NEW NET Weekly List for 15 Oct 2013

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 15 October 2013, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N. Westhill Blvd., Appleton, WI, USA, near Woodman's. Ignore the chain if it's across the stairs; come on up and join the tech fun!

The ‘net

1.        Why You Should Move from Dropbox to Google Drive  http://boxfreeit.com.au/2013/10/11/why-you-should-move-from-dropbox-to-google-drive/  “The day Google released their desktop sync app for Google Drive I knew it was a ‘Dropbox killer’. I still use my Dropbox for some personal files while I wait for my yearly subscription to expire – however I’ll be re-thinking the service when it’s up for renewal. Here are 5 reasons why I prefer to Google Drive to Dropbox…1. Best choice for Google Apps/Gmail users…2. Better for collaborating on documents…3. Price…4. Permissions…5. Integration…”

2.       TorSearch launches to be the Google of the hidden Internet  http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/10/torsearch-launches-to-be-the-google-of-the-hidden-internet/  “The newest search engine in the world is hidden in the shadows of the Internet, but it shines a light on those shadows that ordinary search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo can’t. It’s TorSearch, and it’s the new way for the million-plus users of Tor to find anything, privately…founder Chris MacNaughton told me this morning. “I want to be the Google of Tor.”…Currently TorSearch indexes almost 130,000 Tor resources, and traffic, which surged almost from day one, has doubled in the last three weeks as the Tor community has discovered its new search engine. The site is built as a Ruby on Rails web app, with Apache Soir serving as the search engine…”

3.       Website Builders: A Complete Guide to WYSIWYG and Drag-and-Drop Options  http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/website-builders/  “Drag-and-drop WYSIWYG website builders have always been a topic of mixed opinions, and strong feelings…While WYSIWYG editors and builders have been popular for quite some time, in recent years new options have emerged and in some cases the quality of code produced has improved…In this article we’ll take a detailed look at the topic of website builders. We’ll look at 13 of the leading options, along with pros and cons of using a website builder…Wix…Squarespace…IM Creator…Zoho Sites…Weebly…Webs…Edicy…Virb…PageLines…Headway…Ultimatum…Dunked…Behance Prosite…”

4.       Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates contributing tutorials to Code.org  http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/14/4838628/mark-zuckerberg-bill-gates-contributing-tutorials-to-code-org  “…Mark Zuckerberg and…Bill Gates are preparing to take a more hands-on approach…with Code.org, the non-profit that aims to make computer courses more prevalent in schools…both…will be contributing tutorials to an "Hour of Code" event slated for early December…the Hour of Code is an introductory lesson "designed to demystify code and show that anyone can learn the basics…Organizers are hoping to reach 10 million students with the effort…it's not just limited to schools; Code.org is encouraging communities and businesses to take part…Educators who organize Hour of Code events will receive 10GB of complimentary Dropbox storage, and a school in every US state will be gifted a class set of laptops for their participation…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

5.        Facebook no longer lets users hide from search  http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/facebook-search-privacy/  “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” Anyone you haven’t blocked. Facebook is removing this privacy setting, notifying those who had hidden themselves that they’ll be searchable. It deleted the option from those who hadn’t used it in December, and is starting to push everyone to use privacy controls on each type of content they share. But there’s no one-click opt out of Facebook search. To be fair, the “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” feature was likely misunderstood by lots of people. At first glance, you might assume it means that strangers can’t find your profile. But that’s incorrect. There have been lots of ways to navigate to your profile, like clicking your name on a photo you’re tagged in, finding your name in a friend’s friend list, or combing through Likes on a mutual friend’s News Feed post. With the roll out of Graph Search, the avenues for sniffing out someone’s profile grew exponentially. Basically every piece of personal information (and soon the content you post about) could bring you up in a search…”

6.       How To Opt Out Of Google’s Weird New Ads That Use Your Face And Name  http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/12/opt-out-google-ads/  “Angry that Google is planning on using your face and name for the sake of advertisements? Here’s how to make them not. If there’s any upside, it’s that opting out is, quite seriously, two clicks away. Two clicks that I only discovered because I went out of my way to look…Here’s how to do it…”

7.        Privacy Fears Grow as Cities Increase Surveillance  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/technology/privacy-fears-as-surveillance-grows-in-cities.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0  “…Federal grants of $7 million, initially intended to help thwart terror attacks at the port in Oakland, Calif., are instead going to a police initiative that will collect and analyze reams of surveillance data…The new system…is the latest example of how cities are compiling and processing large amounts of information, known as big data, for routine law enforcement…The police can monitor a fire hose of social media posts to look for evidence of criminal activities; transportation agencies can track commuters’ toll payments when drivers use an electronic pass; and the National Security Agency, as news reports this summer revealed, scooped up telephone records of millions of cellphone customers in the United States…Proponents of the Oakland initiative, formally known as the Domain Awareness Center, say it will help the police reduce the city’s notoriously high crime rates. But critics say the program, which will create a central repository of surveillance information, will also gather data about the everyday movements and habits of law-abiding residents…For law enforcement, data mining is a big step toward more complete intelligence gathering…Even before the initiative, Oakland spent millions of dollars on traffic cameras, license plate readers and a network of sound sensors to pick up gunshots. Still, the city has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country…The city plans to staff the center around the clock. If there is an incident, workers can analyze the many sources of data to give leads to the police, fire department or Coast Guard…school surveillance cameras, as well as video data from the regional commuter rail system and state highways, may be added later. Far less advanced surveillance programs have elicited resistance at the local and state level. Iowa City…recently imposed a moratorium on some surveillance devices, including license plate readers. The Seattle City Council forced its police department to return a federally financed drone to the manufacturer…”

8.       CMU researchers tout snoop-proof smartphone app SafeSlinger  http://triblive.com/news/editorspicks/4842425-74/safeslinger-app-security#axzz2hhKQ9ge9  “Carnegie Mellon University software researchers say they have written a smartphone messaging app with security that not even the National Security Agency can break, yet is easy to use…The app — called SafeSlinger — is available free on the iTunes App Store for Apple and Google Play Store for Android smartphones. Within a few months, the developers plan to have a similar security app available for email, using Google's Gmail…The software was introduced…last week…after six years of development…The setup between users takes several minutes, when they exchange contact information and answer security questions generated by the app that help it generate encryption and authorization credentials. Then it works like a regular messaging app…”

9.       Access Blocked Sites At School Or Work With Google Translate  http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/10/access-blocked-sites-at-school-or-work-with-google-translate/  “If your school or office blocks a large portion of the web…just plug a site into Google Translate to view it…copy and paste the URL of the page you want to view into Google Translate. On the left side, click on any language as long as it isn't "Detect Language", then translate it into English…It won't work everywhere, but some people are reporting good success with it…”  http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/07/use-google-as-a-proxy-server-to-bypass-paywalls-and-other-blocks/  “Whether you work at a place that blocks a bunch of web sites, or you can’t access a page because it’s behind a paywall, tech blog Digital Inspiration shows you how to use a couple of Google proxy servers to get around those restrictions…For example, the Google Modules service can be used simple by typing in: http://www.gmodules.com/ig/proxy?url=http://example.com/  This operates as a proxy and routes your traffic to wherever you want to go. It’s a pretty easy way to get around blocks without doing much work…”  http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-proxy-server/28112/

Mobile Computing & Communicating

10.     The Latest Smartphones Could Turn Us All Into Activity Trackers  http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/the-trojan-horse-of-the-latest-iphone-with-the-m7-coprocessor-we-all-become-qs-activity-trackers/  “…the new iPhone 5S…M7 coprocessor was…under-hyped, by both industry media and Apple. For the first time, motion sensing occurs in a separate processor, which makes constant activity tracking using the gyroscrope, compass, and accelerometer sensors more power-efficient without turning on the rest of the A7 chip. This means we’ll start to see more Quantified Self (QS) tracking apps detecting steps and stair-climbing, bringing Fitbit and Jawbone capabilities to our phones. And the M7 does all this without a noticeable drain on the battery…Activity tracking used to be a very conscious, active decision. There was a process of deciding what to track, and perhaps buying a device or turning on an app to track it. We also had to remember to put on our wrist bands or clip our Fitbits to our clothes. Now, with the M7, activity tracking comes as an automatic feature on the device that most of us carry with us all day, every day (Google and Motorola’s Android-based Moto X features a similar coprocessor)…And apps like Moves, Human, and Saga had started to take advantage of accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS information to turn the phones we already carry into activity trackers…What if the M7 sensed our sedentary lives and offered those data points to underwrite insurance, for instance?...Smartphones are just the start. Sensors are starting to show up in more of our appliances and devices. With activity tracking on our phones, a few quantified selves turns into a quantified society … whether we are aware of it or not.”

11.      HTC One Max packs fingerprint scanner, 5.9-inch screen  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2054540/htc-one-max-packs-fingerprint-scanner-59inch-screen.html  “HTC's One has been given a phablet-style makeover with the introduction of the 5.9-inch HTC One Max…HTC's newest phone includes a fingerprint scanner—although unlike the one in Apple's latest iPhone, it's located on the back of the device…the One Max can be locked or unlocked with a touch on its fingerprint scanner. The scanner can also be used to launch up to three favorite apps, each triggered by a different finger…The phone has a…1080p HD screen, a quad-core 1.7 GHz processor from Qualcomm, and 2GB of RAM. The front-facing camera has a resolution of 2.1 megapixels, while the 4 megapixel rear-facing camera uses HTC's UltraPixel design…”

12.     Takahito Iguchi: the visionary who sees beyond Google Glass  http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/14/takahito-iguchi-google-glass-telepathy-one  “A Japanese entrepreneur, Takahito Iguchi, is taking on the tech giant next year with Telepathy One, a device that will focus on real-time visual and audio sharing…Iguchi's augmented reality glasses, which aren't really glasses so much as a single piece of metal with a camera and a micro-projector, are called Telepathy One and…is due to launch next year. It's a stripped down, simplified version of Google Glass. Whereas Glass is, he says, "an egotistical device" with a range of uses – you can surf the net, read emails, take photographs, do unspecified things with as yet unspecified apps, Telepathy will be "more of a communication device". Connected via Bluetooth to your phone, it will focus on real-time visual and audio sharing. You'll be able to post photos and videos from your line of vision on Facebook or send them as an email. Or see and speak to a floating video image of a friend…Google Glass…before launch…has spawned half a dozen or so competitors…”

Apps

13.     Apple's Ecosystem Threatened by Google's Upcoming iOS Music App  http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/10/13/apples-ecosystem-threatened-by-googles-upcoming-io/  “…Google is preparing to release Google Music for iOS later this month and, when it arrives, it could weaken Apple's ecosystem. Also, Pandora should also take note of this change…More than books and apps, iTunes music sales have been at the center of Apple's resurgence over the last decade, and Apple continues to emphasize music, as evidenced by its recent expansion into Internet radio. iTunes Radio, a new feature included in iOS 7, brings built-in Pandora functionality to iOS devices…Like Pandora, iTunes Radio offers users the ability to create radio stations centered around a particular band or song; but, unlike Pandora, it heavily emphasizes music purchases…Like iTunes Radio threatens Pandora, Google Music threatens Apple's iTunes. In time, Google Music could weigh on potential iTunes sales, while, at the same time, making it more palatable for Apple loyalists to switch to Android…”

14.     App.io provides interactive browser demos to let consumers try apps before downloading  http://www.psfk.com/2013/10/test-apps-before-buying.html  “…App.io…allows brands and developers to show off their wares to consumers who shy away from purchasing apps they haven’t used firsthand…consumers may…try out free apps before going through the trouble of visiting the App Store…The service only currently accepts apps for iPhone but, Dowling said, will expand to include Android very soon…”

SkyNet

15.     Google search starts listing TV episodes and air dates  http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/08/google-search-starts-listing-tv-episodes-and-air-dates-in-results/  “Think of this as IMDb baked into your Google search. Today, everyone's favorite Search giant from Mountain View announced that users seeking information about their favorite shows, or those just curious about specific series, will now find detailed episode listings within their results. The added information pings up the full season's worth of episodes along with their respective air dates. And clicking on any of those entries will pull up relevant search results -- handy, say, if you're looking for a spoiler-laden recap…”

16.     Russia Launching New Search Engine 'Sputnik' to Compete With Google  http://mashable.com/2013/10/12/sputnik-search-engine/  “The name Sputnik stands tall in history books as the vessel that helped spark a space race with the U.S. But a new Russian project with the same name is planning to play catch-up in an area where the U.S. already has a huge lead: search engines. Rostelecom, the country’s state-controlled telecom service, has been charged with creating a search engine to compete with the likes of Google, as well as well local search-engine leader Yandex…Yandex claims that it currently generates 62% of all search traffic in Russia…Rostelecom has already spent $20 million on the search engine…The site will reportedly be accessible at www.Sputnik.ru, and will launch some time in the first quarter of 2014.”

17.     Google Street View used to fight invasive species  http://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a/19393675/google-street-view-used-to-fight-invasive-species/  “Google Street View can be a useful weapon in the costly and time-consuming fight against invasive species…A team at France's French National Agency for Agricultural Research (INRA) used the online tool, which provides 360-degree images of streets filmed by specially-fitted cars, to gauge the spread of a tree-killing insect. The pine processionary moth -- Thaumetopoea pityocampa in Latin -- is a foliage-munching critter…In autumn, larvae of the moth build a nest in which to hunker down for the winter -- a highly visible home made from white, shiny silk that hangs at the end of branches…Using this as a telltale, the researchers "drove" around a large area with Google Street View to map districts that had been invaded by the moth. The area of 47,000 square kilometres (18,100 square miles) -- bigger than the Netherlands -- was divided up into a grid of 183 large-scale "cells", each comprising 16 kms by 16 kms…The results from Google Street View were 90 percent as accurate as a test conducted on the ground by a human, who drove around the area in a car…”

General Technology

18.     Qualcomm to Build Neuro-Inspired Chips  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520211/qualcomm-to-build-neuro-inspired-chips/  “The world’s largest smartphone chipmaker, Qualcomm, says it is ready to start helping partners manufacture a radically different kind of a chip—one that mimics the neural structures and processing methods found in the brain…as a way to enable machines to perform complex tasks while consuming far less power…Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob said that by next year his company would take on partners to design and manufacture such chips for applications ranging from artificial vision sensors to robot controllers and even brain implants. The technology might also lead to smartphones that can sense and process information far more efficiently…”

19.     Turn your Android phone or tablet into a Web, file, or media server  http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-make-an-android-server/  “We all love our smartphones and tablets, but they go out of style so fast. With newer and more powerful gadgets coming out every six months or so, it doesn’t take long for old phones to pile up around the house, especially if you’re on a family plan. You could recycle these old phones, or sell them, but we have a better idea. You should root it (here’s how to root) and turn it into a server for any one of the many needs you may have!...Almost any computer can be converted to run as a server, and this includes Android devices…There are three main types of servers you can run on Android…Web server…File Server…Media Server…”

20.    Europe’s ambitious aim to 3D print a single-piece satellite  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24528306  “The European Space Agency has unveiled plans to "take 3D printing into the metal age" by building parts for jets, spacecraft and fusion projects…Printing metal parts for rockets and planes would cut waste and save money. The layered method of assembly also allows intricate designs - geometries which are impossible to achieve with conventional metal casting…"If we can get 3D metal printing to work, we are well on the way to commercial nuclear fusion."…The 20m-euro project brings together 28 partners from European industry and academia - including Airbus, Astrium, Norsk Titanium, Cranfield University, EADS, and the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy…researchers have already begun printing metal jet engine parts and aeroplane wing sections up to 2m in size…from expensive, exotic metals such as titanium, tantalum and vanadium…"Our ultimate aim is to print a satellite in a single piece…”

21.     MythBusters video: Roundabouts vs. 4-way stop intersection, which is more efficient?  http://www.treehugger.com/cars/mythbusters-roundabouts-vs-4-way-stop-intersection-which-more-efficient-video.html  “…MythBusters decided to test the 'myth' that European-style roundabouts were more efficient - allowing a higher throughput - than the 4-way stop intersection that dominates in North-America…what they are testing for is the number of cars that can cross the intersection in a certain period of time. That one thing, but there are others; for example, roundabouts also have fuel-efficiency benefits because you often don't have to completely stop the vehicle, losing momentum and making the engine work harder to re-accelerate. They've also been shown to be safer (including for pedestrians)…”

Leisure & Entertainment

22.    Google augmented-reality game Ingress coming to iOS in 2014  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57605616-94/google-augmented-reality-game-ingress-coming-to-ios-in-2014/  “Ingress, an augmented-reality Android game from Google's Niantic Labs unit in which players try to conquer territory in the real world, will come to iOS in 2014. Arriving on the scene a year ago, the closed-beta software Ingress has been gradually updated with bug fixes and new features. One thing that hasn't changed is the absence of an iPhone version, even though Google generally tends to support Apple's mobile operating system…”  [will making Ingress available to iPhone users make the game better or worse? – ed.]

23.    Google Niantic’s Ingress augmented-reality game grows with real-time events  http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/15/google-niantics-ingress-augmented-reality-game-grows-with-real-time-events/  “Google’s Niantic Labs has been experimenting with an augmented-reality mobile-only game called Ingress for nearly a year. And now Ingress is gathering momentum thanks to real-time events in cities across the globe, including an event that stretched across six cities last weekend…The idea behind Ingress was to get people off the couch and moving in the streets.” During last weekend’s event, Ingress fans gathered from two different factions to do battle with each other at public monuments, which are portals between worlds in the sci-fi story behind the game…the purpose behind Ingress is to get people more connected with the local community around them, including public art…”

24.    Illinois Institute of Technology students build catapults to toss pumpkins  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-iit-students-build-catapults-for-pumpkin-tossing--20131012,0,1807214.story  “…plain old carving of jack-o-lanterns just does not cut it for students at the Illinois Institute of Technology--a hub for future engineers, architects and computer scientists. Every year, dozens of students from different disciplines at the university compete to design and build machines that throw pumpkins the farthest and most accurately. During the ninth annual Pumpkin Launch…about 100 students worked to build 12 structures for pumpkin launching…Groups of several students took anywhere between a few days to a couple of months to construct slingshots, wooden trebuchets (catapults) and robotic launchers for the competition…”

25.    Rockstar promises $500,000 in-game cash to each GTA V player  http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/14/gta-online-rockstar-gamers-offered-cash  “Rockstar has just the thing for gamers frustrated by the stuttering debut of its Grand Theft Auto Online mode: $500,000 of in-game cash. The company announced…on Friday that the 'special stimulus package' would be dropped into the world perhaps as early as this week. The cash injection will be provided to any purchaser of Grand Theft Auto V who has attempted to play the Online mode during October. Launched at the beginning of the month, the service has been plagued by technical problems, including disappearing player-characters, and unreliable server access. Many gamers have lost thousands of in-game dollars, during the opening weeks. "In order to keep the current worldwide in-game economy balanced, we will be providing this GTA$ to players via two deposits of $250,000…”

26.    The future of video games will be in your browser  http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048967/the-future-of-video-games-will-be-in-your-browser.html  “…The future of PC gaming is in the browser, and it’ll be here sooner than you expect. I’m not talking about silly Flash games or Facebook time-wasters. We’ll soon be playing AAA games that don’t require pricey investments in new hardware…most of them will be absolutely free to play…Pansari and his team are developing a real-time strategy game, code-named Project Atlas, that they promise will rival Starcraft in depth and quality. The game will run entirely in a modern browser using HTML5 and JavaScript, and it won’t require any plug-ins or downloads…The game is still in a very early stage of development…But if I hadn’t known, I would never have guessed that all the action was unfolding inside a Web browser. The game launched in high resolution, all the hotkeys worked, moving the mouse to the edges scrolled the map, and everything was responsive. Unlike conventional games, which can gestate for years, Artillery started work on Project Atlas in September, and the company hopes to start small, closed beta testing by the end of the year. Plott told me he…can…produce new content in a fraction of the time it would take using traditional development tools. “Our browser-based platform will be transformative for the industry by…providing everyone with browser access to AAA-quality games typically only playable using a console or PC download…”

27.    Ex-Valve employees raising $400K on Kickstarter for augmented reality, 3D-projection glasses  http://www.geekwire.com/2013/castar/  “…Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson today launched a Kickstarter to raise $400,000 for their projected augmented reality glasses that display interactive 3D images right in front of you. The castAR specs are unlike wearable virtual reality headsets like Oculus Rift, which can only project images into your eye instead of the other way around…The idea behind the high-tech glasses is fairly novel and while still in the early stage of development, they definitely have a chance to change the way we think about playing video games…For nearly one year, Ellsworth and Johnson actually had been working hard on this project while together at Valve. Ellsworth…accidentally stumbled upon the idea after trying to solve the issue of headaches and stress caused by near-eye displays…I knew that this was really a great direction to go because we could go from this big heavy thing and we could actually start shrinking it down and make super light-weight glasses. But Valve “didn’t quite see how it fit with the type of games that they do…Ellsworth and Johnson — who had developed software for the specs — were sent packing this past February when Valve fired 25 people…Ellsworth met with Valve CEO Gabe Newell and asked if he would let her and Johnson continue working on the glasses outside of Valve. “Gabe turned to the lawyer in the room and he said, ‘Let them have it,’” Ellsworth recalled…So that evening, the jobless friends drank an entire bottle of wine, watched Dukes of Hazzard and built a plan to develop the product…”

28.    Rovio takes on 'Mario Kart' with 'Angry Birds Go'  http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/15/4840888/angry-birds-go-racing-game-trailer  “Rovio's Angry Birds are quickly becoming as recognizable as Super Mario, and soon they'll have their own very own kart game to match that level of fame. The developer just released the very first gameplay trailer for Angry Birds Go, a game that takes the Angry Birds style and translates it to a 3D racing game. The game will feature upgradeable vehicles and characters with special powers, and will be free-to-play…like the recently launched Angry Birds Star Wars II, the game will support Hasbro's Telepods, so that you can scan physical toys to bring them on to the virtual race track. Angry Birds Go will be launching on December 11th…”

Entrepreneurism and Technology

29.    Amazon’s ‘Login and Pay with Amazon’ Service Challenges PayPal  http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/08/amazons-pay-with-amazon-service-challenges-paypal-for-the-webs-payment-business/  “Amazon launched a service called Login and Pay with Amazon…that lets partner sites enable a payments button that will compete with PayPal and credit cards for customer checkout. This is a direct blow at one of the bigger third-party payment options that consumers have at checkout and an effort by Amazon to capture a huge chunk of the web’s payment business at large. This new service combines Amazon’s long-standing payments services with its relatively new login services to form a new one-stop-shop integration for web payments. “Amazon has more than 215 million active customer accounts…Login and Pay with Amazon enables companies to make millions of our customers their customers by inviting online shoppers with Amazon credentials to access their account information safely and securely with a single login.” Now, at the end of a checkout process, you’re going to be seeing ‘Pay with Amazon’ buttons alongside credit cards and PayPal buttons…”

30.    Smart Machines Will Replace Millions Of Jobs in Next 15 Years  http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/the-ceos-are-wrong-smart-machines-will-replace-millions-of-jobs/  “…Sixty-percent of CEOs surveyed by Gartner Research say the emergence of smart machines capable of absorbing millions of middle-class jobs within 15 years is a “futurist fantasy.”…The reality is actually quite different…Cloud services are early evidence that machines are replacing people. To keep data centers running, machines are programmed to adapt to different types of workloads…Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner, said…that the pace of “job destruction” will happen faster than the ability to create new ones. The difference will come as machines evolve from automated tasks to more advanced self-learning systems that are as capable of doing very specialized jobs. In Gartner’s view, it’s this specialized work where jobs will likely be eliminated over the next several years…”

31.     Xero To Do Battle With Intuit In The World Of Online SMB Accounting Software  http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/xero-zeros-in-on-another-150m-to-do-battle-with-intuit-in-the-world-of-online-smb-accounting-software/  “…Xero, the online accounting software company is…building out its business targeting small and medium businesses, and their accountants, with its cloud-based software globally…Prior to today’s funding announcement, the company was valued at over $2.07 billion. But it is not yet profitable, reporting a net loss of US$12 million…for the last fiscal year. Xero’s unique selling point is its slick and simple user interface…Into this the company adds functionality that SMBs are increasingly coming to demand: integration with payment services like PayPal, for example; and the ability to add CRM apps, general online invoices and and manage it all from a smartphone — all sold under an SaaS pricing model. “Xero has had seven years to build the best global accounting platform,” said Rod Drury, Xero’s CEO…Xero hopes to use this funding injection to overtake dominant players in the SMB market like Intuit’s QuickBooks…” [because of QuickBooks, Intuit has pretty much owned the SMB accounting software market, but they may be losing market share to new innovative companies in the same way that Blackberry and Nokia have lost their market by not innovating – ed.]

32.    Zulily files for $100M IPO  http://www.geekwire.com/2013/zulily-files-100m-ipo-reveals-331m-2012-revenue-22m-active-customers/  “Fast-growing Zulily is looking to take the IPO plunge. The Seattle company, which sells clothes, toys and accessories for babies, kids and moms, today filed to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. The company’s growth has been astounding since it was started…in 2009. It posted revenues of $331 million last year, up from $143 million in 2011. The company lost $10.3 million last year, but it swung to a $2.3 million profit in the first half of 2013…The company’s customer base also is growing fast, with 2.2 million active customers…”

Design / DEMO

33.    Should Good Interaction Design Be Patentable  http://www.fastcodesign.com/3019905/should-good-interaction-design-be-legally-defensible  “When Gentry Underwood first launched Mailbox, the popular email app that Dropbox reportedly acquired for $100 million, critics lauded the service's smart interaction designs, such as its intuitive swiping gestures that enabled users to sift quickly through mountains of messages. But when Apple unveiled iOS 7 earlier this summer, many immediately noticed the same gestures now came standard in Apple's native email client. Suddenly, Mailbox's central competitive advantage--its clever interaction design--was no longer so unique. To Underwood, however, imitation is inevitable. "Good design isn't particularly defensible," he says. "If you create a better, simpler way of doing something, it's generally much easier to replicate it than it is to come up with the idea in the first place. This is something Apple both takes advantage of and is also victim to."…as hardware becomes an increasingly smaller part of the equation, software is likely to play a larger role in gaining consumer favor…interaction design is becoming more important to defining product--arguably more so than industrial design. What happens to competition when those innovative interaction designs can't necessarily be owned?…”

34.    What A Portable Speaker Can Teach Us About Designing Heirlooms  http://www.fastcodesign.com/3019594/wanted/what-a-portable-speaker-can-teach-us-about-designing-heirlooms  “…the Ultimate Ears Boom ($200) isn’t just a neat portable Bluetooth speaker that you can buy instead of a Jambox. It’s what designers at Nonobject call “the musical instrument of the 21st century,” a fascinating case study of where we can take electronics…“Consumer electronics have a short lifecycle. You buy something at the store--a camera or speakers--you exit the store, and immediately it’s devalued because you know something else is coming around…But musical instruments are magical. You don’t buy a musical instrument expecting it to go obsolete. If you have a guitar on the floor, it enhances the room…The key question to me was: Could that emotional relevance and musical relevance be achieved in a portable speaker? Could I design something that would positively portray youth, and the wear and tear of life without being tossed?”…Instead of metal, plastic, and glass, the Boom shell is crafted from rubber and fabric--two durable substances…They…almost subconsciously, imply a level or durability to the product when you hold it…At the end of the day, the product is incredibly robust…”

DHMN Technology

35.    'Terminator arm' churned out of 3D printer  http://diytech.tgdaily.com/story/maker/terminator-arm-churned-out-of-3d-printer/384c38695a2f354d657a39644957526b31324e6753413d3d  “3D printing can render everyday artefacts in clear plastic, so we can see in unprecedented detail how they work – and this exquisite model of a prosthetic arm is a brilliant example…Designed by Richard Hague…and his students the arm shows how the printers can create strong structure, mobile joints and delicate sensors – like spiral-shaped metal touch-detectors – all in one process."It's a mock-up but it shows circuits that sense temperature, feel objects and control the arm's movement…3D printing gives us the freedom to make complex, optimised shapes, and our research aim is focused on printing-in electrical, optical or even biological functions."Such techniques are also bringing prosthetics to people who previously could not afford them…”

36.    MIT Develops ‘SkyCall’ Drone to Guide People Around Campus  http://techland.time.com/2013/10/10/mit-develops-skycall-drone-to-guide-people-around-campus/  “Look out, tour guides. The robots are coming for your jobs…It’s called SkyCall and consists of a mobile app paired with an autonomous flying quadcopter that helps people find their way around the MIT campus. A person downloads the SkyCall app to a smartphone, which leverages the phone’s GPS chip to determine the person’s location. The quadcopter then flies its way to the person, greets the person and then prompts the person for a code containing the building and room numbers of his or her destination. Once the code gets entered via the app, the quadcopter starts heading out toward the destination at a walkable pace ahead of the person and highlights nearby points of interest along the way. If the person following the quadcopter walks too slowly, the quadcopter will slow down until the person catches up…”

37.    The drones of Burning Man  http://www.fastcocreate.com/3019861/the-drones-of-burning-man  “Burning Man is known for flouting rules, not making them. But the advent of drones hovering above 70,000 scantily clad revelers has engaged a balancing act between freedom of expression, safety, and privacy. How Burning Man regulates their use is now being studied by local law enforcement and government agencies as a template for how they can be regulated in society…It was the first time the rule-adverse desert arts festival tried to regulate its proliferation of personal drones--camera-toting remote-controlled airplanes and multicopters…“Burning Man didn’t want to come from above with a lot of rules for drone flyers,” says Jim Graham…“But we needed some best practices to operate responsibly. It’s an experiment.”…Burning Man--an annual bacchanalian, clothing-optional experimental community in Nevada’s Black Rock desert--is regarded as a weeklong end-of-summer party and escape from the outside world. But it’s now attracting real-world attention for how it balances drone use with freedom of expression, privacy, invasion of space, and commercialism--issues that have been vexing the FAA, law enforcement, and municipalities as hobbyist flyers and commercial potential proliferate…”

38.    A Makerspace for kids  http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/04/makerkids  “In Toronto, three-year-olds are using power drills, soldering irons and saws in the…makerspace for kids…it's hard to do work that's awesome and changes the world…Yet everything we see is created by humans -- therefore we must increase human potential and have more innovations." To do this, she explains, people need opportunities, skills, knowledge and confidence -- and childhood is of course the best time to optimise these. "Convince someone they're a leader when they are a child, and they will carry that with them for the rest of their lives." She describes MakerKids as being like the Montessori School for the 21st Century. The school, for two to seven-year-olds, is famous for enabling self-directed and collaborative learning rather than dictator…making in schools remains step-by-step, she says, and little creativity is therefore used. There are plenty of hackerspaces for adults, because there are fewer liability fears round letting them experiment…At MakerKids there is a "possibility wall", with all the different tools available for the kids to choose when curiosity takes them. They can play around with 3D printing, Arduinio, Minecraft, robotics, toy hacking, rocket launching, jewellery making, sewing, programming and more…”

39.    Houston Makerspace Raises $10,000 In Crowdfunding Effort  http://www.texastechpulse.com/houston_makerspace_raises_______in_crowdfunding_effort/s-0051520.html  “Houston Makerspace, the effort to create a "makerspace" in Houston's East End to help encourage people to create all kinds of projects--3D objects, textiles, prototypes, electronics, art, and more--has reached its crowdfunding goals, raising $10,000 on crowdfunding site Indiegogo. The effort hopes to create a location with tools, resources, education and acommunity for "makers…”

Open Source Hardware

40.    Wicked Lasers Evo is open-source and controllable via a smartphone  http://www.slashgear.com/wicked-lasers-evo-is-open-source-and-controllable-via-a-smartphone-09300729/  “Wicked Lasers has been offering up all sorts of laser pointers that can be used for performing all sorts of interesting stunts. Some lasers the company makes are incredibly powerful and can be used to melt, pop, and burn all sorts of stuff including iPhones. Wicked Lasers has announced what it claims to be the world’s first open source smartphone controllable handheld laser called the Evo…it doesn’t know what people might do with an open-source smartphone controllable laser, and…It will certainly be interesting to see what geeks can come up with to use the laser. The Evo the laser costs $199.95 and shoots a green laser beam. The Evo laser has fully variable power selection and four different operating modes…”

41.     Baked in Britain, the millionth Raspberry Pi  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24435809  “…The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that a million of the tiny cheap computers aimed at transforming education have now been made in the UK. When the Pi was launched in February last year, the device was made in China. But a few months on, production was brought home to…South Wales…Since then, they've been churning out as many as 12,000 a day, and showing that manufacturing can still work in the UK. The Pi…looks set to become the best-selling British computer since the 1980s…But amid all the celebrations, there is some soul-searching. Their project may have inspired middle-aged hobbyists around the world to invent all sorts of weird and wonderful things, from a Pi-powered bear leaping out of a balloon to any number of robots, musical instruments and vehicles. But for the Raspberry Pi Foundation…the aim…was to transform the way children in the UK - and then in other countries - understood and used computers…But there isn't an awful lot of evidence that a computer designed for children is in the hands of many at the moment…After a donation from Google aimed at giving 15,000 Pis to children, former ICT teacher Clive Beale was appointed to drive this mission forwards. One of the issues is training ICT teachers - after all, the bare board Raspberry Pi looks quite intimidating to anyone whose main experience has been taking students through the intricacies of Microsoft Word rather than programming…”

Open Source

42.    Scratch For Arduino Makes Programing The Arduino More Visual  http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/10/scratch-for-arduino-makes-programing-the-arduino-more-visual/  “Programming an Arduino isn’t especially difficult, but if you’re looking for a more visual method, Scratch for Arduino (S4A) uses MIT’s Scratch as a groundwork for teaching kids (or beginners) how to program an Arduino. S4A works just like Scratch, where you drag and place actions to create programs. The idea is to provide you with a more visual language to program in so you can understand how things work better…it’s a good place to start learning about how the Arduino works.…”

43.    Open access to scientific knowledge has reached its tipping point  http://opensource.com/life/13/10/tipping-point-open-access-science  “A recent study…concluded that half of all published academic papers become freely available in no more than two years…the trend is toward more and more articles becoming open access…"free availability of a majority of articles has been reached in general science and technology, in biomedical research, biology, and mathematics, and statistics."…these results indicate a "tipping point" in open access availability. No doubt this is major news for a publishing industry traditionally accustomed to regular subscription fees in exchange for scholarly research…"It’s only going to accelerate. There are a lot of people behind it: governments, academia, even publishers to an extent…”

44.    Can a $249 Android-Linux 'hacker's tablet' take flight?  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57607241-1/can-a-$249-android-linux-hackers-tablet-take-flight/  “…the past few years, there's been little room for Cinderella stories in the world of tablets and mobile computing as massive monoliths like Apple, Google, and Samsung have come to dominate, and even well-established names like Microsoft and BlackBerry struggle to gain a foothold. Perhaps this is why I was drawn to PengPod, a line of Android and Linux dual-booting tablets designed by a small Florida-based team, crowdfunded on Indiegogo, and manufactured in China with an Allwinner quad-core ARM-based processor at its heart…Last year, the PengPod team…successfully raised more than $72,000 on Indiegogo for a 7- and 10-inch Android tablet capable of booting into Linux from an SD card. A small community has coalesced around the devices, but problems with a supplier led to the discontinuation of the two original models. The team…last month launched a second Indiegogo campaign for the 9.7-inch PengPod 1040, which improves upon the original design and allows for easy switching between multiple operating systems from its 16GB of internal flash storage -- no more need to create a bootable SD card…”

Civilian Aerospace

45.    Mars Society Calls On Volunteers for 12-Month Simulated Mars Mission  http://www.americaspace.com/?p=43757  “The Mars Society…has issued a call for volunteers to participate in a one-year Mars surface simulation mission next year. The…mission, expected to begin in August 2014, will take place at their Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station…on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic…900 miles from the North Pole…one of the most remote and Mars-like environments on the planet…six volunteer crew members will spend 12 months participating in a sustained program of field exploration, operating under many of the same constraints that will be faced by explorers on an actual human mission to the Red Planet. The crew will not leave the FMARS habitat without wearing a space suit simulator, and they will be responsible for their own field work, equipment repair, laboratory research, reporting, and daily chores. Crew members will also work in telescience collaboration with a remote science team, mission support group, and an engineering support team based in the United States…the Mars Society is seeking four volunteers with proven skills as field scientists in the areas of geology, geochemistry, microbiology, climate research, biochemistry, and paleontology. Two additional people will be selected for their expertise in the field of engineering…individuals must be in excellent physical condition…between the ages of 22 and 60, and have a four-year college degree (or equivalent experience)…”

46.    UCSD students test fire 3D-printed metal rocket engine  http://www.gizmag.com/3d-printed-rocket-seds/29306/  “Like something out of a Robert Heinlein novel, students at the University of California, San Diego…have built a metal rocket engine using a technique previously confined to NASA…the UCSD chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space…conducted a hot fire test for a 3D-printed metal rocket engine at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch site in California’s Mojave Desert. This is the first such test of a printed liquid-fueled, metal rocket engine by any university in the world and the first designed and printed outside of NASA. The Tri-D rocket engine, as it’s called, was designed and built with the cooperation of NASA…as part of an effort to explore the feasibility of printed rocket components…it was designed to power the third stage of a Nanosat launcher, that is, one capable of launching satellites that weigh less than 1.33 kg …”

47.    Bezos’ Blue Origin employs 300 people, gearing up for commercial operations  http://www.geekwire.com/2013/blue-origin/  “Blue Origin, the Seattle-based space venture backed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has been quietly working for the past 13 years on development and testing of its New Shepard rocket…the company is now up to 300 employees and is inching closer to commercial operation…Blue Origin is now working on its third version of the New Shepard, which is designed to take everyday people on suborbital journeys…Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle, designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station and elsewhere, will be tested by 2018…”

48.    SpaceX Grasshopper rocket makes a half-mile hop  http://www.nbcnews.com/science/must-see-video-spacex-grasshopper-rocket-makes-half-mile-hop-8C11380772  “SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket prototype made another record-setting vertical takeoff and landing this week…what's really cool about Oct. 7's half-mile…ascent and controlled descent is the amazing view from a remote-controlled hexacopter that captured the video clip. This is what a rocket launch and landing is supposed to look like. The 10-story craft is testing the technologies that would be required to have the first stage of a rocket fly itself back to base after launch…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

49.    LSU Receives Record Grant for Supercomputer  http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-10-11/lsu_receives_record_grant_for_supercomputer.html  “The University’s Center for Computation and Technology recently received a record-breaking grant to purchase a new supercomputing cluster known as SuperMIC…SuperMIC is categorized as a heterogeneous, high performance computing (HPC) cluster. What makes this technology the most up-to-date is Intel Xeon Phi and NVIDIA Kepler K20X graphics processing unit accelerators. According to the project proposal, heterogeneous computing clusters are becoming the norm for such systems; three of the top 10 Top 500 supercomputers use accelerators…Projects include a collaboration between the CCT and biological sciences department concerning drug discovery, another pertaining to climate change and a black hole simulation…The project has paved the way for other opportunities, such as Beowulf Boot Camp, a summer camp for exposing high school students to supercomputing. At the camp, participants will assemble a system and learn to program…”

50.    Wall Street's High-Frequency Trading Technology Arms Race  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424495,00.asp  “…Those currently trading who aren't high-frequency traders…are giving their money away to high-frequency traders (who now make up about half of all market volume). "By the time the ordinary investor sees a quote, it's like looking at a star that burned out 50,000 years ago,"…high-frequency traders use a combination of hardware and software to see how much someone else is willing to buy or sell a given security for fractions of a second before their competition does…It's almost like being able to bet on a horse race from the future; you already know who's crossed the finish line first. But the advantage never lasts. It takes ever-increasing amounts of hardware sophistication, software sophistication, power, and money to stay ahead of the game and keep making millions from your competitions' comparative lack of information…HFT actually started in 1999 when the SEC authorized electronic exchanges, although then it was more about software than hardware…But when some traders started discovering the opportunity to profit from what is known as "latency arbitrage," or being able to profit from executing trades before others, they kicked off the mother of all races to reach zero latency…High-frequency trading is at the forefront of hardware acceleration. This means using hardware-accelerated network stacks and NPUs (network processing units), or custom-designed FPGAs…some people are using GPUs to do massively parallel analysis on the fly. So there's some pretty interesting stuff going on in hardware acceleration that I think is more cutting edge than most industries." There's…an interesting interplay between the video game and financial services industry in terms of GPU (graphics processing unit) technology; both are driving hard to increase GPU capabilities, albeit in different ways. Video gaming is driving rendering and shape processing; financial services are driving floating-point operations…”

Trends & Emerging Tech

51.     10 massive tech trends that will hit us by 2020  http://memeburn.com/2013/10/10-massive-tech-trends-that-will-hit-us-by-2020/  “…technology has become the catalyst for the next phase of innovation both in our personal lives and in business…1. By 2018, 3D printing will result in the loss of at least US$100-billion per year in intellectual property globally…2. By 2016, 3D printing of tissues and organs (bioprinting) will cause a global debate about regulating the technology or banning it for both human and non-human use…3. By 2017, more than half of consumer goods manufacturers will receive 75% of their consumer innovation and R&D capabilities from crowdsourced solutions…4. By 2020, digitisation will cause social unrest and a quest for new economic models in several mature economies…5. By 2017, 80% of people will collect, track and barter their personal data for cost savings, convenience and customization…6. By 2020, businesses and governments will fail to protect 75% of sensitive data, and declassify and grant broad/public access to it…7. By 2024, at least 10% of activities potentially injurious to human life will require mandatory use of a non-overideable “smart system”…8. By 2020, a majority of knowledge worker career paths will be disrupted by smart machines in both positive and negative ways…9. By 2017, 10% of computers will be learning rather than processing…10. By 2020, consumer data collected from wearable devices will drive five percent of sales from the Global 1000…”

52.    Fourteen Meetings Technology Trends to Watch for 2014  http://www.eventplannerspain.com/news-events-Spain/2869/Fourteen-Meetings-Technology-Trends-to-Watch-for-2014  “This annual review covers many of the major events tech trends to watch for this coming year…1. Crowdsourcing and crowd sharing will be more widely used for events…2. Wearable/ultra-portable computing will begin to work its way into events…3. Conference event guide apps are becoming essential…4. Multi-event app platforms will be used widely for larger corporations and associations…5. Mobile social event networking will blossom…6. Free open-source web content management systems will open the door for a wide range of inexpensive event software tools…7. The 4 screen revolution: responsive and adaptive web design will become mandatory for your web site…8. Content curation tools will help efficiently manage meetings information and interaction…9. Video will be increasing integrated in the business process for events…10. Geofencing will begin to be used by meeting venues and event organizers to improve the participant experience…11. Advanced display technology will create a greater "wow" factor at events and exhibitions…12. Deep event data management and customized content delivery is becoming a reality…13. Audience engagement becomes a top priority for events…14. Despite the increased use of virtual meetings technology, face-to-face meetings and tradeshows will remain viable…”

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