws.html  “…many Americans are frustrated…that their voice isn’t heard in the legislative process. But maybe Finland has a solution to that problem. Through the open-source web platform Open Ministry, launched in March by a group of nonprofit entrepreneurs, citizens of Finland can propose legislation and throw their support behind laws of interest. Any legislation that receives 50,000 shares will be voted on by Parliament. Each suggested law gets six months to gather traction. Whether the majority is in favor or not doesn’t matter, as anything with 50,000 total shares…moves on to the next, official round of voting. Two weeks ago, a proposal to ban the practice of farming animals for the fur trade became the first Open Ministry idea to pass the threshold for Parliament consideration. Out of the roughly 340 pitches currently on the site, the fur-trade idea is far and away the most popular, having collected more than 56,000 shares with the majority in favor of the ban…The next most popular proposal is a ban on selling energy drinks to children under the age of 16, with 3,486 Finns almost evenly divided on the ban…Open Ministry confirms citizens' identities through their bank or mobile API's, so spamming or hacking the system is incredibly difficult. The online version of Open Ministry didn't go up for months, in fact, until it was deemed hacker-proof…The code for Open Ministry is already on GitHub…while Open Ministry may be spam- and hacker-proof, there are no signs that it is prankster-proof. Maybe the residents of Finland don't seem the type to vote on bogus legislation, but the same can't be said for citizens of the United States…two writers from the satire Internet site Something Awful got more than 62,000 people to like a Facebook page in order to “exile” rapper Pitbull to Alaska, effectively hijacking a Wal-Mart social media campaign…”

64.    Contribute to an open source project no matter your experience level  http://opensource.com/life/12/11/open-source-contributions-come-all-shapes-and-sizes  “…A lot of people think that only internet-famous rock star programmers can contribute to open source projects, but…open source communities thrive on contributions from everyone, from beginners to experts, even non-programmers. Lots of open source projects and languages are looking for contributors…Write code…The only way to know is to start. Read the issue trackers…At this year's DjangoCon, Russell Keith-Magee gave a great talk, one that he improves on every year, about "making the leap from user to contributor."…Open source your own code…If it's a full-blown app or project, you can put it in a public repository in a place like Github or Bitbucket…Give time…Organize user groups in your local area…Organize classes! Teach what you know!...Reach out to local schools…Give money…Share knowledge…Write documentation…Blog…”

65.    AMD dismisses numerous open source developers  http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/AMD-dismisses-numerous-open-source-developers-1745131.html  “As part of a process to reduce its staff by 15 per cent, AMD has closed the Dresden, Germany-based Operating System Research Center (OSRC) and dismissed the centre's employees…OSRC staff primarily worked to develop the Linux support for AMD's server processors, but they also wrote code and extensions for related desktop and notebook CPUs – for example, they looked after the code to support CPU frequency scaling for the PowerNow and Turbo Core technologies…one of AMD's former employees contributed to the development of the "IOMMU groups" feature that was integrated into Linux 3.6; this feature provides the basis for a new Linux 3.6 technology that allows a host's PCIe devices to be passed through to virtual machines and can also be used with Intel CPUs…patches contributed to the Linux kernel by AMD employees reveals that the closure will cause AMD to lose almost all developers who have recently submitted major changes to support new AMD processors and chip sets in Linux…”

Civilian Aerospace

66.    A trip to outer space — for just $95,000  http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-11-09/finance/35004198_1_sxc-space-tourism-spacecraft  “Why settle for another ho-hum cruise around the globe or even an expedition to Mount Everest when a truly out-of-this-world travel experience is at hand?...Netherlands-based Space Expedition Corporation…is promising…a suborbital journey that will qualify you as an official astronaut, all for the “bargain” price of $95,000…the closest competition is a similar suborbital program being offered by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic…that runs $200,000. Right now, neither company is boarding any actual…spaceships…since the programs are still in the beta phase. But SXC expects to be launching…by the second half of 2014…The company notes that its specially designed spacecraft (“powered by four revolutionary rocket engines”) will travel at…more than 2,000 miles per hour, taking passengers to…the 62-mile altitude…in less than four minutes. Along the way, passengers will experience weightlessness and enjoy views that are intended to give new meaning to the term “earth-shattering…”

67.    Space Cadets  http://www.lamag.com/columns/business/Story.aspx?ID=1787400  “…Southern California has among the largest concentrations of aerospace engineers in the world, and that talent is being put to good use, not only for the ambitious Mars mission but for all sorts of space travel. With the end of the space shuttle program…a privately funded space race is taking shape, focusing on the business of routine orbital transport. Getting much of the attention is SpaceX Corporation…Musk believes that every kind of transportation—be it satellite launches or travel to other planets—can be done more efficiently and at a lower cost if the government is not in charge…at least 60 businesses are working on various space ventures in California’s Mojave area, which is near enough to L.A. to attract top talent and far enough to operate inexpensively and out of earshot. The most notable of these, Scaled Composites, was started by test flight legend Burt Rutan…Besides Musk, billionaires Paul Allen, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos each have a space operation…SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies…has added hundreds of workers over the last year…As of August the workforce stood at 1,800, up from around 200 in 2005…Contextually the company remains fairly small. In nearby El Segundo, Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon, and Aerospace Corporation eclipse SpaceX with a combined 20,000 employees. Throughout Southern California there are roughly 100,000 aerospace and defense positions…Aerospace settled here because land was cheap, local universities provided research and testing facilities, numerous military installations were close by, and the region was welcoming to new (and sometimes unorthodox) ideas…Because planes, satellites, and all the other aerospace gizmos are so complicated and costly, and because the layers of corporate bureaucracy get so entangled, it’s easy to lose track of the billions of procurement dollars…Conventionally a customer, usually the government, awards a prime contractor, which in turn works with subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, and lower-level suppliers in preparing the bits and pieces for whatever is being manufactured…Musk wants to turn the process on its head by keeping up to 80 percent of the manufacturing in-house…In addition, he hopes to fully reuse rockets and other expensive items, something that NASA has never been able to accomplish. That would lower the cost of each flight to a fraction of what the government paid during the shuttle days…Not only is this a different business philosophy compared with 20 or 30 years ago, but it has created a different culture. Boeing and Northrop have workforces whose average age is close to 50…By contrast, the average SpaceX employee is in his (or her) midthirties, and some of the hires are right out of graduate school. At the Quiznos a few steps from the SpaceX facility, several employees told me about the fast pace, endless days, and requisite perks (Ping-Pong tables, free frozen desserts) that you’d find at a Bay Area start-up…Craig Cooning…of Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems Unit…and his managers have had to adjust to a new way of doing business—specifically the emergence of nongovernment customers who are more demanding about prices and deadlines. In the old days “if you won a major government program, it was like hitting a home run,” he says. “It would go on for a long period of time, and there were usually extensions, and it generated a lot of revenue. On the commercial side it’s more like bunts and hits to first base. They’re on a tight time line, and you’re scrambling a lot faster…”

68.    Futuristic technology to build NASA's next rockets  http://www.sen.com/news/futuristic-technology-to-build-nasa-s-next-generation-of-rockets.html  “…3D printing…Known as Selective Laser Melting (SLM)…will be used by…NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to help create the intricate metal parts for the agency's next heavy lift rocket. The Space Launch System (SLS) development is being managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center…the rocket will be the biggest and most capable ever built, designed for exploration missions beyond Earth's orbit.  SelectiveLaser Melting works by a machine taking metal powder and using a high-energy laser to melt it in a designed pattern…this state-of-the-art technique will bring benefits to safety as well as reducing manufacturing costs. The technique significantly reduces the manufacturing time required to produce parts from months to weeks, or even days in some cases. "It's a significant improvement in affordability, saving both time and money"…the parts are structurally stronger and more reliable, which creates an overall safer vehicle…Structural testing of some of the new 'printed' engine parts will take place later this year in hot-fire tests of a J-2X. The J-2X engine will be used as the upper stage engine for the SLS…”

69.    Printable spacecraft  http://www.citizensinspace.org/2012/08/printable-spacecraft/  “…Flexible printed electronics are already being used in commercial applications from medicine to packaging…The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working with Boeing and Xerox Palo Alto Research Center to find ways of leveraging that…to build complete functional satellites and spacecraft. Printable electronics has the potential to eliminate most or all of the touch labor which make conventional aerospace systems so expensive. In the not-too-distant future, an engineer may design a space probe on her laptop in the morning, send it off to a printer, and pick up the printed hardware in the afternoon. Printable electronics are especially suited for application to lightweight, two-dimensional structures such as solar sails and photovoltaic arrays. Printable electronics may enable innovative designs such as flat-sheet landers that flutter down to the surface like leaves, eliminating the need for expensive landing systems. JPL…recently received a $500,000 Phase II award…The Phase II study will address technical feasibility by designing and fabricating a bench-top prototype of a printed space probe and testing printed components to verify compatibility with the space environment…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

70.    How NVIDIA Gave Film Makers an Early Look at ‘Skyfall’  http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/11/for-your-eyes-only-how-nvidia-gave-film-makers-an-early-look-at-skyfall/  “While fans may have waited years for a glimpse of the latest James Bond movie, the professionals working on the film couldn’t wait. Every day after shooting ‘Skyfall,’ director of photography Roger Deakins would view the day’s work – with full-stereo sound — on a big screen…It immediately gave us insurance that everything was right. That type of speed is one of the benefits of the shift in movie-making to digital production and away from film…NVIDIA’s GPUs have made possible something I call a post-production facility in a box. It allows us to ingest and sync raw camera data and audio taken on location by the latest generation of digital cameras, color-correct it, and render it…And we can do things that we couldn’t do before, such as remove wrinkles from actors or get rid of wires used to perform stunts…Before, I used to have to rely on colleagues manning a room full of workstations to do the same work…On-set Dailies (OSD), from Colorfront, which just won an Emmy…uses NVIDIA’s CUDA technology to do work that used to take five people equipped with high-end workstations an entire day…”

71.     How GPUs Accelerate Innovation  http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/11/learn-how-gpus-accelerate-innovation-at-supercomputing-conference/  “…Supercomputing (SC12)…the world’s biggest supercomputing trade show…kicks off next Monday…unveiling a host of breakthroughs made possible by accelerated computing on GPUs…Here are some highlights you won’t want to miss…“Titan: ORNL’s New Computer System for Science”…“MAGMA – a New Generation of Linear Algebra Libraries for GPU and Multicore Architectures”…“Accelerating Science and Engineering with Kepler GPUs in Blue Waters”…check out these must-see talks via live web broadcast on the NVIDIA SC12 event page…The full theater schedule and webcast are available here…Tesla CTO Steve Scott…will discuss significant milestones in GPU architecture and programming models. He’ll cover several key concepts that demonstrate why advances in GPU-accelerated computing performance and power efficiency will continue to outpace CPUs – a critical component in high-performance computing (HPC)…”

72.    Four Amazing Things Carnegie Mellon Is Doing With CUDA  http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/10/four-amazing-things-carnegie-mellon-is-doing-with-cuda/  “…The CUDA Center of Excellence (CCOE) at CMU will establish research collaborations with NVIDIA to realize new, high-impact applications in field robotics, high-throughput gene sequencing, spoken-language processing, signal processing and computer graphics. The collaboration will also seek to advance the design of throughput-focused hardware and software systems by promoting and targeting GPU technologies in heterogeneous systems research at CMU and across the nation…projects include: CMU “Icebreaker” Lunar Expedition…Carnegie Mellon University will land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon in 2015…CMU’s Polaris will explore for ice at the pole of the moon and transmit high-definition video back to the world…CMU researchers are exploring the use of high-performance GPU computing to assist mission realization…NSF PRObE: Enabling Accelerated Computing Research at Scale…the National Science Foundation (NSF) Parallel Reconfigurable Observational Environment (PRObE) for Data Intensive Super-Computing and High-End Computing will provide a platform enabling researchers across the country to perform computer systems research at scale…Accelerating Next-Generation Genome Sequence Analysis using GPUs…next-generation sequencing (NGS), technologies promise an era of preventive and personalized medicine through low-cost and high-throughput genome sequencing…Accelerating Speech and Language Technologies with CUDA…Using CUDA-accelerated GPUs we have obtained 1000x speedup for signal processing tasks, 100x speedup for well-structured tasks such as Viterbi training and 10x speedups for complex tasks such as speech recognition…”

73.    NVIDIA Tesla K20X Features 2688 Cuda Cores and 6 GB Memory  http://wccftech.com/nvidia-tesla-k20x-features-2688-cuda-cores-6-gb-memory/  “…the Tesla K20X…has 14 SMX enabled bringing its core count to 2688 Cuda’s and boasting a 6 GB GDDR5 memory…”  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9233499/Nvidia_AMD_release_graphics_processors_for_supercomputing  “…The Titan supercomputer pairs 18,688 Nvidia Tesla K20X GPUs with 18,688 AMD 16-core Opteron 6274 CPUs, with the GPUs handling 80 to 90% of the processing load…K20X has 6GB of memory and delivers 1.31 teraflops of double-precision performance. The K20X is three times faster than its predecessor, the Tesla M2090…AMD claimed that its FirePro SM10000 delivered 1.48 teraflops of peak double-precision performance. The graphics card has 6GB of memory…”

74.    Intel's 60-core chip ships  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57548761-92/intels-60-core-chip-ships-elites-like-hawking-get-it-first/  “Intel's first 60-core chip is here…The chip, generally called Phi, isn't your typical Intel processor. It's less like a central processing unit (CPU)…and more akin to a graphics processing unit (GPU) that works in conjunction with the CPU…Intel tried to bring out a consumer GPU card called "Larrabee" based on the technology but canceled the project in 2009…the company still needs the technology to compete with Nvidia in the supercomputing market because specialized GPU-like processor cores can handle certain supercomputing tasks more efficiently, reducing the prodigious power requirement for supercomputers as well as increasing performance…the Xeon Phi coprocessor 3100 family will offer more than…1 teraflop double-precision performance…The first commercial versions of the coprocessor, which ship on a PCIe circuit board, are expected to be available January 28 with a recommended customer price of $2,649…”

*****