NEW NET Weekly List for 28 May 2013

Below is the final list of technology news and issues for the Tuesday, 28 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.

This week I'm highlighting what seemed like the top ten items for the week. We can discuss those top ten and see what opinions NEW NETters have as to whether other items on the list are more deserving of top ten status.

The Weekly Top Ten, (pre-NEW NET, based on potential or immediate impact and/or general tech interestingness)

1.        TACC to Upgrade to Internet2's Fastest Network Connection: 100 Gbps

2.       Entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits, spyware, ransomware and Trojans

3.       The Future Of Technology Isn’t Mobile, It’s Contextual

4.       Turn Your Smartphone Into A Mobile Mini Lab

5.        Computational photography is next smartphone frontier

6.       Google Starts Using Computer Vision To Let You Search Your Google+ Photos

7.        Google’s Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome

8.       Amazon sets up system to trade on fan fiction

9.       Purdue design tool eliminates mouse, keyboard

10.     PRETAIL: consumers shopping for products and services at concept stage

The ‘net

11.      FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month  http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/fios-customer-discovers-the-limits-of-unlimited-data-77-tb-in-month/  “…there is a limit to what Verizon will let you do with FiOS' "unlimited" data plan. And a California man discovered that limit when he got a phone call from a Verizon representative wanting to know what…he was doing to create more than 50 terabytes of traffic on average per month—hitting a peak of 77TB in March alone…the 27-year-old Californianwrote…I probably use more bandwidth than any FiOS customer in California, so I am not super surprised about this."…As it turns out, he's the ultimate outlier. His problem is more that he's violated Verizon's terms of service than his excessive bandwidth usage. An IT professional who manages a test lab for an Internet storage company, houkouonchi has been providing friends and family a personal VPN, video streaming, and peer-to-peer file service—running a rack of seven servers with 209TB of raw storage in his house…”

12.     GIF creator insists that it's pronounced 'Jif'  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57585593-71/gif-creator-its-a-soft-g-mr-president/  “…Recently, the White House very presciently decided to open its own non-purple Tumblr account. It took the occasion to declare with seeming finality that GIFs -- those very files that so many people find funny -- are hard, not soft. Hard as in hard "g." Gif like "gift." Not like "jiffy."…the GIF's creator, Steve Wilhite, begs to jiffer…The former CompuServe employee served up this definitive quote to the Times: "The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft 'G,' pronounced 'jif.' End of story."…GIF, short for Graphics Interchange Format, is now closely associated with people doing very silly things over and over again…”

13.     Priceline purchases Kayak  http://skift.com/2013/05/09/priceline-purchase-of-kayak-approved-by-uk-office-of-fair-trading/  “…The last major hurdle to Priceline’s $1.8 billion of Kayak was removed when the UK’s Office of Fair Trading…cleared the merger after conducting a regulatory review…Kayak will continue to operate its own brand and semi-independently. Priceline is buying Kayak to improve Priceline’s earnings, and to tap Kayak’s mobile skills and technology talent…Priceline is…paying $500 million in cash, and $1.3 billion in equity and stock options.”

14.     10 fun Tumblr blogs to follow  http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/tech/web/tumblrs-to-follow/  “…When you host 105 million blogs, you're bound to have all types. But since hitting the Web in 2007, the blogs that have emerged as hits on Tumblr have tended to be silly, snarky or both…Tumblr has become a natural landing spot for folks in the entertain-me-now world of the Web…here are 10 fun Tumblr blogs you might want to check out: Reasons My Son Is Crying…Kim Jong Il Looking at Things…How Do I Put This Gently?...Humans of New York…Actresses Without Teeth…Warning: Once these images are seen, they cannot be unseen…Literally Unbelievable…Rich Kids of Instagram…Awesome People Hanging Out Together…White Men Wearing Google Glass…Bun B's Jumbo Coloring and Rap Activity Tumblr…”

15.     TACC to Upgrade to Internet2's Fastest Network Connection: 100 Gbps  http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-05-23/tacc_to_upgrade_to_internet2s_fastest_network_connection_100_gbps.html  “…the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin will leap from 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) to 100 Gbps in Internet connectivity with the help of Internet2…The upgrade will enable scientists to reach TACC using Internet2’s new 100 Gigabit-Ethernet and 8.8-terabit-per-second optical network, platform, services and technologies…“This Internet2 bandwidth upgrade will enable researchers to achieve a tenfold increase in moving data to/from TACC's supercomputing, visualization and data storage systems, greatly increasing their productivity and their ability to make new discoveries…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

16.     Why Limit Online Banking to One Computer?  http://www.technewsdaily.com/17987-dedicated-banking-pc.html  “Using a separate computer just for banking and other financial transactions is an idea that is gaining some attention. The prevalence of banking Trojans, spyware, keyloggers and other forms of malware aimed at financial fraud means it might be best to set aside a single PC used solely for online banking, online purchases and other financial transactions. For people who conduct a lot of business online, including those who run small businesses, having a dedicated computer for finances especially makes sense. Even home users could benefit from designating an old PC as the "money machine." According to Paul Wood, cybersecurity intelligence manager at…anti-virus firm Symantec, a computer dedicated to business transactions can certainly beef up financial security…The dedicated computer can use an isolated Internet connection, separating it from the corporate local network…Users won't be able to mix financial transactions with email and general Web browsing, which will minimize opportunities for malware infection and phishing…”

17.     Entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits, spyware, ransomware and Trojans  http://boingboing.net/2013/05/26/us-entertainment-industry-to-c.html  “The hilariously named "Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property" has finally released its report…there's a bit that stands out as particularly insane: a proposal to legalize the use of malware in order to punish people believed to be copying illegally. The report proposes that software would be loaded on computers that would somehow figure out if you were a pirate, and if you were, it would lock your computer up and take all your files hostage until you call the police and confess your crime. This is the mechanism that crooks use when they deploy ransomware. It's just more evidence that copyright enforcers' network strategies are indistinguishable from those used by dictators and criminals…they’ve demanded that Congress legalize an extortion tool invented by organized criminals…”

18.     The Government Wants A Backdoor Into Your Online Communications  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/caleatwo  “President Obama is "on the verge of backing" a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA forces telephone companies to provide backdoors to the government so that it can spy on users after obtaining court approval, and was expanded in 2006 to reach Internet technologies like VoIP. The new proposal reportedly allows the FBI to listen in on any conversation online, regardless of the technology used, by mandating engineers build "backdoors" into communications software. We urge EFF supporters to tell the administration now to stop this proposal, provisionally called CALEA II…”

19.     Drones With Facial Recognition Technology Will End Anonymity  http://www.businessinsider.com/facial-recognition-technology-and-drones-2013-5  “…when the FBI released blurry, off-angle images of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, researchers with Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab Biometrics Center began trying to bring them into focus…the scientists digitally mapped the face of "Suspect 2," turned it toward the camera and enhanced it so it could be matched against a database. The researchers did not know how well they had done until authorities identified the suspect as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger, surviving brother…"I was like, 'Holy shish kabobs!' " Marios Savvides, director of the CMU Cylab…"It's not exactly him, but it's also not a random face. It does fit him."…cyber experts believe it's only a matter of years — and research dollars — until computers can identify almost anyone instantly…From seeing just the image of a face, computers will find its match in a database of millions of driver's license portraits and photos on social media sites. From there, the computer will link to the person's name and details such as their Social Security number, preferences, hobbies, family and friends…"There's so much data about us in different places that it's absolutely impossible to keep track of it or to delete it. ... Adding facial recognition capabilities to that will destroy anonymity…Students working with Savvides are figuring out how to break up appearance into landmarks as unique as a fingerprint and to build a 3-D image from a single picture so it can be matched from different angles…"We're basically decoding the face…”

20.    Singapore to regulate Yahoo, other online news sites  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/28/net-us-singapore-internet-idUSBRE94R0G220130528  “Websites that regularly report on Singapore including Yahoo News will have to get a license from June 1, putting them on par with newspapers and television news outlets, in a move seen by some as a bid to rein in free-wheeling Internet news. "Online news sites that report regularly on issues relating to Singapore and have significant reach among readers here will require an individual license," Singapore's Media Development Authority (MDA) said in…"This will place them on a more consistent regulatory framework with traditional news platforms which are already individually licensed…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

21.     The Future Of Technology Isn’t Mobile, It’s Contextual  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672531/the-future-of-technology-isnt-mobile-its-contextual  “…It’s called situational awareness. The way we respond to the world around us is so seamless that it’s almost unconscious. Our senses pull in a multitude of information, contrast it to past experience and personality traits, and present us with a set of options for how to act or react. Then, it selects and acts upon the preferred path…Here’s the rub: Our senses aren’t attuned to modern life. A lot of the data needed to make good decisions are unreliable or nonexistent…In the coming years, there will be a shift toward what is now known as contextual computing…Always-present computers, able to sense the objective and subjective aspects of a given situation, will augment our ability to perceive and act in the moment based on where we are, who we’re with, and our past experiences. These are our sixth, seventh, and eighth senses…Mobile devices with GPS deliver location-based services…Amazon’s and Netflix’s recommendation engines, while not magnificently intuitive, feed you book and video recommendations based on your behavior and ratings. Facebook’s and Twitter’s…knowledge of your acquaintances and interests…push out relevant content and market to you in more effective ways…The adoption of contextual computing--combinations of hardware, software, networks, and services that use deep understanding of the user to create tailored, relevant actions that the user can take--is contingent on the spread of new platforms. Frankly, it depends on the smartphone. Mobile technology isn’t interesting because it’s a new form factor. It’s interesting because it’s always with the user and because it’s equipped with sensors. Future platforms designed from the ground up for contextual computing will make such devices seem closer to toys than to a phone with cool tools…”

22.    If you’re building specifically for mobile, you’re in the past  http://pandodaily.com/2013/05/22/if-youre-building-specifically-for-mobile-youre-in-the-past/  “…Two years ago it was “The Stream,” according to Adweek. Last year it was The Age of Mobile, according to us. This year, it’s a…free-for-all. Neal Mohan…leads Google’s display advertising efforts, which means he shepherded the company’s acquisition of mobile ad network Admeld. He also witnessed the company’s development of Android and Google Glass firsthand…Mohan said mobile can no longer exist as a separate entity. It’s part of an integrated experience that spans not just phones and tablets but Google Glass, smartwatches, Spark Devices, SmartThings…“If you’re building specifically for mobile you’re in the past,” Mohan said. “Consumers live in a multi-screen world. We see it as part of an integrated, consumer-centric experience…”

23.    Turn Your Smartphone Into A Mobile Mini Lab  http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112855945/smartphone-mobile-lab-with-new-app-cradle-052413/  “…one development team has created an app that can turn your phone into a miniaturized mobile laboratory. Researchers…have developed a new cradle and app for the smartphone, specifically the iPhone, which uses the phone’s built-in camera and processing power as a biosensor to detect toxins, proteins, bacteria, viruses and other organisms. Such a system could enable researchers to conduct on-the-spot tracking in the field, allowing for instant measurements of ground contamination, combine GPS and biosensing data to map the spread of pathogens, and even provide immediate medical diagnostic tests and food contaminant checks…A lot of medical conditions might be monitored very inexpensively and non-invasively using mobile platforms like phones. They can detect molecular things, like pathogens, disease biomarkers or DNA, things that are currently only done in big diagnostic labs with lots of expense and large volumes of blood…”

24.    PayDragon mobile grocery ordering is sticky, sees revenue grow 35% per week  http://pandodaily.com/2013/05/24/paydragon-proves-that-mobile-grocery-ordering-is-sticky-sees-revenue-grow-35-per-week/  “As we approach universal smart phone ownership among American consumers, retailers and startup entrepreneurs are scrambling for ways to integrate mobile into the everyday shopping experience…last year, PayDragon launched its mobile food ordering and pre-payment platform allowing hungry restaurant guests to skip the lines at their favorite eatery…The company followed this up with…the option to purchase non-perishable household products for home delivery as simply as scanning the barcode on the package already in their kitchen, bathroom, or garage…The marketplace currently offers 10,000 items which effectively includes every shelf-stable product you can buy at Ralphs, Trader Joes, Whole Foods…the company has seen this mobile ordering activity explode, with revenue growing at 35 percent per week…PayDragon…service is available throughout the US and has completed orders in 45 of the 50 states…the groceries service is most popular among affluent males. “We like to joke that we’re ‘maximum laziness enhanced.’”…PayDragon has achieved its growth very little paid advertising or customer acquisition after the first month. The primary driver of viral growth has been a $2 credit for referring a friend or posting details of a purchase to Facebook…”

25.    HP debuts mobile all-in-one PC  http://desktops.cbronline.com/news/hp-debuts-mobile-all-in-one-pc-240513  “…HP has joined the all-in-one PC bandwagon by launching its first mobile all-in-one personal computer (PC), the HP ENVY Rove20 with advanced touch technology. The new device is powered by the fourth generation Intel Core processors and runs on the Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system. HP ENVY Rove20 has a 20-inch screen with a 1,600x900 resolution IPS panel display, and the PC comes with the Intel HD graphics and 10-point multiple touch display…”  http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ENVY-Rove20-Windows-8-Mobile-AIO-Multitouch-Haswell,22774.html  “…The gadget…weighs around 12 pounds…”

26.    Sales of tablets to top laptops in 2013, all PCs in 2015  http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tablet-laptop-pc-computer-sales-20130528,0,3852598.story  “…market research firm IDC said it expects that tablet computers will outsell laptops this year…By 2015, IDC said, tablets will have more market share than the entire traditional PC market…PCs will remain important to business users, but as many companies switch from clipboards and paper to tablets, the tablet market is expected to grow even faster. For regular consumers…tablets are proving to be suitable replacements for basics, such as checking email and browsing the Web. The slowdown in PC sales is partially attributed to consumers delaying purchases of traditional computers until absolutely necessary while instead choosing to try out tablets…”

Apps

27.    Computational photography is next smartphone frontier  http://www.dnaindia.com/money/1838759/interview-computational-photography-is-next-smartphone-frontier-jo-harlow  “…Nokia is betting on imaging and software experiences to revive its fortunes…Is having great imaging capabilities a necessity to cater to a niche when most users are happy with decent photography and more apps?...I don’t think imaging is a niche segment of users but is a very wide segment — everyone wants to click great pictures…We use those apps that give a nice experience and that’s what we are focusing on with the Lumia smartphones…We have opened the imaging APIs for developers to incorporate some of those features in their apps…In the Lumia 925, we have added a sixth lens in the camera that allows us to deliver even clearer and sharper images in low light but it also delivers real clear, bright and sharp images in bright light…If you look at where imaging is going, computational imaging is an area of exploration. Being able to capture even more data -- data you cannot even see with the human eye that you can only see by actually going back to the picture and being able to do things with them. I think that is a key challenge to bring to a smartphone because computational imaging or computational photography requires computational power…Changes in the processing capabilities of smartphones opens it up as an area of exploration…Nokia has invested in Pelican Imaging, which offers technology to enable users to click a photo first and then change the point of focus later…”

28.    Smartphone Apps Enable Grassroots ‘Bio-blitz’  http://blogs.kqed.org/science/2013/05/17/smartphone-apps-enable-a-new-phenomenon-the-grassroots-bio-blitz/  “On a sunny day in May when 60 people canvassed…McLaren Park and logged sightings of more than 200 species of plants and animals in just three hours, it seemed like a coming-of-age for smartphone-powered citizen science: At this point, just about anyone can do it and produce a remarkable quantity of usable data. Traditional bioblitzes often include scientists intensively collecting specimens over a 24-hour period. That takes special equipment and, depending on the species and the park, special permits. A smartphone-powered bioblitz skips the specimens in favor of map coordinates and photos. Without the need for permits or special nets and traps, the McLaren Park Urban Bioblitz could be almost entirely grassroots, fueled by two all-volunteer groups…“In terms of research on biodiversity and biogeography, like distribution of bird species, this data is extremely valuable,” said Scott Loari…We were able to gather orders of magnitude more observations in just a few hours compared to 25 specimens in the history of collecting.”…the group flew through the 300-acre park in three hours and racked up more than 1,250 sightings. The near ubiquity of smartphones is what makes an event like this possible: Just about everyone is walking around with a device capable of things that, a decade ago, would have been the purview of professionals with an armload of gadgets, and people are so comfortable using map and photo apps…”

SkyNet

29.    Google Starts Using Computer Vision To Let You Search Your Google+ Photos  http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/google-starts-using-computer-vision-to-let-you-search-your-google-photos/  “Google almost completely revamped the Google+ photo experience last week, but…didn’t get around to announcing one of the coolest photo-related features in its repertoire yet: Google now uses computer vision and machine learning to let you search your own photos for things like sunsets, food and flowers. I also tried terms like “cars,” “beach” and “bikes” and Google consistently returned the right results…That’s a huge step forward for photo search in Google…searching for your photos can be challenging because the information you’re looking for is visual.”…this new search feature actually allowed me to find random images I had uploaded to Picasa Web a long time ago…Google wants to help its users manage their photos. “Organizing photos is often a hassle,” he said…”

30.    Google’s Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome  http://searchengineland.com/googles-impressive-conversational-search-goes-live-on-chrome-160445  “The “conversational search” that Google demonstrated…is…a significant leap in how we use search engines. I’m 17 years now into writing about search, and I’ve seen all types of things that have promised to revolutionize the space, especially products that trot out words like “natural language” and “semantic search” but fail to deliver. Conversational search…really is one of those significant changes that makes even a “seen it all” person like me sit up and take notice. What Google is doing is hard, and yet when it works, it feels natural, easy, like it should be…The difference is that “search by voice” now speaks back to you…In the example above, where I spoke “how old is Barack Obama,” Google showed a card with the answer but also pulled Obama’s age out of the card in order to speak an answer to me: “Barack Obama is 51 years old.”…That’s cool and impressive…But…What’s really special is that you can continue your search “conversation” by asking further questions in a way you could never do with regular search…after doing the search above, I asked, “how tall is he” and got back…“Barack Obama is six feet one inch tall,”…along with a text answer. But I hadn’t asked tall Barack Obama was. I’d asked, “How tall is he.” Google smartly figured out the “he” I was talking about was Barack Obama…search engines typically have no memory like this. They’ve generally treated each search we do as if it is unconnected to the previous one…”

31.     Google Drive for Android is a Great Document Scanner  http://blogs.cio.com/android/18048/google-drive-android-great-document-scanner  “…The Google Drive Android app now includes a scan feature, and it works extremely well. You just click the "+" sign in the top-right corner of the app screen, choose "Scan," and aim your Android device’s camera at a document. The app snaps an image, uploads it as a PDF to your Google Drive storage and applies optical-character recognition. The scanned document is then immediately searchable on your computer or Android device. Once the new file is in your Google Drive account, you can download it to your Android or computer…it is faster than using the HP Scan utility I use my Mac to scan documents…other cool additions to the app: A new grid view displays thumbnails of images, spreadsheets, PDFs and other files, so you can easily swipe through them…”

32.    How to use Google Voice with two-step authentication  http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57585962-285/how-to-use-google-voice-with-two-step-authentication/  “Setting up a two-step verification…or authentication…service is more or less an imperative when it comes to keeping your online information secure. Services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Dropbox…have rolled out two-step verification in one form…During the setup process for these services, you are required to provide a phone number where you'll have the option to receive a six-digit code that is required to grant you access to your account. But…phones get lost, which can in turn lock you out of your accounts until you've replaced the device. One workaround for this scenario is to use your Google Voice phone number to receive your verification code…It's a convenient solution, but one that has a huge caveat; text messages sent from Facebook or Skype won't be received by Google Voice. Facebook and Skype…send text messages as e-mails, instead of SMS, and Voice doesn't support e-mailed text messages…The lesson here is, be careful when setting up two-step authentication using your Google Voice number. Not all services are supported by Voice, and the last thing you want to do is lock yourself out of your account…”

33.    Google X acquires kite-power startup Makani  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585834-93/google-x-acquires-kite-power-startup-makani/  “Google is in the process of acquiring Makani Power, a startup building power-generating cable-tethered flying wings, and is incorporating the technology within its Google X "moonshots" division…This…will provide Makani with the resources to accelerate our work to make wind energy cost competitive with fossil fuels…Google, a consumer of huge amounts of power, has been trying to improve the energy industry through investments, efficiency, and purchase agreements…Makani Power's technology has opened the door to a radical new approach to wind energy… with really intelligent software…Makani is trying to crack energy-generation problems with self-piloting flying wings tethered to a base station. They take off like helicopters using rotors that become electrical power generators when the wing reaches an altitude somewhere between 800 and 2,000 feet, where winds are stronger and more consistent…”

34.    Google debuts two-week online mapping course  http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/05/28/google-debuts-two-week-online-mapping-course-to-teach-you-google-maps-maps-engine-lite-and-google-earth/  “Google…announced a new online mapping course to teach users how to best leverage Google Maps, Maps Engine Lite, and Google Earth. Mapping with Google will be offered from June 10 to June 24, though as a self-paced offering…all registrants will receive an invitation to preview the new Google Maps…this course…will feature a combination of video and text lessons and activities, as well as on-hand Google experts and a community of participants available to talk to via Google+ Hangouts and a course forum. In fact, Google says students will have the option to complete a project, applying the skills they learn to earn a certificate of completion…”

35.    Chrome Experiments Bring Skeeball, Slot-Car Racing to the Browser  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2419575,00.asp  “Google's latest Chrome Experiments aim to bring out the kid in everyone with their old-school charm and play-anywhere capabilities. Roll It and Racer turn your phone, tablet, desktop, or laptop into a full-screen gaming experience, whether you're longing for the summer boardwalk days of skeeball or those childhood slot-car races…”

General Technology

36.    Why Maker Faire may be Silicon Valley's most important export  http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-why-maker-faire-may-be-silicon-valleys-greatest-invention-20130520,0,4918188.story  “This weekend I attended the eighth annual Maker Faire…in San Mateo, Calif…after going four straight years, I almost skipped this year until my son begged me to go. I'm glad he talked me into it…what hit me was how much I see and hear about these things when I'm not at the Maker Faire. The greatest marvel this year may be the broader impact the event is having around the country, and indeed, around the world…while we dwell on smartphones and social networking, the Maker Faire may very well be every bit as important in terms of its social impact…the Maker Faire may well be Silicon Valley's biggest cultural export…what the people behind these activities all have in common is the belief that it's essential that people in some way become "makers."…it's deeply gratifying and incredibly educational to perform the act of creating something…Whether it's sewing a hat, making a sculpture garden of masking tape, or whatever…"We are making the tools for passion. When I look around, I don't see any apathy here."…There are now dozens of Maker Faires and Mini-Maker Faires held around the world every year…”  http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/21/tech/innovation/maker-faire-2013/ 

37.    Doctors 3D-Print An Emergency Airway Tube To Save A Child’s Life  http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/doctors-3d-print-an-emergency-airway-tube-to-save-a-childs-life/  “…Doctors 3D-printed an emergency airway tube that saved a 20-month old baby boy’s life. After imaging the boy’s faulty windpipe, doctors at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital printed 100 tiny tubes and laser-stitched them together over the trachea…“Quite a few of the doctors said that he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive,”…the doctors obtained emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to surgically sew the 3D-printed splint on the child’s airway…As soon as the splint was put in, the lungs started going up and down for the first time and we knew he was going to be OK,”…Dr. Glenn Green, who came up with save-saving solution…“The material we used is a nice choice for this. It takes about two to three years for the trachea to remodel and grow into a healthy state, and that’s about how long this material will take to dissolve into the body…”

38.    NASA's new solar-powered ion propulsion engine  http://theweek.com/article/index/244756/take-a-look-at-nasas-new-solar-powered-ion-propulsion-engine  “…NASA took the wraps off a potential next-gen thruster system that looks like something described in Trekkie fanfic: A solar-electric ion propulsion engine…the ion thruster system operates by combining (1) high-energy, negatively charged electrons together with (2) neutral propellant atoms (xenon gas) in a contained environment…NASA researchers claim the voltage can be applied by any kind of electricity source, but will most likely be some combination of nuclear and solar energy…NASA is considering the propulsion system for the agency's asteroid retrieval program, which will send a remote unmanned spacecraft out to nab a nearby asteroid and park it within a moon's orbit to study — a mini moon for the moon…”

Leisure & Entertainment

39.    Amazon sets up system to trade on fan fiction  http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/amazon-sets-up-system-to-trade-on-controversial-fan-fiction/  “Amazon plans to start selling fan-written fiction based on the works of other authors and franchise creators…Kindle Worlds will be a platform heavily regulated by Amazon itself and will only sell fan-fiction for which it has the rights-holders' explicit permission…Fan fiction has long existed at a murky copyright cross-section, where even fanfic-like works that have the strongest case for originality seem to anger rights-holders…There do exist cases where fan-fiction is legal, such as when it is sufficiently transformative or a parody…those arguments do little to settle the temper of authors who feel their creations are being tread upon…Amazon plans to circumvent this issue by having a cadre of “World Licensors,” rights-holders who effectively give permission to Amazon and other writers to create and profit from fanfic…”

40.    3 Free Photo Editing Tools That’ll Give Your Pics Sham-Wow  http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/3-free-photo-editing-tools-thatll-give-your-pics-sham-wow-0472017  “…it’s been proven that images invoke more engagement (up to 20x more!) on social. Spicing up your images or photos could do wonders for your email or social media marketing…Here are 3 free photo editing tools…that’ll give your pics some serious sham-wow…Pixlr is excellent for your basic photo editing needs, and includes the following features: crop, rotate, erase, paintbrush, paint bucket, basic shapes, type tool, and red eye remover. There are also tools for more advanced adjustments…PicMonkey appears more basic than Pixlr, but does include more features. The great thing about PicMonkey, is that makes things super simple for people who are just getting started with photo editing…FotoFlexer contains all of the basics seen above and also includes the following sections: Basics, Effects, Decorate, Beautify (with wrinkle cream), Distort, Layers, and Geek effects…The animations tab lets you add GIFs (animated clip art) to your image…”

41.     How game streaming will change the way you play forever  http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/how-game-streaming-is-going-to-change-the-way-you-play-forever-1153727  “Gaming AFK is Nvidia's nifty little catch-all tag for its game streaming initiative: gaming away from the keyboard. It's…quite a complex concept, including everything from Nvidia's upcoming portable games console - known as Project Shield - to the cloud-based GRID initiative, the GeForce Experience app on the PC and your Steam games library. It even includes PC graphics chips. Yeah, those hopelessly old-fashioned contraptions physically wired up to silly bits of board…But what will this all mean for PC gaming? What hardware and software will you need? What games will you be able to play and on what devices?...there's the question of how soon this is all coming and how local streaming using your PC fits with cloud gaming. Is local streaming just a stepping-stone on the way to ubiquitous cloud gaming? Or does it have advantages that make it a long-term proposition?...there are questions to be answered - but if this stuff takes off, it's going to change the way you game forever…”

42.    Why Your Self Published Book Isn’t Selling  http://www.selfpublishedauthor.com./content/why-your-book-isn%E2%80%99t-selling  “It’s a question I get asked a lot: “Why isn’t my book selling?”…I’ve been asked this by savvy authors, even business people who can’t seem to figure out the system for selling. Sometimes the reasons why a book isn’t selling are easy: the cover is poor, the content is not edited or the topic is unappealing. But in most cases…you need to dig deeper…The rule of seven: You need to be everywhere…Seven seems to be the magic number for many marketing people…Your book should have access points in seven different areas…Multichannel marketing: How many different ways are you marketing your book? No, I don’t mean the rule of seven, though this applies here, too. What I mean is how many channels are you using to market your book to the reader? Email? Video? Print mailings?...Here are some tips you can implement, right now, to get things back on track: Get to know successful authors…Investigate: What do other authors do in your genre?...Google Alerts: Now that you have your list of fabulous authors, plug their names into Google Alerts and see where they show up…Count the ways: How many different ways can a reader access you?...You should have at least seven access points…Get rid of what’s not working…Distribution: Make sure your book is out there, and I mean really out there…Persistence…”

Entrepreneurism and Technology

43.    Atari seeking $22.2 million in bankruptcy auction  http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/23/4358348/atari-seeking-2-2-million-in-bankruptcy-auction  “Atari will sell off its assets individually this July over a four day period after failing to find a bidder for its full catalog…The U.S. arm of Atari first filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 21 in an effort to "break free" from its French parent company, Atari S.A….Atari's single most valuable asset, Rollercoaster Tycoon, will require a minimum bid of $3.5 million, while its Test Drive franchise will go for a minimum bid of $1.5 million…classic RTS franchise Total Annihilation is available for a minimum bid of $250,000…”

44.    Sears is Turning Shuttered Stores into Data Centers  http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/05/23/ubiquity/  “…Sears Holdings has formed a new unit to market space from former Sears and Kmart retail stores as a home for data centers, disaster recovery space and wireless towers…Ubiquity Critical Environments…hopes to convert the retail icons of the 20th century into the Internet infrastructure to power the 21st century digital economy. Sears Holdings has one of the largest real estate portfolios in the country, with 3,200 properties spanning 25 million square feet of space…“The goal is not to sell off properties. It’s to reposition the assets of this iconic brand…Farney is an industry veteran who previously managed Microsoft’s huge Chicago data center, and then ran a network of low-latency services for the financial services firm Interactive Data. He sees an opportunity to build three lines of businesses atop the Sears portfolio: data centers, disaster recovery sites and “communications colocation” in which Ubiquity leases rooftop space to wireless providers. Ubiquity will be able to leverage real estate at both closed stores and some that are still operating…The first Ubiquity project will be a Sears store on the south side of Chicago, nestled alongside the Chicago Skyway. The 127,000 square foot store is closing at the end of June, and will be retrofitted as a multi-tenant data center…”

Design / DEMO

45.    Design school students enter Supima contest  http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/fashion-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=146103  “…the annual Supima Design Competition…announced school participation from Kent State, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Savannah College of Art and Design…being able to show their designs on stage at New York Fashion Week is already an incredible opportunity, the start of a career and an introduction to the real, working world of fashion…The competition stresses just what we teach, innovation, design creativity, quality and high standards…This is real world experience for our students. It’s such a great venue and creative opportunity,”…it wouldn’t be a show without the support of Supima’s brand partners. This year’s supporters include AG Jeans, Agave, Brooks Brothers, Bloomingdale’s, Kurabo, Aveda, Tumbling Colors and Pantone.  By supplying fabrics, insight and overall support, these generous companies are giving back to the next generation…”

46.    Purdue design tool eliminates mouse, keyboard  http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Purdue-design-tool-eliminates-mouse-keyboard-4549798.php  “At Purdue University, researchers working on a new design tool bring…movie magic to life on a daily basis. "In some ways, it's going to get closer and closer to Iron Man," said Karthik Ramani, the Donald W. Feddersen Professor of Mechanical Engineering…We want people to focus on what they're doing and creating, and not how a computer program works…The Purdue-designed tool called Shape-It-Up interprets hand movements, enabling designers and artists to create and modify three-dimensional shapes using only their hands as a natural user interface instead of keyboard and mouse…The user creates shapes on a computer by interacting with a virtual workspace. As the user moves his hands and fingers through the air, the motions cause corresponding changes to a 3-D image on a large-screen monitor. "Our goal is to make the designer an integral part of the shape-modeling process during early design, which isn't possible using current CAD tools," Ramani said. "The conventional tools have non-intuitive…processes requiring extensive training. "Within a few seconds, one can bend and deform them in various ways to explore new shapes by natural interactions. The effect is immediate…”

47.    No-Wash Shirt Doesn't Stink After 100 Days  http://mashable.com/2013/04/30/no-wash-shirt-woolprince/  “A New York City startup is saying it can produce a men’s button-down shirt from wool that’s super-soft, doesn’t need ironing and won’t smell even after being worn for 100 days straight without washing…Wool&Prince, was started several months ago by…Mac Bishop two of his friends. Their button-down shirt prototype was made from wool put through a special process to make it soft, wrinkle-resistant and odor-free…Bishop extolls the benefits of sheep wool, and talked with Margaret Frey, an associate professor of fiber science and apparel design at Cornell University…Australian sheep have been bred to have fine, soft fibers for an even flat fabric, Frey said. “It doesn’t have that itchiness that we might have associated with wool.”…The company recently created a Kickstarter campaign to sell the shirts at $98 apiece so they can raise enough to place an order with the factory…”

DHMN Technology

48.    Tech Valley Center of Gravity  http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2013/04/29/tech-valley-center-of-gravity  “At the corner of 4th and Fulton in downtown Troy, in what was formerly an OTB space on the ground floor of a parking garage, is now a workshop with metal and wood working machinery, racks of tools and parts, 3-D scanners and printers, and biotech equipment. The new Tech Valley Center of Gravity is a makerspace -- a place for hackers, crafters, artists, geeks to build stuff, take things apart, hack new things to together, and to learn from each other…plans for the makerspace first started to come together last fall, based in part on…"a central irony of this region": schools and colleges here are a good at attracting and educating talented students, but the area is not nearly as good at holding onto them after they graduate. "The question was: How do you…create a center of gravity that can really make it worthwhile for post university professionals to put down roots?...So Coblentz reached out to recent college graduates from RPI and UAlbany and asked: What would help convince you to stay? "The first answer was: We need more social activities…"Number two, which was much more concrete, was a makerspace. If there can be a makerspace in Brooklyn, or San Francisco, or wherever else, why not in Tech Valley? So, basically, we said, why not? Let's do it…”

49.    Arduino TFT screen gets official  http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/71837-arduino-tft-screen-gets-official  “…Arduino has launched a TFT LCD screen. The screen - developed in conjunction with Complubot - boasts a library based on the AdafruitGFX and ST7735. The Arduino specific library, dubbed TFT, extends the Adafruit libraries to support more processing-like methods…users can write text, draw shapes, and show bitmap images…the screen can be exploited to play games or to display sensor values…”

50.    My Mini Factory Online Model Repository  http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/05/28/my-mini-factory-an-augmented-online-model-repository/  “…a 3D model online repository called My Mini Factory. Differentiation-wise My Mini Factory – apparently — doesn’t use the business model that is emerging as the industry standard – the upload for free, download for fee -concept. Instead, they offer users free downloads, category and catalogue extensions by request, yet still offer suitable monetary incentives for the uploaders…”  [potential revenue stream for 3D modeling ninjas – ed.]

51.     Stoughton High School students can make nearly anything with Fab Lab  http://host.madison.com/business/stoughton-high-school-students-can-make-nearly-anything-with-high/article_acd04263-a5f5-590d-aa42-6e82346762a4.html  “Students at Stoughton High School already can take classes that teach them how to weld, fix a car, remodel a home, create an architectural blueprint or produce a video. Starting this fall, they’ll have a new option: learning how to make ... almost anything, thanks to the school’s new Fab Lab. The Fab Lab (short for fabrication laboratory) is a concept pioneered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology…More than 100 Fab Labs already operate worldwide, but Stoughton will house one of the first to be set up in a U.S. public high school…Ole Olson, a controls engineer and member/owner at Isthmus Engineering, said it’s hard to find qualified, experienced job candidates for the firm, which builds machines for manufacturers ranging from automotive to solar energy to medical devices. The lab could help build that talent pool…”

Open Source Hardware

52.    Sensors Are Everywhere: Project Wants To Bring Them To The Classroom  http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/22/sensors-are-everywhere-and-a-new-project-wants-to-bring-them-to-the-classroom-for-cheap/  “…sensors are now all around us, including in our phones and in various smart home devices…a new Kickstarter project from ManyLabs wants to help kids get familiar with them very early on. The project is called Sensors for Students, and it wants to build a sensor collection kit that includes a plate for an open-source Arduino board and Grove shield combo, along with one of a variety of parts for a number of different types of sensors, including accelerometers, electromagnetic field detectors, a color sensor, a plant watering kit…The team behind ManyLabs…formed the nonprofit with the ultimate intent of spreading low-cost hands-on tools for teaching science and math to the classroom…Sand and Dicus wanted to make it possible to get kids learning data literacy and experimenting with open source hardware early on in life…”

53.    Entrepreneurs take aim at suborbital science  http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=29733  “…It was a classic Silicon Valley "hackathon" scene. What made it different was the subject: everyman science experiments in space…people came to the Space Hacker event, sponsored by the Mountain View-based Silicon Valley Space Center, ignited by the same idea -- the possibility of launching citizen-designed space experiments into suborbit…The extreme cost of getting into space has traditionally meant that the job of designing an experiment to be flown high above Earth is reserved for those with backing from governments or organizations with deep pockets…the Lynx, a suborbital spacecraft…is designed to blast off from an airstrip as if it were a plane and take two passengers and cargo 62 miles in the air in a half-hour flight -- and then do it all over again three more times a day. Wright's organization has pre-bought 10 flights in the craft…expressly for the purpose of fostering citizen science…The experiments' creators will be charged nothing for the trip, which have instead been financed by individual private donors. Wright said he's interested in only those experiments that advance the fields of science or engineering…The organization requires that the hardware designs for the experiments be made available to other citizen scientists…”

Open Source

54.    ProjectLibre edges in on Microsoft Project dominance  http://opensource.com/business/13/5/projectlibre-microsoft-project  “ProjectLibre is an open source project management solution ready to give Microsoft Project a run for their money…there will be a new version of the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGI) modular architecture that will allow connector modules for better integration with enterprise solutions. The ProjectLibre team will also be releasing a cloud version, allowing project teams to effectively work together regardless of location…ProjectLibre was created by a team that has been developing project management software for a significant time…when those mild or major impacts happen, a project management software plan will automatically adjust to show you the new reality. It will also save a snapshot of the original plan so you can…see a baseline comparison of the change from the original plan…Microsoft Project…is on over 7% of all desktops. The price for Microsoft Project professional is $999.99, and they have had a virtual monopoly which allows this price point…The ProjectLibre team…tend to work around the clock as we are located around the world…Having users and communities in over 200 countries blurs the lines of a normal schedule…”

55.     Open Source Is Old School, Says The GitHub Generation  http://readwrite.com/2013/05/15/open-source-is-old-school-says-the-github-generation  “For years, the software industry has been trending away from so-called 'copyleft' licenses like the GNU General Public License…and toward permissive, Apache-style licensing. Given the rising importance of developers, this isn't surprising: developers just want to get work done without being bogged down by license requirements…permissive Apache licensing may simply be a way station on the road to no licensing at all…for years, permissive licenses like BSD and MIT have been climbing…we seem to be entering a new phase: the no-license model…"the logical conclusion of the move to more 'permissive' licences [is] one that permits everything."…the GitHub generation seems to be less fussy about legal mechanics…the vast majority of projects on GitHub don't appear to carry any license terms at all…GitHub has become the gathering point for modern open-source development…a mere 14.9%...of the 1,692,135 code repositories Williamson scanned had a file in their top-level directories that specified a license…the vast majority of code on GitHub isn't necessarily open source. Or proprietary software. Or, well, anything. It's just code. Redmonk analyst James Governor nailed this trend in 2012, arguing that "younger devs today are about POSS - Post open source software…”

Civilian Aerospace

56.    Girl expelled from school for exploding experiment going to space camp  http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/05/23/Girl-expelled-from-school-for-exploding-experiment-going-to-space-camp/UPI-73341369336259/  “…Kiera Wilmot, 16, was accused in April of igniting a chemical explosion at her high school, leading to her arrest and suspension from school, but authorities dropped criminal charges last week. News of the incident reached 18-year NASA veteran Homer Hickam…reminding him of an incident in his own youth…Hickam was taken into custody at his high school for allegedly starting a forest fire with a homemade rocket, but his high school physics professor and school principal came to his defense, clearing him of wrongdoing…Hickam said he decided Kiera needed the same kind of break he had gotten. "I couldn't let this go without doing something," he said. "I'm not a lawyer, but I could give her something that would encourage her. I've worked closely with the U.S. Space Academy, and so I purchased a scholarship for her…”

57.     North Las Vegas company to test spacecraft capable of moon landing  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/may/23/north-las-vegas-company-test-spacecraft-capable-mo/  “…Aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow unveiled plans Thursday for a craft known as The Guide. He…described it as a “flight-like testing unit” that is smaller than a car. He plans to have test flights in early 2014 at a dry lake near Alamo, about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. Bigelow, founder and president of North Las Vegas’ Bigelow Aerospace, said The Guide would be able to land as an operational base on the moon. He did not disclose its development costs but said he is “trying to get (it) in contract.” It’s the “simplest, least expensive base” he could build, as NASA looks more and more to the private sector for help with human space missions…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

58.    GPU-Accelerated Model Fitting of Interferometric Imagery  http://www.nvidia.com/content/cuda/spotlights/dylan-jackson-mit-lincoln-lab.html  “…The understanding of disease progression relies upon the presence, absence, or relative amount of proteins within a solution…Optical biosensors are known to be accurate and reliable tools for measuring and monitoring the binding and unbinding of target proteins. Recently, new techniques and technologies have emerged to enable high-throughput biosensing with smaller, lower cost, and less complex systems. In particular, the LED-based Interferometric Reflectance Imaging Sensor (IRIS) has been demonstrated as a viable alternative to previously established high-end biosensors…Since this is an iterative algorithm, increasing the complexity of the model compounds the processing power and time required for convergence. The pixel-based nature of the data lent itself well to data level parallelism, so it was natural to explore single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) architectures to improve processing performance. Since CUDA enables parallel computing on GPUs it seemed to be an ideal platform for exploiting data level parallelism on a single computer. For this project, I developed a CUDA implementation of the IRIS model, yielding significant performance improvements over the current MATLAB implementation…”

59.    Running Computational Fluid Dynamics in the Cloud  http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-05-16/running_computational_fluid_dynamics_in_the_cloud.html  “There are several limitations to performing HPC in a public cloud, a few specific to computational fluid dynamics (CFD)…When it comes to cloud, long distances mean unacceptably high latencies. Researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany examined those latency issues of doing CFD modeling in the cloud by utilizing a common CFD and its utilization in HPC instance types including both CPU and GPU cores of Amazon EC2. For CPUs in Amazon’s EC2 cluster, they found that the application running on 8 CPU cores had an efficiency of 70 percent relative to a non-virtualized HPC cluster…With regard to the GPUs, they found similar acceptable levels at 8 GPU cores but the performance petered out with further scaling…”

Trends & Emerging Tech

60.    These 12 technologies will drive our economic future  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/24/these-12-technologies-will-drive-our-economic-future/  “…the things that will determine standards of living a generation from now…depend on companies’ innovations — in particular, whether those innovations turn out to have major economic consequences. Researchers at the McKinsey Global Institute…have a new study in which they have taken their best shot at predicting exactly that. They have scoured the range of potential disruptive technologies and done their best to estimate how transformative each might be for the U.S. economy…the researchers…narrowed their focus to technologies that are already advancing rapidly…have broad potential impact…and could have significant economic impact (the total numbers are large). Not making the cut were technologies that are…niche products (like private space flight). Here’s the list the McKinsey researchers came up with…mobile internet, $3.7 to $10.4 trillion…automation of knowledge work, $5.2 to $6.7 trillion…Internet of things, $2.7 to $6.2 trillion…cloud, $1.7 to $6.2 trillion…advanced robotics, $1.7 to $4.5 trillion…autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles, $0.2 to $1.9 trillion…next generation genomics, $0.7 to $1.6 trillion…energy storage, $0.1 to $0.6 trillion…3D printing, $0.2 to $0.6 trillion…advanced materials, $0.2 to $0.5 trillion…advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery, $0.1 to $0.5 trillion…renewable energy, $0.2 to $0.3 trillion…”  http://www.businessinsider.com/mckinsey-technologies-that-will-disrupt-our-world-2013-5

61.     PRETAIL: consumers shopping for products and services at concept stage  http://trendwatching.com/briefing/  “In our Trend Briefing on PRESUMERS, we highlighted how many consumers are clamoring to support, be involved with, and fund products and services pre-launch, fueling a burgeoning crowdfunding movement. Now make way for a little less consumer involvement, and more straightforward shopping in the pre-launch arena, i.e. PRETAIL*. PRETAIL: A mode of consumption that sees consumers treat crowdfunding platforms as the new shopping malls. Why? Because that's where current consumer demand for the most innovative, exciting and unique products and being served best than anywhere else, by an army of entrepreneurs and start-ups…Crowdfunding has unleashed the GLOBAL BRAIN (the collective creativity, entrepreneurialism and intelligence of thousands of individuals and start-ups around the world) on consumerism…via the mechanism of funding pre-realization, those platforms mean that anyone with an idea can present that idea to consumers, who can then PREchase it. For the first time ever, then, the diversity, inventiveness, and sheer number of innovations on offer in the consumer arena can actually match the imaginings of consumers…Next? That would of course be consumers pro-actively suggesting to the GLOBAL BRAIN what it is they would like to see introduced/built…”

62.    “Seven or Never”: Emerging Technology’s Seven-Year Odyssey  http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/at-work/innovation/seven-or-never-emerging-technologys-seven-year-odyssey  “…when the field is an emerging one, such as nanotechnology, most of the good stories are about…a development in the lab, or just coming out of it, that may or may not have an impact in the years to come…First comes the struggle to secure funding, and then come any number of opportunities for management to make some tragic blunder or to fail to dislodge the incumbent competition…not only is success in the marketplace the exception and not the rule, but discerning the few winners from the many losers at a technology's earliest stages can make picking the ponies feel like child's play…I have been writing about emerging technologies for over 15 years…a common rule of thumb I picked up early on was that it typically takes seven years to bring a laboratory technology to market. The seven-year rule is something of a shibboleth…this post starts a new series within The Nanoclast that looks back on some of the technologies that we have covered with words like “would”, “could” or “might.”…We're calling the series “Seven or Never,” a reference to the seven-year time-to-market timescale…it is much more instructive to say it will be much longer than you anticipate. There is a wide variety of technological developments that can be brought to market and their complexity will really govern the timelines, along with a good dose of luck or timeliness…if anyone gets it below seven for a tangible product as opposed to an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) product, they are either lucky or very well organized.”…there are different approaches that can shorten the time frame—at the cost of some tradeoffs…If partnering is adopted it is possible to get the period down to less than seven years.”…where do we begin the countdown? Do we start at the first paper published, first patent filed, or first series of funding? “I think you have to start the clock when you consider the discovery or technological development to be of commercial significance…an internal invention disclosure, internal project proposal describing commercial applications or a patent drafting would be a useful marker…Ultimately, if you have the right conditions you can accelerate time to market. [Having] people who have done it before helps, [as does] being near companies that need your product, being able to quickly hire (and fire) people with the skills you need, and being able to raise finance in a timely manner to keep the momentum going…”

*****