NEW NET Weekly List for 14 May 2013

Below is the final list of technology news and issues for the Tuesday, 14 May 2013, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurism and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1.        LinkedIn: the creepiest social network  http://www.interactually.com/linkedin-creepiest-social-network/  “…I’ve concluded that LinkedIn is by far the creepiest social network. The primary reasons LinkedIn is the mustached, trench coat and wire frame glasses wearing mouth breather of the internet are the “People You May Know” and “People Also Viewed” features. Let’s begin with the “People You May Know” feature. Every time I sign in, I’m startled by one of the names they suggest. My reactions range from “How did you know I know them?” to “There’s no way you should know I know them” to “Ok, I don’t know that person, but they have the same name as someone I do know, and you shouldn’t even know that.”…A couple more “People I May Know” included Herman and Doug. Herman follows me on Twitter, but happens to live in the Netherlands. We’ve never had any other association. Doug lives in New York and contacted me through my personal site a year ago. We exchanged a couple emails and that was it. We share no groups, no connections or anything else…I don’t currently and haven’t previously used the Imported Contact feature and as described above, several of these suggestions share no clear link to me in the online world—connections, experiences, companies, industries and school included…”

2.       How Adobe Reinvented The Pen To Draw On The Internet  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672543/how-adobe-reinvented-the-pen-to-draw-on-the-internet#1  “…Adobe announced that the Creative Suite was becoming the subscription-based Creative Cloud. It didn’t go so well. But amidst the bad news, we may have lost sight of Adobe’s rationale for pushing the cloud beyond profits. And you can see that rationale hiding inside Project Mighty. On one hand, it’s just an aluminum stylus that can replace your finger on the iPad screen. On the other, it’s a cloud-connected pen--or humanity’s single-greatest, simplest creative apparatus, married to the entire world of digital tools and information. Today, Project Mighty allows you to draw an image on your iPad screen, then seamlessly continue drawing that same image on your iPhone screen. Tomorrow, such a tool could draw anywhere--screen or table--while constantly syncing with your creative depository in the cloud…”  http://www.core77.com/blog/ux/adobes_project_mighty_input_tools_look_pretty_awesome_24855.asp

3.       How import.io will help extract data from web pages  http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-import-io-will-help-journalists-extract-data-from-web-pages/s2/a552831/  “The free tool will…gather, aggregate and analyse data from websites without the need for coding or scraping skills…The free online tool called import.io (pronounced import-eye-oh) will let you extract large amounts of data from a web page into an Excel spreadsheet. For example, you could go to an estate agent's website, find details on houses for sale, and extract the data to a table, defining which column headers, such as house price and location, you want to collect the data for. The tool will also allow you to aggregate various sources of data. For example, you could extract data on house prices from 10 different estate agent websites, pulling the information into a single table…”

4.       This Box Keeps Information Flowing During a Crisis  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514431/this-box-keeps-information-flowing-during-a-crisis/  “The people behind Ushahidi, a software platform for communicating information during a crisis, have now developed what they are dubbing a “backup generator for the Internet”—a device that can connect with any network in the world, provide eight hours of wireless connectivity battery life, and can be programmed for new applications, such as remote sensing…the Ushahidi platform has served as a key communications technology during crises ranging from the 2010 Haiti earthquake to post-election violence in Kenya earlier this year, allowing people to send updates via text message or the Web that then appear on Web-based maps…“We’re scratching our own itch around Internet connectivity, because that’s the problem that comes up the most for us in Kenya…It’s hard to be a Web-based company when you’ve got a lot of power outages or if the ISP you’re using gets unbearably slow.” The gadget, dubbed BRCK…is a Wi-Fi router that can serve as many as 20 devices when there is an Internet connection. In other contexts it can serve as a 3G and 4G modem that includes data settings that work on any network in the world—just swap in whatever prepaid Sim card you need…”

5.        Amazon ‘Coins’ virtual currency starts with $5 for every Kindle Fire owner  http://www.fastcompany.com/3009625/most-innovative-companies-2013/amazons-coins-virtual-currency-hits-every-kindle-fire-user  “Amazon has launched its Coins virtual currency feature for all Kindle Fire owners, and as an incentive, has given $5 worth of Coins to every U.S. Fire customer. Coins are like a pre-pay purchasing system--users can buy Coins at an exchange rate of 100 Coins for $1 in advance, and then spend them later on apps and in-app purchases. Buying Coins in bulk actually incurs a discount on their price, incentivizing users to do so…Coins are an "easy way" to purchase apps, and…for developers the virtual currency is attractive because it can "drive traffic, downloads and increased monetization." The system works this way presumably because it's easier to commit to spending a notional currency without thinking too hard about how much actual cash you've spent…developers will still earn their standard 70% revenue share when customers make purchases with Coins…”

6.       Microsoft will put Gchat into Outlook.com and SkyDrive.com  http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-lets-you-gchat-your-friends-on-outlook-and-skydrive/  “…you’ll be able to chat with your Google contacts while logged into your Microsoft services in the next couple of days. This is fantastic news…if your most important emails are on Outlook, or if you use SkyDrive to share and store documents but you need to instant message your friends and co-workers who are only on Gchat…this Gchat integration is only limited to text messages and does not include Google Voice calls…For…video chat and VoIP calling needs, Outlook.com already works with Skype (it’s slowly rolling out to the U.S.) and Facebook chat. Before you can start IMing your Google buddies, you need to first merge your Google contacts with your existing contacts on your Microsoft account…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

7.        Say goodbye to the PIN: voice recognition takes over at Barclays Wealth  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10044493/Say-goodbye-to-the-pin-voice-recognition-takes-over-at-Barclays-Wealth.html  “Barclays Wealth customers will no longer need to answer security questions and remember pin codes to use telephone banking. Advanced voice recognition will detect whether a customer is who they say they are after just 30 seconds of normal conversation…The system, which is powered by the voice specialists Nuance, who are also widely known to be behind Apple’s Siri technology, could end the frustration of customers who struggle to remember passwords. “Intrusive security questions have now been replaced by customers simply speaking, in their natural voice, to the banking agent – the customer’s voice is verified after less than a minute…”

8.       India launches monitoring system to track all calls, texts, and online activity  http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/8/4312140/india-central-monitoring-system-tracks-communications  “…A government-run system for monitoring every piece of citizens' telecommunications, including online activity, text messages, and phone calls, has been launching in India over the past month. The government's Central Monitoring System is meant to be used for enforcing "reasonable security practices and procedures" within the country…India's government is spending just short of $74 million to build the service…though the Central Monitoring System will ostensibly be used for fighting terrorism, the threat of constant monitoring doesn't bode well for continued internet and telecom freedoms…”

9.       Gang stole $45m from cash machines across globe in hours  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/10/us-crime-debit-cards  “A gang of criminals stole $45m (£29m) in a matter of hours by hacking their way into a database of prepaid debit cards and then draining cash machines around the globe…the case…involved thousands of thefts from machines using bogus magnetic swipe cards…One of the suspects was caught on surveillance cameras, his backpack loaded down with cash, authorities said…Hackers got into bank databases, eliminated withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards and created access codes. Others loaded that data on to any plastic card with a magnetic stripe – old hotel key card or expired credit card worked fine…A network of operatives then fanned out to rapidly withdraw money in multiple cities…The cells would take a cut of the money, then launder it through expensive purchases or ship it wholesale to the global ringleaders. It appears no individuals lost money. The thieves plundered funds held by the banks that back up prepaid credit cards…”

10.     US government orders removal of Defcad 3D-gun designs  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22478310  “The US government has demanded designs for a 3D-printed gun be taken offline…many links to copies of the blueprints have been uploaded to file-sharing site the Pirate Bay, making them widely available. The Pirate Bay has also publicised its links to the files via social news site Reddit suggesting many more people will get hold of the blueprints…Mr Wilson describes himself as a crypto-anarchist, and his belief is that everyone has a right to a gun…with more than 100,000 downloads already, the designs have already been widely circulated, and there is now little that can be done to halt their spread. The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance emailed Mr Wilson a document demanding the designs be "removed from public access" until he could prove he had not broken laws governing shipping weapons overseas by putting the files online and letting people outside the US download them…”

11.      Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform  http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/  “The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system. Buried in the more than 800 pages of the…legislation…is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID. Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo. This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet…“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things…”

12.     Bromium: A virtualization technology to kill all malware, forever  http://www.zdnet.com/bromium-a-virtualization-technology-to-kill-all-malware-forever-7000015382/  “A few years ago, I wrote a speculative piece about how off-the-shelf x86 desktop virtualization technology such as VMWare, Microsoft Hyper-V, Parallels and Oracle VirtualBox could be used as a means to defend PCs against all kinds of malware attacks…Shortly after, a company named Invincea actually implemented something very similar to what I described. Invincea uses host-based virtualization technology on Windows desktops — I believe…a runtime version of Oracle VirtualBox…in order to provide the isolation for the browser, as well as a proprietary detection engine which will destroy and reset the virtual machine should any malware be detected…there may be a better way of protecting desktop PC users from malware. That technology is micro-virtualization, or a "Microvisor."…Bromium…is one of the first to market with a Microvisor security solution for desktop PCs, called vSentry…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

13.     Beyond Smartphones: Mobile Innovation  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226562  “…slab-style smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous…it does beg the question: What new kinds of gadgets will we see next…Here are four innovative, new types of devices…1. Google Glass…is the first consumer "heads up" display -- a small monitor that you wear like eyeglasses. Google Glass has a camera, microphone, memory, GPS and Wi-Fi built in…2. FitBit…is one of the most popular personal data collectors. Think of it as a pedometer on steroids with wireless communication…Similar data collector devices can help track heart rate, blood sugar and other common health or fitness indicators…Sensors and storage/communications for personal data collection can even be woven into fabric, such as AiQ smart clothing…3. The internet of things…Objects on the emerging "internet of things" can share and receive data, issue and accept commands, and more…4. Flexible or foldable displays…What if your tablet, smartphone or computer monitor could fold up into a small packet that you could stuff into your wallet? Or what if it was as thin as a piece of paper and could roll up like a scroll to slip more easily into your purse…”

14.     BlackBerry Q10 review: revenge of the keyboard  http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/29/4281730/blackberry-q10-review  “…the Q10 is the spiritual successor to BlackBerry’s flagship line of portrait QWERTY phones. Make no mistake, this is BlackBerry’s bread and butter—no one can lay a more authentic claim to the portrait QWERTY form factor than these guys can…Who is the Q10 for? And is it seriously worth a look?...The Q10 is undeniably a chip off the same block…the four straight rows of physical keys, separated by satin metal lines, do an admirable job of breaking up the monotony. The Q10 also features a nice chamfer and a gentle curve between the front, side, and back, giving it far greater "holdability" than the Z10—it feels good. The back of the Q10 has a matte, three-dimensional carbon fiber look that is classier than it sounds; it has less texture than the Z10’s rear, but the soft-touch finish still has plenty of grip…BlackBerry basically nailed the look and feel of the Q10…This is more or less exactly what I would expect a modern portrait QWERTY phone to look like: a touchscreen that is neither too big nor too small, a perfectly sized keyboard…”

15.     Qualcomm Proposes a Cell-Phone Network by the People, for the People  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514531/qualcomm-proposes-a-cell-phone-network-by-the-people-for-the-people/  “Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm and some U.S. wireless carriers are investigating an idea that would see small cellular base stations installed in homes to serve passing smartphone users. That approach is believed to be a more efficient way of meeting the rising demand for data and fixing patchy coverage than building more traditional cell-phone towers. Qualcomm’s chief technology officer…pitched the idea…showing off a base station small enough to be integrated into a set top box or home router…Qualcomm has installed 20 of the small prototypes in office buildings around its San Diego campus. A person driving or walking through the area receives a stronger signal on his phone, and faster downloads, as his device hops between the many small base stations, each with a range of tens of meters. “Our next step is to do a larger test, with a network operator and an infrastructure vendor…”

16.     Trying to Tame the Tablet  http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/trying-tame-tablet  “…I received a shiny new Nexus 7 tablet for Christmas. This brought me great joy and excitement as I began to plot my future paperless life. For most of the evening and an hour or so the next day, I was sure the new Android tablet would change my life forever. Sadly, it wasn't that easy. This month, I want to dive head first into the tablet lifestyle, but I'm not sure if it's really the lifestyle for me…The main reason I decided on the Nexus 7 was because with the leather case I bought for it (Figure 1), it was small enough to carry to meetings easily, yet big enough to view full-size documents. I figured with a tablet computer, I might be able to do away with most of the paper in my life…”

17.     The end appears near for Windows RT  http://bgr.com/2013/05/10/microsoft-windows-rt-analysis/  “Windows RT has always been something of an oddball in the new Microsoft operating system family. It’s not a pure mobile OS like Windows Phone 8 but at the same time it doesn’t have the full capabilities of Windows 8 and isn’t able to run desktop apps from older Windows platforms…what exactly is Windows RT good for? The answer that many consumers have given back so far is, “Not a whole lot.”…IDC’s Bob O’Donnell…told Keizer that “Windows RT breaks the core value proposition of Windows,” which is that people can use older apps on new machines…”

Apps

18.     Google Earth for Android Gets Street View  http://mashable.com/2013/05/09/google-earth-android-street-view/  “Google has updated its Google Earth Android app to version 7.1, bringing…support for Street View. If you want to explore the Earth from the street level, zoom into an area and the Pegman — the little yellow guy signifying the availability of Street View — will appear in the right hand corner. Drag and drop him into a street and you'll jump right into Street View…new features include an improved, streamlined interface. By clicking on the Earth logo in the top left corner you can enable various Google Earth layers, including 3D buildings, Wikipedia and Panoramio photos…search and directions have also been improved, with directions now letting you visualize walk, bike and step-by-step transit routes in full 3D…”

19.     App turns smartphone sensors into weather stations  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23506-app-turns-smartphone-sensors-into-weather-stations.html  “Weather reports typically only tell you what the weather should be doing in given places – not what it is doing…that could soon change if an online service that uses people's phones as tiny weather stations works out…WeatherSignal will crowdsource meteorological data from Android smartphones and map it on a website…the project is launching now owing to the fact that phone-makers are packing ever more sensors into phones…he cites the…launch last week of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which has the largest sensor suite of any smartphone…The S4 has a thermometer, barometer, hygrometer and a magnetometer to measure ambient temperature, air pressure, humidity and the Earth's local magnetic field strength…their free WeatherSignal app…will feed a pretty good assessment of local weather conditions, minus any info on precipitation, to their servers…”

20.    Saga: Lifelogging gets real  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239094/Lifelogging_gets_real  “…I'm back to talk about lifelogging…A company called A.R.O. this week shipped a new iOS and Android lifelogging app called Saga. Saga, which is available free of charge, is designed for easy, natural and unobtrusive recording of everywhere you go and everything you do. The app uses sensors in your phone to record your location. It figures out when you're traveling (on what roads and how fast) and when you're at your destination…”

SkyNet

21.     Google Drive triples free storage to 15GB  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57584080-93/google-drive-triples-free-storage-to-15gb/  “Google's capacity to store your files will jump by a factor of three…rising from 5GB to 15GB shared across Google+, Drive, and Gmail. Google made the announcement just before Google I/O developers conference begins this week…The new amount of storage space will give people who use Google services the most generous storage capacity of any player in the free online-storage game. A quick look at competitors shows that Dropbox currently starts free subscribers at 2GB, Microsoft SkyDrive users get 7GB, and Apple iCloud, Amazon Cloud Storage, and SugarSync offer 5GB for free…There's no doubt that the 15GB is a game-changer in the free storage market. The question is, why did Google do it?…”

22.    Google unveils 5-year roadmap for strong authentication  http://www.zdnet.com/google-unveils-5-year-roadmap-for-strong-authentication-7000015147/  “Google unveiled…a five-year roadmap for stronger consumer authentication tagging smartphones, long-life tokens, and futurist schemes to harden access controls while striking an unapologetic tone toward users who resist the change. The plan will ultimately change Google's login system by breaking today's pattern that has end-users signing in over and over. In it's place, Google will install strong authentication on a device such as a smartphone when it is setup.  A complex authentication code will replace the password and allow the device to identify itself, its user, participate in complex authentication flows, and recognize usage patterns that signal attacks. "We will change sign-in to a once-per-device action and make it higher friction, not lower friction, for all users…We don't mind making it painful for users to sign into their device if they only have to do it once…”

23.    An easy button to save web files to Google Drive  http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2013/05/an-easier-way-to-save-files-to-google.html  “We surf the web for a million different reasons – for everything from school research projects to time-killing memes. And when we find something relevant for us, whether that be our most recent pay stub or just an adorably awesome pic, we may want to save it for later reference or to share with friends in the future. Starting today, Drive users can use the "Save to Drive" button to do exactly that. The “Save to Drive” button is an easier way to save files directly from a website. If you have your own website, you can improve the experience for your site visitors by adding the “Save to Drive” button to your page using two easy lines of HTML…”

24.    What to expect from Android Key Lime Pie  http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-57583272-251/what-to-expect-from-android-key-lime-pie/  “…For much of the last year we expected to see Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie…recent rumors suggest that we might actually see the debut of 4.3 Jelly Bean instead of Android 5.0…That means Android 5.0 could still be a few months off. Word around the campfire is that hardware partners are (still) struggling to keep pace with the various Android releases. With Android 2.3 Gingerbread commanding the largest share of the platform, many users are still waiting on 4.1 and 4.2 updates. Announcing a brand-new 5.0 release full of new features and capabilities in mid-2013 could do potentially do more harm than good…”

25.    At I/O, Google Will Be Tracking Noise Level And Air Quality With Hundreds Of Arduino-Based Sensors  http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/13/at-io-google-will-be-tracking-things-like-nose-level-and-air-quality-with-hundreds-of-arduino-based-sensors/  “If you’re attending Google I/O this week, you will be a part of an experiment from the Google Cloud Platform Developer Relations team. On its blog today, the team outlined its…plan to place hundreds of Arduino-based environmental sensors around the conference space to track things like temperature, noise levels, humidity and air quality in real-time. This was spawned due to a fascination with wanting to know which areas of the conference were the most popular…At first glance, this seems a little bit creepy, but it’s no different than a venue adjusting the cooling system based on the temperature inside at any given moment…”

General Technology

26.    MIT Media Lab to Release Scratch 2.0  https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-05-08-mit-media-lab-to-release-scratch-2-0  “…Scratch 2.0 will feature profile pages that let users show off their content, comment, and favorite projects. Users will also be able to see the inner workings of projects they like and modify them. Other improvements include the ability to use vector graphics, create unique coding blocks, use the webcam for motion games, and connect to cloud data--allowing users to do things like create games with global high scores…”  http://scratch.mit.edu/overview/  “…Scratch 2.0 allows you to create, edit, and view projects directly in your web browser. (You no longer have to download or upload projects or install any software…”

27.    Desktop chips zip past 4GHz; next stop 5GHz?  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239098/Desktop_chips_zip_past_4GHz_next_stop_5GHz_  “Mobility has all but eclipsed speed and anything else as the capability garnering the most attention in desktop processors. Today, the chip world is seemingly focused on producing low power chips with integrated graphics accelerators that perform swiftly and extend battery life. Many of these chips run well under 2 GHz, which is more than enough to enable vendors to create fast and fan-less tablets and laptops, such as the Samsung Chromebook…AMD…announced…it had updated its FX processing line, which now includes a 4-core FX-4350 with a 4.2 GHz base and the capability of hitting 4.3 GHz for some workloads, its highest desktop speed yet…in terms of overall performance AMD says its 8-core FX-8350, released in October, with a 4.0 GHz base and 4.2 GHz Max Turbo, may deliver the best results in multi-threaded environments, despite slightly less speed…Intel's highest clocked desktop processor is the i7-3970X Processor Extreme Edition. It has six cores and runs at 3.5 GHz base with a max turbo frequency of 4 GHz…”

28.    Printing Electronics Just Got Easier  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130509-paper-printed-circuits-electronics-technology-science/  “Do-it-yourself electronics manufacturing may soon be possible with your desktop printer, say the designers of a new system that directly prints electronic circuits onto ordinary paper. Jing Liu…said his team's advance…could be a leap forward in the booming business of printed electronics. "This brand-new technique offers a vital opportunity to realize rapid fabrication of inexpensive, disposable, conveniently portable circuits and functional components,"…Someday people could use this…to create their own customized electronic devices including electronic greeting cards, video game controls, touch-sensitive mobile phone cases, or solar cell arrays…many of the existing electronic inks used to create such circuits have to be printed at very high temperatures—around 750°F (400°C)—or they won't conduct enough electricity to work. This means they can't be easily printed on paper…Jing and colleagues developed a new metal-based ink that could work at room temperatures…”

29.    Pixelmator 2.2 Blueberry  http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/09/first-look-pixelmator-22-blueberry-goes-live-in-the-mac-app-store  “…image editor Pixelmator released a substantial update to its OS X app…version 2.2 Blueberry brings a host of new features that make editing photos a more enjoyable experience…Not much has changed with the user interface, but that's for the best as Pixelmator offers a clean, spartan look that lets users concentrate on the image rather than the tools surrounding it. The tool panels that are shown retain the slick interactive animations when rolling over each feature. Drag and drop functionality is still one of the highlights of the app, with effects like the new Light Leak applied by either clicking on its icon or dragging it over to the image. One of the more useful additions to Pixelmator is the new Vectormator mode, which quickly pops a user into a vector-based environment well-suited for drawing. Upon entering the mode, shapes and gradients windows appear to give fast access to commonly used assets…”

Leisure & Entertainment

30.    Play video games with an open-source Arduino-based gun replica  http://www.geek.com/games/play-video-games-with-an-open-source-arduino-based-gun-replica-1554558/  “if you regularly play both console games and PC games, you’ll likely be fully aware that one platform is much, much more suited to games that require you to precisely aim at things. Unfortunately, most console games do not support a full keyboard-and-mouse setup, so often times you’re left wishing the right analog stick would stop being so floaty. However, for certain console games, a light gun ends up being the true savior of aiming, but here in 2013, most games don’t utilize any sort of peripheral. If you long for the day when you could aim as well on a console as you do on a PC, a new Kickstarter project might be the answer. The Delta Six controller isn’t just a light gun, but an extremely detailed, open-source, Arduino-based gun controller. Not only does the Delta Six ably perform the point-and-shoot duties of a light gun, but adds motion control and regular button-based movement into the mix so you can travel around a map. The controller also incorporates some sensors and intelligently placed buttons to make you feel like you’re operating a real gun. To reload, you tap the gun’s clip, rather than press a standard controller’s face button. If you want to zoom in, you look down the Delta Six’s scope, and an IR sensor detects your presence and will cause the game to zoom. If you want to steady your shot while aiming, you can press a button on the butt of the gun into your shoulder, which will activate a breath-hold feature…”

31.     Google Commemorates The 37th Anniversary Of Atari’s Breakout  http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/13/google-commemorates-the-37th-anniversary-of-ataris-breakout-with-image-search-easter-egg/  “…you might remember a little game released by Atari called Breakout. The idea was simple: just hit a ball around and break things. Don’t let the ball get past you, or you lose. It was heavily influenced by Pong. The game’s introduction was 37 years ago, in 1976. Whether it was in April or May of that year, Google has decided to commemorate the occasion with a little easter egg in image search that will suck all of your free time from you. It’s good to see Google doing these kinds of things away from their normal doodle, especially since a lot of their users might not remember Breakout. Go to Google image search and type in “atari breakout.” You won’t get to click through images though…instead the experience gets turned into a fully interactive and playable Breakout game…”

32.    Nvidia's Shield gaming handheld launches in June for $349  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038705/nvidias-shield-gaming-handheld-to-go-on-sale-may-20-for-349.html  “Nvidia's Project Shield handheld gaming device, now called simply Shield, will be available for pre-order on May 20 priced at $349, though it won't ship to customers until the end of June. Shield takes the form of a console game controller with a 5-inch, pop-up screen that can display images at a 720p (1280 x 720 pixel) resolution. It runs on Nvidia's latest Tegra 4 chip, which has four CPU cores and 72 graphics cores to support a maximum resolution of 3200 x 2000 pixels, so games can be played at full HD on an attached TV…”

33.    Special-effects master pushes new movie format  http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/tech/innovation/douglas-trumbull-interview/  “You may not know the name Douglas Trumbull, but you certainly know his very influential work…Among the movies that feature his magic are Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" and Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life." His creation of Showscan, a hypervivid film process that combined large-format film with a high-speed frame rate, was a pioneering moment for film projection. Even though Showscan never caught on in Hollywood, it helped usher in similar technology used in the "Back to the Future" ride that Universal Studios ran for more than a decade…Though he sold Showscan many years ago, he combined with its current owners to create "Showscan Digital," a format that allows moving images to be shot at 120 frames per second (fps) -- five times as fast as the standard film speed of 24 fps. The high-rate images can be combined with those shot at the standard speed to offer particular detail to action scenes, which often blur images at 24 fps…He's in post-production on a short film to show off his new creation, a format that makes use of high frame rates, 4K digital detail, 3-D imagery and large screens to create a theatrical experience he describes, proudly, as "substantially superior to IMAX…”

Entrepreneurism and Technology

34.    Obama Offers $200 Million Prize to Build 3 Manufacturing Innovation Hubs  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226634  “…The White House…will coordinate three competitions for teams across the U.S. to win a combined $200 million to develop manufacturing innovation hubs. Teams consisting of any variety of companies, universities, community colleges and nonprofit organizations in one geographic region are eligible to band together to apply for the money. Winners will be picked later this year…The $200 million in federal funding comes from five federal agencies: Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, NASA and the National Science Foundation. The money will be matched by support from state and local governments and industry sources. These innovation hubs are expected to become financially independent…In his budget proposal for 2014, the President included $1 billion to launch 15 of these advanced manufacturing hubs throughout the U.S. Congress and the President have not been able to come to a deal over the budget, and so the plan's fate remains unknown. Industry categories for the three manufacturing hubs the President announced today have been determined…Digital manufacturing and design innovation…Lightweight and modern metals manufacturing…Next-generation power electronics manufacturing…”

35.    Tesla Smashes Earnings And Revenue Expectations  http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-q1-earnings-2013-5  “Tesla reported adjusted earnings of $0.12 per share, This beat expectations of $0.03 per share. Sales were up 83% from the last quarter, to $562 million. This is Tesla's first profitable quarter…Tesla reaching profitability so quickly provides proof that if you build vehicles that not only look great but are enjoyable to drive, consumers will purchase them,” said Alec Gutierrez, senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book in an email…The company expects to build over 5,000 model S units in Q1, and expects to build another 5,000 in Q2…”

36.    Youngstown's first tech summit a success  http://www.vindy.com/news/2013/may/10/tech-summit-in-valley-proves-a-success/  “The Mahoning Valley played host to the region’s first high-profile technology meeting on Thursday, with vendors, guest speakers and a variety of professionals traveling to Youngstown to learn about emerging technology and how best to implement it in the workplace. The Northeast Ohio Technology Summit was hosted by DRS LLC of Youngstown, an information technology consulting firm and service provider based in Youngstown…“We’re educating them, telling them what’s going on with technology and what the best applications are…We’re also showing what works best for small, midsized and large companies. Many of them don’t know that a lot of the technology designed for larger companies is now more affordable.” In addition to 23 vendor tables, where technology companies showed off their services and had impromptu networking discussions, workshops and one-on-one meetings were all geared toward three key roles in the technology industry…chief executives, chief investment officers or technology professionals…170 people registered to take part in the event…DRS and the event’s sponsors envisioned the technology summit as another way to grow the TechBelt by bringing companies from across the spectrum together to discuss their businesses and learn more about one another…The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects…employment in information technology occupations will increase by more than 800,000 jobs by 2016 — a 24 percent increase compared to a 10 percent growth rate for all occupations during the same time…”

37.    Third Year’s Thiel Fellows  http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682017/this-years-thiel-fellows-include-a-fashion-designer-a-poet-and-a-harvard-dropout#1  “Two years ago, PayPal founder and libertarian futurist Peter Thiel declared higher education "a bubble" and decided to give 20 bright young things $100,000 each to quit college and start a company instead…over half of all private colleges in the country did just report flat or declining enrollment, despite record tuition discounting…how have the "20 Under 20" fellows from 2011 and 2012 fared? They have founded over 30 companies and raised a reported $34 million thus far, from venture investment, sales and revenue, sponsorships, and awards. Today, the Thiel Foundation announced the third class of fellows…As in past years, the 2013 fellows are weighted severely towards guys--only four women among them. They are a bit more international than they have been previously, with participants from Canada, Britain, India, China, and Singapor…”

38.    ClearCorrect 3D Printed Digital Orthodontics  http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/05/10/clearcorrect-scales-3d-printed-digital-orthodontics-capacity-by-30/  “Texas-based ClearCorrect was set up by dentists to provide industry leading, cost-effective tooth alignment systems to the dental and orthodontic industry. The company’s ClearCorrect invisible braces are a 3D printed, custom made, precise, transparent series of aligners that dentists and orthodontists fit to patients’ teeth over the course of treatment. The aligners are worn all the time and because of the exact fit and transparency, they are barely noticeable in day-to-day usage. ClearCorrect’s tooth aligners are printed in…facility…fitted with a large number of ultrafine Objet Eden-line 3D Printing Systems…ClearCorrect has decided to significantly scale the number of Objet-line 3D Printing Systems it has onsite. Spurred on by lower production costs, the company will increase capacity by 30% allowing ClearCorrect to improve efficiency and responsiveness in the manufacturing process, which in turn will allow them to produce bespoke tooth aligners on a much larger scale…”

39.    3D printing the nextgen Urbee hybrid car  http://www.twincities.com/ci_22562607/eden-prairie-3d-printings-next-level-engineer-expects  “…Jim Kor is printing a car. Kor, an engineer and entrepreneur from Winnipeg, Manitoba, has designed a two-passenger hybrid car of the future dubbed the Urbee. The ultra-sleek three-wheel vehicle will have a metal internal combustion engine, electric motor and frame. But Kor is printing out the body in plastic, piece by piece, in Eden Prairie at RedEye, a business that uses three-dimensional printers to produce parts and prototypes on demand…He says the only way he can create the Urbee body is with 3D printers, which create objects that are impossible with conventional manufacturing…"The process has the potential to put the material exactly where you want it and not put it where you don't want it," he said. "Conventional cars carry around a lot of extra weight."…His Urbee will be made using only about 50 large pieces, some of which are deceptively intricate…"Take a car apart and put all the parts on the floor," Kor suggested. "For just the dashboard, there must be thousands!"…The cost of printing out a relative handful of parts eventually could drop below the cost of manufacturing requiring thousands of individual parts be made and then assembled…Two employees staff the production floor in three shifts around the clock. They make sure the product gets removed once the job is completed, a new design is downloaded, and the right amount of material is loaded…Printing the whole car should take 2,500 hours…As soon as it is ready, he and a partner are going to take it on a cross-country trip from San Francisco to New York City. The idea is not just to prove the three-wheeled hybrid can make the trip, hitting top speeds of 70 mph, but that it can do it on only 10 gallons of gas -- one tankful…The Urbee hasn't been priced yet, but Kor envisions it as an economy car, maybe for cash-strapped college students. So far, he has orders for 14 Urbees, most of them from people involved in designing it…”

Design / DEMO

40.    HP turns to design for reversal of PC fortunes  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038082/hp-turns-to-design-for-reversal-of-pc-fortunes.html  “Hewlett-Packard is barely holding on to the top spot in the laptop and desktop market, but hopes a renewed vigor regarding product design will help reverse the fortunes of its PC business. The company is standardizing the design and features in its laptops and tablets to help customers identify its products and also to cut manufacturing costs…HP is standardizing on materials, colors, designs and features, which were inconsistent across consumer and enterprise product lines. HP had silos for products, with each family having different philosophies, colors and designs…“In the past you may have seen 20 different logo sizes across our products in different colors. Our logos will be much more consistent in terms of size. You want that consistency to build brand equity and recognition…”

41.     THE DESIGN 75: The Best Designers In Technology  http://www.businessinsider.com/best-designers-in-technology-2013-5?op=1  “In the tech world, there has traditionally been more emphasis on engineering than on design. Build a machine that works first, and decide on the colors later. No more. Innovative companies know that if they don't get the design right — particularly as it relates to the user-interface — then they might as well not launch a new product at all…Some of companies leading this charge are Apple, Path, Pinterest, Square, and Airbnb. Design is at the core of their businesses…After sifting through reader submissions and scouring the web for qualified designers, we've come up with a list of the 75 best designers in tech.  The list includes product designers, mobile app designers, web designers, user interface designers, human interaction designers, you name it…”

42.    Students Design An AR Device To One-Up Google Glass  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672523/students-design-an-ar-device-to-one-up-google-glass  “The strange thing about Google Glass is and isn’t its lame design. Google has produced something that, however clumsily, genuinely attempts to alter the body’s sensory perception. But the product doesn’t fully realize its potential…it does little to actually amplify your senses. To do so would require moving beyond just another wearable technology--the latest in a long lineage of them--and pursuing a more "extreme" approach. Eidos, a different kind of augmented reality (AR) device, claims to do just that. Developed by a team of students at the Royal College of Art in London, the product attempts to rethink what it is to fundamentally heighten human perception…Eidos differs from Google Glass in one fundamental way: The device lets users tune into specific perceptions, be they sounds or images, and scale their magnitude to the exclusion of rival stimuli…The audio equivalent would be a soundboard, where individuals sounds, or channels, could be dialed up or down and possibly even muted to focus on the desired track…”

DHMN Technology

43.    Low-cost 3D printer offers large volume  http://www.etmm-online.com/additive_manufacturing/articles/404411/  “The Protos X400 is a novelty in the low-cost 3D printing segment…because it meets the requirements of professional construction and development departments for prototyping as well as small batch production…the unit offers a layer thicknesses up to 0.1 mm and a printing space of 400 x 400 x 350 mm for precise models with a volume of up to about 56 litres. It explained that this means the Protos X400 reaches a printing speed of up to 15 cubic mm per second, depending on the material used, the resolution and the complexity of the object being printed…”

44.    Kühling&Kühling RepRap ‘Pro’ 3D Printer  http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/05/07/the-kuhlingkuhling-3d-printer-is-not-your-grandmammys-reprap-and-is-now-available-to-preorder/  “…the German team at Kühling&Kühling has come out with an industrial RepRap-style printer…the industrial specs of this beast — it has two extruders for multiple materials and colours, as well as six different interchangeable print heads so that, combined with the heated bed, the Kühling&Kühling 3D printer can print a wide variety of filaments, including PLA, ABS, HIPS, PVA, PC and Nylon. The interchangeable nozzles offer four different diameters (0.25mm, 0.35mm, 0.5mm, and an experimental 0.75mm), allowing for a variety of print resolutions. The whole machine is encased in a plastic shell with “4 powerful recirculating air heaters for constant 70°C ambient temperature” and a water cooling system for the extruder nozzles and motors. The total build volume is a hefty 200 x 200 x 200 mm…”

45.    Perfectly Petite Printrbot Simple for $299  http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/05/07/the-perfectly-petite-printrbot-simple/  “…A mind boggling $299 is all you need to get your hands on Printrbot’s newest and sveltest 3D printer, the Printrbot Simple. This tiny kit has outer dimensions of only 7 x 8 x 9 inches when built, weighing in at a grand total of 5lb 2oz (2.3 kilos) and is made from Printrbot’s favoured laser cut birch. With the Printrbot Simple’s 100mm cube of print volume you won’t be building giant fighting Gundams but with the 0.1mm resolution as standard it is an excellent way to enter the world of 3D printing without breaking the bank…”

Open Source Hardware

46.    Lightpack Ambient Light Kit  http://technabob.com/blog/2013/05/01/lightpack-ambient-light-kit/  “…you may have heard of Philips’ Ambilight, a technology that’s only present in some of the company’s high end TVs. Ambilight projects ambient lighting that matches the colors and brightness of what’s being displayed on screen. Lightpack does the same thing and then some…it can be installed on any TV or monitor. Lightpack consists of a small central device that you attach at the back of your TV. The box connects the 10 small LED strips that provide the lighting to a desktop computer where you’ll install Prismatik, the software that controls the LEDs. Prismatik analyzes the images being output from your PC or Mac to your display and instructs the LEDs to light up accordingly…Lightpack isn’t capable of analysing data coming across an HDMI cable to add ambient light to TVs without a computer. Its makers are working on another project to do that, but it’s not likely to make it to market any time soon…”

47.    Open Compute Project Will Begin Building Network Switches  http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/05/08/open-compute-will-begin-building-network-switches/  “…the Open Compute Project said this week that it will expand its “open source hardware” initiative to include network switches. The project, which was founded by Facebook to promote standardized hardware for web-scale data centers, has led to rapid innovation in the server market and has also developed a storage offering. The announcement is the largest step yet in extending the open source hardware movement to networking, a sector which has been dominated by a handful of large vendors offering routers and switches managed by proprietary software. It follows several years of progress in the development of software to support open networking, especially in the use of software-defined networking (SDN) that allows network equipment to be managed by external devices…The Open Compute Project (OCP) said it has formed a team to work on a specification for an “OS-agnostic” top-of-rack switch…”

Open Source

48.    How An Open Source Operating System Jumpstarted Robotics Research  http://readwrite.com/2013/05/09/how-an-open-source-operating-system-jumpstarted-robotics-research  “Ever wonder why it has taken so long for your robot butler to arrive?...why aren't those long-promised robotic domestic servants helping out around the house yet? One reason for the delay: Robot engineers lacked a common platform on which to communicate and collaborate with one another. Robotic hardware and software systems had to be built from the ground up every time…just as open-source operating systems for computers have amped up digital innovation, the robotics industry has undergone a similar transformation over the last five years. Ever since the advent of ROS (Robot Operating System), an open-source platform on which engineers could build robotic programs and apps, robotic innovation has picked up speed…robot engineers from around the world gather for the second annual ROScon in Stuttgart, Germany…ROS has become a requirement for several high-profile DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) robotics projects - in this year’s DARPA Robotics Challenge, every contestant will use ROS. "ROS has also started to appear in job listings and on resumes…”

49.    Range Networks Introduces First U.S. Open-Source Cellular Platform  http://www.eweek.com/mobile/range-networks-introduces-first-u.s.-open-source-cellular-platform/  “Range Networks is releasing a standards-based hardware-software cell network that is open source from end to end using equipment and software made in the United States. "The Chinese would have a lot less trouble in the U.S. if they would just release their source code…But they can't do that," he said, explaining that if cellular equipment provider Huawei were to release their source code, they'd also be releasing a lot of secrets. "That's why we're launching our equipment as open source," Burgess said. Burgess is CEO of Range Networks, which manufactures the infrastructure equipment that actually runs cell phone networks. "Carriers don't have to worry about what might be in our source code," he said. "They can just look at it…”

50.    The Perfect Server - Debian Wheezy (Apache2, BIND, Dovecot, ISPConfig 3)  http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-debian-wheezy-apache2-bind-dovecot-ispconfig-3  “This tutorial shows how to prepare a Debian Wheezy server (with Apache2, BIND, Dovecot) for the installation of ISPConfig 3, and how to install ISPConfig 3. ISPConfig 3 is a webhosting control panel that allows you to configure the following services through a web browser: Apache or nginx web server, Postfix mail server, Courier or Dovecot IMAP/POP3 server, MySQL, BIND or MyDNS nameserver, PureFTPd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more. This setup covers Apache (instead of nginx), BIND (instead of MyDNS), and Dovecot (instead of Courier)…”

51.     Handy Linux tools With Python  http://ostatic.com/blog/handy-linux-tools-with-python  “One handy tool I've mised since moving over to Ubuntu for my desktop workstation is Quicksilver's ability to perform a quick DuckDuckGo search using hotkeys. I looked into a few Linux alternatives like Gnome-Do, which I used to swear by, and the newer Synapse, but neither seemed to fit quite right for me. However, since Python is so well supported in Gnome, it turns out to be trivial to write my own. Python's gui scripting support is very good. To get started, I grabbed a basic skeleton from YoLinux that popped up a box for text entry. Using this as a base, I modified the code to remove the "Enter text:" label and center the box on each launch. Next, I made sure that the code only grabbed the input when the user hit the return key. Once I had what the user was searching for, I replace the spaces with plus signs, and constructed a URL for a DuckDuckGo query. Finally, I used Python's "webbrowser" module to open the query in my default web browser, Firefox…”

Civilian Aerospace

52.    Positive step: SpaceX moves to spaceport  http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-opinion/ci_23198832/our-view-positive-step-spacex-moves-spaceport  “Among the advantages of Spaceport America cited by Gwynne Shotwell, COO and president of SpaceX, in announcing a three-year agreement to lease facilities at the spaceport, were the "physical and regulatory landscape needed ..." That regulatory landscape changed for the better this past legislative session when an agreement was reached to provide limited lawsuit liability protection to parts suppliers, similar to what had already been passed for anchor tenant Virgin Galactic. Spaceport officials and those from Virgin Galactic had said failure to pass the bill a year earlier had hampered recruitment of other companies to Spaceport America. We're hopeful the deal reached with SpaceX is a sign that commercial space companies understand that hurdles that had been in place before have now been removed…”

53.    15-year-old Astronaut Abby fuels her outreach mission with social media  http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/08/18126802-15-year-old-astronaut-abby-fuels-her-outreach-mission-with-social-media?lite  “"Astronaut Abby" is at the controls of a social-media machine that is launching the 15-year-old from Minnesota to Kazakhstan this month for the liftoff of the International Space Station's next crew…Abigail Harrison says she's always dreamed of being the first astronaut to set foot on the Red Planet, and she sees her campaign to get involved in space station outreach as one giant leap toward that target. She has enlisted one of the crew members, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, as her mentor and orbital pen pal. Her Rockethub crowdfunding campaign has passed the $20,000 mark and is shooting for a goal of $35,000 for travel and outreach…"You can run yourself ragged on a campaign like this," Harrison, a sophomore…told NBC News. "Last time I checked, I have seven A's this quarter. It's been harder to keep my grades up…It doesn't hurt that her mom is a social-media maven who runs a marketing agency as @SocialNicole. "My mom has been an amazing resource to answer my questions and help me learn things during this campaign that I wouldn't have been able to learn myself,"…She also has corporate sponsors, graphic designers and public relations types on her side to keep the mission on track…”

54.    The New Race To Space, From L.A.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2013/05/08/the-new-race-to-space-from-l-a/  “In ten years, we could possibly take cruises around the moon. In space vehicles made for space tourism. Not for scientific missions, but for the simple joy of seeing stars. That’s the dream being put forth by Virgin Galactic, which last week broke the speed of sound in a rocket-powered test flight from their base in Mojave, California. “We started going to space 50 years ago. And in that time, about 530 people have been to space…a ridiculously small number of people. That’s about 10 people a year,”…“We’ve already got about 570 people who’ve paid their money to go to space. And we’ll fly those people in about a year…Most recently a trifecta of efforts toward space exploration has formed. The trifecta being: Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Each of them reaching their own incredible milestones that bring knowledge of the cosmos closer to human understanding…”

55.     78,000 People Apply for One-Way Trip to Mars  http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/09/78000-people-apply-for-one-way-trip-to-mars/  “An ambitious project to establish a human colony on Mars has attracted applications from tens of thousands of would-be astronauts, just two weeks after applications opened. The mission, a private venture by the Dutch non-profit organization Mars One, aims to send a crew to the Red Planet in 2022 – and, due to the physiological change in the human body after a stay on Mars, there’d be no coming back. That hasn’t deterred people, though: so far, over 78,000 people have applied to become one of Mars’ first immigrants (the company is expecting 500,000 applicants by the time applications close on August 31…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

56.    New techniques behind Energy's plan for exascale computing  http://gcn.com/Articles/2013/05/07/Techniques-behind-DOE-exascale-computing-plan.aspx?p=1  “From the outside, it may look like several countries are in a neck-and-neck race to produce the fastest supercomputer, but the truth, at least for the United States, is that supercomputer growth is driven by application needs…Titan, based at The Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is capable of 20 petaflops, which is 20,000 trillion calculations per second. That is slightly faster than the Energy Department’s other big supercomputer, Sequoia, an IBM BlueGene/Q system based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has a sustained speed of 16.32 petaflops…“To use a real life example, in 2005 a top supercomputer could handle a single cell model…In 2008, it could handle a cellular neocortical column (10,000 cells). In 2011, [it could model] a cellular mesocircuit (1 million cells). In 2014, a cellular rat brain model will be possible (100 million cells). And soon after, with exascale say in 2020, the ability to model a full cellular human brain may be possible. (100 billion cells.)”…Titan, which was built on the shell of the supercomputer Jaguar, works because of an ingenious design that combined CPUs and GPUs (graphical processing units) into one computing architecture. “In traditional CPU computing, you use up a lot of resources powering up a lot of things you don’t use…By using GPUs instead, which are little SIMD [single-instruction, multiple-data] engines, you get what is essentially an array vector processor, and science is mostly about multiplying vectors.”…CPUs have hard-wired functions to make them more efficient in desktop and workstation environments, like a square root processor, even though they are not often used. When multiplied thousands of times, that means a lot of computing power is going to waste in a typical supercomputer setup that only contains CPUs…”

57.     Durham University upgrades supercomputer for cosmology research  http://news.techworld.com/data-centre/3446232/durham-university-upgrades-supercomputer-for-cosmology-research/  “A high performance server cluster is enabling researchers at Durham University to better understand the universe, by allowing them to model phenomena ranging from solar flares to the formation of galaxies…The Cosmology Machine (COSMA)…now has 9856 CPU cores and 4096 GPU cores. It includes 71,000GB of RAM and the peak performance of the system is 182T/Flops. COSMA has 3.5PB of storage…“We can use telescopes to 'watch' how galaxies are formed but it takes millions of lifetimes…The server cluster is helping us work on this problem much more quickly. We can model a single galaxy in a computer right through its formation process in a few days…With the new cluster we can start to simulate large populations of galaxies and for the first time in the world model thousands of galaxies in a single region of the universe all at the same time and with high numerical resolution…A simulation like this will still take months to run, but with our previous cluster we simply didn’t have the computing power or the memory to run the model at all…”

58.    We’re halfway toward artificially intelligent robotic bees  http://gigaom.com/2013/05/03/were-halfway-toward-artificially-intelligent-robotic-bees/  “Remember those artificially intelligent robotic bees I wrote about…it turns out they’re already on a good pace toward being reality: The RoboBees project at Harvard has been flying prototype bees for months, and the next step is equipping them with brains. That the bees, which are described as being half the size of a paperclip and weighing less than a tenth of a gram, can fly at all is an engineering marvel in its own right given their minute size…The problems are that building AI-powered brains won’t be easy and that there’s not yet an energy source small enough and dense enough to power a wireless bee…there’s a team from the Universities of Sussex and Sheffield in the U.K. working on a project called Green Brain that aims to develop a brain that could let robotic bees…act autonomously and respond to sensory stimuli…The plan is for the Green Brain project to run on a GPU-powered supercomputer and, presumably, communicate with sensors on the robot…”

Trends & Emerging Tech

59.    Tech trends of 2025  http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/05/09/far-future-tech-trends-2025/  “…In the future, your car won't just find a parking spot, it will know where you like to park. The dollar will be replaced by not just an encrypted currency like bitcoin, but by a currency of knowledge and social connection. And your home will become a digital, customizable expression of your tastes…1. The currency of you…Someday, your currency might be tied to your own identity…“You will be worth what you know and can contribute,”…It will be like a mash-up of NASDAQ, bitcoin and LinkedIn.”…2. Robots everywhere!...robots in the future will be even more common than phones and tablets today…These robots will protect us, cultivate our raw food, and take care of our health -- and look after our parents…3. Cars with an “intent engine”…the car of the future will know your intentions and predict what you like…It might even direct you to the parking spot you usually like, say, by a shady oak tree…4. Direct brain interfaces…a direct brain interface will mean “typing” a document with our minds, thinking of a command and making it happen (“turn on sprinkler system”), and even imagining something and then printing it on a 3D printer…5. The customizable home…”

60.    Wearable Technology Market Global Trends  http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/wearable-technology-market-global-industry-analysis-trends-growth-drivers-research-report-2012-2018-248141.htm  “This report covers the global wearable technology market…along with their application in different end-use segments such as wellness and fitness, healthcare and medical, infotainment, industrial and military…The fitness and wellness segment comprises products like smart clothing and smart sensors, activity monitors, sleep sensors and others, whereas the Infotainment sector consists of products like smart watches, heads-up displays, smart glasses and others. The products like continuous glucose monitor, drug delivery, monitors, wearable patches and others have been covered under healthcare and medical segment and products like hand worn terminals, augmented reality headsets and others have been mentioned under industrial and military segment…The company profiles of major players namely Medtronic, Adidas, Abbott, Nike, Eurotech, Garmin International Inc., Sony, Suunto, Google and Zephyr have been included in this report…”

61.     7 cool consumer technologies coming soon to a cubicle near you  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237998/7_cool_consumer_technologies_coming_soon_to_a_cubicle_near_you  “…Computerworld spoke with visionaries and practitioners on the cutting edge of emerging technologies to get their take on what's coming into the office next…Here are seven consumer tech trends coming soon to a cubicle near you…Natural user interfaces…Enterprise gamification…Virtual assistants…Augmented reality…Enterprise social networks…3D printing…Smartphone servers…”

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