NEW NET Weekly List for 25 Jun 2013

Below is the final list of technology news and issues for the Tuesday, 25 June 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 Weekly Top Ten, (pre-NEW NET, based on potential or immediate impact and/or general tech interestingness)

1.        Facebook brings 15-second video to Instagram (# 11)

2.       Facebook's shadow profiles are 'frightening' dossiers on everyone (# 18)

3.       Aaron’s Law, a Desperately Needed Reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (# 24)

4.       MEMS for mobile industry will reach $6.4B by 2018 (# 26)

5.        Virtual Assistant Google Now Is Awesome, And I Never Want To Use It (# 32)

6.       Can Microsoft's U-turn stop the Xbox 360 becoming another XP? (# 37)

7.        Heirs of Infocom: Where interactive fiction authors and games stand today (# 38)

8.       Videopixie Launches To Create A Marketplace For Video Editors (# 41)

9.       How to live on the moon (# 54)

10.     Merritt Island students' satellite has them soaring (# 55)

The ‘net

11.      Facebook brings 15-second video to Instagram  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57590125-93/and-action-facebook-brings-video-to-instagram/  “Facebook-owned Instagram is adding video, bringing an entirely new dimension to camera captures shared across the popular social-networking service…With video on Instagram, available right away on iOS and Android (video capture is only available to Android users running Jelly Bean or higher), application users will find a movie camera icon that they can tap to enter video mode and take up to 15 seconds of video, clip by clip. Like Vine, users can press and hold the movie button to capture video, and release to pause the capture to resume later. They can also delete individual snippets to re-record, and there's an option to switch between front- and back-facing cameras. Instagram…created 13 new filters just for the video offering…”

12.     It’s no accident Facebook made Instagram’s new videos exactly as long as a television commercial  http://qz.com/96475/its-no-accident-facebook-made-instagrams-new-videos-exactly-as-long-as-a-television-commercial/  “Facebook is going to get us all watching television ads again. Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook acquired last year, just added the ability to share videos, as well. It’s a copy of Vine, which is owned by chief rival Twitter. But whereas Vine lets users upload videos up to 6 seconds long, Instagram has opted for a maximum length of 15 seconds, and the difference is more significant than just 9 seconds. Facebook was already planning to unveil video ads in the fall…Video advertising is already a big part of advertisers’ digital spend, and is projected to be responsible for a significant proportion of the 13.4% growth in digital advertising between 2013 and 2014…An Instagram with 15-second videos is right in the sweet spot for Facebook: It’s mobile, it’s video, and at that length, it means that advertisers can drop in their short television spots without even modifying them…”

13.     Gigabit Seattle costs less than Comcast, more than Google  http://blogs.seattletimes.com/brierdudley/2013/06/24/gigabit-seattle-pricing-revealed-less-than-comcast-more-than-google/  “The first broadband provider piggybacking on Seattle’s government network announced today that it will charge $80 per month for the ultrafast service it will begin offering in pockets of the city this fall. That’s $10 per month more than Google charges for gigabit broadband services that it offers in Kansas City, but $25 less than what Comcast charges for its fastest residential service in the Seattle area…CondoInternet, which has offered ultrafast broadband in the area since 2009, is lowering its prices below those of Gigabit Squared and Google in the next week or two…Long before Google jumped into the business in 2010, and while Seattle hemmed and hawed, the Grant County Public Utility District in Eastern Washington went ahead and added fiber-optic broadband to its infrastructure. People in the Moses Lake area can get ultrafast broadband for $45 per month…CondoInternet has been providing gigabit-speed broadband since 2009 and now reaches 10,000 housing units in the area…”

14.     We The Geeks  http://www.whitehouse.gov/we-the-geeks  ““We the Geeks" is a new series of Google+ Hangouts to highlight the future of science, technology, and innovation here in the United States. Topics such as commercial space exploration, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, turning science fiction to science fact, and others will be discussed with Administration officials and key private sector contributors. Join the conversation using the hashtag #WeTheGeeks and be sure to sign up for email updates about future "We the Geeks" hangouts…”

15.     Amazon’s Invasion of the CIA Is a Seismic Shift in Cloud Computing  http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/06/amazon-cia/  “…Amazon is providing cloud services to the CIA. But what’s most intriguing about the multi-million-dollar deal is not what Amazon is doing, but how the company is doing it — and what that means for the future of that thing called cloud computing…Amazon finally confirmed the deal, if not the price tag…after rival IBM filed a formal protest over the pact…Amazon…had stepped up its effort to challenge old-school giants like IBM in an area the old guard had long dominated federal contracting…the General Accounting Office responded to IBM’s protest with a ruling that said the CIA chose Amazon over Big Blue due to a “superior technical solution.” But Amazon’s CIA contract is important for far bigger reasons…the GAO ruling on the matter reveals that the contract involves Amazon building cloud services inside CIA data centers…New-age companies like Amazon and Google said computing power should be offered over the internet, much like electricity is offered over the grid. This, they said, was cloud computing. But old-school companies like IBM and HP…urged businesses to duplicate cloud computing services…inside private data centers, arguing that this provided greater security and privacy…Amazon, in particular, scoffed at this notion of the “private cloud.” Behind such voices as Andy Jassy, the head of the company’s Amazon Web Services business, and AWS chief technology officer Werner Vogels, the web giant made a point of telling the world a private cloud was not a cloud — that a cloud, by definition, was delivered to everyone, across the public internet…this represents a significant change in strategy for the web giant…”

16.     DuckDuckGo Sees Record Traffic After NSA PRISM Scandal  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2275867/DuckDuckGo-Sees-Record-Traffic-After-NSA-PRISM-Scandal  “Ever since the news hit about the NSA PRISM surveillance program in the United States, many people have become much more concerned about what exactly search engines are tracking about them. Although Google, Bing, and Yahoo have stringent privacy policies, there have been enough people worried that they have begun looking at alternative search engines, particularly so-called “private search engines.” DuckDuckGo is probably the best-known of the private search engines, and as a result it has recorded record traffic and shows no sign of stopping…since the PRISM news broke, nearly every day has been a record search day for DuckDuckGo, including yesterday where it broke 3 million searches for the first time. That is nearly double its pre-PRISM daily search totals…”

17.     Vine fuels the rise of bite-sized video  http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/19/tech/social-media/social-video-trend/  “Thanks to technology, most of us now have the ability to shoot and edit long, high-quality videos on our phones, to upload them and to share them socially with everyone we know. But somehow, the hot social media trend is supershort video clips that are much closer to the GIF than to "Citizen Kane." In the past few years, a number of companies have launched around mobile video-sharing…These apps have bred a unique category of content, from real-life moments such as blowing out birthday candles to short-form artistic creations that play with the medium…the next contender in this growing field will be Instagram…Vine seems to be readying some new features…The app's co-founders posted several Vines Wednesday that suggest users will soon have the ability to save drafts, splice bits of multiple Vines together and browse content based on categories and genres. So, a social-video turf war may be looming: Instagram vs. Vine. Facebook vs. Twitter…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

18.     Facebook's shadow profiles are 'frightening' dossiers on everyone  http://www.zdnet.com/firm-facebooks-shadow-profiles-are-frightening-dossiers-on-everyone-7000017199/  “Facebook's shadow profile data collection activities came to light Friday when the social network disclosed a bug fix. The security researchers…say Facebook is compiling "frightening" dossiers on everyone possible, including people without Facebook accounts…Since 2012, Facebook had unintentionally combined user's shadow profiles with their Facebook profiles and shared it with those users' friends who used Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool…Most people who found out they have a 'shadow profile' with contact info they never gave to Facebook - such as telephone numbers - were surprised and angry. Facebook responded…pointing to a page on its address book email collection policy and emphasizing that the data is uploaded voluntarily by people the users know…The fact that I have no control over additional email addresses and phone numbers added to their data store on me is frightening…Standing on its policy, Facebook is refusing to allow users to have control over their own personal information. Facebook policy in this area is that your data is not yours; it belongs to your friends, and by its rules your friends - or merely peple you know - have more control over your data than you do…it appears that we're subject to Facebook's shadow profiles whether or not we choose to participate…”

19.     Technology is creating the surveillance state  http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/19/technology-is-creating-surveillance-state/  “Technology is making your every move…ready for broadcast. The question is, are you ready for it? Following the revelations about some of what the U.S. National Security Agency has been up to…government officials have been scrambling to reassure the public that the amount of information it is collecting…doesn't impinge on personal freedom…Consider that phone numbers with time and location information can be easily combined with Web searches (for "anti-depressants," say) and text message information to form a picture of where you are and what you're doing. No one needs to listen to the content of a call if they know everything else about you, like the fact that you've messaged a therapist several times this week, belong to a gun club, and gave money to a Tea Party candidate. We're beaming our location, purchases, banking information, and personal relationships over networks that can be easily tapped…It is technically possible to monitor nearly every U.S. citizen -- through automated scanning software programs -- seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Video cameras monitor you walking down the sidewalk. Toll tags and on-board connected car systems monitor you behind the wheel, even relaying rabbit starts, severe braking, and excessive speed. Security systems at work oversee cubicles, and employers monitor computer habits with hidden software that tracks keystrokes. At home, smart TVs with streaming services collect information about what you're watching. Some sets and gaming consoles even include cameras that can tell who is in the room sitting on the couch…a computer program known as Flame that security experts say was created for espionage purposes has the demonstrated ability to secretly turn on a device's microphone and record a conversation…”

20.    FBI Chief: Surveillance Drones Used in U.S.  http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/19/fbi-chief-surveillance-drones-used-in-u-s/  “The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged Wednesday that his agency uses drones to conduct surveillance in the United States, but said it does so rarely…Federal agencies have been using drones for years to monitor the northern and southern borders of the U.S., and those drones have occasionally been deployed to help domestic law-enforcement agencies like the FBI…”

21.     NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy On Everyone  https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/12553023511/nsa-boss-asks-congress-legal-immunity-companies-that-help-nsa-spy-everyone.shtml  “…NSA boss General Keith Alexander is pestering Congress for a new law which would provide blanket immunity for companies helping the NSA collect data on everyone…he's arguing that if the NSA orders companies to do something illegal, the companies shouldn't be liable for that. There's some logic behind that, because when you get an order from the government, you often feel compelled to obey. But, of course, the reality is that this will give blanket cover for companies voluntarily violating all sorts of privacy laws in giving the NSA data. And, theoretically you could then sue the government over those violations, but we've seen in the past how well that goes over. First, the courts won't give you "standing" if you can't prove absolutely that your data was included. Then, if you get past that hurdle, the government will claim "national security" or sovereign immunity to try to get out of the case. And, even if it gets past all of that, and you win against the government, the feds shrug their shoulders and say "now what are you going to do?"…Alexander has been asking members of Congress for some time to adopt bill language on countermeasures that’s “as ill-defined as possible” — with the goal of giving the Pentagon great flexibility in taking action alongside Internet providers…Given the revelations of the past few weeks, this seems like the exact wrong direction for Congress to be heading…”

22.    Use of Tor and e-mail crypto could increase chances that NSA keeps your data  http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/use-of-tor-and-e-mail-crypto-could-increase-chances-that-nsa-keeps-your-data/  “Using online anonymity services such as Tor or sending encrypted e-mail and instant messages are grounds for US-based communications to be retained by the National Security Agency…While the documents make clear that data collection and interception must cease immediately once it's determined a target is within the US, they still provide analysts with a fair amount of leeway…that leeway seems to work to the disadvantage of people who take steps to protect their Internet communications from prying eyes. For instance, a person whose physical location is unknown—which more often than not is the case when someone uses anonymity software from the Tor Project—"will not be treated as a United States person, unless such person can be positively identified as such, or the nature or circumstances of the person's communications give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person,"…the requirement to promptly destroy the material may be suspended in a variety of circumstances. Among the exceptions are "communications that are enciphered or reasonably believed to contain secret meaning, and sufficient duration may consist of any period of time during which encrypted material is subject to, or of use in, cryptanalysis…”

23.    Facebook's Former Security Chief Now Works for the NSA  http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/06/facebooks-former-security-chief-now-works-nsa/66432/  “About a year after Facebook reportedly joined PRISM, Max Kelly, the social network's chief security officer left for a job at the National Security Agency…The Chief Security Officer at a tech company is primarily concerned with keeping its information inside the company…working for an agency that tries to gather as much information as it can, Kelly's new job is…a complete reversal…Kelly…made a speech at the Defcon hacking conference that argued greater cooperation between places like Facebook and military defense…he said…There isn’t enough information shared…”

24.    Aaron’s Law, a Desperately Needed Reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act  http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/aarons-law-is-finally-here/  “…the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)…is a sweeping Internet regulation that criminalizes many forms of common Internet use. It allows breathtaking levels of prosecutorial discretion that invites serious abuse…the CFAA makes it a federal crime to access a computer without authorization or in a way that exceeds authorization…Congress never clearly described what this really means. As a result, prosecutors can take the view that a person who violates a website’s terms of service or employer agreement should face jail time…lying about one’s age on Facebook, or checking personal email on a work computer, could violate this felony statute. This flaw in the CFAA allows the government to imprison Americans for a violation of a non-negotiable, private agreement that is dictated by a corporation…CFAA…provisions…enable a person to be punished multiple times … for the same crime…This allows prosecutors to bully defendants into accepting a deal in order to avoid facing a multitude of charges from a single, solitary act…In January, Aaron Swartz, an Internet innovator and activist, decided to end his brief but brilliant life. At the time, Swartz faced the possibility of severe punishment under the CFAA — multiple felony charges and up to 35 years in prison by the government’s own declaration – for what amounted to an act of civil disobedience…Aaron Swartz was not the first or the last victim of overzealous prosecution under the CFAA. That’s why we’re [Zoe Lofgren and Ron Wyden] authoring bipartisan legislation — which, with the permission of Aaron Swartz’s family, we call “Aaron’s Law” — in the House and Senate to begin the process of updating the CFAA. Aaron’s Law is…about refocusing the law away from common computer and Internet activity and toward damaging hacks. It establishes a clear line that’s needed for the law to distinguish the difference between common online activities and harmful attacks…we undertook a deliberative process for crafting this legislation. We posted drafts of the bill on Reddit to solicit public feedback. And that feedback informed revisions and solicitation of further feedback…The result is a proposal that we believe, if enacted into law, safeguards commonplace online activity from overbroad prosecution and overly harsh penalties, while ensuring that real harmful activity is discouraged and fully prosecuted…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

25.    Samsung Unveils Windows Tablet That Runs Android Applications  http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/20/samsung-reveals-the-ativ-q-a-convertible-windows-8-tablet-that-runs-android-too/  “Samsung has just kicked off its Premiere event…with one particularly curious device — in addition to the ability to transform from a 2.8-pound tablet to a notebook with QWERTY keyboard, the company’s shape-shifting Ativ Q convertible also gives users a taste of the Android ecosystem…an incredibly high resolution 13.3-inch display and an new Intel Haswell Core i5 processor, as well as 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD…the Q’s display runs at 3200 x 1800, which makes for a pixel density of 275 PPI…Samsung says the Q is capable of running for about 9 hours before having to recharge…The Q will let users hop into an unfettered, stock version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean without having to reboot their device. Users can also effectively transfer data between the two OSes…people could pin Android apps to the Windows 8 start screen…”

26.    MEMS for mobile industry will reach $6.4B by 2018  http://www.electroiq.com/articles/sst/2013/06/mems-for-mobile-industry-will-reach-6-4b-by-2018.html  “MEMS devices are proliferating in mobile devices. Yole Développement counts 25+ sensors and actuators in production or in development for mobile applications, including MEMS accelerometers, MEMS gyroscopes, magnetometers, 6-axis e-compasses, 6-axis IMU combos, 9-axis combo solutions, silicon microphones, microspeakers, pressure sensors, humidity/temperature sensors, BAW filters and duplexers, MEMS switches and variable capacitors, silicon MEMS oscillators/resonators, micromirrors for picoprojectors, microdisplays, MEMS auto-focus, IR sensors and micro bolometers, bio-chemical detectors & gas sensors, MEMS touchscreen, MEMS joystick, radiation detectors, MEMS fuel cells, energy harvesting, UV sensors, ultrasonic sensors…pressure sensors are being heavily adopted in flagship phones and tablets, and humidity sensors are being adopted in the Samsung Galaxy S4….a new wave of MEMS products will enable further growth…these emerging MEMS will ramp up in volume almost overnight, just as pressure and humidity sensors did in the past few months…”

27.    Barnes & Noble to stop building Nook tablets  http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/06/barnes-noble-to-stop-building-nook-tablets-seeks-hardware-partners/  “Barnes & Noble has announced that it will stop manufacturing Nook tablets, but the company is not getting out of the tablet market completely. Instead of building its own, Barnes & Noble will attempt to create a co-branded line of tablets with third-party manufacturers. The announcement does not affect the Nook e-reader line, which Barnes & Noble will continue to make itself…”

Apps

28.    Google's Cloud Print Android App Brings a World of Printers to You  http://appscout.pcmag.com/android/312761-google-s-cloud-print-android-app-brings-a-world-of-printers-to-you  “Printing is increasingly becoming unnecessary in this modern go-go world. Still, there are times you need to spray some ink on a sheet of paper, and Google’s official Cloud Print app has just arrived on Android to make that easier…Cloud Print is a service that allows you to send documents from any connected device to your supported printers, or a mobile device as a  kind of virtual print out…Google also has a deal with FedEx offices allowing you to print documents there for a small fee…”

29.    Bill Nye the Science Guy smartphone app  http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/19/19043520-bill-nye-the-science-guy-brings-his-smarts-to-your-smartphone  “When "Bill Nye the Science Guy" went on the air in 1993, one of the smartest smartphones around was an $899 brick-sized contraption called the Simon Personal Communicator…Simon is ancient history — but Bill Nye's smarts are still circulating, on video, on the Web, and now on the latest generation of smartphones and tablets. The Bill Nye the Science Guy app…for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad…celebrates the 20th anniversary of Nye's premiere by offering clips from some of his shows, a gaggle of games with space and science themes, a virtual Martian sundial, six experiments to do at home, and even instructions for tying his signature bow tie…”

SkyNet

30.    Google Makes Google News In Germany Opt-In Only To Avoid Paying Fees  http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/21/google-makes-google-news-in-germany-opt-in-only-to-avoid-paying-fees-under-new-copyright-law/  “Google News in Germany…Starting August 1…will only index sources that have decided to explicitly opt-in to being shown on the search giant’s news-aggregation service. Google News remains an opt-out service in the other 60 countries and languages it currently operates in, but since Germany passed a new copyright law earlier this year that takes effect on August 1, the company is in danger of having to pay newspapers, blogs and other publishers for the right to show even short snippets of news. Publishers will have to go into Google’s News tools page to agree to be indexed by Google News. Publishers who don’t do this will simply be removed from the index come August 1…Germany’s publishers had hoped to force Google to pay a licensing fee for their content…Google always argued that the new law was neither necessary nor useful and that it wouldn’t pay for links and snippets. A number of major German publishers have already said that they will opt-in to being featured in Google News…”

31.     Update makes Google Groups more useful  http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/24/update-makes-google-groups-more-usefule-shared-inbox-improved-moderation-tools/  “…A new version of Google Groups…will provide improved moderation abilities and a shared inbox feature that will improve the product’s usability…New moderation tools include the capability to post canned responses to forum posts, a streamlined options interface, and mobile browsing and moderation abilities. The new inbox feature enables you to collaboratively share a single e-mail inbox. Now members of a project, company, or club can share a single e-mail address for dealing with external parties and then manage the inbox to share email and assign items to each other…”

32.    Virtual Assistant Google Now Is Awesome, And I Never Want To Use It  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-case-against-google-now-2013-6  “Google Now is best understood as the company's response to Apple's Siri. In fact, it puts Siri to shame – it's more accurate and far more versatile. And I want nothing to do with it. My colleague…provided some compelling examples of its functionality…Google Now noticed a meeting on his calendar and gave him a warning based on his location that if he wanted to arrive on time, he had to leave right at that moment…While killing time before a flight from San Francisco to New York, it captured his flight number based only on his search history to keep him apprised of gate information and delays…Google Now raises a troubling question for me…It begs to be relied upon and integrated into your lifestyle in a major way. Even a casual Google Now user is still feeding all his data to it every time he uses the web…the intrinsic nature of Google Now is that it's designed to be blindly relied upon, to be a "life aid." What happens when it goes kaput for some reason?...to boil this all down to a single idea…I'm in charge of my phone. My phone's not in charge of itself. Google Now nearly represents the phone coming to life, acting on its own and without your direction…”

33.    Google adds ‘carousel’ of search results for local places  http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/06/18/google-adds-carousel-of-search-results-for-nearby-restaurants-bars-and-other-local-places/  “Google is updating its search results pages on the desktop today to show an interactive “carousel” of nearby restaurants, bars and other local places. It works as expected; type in a query such as “Italian restaurants” and Google will bring up a horizontal grid of businesses close to your current location. Clicking on the image or name of the result will display further details, such as its address, relevant photos and an aggregated review score…The addition signals a renewed push by Google to serve up contextual information based on the location of the user…”

General Technology

34.    Electric aircraft start finding a foothold in aviation industry  http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57590789-76/electric-aircraft-start-finding-a-foothold-in-aviation-industry/  “…At the Paris Air Show here, a handful of companies tried out their own version of a change sweeping the automotive industry: electric power…Early electric cars were small and light, and electric aircraft are following suit for the same reason: having less mass to push around means a vehicle can get farther on a limited amount of energy…perhaps in a decade an all-electric six-seater Elektra E6 will carry you and a couple friends on a shorter flight. The benefits of electric flight include lower carbon dioxide emissions, quieter aircraft, and machinery with less punishing vibration…The E-Fan from aerospace giant EADS is a compact two-seater aircraft with lithium polymer batteries and dual electric propellers that produce 60 kilowatts of power. It can cruise at 100mph for 45 to 60 minutes for new pilots in training or 30 minutes as an acrobatic plane…when taxiing, it's driven by a powered wheel, not by its flight engines…EADCO, or European Aerospace Design Consultants, announced…the Elektro E6, a six-seat, two-engine electric aircraft that by 2019 will be able to carry a payload of 480kg up to 500km…the plan is to build a proof of concept in three years and a certified model in a decade…AgustaWestland's Project Zero is…a single-passenger tiltrotor whose propellers produce upward thrust during takeoff then pivot to produce forward thrust for flight…the prototype on display at the air show does fly….Diamond Aircraft's DA36 E-Star 2…uses battery-powered electric motors to power its engines; a conventional fuel engine charges the battery as the plane flies…”

35.    Leap Fund offers $25 million for Leap Motion developers  http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57590314-76/leap-fund-offers-$25-million-for-leap-motion-developers/  “Leap Motion won't ship its cutting-edge 3D gesture-control technology until July 22, but the company and one of its main investors…starting a $25 million fund to support developers for the platform. Highland Capital Partners…is launching the…Leap Fund in order to help boost entrepreneurs and companies developing for the Leap, a new technology that lets users control their computers with nothing more than movement of their hands. The $80 technology is accurate to a hundredth of a millimeter and has little, if any, lag…The Leap Fund was designed so that HCP can invest in promising technologies and companies utilizing Leap Motion's technology. Given that that technology has obvious applications across a wide range of industries, from gaming to medical to architecture and beyond, it's easy to imagine any number of potential investments…”

36.    Generate a Monthly Calendar from the Command Line  http://lifehacker.com/generate-a-monthly-calendar-from-the-command-line-514051552  “…Need to quickly check calendar dates and don't have an app at the ready? You can generate calendar data for any month in an instant with a quick terminal command. Just type this:  cal 10 2013…you only need to type cal to generate a calendar for the current month. If you want a different month, however, just type cal and then the number of the month…”

Leisure & Entertainment

37.    Can Microsoft's U-turn stop the Xbox 360 becoming another XP?  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/20/microsot_summer_of_u_turns/  “It's shaping up to be a summer of U-turns for Microsoft. In May Redmond revealed big changes to Windows 8 that increasingly look like a step-away from the all-or-nothing march into the Metro touch UI. Microsoft's now retreating on Xbox One…Xbox One will permit offline gaming and allow gamers to share games…It was a quick reversal…coming just 12 days after Microsoft said its next generation games console would require constant internet access and would restrict use of game titles not originally purchased by the console's owner. The quick change came because gamers were outraged at having to be online to play and would be prevented from swapping Xbox games or buying them secondhand…”

38.    Heirs of Infocom: Where interactive fiction authors and games stand today  http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/heirs-of-infocom-where-interactive-fiction-authors-and-games-stand-today/  “In my review of Get Lamp, the documentary about text adventures, I mentioned that the original Infocom employees believed the market for these games could exist for hundreds of years…The reality, however, is that since the demise of Infocom in 1989, many people have tried to make interactive fiction into a commercial endeavor. None have been able to figure out how to make the financial side work…Everything changed with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Michael Berlyn…at Infocom…was responsible for hit games such as Suspended and Infidel…when he saw the first iPhone, he knew there was a chance to create something new…Berlyn envisioned a kind of “CSI” game where the user could have different modes where they question a suspect, explore a crime scene, or examine evidence…he developed the game Art of Murder…You can explore the crime scene by tapping on important items…and collecting them as evidence. The forensic labs will happily run all sorts of tests for fingerprints, blood, and other clues. You can also question suspects, and their responses will open up new potential suspects…Since there is no time pressure and the District Attorney will refuse to send the case to court unless you can come up with compelling evidence, the game can be played at a relaxed pace…Berlyn wanted to explore other possibilities with writing-reliant interactive fiction. The result was Reconstructing Remy…Remy blurs the boundaries between a book and a game. There is as much text (more than 60,000 words) as a traditional novel but only the introduction is read sequentially. After, the player chooses the order in which to read the rest by “uncovering” chapters from various locations…The Berlyns had to write the text so that each chapter was completely independent from the others while still revealing a story. Much like the movie Memento, reading the story in a different order changes the story itself. Beta testers for Remy reported very different reactions depending on how they approached the tale…Michael Berlyn isn’t the only person attempting to bring back interactive fiction on mobile devices. Andrew Plotkin, a text adventure author who was featured in the Get Lamp documentary, successfully used Kickstarter to fund Hadean Lands, a new piece of interactive fiction…”

39.    First Android-based camera with interchangeable lenses  http://linuxgizmos.com/first-android-based-camera-with-interchangeable-lenses/  “Samsung unveiled a quad-core, 20-megapixel Galaxy NX camera with 4G LTE and a 4.8-inch display, billed as being the first Android-based, connected interchangeable-lens camera, as well as an Android-powered 16-megapixel, 10x-zoom Galaxy S4 Zoom….Almost all Android smartphones are cameras, and lately high-end models have been sporting higher-resolution 12- or 13-megapixel cameras, as well as higher quality image sensors and lenses…Last week, Samsung introduced a slimmed-down Samsung S4 Zoom camera that adds telephony…and today…the company unveiled a high-end Android powered camera called the Samsung Galaxy NX…Galaxy NX runs Android on a quad-core system-on-chip and lacks telephony…it is notable for offering a micro-SIM slot that supports 4G LTE and HSPA cellular data, in addition to WiFi. Even more so than the Galaxy Camera, the NX looks like a camera, not a phone, and offers a deep handgrip…”

40.    New plays in micropublishing: Literary short fiction and futurism  http://pandodaily.com/2013/06/24/new-plays-in-micropublishing-literary-short-fiction-and-futurism/  “The micropublishing explosion has presented the world with an extraordinary opportunity to rethink and reinvent the way words and images are distributed and monetized. One of its most significant impacts is that it allows niche publishers a chance to build a paying audience around subjects or writers that might otherwise struggle to survive the ravages of cutthroat capitalism and ad-supported publication models…Two such hopefuls are nearing the conclusion of month-long Kickstarter campaigns…Connu, which looks likely to reach its $15,000 target today, is building a publication that will publish the short fiction of emerging writers; and Austin’s Johnston Ayala is just over halfway to his goal of raising $16,000 for a “magazine of new futurism,” The Ascender…Connu wants to showcase the best work from new writers by publishing five stories a week in a mobile-first format. The idea is to publish one story a day, five days a week – and, crucially, to pay those writers. Connu has a two-tiered premium model. Readers can get the iPhone or iPad app for free and pay as they go, or they can pay for all-you-can-read subscriptions: $3.99 a month, or $6.99 a month with access to the audio versions of the stories, which are read by the writers themselves. There’ll also be an annual subscription option, which will likely be somewhere in the order of $15 a year…Promising to build a digital magazine for the iPhone and iPad, and later the Web, Johnston Ayala says The Ascender will cover “futurism” in depth, with narrative storytelling and investigative journalism that covers everything  from film to transportation, art to engineering…While subscriptions would provide the main source of revenue, Ayala is also considering brand sponsorships and merchandising, both of which would be tied to a community of likeminded people that the editor hopes to build around the magazine…Both Connu and The Ascender are emblematic of an emerging publishing universe that is free of the legacy costs of the pre-mobile era and can also benefit from the friction-lite distribution methods of the Web and the App Store …”

Entrepreneurism and Technology

41.     Videopixie Launches To Create A Marketplace For Video Editors  http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/19/yc-backed-videopixie-launches-to-create-a-marketplace-for-video-editors/  “There are tons of raw video footage out there…But…editing that footage is a problem. For as many of us as there are who like to shoot video, very few of us know how to edit it…Videopixie is…creating a marketplace devoted entirely to connecting users who have video with those who can edit it…it’s providing a way for anyone to have beautiful videos created out of raw footage from professional video editors and animators. Two years ago, the team behind Videopixie launched Sellstage, which was a platform for marketers to distribute their product videos online…what the team found was that many sellers needed help with the actual creation of their videos…Sellstage’s customers would frequently have video footage that they had shot, but they would have no editing experience…Videopixie…works like this: Users log in and upload all their raw video footage, then make it available for editors to have a go at it. They can run a contest, with editors vying for the business by putting together a quick teaser trailer using the footage provided. Or they can submit footage and have editors bid on a project, and choose them based on ratings and price. There are also fixed-price options for smaller projects…businesses can use the service to cost-effectively get product videos, customer testimonials, or explainer videos created. And consumers can use it, too, for weddings, vacations, and the like…”

42.    Stratasys to Acquire MakerBot  http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130619006431/en/Stratasys-Acquire-MakerBot-Merging-Global-3D-Printing  “Stratasys Ltd…and MakerBot…announced…a…merger agreement whereby…MakerBot has agreed to merge with a subsidiary of Stratasys in a stock-for-stock transaction. MakerBot…has built the largest installed base of 3D printers in the category…The company has sold more than 22,000 3D printers since 2009…The combination of these two industry leaders is expected to drive faster adoption of 3D printing for multiple applications and industries, as desktop 3D printers are becoming a mainstream tool across many market segments…MakerBot will operate as a separate subsidiary of Stratasys, maintaining its own identity, products and go-to-market strategy…”

43.    Your Current Supply Chain Is Toast, But Its Replacement Will Be Awesome  http://readwrite.com/2013/06/24/software-defined-supply-chain-ibm  “3D printing, intelligent robotics, and open source hardware stand to revolutionize modern-day manufacturing. These disruptive forces will usher in a new manufacturing paradigm that is managed by software and data files — something we call the “software-defined supply chain.” For more than a year, my colleagues and I have been carefully studying the likely impact and implications of these technologies. We wanted to see if these new technologies could alleviate many of the constraints and the fixed costs of a traditional supply chain, and if so, to what extent?...While we found that a software-defined supply chain model quickly becomes cheaper to operate, that alone was not the most impactful finding. Instead, it was the vast reduction in scale that it enables…we determined that our products, when made in a software-defined supply chain model, would be 23 percent cheaper, on average, than they are now in traditional manufacturing. Even more importantly, the scale required to achieve a cost-effective result was up to 90 percent lower…Out of the four products we tested to understand the benefits of a software-defined supply chain, the levels of median economic scale were shown to be 75 percent lower over a span of five years and up to 90 percent lower over a decade…If the typical volumes required to be efficient today imply that 3-5 major companies are serving a particular market, they will in the future suggest that it is possible that as many as 30-50 smaller companies could serve the same market profitably…”

44.    Gigwalk Does Temp-Worker Hiring Without Job Interviews  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-24/gigwalk-does-temp-worker-hiring-without-job-interviews  “The rate at which you reply to e-mails may reveal your overall competence…according to Gigwalk, a company that helps businesses hire on-the-spot temporary workers. “If you reply within an hour, your success rate for completing a job ends up being about 97 percent…But if it takes longer than five hours, that number drops to 47 percent.” Gigwalk…has developed several mathematical models that shed light on employee behavior and follow-through…the company evaluated more than 300,000 workers who have used the GPS-based Gigwalks app to take nearby jobs doing everything from testing iPhone software to snapping photos of restaurants and nail salons for online-mapping companies. Gigwalk uses what it calls its “Moneyball engine”…to find good workers without ever engaging in personal interactions. “We never meet our workers, never interview them, never look them in the eye,”…After all, interactions cost time and money, and they don’t necessarily reveal much…”

Design / DEMO

45.    Tech Moves to the Background as Design Becomes Foremost  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/tech-moves-to-the-background-as-design-becomes-mainstream/  “…the computing industry has passed through several different eras. In the ’90s, the big tech companies were in a race for faster and more powerful computers…in the 2000s, the industry moved to mobile in a quest for slimmer phones with brighter screens. Now, the industry is entering the era of design…within product categories such as smartphones…the look and feel of the software is what allows a competitor to leap ahead of the competition…Design, it seems, is becoming a mainstream topic…“In the ’90s when I would meet with investors, there was no return on investment for design. Yet today, 20 years later, every project I do is because design is seen as absolutely central,” said Yves Béhar…Mr. Béhar said that…directors, chief executives and investors often sit in meetings and ask about user interface, overall experience, and the look and feel of a product. Twenty years ago, most investors wouldn’t even know what those terms meant. What the mainstream and the financiers are now starting to realize is that design is a doorway to something much more important…”

46.    How to become a designer without going to design school  http://karenx.com/blog/how-to-become-a-designer-without-going-to-design-school/  “I got my job as a designer without going to design school. I had hacked together my own design education in 6 months while working a full-time job. I didn’t think I was ready but started applying for jobs anyway – and got a job at a great startup, Exec…I’m nowhere near as good as those design prodigies that come out of a 4-year education at an elite school like RISD. But I’m definitely good enough to do my job well. I’m the only designer at Exec, so I do a pretty wide range of things – visual and interaction design, print, web, and mobile app design…This is a guide to teach yourself design…”

DHMN Technology

47.    This web server is running on a Raspberry Pi (Model B) powered 100% by Solar energy  http://pi.qcontinuum.com/project.html  “…I wanted to come up with a fun project utilizing the Raspberry.  I decided to set it up as a server on the Internet and see how many years I could keep it running without a reboot…I decided to spice it up and run it using 100% solar power that I generate at my house, with no connection to the grid…I did not realize how much work I would need to do to create all of the backend applications and web content.  I should have spent more of the time…to better prepare…I bought solar panels rated at 45 Watts based on these calculations…The Raspberry Pi Model "B" requires a 700ma 5 Volt (3.5 Watts) power supply…In a 24 hour period the Raspberry Pi would use 8.4AH of the 80AH battery.  So, the solar charger at 3.5 amps would need to change the battery at least 2.4 hours each day to stay even with the power usage of the Raspberry Pi…”

48.    Arduino Workshop: A Hands-On Introduction with 65 Projects  http://boingboing.net/2013/06/24/arduino-workshop-a-hands-on-i.html  “The Arduino is a low cost microcontroller that was made for artists and designers to add interactivity to their projects. If you are interested the Arduino microcontroller but have no experience with it, buy an Arduino and a copy of Getting Starting with Arduino. If you know a little about Arduino and are looking for project ideas, get Arduino Workshop: A Hands-On Introduction with 65 Projects. You'll learn how to use the Arduino to control motors, interface with GPS an IR remote control, and connect to the Internet…”

49.    Adafruit smart helmet for bike riders  “Bike sharing systems like New York's Citi Bike may be taking off, but it's doubtful that many participants can find every station without checking a map…Adafruit has unveiled a smart helmet project that could help at least a few of those riders get to their destinations while keeping their eyes on the road. The DIY effort feeds locations to an Arduino-based Flora board and its positioning add-ons, which in turn use a string of NeoPixel LEDs on the helmet as turn indicators. Commuters just have to watch for blinking lights to know where to go next. While the system isn't easy to set up when cyclists have to manually enter coordinates, it is flexible: the open-source code lets it adapt to most any bike sharing system or headpiece…”

Open Source Hardware

50.    Open Source RepRap Simpson 3D Printer Design Reduces Friction  http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/19/the-open-source-reprap-simpson-3d-printer-design-reduces-friction-uses-less-vitamins/  “This is the Grounded Experimental Delta 3D printer, aka the Simpson, a project built by computer science teacher Nicholas Seward that does away with the excess frames, pulleys, and hardware associated with earlier models. Seward wanted a machine that could print itself and used “less vitamins,” namely metal parts that the machine couldn’t create from scratch. There are still motors and controllers, but there are fewer in this model than in any other I’ve seen…this bot is an interesting leap forward. The motion of the arms…s far more organic than the traditional linear gantry style devices I’ve seen. Because it uses fewer parts it’s far cheaper to make and because it can build itself it is a true RepRap or “self replicating machine.” Seward writes: “I want a machine that can walk or crawl and hopefully scribble its name. Maybe later the machine will run or skydive and make works of art…”

51.     Build your own GPS and camera equipped multi rotor  http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/Build-your-own-GPS-and-camera-equipped-multi-rotor-3571.php  “…A team of roboticists in the US have developed an open source hardware platform called 'APM autopilot', based on Arduino, that can be installed in radio controlled multicopters and aeroplanes to unleash full autonomous capabilities. The APM platform utilises GPS and a range of other sensors inclu             ding a barometers, a gyroscope and a compass. When coupled with Mission Planner software running on a laptop you can pre-program a flight using waypoints and the craft will take off, follow the pre-determined route and land, without any user intervention. The APM autopilot also means that a multicopter can be built and controlled using a radio control transmitter whilst benefitting from stabilisation. Features such as Altitude Hold, Loiter and Circle can all be commanded from the controller. Most will carry a GoPro with ease, larger ones can carry full size DSLRs…”

Open Source

52.    Speed up your websites with a caching HTTP reverse proxy  http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/speed-your-web-site-varnish  “Varnish is a program that can greatly speed up a Web site while reducing the load on the Web server…Varnish is a "Web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy"…Although every server is different, a typical Web server will go through a potentially long sequence of steps to service each request it receives…Things are a little different with Varnish in place. For starters, the request is received by Varnish instead of the Web server. Varnish then will look at what's being requested and forward the request to the Web server (known as a back end to Varnish)…If that's all Varnish did, it wouldn't be much help. What gives us the performance gains is that Varnish can store responses from the back end in its cache for future use. Varnish quickly can serve the next response directly from its cache without placing any needless load on the back-end server. The result is that the load on the back end is reduced significantly, response times improve, and more requests can be served per second. One of the things that makes Varnish so fast is that it keeps its cache completely in memory instead of on disk. This and other optimizations allow Varnish to process requests at blinding speeds…”

53.    How to mount your Pogoplug on Linux automatically  http://tuxtweaks.com/2013/06/mount-your-pogoplug-on-linux/  “…the Pogoplug, it is a small Linux based plug computer that allows you to share personal files over the web. You can think of it as your own personal cloud storage server. While you can always access your Pogoplug files through the web interface, it's nice to have local access to the files straight from your file manager. In this tutorial I'll show you how to mount the Pogoplug on Linux and how to get it to mount automatically when your computer boots. I'll be writing these directions for Ubuntu Linux 12.04, (I'm using Kubuntu 12.04 actually), but it should work similarly for other versions and distributions. I'm assuming that you've already plugged your Pogoplug into your router, activated it, and you can access your files through the web interface at http://my.pogoplug.com…”

Civilian Aerospace

54.    How to live on the moon  http://www.space.com/21611-moon-base-lunar-colony-guide.html  “…Even before the first human set foot on the lunar surface during NASA's Apollo program in 1969, people around the world were dreaming about a permanent moon base to colonize Earth's closest celestial object…experts in private industry and governments around the world are trying to understand how feasible it would be to establish a lunar base…Paul Spudis, a lunar geologist with NASA…I specifically looked at how you can go back to the moon under the existing budget without any additional money for NASA — and you can do it."…the small amount of gravitational force put on an astronaut's body when on the moon could help stem some of the adverse effects like bone-density and muscle loss that spaceflyers experience while living in microgravity on the International Space Station…The first step in establishing a moon base might be robotic. Once unmanned missions establish the beginnings of a base, humans can launch to the lunar surface to conduct research and maintain the habitat…3D printing a lunar base using material already available on the moon could be a practical way to establish an outpost…A robot would conduct the 3D-printing program autonomously. The robot would use a mixture of lunar dirt and dust, called regolith, to cover an inflatable dome with layers of the robust material…instead of having to stage costly missions aimed at delivering oxygen and other necessary volatiles from Earth, experts might be able to actually use mined lunar material to manufacture gasses needed to sustain life on the satellite…Water could also be used for radiation protection on the exposed lunar surface…By developing reusable vehicles and space transportation systems that can enter and remain in the area between the Earth and the moon (called cislunar space), scientists can use that in-between space as a staging and fueling ground for a mission to Mars…engineers might be able to manufacture propellant for deep-space travel using the natural resources the moon has to offer…”

55.     Merritt Island students' satellite has them soaring  http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20130624/SPACE/306240019/Launch-propels-students-higher  “The launch of a satellite designed and built by Merritt Island High’s Satellite Club members may end up launching their future careers. A group of nine current students and recent graduates saw their CubeSat launch in a high-altitude test flight last weekend aboard a Prospector 18-D rocket in the Mojave Desert in California… “It’s amazing to think that we, as high school kids, were able to accomplish this,” said Gurkirat Kainth, 17… There was a lead person in each of the various areas: mechanical, power, communications and command data handling.”…the NASA mentors were invaluable in guiding the students, who were tasked with creating a satellite that would collect and share data with a partner satellite built by students at California’s Polytechnic State University…Four of those small satellites flew in the June 15 demonstration mission designed to study the launch environment from liftoff to landing. The spacecraft are being developed to help simplify and lower the cost of small satellite missions, which could fly on smaller, dedicated rockets…”

56.    SpaceX To Launch Turkmenistan's First Satellite  http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/06/22/spacex-to-launch-turkmenistan-satellite-originally-to-be-launched-by-china/  “SpaceX announced today that it will be launching Turkmenistan’s first satellite, having been awarded a contract from Thales Alenia Space. The satellite is for the country’s state run communications system. Thales Alenia Space was awarded the contract to build the satellite in November 2011…The satellite will be launched in late 2014 or early 2015 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and will be delivered into geostationary orbit. The satellite was originally going to be delivered into orbit by a Chinese Long March rocket. However, according to a report in SpaceNews.com, U.S. export control rules cover some of the components in the satellite…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

57.     Hadoop + GPU: Boost performance of your big data project by 50x-200x?  http://www.networkworld.com/news/tech/2013/062413-hadoop-gpu-271194.html  “Hadoop, an open source framework that enables distributed computing, has changed the way we deal with big data. Parallel processing with this set of tools can improve performance several times over. The question is, can we make it work even faster? What about offloading calculations from a CPU to a graphics processing unit (GPU) designed to perform complex 3D and mathematical tasks? In theory, if the process is optimized for parallel computing, a GPU could perform calculations 50-100 times faster than a CPU. This article…explores what is possible and how you can try this for your large-scale system… Some developers claim that if your cluster consists of several nodes, performance can be accelerated by 50x-200x. For example, the creators of the MITHRA project achieved a 254x increase…”

58.    What should replace Linpack for ranking supercomputers?  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/21/hpcg_supercomputing_benchmark_proposal/  “The Linpack Fortran benchmark, which has been used to gauge the relative performance of workstations and supercomputers for many decades, is looking a little long in the tooth. So, some of the people who love Linpack and know it best are proposing a new benchmark - with the mind-numbing name of High Performance Conjugate Gradient, or HPCG. All system benchmark tests run their courses, and the most successful ones usually overstay their welcome and stop doing what they are designed to do…the kind of codes that were initially deployed on parallel clusters fifteen years ago bore more of a relationship to High Performance Linpack, or HPL, than they do in all cases today…HPL rankings of computer systems are no longer so strongly correlated to real application performance, especially for the broad set of HPC applications governed by differential equations, which tend to have much stronger needs for high bandwidth and low latency, and tend to access data using irregular patterns…designing a system for good HPL performance can actually lead to design choices that are wrong for the real application mix, or add unnecessary components or complexity to the system…”

59.    Advanced cancer treatment enabled by GPU computing  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/first-patient-treated-worldwide-with-accurays-new-tomohdatm-system-2013-06-05  “Accuray…announced today the first patient has been treated with its new TomoHDA(TM) System…the TomoHDA System is a fully-integrated radiation therapy system designed to treat the full spectrum of cancer patients. Performance enhancements, unrivaled dose distributions and faster treatments are among the multiple new benefits…we believe it is a true innovation that has the potential to optimize cancer care for the full spectrum of cancer patients we treat, especially those battling breast cancer."…All three TomoTherapy Systems are equipped with VoLO(TM) Technology…VoLO Technology relies on high-end graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware and software that leverage the GPU's parallel processing abilities to perform dose calculation and optimization in a matter of minutes even for the most complex cases…”

Trends & Emerging Tech

60.    7 predictions for the future of health care technology  http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/23/7-predictions-for-the-future-of-health-care-technology/  “…Here are my seven predictions about where healthcare is headed…a democratization of medical knowledge…A transparent meritocracy amongst doctors…consolidated patient information…Tech will catalyze drastic system-wide cost savings and efficiencies…medical knowledge will advance at record speeds…Doctors will be trained to bring “care” back into “health care”…We will see unprecedented market caps…”

61.     Top Tech Trends Change the Game  http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/are-you-future-ready-top-tech-trends-change-the-game-272041.htm  “…This…new era of fast change…will reshape business and society….Innovation Drives a Prosperous Planet…The Connected Economy…Cyber-Insecurity; The Rise of Dark Networks…Web 3.0: The Semantic Web…The Intelligent Enterprise: Big Data & Cloud Computing…Network Agility…Quantum Technology…The Maker Revolution and 3D Printing…Rethinking Energy: Smart Grids…”

*****