NEW NET Weekly List for 03 Sep 2013

Below is the final list of technology news and issues for the Tuesday, 03 September 2013, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurism and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering at Mojito's Mexican Grill, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA (the old Sergio's location).

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

1.        Microsoft shares drop on $7.2 billion purchase of Nokia Mobile, Nokia shares rise  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/02/microsoft-enters-into-7-1b-deal-to-buy-nokias-devices-and-services-business-and-license-key-patents/  “…Microsoft announced…it has inked a deal with Nokia to acquire “substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services.” The total price of the deal is…$7.17 billion…as part of the deal, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop will be stepping aside as Nokia President and CEO to fill a new role at Microsoft as “Nokia Executive Vice President of Devices & Services.” Being that Elop has emerged as a leading rumored contender for the soon-to-be-vacant spot at the helm of Microsoft, this could be a strong signal about the future of Microsoft’s executive leadership…Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said…Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft’s share and profits in phones…Although this seems like the end of Nokia as we know it, it sounds like for now the company is still planning on moving forward as a standalone entity of some sort…”

2.       China’s Tencent is giving away 10TB worth of free cloud storage  http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/08/30/forget-1tb-chinas-tencent-is-giving-away-10tb-worth-of-free-cloud-storage/  “…Chinese tech giants Baidu and Qihoo 360 are currently courting users with 1TB of free space…Chinese tech company Tencent has upped the game, offering… 10TB worth of free storage…those who want to get your hands on this staggering 10TB worth of space had better be quick. This latest move…will also likely put pressure on cloud storage services, which often give away set amounts of free storage space…Dropbox has offered free space amounts ranging from 25-50GB as part of promotional deals with Samsung and HTC, Box has offered 50GB of free storage with file-size limitations…”  [do you trust a Chinese internet company to keep your files secure and private, or might these TB file repositories end up as an experiement for Chinese hackers? Can you say high strength encryption? – ed.]

3.       Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/uberauto/  “…local transportation and delivery giant Uber announced its biggest bet on autonomous vehicles yet, saying it would purchase 2,500 driverless cars from Google…Uber will share data from its local transportation services with Google, which will use it to further improve its own autonomous car-routing algorithms. Uber has committed to invest up to $375 million for a fleet of Google’s GX3200 vehicles, which are the company’s third generation of autonomous driving cars, but the first to be approved for commercial use in the U.S…The GX3200, which was shown off earlier this year at the Detroit Auto Show, is Google’s latest effort to produce a fully electric, fully autonomous vehicle. The car seats four…and has room for up to three suitcases in its rear storage compartment…each car acts as its own wireless base station, so that passengers can connect to the Internet…”

4.       Researcher remotely controls colleague's body with brain  http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57600284-76/scientist-controls-colleagues-hand-in-first-human-brain-to-brain-interface/  “…scientists Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco claim that they are the first to demonstrate human brain-to-brain communication. Rao sent a signal into a Stocco's brain via the Internet that caused him to move his right hand…Rao looked at a computer screen and played a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand (being careful not to actually move his hand), causing a cursor to hit the "fire" button. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn't looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon…The mind-meld between the researchers wasn't seamless. Rao spent time training his mind, with feedback from the computer, to emit the brainwave for moving the right hand so that it could be detected by the computer…”

5.        Wearable computer more powerful than Google Glass  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518596/a-wearable-computer-more-powerful-than-glass-and-even-more-awkward/  “Steve Mann, a pioneer in the field of wearable computing…is also lending his weight and experience to a company hoping to loosen Google Glass’s grip on the nascent market with a different take on computer glasses that merges the real and the virtual. The company…is building computerized headwear that can overlay interactive 3-D content onto the real world. While the device is bulky, Meta hopes to eventually slim it down into a sleek, light pair of normal-looking glasses that could be used in all kinds of virtual activities, from gaming to product design…Meta’s…initial product, called Space Glasses…doesn’t have a built-in battery or central or graphics processors…It includes a see-through projectable LCD for each eye, an infrared depth camera, and a standard color camera, as well as an accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass. The second version of Space Glasses will be lighter and less bulky-looking, the team says, and will include a battery and central and graphics processors…”

6.       Livewith.us Makes The Roommate Search Better  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/livewith-us-launch/  “Looking for someone to share your apartment on Craigslist can be a huge pain…Livewith.us is…not actually trying to compete with Craigslist…its creators expect users to continue posting and finding roommate listings on Craigslist. However, when the someone finds a listing that seems like a good fit, they can apply via Livewith.us. It’s…in the latter part of the process…that the site should be useful. Both tenants…and applicants have profiles on the site. They can use data imported from Facebook or they can be built from scratch…Livewith.us gives you the basic social context (including a list of mutual friends) that you’re looking for without showing you their drunk photos…there’s a dashboard where you can see the status of all your applications, and you can send follow-up messages…There are some nice touches in the Craigslist integration…Tenants can…create the listing on Livewith.us, then publish it on Craigslist with a big “apply” button that will lead applicants back to Livewith.us. Applicants can also install the Livewith.us browser plug-in, which will allow them to apply for any listing on Craigslist with a link to their Livewith.us profile…Livewith.us is tackling a part of the housing process that’s been relatively neglected by startups…most other companies have a more pressing need to make money, so they’re going to try to get involved in the owner-tenant or broker-tenant relationship. Exygy, on the other hand, is an online services company, and it created Livewith.us as a side project…”

7.        Mail Digitizing Service Outbox Opens To All San Francisco Residents  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/29/outbox-general-availability-sf/  “Outbox, a startup that digitizes your physical mail and makes it available on the web and via iPhone, Android, and iPad apps, says…it’s now generally available in San Francisco. After a trial period in Austin, Outbox launched in San Francisco earlier this year, but it was a beta version of the service…we went on a mail run with Outbox co-founder Evan Baehr and one of the company’s “un-postmen”…“digital natives” are a big part of the early customer base, but he added…we have a lot of moms on the platform who just want to be better managers of their home communication. We’ve got a lot of travelers who are away for businesses, consultants or salespeople, and they want to be able to manage this important workflow when they’re not at their house. There are…privacy concerns about having a startup open up all your physical mail. Outbox tries to address those concerns with background checks on its un-postmen, shredding and recycling all the physical mail that you don’t want, and offering $1 million in identity theft insurance…there are certain people out there that just aren’t convinced by that,” Baehr acknowledged…Outbox isn’t for everybody.”…Baehr suggested that the “best testament to what we can pull off” is that as far as the team is aware, Outbox has not yet had any security breaches…Baehr said…they…charge customers only $7.99 a month…”  http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/29/outbox-is-taking-on-the-post-office-and-if-its-not-a-total-trainwreck-it-will-be-awesome/   [for $8/mo, I’d be tempted to sign up just to get rid of the ‘shredding junk mail’ headache, not to mention the convenience factor of having the wanted mail digitized for easy management and future recovery – ed.]

8.       Smartwatches are ready, but are consumers?  http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/09/01/time-for-smartwatch/UhonhSoj7ZqwXoFKcx7I1O/story.html  “…Samsung…Galaxy Gear is a smartwatch, the latest in a wave of new devices that add microprocessors and wireless networking to the traditional wrist-mounted timepiece. Samsung doesn’t have the market to itself; a host of companies, including Japan’s Sony Corp., are already in the smartwatch business. Apple Inc. and Google Inc. are both rumored to be developing such watches. And a number of start-up companies with names like Pebble and I’m Watch have released their own…The looming debut of the Samsung watch has rekindled debate over whether the public is ready for so-called wearable computing — devices that are attached to the body like jewelry or articles of clothing — and, if so, which form will catch on first: smartwatches or, for example, Google Glass, a computer integrated into a set of eyeglasses…a market waiting for a killer application,” said Nitin Bhas, senior analyst at the British technology research firm Juniper Research…Bhas predicts makers of smartwatches like the Galaxy Gear will sell about 1 million units worldwide this year, and 36 million by 2018…There’s nothing new about the idea of smartwatches. Primitive computerized timepieces have been around since the 1980s. But their bulky styling and limited features doomed them with consumers…”

9.       Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Retire Within 12 Months  http://www.cnbc.com/id/100963220  “Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer shocked the technology world on Friday by announcing he would step down within 12 months, punctuating a tenure marked by the software giant's declining dominance and struggles to keep pace with its competitors…investors applauded the news by sending Microsoft's shares surging by more than 7 percent — adding a whopping $24 billion to the software company's market capitalization…Ballmer was forced to wrestle with unfavorable comparisons to his predecessor, despite a much more flamboyant personal style that made for several viral videos…he presided over a 37 percent decline in the company's stock price, relegating Microsoft to among the worst performing stocks in the Nasdaq 100 Index…”  http://allthingsd.com/20130823/steve-ballmer-just-made-769-million/  “…Ballmer owns 333,252,990 shares of the company…after Ballmer disclosed his retirement plans, Microsoft’s share price rose some seven percent…making him $769 million in the process…On the last day of 1999, the day before he took over as CEO, Microsoft’s market capitalization was $600 billion. On the day before he announced his intention to retire, it was less than $270 billion…”

10.     Introducing the Snapdragon 800  http://gigaom.com/2013/08/30/ready-for-smartphones-with-a-next-generation-chip-theyre-right-around-the-corner/  “…two companies…are expected to announce powerful new mobile devices built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 chip…what’s the big deal about the 800?...It adds the potential for completely new features we haven’t yet seen on smartphones…Sony’s Xperia Ultra and LG’s G2 may or may not fully utilize the chip’s functionality…the Snapdragon 800 supports much higher resolution video capture…A new Adreno 330 graphics chip is expected to boost visual performance by 50 percent from the prior version…802.11ac Wi-Fi is natively supported, offering faster speeds and greater range for those with a compatible router. I upgraded to one of these routers earlier this year and see a noticeable boost with devices that support the standard. Also interesting is potential for…Listening for user input through a low-powered, dedicated Digital Signal Processor…if you don’t mind being creeped out a bit…”

The ‘net

11.      Box Doubles Its Free Plan To 10GB, Creates New $5/Month, 100GB Storage Tier  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/21/box-doubles-its-free-plan-to-10gb-creates-new-5month-100gb-storage-tier-for-small-firms/  “Box, an enterprise-facing cloud document and file storage service, today opened a new front in the online storage war by doubling its free plan to 10GB of space, and added a new, low-cost paid plan to its mix to help attract smaller companies. Compare this to Microsoft, which, through SkyDrive, will give you 7GB; Google will give you 15GB of storage across Gmail and its storage product Drive; and Dropbox, the runt of the litter, offers 2GB…”

12.     Goldman Invests $40 Million in SugarCRM  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-21/goldman-invests-40-million-in-salesforce-rival-sugarcrm.html  “SugarCRM Inc., a maker of sales-tracking software, raised $40 million from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to speed global expansion as it takes on larger rivals Oracle Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc… “We think the opportunity for CRM is vastly underpenetrated,” Augustin said. “We figure there are 450 million to 500 million people in customer-facing roles. Today, commercial CRM companies serve maybe 20 million of them…”

13.     Bunkr Is The PowerPoint Killer We’ve All Been Waiting For  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/bunkr-is-the-powerpoint-killer-weve-all-been-waiting-for/  “French startup Bunkr is focused on one simple task: killing PowerPoint…the company’s…web app will help you collect visual content and organize it into slides. The result is a very visual HTML5 presentation that works on your computer, phone or tablet. You can export your work in PDF or PPT…“We realized that we spent a lot of time putting together beautiful PowerPoint presentations instead of searching for information and content, analyzing and providing strategies for our clients…we asked ourselves how we could become faster at formatting presentations…The answer lies in the two main components of the products — collecting content and creating a presentation. In order to do a PowerPoint presentation, you have to spend a large chunk of time searching for good images and videos on the web…You could use Evernote or a similar data capturing service. Instead, Bunkr chose to take care of this part of the process. It is not only a presentation maker, it is an Evernote-like service for your presentations. Whenever you see something that you want to add to your presentation, just click on the bookmarklet and it will be in your Bunkr account…With Bunkr, you create your own Pinterest-like content database. Whenever you need to add an image or a quote, you tap into this database…”

14.     Weebly Looks To Expand With Big New SF Headquarters  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/as-wix-heads-toward-ipo-weebly-looks-to-expand-with-big-new-sf-headquarters-plans-to-add-500-employees/  “Weebly, the service that lets you, your grandma and anyone else build a website for free, is growing fast. The startup launched out of Y Combinator in 2007 and today hosts over 15 million sites, which together see more than 100 million unique visitors each month…Weebly’s new office will be nearly five-times the size of its current space in Pac Heights…Weebly plans to move into the new space…in early 2014 and…plans to grow to up to 600 employees globally…When Weebly moved into their current offices in 2011, the company was just 19 employees…”

15.     Doximity, A LinkedIn For Medical Professionals, Now Reaches About 30% Of Doctors In The U.S.  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/doximity/  “Doximity, which is like a LinkedIn for physicians that lets them share patient data in a HIPAA-compliant way, said that it’s now reaching about 30 percent of doctors in the country. They’ve got about 200,000 licensed physicians on-board across the U.S. in every major city and sub-specialty…It took LinkedIn many times longer to reach that level of penetration in the white-collar workforce and Doximity has accomplished this in about three years…CEO Jeff Tangney…founded Doximity a few years ago as a way to attack how doctors share medical data on their patients. Hand-offs between doctors are an eternal source of mistakes…There are 15 billion faxes a year sent in the U.S. healthcare system and it’s because there is no other legal way to send your lab report from one office to the other…So they built Doximity as a social network for doctors where physicians could look up other colleagues or physicians. Tangney says the platform is speeding up the process with which doctors can find relevant specialists for patients. In one case this week, he said a doctor treating a patient with a tear in their retina was able to find an eye surgeon in the same day…they’ve started to pick up momentum with doctor-to-doctor referrals generating 80 percent of new users…”

16.     Justdelete.me Wants To Help You Pull The Plug On All Those Pesky Online Accounts  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/23/justdelete-me-wants-to-help-you-pull-the-plug-on-all-those-pesky-online-accounts/  “…Everyday you log into services tailor-made for shopping, searching, sharing, watching, chatting, curating, reading, bragging — that’s a lot of places to keep your personal information…Robb Lewis and…Ed Poole…teamed up to create what may be a truly indispensable resource. It’s called Justdelete.me…it’s a directory of links to pages where you can lay waste to your myriad online accounts…You’re greeted with a sizable grid that points you to a slew of popular web services that you probably use…those links point you straight at the pages where you can deactivate all those pesky accounts… or at least where you can try…Of the ones that Lewis has added, 10 won’t let you kill your account without first talking to a customer service rep, and 4 (Netflix, Steam, Starbucks, and WordPress) don’t seem to let you delete your accounts at all…it’s in these companies’ best interests to keep the account deletion process as obtuse…as possible…it’s far from being a complete compendium…Justdelete.me is very much a work-in-progress — he’ll gladly accept suggestions for services that people think should be on the list…”

17.     Happy 10th birthday Skype. You changed everything; too bad you didn’t change Microsoft  http://gigaom.com/2013/08/29/happy-10th-birthday-skype-you-changed-everything-too-bad-you-didnt-change-microsoft/  “…Skype turned ten years old…since it was acquired by Microsoft, Skype as we know is slowly losing its identity…a Microsoft product that is there just to further Microsoft’s vague and unclear ambitions about unified communications…I…remember the Skype of the early days — that…tiny little startup that single-handedly did what no trustbuster had been able to do — put the telecoms on the defensive…It was…a sketchy little application and it came bundled with Kazaa; gnarly software by anyone’s standards. And it was developed by some dudes in Sweden…Skype…is in the same league of companies — Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter — that changed the internet and in the process changed society itself. If Google democratized access to information, then Skype democratized the idea of communications…in 2012 it accounted for 167 billion minutes of international voice traffic…Skype’s future is looking increasingly murky…It worked because it was simple and easy to use. Today, it is neither. The elegant and minimal interface of the past is gone. Instead it has been replaced by an interface that can be described at best as clunky and cluttered…Today, our office uses Google Hangouts for video. Messaging is free thanks to dozens of specialized apps. Phone calls are pretty darn cheap and…voice calls are for special and increasingly rare occasions. Skype has started to kill its app ecosystem. The cold embrace of Microsoft is slowly turning Skype into some strange mutation married to something called Microsoft Lync. The…is the enterprise and “unified communications…”

18.     Eventbrite buys Lanyard and Eventioz  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/eventbrite-acquires-eventioz-and-lanyrd/  “…Eventbrite is announcing…the first two acquisitions in its seven-year history…event data company Lanyrd and Latin American ticketing service Eventioz. Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Kevin Hartz said the company has “traditionally…wanted to build everything in-house.”…he said Eventbrite is at “the stage and size to be acquisitive,” with “an appetite” to expand geographically and technologically. Lanyrd will allow Eventbrite to incorporate more structured data into its listings (…Eventbrite might eventually be able to automatically provide event organizers with speaker data), while Eventioz will give Eventbrite a foothold for Latin American expansion…Lanyrd has…been used to help nearly 40,000 events in 148 countries, and it hosts more than 72,000 speaker profiles…Eventioz…was founded in 2008…and is headquartered in Mendoza, Argentina. It will continue to operate in Latin America…”

19.     LinkedIn’s youth movement a small step in the right direction  http://pandodaily.com/2013/09/02/linkedins-youth-movement-a-small-step-in-the-right-direction/  “LinkedIn’s…announcement that it would be opening its network up to high schoolers (13+ worldwide; 14+ US)…sent a shock wave through the education community. While there continues to be concern from both parents and educators about students using yet another social medium for building a professional network, the fact is networking is an important skill to develop for long term professional success. It’s also a necessary tool for getting a career off the ground and gets at the heart of the question: “What do you want to be?” LinkedIn is trying to help young career planners begin building their professional networks. This is laudable but incomplete…For example, many young people aren’t sure what they want to do when they finish school. They need tools to help them make the connection between what they’re studying and how those subjects align with the skills they need for a particular job…Until students better understand what they want to do and how their training and education fits into a particular career path, they won’t be able to build a useful professional network…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

20.    Handshake Is A Personal Data Marketplace  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/02/handshake/  “…most Internet companies make money off user data — either by selling the specifics of individuals’ digital activity to interested companies, or by bundling up multiple users’ data into quasi-anonymised business intelligence…here’s a startup that wants to make this money-for-data transfer a little more explicit — by acting as a platform for consumers to sell their own data directly to companies…Handshake says it’s aiming to…build…a platform where users can sign up to be approached by companies, negotiate a price for their data, and decide who to sell it to (and who not to). The basic idea is to create a marketplace for personal data…It estimates that users of the platform could earn between £1,000 and £5,000 per year for selling their data…take those earnings figures with a pinch of salt…The startup is currently accepting applications for beta testers, with the aim of launching a beta service within three weeks once 2,000 applications have been received. To get the ball rolling and get testers on board, it’s offering the first 3,000 an equity share in its own business…”

21.     The Difference Between Antivirus and Anti-Malware  http://lifehacker.com/the-difference-between-antivirus-and-anti-malware-and-1176942277  “Antivirus is a confusing matter: it's called antivirus, but there are tons of other types of malware out there. So...do those programs also scan for spyware, adware, and other threats? Here's how to make heads or tails of it all, and which tools you can trust to keep your PC clean…viruses and other malware are gone forever. They're there, more than happy to infect your computer and add it to a botnet or spam everyone in your contact list. On the bright side though, with some common sense, a good understanding of what you’re up against, and the right tools, you can keep your PC safe pretty easily…Let's start with the differences between "viruses" and "malware." Viruses are a specific type of malware (designed to replicate and spread), while malware is a broad term used to describe all sorts of unwanted or malicious code…” 

22.    Too much security software can slow down your computer  http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021676750_ptechqa24xml.html  “…running more than one anti-virus program at a time can be a problem. The way anti-virus programs scan can be detected by each other as viruses. And yes, anti-virus and anti-malware programs consume computer resources, so running multiple programs can be a drag on your system. I’d recommend running one anti-virus program and one anti-malware program. At the same time, be aware that no single anti-virus program or anti-malware program guarantees protection from all threats. So keep your eyes out for strange behavior or drops in performance…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

23.    Telepathy raises $5 million to develop Google Glass rival  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57599592-94/telepathy-raises-$5-million-to-develop-google-glass-rival/  “Telepathy, a Silicon Valley startup, has raised $5 million in a first round of funding to develop wearable computing technology that rivals Google Glass…The Telepathy One headset prototype, demonstrated earlier this year, is a hands-free communications device that wraps around the back of a wearer's head. It has a small screen, earplugs for playing sound, and this fall will get a software developer kit so programmers can write apps…”

24.    Motorola’s New Keyboard-Packing Droid 5  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/23/motorolas-new-keyboard-packing-droid-5-reportedly-caught-on-film/  “…Another new Motorola device clad in Verizon livery was spotted in a batch of newly leaked images from Chinese social network Weibo, and it seems to hearken back to the Droid line’s roots. Unlike the trim, all-touch smartphones that Motorola has been enamored with lately, the most eye-catching feature of the alleged Droid 5 is the same sort of slide-out QWERTY keyboard its forebears also had. According to Engadget, the D5 also has a display between 4.3 and 4.5 inches and a body that’s resistant to dust and water…that big five-row keyboard isn’t the only difference between whatever this is and the other Droids that have just started hitting store shelves. One of the images depicts a camera interface complete with a discrete shutter button on the touchscreen, a UI flourish that doesn’t exist on either the Moto X or the Droid Ultra…”

25.    Welcome to Fog Computing: Extending the Cloud to the Edge  https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/08/23/welcome-to-the-fog-a-new-type-of-distributed-computing/  “new conversations are beginning to emerge around Fog Computing. Closely resembling the concepts of cloud computing, the Fog aims to take services, workloads, applications and large amounts of data and deliver it all to the edge of the network. The goal is to provide core data, compute, storage, and application services on a truly distributed level…To optimize the concept of the cloud, organizations need a way to deliver content to end users through a more geographically distributed platform. The idea of fog computing is to distribute data to move it closer to the end-user to eliminate latency and numerous hops, and support mobile computing and data streaming…The term “fog computing” has been embraced by Cisco Systems as a new paradigm to support wireless data transfer to support distributed devices in the “Internet of Things.” …”

26.    Verizon Seals $130 Billion Deal to Buy Out Vodafone’s Wireless Stake  http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/verizon-reaches-130-billion-deal-to-buy-out-vodafones-wireless-stake/?_r=0  “Verizon Communications agreed on Monday to buy out Vodafone‘s 45 percent stake in its giant wireless unit in a $130 billion transaction, realigning the global telecommunications landscape in one of the biggest deals on record…Verizon will pay about $58.9 billion in cash and about $60.2 billion in stock for Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless. It will also issue $5 billion in notes to its British partner, while selling back its minority stake in Vodafone’s European unit for $3.5 billion…The deal, giving Vodafone a huge war chest, could have a big effect on the European telecommunications industry…”

27.    AT&T to go nationwide with prepaid Aio Wireless service  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57600723-94/at-t-to-go-nationwide-with-prepaid-aio-wireless-service/  “AT&T is pushing more aggressively into the no-contract market…it's taking its prepaid network, Aio Wireless, nationwide in mid-September…Aio has three plans to choose from…they all include unlimited talk, text, and data. The service costs $40 to $70 a month, depending on the plan. New subscribers can get a free month of service if they sign up before September 29…”

28.    Tablet Sales Face Growing Threat From Wearables, Phablets  http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/desktop/tablet-sales-face-growing-threat-from-sm/240160607  “Tablet shipments will be slightly smaller than expected this year, according to…research firm IDC…IDC noted that tablets are starting to face competition from other types of mobile computers, such as wearable devices and phablets. IDC now expects manufacturers to ship 227.4 million tablets…the new estimate represents a 57.7% increase relative to last year…Although tablets will continue to be popular in the United States and other developed regions, IDC expects the devices to face more competition. Just as PC sales have declined due to tablets, tablet momentum could take a hit as more users embrace smartphones with tablet-like dimensions, and as wearable devices such as smartwatches and Google Glass improve…”

29.    Google drops Nexus 4 price, now starts at $199  http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/27/4665960/google-drops-nexus-4-price-now-starts-at-199  “The Nexus 4 just got a lot cheaper. The flagship phone of Google's Nexus line is now available for a full $100 less than it was…The 8GB model is on sale through the Google Play Store for $199, while the 16GB model is $249…”

30.    Amazon releases new Kindle Paperwhite version  http://gigaom.com/2013/09/03/a-new-faster-kindle-paperwhite-will-start-shipping-september-30/  “…Amazon…announced a new…e-reader…The second-generation Kindle Paperwhite will cost the same as the older version — starting at $119 for a Wi-Fi version with ads — and offers a higher-contrast display, a better light and a faster processor. The company also says there’s new touchscreen technology and that a “19 percent tighter touch grid” offers better responsiveness. There are also a number of new software features…Book-based social network Goodreads…is integrated into the device, with access to Goodreads from the top navigation bar on the new Kindle Paperwhite…Other little improvements: Kindle PageFlip, which lets readers skim through a book without losing their place, a “Vocabulary Builder” that lets users quiz themselves on the words they had to look up while reading a book, and “Smart Lookup,” which “integrates a full dictionary definition with other reference information about a word, character, topic or book via X-Ray and Wikipedia.” Readers can also now read footnotes without losing their place…”

Apps

31.     Apple Acquires Embark, Another Mapping App With Transit Information  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/apple-acquires-embark-another-mapping-app-with-transit-information/  “Apple has acquired yet another transit mapping application…this time it’s Embark, a Silicon Valley-based startup that builds apps for different cities to provide information about routes and stops. This acquisition follows the purchase of HopStop, another app that offers transit directions to users. HopStop and Embark had different takes on the transit problem; HopStop orvides walking, taxi and bike directions in addition to mass transit routes and maps. Embark’s strategy was to spread out its transit apps, delivering one for each market it serves, which included major cities in the U.S. including New York, and other spots around the world to total around a dozen markets…”

32.    Best Apps for Amazing Smartphone Videos  http://www.techlicious.com/guide/best-apps-for-amazing-smartphone-videos/  “There are events in your life where you know you're will be recording video on your smartphone. A friend's wedding, your child's soccer game, a backyard birthday party to name a few. But you can do far more with that video than just posting the raw footage on Facebook. There are two apps that can make your smartphone video shine. The best app for you depends on what type of footage you are recording and what you hope to achieve in your finished piece…Editing together different scenes: Mixbit…Editing the same scene from different phones: Vyclone…”

SkyNet

33.    Google Updates Its Keep Note-Taking App  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/21/google-updates-its-keep-note-taking-app-with-reminders-location-based-alerts-and-google-now-integration/  “When Google launched Keep…it was essentially a basic note-taking application…the company is launching a major update that turns it into a far more useful application. The update…is centered around the new “Remind me” button, which now lets you schedule time-based reminders and location-based alerts that hook into Google Now. When you walk into a grocery store now (and your grocery list is tagged with the store’s location), you will get a Google Now alert to remind you of all the milk and cereal you have to buy. To make this easier, Keep now also auto-completes nearby places…Google is also bringing a new navigation drawer to the app that lets you quickly switch between different accounts (great if you have a home and work to-do list, for example)…new in this update is the ability to quickly add existing photos from your Android phone to Keep. Google Now is quickly evolving to become Google’s main hub for alerts of all kinds…”

34.    Google improves definitions in Search w/ sample sentences, synonyms, translations & spoken responses  http://9to5google.com/2013/08/22/google-improves-definitions-in-search-w-sample-sentences-synonyms-translations-spoken-responses/  “Google…updated search on both the desktop and mobile with new and improved definitions. Google search would previously let users ask for a definition by simply asking, for example, “What’s the definition of fortuitous?” The most recent update makes those definitions even more useful with the addition of sample sentences, synonyms, origin…In addition, try translating words to one of 60+ languages directly from the box…Google will also offer spoken responses when tapping the microphone icon next to the definition…”

35.    Google Purchases Wearable Computing Device Maker WIMM Labs  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57600838-93/google-plunges-deeper-into-smartwatch-wars-with-wimm/  “…Google has acquired smartwatch maker WIMM…Smartwatch maker WIMM went dark last year, posting a cryptic thank-you message on its Web site citing "an exclusive, confidential relationship" for its technology…the company has the work on the product -- including WIMM's employees -- centered in the Android unit, rather than its X Lab. That could mean a Google watch comes to market faster than the wearable…Google Glass…”

36.    Next Android version (4.4) to be KitKat instead of Key Lime Pie  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/google-strikes-bizarre-licensing-deal-with-nestle-to-name-next-android-kit-kat/  “Google…struck a…licensing deal with Nestlé to use the name ‘KitKat’ for its next version of Android…no money changed hands between the two companies. This is apparently a like-for-like cross-promotion deal. The contest will place Nexus 7 vouchers and Google Play credit in participating Kit Kat bars…Lagerling also says that the previously considered Key Lime Pie was nixed because they felt that many people might not know what Key Lime Pie tastes like. “One of the snacks that we keep in our kitchen for late-night coding are KitKats. And someone said: ‘Hey, why don’t we call the release KitKat?’ “We didn’t even know which company controlled the name…we decided to reach out to the Nestle folks.” Mr Lagerling said he had made a “cold call” to the switchboard of Nestle’s UK advertising agency at the end of November to propose the tie-up. The next day, the Swiss firm invited him to take part in a conference call. Nestle confirmed the deal just 24 hours later…”

37.    How Google's robo-cars mean the end of driving as we know it  http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57595738-76/how-googles-robo-cars-mean-the-end-of-driving-as-we-know-it/  “…The century-old auto culture is on the verge of radical change, and you can thank Google for where it's headed. Google's self-driving car initiative is moving into a new phase: reality…we're talking about an effort to force the biggest change in the auto industry since the first Model A drove out of Henry Ford's factory a century ago…automaker…execs scoff at Google co-founder Sergey Brin's…remarks about making self-driving cars commercially available by 2017…said Daniel Flores from General Motors'…"Vehicles that can drive themselves are years -- maybe decades -- away…Google is…prodding the auto industry…to push the whole effort at a Silicon Valley pace…Nevada, Florida, and California have legalized driverless-car testing on public roads…Google talks about making the roads safer, but the company's core business has plenty to gain from freeing up drivers from that task of, well, driving. How much? Americans on average spend 18.5 hours a week in a car, which adds up to a lot of time they could be checking Gmail, editing Google Docs, watching YouTube videos, and clicking ads…Vehicles that drive themselves are the clearest example of what happens when cars transform into full-scale, general-purpose computing systems…Self-driving and connected cars will bristle with sensors, negotiate with traffic lights, talk to each other about safety conditions, join into train-like platoons, and become members of intelligent urban transit networks. Historically, the car industry has focused on passive safety…With the arrival of active safety technology that lets vehicles take pre-emptive action, cars will use data to help them decide what to do when drivers aren't paying attention or don't know what to do…you can add some new network technologies designed to serve vehicles. The biggest are the 802.11p and the accompanying higher-level dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) standards, which govern how vehicles communicate with each other (V2V) and with infrastructure (V2I). That technology, which rides the 5.9GHz frequency range for radio communications, can be used for things like collision avoidance, managing traffic at intersections, and linking cars into coordinated, fuel-efficient groups called platoons…”

General Technology

38.    Lenovo Turns to a Startup to Bring the Start Menu Back to Windows  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-22/lenovo-turns-to-a-startup-to-bring-the-start-menu-back-to-windows.html  “Lots of people were irked to discover that Windows 8 lacks a Start menu…Lenovo Group is adding the feature back on its computers. The world's biggest PC maker will pre-install SweetLabs' Pokki software, which provides a replacement for the dearly departed Windows Start menu…SweetLabs has been distributing the software on its own through its website, and more than 3 million Windows 8 users have downloaded it…”

39.    Swiss Researchers Make an 80-mpg Hybrid  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518656/swiss-researchers-make-an-80-mpg-hybrid/  “…Researchers…have developed an ultra-efficient new engine that runs on a combination of natural gas and diesel. When combined with a battery and electric motor to make a hybrid vehicle, it could allow a car to get the equivalent of 80 miles per gallon…The only catch would be finding both natural gas and diesel for refueling…In Europe, the standards require cars to achieve the equivalent of 55 miles per gallon, on average, by 2020. In the U.S., vehicle fleets need to hit that target by 2025…researchers estimate the technology would add about $8,000 to the cost of a conventional gasoline-powered car…researchers modified a diesel engine, which is already very efficient, to run on natural gas, which reduces emissions compared to burning diesel. To allow a diesel engine to run efficiently on natural gas, the researchers injected a little diesel fuel at certain points to get the natural gas to ignite properly. The diesel accounts for 10 percent or less of the total fuel burned in the engine. The battery and electric motor kick in when the engine would run less efficiently, reducing emissions still more…”

Leisure & Entertainment

40.    Yahoo Acquires Image-Recognition Startup IQ Engines To Improve Flickr  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/23/yahoo-acquires-image-recognition-startup-iq-engines/  “…Yahoo…snapped up yet another company — this time it’s an image-recognition startup called IQ Engines…they have been tapped to join the Flickr team where they will work on “improving photo organization and search for the community.”…Eventually, the startup would come to maintain two APIs. The first was called SmartCamera, and it was geared mostly toward retailers who wanted users to interact with products and brand logos by scanning them with their smartphone cameras. The other API, SmartAlbum, allows for photo analysis and facial recognition for online photo albums and mobile apps…I’d wager this is the bit Yahoo is really after…While IQ Engines’ main bread and butter was offering image-recognition APIs, it was also working on a mobile photo album application called Glow that organizes the images on your smartphone into categories based on automatically generated tags…”

41.     Rakuten Confirms Acquisition Of Video Site Viki  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/01/rakuten-viki/  “Rakuten has confirmed that it will acquire Viki, a global video streaming platform that crowdsources translated subtitles…The acquisition of Viki is another strong signal that Rakuten is positioning its $16 billion Internet services ecosystem as a competitor to Amazon and Netflix. Over the past two years, Rakuten has acquired e-reader services provider Kobo and European streaming video platform Wuaki.tv. Kobo recently launched three new Android-based tablets and an e-reader in a bid to take on Amazon’s Kindle series, while Wuaki.tv’s new iPad and Android apps are meant to compete with Amazon’s LOVEFiLM subsidiary and Netflix…Viki operates similarly to Hulu.com by offering premium content such as primetime TV shows and movies. Its advantage over other on-demand video services is crowdsourced subtitles from 22 million users in more than 160 languages…”  http://www.viki.com/

42.    How ‘Minecraft’ is shaping the future of touch interfaces  http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/what-minecraft-and-the-ipad-have-in-common/  “Two unexpected phenomena exploded in 2010. Both came out of seemingly nowhere, both gained traction almost immediately, and both remain popular to this day, elbowing out gigantic competitors and completely changing the perception of both consumers and peers. What pair of disruptive newcomers am I talking about? The iPad, and Minecraft…while these two entities are much different in purpose, they have some similarities in success. They arrived with minimal forewarning, were very different from anything that’d come before, and managed to build an enduring fan base in a category that was barely there before they arrived…Humans are hard-wired to take interest in anything we can directly interact with, and this almost universal compulsion is what makes both touchscreens and Minecraft so popular. Both of these very different experiences are about interacting with a virtual environment that responds directly to our real or virtual action…”

Entrepreneurism and Technology

43.    The Only Startups That Matter to Job Creation  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-16/the-only-startups-that-matter-to-job-creation.html  “You hear it all the time: Small business is the engine of U.S. job creation, so they need tender loving care, like special tax breaks and other goodies. This narrative is wrong. Census Bureau data show that small businesses destroy almost as many jobs as they create…the Kauffman Foundation…report showing that not all small businesses are equal-opportunity job destroyers. High-tech startups are different. Unlike small businesses overall, they create net new jobs…In 2011, the last year with data available, high-tech companies between one and five years of age created a net 16,700 jobs. Other businesses between one and five years in the private sector overall lost 513,700 jobs…”

44.    Chip veterans form startup to sell Bitcoin miner for $14,000  http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/08/chip-veterans-form-new-startup-will-sell-high-end-bitcoin-miner-for-16000/  “…a new Bitcoin startup called CoinTerra…raised $1.5 million in venture capital…CoinTerra revealed the TerraMiner IV, a two terahash per second ASIC Bitcoin miner that will sell for $13,999 and is set to ship in December 2013. (An ASIC is a specialized computer designed to one specific task, in this case the goal is mining bitcoins.) By contrast, the one that Ars tested earlier this year was a five gigahash per second device made by Butterfly Labs. That company also makes a 500 gigahash per second ASIC miner that costs over $22,000. So if CoinTerra's TerraMiner IV ships as described, it will be one of the highest-end and relatively lowest cost miners available…”

45.    Steven Sinofsky joining board of car sharing startup Local Motion  http://www.businessinsider.com/local-motion-investment-2013-8  “Steven Sinofsky is joining the board of car sharing technology startup Local Motion…Local Motion co-founder Clement Gires…and his co-founder John Stanfield were building their own electric car at Stanford. During the process, they realized they would be better off with the software they built to power the car. They created a small box that goes inside fleets of cars. The box then tracks the car and allows it to be unlocked by multiple users…When someone unlocks the car, either through Bluetooth or swipe card, their actions/mileage in the car is tracked…This technology could be used for rental car companies, corporations, or even homes that have multiple drivers. "Our speciality is car sharing technology," says Gires. His vision is that "in future people will not buy cars, they will buy mobility…”

46.    Why America's Employment System Is so Broken  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/08/ask-the-headhunter-why-americas-employment-system-is-so-broken.html  “…Job seekers rightly criticized middlemen like LinkedIn, CareerBuilder and other database-driven job boards for mindless automation that does virtually nothing to help make good matches between employers and job seekers…the statistics I presented in the article strongly suggest these middlemen make it harder…Recruiting and hiring in America are a disaster of epic proportions -- not because there's a talent shortage, but because the employment system itself is fundamentally broken…The entire employment system today is based on gathering useless big data to indirectly assess what a person might contribute to a business. "No correlation," says Google…There's far too much focus on jobs and matching people to them, and not enough focus on cultivating and developing the talents of capable people. There is not enough of building companies from personal interactions between managers and their professional communities, and too much of stuffing job requirements and keywords into databases. Companies should stop recruiting to fill jobs, and start recruiting to fill their ranks with the best, most talented people they can find…businesses invest billions of dollars to translate complex business needs into strings of keywords to be processed by database algorithms. Job listings and resumes are bought, sold, rented and traded in a bizarre struggle to avoid actual interaction between companies and the capable people they need to hire…”

47.    The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Starting And Running Your Business  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-starting-and-running-your-business/  “This is going be a bullet FAQ on starting a business. No joke…Depending on your business, some of these won’t apply. All of these questions come from questions I’ve been asked…1) C Corp or S Corp or LLC? C-Corp if you ever want to take on investors or sell to another company…2) What state should you incorporate in? Delaware…4) Should you go for venture capital money? First build a product, then get a customer, then get friends-and-family money (or money from revenues which is cheapest of all) and then think about raising money. But only then. Don’t be an amateur…6) Should you require venture capitalists to sign NDAs? No. Nobody is going to steal your idea…7) How much equity should you give a partner? Divide things up into these categories: manage the company; raise the money; had the idea; brings in the revenues; built the product (or performs the services). Divide up in equal portions…9) Should you barter equity for services? No. You get what you pay for…14) What if nobody seems to be buying your product? Then change to a service and do whatever anyone is willing to pay for using the skills you developed while making your product…21) Should I ever focus on SEO? No…22) Should I do social media marketing? No…29) Should I get an office? No, not unless you have revenues…33) What should the CEO salary be? No more than 2x your lowest employee if you are not profitable. This even assumes you are funded. If you are not funded your salary should be zero until your revenues can pay your salary last. Important RULE: the CEO salary is the last expense paid in every business…38) How big should the employee option pool be? 15 to 20 percent…39) How much do advisers get?  One-fourth of 1 percent. Advisers are useless. Don’t even have an advisory board…47) What happened to all of my friends? You don’t have anymore friends…50) How do I prepare for a meeting? Know everything about the clients: competition, employees, industry. Over-read everything…53) Should I have schwag? No…55) Should I go to industry parties and meetups? No…56) Should I blog? Yes. You must. Blog about everything going wrong in your industry. Blog personal stories that you think will scare away customers. They won’t. Customers will be attracted to honesty…57) Should I care about margins? No. Care about revenues…64) Should I even start a business? No. Make money. Build shit. Then start a business…68) When should I give up on my idea? When you can’t generate revenues, customers, interest, for two months…78) Should I quit my job? No. Only if you have salary that can pay you for six months at your startup. Aim to quit your job but don’t quit your job…84) How do I keep clients from yelling at me? Document every meeting line-by-line, and send your document to the client right after the meeting…86) I have an idea for an app but don’t know how to execute. What should I do? Draw every screen and function. Then outsource someone to make the drawings look like they come from a real app. Then outsource the development of the app. Get a specific schedule. Micromanage the schedule…91) Should I hire a PR firm? No. Do guerilla marketing. Read “Newsjacking” and “Trust me I’m Lying.” PR firms screw up from beginning to end…99) I just started my business. What should I do? Sell it as fast as possible (applies in 99 percent of situations). Sell for cash…”

Design / DEMO

48.    The Baltimore Design School -- a blueprint for transformation – opens  http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/blog/bs-md-ci-baltimore-design-school-20130826,0,1501287.story  “New Baltimore Design School serves as a model of how to pay for modern facilities…When Baltimore school officials lobbied state lawmakers to fund an ambitious $1 billion, 10-year plan this year to modernize facilities, no one understood having a decade-long vision more than Sen. Catherine Pugh…10 years ago…Pugh felt a spark on a New York City street corner as she watched…the High School of Fashion Industries. But when she spoke of replicating such a school in Baltimore, her idea was met with veiled skepticism…city and state officials will celebrate on Monday the opening of the new Baltimore Design School. The $26.85 million transformation of a vacant, century-old building into a modern-chic school is emblematic of what the district hopes to accomplish with the $1 billion…the school's building and instructional program, which focuses on architecture, fashion and graphic design, "represent the innovative spirit of city schools" that she is encouraging in the new school year. "The Baltimore Design School is affirmative evidence of what's possible for our children and our communities…”

49.    Nike Patents Golf Shirt Design That Could Double as Coach  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-30/nike-patents-golf-shirt-design-that-could-double-as-coach.html  “Nike…says it can make a golf shirt that could replicate what a coach does. The world’s largest maker of sporting goods obtained about a dozen patents on Aug. 27…A coach or trainer can greatly improve an athlete’s form or body positioning…Nike said in a patent…For most people, however, a coach or trainer is not always available” and there isn’t an easy way to check positioning on your own…Enter…“articles of apparel providing enhanced body position feedback.” The clothing will have tighter material in areas key to a repetitive movement, like a golf swing. The snugger fit increases muscle stimulation, giving a better feel that will improve form…Nike describes thin elastic material embedded into the part of the garment that covers the lower back to heighten sensation. That part of the body is essential to a swinging motion and is impossible to see and difficult to feel while performing…Besides boosting performance, the shirt also could lower injury risk by keeping athletes in proper form as they swing a golf club or a baseball bat…”

50.    Targeting product design for the developing world  http://phys.org/news/2013-08-product-world.html  “…Designing products for the developing world can be a hit-or-miss endeavor: While there may be a dire need for products addressing problems, such as access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, designing a product that consumers will actually buy is a complicated process…yet, an increasing number of organizations, companies and startups are targeting products at developing countries for one very practical reason: money. Rising economies like China and India represent potentially massive emerging markets, a large portion of which are made up of small "microenterprises"—informal, mom-and-pop businesses of five or fewer people that generate limited income…Austin-Breneman and Maria Yang…identified four case studies in which products had documented success in developing countries: solar-lighting technology, cookstoves, drip irrigation, and a line of Nokia cellphones…”

DHMN Technology

51.     3D-Printing Spare Human Parts  http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/mikeshedlock/2013/08/19/3dprinting-spare-human-parts-need-an-organ-just-print-it-n1667608  “…researchers at Hangzhou Dianzi University in China unveiled their Regenovo 3D printer. Unlike more familiar 3D printers…Regenovo prints living tissue – such as these little ears…a team at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, also demonstrated an ear printer, and Organovo in San Diego, California, are on the way to building fresh human livers…An 83-year-old Belgian woman is able to chew, speak and breathe normally again after a machine printed her a new jawbone. Made from a fine titanium powder sculpted by a precision laser beam, her replacement jaw has proven as functional as her own used to be before a potent infection, called osteomyelitis, all but destroyed it…in 2009, researchers reported successfully printing copies of whole thumb bones - opening the way for the replacement of smashed digits using information from MRI scans…Using stem cells as the “ink” in a 3-D printer, researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a specific pattern…”

52.    MakerBot’s $1,400 Digitizer Now Available To Pre-Order, Will Ship By Mid-October  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/makerbots-1400-digitizer-now-available-to-pre-order-will-ship-by-mid-october/  “…MakerBot have been teasing their Digitizer desktop 3D scanner since this past March, but…they’re just about ready push it out the door…here’s how the thing works: you place an object on its central turntable and fire up the device, at which point a pair of lasers…will scan the object’s surface geometry and turn that cloud of data points into a 3D model…the whole process takes about 12 minutes, after which you’re able to push the file to a 3D printer of your choosing…The turntable can only support objects that are…6.5lbs…or lighter, and you should ideally use the thing a very well-lit room…while the Digitizer promises to be fast and easy, at $1,400 it’s not exactly impulse buy material…”

53.    Japan's 3D Printing Industry: Leapfrog, Not Catch-Up  http://akihabaranews.com/2013/08/26/article-en/japans-3d-printing-industry-leapfrog-not-catch-game-play-41031748  “Japan was all over the infancy of 3D printing, but in decades since, J-R&D has kinda missed the boat…they clearly see this one leaving shore, and with a bit of technological leapfroggery, hope to jump back to the fore…over just the past 5-10 years or so, 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has advanced to become one of the most…gee-whiz technologies in the human arsenal…Most commercial and in-development 3D printing devices work with plastics, plaster-ish stuff, or bio-jelly stem-cell goo…systems capable of laying down metal are the kind of super-advanced, super-expensive, laser-powered setups exclusive to laboratories of organizations and institutions with obscene piles of R&D money - and most of them are in Western Europe…Large-scale 3D printing with metal remains impractical, lacks sufficiently consistent precision, and obviously isn’t cost effective enough to be used for manufacturing in significant quantities…regarding the actual manufacturing of 3D printers themselves, Japan’s market share sits at about 0.3%...Japan’s absence is…finally getting some attention from J-government and industry…to just get into the game, Japan wants to go metal..while the U.S.'s 70-75% market share is daunting, the metal-printing sector is a bit more accessible…given that the most effective means of 3D printing with metal involves the melting and fusing of fantastically thin, extremely fine powder layers, and Japan’s already got some really sexy metal powerderfying technology, with some aggressive, yet careful and creative investment they're actually rather well-positioned…Private Japanese interests and governmental agencies like…the Ministry of Energy, Technology, and Industry are calling for commercial and academic institutions to throw their collective brain power toward the development of homegrown, so-called “Next Generation” devices - 3D printers that go beyond prototyping, proof of concepting…and instead set up a presence in the large-scale, mass-production manufacturing of metallic components and finished goods. Rather than treading water as a 3D printing industry spectator and consumer, Japan could become a creator and provider of 3D printing tech…”

54.    NASA successfully tests 3D printed rocket components  http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57600325-76/nasa-successfully-tests-3d-printed-rocket-components/  “NASA is one step closer to realizing its goal of using advanced technologies like 3-D printing to make every aspect of space exploration simpler and more cost-effective…The largest 3D printed rocket engine component NASA ever has tested roared to life Aug. 22 during an engine firing that generated a record 20,000 pounds of thrust. Early results indicate the injector worked flawlessly. Using a process called selective laser melting, which produces layers of nickel-chromium alloy powder, the 28 element subscale injector was similar in size to injectors that power small rocket engines. In its design, it was similar to injectors for larger engines, like the RS-25 engine that will power NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for deep-space human missions…"This entire effort helped us learn what it takes to build larger 3D parts…”

Open Source Hardware

55.     Low-cost telepresence robot developed on open source platform  http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2013/08/low-cost_telepresence_robot_de/  “…International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) has developed a low-cost telepresence robot prototype 'TR-7' based  on open source hardware and software platforms. The prototype was developed as part of an android R & D project of the Department of Information Technology…The robotic prototype TR-7 was fabricated by Ingen Robotics, a local firm focusing on new generation robotics…TR-7 is an affordable telepresence robot, made using locally available components. The user can operate the robot remotely from anywhere in the world using a computer with internet connection and software to control the robot. The user is able to see and hear from a remote location using the robot's built-in camera and microphone. Anyone in the remote location can also see and hear the user through the robot's display and speakers. Existing software is used for video communication. All other hardware and software components used are available under open licences…"The first version of the robot proved that telepresence devices based on open source platforms such as android were fully viable. Further work needs to be done on areas such as enhanced robot autonomy, pan/ tilt-zoom capability on the robot and automated homing. These would enable the robot to be used in production applications such as remote inspection and surveillance, in multiple domains such as military applications, agriculture, and infrastructure management…”

56.    Windows 8 comes to open source PCs with GizmoSphere board  http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/windows-8-comes-open-source-pcs-gizmosphere-board-225010  “The market for x86 open-source PCs is now a two-horse race, with GizmoSphere releasing schematics and design documents for hobbyists to build from scratch a Windows 8 computer based on open design. The barebones PC runs on an AMD G-series embedded processor, and the design documents were made available just a few weeks after the release of MinnowBoard, the first open-source PC based on an Intel x86 processor…The Gizmo board originally started shipping in January, but the design was partly closed…Schematics, designs and other information about the board are available on GizmoSphere's website…Using the information, hardware makers and developers can replicate the board from scratch. The Gizmo is compatible with Windows 8 and older versions of the OS, including Windows 7 and XP…”

57.     World’s Smallest Drone Autopilot System Goes Open Source  http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/08/drone-autopilot/  “The Lisa/S chip is 4 square-centimeters — about the same size as a Euro coin. But this 1.9-gram sliver of silicon includes everything you need to autopilot an aerial drone. It’s the world’s smallest drone autopilot system — over 30 grams lighter than its predecessor — according to the chip’s designers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands…both the hardware and the software is open source, meaning anyone can copy and use it…“The main reason we chose open source is that we want to make it available for society,” says the project’s leader, Bart Remes. He envisions open source drone technology enabling a wider range of civilian drone applications, from agriculture to search and rescue…10 years ago, as a student at Delft, he started building his own drones, attracted to the challenges of programming and electronics. It turned out that very small drones — called micro air vehicles, or MAVs — are a great way to teach aerospace engineering because they’re relatively cheap, safe and easy to program…His student work turned into a full-time job as the head of the university’s MAV Laboratory…”

58.    Espruino Seeks To Jump Start Its “JavaScript For Things” Effort  http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/30/espruino-seeks-kickstarter-funding-to-help-jump-start-its-javascript-for-things-effort/  “Arduino is…hard to wrap your head around, especially for newbies. The Espruino is “world’s first JavaScript microcontroller for beginners or experts,”…offered…for a couple of years now by…Gordon Williams, but now he’s taking to Kickstarter to make it even easier to use. The Kickstarter project is designed to…take his open source hardware board and get his Source Code cleaned, accessible and ready for Open Source release…The concept of a “JavaScript for Things” is amazing for home hardware hackers…it considerably simplifies the process of making devices behave the way you want them to…the JavaScript method is not only familiar to people who’ve done some web development, but it’s much easier to modify and extend…”

Open Source

59.    Open source culture thrives in Chattanooga  http://opensource.com/life/13/8/open-source-chattanooga  “…I had a chance to visit Chattanooga for several days and received an up close look at the maker and entrepreneurial culture of the city…Some of the smartest minds from other parts of the country are moving to Chattanooga because of the quality of life combined with structural community support for innovators. The most exciting innovations, in my eyes, are happening on the 4th floor of the public library…Jason Griffey…has embarked on a personal project named LibraryBox, which is an open source wireless file server that uses very affordable, off-the-shelf consumer technology…Many of the possible uses of LibraryBox remain unexplored…LibraryBox can work its magic completely separate from any Internet infrastructure, so it might end up having expansive uses for education, health, and science in areas of the world lacking Internet access…the 4th floor of the Chattanooga Public Library has become a popular destination…this large space…about the size of a small airplane hangar…is now the home of the library's 3D printer and other digital experiments. Nate Hill, Assistant Library Director, is bent on building a space where community members come to make and produce things…”

60.    Student programming with Scratch and The Finch  http://opensource.com/education/13/8/student-programming-scratch-and-finch  “…Designed for children aged 8 to 16, Scratch is a free programming kit from the MIT Media Lab…Scratch is an easy-to-learn environment where kids can build interactive games, animations, simulations, stories and artwork…At Penn Manor, students have been using Scratch to learn the basics of programming and game design as part of our middle-level technology course…Scratch was recently updated and released as a cloud service. Version 2.0 of the toolkit is accessible from any flash-enabled web browser…Beginning this fall, miniature finch robots will be under the command of Penn Manor students. The Finch is a programmable robot for computer science education by Carnegie Mellon University. Designed and developed in collaboration with educators and students, The Finch is an engaging and low-cost gateway to practical coding and engineering. Built into The Finch is a suite of environmental sensors for light, temperature and orientation. A sample student starter project would entail programming the Finch to avoid ground obstacles as it roams around a classroom floor…they can easily move on to designing more complicated behaviors such as dancing or geometrical drawing via a built-in pen mount…While advanced students may jump in and begin programming in Java, the most accessible software starting point for younger students is UC Berkley’s Snap!, a modified descendant of Scratch…”

Civilian Aerospace

61.     Sierra Nevada Corp. tests Dream Chaser space craft  http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorados-sierra-nevada-corp-tests-dream-chaser-space-craft-at-dryden-flight-research-center  “…The two-hour test of Dream Chaser spacecraft occurred…at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. A helicopter picked a test version of the small spacecraft and flew it 3 miles at heights reaching 12,400 feet…its flight computer, guidance and navigation system were tested. The landing gear and nose skid also were deployed…The vehicle is designed to carry seven people and land like a plane on a runway…”

62.    How to Make Reusable Rockets for Cheap Space Travel  http://www.space.com/22470-reusable-rocket-launches-incredible-technology.html  “…Another even more challenging task looms over the goal of a totally reusable spacecraft: creating a single-stage-to-orbit, or SSTO, launch vehicle…With no reassembly required, it's hoped that an SSTO craft could be operated like a commercial airliner. But designing an SSTO vehicle comes with its own host of technical obstacles. Empty fuel tanks become dead weight and reusable vehicles require elements to protect the spacecraft when they re-enter the atmosphere, which means even more added weight…Space travel is…a new frontier … One of the critical things to make it truly successful in the future will be to make the vehicles and the hardware and engines reusable…some space industry leaders…argued that reusable spacecraft wouldn't have to be as efficient as a commercial airplane; just using one vehicle twice could dramatically cut costs…some private space companies, such as entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX, are attempting to make fully reusable rockets. The craft SpaceX envisions (and has been prototyping through its Grasshopper rocket project) would have three major parts: a first stage and second stage booster that would separately fly back to Earth and an orbital space capsule that would lift off and touch down vertically on land…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

63.    OpenCL 2.0, OpenGL 4.4 Officially Released  http://electronicdesign.com/dev-tools/opencl-20-opengl-44-officially-released  “The OpenCL 2.0 provisional specification has been ratified and subsequently given a public release, according to The Khronos Group. The Group also announced release of the OpenGL 4.4 specification. Expectations for the new evolution of the open, royalty-free OpenCL 2.0 standard are further simplification of cross-platform parallel programming while easily accelerating a richer range of algorithms and programming patterns…”

64.    HSAIL: AMD explains the future of CPU/GPU cooperation  http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/164817-setting-hsail-amd-cpu-gpu-cooperation  “AMD…gave a talk that laid out details behind what its HSA Foundation has designed and the language that powers the technology, dubbed HSAIL (HSA Intermediate Language)…Despite the popularity of OpenCL and Nvidia’s direct investment of hundreds of millions of dollars into its Tesla products and CUDA software, the actual task of moving work from CPU to GPU, performing it, and bringing it back again is still a giant headache. The simplest explanation for the problem is this: For most of history, the trend in computing was to move tasks to the Central Processing Unit, which would then perform them…After decades of moving workloads towards the CPU, designing a system that moves them back out again and makes the GPU an equal partner is a complex undertaking. The hardware side of HSA compatibility addresses this problem by specifying a number of capabilities that a combined CPU-GPU system must have in order to leverage heterogeneous compute…”

Trends & Emerging Tech

65.    Survey data dispels 3 myths about enterprise software  http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/forrester-survey-data-dispels-3-myths-about-enterprise-software-224405  “You can't always believe what you read, claims a new Forrester Research survey on enterprise application usage and deployments. Here are the three biggest myths about enterprise applications that the survey debunks…1. Public social networks have not entered the enterprise…2. Custom application development is not dead…3. SaaS and PaaS are not replacing on-premises software…”

66.    Top tech trends changing how we live, work  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-tech-trends-changing-how-we-live-work-2013-09-03/  “Howard Tullman is a trend spotter…he says there has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about. These concepts affect the places you work and shop, as well as your life at home…Below are some examples…‘Porous workplace’ and ‘Wiki-Work’…These days, work is done everywhere… ‘Video uber alles’…much of what we learn will eventually become video-based…‘Mocial 2.0’…“mocial” is a combination of mobile and social, and suggests how everything we do is connected to the phones we carry around… ‘Niche networks,’ ‘manufactured addiction’ and ‘FOMO.’…”

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