myDigitechnician

NEW NET Weekly List for 24 Jan 2012

2012-01-24T17:08:00.000-06:00

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 24 January 2012, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurism and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1. SOPA Protests SwayCongress: 31 Opponents Yesterday, 122 Now http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/sopa-opponents-supporters/ “Yesterday the Internet cried out in protestof SOPA-PIPA, and congress heard us loud and clear. At the beginning of Janaury18th, there were 80 members of congress who supported the legislation, and 31opponents. Now, just 63 support SOPA-PIPA, and opposition has surged to 122…” http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/01/the-week-the-web-changed-washi.html “This morning, Sen. Harry Reid…the SenateMajority Leader, said in a statement that he would postpone next week's vote onthe PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Rep. Lamar Smith…followed with a statement that hewould also halt consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)…This outcomewas driven by an unprecedented day of online protests on Wednesday of thisweek, and the resulting coverage on cable and broadcast news networks had aneffect…We are thankful for the efforts of Senator Ron Wyden who from thebeginning stood against this bill; his early opposition and leadership gavevoice to the important concerns of the Internet community." Wikipedia,Google, BoingBoing, Reddit, O'Reilly Media and thousands of other websites,blogs and individual citizens asked their communities to take a stand andcontact Washington. January 18, 2012, will go down as an historic day of onlineaction. Consider the following statistics: 162 million Wikipedia page views,with some 8 million visitors using an online form to look up the address oftheir Congressional representatives…7 million signatures on Google's petition…250,000+people took action through the EFF's resources…2.4 million+ SOPA-related tweetswere sent between 12 a.m. and 4 p.m. on January 18…140,000 phone calls madethrough Tumblr's platform.…”

2. Udacity and the future ofonline universities http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/01/23/udacity-and-the-future-of-online-universities/ “…Thrun told the story of his Introduction toArtificial Intelligence class, which ran from October to December last year. Itstarted as a way of putting his Stanford course online — he was going to teachthe whole thing, for free, to anybody in the world who wanted it. With quizzesand grades and a final certificate, in parallel with the in-person course hewas giving his Stanford undergrad students. He sent out one email to announcethe class, and from that one email there was ultimately an enrollment of160,000 students. Thrun scrambled to put together a website which could scaleand support that enrollment, and succeeded spectacularly well…there were morestudents in his course from Lithuania alone than there are students at Stanfordaltogether…when it finished, thousands of students around the world wereeducated and inspired. Some 248 of them, in total, got a perfect score: theynever got a single question wrong…Thrun was eloquent on the subject of how herealized that he had been running “weeder” classes, designed to be tough andmake students fail…Going forwards, he said, he wanted to learn from KhanAcademy and build courses designed to make as many students as possiblesucceed…he concluded that “I can’t teach at Stanford again.” He’s given up histenure at Stanford, and he’s started a new online university called Udacity. Hewants to enroll 500,000 students for his first course, on how to build a searchengine — and of course it’s all going to be free…I’m a little sad that it’shappening away from, rather than being part of, Stanford…Stanford was willingto spend hundreds of millions of dollars building a new physical campus in NewYork City — but it isn’t willing, it seems, to help Thrun build a free virtualcampus which could reach the whole world…”

3. Facebook Timeline comingto everyone, users get a week to clean up profiles http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/facebook-timeline-now-open-to-all-users-get-a-week-to-clean-up-profiles/ “You can run, but you can’t hide. Facebook’s biggestuser interface overhaul since the Wall, the Facebook Timeline, is rolling outworldwide starting today…everyone will get the new Timeline…when you do, you’llhave just seven days to preview what’s there now, and hide anything you don’twant others to see…Timeline makes it far easier for you to travel back throughyour Facebook posts – posts which normally disappeared off your Wall and intooblivion. The posts from these previous months and years are now accessiblethrough new navigational elements on the right-side of your screen…WithTimeline’s added ability to find older posts, including those from the daysbefore your boss, grandparents, mom and dad were on Facebook, users will needto do a rapid cleanup on their profiles when the Timeline goes live…”

4. IBM takes on Google andMicrosoft with cloud-hosted document-editing tool http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/IBM-Showcases-Beta-for-IBM-Docs-Next-Gen-of-Collaborative-Suite-of-Office-Business-Tools-589286/ “…IBM unveiled the beta version of its nextiteration of IBM Docs…Available now on Greenhouse, the cloud-based set ofsocial document editors includes a suite of office-productivity applicationssuch as a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool. IBM Docs wasdesigned to help teams share files, collaborate effectively and improveproductivity…"IBM Docs is not based on OpenOffice or Lotus Symphony…Thiswas built from the ground up.”…Simplicity is key, IBM executives said. We’redesigning this to be a low barrier to usage…There is one class of user wheredesktop software over-serves them,” Barlow said. “They work in businessapplications, mainly. I think they can replace the cost of managing desktopsoftware…Everything I create is team-based,” Barlow said. “I don’t want totrack multiple document versions…”

5. Yahoo co-founder, JerryYang, forced out http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/20/in-defense-of-jerry-yang/ “Jerry Yang is gone from Yahoo!...Theconventional wisdom is that Jerry was an idiot for not immediately acceptingMicrosoft‘s $31 offer made in February 2008 at a 62% premium…However, thatwasn’t the conventional wisdom at the time…most pundits and media thought itwas smart to hold out for a higher offer because Microsoft “needed” Yahoo! After all, isn’t it “Negotiation 101″ tonever take the first offer?...What no one saw coming was Steve Ballmer pullingits offer…several of the largest Yahoo! shareholders were absolutely in favorof Jerry’s (which was the board’s) strategy of playing hard to get…theseshareholders explicitly ruled out taking the $31 offer. One in particular wanted $40 and said that –worst case scenario…$36…If Jerry (and more specifically his board) hadover-ruled his investors, they would have raised hell…can you imagine if theboard had accepted the $31 offer a week or two after it was made? The shareholder lawsuits would have flownsaying that the board left too much value on the table…Jerry…made the $1billion investment in Alibaba Group in 2005 for 40% of the company…according tomost recent reports, that stake is worth $12.5 billion…if Alibaba Group was toIPO today, I believe strongly it would be valued at $65 billion, meaningYahoo!’s stake today is actually worth $26 billion…Jerry’s investment is thesingle best investment made by an American in the Chinese Internet space…”

GigabitInternet

6. Idaho District Gets NewGigabit Fiber Network http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/01/20/idaho-district-gets-new-gigabit-fiber-network.aspx “A school district in Boise, ID has justdeployed a gigabit Ethernet network to deliver 100-megabit service to its 49schools and administration buildings…for the nearly $80,000 per month dedicatedfiber service. The improved network is being used to deliver public accessservices, digital voice, and a secure network to connect district sites. Thedistrict has about 35,000 students and 2,500 employees. "This networkincreases our district's Internet access, internal capacity, and reliability,giving our district access to technology applications that enhance learning…”

7. Will our plugged-inplanet have a green or black future? http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/23/3387805/will-our-plugged-in-planet-have.html “…Chances are the Internet has changedsomething about your life…The more interesting answer comes in a longerconversation short on absolutes and peppered with unintended consequences. InKansas City, perhaps as much as anywhere in America, that discussion couldbecome ever more profound. If Google Inc. succeeds with plans to blanket themarket in lightning-fast Internet hookups…the change could be transformational…Witha far faster Internet, you can have constant high-definition live video feedswith a dozen co-workers constantly. Crystal clear audio and video without ahint of delay. We’ve just eliminated all that gasoline burned on your daily commute.But wait. You’re going to have the furnace or air conditioner in your homerunning more during the day. Your lights will be on. Unless your company hasloads of teleworkers, there’s probably no energy savings at the office fromhaving you at home…Computers, smartphones, iPods, Kindles and the rest of thefast-growing array of gadgets pose their own environmental cost. They suck downelectricity…almost without pause. Their manufacture requires significantenergy. And they are made of a sometimes toxic brew of chemicals and raremetals…Imagine a significant number of people in Kansas City withInternet-tethered monitors in their refrigerators and tiny radio chips on milk,butter and cheese packages. Those refrigerators could feed data to regionaldairies. Those dairies, in turn, could far better anticipate demand. That couldsignal whether to send delivery trucks to groceries in Brookside or StrawberryHill and what best to stock in them. It might even offer clues about when tovary the diets of milking cows…Consider a much-networked system wired over theInternet into a community’s thermostats…it could match those needs with demandsof the power grid, coordinating hundreds of thousands of houses so a utilitycould minimize peak power demands — a difference that might mean less powerdrawn from coal-burning plants and more taken from wind farms…the beloved book,with its demand for wood pulp, ink and shipping. “War and Peace” now fitsinstantly in your e-reader without the harvest of so much as a twig…Ultimately,new ways will arise to get the most out of virtual existence…”

Security,Privacy & Digital Controls

8. Why the feds smashedMegaupload http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars “The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on"cyberlocker" site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names,grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest fourof the site's key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom…prosecutorscharged that the site earned more than $175 million since its founding in 2005,most of it based on copyright infringement…the site's employees…were paidlavishly and they spent lavishly. Even the graphic designer, 35-year-oldSlovakian resident Julius Bencko, made more than $1 million in 2010 alone…Thecase is a major one, involving international cooperation between the US, HongKong, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Canada, and the Philippines. Inaddition to the arrests, 20 search warrants were executed today in multiplecountries…Megaupload controlled 525 servers in Virginia alone and had another630 in the Netherlands—and many more around the world…the site has claimed to takedown unauthorized content when notified by rightsholders…It has negotiated withcompanies like Universal Music Group about licensing content. And CEO KimDotcom sent this curious e-mail to PayPal in late 2011: Our legal team in theUS is currently preparing to sue some of our competitors and expose theircriminal activity. We like to give you a heads up and advice [sic] you not towork with sites that are known to pay up loaders for pirated content…thegovernment contends that everything about the site has been doctored to make itlook more legitimate than it is. The “Top 100” download list does not “actuallyportray the most popular downloads,” say prosecutors…the indictment seems…fullof strange non-sequiturs, such as the charge that "on or about November10, 2011, a member of the Mega Conspiracy made a transfer of $185,000 tofurther an advertising campaign for Megaupload.com involved a musical recordingand a video." So? The money probably paid for a video that infuriated theRIAA by including major artists who support Megaupload…There's no doubt thatthe indictment makes Megaupload look bad, though, and we're quite curious tosee what comes of the case…Law professor James Grimmelmann of New York LawSchool tells Ars, "If proven at trial, there's easily enough in theindictment to prove criminal copyright infringement…But much of what theindictment details are legitimate business strategies many websites use toincrease their traffic and revenues: offering premium subscriptions, runningads, rewarding active users…” http://torrentfreak.com/uploaded-to-blocks-us-visitors-120121/ “Uploaded.to, one of the most popularfile-hosting sites in the Internet, has closed its doors to US visitors. Themove is most likely a response to the FBI crackdown on MegaUpload two days ago.US visitors of Uploaded.to currently get the following message. “Not Available:Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.…”

9. David Pogue and othersmart people underestimate Hollywood’s disdain for First Ammendment http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2012/01/pick-up-the-pitchforks-david-pogue-underestimates-hollywood/ “…David Pogue, one of the Times’ techcolumnists, advises toning down the alarmist rhetoric over SOPA, suggestingthat opponents of the bill (and its Senate cousin PIPA) should Put Down thePitchforks…Pogue proceeds to offer an explanation of SOPA that makes it clearthat he does not understand the text of the bill…Pogue’s perspective: LettingHollywood decide whether any given site with user contributions facilitatespiracy would amount to nothing more than “a gigantic headache.” (Me, I’d havegone with “a violation of the First Amendment.”) To come to a conclusion likethis, you’d have to believe that traditional media companies are committed tobalancing their desire for control with a respect for citizen rights…Pogue doesseem to believe…bad things would happen only if the entertainment industry’slegal arm gets out of control. If their legal arm gets out of control? This isan industry that demands payment from summer camps if the kids sing HappyBirthday or God Bless America, an industry that issues takedown notices for a29-second home movie of a toddler dancing to Prince. Traditional American mediafirms are implacably opposed to any increase in citizens’ ability to create,copy, save, alter, or share media on our own…I don’t think he’s intentionallytrying to obscure the way the bill imagines letting media firms escape dueprocess and impose “market-based” censorship. I think he simply cannot imaginethat the bills are as bad as they actually are…Pogue (and many others) simplyimagine that the core of SOPA must therefore be reasonable. Surely Hollywoodwouldn’t try to suspend due process, would they? Or create a parallelenforcement system? Or take away citizen recourse if they were unfairlysilenced? They wouldn’t imagine the possibility of a longer jail term forstreaming a Michael Jackson video than Jackson’s own doctor got for killingactual Michael Jackson? Would they?…”

10. Supreme Court CourtRejects Willy-Nilly GPS Tracking Without Warrant http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/scotus-gps-ruling/ “The Supreme Court said Monday that lawenforcement authorities might need a probable-cause warrant from a judge toaffix a GPS device to a vehicle and monitor its every move — but the justicesdid not say that a warrant was needed in all cases. The convoluted decision(.pdf) in what is arguably the biggest Fourth Amendment case in the computerage, rejected the Obama administration’s position that attaching a GPS deviceto a vehicle was not a search. The government had told the high court that itcould even affix GPS devices on the vehicles of all members of the SupremeCourt, without a warrant. “We hold that the government’s installation of a GPSdevice on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor thevehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote forthe five-justice majority…”

11. Judge: Americans can beforced to decrypt their laptops http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57364330-281/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-their-laptops/ “American citizens can be ordered to decrypt theirPGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, afederal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-settingcase. Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the harddrive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21--or face theconsequences including contempt of court. Blackburn, a George W. Bushappointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendment posed no barrier to his decryptionorder. The Fifth Amendment says that nobody may be "compelled in anycriminal case to be a witness against himself," which has become known asthe right to avoid self-incrimination…”

12. Rumor: Apple spent $100million in its first case against HTC — and got almost nothing http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/01/23/rumor-apple-spent-100-million-in-its-first-case-against-htc-and-got-almost-nothing/ “…Apple’s “thermonuclear war” on Androidsmartphone makers has been fizzling out lately. Most of Apple’s legal claimshave been tossed out, and the two minor victories Apple has scored were sotrivial that opponents could work around the claim by making minor changes totheir products…a person close to the situation tells me…Apple spent $100million just on its first set of claims against HTC…Apple’s case against HTCstarted out with 84 claims based on 10 patents. But by the time the case got toa judge only four patents were involved. The final ruling was that one patentwas totally invalid because of prior art, and should never have been issued toApple. On two other patents, the ruling was that HTC was not infringing on thepatents, and, worse yet, that Apple itself was not using those patents in itsown product, which means Apple had no right to seek an injunction based onthem…On the last patent the ITC found that HTC was infringing and that Applewas practicing the patent…the infringement involved a relatively tiny softwarefeature…HTC can resolve the infringement simply be removing that feature fromphones it sells in the United States, or by finding a different way toimplement that feature that sidesteps the patent. So Apple started out with 10patents — presumably its best ones — and ended up with a tiny victory on justone. Was that worth $100 million?…”

MobileComputing & Communicating

13. Is ’5G’ mobile broadbandjust around the corner? IMT-Advanced explained http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/is-5g-mobile-broadband-just-around-the-corner-imt-advanced-explained/ “…what if we said…the real 4G was just aroundthe corner — and up to 10 times faster than what mobile operators are toutingas 4G today. Would you be interested?...the International TelecommunicationsUnion…has just approved the specifications for IMT-Advanced…IMT stands for“International Mobile Telecommunications.”…IMT standards have helped shape theway mobile services have developed worldwide. IMT-Advanced isn’t a specifictechnology like HSPA+, WiMax, or LTE—rather, it’s a specification and list ofrequirements for high-speed mobile broadband service…Right now two technologieshave been found to meet the IMT-Advanced criteria: WirelessMAN-Advanced and andLTE-Advanced. WirelessMAN-Advanced is an evolution of the 802.16e technologiesthat serve as the basis for today’s WiMax services…LTE-Advanced is a furtherrefinement of existing LTE technology that brings it into full compliance withIMT-Advanced requirements…LTE-Advanced would seem to have the upper hand,primarily because the vast majority of wireless operators around the world haveworked to standardize on current LTE technologies…The main benefit ofIMT-Advanced will be bandwidth, but we’ll simplify that to speed…3Gtechnologies…typical download rates are around 2 Mbit/s downstream, and farless upstream — something like 200 Kbit/s. Given the right conditions, 3Gtechnology can hit 14.4 Mbit/s downstream and 5.76 Mbit/s upstream…In idealconditions (and with a full 20MHz of frequency space available) WiMax can offerup to 128 Mbit/s downstream and 56 Mbit/s upstream, and LTE has a theoreticalpeak capacity of 100 Mbit/s upstream and 50 Mbit/s downstream in the sameconditions…IMT-Advanced…will blow all those technologies out of the water.IMT-Advanced is to offer a nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s downstream whilemoving, even at high speeds relative to a base site. That means users in cars,trains, and even planes should be able to receive mobile broadband service inthe neighborhood of theoretical maximums for current “4G” mobile broadbandtechnology. And it gets better: if you’re not moving, IMT-Advanced technologiesshould be able to deliver a theoretical maximum of 1 Gbit/s, which is ten timesmore bandwidth…With IMT-Advanced technology, it should take about 20 seconds todownload a full-length (44 min) standard-definition television episode to asmartphone…IMT-Advanced…technology can support more concurrent users per cell.The technology is also designed to offer global roaming capabilities andseamless handoffs between base stations…users are less likely to experiencehiccups as they move between one site and another…”

14. Don't call it anultrabook http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/19/editorial-dont-call-it-an-ultrabook/ “…at CES…one of the most oft-cited trends isthe "ultrabook." Judging from the companies' announcements at theshow and…coverage they've received, you might think that's a new sort ofdevice…But, really, they're just laptops…It's actually Ultrabook, with acapital "U," and a (TM). The name is a wholly-owned creation ofIntel…Intel is reportedly planning its biggest advertising push in eight yearsto promote Ultrabooks…Ultrabooks actually made their official debut in May oflast year at the Computex trade show in Taiwan…right now it's hard to see howthey're deserving of a title all their own…none have what can legitimately becalled "tablet-like features,"…Intel itself says that 50 percent of75+ Ultrabooks expected this year will have 14- or 15-inch screens…that's justhow laptops have been evolving all these years…A netbook is not a laptopreplacement…It's smaller and generally far less expensive than a proper laptop…withsome real trade-offs…calling netbooks laptops would actually be doing adisservice to consumers…Ultrabooks, on the other hand, can only be considered amanufactured "new thing."…the whole notion of Ultrabooks as somethingnew is a little silly…”

15. Panasonic to ReleaseRugged Android Tablet http://www.engineeringontheedge.com/2012/01/panasonic-to-release-rugged-android-tablet/ “…designers, engineers and architects…have totake their work with them into the field…finding a computing platform thatwithstands the rigors of those environments can be a challenge. That fancy laptopthat works fine in the office will probably be toast if it gets dropped into apile of debris, dunked in sea water, or doused with hydraulic fluid. There arerugged alternatives; laptops and tablets built to military specifications. Mostof these devices are based on the Windows OS, but Panasonic recently introducedan Android-based rugged tablet. The Panasonic Toughpad A1 is a 10.1-in., 2.13lbs. tablet set to debut this spring at a list price of $1,299…It has an XGAcapacitive, multi-touch, daylight-viewable screen, a Marvell 1.2 GHz dual-coreprocessor, 16GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, and 10 hours of battery life…”

16. $99 Android Tablet:Better Than Entire 2011 Crop http://www.informationweek.com/byte/reviews/personal-tech/tablets/232500257 “…The first thing to note about the NOVO7 isthat it's smaller than the iPad. The screen measures 7 inches diagonallycompared to the iPad 2's 9.7 inches…that's part of why it's cheaper…The firstgeneration of Android tablets from 2011…kept costs down with touchscreens basedon resistance and other inferior technologies. High-end touchscreens, such asthe ones in the iPad 2 and NOVO7, use capacitance (the human finger conducts electricityand thereby distorts an electrostatic field in the screen)…The Ainovo NOVO7Basic tablet is no iPad, but at one-fifth the price it doesn't have to be…Ituses the MIPS architecture Ingenic XBurst JZ4770 CPU running at 1GHz, plus aVivante GC860 GPU and VPU…The NOVO7 Basic has many features, such as front (0.3MP) and rear (2.0 MP) cameras and an HDMI port capable of outputting 1080pvideo, that are not present in the Amazon Kindle Fire. A version of the NOVO7without cameras or HDMI costs $10 less. It has a 5-point multi-touch capacitivetouchscreen with an 800-pixel-by-480-pixel resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio,and an SD card slot. System memory is 512MB and onboard storage is 8GB. Thereis no GPS hardware…”

17. 19 Percent of AmericanAdults Own a Tablet http://www.pcworld.com/article/248562/19_percent_of_american_adults_own_a_tablet.html “Nearly one in five American adults now own atablet, as tablet ownership nearly doubled over the holiday season, accordingto a new study from the Pew Research Center. Only 10 percent owned a tablet inmid-December, but that figure almost doubled to 19 percent in early January,after the holiday gift-giving season. The Pew study…mentions the strikinggrowth was fueled by devices such as the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes &Noble’s Nook tablet, which were introduced at less than half the price of theApple iPad ($200 for Kindle Fire and $250 for Nook Tablet)…Analysts estimateholiday shoppers bought 4 to 5 million Kindle Fires, while Apple is believed tohave shipped some 13 million iPads in the last quarter. The Pew study did notmention Android tablets. E-book reader ownership surged as well to 19 percentamong American adults over the holidays…”

Apps

18. iBook, newself-publishing and/or textbook app http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/apple-ibooks-2-textbook.html “Apple promised to reinvent the textbook…byway of an update to its iBooks app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch…The appupdate -- which Apple is calling iBooks 2…will allow for textbooks to be soldthrough the popular app, which in the past sold novels, nonfiction and poetry,but not textbooks. All textbooks sold through the free app, which is availableonly to Apple's i-devices, will be priced at $14.99 or less [sort of…see next link – ed.] -- a starkcontrast to the high-priced paper books that fill college bookstores…The techgiant has enlisted the heavyweights of textbook publishing -- Pearson, McGrawHill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt -- to sell textbooks through iBooks 2.Combined, the three companies make 90% of textbooks sold in the U.S…” http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/20/tech/innovation/ipad-wont-transform-education/index.html “…Apple has a long way to go…before itdominates K-12 classrooms the way it has done the music industry…By Apple'scount, 1.5 million iPads are being used by schools…there are 55.5 millionstudents enrolled in…U.S. schools…the iPad is not a mainstream phenomenon inK-12. Nor is there any guarantee it will become so. One-to-one initiatives forlaptops have been pushing forward for years without mainstream adoption…while99% of public school teachers have some access to computers, just 29% of publicschool teachers use them during instructional time "often."…Eventhough Apple's first iPad textbooks will sell for $15 or less, they won't beany less expensive for schools than paper books…iBooks will be sold to schoolsrather than directly to students, but that schools will grant students accessto those books through their personal IDs…even if a school reuses iPads, itwon't be able to reuse books. The books will be kept on individual students'iTunes accounts. Schools reuse the same paper book for about five years, andthose books usually cost about $75. Because a new book will be purchased everyyear, the iBook version still costs $75 for five years. Relying on iBooks astextbooks isn't a feasible option…at the moment because Houghton MifflinHarcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson have each dedicated just a small number oftitles each…Unless major publishers decide to add more of their titles toiBooks, it won't be a feasible default reader in most schools…In a FTC 2010survey of the schools…almost 80% said their Internet connections don't fullymeet their current needs. "It's not atypical to see one classroom ofstudents on connected devices bring down a network…”

19. Unprecedented audacity ofiBook Author EULA http://venomousporridge.com/post/16126436616/ibooks-author-eula-audacity “…iBooks Author, a free Mac app for creatingdigital books for the new version of iBooks…looks like a very good tool.However, a curious thing happens when you go to export your work in iBooksformat…iBooks can be sold only in the iBookstore…Apple is trying to establish arule that whatever I create with this application, if I sell it, I have to givethem a cut…Here’s the problem: I didn’t agree to it…to paraphrase: By usingthis software, you agree that anything you make with it is in part ours. But ifit can say that and have legal force, can’t it say anything? Isn’t this theequivalent of a car dealer trying to bind you to additional terms by sticking acontract in the glove compartment? By driving this car, you agree to get allyour oil changes from Honda of Cupertino?...It’s akin to Microsoft trying torestrict what people can do with Word documents…As far as I know, in theconsumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented…When I makesomething myself, no matter what software I use to make it…it’s my right todistribute it however I want, in whatever format I choose, for free or not…” http://gigaom.com/2012/01/19/do-we-want-textbooks-to-live-in-apples-walled-garden/ “…the biggest criticism of Apple’s attempt toco-opt the educational system doesn’t have anything to do with costs: If itsdigital textbooks became the standard in schools, it would commit those institutionsto a much broade…relationship with a technology provider than we have everseen…Every textbook would effectively have to be approved by Apple, and thesoftware that controlled them would belong to Apple alone…” http://gigaom.com/apple/vook-ibooks-author-has-limited-appeal-for-writers-readers/ “…I reached out to Vook, the startup foundedin 2009 by Brad Inman that provides a top-to-bottom publishing experience usinga Software-as-a-Service model…the company is “kind of flattered” by someaspects of iBooks Author, since they look very similar to its own product…iBooksAuthor helps raise the status of e-books in general, and helps promote them asa valid alternative to apps, which is good for Vook and other e-bookpublishers…in Cavnar’s opinion…many content creators and publishers won’t beable to swallow…the portability and limitations of the e-Books Authorultimately produces…Being platform agnostic appeals to what Cavnar calls “theswitcher demographic,”…iBooks Author won’t be as appealing to those users,since it creates a file that’s not quite epub2, not quite epub3, and not quiteXHTML5…which makes it…essentially proprietary…while Apple will let youdistribute the book independent of the iBookstore, if you want to make anymoney on the product, you have to go through the iBookstore and the iBookstoreonly. Exclusivity as a requirement won’t likely go over great with authors…”

20. 5 Smartphone Augmented RealityApps http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/01/19/top-5-smartphone-augmented-reality-apps/ “The…base for augmented reality enabledsmartphones jumped from eight million in 2009 to over a hundred million in2010. When we see the final numbers from 2011, they should be evenhigher…analysts say the overall revenue generated by augmented reality onsmartphones could exceed $1.5 billion by 2015. Certain practical applicationslike innovative cameras, accelerometers, and compasses are beginning to provethat AR is more than just a mobile fad…Here are some top-notch AR apps for yoursmartphone: Google Sky Map…Layar…CarFinder…Yelp…Wikitude…”

SkyNet

21. Google+ allows pseudonymsif they’re “established” http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/23/google-plus-pseudonyms/ “Google’s Bradley Horowitz just announcedthat as part of a more “inclusive” naming policy, Google+ will now be allowpeople to employ pseudonyms as their user names…Google isn’t throwing the dooropen to anyone who wants to create an account under a random name. Instead, itsounds like it wants to make Google+ better reflect names that are used in thereal-world, like “Madonna”…Google says that when the Google+ team flags a username, people can appeal the decision by showing that it’s an “establishedidentity,” either offline or online — though if it’s an online identity, itneeds to have “a meaningful following…”

22. Going Google-Free: TheBest Alternatives to Google Services on the Web http://lifehacker.com/5876794/going-google+free-the-best-alternatives-to-google-services-on-the-web “…Google runs your life. The search giantturned web ecosystem owns your email, calendar, and even your voicemails. Yourmost important data lives on Google's servers…despite the quality of Google'sproducts…placing all your eggs in Google's basket isn't necessarily the bestthing. Here's a look at alternative services you can use in place of Google'swebapps…The Best Search Alternative: DuckDuckGo…The Best Gmail Alternative:Hotmail…The Best Google Calendar Alternative: Zoho Calendar…The Best GoogleMaps Alternative: Bing Maps…The Best Picasa Web Alternative: Flickr…The BestGoogle Docs Alternative: Office Web Apps…The Best Google Voice Alternative:Phonebooth…”

23. Pages With Too Many Ads“Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm http://searchengineland.com/too-many-ads-above-the-fold-now-penalized-by-googles-page-layout-algo-108613 “Do you shove lots of ads at the top of yourweb pages? Think again. Tired of doing a Google search and landing on thesetypes of pages? Rejoice. Google has announced that it will penalize sites withpages that are top-heavy with ads. The change — called the “page layoutalgorithm” — takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buriedunder tons of ads…When I talked with the head of Google’s web spam team, MattCutts, he said that Google wasn’t going to provide any type of officialtools…Instead, Cutts told me that Google is encouraging people to make use ofits Google Browser Size tool or similar tools to understand how much of apage’s content (as opposed to ads) is visible at first glance to visitors undervarious screen resolutions…”

24. Google cancels Picnik andcloses a few other businesses http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57363171-93/google-cancels-picnik-and-closes-a-few-other-businesses/ “…Google said it will shutter a half-dozenbusinesses--including Picnik, the photo-editing service…Google's been on aslashing binge, cleaving under-performing and peripheral businesses from itsportfolio…The company bought the online photo editing service in March 2010,and plans to end the service on April 19. Instead, Google plans to offer photoediting "across Google products,"…It's already building some basicphoto features into its Google+ social network, a likely spot for some Picnikservices…Google is also dropping its Social Graph application programminginterface…Google is also closing Google Message Continuity, an email disasterrecovery product for corporate customers that launched in December 2010…Needlebase,the data management platform picked up in the ITA Software acquisition lastJune, will go away, possibly integrated into Google's other data-relatedinitiatives. And the company is closing its client-hosted web analyticsproduct, Urchin Software…”

25. Export all Google DocsFiles with Takeout http://www.ghacks.net/2012/01/25/export-all-google-docs-files-with-takeout/ “Google Takeout is a service that Googleusers can make use of to export their user data to their local PC. Not allGoogle services are supported by Takeout though…Up until now, it only offeredto export Picasa Web Albums, Google+ related information, Google Voice data oryour Google Contacts. The developers have now announced that they have addedGoogle Docs to the list of services. Let me show you how you can export all ofyour Google Docs files now…The frontpage displays a list of all services thatyou can export data from. You can create an archive of data from all availableservices, or switch to the Choose services menu to select one service that youwant to export data from…”

GeneralTechnology

26. Europe'sDriverless Car http://www.technologyreview.com/business/39410/?p1=BI “…I think that in 10 to 15 years, it could beanother world," Huber says. He's not willing to predict exactly whatdriving will look like then, but he's certain humans will be doing a lot lessof it…the automated driving revolution is already here: new safety andconvenience technologies are beginning to act as "copilots,"automating tedious or difficult driving tasks such as parallel parking."Driverless" technology…will creep into everyday use much as airbagsdid: first as an expensive option in luxury cars, but eventually as a safetyfeature required by governments…BMW and Volkswagen are among the companiesalready demonstrating cars that drive themselves. In 2010, Volkswagen sent adriverless Audi TTS up Pike's Peak at close to race speeds…for $1,350, peoplewho purchase BMW's 535i xDrive sedan in the United States can opt for a"driver assistance package" that includes radar to detect vehicles inthe car's blind spot. For another $2,600, BMW will install "night visionwith pedestrian detection," which uses a forward-facing infrared camera tospot people in the road…In the high-end Mercedes-Benz CL, for instance, camerasnot only tell a driver when he or she is leaving the lane but actually help thevehicle steer itself back…automakers already sell cars with so-called adaptivecruise control that automatically applies the brakes during highway driving iftraffic slows…BMW…i3 series of electric cars…traffic-jam feature will let thecar accelerate, decelerate, and steer by itself at speeds of up to 25 miles perhour…”

27. Snakelocomotion inspires new design for robots http://zeenews.india.com/news/technology/snake-locomotion-inspires-new-design-for-robots_753793.html “Scientists have designed new machines forsearch and rescue robots by studying the locomotion of snakes…an all-terrainrobot for search-and-rescue missions…must be flexible enough to move overuneven surfaces, yet not so big that it’s restricted from tight spaces. Itmight also be required to climb slopes of varying inclines…By using theirscales to control frictional properties, snakes are able to move largedistances while exerting very little energy…While studying and videotaping themovements of 20 different species at Zoo Atlanta, Marvi developed Scalybot 2, arobot that replicates rectilinear locomotion of snakes…Snakes lift theirventral scales and pull themselves forward by sending a muscular travellingwave from head to tail. Rectilinear locomotion is very efficient and isespecially useful for crawling within crevices, an invaluable benefit forsearch-and-rescue robots…Scalybot 2 can automatically change the angle of itsscales when it encounters different terrains and slopes…”

28. PuttingNike's FuelBand through the paces http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57362375-1/putting-nikes-fuelband-and-me-through-the-paces/ “I have to hand it to Nike for its uniquetake on the growing fad of fitness-tracking devices. The FuelBand is Nike'sstab at this segment, which others including the Jawbone Up and MotorolaMobility's MotoActv have already tread…Unlike some of the other devices, theprimary crux of the FuelBand is its Nike Fuel reading, a metric that Nike puttogether on its own that matches a person's movement through the wristband'saccelerometer against data collected on how rapidly oxygen is consumed. As withother fitness monitors that rely on an accelerometer, the readings vary greatlydepending on how much you move your arm. Cycling and certain kinds of weightlifting, for instance, wouldn't register much as simply sitting on your couchand waving your hands…chances are, if you're spending $149 on a FuelBand,you're going to want to pay attention to the Nike Fuel readout…the company tookthe media on a little field trip to test out the FuelBand in a variety ofactivities. The following are my early impressions after a day with the device…”

29. Mercedes-Benzgesture control concept is DICEy http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/15/mercedes-benz-gesture-control-concept-is-dicey/ “…Germans seem to be obsessed with MinorityReport-style interior controls, and Mercedes-Benz has taken it to the nextlevel with a full-scale interior with nary a button or switch to be found.Mercedes' Dynamic & Intuitive Control Experience (DICE) utilizes a seriesof proximity sensors to detect arm and hand movements, which control everythingfrom music, navigation and social functionality to a heads-up display thatcomprises the entire windshield. You can get a feel for the system in action inthe video…”

30. CollisionBetween Self-Driving Cars and How the World Works http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/googles-autonomous-vehicles-draw-skepticism-at-legal-symposium.html “…legal scholars and government officials arewarning that society has only begun wrestling with the changes that would berequired in a system created a century ago…What happens if a police officerwants to pull one of these vehicles over? When it stops at a four-wayintersection, would it be too polite to take its turn ahead of aggressive humandrivers (or equally polite robots)? What sort of insurance would it need? Theseand other implications of what Google calls autonomous vehicles weredebated…last week at a daylong symposium sponsored by the Law Review and HighTech Law Institute at Santa Clara University…computerized systems that replacehuman drivers are now largely workable and could greatly limit human error,which causes most of the 33,000 deaths and 1.2 million injuries that now occureach year on the nation’s roads. Such vehicles also hold the potential forgreater fuel efficiency and lower emissions — and, more broadly, for restoringthe United States’ primacy in the global automobile industry…Sebastian Thrun,director of Google’s autonomous vehicle research program, wrote that theproject had achieved 200,000 miles of driving without an accident while carswere under computer control…Nevada became the first state to legalizedriverless vehicles last year, and similar laws have now been introduced beforelegislatures in Florida and Hawaii. Several participants at the Santa Claraevent said a similar bill would soon be introduced in California…human driversfrequently bend the rules by rolling through stop signs and driving above speedlimits…how would a polite and law-abiding robot vehicle fare against suchcompetition?...the car is so polite it might be sitting at a four-wayintersection forever, because no one else is coming to a stop.”…“Twenty yearsfrom now we might have completely autonomous vehicles,” he said, “maybe onlimited roads.”…future autonomous vehicles will rely heavily on globalpositioning satellite data and other systems, which are vulnerable to jammingby malicious computer hackers…Some called the definition itself into question. “Itwon’t truly be an autonomous vehicle,” said Brad Templeton, a software designerand a consultant for the Google project, “until you instruct it to drive towork and it heads to the beach instead.”

Leisure &Entertainment

31. Robot and Frank is thenext great science fiction indie http://io9.com/5878242/sundance-breakout-robot-and-frank-uses-artificial-intelligence-to-celebrate-humanism “In the movies, technology is usuallyrepresented one of two ways: a hallelujah-worthy miracle or a soul-deadeningtrespass on the natural order of things. Robot and Frank, a film receivingnear-unanimous praise at the Sundance Film Festival, is smart enough to knowbetter. Technology, like everything in life, isn't black and white, and is onlyas good or bad as the people who interact with it…so here's the pitch: FrankLangella and a robot crack safes…Robot and Frank…has great insight into theethical implications of artificial intelligence and the fractured lucidity ofmemory…Frank, a divorcee, is in the early stages of Alzheimer's and will soonbe unable to care for himself. The shiny white robot…cooks and cleans…and has aprimary programming to do anything to improve Frank's health. He also hasknowledge of, but no specific requirements to adhere to state and federal laws,which quickly comes in handy when Frank decides to restart his career in catburglary…Robot and Frank certainly embraces the promise in new technology, butis eager to point out its potential pitfalls. Douchey Jeremy Strong looks likea yutz playing invisible virtual reality drums…also held up for some ridiculeis the reactionary pro-humanist faction, as embodied by Frank's globe-trottingliberal daughter played by Liv Tyler..There are times I watch a movie andwonder if it was made just for me…with its empathetic characters, precise andthorough investigation of a science fiction concept and its rock solidHollywood screenwriting beats…”

32. 'Richard Garriott: Man ona Mission' Returns to Earth http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/screens/2012-01-19/hallo-spaceboy-richard-garriott-man-on-a-mission-returns-to-earth/ “…out-of-this-world documentary RichardGarriott: Man On a Mission…our local uber-geek/gamer-god's sojourn into spacehas finally landed in theaters…The film, which snagged the SXSW Audience ChoiceAward back in 2010, is currently playing in selected cities…you can watch it inthe luxury of your own cockpit via Netflix, the iTunes Store…Richard Branson'sVirgin Galactic, Space X, and Space Adventures are all competing for customers willingand able to shell out for a still-pricey tourist ticket into outer space, andboth Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen may yet live to see their own, prescientspace-travel dreams come true. Says director Woolf, "For me, this moviecaptures the moment in history when the gates were opened for private spacetravel…”

33. Audiobooks.com launchesunlimited book streaming service for $24.95 a month http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/24/2730073/audiobooks-com-unlimited-book-streaming-launch “If you're a voracious audiobook listener andwant access to as many books as you could possibly listen to, the just-launchedAudiobooks.com streaming service might be worth looking into. Once you pay the$24.95 monthly fee, you have unlimited access to a library of 11,000 titles,and can listen to as many as you want each month through your browser or mobilephone. While there aren't apps available yet, you can stream fromAudiobooks.com as long as you're running iOS 4.0 or Android 2.3 (and higher, ofcourse)…Compared to Audible, there's both pros and cons for Audiobooks.com.First off, Audible can be significantly cheaper, with plans starting at $7.49per month for the first three months, and its catalog is nearly ten timesbigger than Audiobooks.com's offering. However, Audible's plans only give youaccess to one or two books a month, while Audiobooks.com allows for unlimitedstreaming for just two dollars more than Audible's two book plan….”

Economy andTechnology

34. RFS 9: Kill Hollywood http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html “Hollywood…is not an ordinary industry. Thepeople who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do alot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. Itwould therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise. That'sone reason we want to fund startups that will compete with movies and TV, butnot the main reason. The main reason we want to fund such startups is…becauseSOPA brought it to our attention that Hollywood is dying…If movies and TV weregrowing rapidly, that growth would take up all their attention…SOPA showsHollywood is beaten. And yet the audiences to be captured from movies and TVare still huge. There is a lot of potential energy to be liberated there…whatis going to kill them? Mostly not what they like to believe is killing them,filesharing. What's going to kill movies and TV is what's already killing them:better ways to entertain people. So the best way to approach this problem is toask yourself: what are people going to do for fun in 20 years instead of whatthey do now…”

35. Why the Clean Tech BoomWent Bust http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_solyndra/ “…In 2005, VC investment in clean techmeasured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The following year, it balloonedto $1.75 billion, according to the National Venture Capital Association. By2008, the year after Doerr’s speech, it had leaped to $4.1 billion. And thefederal government followed. Through a mix of loans, subsidies, and tax breaks,it directed roughly $44.5 billion into the sector between late 2009 and late2011. Avarice, altruism, and policy had aligned to fuel a spectacular boom.Anyone who has heard the name Solyndra knows how this all panned out. Due to aconfluence of factors—including fluctuating silicon prices, newly cheap naturalgas, the 2008 financial crisis, China’s ascendant solar industry, and certaintechnological realities—the clean-tech bubble has burst, leaving us with atraditional energy infrastructure still overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels.The fallout has hit almost every niche in the clean-tech sector—wind, biofuels,electric cars, and fuel cells—but none more dramatically than solar…Perhaps thebiggest force working against not just Solyndra but clean energy in general isthis: Because natural gas has gotten so cheap, there is no longer a financialincentive to go with renewables…The price of natural gas peaked at nearly $13per thousand cubic feet in 2008. It now stands at around $3. A decade ago,shale gas accounted for less than 2 percent of America’s natural gas supply; itis now approaching one-third, and industry officials predict that the totalreserves will last a century…Put all that together and you’ve undone some ofthe financial models that say it makes sense to shift to wind and solar…Evensolar’s biggest allies on Capitol Hill—people like Edward J. Markey, a topDemocrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee—fear the industry’s oil andgas foes may have gotten the upper hand now that the clean-tech bubble has burst…Thefossil fuel industry and its allies in Congress clearly see the solar and windindustries as a threat and will try to kill these industries as they have forthe preceding two generations…”

36. Dwolla getting $10Minvestment even though they’re in Iowa http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/20/union-square-ventures-leading-series-b-in-iowa-based-dwolla/ “Des Moines-based payments provider Dwolla,which enables seamless online payments for a quarter per transaction…has had aflush of attention and VCs have been falling all over themselves to bookflights to Iowa and get in on the company’s next round…Dwolla, founded in 2008,hit $1 million a day back in July…Now it’s moving between $30 and $50 millionper month…taking just $0.25 for transactions over $10 (less than $10, and it’sfree). The startup’s million (billion?) dollar innovation is eliminating creditcard interchange fees by cutting costs in a few key ways, including a massivereduction in credit card fraud risk by eliminating card information from thetransaction…It links to consumers’ bank accounts and lets them send money tofriends on social networks, currently available in the U.S. using Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare. The fee scheme is exactly the same formerchants, who can sign up for free…“Essentially, we’ve created our own paymentnetwork. Think VISA, but built in the 21st century, not the 1960s,”…Earlierthis month, Dwolla launched instant transactions, cleaned up the userexperience, and is now heavily staffing up…Dwolla has raised about $1.3 millionto date in grants, angel funding and a series A…The company had grown from twoto 15 employees as of June; they’re now at about 18…”

DHMN Technology

37. Preview ofTomorrow's Wearable Computers at CES http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39471/ “…This year, several…small exhibitors wereshowing off technology that could free us from having to peer down at ourmobile devices—glasses that can overlay digital data onto the world aroundus…Lumus Optics…demonstrated prototype glasses that display translucent, almostopaque imagery that fills the wearer's view like a 10-foot-wide TV two feet infront of his face…"We have a crazy amount of computing horsepower andbandwidth in our small mobile devices, but you can't get the full utility ofthat," says Grobman. "This will change that."…The glasses relyon a computer or phone to provide them with imagery, a link that can be madeusing Bluetooth. Adding sensors like accelerometers and a camera to the glasseswill enable sophisticated apps, says Grobman, such as one that uses facialrecognition to call up useful information about people. The technology toenable this is already available…He guesses that consumer devices will appearin "two years, maybe less." Vuzix…estimates that itsaugmented-reality technology will reach consumers in a similar time frame…thecompany displayed a monocular display that will go on sale later in 2012 for$5,000 to $10,000…aimed at the military and industry…the company plans todevelop a more consumer-friendly version…”

38. Geek Techniques: X-MenCyclops Visor http://www.loungegeeks.com/2012/01/geek-techniques-cyclops-visor/ “…Halloween is my favorite holiday of theyear…I…wanted to build that Cyclops visor and…managed to put together afunctional visor that lights up for just under $30…1 Pair of Cyclops-StyleGlasses (available for $5-10 online, depending on style)…1 Strip of Red LEDs($10-$25. I used these, but you can use any 12v LED strip)…When designing anygadget, your primary concern should always be to maintain a fine balancebetween form (what it looks like) and function (what it does)…As for function,I wanted something that could light up at the push of a switch but would stillallow me to see (as these would be mostly used at parties or in the occasionalvideo)…There you have it – a functional piece of myopic eyewear fit for wearingto your local ComicCon or simply heading down to the closest geek bar to try topick up stray psychic red-heads…”

39. UnmannedAerial Vehicles: coming soon to a sky near you http://io9.com/5876952/unmanned-aerial-vehicles-coming-soon-to-a-sky-near-you “…Drones were developed in the early days ofaviation, and were used almost exclusively as moving targets for trainingexercises…The military UAVs familiar today trace their lineage to aircraftdeveloped in the 1980s. Israel was at the forefront of UAV design, usingseveral light, remotely controlled aircraft to great success in the 1982 LebanonWar…Better remote control and camera technology allowed UAVs to take on moreinvolved reconnaissance roles…Today's UAVs can remain on-mission for 30 to 40hours, far beyond the capabilities of any human crew. Research into mid-airrefueling of UAVs and ultra-efficient solar-powered UAVs could extend thatrange close to infinity…The U.S. military was not content to merely identifytargets with their UAVs – they wanted to blow them up, too. That's why thePredator (and its variants the Gray Eagle and the Avenger) can be armed withHellfire missiles…they are not used as front line warfighting machines –against a plane with a human pilot, a UAV will lose every time. They're morelike high-tech assassination weapons… In the future, UAVs may be armed withsmaller, more precise armaments such as the Griffin or Spike missiles…overall,autonomy is not a priority right now. It's a cost-benefit issue – the cost ofdeveloping effective autonomous UAVs is undercut by the cost of training humancontrollers, and there's no great necessity for planes that fly themselves…Next-generationUAVs will be larger, allowing them to carry more payload. They will also havemore powerful engines…UAVs used in domestic situations in the U.S. have beensmaller, "man-portable" units used for search and rescue, firesuppression and surveillance…What happens when the cost comes down and everypolice department in the country has a fleet of UAVs constantly in the air?Current privacy laws are probably not going to answer all the questions…Thecounterpoint to this UAV-powered panopticon is that it is becoming increasinglyeasy for the average citizen to create and operate a UAV…Civilians even createda UAV to observe police activities during Occupy protests – the OccuCopter is aquad-rotor UAV that can be controlled via iPhone and streams video live to theinternet…In wars, fewer pilots will die, but civilian casualties mightincrease. Pervasive government surveillance will test Constitutional law andgive rise to new technologies that counteract it…”

40. Pirate BayLaunches 3D-Printed 'Physibles' Downloads http://www.pcworld.com/article/248682/pirate_bay_launches_3dprinted_physibles_downloads.html “…The Pirate Bay, a notorious and extremelypopular torrent site, has created a new category for files that allow 3Dprinters to create physical objects…The Pirate Bay's "WinstonQ2038"labeled the site's new category "physibles" --data objects that userscan transform from digital to physical form via 3D printers and scanners. Eventually,people may be able to print spare parts for vehicles, or even downloadsneakers, the post predicts. An emerging technology, 3D printing allowsscientists, artists, and even crooks to swiftly build three-dimensionalprototypes. Plastic is usually the preferred material for these creations, but3D printers can use a variety of other materials, including stainless steel,Styrofoam, and human tissue…”

41. 5technologies that will plug the Internet directly into your brain http://dvice.com/archives/2012/01/5-technologies.php “…in geek speak, most are at least casuallyfamiliar with the concepts of software and hardware: the digital ghost and theshell. But there is a third computer component without which the other twowould be meaningless. We're talking about meatware,* or the tech that connectscomputers to the meaty organic components, aka you…compared to the connectivitywithin a computer or within the brain, contemporary UIs are little more thanannoying speed bumps along the road to the Matrix…Researchers from around theworld are hard at work developing ways to mainline the virtual world directlyinto your brain…Here we present some of the coolest upcoming technology thatwill collapse the divide between meat and machine…5. Computer-aidedTelepathy…Professor Stephen Hawking…is now collaborating with a team at Intelto develop a new communication method. One avenue the team is considering is"brain-wave scanning," which could translate the professor's thoughtsdirectly into words…4. The Internet Feels Like This…Researchers at DukeUniversity recently pulled off a strange proof-of-concept experiment in whichthey linked a digital interface directly to a test monkey's brain…researcherswere able to fabricate tangible sensations of virtual objects…3. Meatware, MeetHardware…a joint team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh andJohns Hopkins have developed what has been dubbed a"thought-controlled" bionic arm…2. Cyborg Brains For All…A TelAviv-based research team has developed a brain-computer interface that hasgiven a rat to the ability to move after scientists paralyzed the littlecreature…1. A Dreamcatcher, Literally…Japan's ATR Computational NeuroscienceLaboratories has developed a technique using functional magnetic resonanceimaging (fMRI)…to capture visualizations of data (thoughts) as the brainprocesses them…”

Open SourceHardware

42. My low cost and opensource tools http://www.nabiltewolde.com/2012/01/low-cost-and-open-source-tools.html “In the 1970s software developers workedtogether to build a foundation of open source software tools with the hope thatthe entire community would benefit from this shared knowledge…We are startingto see the same thing happen with the open source hardware movement…It hasallowed me to do my work at a fraction of the cost and effort it might haveeven just 5 years ago so I thought I would share some of my favorite tools…OpenLogic Analyzer - $50…Dangerous DSO…Bus Blaster - $34.94…USBtinyISP -$22…Zigduino - $65…Arduino Mega ADK - $84.95…Makerbot Replicator -$1,749.00…USRP B100 Kit - $650…Bus Pirate - $27.15…Ubertooth…CEE AnalogMultitool…”

43. High Altitude BalloonPresentation video http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2012/high_altitude_balloon_presentation_video.htm “…The presentation titled 'Tux in (near)space!' was given to hackers at the linux.conf.au 2012 in Ballarat, Jan 16-20.The Project Horus group have flown several amateur radio repeaters as well asAPRS and video payloads…This talk will describe how to launch and recover highaltitude balloons: logistics, regulations, and most importantly the open sourcehardware and software used…anyone who likes seeing photos of earth from 35kmwill enjoy this talk…”

44. Adafruit Debuts FLORA, aWearable Electronics Platform http://hothardware.com/News/Adafruit-Debuts-FLORA-a-Wearable-Electronics-Platform/ “…Adafruit…recently announced FLORA, awearable electronics platform. FLORA is a tiny board that measures just 1.75inches in diameter, and it’s based on Adafruit’s own Atmega32u4 Breakout Boardand is compatible with Arduino. It comes with “addressable and chain-able 4,000mcd RGB LED pixels and premium stainless steel thread…”

45. MegaSokoban on Uzebox http://uzebox.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1149 “…I've finished MegaSokoban - port of myearly game…for Uzebox. It's not audio or video excellent, but it's right choicefor Sokoban maniacs, because it has 999 levels (all of them fitted into 664'sFLASH thanks to use of my compression algorithm…” http://belogic.com/uzebox/index.asp http://iteadstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=531

Open Source

46. Android App Inventor opensourced, code released http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/01/20/android-app-inventor-open-sourced-code-released/ “…Google's Android App Inventor…was somethingdesigned in part by Hal Abelson, one of the people behind Scratch -- no doubt,the single best learn-to-program projects available to this day…it was terriblydisappointing to see the Android App Inventor be shelved. Much like Scratch, App Inventor presupposeszero programming knowledge, and yet while teaching computational thinking, italso allows users to build something they find both useful and important -- inthe case of Scratch, it's animations and games. In the case of App Inventor, it's mobile apps. After announcing theclosure of App Inventor…Google handed over App Inventor to MIT, along with asizable donation to help fund a new mobile learning inititiative…Google and MIThave just announced its release, and the source code is now available…”

47. Pencil 1.1 new featuresand improvements http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/Home.html “The Pencil Project's unique mission is tobuild a free and opensource tool for making diagrams and GUI prototyping thateveryone can use…Built-in stencils for diagraming and prototyping…Multi-pagedocument with background page…Exporting to HTML, PNG, Openoffice.org document,Word document and PDF…Undo/redo supports…Installing user-defined stencils andtemplates…Standard drawing operations: aligning, z-ordering, scaling, rotating…”

48. Open sourcing Sky Map http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/open-sourcing-sky-map-and-collaborating.html “…we are going to share Sky Map in adifferent way: we are donating Sky Map to the community. We are collaboratingwith Carnegie Mellon University in an exciting partnership that will seefurther development of Sky Map as a series of student projects. Sky Map’sdevelopment will now be driven by the students, with Google engineers remainingclosely involved as advisors. Additionally, we have open-sourced the app sothat other astronomy enthusiasts can take the code and augment it as they wish…”

CivilianAerospace

49. 9 Indian kidsamong top contenders in YouTube Space Lab contest http://ibnlive.in.com/news/youtube-space-lab-contest-9-indians-among-60-finalists/222203-11.html “Indian students are among the 60 finalistsin a global science competition, 'YouTube Space Lab', and if they win,experiments they have designed will be conducted in space with the help of NASA,ESA and JAXA. "YouTube Space Lab received thousands of video submissionsfrom more than 80 countries. The US led with 10 finalists, followed by Indiawith nine,"…The contest was organised by YouTube, Lenovo and privatecivilian space flight firm Space Adventures in collaboration with the spaceagencies…Approximately 40 per cent of the entries came from India, followed bythe US with 15 per cent…Other countries in the Top 10 list of the number ofentries are the UK, Russia, Israel, Canada, Spain, Italy, Poland and Japan…”

50. Rookie Britstargazers spot unknown world on planet-hunting website http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2088759/Citizen-scientist-spots-unknown-world-planet-hunting-website-100-000-sign-help.html “A pair of amateur British stargazers havediscovered a new planet…Chris Holmes and Lee Threapleton spotted the new worldduring a project to find planets beyond our solar system…The pair will receivethe honour of having the planet named after them, once scientists haveconfirmed its authenticity. They made the discovery after spotting changes inlight patterns in an image from Nasa’s Kepler space telescope…The image hadbeen posted online at Planethunters.org, an Oxford University project that asksthe public to sift through time-lapsed data from Nasa in the hope of newdiscoveries. Mr Holmes, of Peterborough, said: ‘I’ve never even had atelescope…”

51. NormanEdmund, Optics Entrepreneur, Dies http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/NormanEdmundObit-137951448.html “Norman W. Edmund, legendary founder of a companyoffering a profusion of optics to the public for 70 years (and counting), diedJanuary 16th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was 95…Norman Edmund got the ideato start selling optical parts that he acquired as war surplus. He formed theEdmund Salvage Co. and placed his first Sky & Telescope ad in the September1945 issue…The listings included color filters, reticles, mirrors from tankperiscopes, and a 1.8-inch f/11 achromatic objective for making your own smallrefractor…Initially Edmund worked out of his home in Audubon, New Jersey."I once heard that Norm kept his stock of lenses, etc., in boxes under hisbed," recalls William E. Shawcross…in 1948 Edmund opened a larger facilityin nearby Barrington, New Jersey, and changed the name to Edmund ScientificCo…its product line grew to include a remarkable 3-inch f/10 Newtonianreflector for just $29.50. This scope came as kit and was "easilyassembled; a nine-year-old can do it!" It had a cardboard tube, woodenlegs, and interchangeable tripod heads for alt-azimuth or equatorialoperation…”

Supercomputing& GPUs

52. Nvidia supercomputerbuilding blocks revealed http://news.techeye.net/hardware/nvidia-supercomputer-building-blocks-revealed “…details of Nvidia’s Echelon supercomputerchip have resurfaced a few weeks after Supercomputing 2011. In the middle of2010, Nvidia disclosed plans for a 20 Teraflop supercomputer named Echelon,within a competition set up by the US Department of Defense. It was competinghead-on with Intel and IBM…documents presented at Supercomputing 2011 have madetheir way to the public eye. The slideware, obtained from a University of Gentpresentation (PDF), shows off amongst other things, a block diagram for a17mm-by-17mm chip (that’s 289mm2@10nm, by the way), packing 64x4 SM (streaming multiprocessor)…Looking atthe slides you can get the impression you’re actually looking at a GPU, whichwould be about right, but Nvidia is calling it a Network-on-Chip processor…”

53. OpenCL / AMD GPU parallelprogramming course at U of Illinois http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2139473/amd-ropes-university-illinois-push-gpgpu-development-students “…AMD has enlisted the help of the Universityof Illinois to encourage students to develop code that makes use of the GPGPUfound in its Fusion processors. AMD's Llano Fusion processor was launched lastyear…Applications that make use of OpenCL can enjoy significantly betterperformance than just using the Llano CPU core, and one of the ways to increasethe number of applications that use the GPU is to teach university students towrite the code that uses it. The University of Illinois' course entitled"Engineering Entrepreneurship AMD section" will instruct students todevelop projects that will be evaluated for funding through AMD's Fusion Fundand Illinois Ventures…Courses that are designed by companies should be met withcaution…However getting computer science and engineering students to make useof GPUs with their code and using open industry standards such as OpenCL is agoal that merits a course for a semester or two…”

*****

NEW NET location for 24 Jan 2012 Mtg = Sergio's Restaurant

2012-01-24T10:52:00.003-06:00

The NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurial and Technology issues) 24 January 2012 meeting from 7 - 9 PM will be at Sergio’s Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton; backup location, Tom’s on Westhill Blvd. Come and join in the tech fun!

*****

NEW NET Weekly List for 17 Jan 2012

2012-01-17T16:47:00.000-06:00

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 17 January 2012, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurism and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1. Why Do People UseFacebook? http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_why_do_people_use_facebook.php “Facebook is an accepted means ofcommunication. It is a never-ending virtual social gathering filled withadopted puppies, cute LOL kitties, baby announcements…But why do people reallyuse it? A new study…proposes that the social network meets two primary humanneeds: (1) the need to belong and (2) the need for self-presentation…Before2009, MySpace led the social network race. By April 2009, it was dead…A 2010study entitled "Narcissism and social networking web sites" found apositive association between narcissism and Facebook use, especially inrelation to profiles and photos, both features that allow users to promotethemselves. The study found that people with a high level of narcissism andpeople with low levels of self-esteem spent more than an hour per day onFacebook…The study goes on to note that frequent Facebook use may be associatedwith lower academic performance, but it may lead to higher self-esteem and asense of belonging…Females and ethnic minorities tended to use Facebook morethan males and Caucasians…Mashable writer Sam Laird…deactivated his account inJuly 2011…He misses what most every Facebook user would miss if they shut downtheir account: that sense of belonging and of self-presentation. These are thereasons people use Facebook, despite its long list of privacy issues.”

2. OfficeDrop Now Lets YouScan Documents To Social Networks — And The Cloud http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/officedrop-now-lets-you-scan-documents-to-social-networks-and-the-cloud/ “…OfficeDrop…online solution…allows people totake all the paper documents cluttering their offices, scan them, then manage,organize, and store them in the cloud. With its round of angel funding,OfficeDrop set out to work on the development of mobile apps…Among otherthings, these apps allow users to take a picture of a recept when on a trip andsend it their expense folders in OfficeDrop’s cloud “filing cabinet.” Theseapps also allow users to search documents on their phone, pulling up a receiptyou scanned four months ago. OfficeDrop is hardly the only app that turns yourmobile device into a scanner…ScanDrop Mac and ScanDrop Lite apps…let any Macuser integrate scanned paper with digital screenshots to create multi-age,searchable PDFs. But what’s really cool about this is that, with a singleclick, users can now share these scanned docs via social networks or store themin Evernote, Dropbox, OfficeDrop, and Google Docs…Since ScanDrop is compatiblewith online cloud filing services like Dropbox, Google Docs, etc, users candrop their OfficeDrop PDF files into their accounts and share them with justabout anyone, from anywhere. Users also tend to create documents to send notonly by scanning hardcopies of documents into their computer, but also bytaking screen shots — and these can also be converted into text-searchable PDFs…”

3. Aussie wunderkind gets$US250k for technology that could revolutionise web http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/aussie-wunderkind-gets-us250k-for-technology-that-could-revolutionise-web-20120113-1pz35.html
“He is 16, an Australian living in London and recently scored $US250,000 ininvestment from a billionaire for a technology that could change the way weread emails, news articles…on our computers. Meet Nick D'Aloisio, the formerPerth and Melbourne boy who is among many other teenagers making it big online…Histechnology summarises text using algorithmic technologies, allowing forsimplified dot point summaries of anything on the web such as search results.He believes that in the future it could be used to summarise emails, socialnetworking posts and product descriptions…As well as scooping such a largeinvestment at an early age, he has also organised for Micha Breakstone, ofMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to research his summarisationtechnology…Mr Breakstone, manager of MIT's experimental syntax and semanticslab and founder of ExceLingo, said in an email that tests he conducted provedNick's technology outperformed industry summarisation standards by 30 per cent…Nickbegan his journey with computers when he was eight and his family moved toLondon…"I basically begged my parents for six months to get [an Apple]computer," he said of his father, an investment banker, and his mother, alawyer. "And when I finally got it, instead of using it for just watchingvideos or browsing the web, I kind of had an interest to create things."…whenApple's iTunes app store was unveiled, he began to teach himself how to createapps. "They weren't anything special," he said almost four yearslater. "They were just kind of almost test apps but at the time, becausethere weren't enough apps available on the store, they actually did allright."…his first "serious" application, Songstumblr, a geo-socialmusic discovery service…meant users with it on their iPhones in the same roomcould find out what songs they were each listening to instantly via a Bluetoothconnection…early last year…he began to create a more sophisticated app that hassince received about $US250,000 in investment from the 11th richest person inthe world, the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. "I began kind of lookinginto algorithmic technologies and natural language programming," Nicksaid. The technology is now integrated into his latest app, formerly known asTrimit and now known as Summly…”

4. A Design Primer forEngineers http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/01/16/a_design_primer_for_engineers.html “For a word that can so vastly change thefortunes of a company, it’s worth noting that no generally accepted definitionof the word design exists. This means when your boss stands up in front of theteam at that all-hands and says, “We’ll have a design-centered culture,”there’s a good chance he’s saying nothing at all…To understand the historictension between the designer and the engineer, you need to go back to whensoftware became mainstream, and in my mind that was with the arrival of theInternet. Software had been around and making piles of money long beforeNetscape, but…The arrival of everyone (and their cats) presented a challenge tothese early software development teams. These teams were used to working withearly adopters and their particular needs. See, early adopters are willing toput up with a lot of crap — it’s part of the deal we have with them. “You getto play with the latest and greatest, but it may explode at any point.” Earlyadopters are cool with these explosions because early adoption makes them feel,well, cool. When everyone arrived, everyone didn’t want explosions — they justwanted it to work. Engineers hear “just works” as “they want fewer explosions”,but that’s not what everyone wanted. They wanted to send a picture of their catin the simplest way possible. They didn’t care about JavaScript, security,frames or plugins; they just wanted to mail a picture of their goddamned catwithout the application exploding…traditional engineers…don’t see an explosionas a bad thing because we’re intimately aware of how the sausage is made. Weknow that when a program crashes, you just re-launch the application and getback to work. Most humans on the planet do not see a crashed application thisway. They are, at the very least, alarmed when something explodes. They’rewondering, “Did permanent damage just occur?”…” [if you haven’t read Rands’ Handbook, http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html, read it today! – ed]

5. On the Usability ofCodecademy http://programmingzen.com/2012/01/16/on-the-usability-of-codecademy/ “I asked a friend of mine (who isn’t a coder)if she could try out the amazing Codecademy for me. She is a smart person, but…sheisn’t a programmer. I thought Codecademy would be a great way to introduce herto programming for the web. As a programmer, I thought it was extremely wellmade and assumed it would work for anyone. She landed on the homepage and readthe instructions. She wrote her name (“Elizabeth”), then decided however tochange it to…“Liz”…she highlighted the whole string she had just typed andtried to press the backspace key to delete it. The whole page disappeared andthe browser redirected her to the new tab. Liz: “Why did it do that?” Me: “Youcan’t highlight a word like you’d do in Microsoft Word…Next, she had to measurethe length of her name. But she forgot the quotes…Liz: “What happened?” Me:“What do you think happened?” Liz: “Some kind of error, but what does ‘Liz isnot defined’ mean?” Me: “You accidentally forgot the quotes.”…Liz: “I typed itright this time, why didn’t it work?” Me: “Since you didn’t close the firststring, it thinks that the second line is still part of the first command…thesame exercise (#1) was reloaded. After completing it successfully though,instead of exercise #2, exercise #0 reappeared, asking her to enter her firstname again. After raising an eyebrow at that point, she went along with it…Atthat point I suspended this tiny hallway test and I asked her what she thoughtof this system…above all felt like she didn’t know how to get unstuck when shemade an error…keep in mind the very point of this post. Usability is hardbecause real users use our UIs and software in different and unexpected ways…”

6. 2011: The Year I PlungedInto Streaming http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/244585/scitech/technology/2011-the-year-i-plunged-into-streaming “2011 was the year I finally experienced theInternet as a head-on replacement for traditional broadcasting. Not just forwords (the net already replaced print media in my life) but for music and “tv”broadcasts…The tipping point in my case was bandwidth. My TV was already the“third screen” for internet consumption, after computers, and mobile devices(phones and tablets)…the tipping point: This year my home DSL connection movedup from a miserly 1.8 Mbps to a fairly respectable 3 Mbps…An increase to 3 Mbpsmeant I could now watch YouTube clips without buffering regularly at 480presolution…Here were the apps that got me hooked on streaming in 2011: Forvideo…YouTube remained my go-to channel for video of all types…I also accessHulu and Amazon Instant Video (movies and TV specials) on my laptop. I’mconsidering adding Netflix for 2012…For audio, I rely on two free go-tointernet radio apps on my mobile devices – Sticher and Tune-In (available forboth iOS and Android). These allow me to stream hundreds of podcasts andforeign radio stations…For music…Spotify’s music service is so comprehensive, Ihave given up on stuffing my iPod with new content. Also…Pandora…I sometimesuse Google Music for accessing my own music collection through the cloud…Idon’t see any of these technologies become mainstream soon. For the forseeablefuture these will be the playground of crazed early adopters like myself andsome like-minded geeks..This is all still too complicated for the masses. Butyou never know when the next tipping point will arrive to make this all explodeinto the mainstream…”

GigabitInternet

7. Fluidata and IFNL todeploy nationwide 1Gbps FTTH services http://www.broadbandwatcher.co.uk/fluidata-and-ifnl-to-deploy-nationwide-1gbps-ftth-services-4333/ “…Fluidata…has teamed up with IndependentFibre Networks Limited…to roll out a grand fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) scheme. Thiswould involve providing true 1Gbps fibre services to more than 50,000 freshresidential and commercial premises throughout the UK (20 locations to beexact)… “This is a big step forward and demonstrates that FTTH is a viable andsensible option for the long-term. It also shows that fibre can be commerciallydeployed on scale without government hand-outs, which compliments the work weare doing in rural communities.”… “work in rural communities”, Broadbandwatcheris fairly certain…was referring to firms such as B4RN, Fibrestream, Hyperoptic…”

8. WiGig promises low-power2Gbps wireless http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/wigig-promises-low-power-2gbps-wireless-device-communication-by-2013.ars “…WiGig Alliance is moving full steam aheadwith its plan to enable devices to communicate wirelessly at mulit-gigabitspeeds using unlicensed 60GHz spectrum…802.11ad WiGig operates on unlicensed60GHz spectrum; it won't propagate through walls and has a range of about 10meters. As such, isn't necessarily meant as a replacement for 2.4GHz or 5GHzWiFi."If Wi-Fi wants to get to 2Gbps, you need at least 3x3 antennas, andmuch wider bandwidth, maybe consuming 3 watts," Sadri said. "2Gbpsusing WiGig in a handheld device will consume about 500 to 600 milliwatts.That's five times the efficiency of Wi-Fi."…he sees WiGig and Wi-Fi asbeing complementary, rather than competing, technologies. Devices can use WiGigto communicate with each other at shorter ranges, and Wi-Fi for Internet accessor longer-range connections…”

Security,Privacy & Digital Controls

9. India OKs censoringFacebook, Google, Microsoft, YouTube http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/india-oks-censoring-facebook-google-microsoft-youtube/7308 “…The Indian government has given the greenlight for the prosecution of “21 social networking sites.” The list features 10foreign-based companies, and could affect websites provided by Facebook,Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and YouTube. The recent development is part of anongoing argument between the companies and India over whether content should beregulated (read: censored) in the country…Delhi’s High Court warned variouscompanies they will be blocked in India if they fail to check and censorcontent. When counsel for Facebook and Google pointed to their global policy ofnon-interference even if content posted on their services are found to beobscene or objectionable, the court told the Internet firms that this policywon’t work in India…”

10. Cyberattacks on Israelescalate http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/attacks-on-israel-escalate-in-cyber-nightmare-20120117-1q4r7.html “……” http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=253487 “The IDF is assembling elite teams ofcomputer hackers to lead the nation’s cyber-warfare efforts…amid concern overthe growing threat to Israel’s civilian and military networks…Last month, thearmy recruited close to 300 young computer experts, many of them withoutcollege or even high-school degrees. “These are some of the top experts intheir field,” a senior officer said. The new soldiers will serve in MilitaryIntelligence as well as in the C4I Directorate, the two military branchesresponsible for cyber-warfare in the IDF…The Jerusalem Post reported on anambitious Iranian plan to invest $1 billion to develop technology and hirecomputer experts with the goal of boosting the Islamic Republic’s offensive anddefensive cyber-warfare capabilities…The new division is run by a colonel whotook up his post over the summer. The officer is the former commander of Matzov…Matzovwrites the codes that encrypt IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Mossadnetworks…” [so the Israeli-Arab cyberwarraises several questions; (1) is there really a ‘cyberwar’ or is it all/mostlymedia hype? (2) did the IDF really recruit a bunch of hackers who didn’t havehigh school degrees (no college degree isn’t surprising, since IDF service isgenerally mandated post-high school (3) are any of the 300 new recruits really‘top experts in their field’ and, if so, what were they doing before they gotrecruited? (4) If the guy in charge of the new IDF cyber division was a formercommander of the cyber group that was supposed to be securing Israeli systemsagainst hacking, why should better anti-hacking results be expected from hisnew cyber group?(5) Does the US military recruit hackers with no high schooldegree for its many cyber warfare teams? – ed.]

11. Elsevier = Evil http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/01/elsevier_evil.php “Along with SOPA and PIPA, our government iscontemplating another acronym with deplorable consequences for the freedissemination of information: RWA, the Research Works Act. This is a bill to,it says, "ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewedresearch works by the private sector"…it's purpose is to guarantee thatfor-profit corporations retain control over the publication of scientificinformation…This is a blatant attempt to invalidate the NIH's requirement thattaxpayer-funded research be made publicly available. The internet was initiallydeveloped to allow researchers to easily share information…and that's preciselythe function this bill is intended to cripple…The corporations who love thisbill are the commercial publishers who profit mightily from scientists' work…Ifpassed, the Research Works Act (RWA) would prohibit the NIH's public accesspolicy and anything similar enacted by other federal agencies, locking publiclyfunded research behind paywalls…The only winners would be publishing corporationssuch as Elsevier…what kind of American politician would support it? The RWA isco-sponsored by Darrell Issa (Republican, California) and Carolyn B. Maloney(Democrat, New York). In the 2012 election cycle, Elsevier and its seniorexecutives made 31 donations to representatives: of these, two went to Issa and12 to Maloney, including the largest individual contribution…”

MobileComputing & Communicating

12. Uh-oh, PC: Half ofcomputing device sales are mobile http://gigaom.com/mobile/uh-oh-pc-half-of-computing-device-sales-are-mobile/ “…For some time to come, especially incertain industries or specific use cases, the PC will be important. For mostfolks, however, the PC is losing relevance as we’re morphing from a local /desktop user base to one of mobile / cloud. A rather timely graph illustratesthis. Horace Dediu, who tracks market data on his Asymco blog, tweeted an imageshowing a “brief history of personal computing platforms” on Saturday, goingback from present day to 1975. Notice anything interesting? Starting around2007…sales of devices running mobile platforms have eaten into a large portionof traditional desktop and laptop sales…I’m planning to get an Asus TransformerPrime review unit…to truly test if an ARM-powered mobile device can take theplace of my computing needs. Note that I don’t draw CAD files, create stunning3-D movie files, build programs or calculate equations that require heavyprocessing power. The fact is: Most other people don’t do these tasks either.So for many, a traditional computer can be overkill in terms of price, powerand performance. And if you need 3-D graphics for gaming or some otherprocessor intensive tasks, there’s always the option of remotely accessing a PCat home or in the cloud: Amazon now offers 750 hours a month of free WindowsServer instances through its EC2 product line, for example…” [considerlooking at the infographic in this article; the trend for Wintel computers onthe graphic is interesting (or scary if you’re Intel or Microsoft) – ed]

13. How France’s Free willreinvent mobile http://gigaom.com/2012/01/09/how-frances-free-will-reinvent-mobile/ “Xavier Niel, the maverick founder of Iliad,the company behind Free.fr broadband service, is about to redefine the mobilelandscape…when he launches the much-talked about Free Mobile. In doing so, hewill redefine what the idea of a carrier in the 21st century is, thanks to aradical new approach. Utilizing a blend of Wi-Fi, HSPA+ 3G, femtocells and itsall-fiber backbone, Free will offer unlimited voice, texting and data over themobile networks; just bring your own iPhone…”

14. Qualcomm Unveils Thinnest,Lightest Mirasol E-reader, The Hanvon C18 http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2012/01/10/qualcomm-unveils-thinnest-lightest-mirasol-e-reader-the-hanvon-c18/ “…Hanvon will sell the thinnest and lighteste-reader yet to utilize Qualcomm’s energy-efficient mirasol displays, theHanvon C18…Hanvon is the third company in two months to incorporate mirasol displaysinto an e-reader device…The C18…sports a 5.7-inch “XGA” format, touchscreenmirasol display and runs on a 1.0 GHz Snapdragon (S2, single-core) processorfrom Qualcomm. Its operating system, like that of Kyobo’s eReader and Bambook’sSunflower, is a custom interface on top of a Google Android (version 2.3) core…theHanvon C18…promises…bright colors even in the sun, weeks-long battery life anda refresh rate fast enough to support video. Mirasol enables this by reflectinglight between two conductive plates. The setup allows mirasol displays to bebuilt without backlights, which Qualcomm says improves outdoor readability andconserves power…”

15. Samsung In Talks WithIntel To Merge Bada OS With Tizen http://allthingsd.com/20120117/another-os-bites-the-dust-samsung-to-fold-bada-into-smartphone-linux-effort/ “…Samsung apparently plans to merge itshomegrown bada software with Tizen, which is itself the merger of multiplemobile Linux projects…The move means that apps written for bada (which isKorean for “ocean”) should run on Tizen, assuming that operating system findsits way onto devices. Tizen is a successor to MeeGo, an effort that was backedby both Intel and Nokia, until Nokia revamped its plans to focus on WindowsPhone…”

16. DOD, DOT: LightSquaredcannot coexist with GPS http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/dod-dot-lightsquared-cannot-coexist-with-gps-366922/ “In what may be the death knell for nascentL-band broadband provider LightSquared, nine federal agencies that haveanalysed the potential interference to GPS receivers from network over the pastyear agree that the system can not coexist with GPS operations. "Based ontesting and analysis, there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigationsthat would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operatein the next few months or years without significantly interfering withGPS," said the Deputy Secretary of Defence, Ashton Carter, and DeputySecretary of Transportation, John Porcari…"It is the unanimous conclusionof the test findings…that both LightSquared's original and modified plans forits proposed mobile network would cause harmful interference to GPSreceivers," said Carter and Porcari. "Additionally, an analysis bythe FAA has concluded that the LightSquared proposals are not compatible withseveral GPS-dependent aircraft safety-of-flight systems…”

17. What to Expect FromMobile Marketing Tech in 2012 http://mashable.com/2012/01/11/qr-codes-augmented-reality-2012/ “As new technologies emerge that seek tobridge the real world with the digital, the offline-to-online marketinglearning curve only gets steeper. For instance, what is the future of the QRcode, and should we prepare to be wowed by augmented reality? Read on for mymobile marketing predictions of 2012….Quick Response (QR) Codes…We’ll witnessthe disappearance of non-standard formats, an exponential rise in capablemobile devices, and a steady march toward improved calls-to-action spurred bymore accountable analytics…Overwhelmed by the variety of QR uses in marketingcampaigns, bad “carpenters” keep blaming their tools, and repeat simplemistakes that disappoint many first-time consumer scanners. Whether you love orhate QR codes, they’ll become…more ubiquitous and useful as they mature…AugmentedReality (AR)…a few AR campaigns will successfully break through to capturemainstream imaginations…the wider availability of easy AR creation tools willresult in many more uninspired efforts, disappointing first-time users…exacerbatedby the broad definition of what “augmented reality” is and by uncertainconsumer expectations…Near Field Communication (NFC)…Early campaigns will appearin tandem with QR codes…Total NFC mobile penetration will remain below criticalmass for mainstream deployments, constraining good campaigns to tightly focusedareas…”

18. Woz concedes Androidadvantages over iPhone http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57359883-37/woz-concedes-android-advantages-over-iphone/ “…In an interview with Dan Lyons…comparingiPhones with Android phones, the Woz laments the limitations of Apple'ssmartphone. "My primary phone is the iPhone," the Woz said. "Ilove the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, Ireally do."…his main beef is with Siri, which he said no longer works aswell as he would like. "I used to ask Siri, 'What are the five biggestlakes in California?' and it would come back with the answer," he said."Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings…He also said heprefers the GPS navigation on Android phones and he also takes issue with thebattery life on the iPhone…Woz says he still recommends the iPhone, especiallyfor people who might be intimidated by Android's complexity. "The people Irecommend the iPhone 4S for are the ones who are already in the Mac world,because it's so compatible, and people who are just scared of computersaltogether and don't want to use them. The iPhone is the least frighteningthing…”

19. NSA Releases SecureAndroid Version http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/232400479 “…National Security Agency has made its firstpublic release of SE Android, a secure version of Google's Android platform. SEAndroid aims to close Android's security gaps by isolating apps from oneanother, mitigating problems with flawed or malicious apps, instituting permissionand other security checks, restricting use of system facilities by apps, andtaking related steps. The project is based on SE Linux, a security-hardenedversion of Linux which the NSA initially released in 2000…There are not yet anypre-compiled builds of SE Android, so installation is anything but simple atthis point…One big focus of SE Android is application security.Application-level permissions control access to application components andsystem resources. A big change from SE Linux is that SE Android switches fromDiscretionary Access Control, which lets users set permissions, to MandatoryAccess Control, which does not. This can, for example, prevent malicious appsfrom running processes that wipe a device of all data. Sandboxing and process isolationalso play large parts. Android SE isolates applications from one another andthe system--unlike many apps on Google's Android Market that have broadpermissions to access other apps and device elements like Bluetooth and thecamera. Sandboxing prevents bypass of the application-level controls as well…”

Apps

20. Can New iPhone andAndroid App Savvy Help You Save Money? http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2012/01/11/can-new-iphone-and-android-app-savvy-help-you-save-money/ “Have you ever bought a full-priced pair ofjeans from your favorite store, only to return a few days later to find them onsale? If you know the store return policy and saved your receipt, you’llusually be eligible for a refund of the price difference…many consumers…notonly are unaware of these policies for every single store at which they shop,but don’t carry their receipts with them for every recent purchase…Savvy, builtby Pricetector.com, is an app for both Android and iOS that is designed toeliminate the common problem of post-purchase price reductions by indexing theprice adjustment policies for dozens of popular stores and notifying consumersvia email of any potential savings. Users simply snap a photo of the barcode ofthe price tag of each of their purchases with the app, which Savvy will thenstore with a built-in personal receipt manager. If an item goes on sale withinthe window that a consumer can receive a refund, Savvy will send you an emailto alert you that you can save money by bringing in your receipt to the storefor a price adjustment…” [what retail shopping apps would you like onyour smartphone? –ed ]

21. CBS Sports Opens Site toApp Makers http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203721704577159270507577072-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwNjExNDYyWj.html “CBS Corp., in a move aimed at boosting itsshare of the nearly billion-dollar fantasy-sports business, is opening up itsCBS Sports website so outside developers can create apps geared toward fantasyenthusiasts…Most fantasy leagues are hosted by a small group of websites includingYahoo Sports, ESPN.com and CBSSports.com. But an ecosystem of smaller websitesdraws enthusiasts by offering analysis and other tools to help them win theirfantasy leagues. CBS Sports executives are now hoping to create a hub for thisuniverse of mom-and-pop fantasy operators by letting them build products thatwill live on CBSSports.com. The site will offer free and paid apps, withCBSSports.com keeping a 30% share of sales of paid ones…$800 million is spentannually on fantasy games and related products, mostly online, according to astudy…conducted back in 2008…Football is by far the most popular fantasy sport,with nearly three-quarters of the 29.6 million fantasy players in the U.S.participating, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. CBSSports.comhas differentiated itself from competitors in that it charges people to play inits leagues, a distinction executives and partners say makes for a user basemore likely to spend on apps…”

22. 5 Useful iPad Apps forDoctors, Patients and Med Students http://mashable.com/2012/01/16/ipad-medical-apps/#view_as_one_page-gallery_box3827 “…iPads and tablet computing haverevolutionized the way many companies do business, and the medical field is nodifferent. The sharp, intuitive displays and interactive content of tabletsnaturally make doctor’s visits a more collaborative process…Recently Applehired a director of medical marketing, so it’s game on in this burgeoningsector. Plus, with $44,000 available in economic stimulus incentives via theHITECH Act, it’s no surprise that doctors are beginning to make the switch todigital. Here’s a look at some apps that are being used in doctor’s offices andhospitals around the U.S…1. Interactive Anatomy…2. EMH Records…3. Radiology…4.Educational…5. Assistive Technology…” [whenI pointed a doctor I know toward the radiology app, his comment was that (becauseof today’s corporate American approach to health care and a focus on seeing asmany patients as possible during the day) most doctors won’t have time for mostpatients to show them anything on a tablet – ed.]

SkyNet

23. Log into Gmail on a PCvia Your Smartphone and a QR Code http://www.pcworld.com/article/248235/log_into_gmail_on_a_pc_via_your_smartphone.html “Google recently introduced a fun (and moresecure) way to log into your Google account from a public terminal withoutentering your password into the PC, and instead using your smartphone and a QRcode. The method is similar to how Google sets up your handset for its two-steplog-in process introduced in February 2011. Google's two-step authenticationsystem requires you to enter your password as well as a unique short codegenerated by a trusted device (your smartphone) to access your account. The newGoogle QR log-in…uses your smartphone as a kind of proxy for the desktop PC'sbrowser. You will be able to enter your Google account password into yoursmartphone and then the PC will "automagically" log you in to yourGoogle account on the PC. This is a neat trick to use when traveling andrelying on public computers, and can protect you from a PC with keyloggingsoftware that records every keystroke entered into a compromised machine…”

24. Google+ gets LOLcaterizerphoto caption tool http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57360451-264/google-gets-lolcaterizer-photo-caption-tool/ “Watch out, Facebook, because Google+ justgot the feature that will wipe you off the social-network map. I'm talkingabout a LOLcat text generator. "Today we're rolling out a feature thatmakes it easier to add big, bold text on top of your photos," programmerColin McMillen said in a Google+ post…OK, so maybe it won't it won't dentFacebook's dominance, but it could help with photo captions such as whenparents want to put words in their babies' mouths…McMillen has serious geekcred. He's cofounder of the Recaptcha project that Google gobbled up…Speakingof techie trends, Google+ also is getting another feature announced today:hashtag autocompletion…”

25. Google Launches StyleGuide for Android Developers http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/android-design-matias-duarte/ “Matias Duarte is a man who loves a challenge…“Designingan open mobile operating system — and doing it really well — that’s neverhappened before in human history,” Duarte tells me…his new gig is a nightmare.Not only does the Android team have to engineer adroit, adaptable code, butthey must serve third-party developers who are trying to create apps for aconstantly updated operating system. This second task has been especiallydifficult in the wake of the most recent Android code overhaul…Duarte wants toremedy this. On Thursday, Google launched Android Design, a web site createdspecifically to help aid developers in the creation of applications for ICS.The site offers a comprehensive visual to third-party application developers,giving suggestions on everything from how to implement different visualelements to overall back-end patterns for the OS itself…”

26. Overcoming 4 Google +issues for small businesses http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/15/2589037/overcoming-4-google-issues-for.html “…Google + is fast becoming one of the mostused social media tools for business. The burgeoning social network hasgarnered 62 million users and is on track to reach 400 million by the end of 2012…Thismakes Google + a must-have tool for small business owners. But it’s not likeFacebook, and many small business owners are finding it difficult to create anengaging, active network of potential customers on Google +…here’s a list ofsolutions to help you…Problem: No one is reading your content on Google +…Solution:Make sure that your content itself is engaging and relevant…Get your Google +followers used to receiving your content on a regular basis by posting atestablished intervals…Problem: Your comment engagement is low…Solution:…ask questions.Make sure the questions you ask are relevant to the topic…You should also leavecomments on other people’s Google + posts…Problem: You’re not in anyone’sGoogle + Circles…Solution:…You have to invite people to join. Get started byasking people from your other social networks to join you on Google +. Also,make sure you are +1’ing other people’s comments…Problem: No one is +1 sharingyour content…Solution: It might be because your content is not engaging orrelevant enough…”

27. Google fixes offlineGmail app, increases student appeal? http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/google-fixes-offline-gmail-app-increases-student-appeal/14589 “…key updates have now been made to…offlineGmail app, available for the Chrome web browser…changes made to the applicationare: The addition of a settings page,accessible via a new settings icon…All attachments are now downloaded andavailable for offline use…Messages and attachments now download at a fasterrate…My personal favourite is the increased synchronisation capacities of theGmail offline app. Users are now able to choose between various time frames —7, 14, or 31 days’ — of email to be synchronised without an Internetconnection. The idea of trawling through a month’s worth of emails is enough tomake one’s head spin, but simply having the option to use this feature is avast improvement. This is a big step for Google, considering the last versiononly synced up to the last 7 days’ worth of email. It is suspected that Gmaildominates the student marketshare of email use. Once a user signs up for anemail account, generally it becomes unlikely that they will switch provider…Googleis one of the few email providers I view to be interested in making continualimprovements to their email functionality…”

GeneralTechnology

28. Apple ToAnnounce GarageBand for eBooks, Tools, Platform To ‘Digitally Destroy’ TextbookPublishing http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/01/apple-digital-destroy-textbook/ “Apple is slated to announce the fruits ofits labor on improving the use of technology in education…on…January 19…sourcesclose to the matter have confirmed…Apple will announce tools to help createinteractive e-books—the “GarageBand for e-books,” so to speak—and expand itscurrent platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users…Apple is expectedto announce support for the ePub 3 standard for iBooks going forward…authoringstandards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simpleas running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current stateof software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, withseveral authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor wouldmake a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song inGarageBand…Apple CEO Steve Jobs was working on addressing learning and digitaltextbooks for some time, according to Walter Issacson’s biography. Jobsbelieved that textbook publishing was an “$8 billion a year industry ripe fordigital destruction…” http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/17/apples-education-event-is-getting-seriously-over-hyped/ “…Foresman's main source, quoted half a dozentimes in his piece, is Matt MacInnis, CEO of a digital textbook company…thathas developed more than 100 titles for the iPad. We interviewed MacInnis overthe weekend, and as near as we can tell, Foresman -- and the 18 other reporterswho followed his lead -- got it wrong. "Apple is not trying to kill theincumbents," MacInnis told us. "They've learned their lesson fromupending the music industry." He told Foresman the same thing, although itdoesn't seem to have registered…”

29. ICube UPU,the next step in processor evolution? http://vr-zone.com/articles/icube-upu-the-next-step-in-processor-evolution-/14518.html “In the last part of our Chinese CPU story,we covered ICube and their processors with a brand new instruction set,something not seen in like two decades. Here's a bit more about the newarchitecture…Ever since Alpha in 1991, there was no new major instruction setarchitecture to appear in the general market. In fact, since then, most of thenon-X86 architectures disappeared from the scene, leaving the X86 - even thoughwidely agreed to be technically the worst - as the pre-dominant one. Power andSparc still keep a part of the server field, while ARM is, of course, the kingof the hill right now in the mobile arena…Now, for the first time in twodecades, there's a company openly promoting its own new instruction set, andlaunching a processor based on it right into the hot waters on the mobiledevice market. Furthermore, UPU is a brand new philosophy too - for the firsttime, CPU and GPU are truly fused into one processor core, MVP (Multi-threadVirtual Pipeline)…ICube was set up by Fred Chow and Simon Moy, two industryveterans: Simon was behind the world's first 64-bits MIPS processors in SGI,and after that the principal engineer in Nvidia for 7 years until 2004, incharge of all the inital GPU, shader and GPU computing efforts. Fred was chiefscientist at SGI, in its golden days of funky coloured superworkstations, andprincipal engineers at MIPS, later developing the Pathscale compiler suite thatenabled AMD Opteron its first 64-bit X86 support. He is the chief architect ofthe open-source Open64 compiler suite…UPU (Unified Processor Unit) approach intheir 'Harmony' architecture is the first situation where CPU and GPU threadsare sharing the same execution units, register file and many instructions. In asense, it is a 'total fusion' of the two, unlike the AMD Fusion APU approachwhere CPU and GPU are still distinct, with separate instruction sets, registers,execution units and such…”

30. AMD to launchlower cost ultrabook platform http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120116PD219.html “…AMD is…set to launch its Trinity-basedplatform for the ultrabook market, which AMD codenamed Ultrathin, in June withan overall cost 10-20% lower than that from Intel…AMD has recently changed itsstrategy and will have Trinity-based APU to handle the ultrabook market andwill push a low-price strategy to expand its share in the ultrabook market…Comparedto Intel's Ivy Bridge-based ultrabooks, although AMD's Ultrathin machines donot have any significant innovations in terms of performance or function, theyhave advantages over cost, which allows the average price of Ultrathin machinesto be US$100-200 lower than those of Intel's ultrabooks…some notebook vendorsare also concerned that AMD's Ultrathin machines could cause a rapid price dropof ultrabook models…”

31. MEMSmanufacturer targets mass-market apps http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4234032/MEMS-targets-mass-market-apps “…Now that it has been acquired by Rohm Co.Ltd…Kionix is expanding its targeted design philosophy with multi-sensorcombos, fusion software, and a second-sourcing strategy aimed to catapult itinto maturing mega-markets…Kionix, which to date does all its manufacturing atits headquarters in Ithaca, N.Y…are building a new eight-inch fab inJapan."…Kionix promises a three-axis magnetometer in 2012 to add to its three-axisaccelerometers and three-axis gyroscopes, enabling it to supply complete inertialmeasurement units (IMUs)…Kionix will be showing its latest and most advancedMEMS inertial sensors to date, including it first six-degree-of-freedomcombo-sensor, a three-axis accelerometer wire-bonded to a three-axis gyroscopestacked atop a single application-specific-integrated circuit (ASIC) all packedinto a single four-by-four millimeter package. "Our combo part has the lowest powerconsumption in the industry [4 milliamps operating] plus you can put everythingto sleep except the accelerometer for ultra-low-power [10 microamps asleep]with auto wake-up when motion is detected,"…A pin on the chip can alsosend a signal to shut-down other circuits, such as an altimeter (barometricpressure sensor), and an on-chip first-in-first-out (FIFO) memory enables thecombo part to log readings while waiting to be polled by the applicationprocessor…The new accelerometer alone is also being made available in a legacy3-by-3 millimeter package as well as a new ultra-small 2-by-2 millimeterpackage for the most demanding ultra-small mobile handsets where real-estatesavings justifies the extra cost and handling equipment needed for assemblingboards with such small devices…”

Leisure &Entertainment

32. Nintendo Gives 2ndGlimpse of Wii U Game Machine http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/nintendo-2nd-glimpse-wii-game-machine-15331937 “Nintendo Co.'s upcoming Wii U game consolewill come with a controller that has a big, touch-enabled screen…indemonstrations Tuesday, the company emphasized that the Wii U will work withthe cheaper, stick-like Wii controllers as well, making family multiplayergames feasible…Nintendo said the device will go on sale after the nextElectronic Entertainment Expo gaming trade show in Los Angeles in June…Althoughthe company successfully courted casual gamers with the Wii, it is now facingincreased competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other devices that offersimple games. It had hoped to win new gamers through a 3-D handheld device. Butsales were slow, and Nintendo slashed prices on the 3DS within six months…”

33. Smart TV: Six bigfeatures that matter http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/smart-tv-six-big-features-that-matter/28778 “…you are probably aware of the “Smart TV”, aterm used, generally, to describe televisions that are able to connect to theInternet…Samsung, LG, Sony, Lenovo and especially Google are all pushing theconcept in a major way, which is probably a clear indication that there isgoing to be some major movement in the area over the next year…it’s helpful totake a look at six of the key features that are likely to separate the Smart TVwinners from their less fortunate counterparts…A smart interface…A robustrecommendation engine…Over-the-top content…Cloud-based gaming…The ecosystem…Secondscreen compatibility…”

34. Canon PowerShot G1 XHands-on Preview http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canong1x/default.asp “The Canon PowerShot G1 X may look like thecompany's existing G-series compacts, but is a very different prospect. It's alarge sensor camera with a flexible 28-112mm-equivalent, 4x zoom lens and extensivemanual controls. The company says it sees it as a camera for photographers whoalready have a high end DSLR such as a 5D Mark II or 7D, but at a price of$799, we think it'll appeal much more widely than that. After repeated waves ofcameras aimed at point-and-shoot upgraders, it's heartening to see a camerareally living up to the billing of a 'serious compact.'…Canon is being a littlemodest in suggesting that this is a camera for high-end DSLR owners. There'severy reason to suspect the G1 X will offer the capability of a Rebel/600D in asmaller package and at a slightly lower price. Given that few low-end DSLRusers ever take the kit lens off their camera, then so long as they're not putoff by its 'serious' looks, the G1 X could find a much bigger audience…”

Economy andTechnology

35. Security software firmAVG files for U.S. IPO http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/security-software-firm-avg-files-for-u-s-ipo/ “Following on the heels of competitor Avast,security and antivirus developer AVG has announced it has filed…to make aninitial public offering to raise up to $125 million, which it plans to use tocontinue and expand its operations—potentially through acquisitions…AVG isbased in the Netherlands and is backed by the likes of Grisoft Holdings (thecompany that founded AVG back in the early 1990s)…and Intel Capital. AVG saysit had 106 million active users at the end of the third quarter of 2011;however, AVG’s problem is that the vast majority of those customers are usersof its free antivirus product. Only 15 million customers pay for AVG’ssubscription security and antivirus services, generating about $130 millionrevenue during the first three calendar quarters of 2011…”

36. Create A Mobile App AndIncrease Your Visibility http://marketingland.com/create-a-mobile-app-and-increase-your-visibility-3144 “…mobile is the future. 35% of American adultsown smartphones, and that number is constantly on the rise…app use hasoutstripped mobile browsing on mobile platforms by a margin of 81 minutes a dayto 74 minutes a day on the web…the trend is very much toward app usage, with a91% increase in app usage year-over-year…Most companies now have websites, andif you have a mobile version, you’re off to a good start. There are a number oftools designed to help non-developer create apps, or let developers create appsin the programming language they’re most familiar with and convert it to theappropriate format for iOS or Android. For programmers, the options includeAppcelerator, MotherApp, and PhoneGap . For non-developers, there’s AppsGeyser(disclosure: I manage content and community for AppsGeyser), as well as RunRev,AppMakr, Genwi, SassMob, MobBase and many more…”

37. The "Army ofOne" entrepreneur http://swombat.com/2012/1/17/army-of-one-entrepreneur “What's the best strategy to get from havingno startup to having one that provides you with income? Is it to find the bestidea you have, focus all your energy on it, and make it work at all costs? Thisseems to be the standard mode of operation for most new entrepreneurs. They'llwait until they have an idea that they can pursue and that seems worthpursuing, and then pour all their energies into that idea. If it works, great.If the idea happens to be a stinker, they'll probably fail. Some might be luckyenough to know that they should validate the idea before pouring a year ofdevelopment effort into it, and so find out the idea is not so good before allthe money is gone. Once upon a time, it used to be that starting a company andbuilding a new product was a big and all-consuming affair (notice I'm not eventalking about cost)…Even today, many such businesses are still started.Dropbox, AirBNB or Spotify are not the kind of business that you can start withonly part of one person's attention. You need several people to dedicate alltheir time to proving the idea, if you want it to stand a chance. But is thattrue of all startup ideas? Clearly not. There are many ideas which you canvalidate very cheaply and without pouring all your time into them over a longperiod of time…”

38. Placing Customers at theCenter of QR Code Strategies http://www.1to1media.com/weblog/2012/01/placing_customers_at_the_cente.html “…While the emergence of other technologiessuch as near field communications and digital watermarks may shape thedurability of QR, ultimately, the potential for the technology rests with howeffectively companies place customers at the center of their QR efforts…it'simportant for companies to offer and promote the right incentives for customersto use QR codes. This includes educating consumers about what QR codes are andhow they can be used. There needs to be a compelling reason for customers tostop whatever it is they're doing - say at a shopping mall or sporting event -and make use of the technology. Offer customers a chance to win a contest or todownload a free song…Sears offers a compelling example for making QR codesuseful for customers. Sears allows customers to scan QR codes with theirsmartphones while shopping in their stores. The service prevents shoppers fromhaving to lug merchandise around the store while they continue shopping forother items while allowing customers to pick up ordered merchandise from aconvenient pick-up location once they've completed their purchases…many marketersare missing prime opportunities to use QR codes to surprise and delight anddeeply engage customers. Instead, many companies are often leading those who doscan to static websites that aren't optimized for mobile…”

DHMN Technology

39. 3D printermakers' rival visions of future http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16503443 “…3D printing is nothing new - engineers anddesigners have been using it for more than two decades to create prototypes. Whathas changed is that the printers are now being pitched at consumers…"Wewant to get this into the hands of the next generation because kids these daysare going to have to learn digital design so they can solve the problems oftomorrow."…3D System's more advanced printers can print plastics indetermined "a pixel at a time" as well as in metals, nylons, powdersand liquids - offering the prospect of a future in which home made devices canreplicate any object Star Trek-style. For the moment Makerbot notes that itsReplicator is advanced enough to build most of the components necessary toreproduce itself. Both firms describe their efforts as having"democratising" effects with the potential to change the world…”

40. THE GRINDER’SGUIDE TO THE NEXT 5 MINUTES: Part Two http://grinding.be/2012/01/10/the-grinder%E2%80%99s-guide-to-the-next-5-minutes-part-two/ “…do you see any potentially disruptivetechnologies on the horizon? will 2012 be the year of drone deployments orramped up ubicomp? Further breakthroughs in citizen science equipment orpersonal manufacturing?...m1k3y: open source artificial general intelligence –mixed into EVERYTHING. specifically the Open Cog project [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCog]. I saw Ben Goertzel speak at the local Singularity Summit, and I was veryimpressed…Kevin: Again, I think it’s a toss up between 3d printing/rapidfabrication and drones. And you canobviously see the point where those circles overlap to make a sexyself-replicating Venn diagram. Thiswill be the year a horrible act of police/state brutality is captured bycitizen-operated drones, as well as the year that the idea of downloading andfabricating items sneaks in the mainstream. And if you think “piracy” gets people pissed off now, you haven’t seenanything yet. It’s not post-scarcity byany means, but it’s going to be disruptive nonetheless…”

41. HopefullyThese Robotic Farmers Will Harvest More Than Our Organs http://www.pcworld.com/article/247483/hopefully_these_robotic_farmers_will_harvest_more_than_our_organs.html “The Japanese government is planning todevelop a farm where all labor is carried out by robots…The initiative, dubbedthe "Dream Project," will use robotic tractors to plant and harvestthe crops, and other robots for tasks such as packaging the produce forshipping…The farm will be located on 600 acres in the Miyagi Prefecture, andit'll be used to grow fruit, vegetables rice, soybeans and wheat…Use ofchemicals will be minimized, with pesticides being replaced by special LEDlighting. Carbon dioxide produced by the robots will be recycled by feeding itback to the crops to reduce the amount of fertilizer needed…Hopefully, such aproject brings us one step closer to the Jetsons and not one step closer to theMatrix…”

Open SourceHardware

42. ZPM Espresso is making anopen source home espresso machine http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/16/zpm-espresso-is-making-an-open-source-home-espresso-machine/ “Making good home espresso is possible, butthe machines tend to cost a small fortune. ZPM Espresso, a startup in Atlanta,is hoping to change that with its open-source espresso machine…The founderslike drinking espresso and they took apart a bunch of old machines to see howit’s done. They figured out how to make a machine for less money, but includingimportant features such as PID controls, custom temperature, pressure profiles,and open source hardware and software using Arduino, a kind of microcontroller.The microcontroller governs the behavior of the thermoblock and the pump,rather than relying upon mechanical controls…Typical machines that can do thatcan cost more than $700, but ZPM is aiming at a target price of $300 to $400.One of the secrets is a custom-designed thermoblock that ZPM is creatingitself…The company is raising a round of money on Kickstarter, the crowdsourcedfunding site. Based on the progress so far, it looks like the company willraise hundreds of thousands of dollars. The hope is that a community of userswill share their temperature and pressure profiles online so that more peoplecan figure out how to make a good cup of espresso. The open-source machine willbe user serviceable…” http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controlled-espresso-machine

43. Raspberry Pi computers inproduction, ready soon for orders http://singularityhub.com/2012/01/14/raspberry-pi-is-about-to-be-served-%E2%80%93-manufacturing-has-begun-for-the-35-computer/ “……” http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/17/0014220/raspberry-pi-25-linux-computer-now-in-production-video “…The long-awaited $25 Linux single-boardcomputers are finally being shipped from the Chinese factory where they'rebeing assembled and will be available for sale in just a few weeks. Eben talksnot only about the Raspberry Pi boards and the add-on Gertboard, but about theeBay auction that helped finance Raspberry Pi…” [watch the Slashdot video]

44. IoT open-source computers– The Rascal http://postscapes.com/iot-open-source-computers-a-conversation-with-rascal-creator-brandon-stafford “The Rascal is a small (about 5 cm x 10 cm),open-source computer designed for "connecting sensors, motors,and whateverelse you can build to the internet". One of the things that sets it apartfrom the Arduino and other microcontrollers is its built-in Ethernet connectionand ability to act as its own web server (hosting its own development tools,giving you the ability to edit files directly from your browser through aweb-based editor)…I had a chance to talk with Rascal creator Brandon Staffordabout the project and how he sees open-source hardware…My name is BrandonStafford, I live outside of Boston and make a small computer for artists,scientists, hobbyist types who want to connect stuff to the Internet. The ideais that it is a general purpose tool that people can use to connect whateverthey want to the Internet. It's called the Rascal and I've started a companycalled Rascal Micro that consists entirely of me sitting in my house makingsmall computers…”

Open Source

45. Google's 3D Human BodyBrowser Is Now Open-Source http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/googles_3d_human_body_browser_is_now_open-source.php “Google announced yesterday that its layered3D browser of the human body has become an open-source project. Google Body wasbuilt by Google engineers in their "20% time"…Zygote Media Group,which provided the imagery for Google's modeling, has built Zygote Body withthe code. It offers the same navigation and features. To support this launch,the Google Body team has built a new, open-source 3D viewer atopen-3d-viewer.googlecode.com. Thanks to the work of Google engineers, anydeveloper can now use the same kind of 3D model browser for her or his ownproject …”

46. Microsoft mandatingSecure Boot on ARM, making Linux installs difficult http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/microsoft-mandating-secure-boot-on-arm-making-linux-installs-difficult.ars “With Windows 8 coming out later this year,there has already been controversy about whether computers that ship withWindows 8 will have the ability to run Linux, either as a replacement forWindows or in a dual-boot setup…a process called UEFI secure booting preventsthe booting of operating systems not signed by a trusted CertificateAuthority—and hardware makers must enable the secure boot technology to qualifyfor a Designed for Windows 8 logo. This would make it difficult, but notimpossible, for Linux operating systems to be installed on Windows 8 computers.Hardware manufacturers can still give users the option of disabling secure bootand running any operating system they wish…it now appears that flexibility willonly be available to Windows 8 systems running on Intel chips, and not ARM ones…"Onnon-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Bootvia firmware setup," Microsoft writes…But the opposite is true for ARMsystems running Windows 8. "On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enableCustom Mode. … Disabling Secure MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems,"Microsoft states …”

47. Cracking Open theScientific Process http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/open-science-challenges-journal-tradition-with-web-collaboration.html?_r=2&ref=science?src=dayp&pagewanted=all “…For centuries, this is how science hasoperated — through research done in private, then submitted to science andmedical journals to be reviewed by peers and published for the benefit of otherresearchers and the public at large. But to many scientists, the longevity ofthat process is nothing to celebrate. The system is hidebound, expensive andelitist, they say. Peer review can take months, journal subscriptions can beprohibitively costly…It is an ideal system for sharing knowledge, said thequantum physicist Michael Nielsen, only “if you’re stuck with 17th-centurytechnology.” Dr. Nielsen and other advocates for “open science” say science canaccomplish much more, much faster, in an environment of friction-freecollaboration over the Internet…Open-access archives and journals like arXivand the Public Library of Science (PLoS) have sprung up in recent years.GalaxyZoo, a citizen-science site, has classified millions of objects in space,discovering characteristics that have led to a raft of scientific papers… “Iwant to make science more open. I want to change this,” said Ijad Madisch, 31,the Harvard-trained virologist and computer scientist behind ResearchGate, thesocial networking site for scientists…Dr. Gupta called Dr. Madisch the“quintessential networking guy — if there’s a Bill Clinton of the scienceworld, it would be him.”…Dr. Madisch, of ResearchGate, acknowledged that hemight never reach many of the established scientists for whom social networkingcan seem like a foreign language or a waste of time. But wait, he said, untilyounger scientists weaned on social media and open-source collaboration startrunning their own labs. “If you said years ago, ‘One day you will be onFacebook sharing all your photos and personal information with people,’ theywouldn’t believe you,” he said. “We’re just at the beginning…”

CivilianAerospace

48. Solar PoweredDragon gets Wings for Station Soar http://www.universetoday.com/92444/solar-powered-dragon-gets-wings-for-station-soar/ “…SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft has gotten itswings and is set to soar to the International Space Station (ISS) in about amonth…Dragon is a commercially developed unmanned cargo vessel constructed bySpaceX under a $1.6 Billion contract with NASA. The Dragon spacecraft willlaunch atop a Falcon 9 booster rocket also built by SpaceX, or SpaceExploration Technologies…COTS 2/3 represents the first test of NASA’s newstrategy to resupply the ISS with privately developed rockets and cargocarriers under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS)initiative. Following the forced retirement of the Space Shuttle…NASA has nochoice but to rely on private companies to loft virtually all of the US shareof supplies and equipment to the ISS. The Feb…Dragon mission…is also the firsttime that the Dragon will fly with deployable solar arrays. The twin arrays arethe primary power source for the Dragon…The solar arrays can generate up to5000 watts of power on a long term basis to run the sensors and communicationssystems, drive the heating and cooling systems and recharge the battery pack. SpaceXdesigned, developed and manufactured the solar arrays in house with their ownteam of engineers…” http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0117-spacex-launch-delay-20120117,0,999082.story “…SpaceX, planned to send its Dragon capsuleinto space…Feb. 7 from Cape Canaveral…on Monday the company said that moreengineering work was needed before it would embark on the historic mission…"Webelieve that there are a few areas that will benefit from additional work andwill optimize the safety and success of this mission," Kirstin Grantham, aSpaceX spokeswoman…"We are now working with NASA to establish a new targetlaunch date, but note that we will continue to test and review data…it'sunclear when the mission will take place…”

49. Volunteers wanted for planet hunt http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16512017 “Members of the public are being asked tojoin the hunt for nearby planets that could support life. Volunteers can go tothe Planethunters website to see time-lapsed images of 150,000 stars, taken bythe Kepler space telescope. They will be advised on the signs that indicate thepresence of a planet…"We know that people will find planets that aremissed by the computer," said Chris Lintott from Oxford University…Alreadyseveral planets have been discovered by the public since the site was put livelast year by an international team including scientists from Yale and Oxforduniversities…”

Supercomputing& GPUs

50. GPU-Accelerated AirTraffic Management http://developer.nvidia.com/content/cuda-spotlight-gpu-accelerated-air-traffic-management “…Every day, theU.S. National Airspace System (NAS) services tens of thousands of commercial,military and general aviation aircraft safely across the country. Air trafficflow management involves balancing air traffic demand with system capacity inthe NAS and managing the traffic flow in a safe, efficient, and coordinatedmanner…At any given moment, there are over 7000 aircraft flying in the skies ofthe U.S…The project we are working on with NASA is related to NextGen, amulti-agency initiative to improve the coordination of air traffic flow in theNAS. Our project is focused on predicting the "4-Dimensional Trajectory(4DT)" for every aircraft in the NAS. A 4DT describes the 3-dimensionalposition (latitude, longitude, altitude) of aircraft at regular time intervals(time is the 4th dimension)…all air traffic control decisions are performedbased on the predicted 4DT, i.e. the predicted position of the aircraft in thefuture. This project resulted in the development of CARPAT™ (ComputationalAppliance for Rapid Prediction of Aircraft Trajectories)…Rapid prediction ofaircraft trajectories is critical for decision making in future TrajectoryBased Operations…GPU computing…allows us to achieve real-time performance…andopens up the possibility of utilizing algorithms and approaches that wereearlier deemed impractical due to the computational complexity…Using CUDA andGPU computing we were able to achieve a 250X speedup over NASA’s baselinesoftware called Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET). While FACET takesaround 10 minutes to perform a typical 24-hour trajectory prediction for 35,000aircraft in the NAS, the CARPAT prototype performs the same prediction in under2.5 seconds…”

51. New supercomputer forBielefeld's high-energy physicists http://ekvv.uni-bielefeld.de/blog/uninews/entry/new_supercomputer_for_bielefeld_s “…Bielefeld's physicists will be using thisnew high-performance computer to calculate properties of so-called 'quarks' and'gluons'. Quarks are considered to be the elementary constituents of all knownmatter. They interact through the exchange of force particles, the gluons…Withtheir previous computer, apeNEXT, they have already been able to determine veryprecisely that the behaviour of quarks changes dramatically at a temperature of1.78 billion degrees…this temperature is approximately 100,000 times higherthan that at the core of our sun…the new Bielefeld computer will be used tostudy the quark–gluon plasma in detail through computer simulations…The newcomputer is equipped with 400 modern graphics boards…These graphic processors,which can also are used in PCs or games computers, are being connected with anetwork of computer processors to form a GPU cluster. A total of 400 GPUs arebeing installed…to reach a cumulative peak performance of about 500Teraflops…equivalent to about 10,000 normal PCs. One particular feature of thenew computer is its comparatively low power consumption. It is 50 times smallerthan a system with the same computing capability composed of PCs…”

52. Sony Vegas Pro 11 Now HasGPU Acceleration http://www.pcworld.com/article/247239/sony_vegas_pro_11_review_now_with_graphics_acceleration.html “If there's one thing that stifles creativeenergy with deadly effectiveness, it's having to wait. That's why the newGPU-accelerated features in Sony's Vegas Pro 11 video-editing application ($600as of January 3, 2012) are more welcome than pretty much anything else Sonycould have done for this application. Vegas Pro 11 can use your system'sgraphics card instead of its CPU to accelerate certain playback and renderingfunctions. Altogether, 36 video effects and 10 transitions, as well as outputrendering, are GPU-accelerated; in contrast, Vegas Pro 10 accelerated a singlefunction. Sony claims that Vegas's GPU acceleration can speed output renderingby as much as a factor of four, depending on the type of project involved…”

*****

NEW NET location for 17 Jan 2012 Mtg = Sergio's Restaurant

2012-01-16T13:37:00.004-06:00

The NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurial and Technology issues) 17 January 2012 meeting from 7 - 9 PM will be at Sergio’s Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton; backup location, Tom’s on Westhill Blvd. Come and join in the tech fun!

*****

NEW NET Weekly List for 10 Jan 2012

2012-01-10T09:25:00.003-06:00

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 10 January 2012, NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurism and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 PM weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1. Could Chrome overtakeInternet Explorer in the browser wars? http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/04/tech/web/google-chrome-browser/index.html “…Chrome…passed Mozilla's Firefox to becomethe second-most popular tool of its kind on the Internet…that climb…has sometech observers wondering whether Chrome could…topple perennial leader InternetExplorer from atop the browser rankings…Chrome accounted for more than 27% of allworldwide browser use at the beginning of December…compared to about 37% forInternet Explorer…Firefox remained mostly steady with about 25% of the browsermarket…people are more aware than ever that they have a choice of browsers.Internet Explorer has been the dominant browser for more than a decade, atleast in large part because it comes installed on Windows machines…The rise ofChrome comes as Google has expanded beyond its core product -- its searchengine -- into such areas as mobile operating systems (Android) and socialnetworking (Google Plus). Chrome has been a high point for Google in what hasdeveloped into a two-front clash of tech titans with Microsoft…”

2. Path is where the A listhangs out http://loiclemeur.com/english/2012/01/path-is-where-the-a-list-hangs-out-dont-tell-anyone.html “…Want to know where most influential andsuccessful entrepreneurs, VCs and tech writers hide online these days?...Wantto be able to interact with some of them so famous…on Twitter and Facebook thatthere is no chance they will read you and reply there? Look no further thanPath…where almost every A-lister in Silicon Valley I know hides these days. Theyshare thoughts, pics and short videos, very intimate…Thanks to many uniquefeatures such as notifying you exactly when and who has seen your pictures oryour feed, Path is the ultimate way of keeping you in touch with your closefriends. Close is the key, you can’t exceed 150 friends on Path…Path’s recentgrowth isn’t about features, though, it’s more about people. Facebook andTwitter have become very mainstream…most people feel that what Facebook wantsmore and more is for you to share everything in public. It’s the defaultsetting. Path fills that gap for some people, it created a small place whereyou can hang out online anytime with your close friends…”

3. Wikipedia launches new QRcode project to document daily life in Monmouth, UK http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/12/31/monmouth-chosen-to-star-in-unique-wikipedia-experiment-91466-30035724/ “Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, islaunching a new project to document the life and history of an entire Welshtown…historians and local residents are being invited to contribute articlesand photographs documenting interesting aspects of life in Monmouth…highlightingnotable places, people, artefacts, flora and fauna. It will also use QR codes,barcodes read by smart phones through their cameras that take users toWikipedia articles in their language…Monmouthpedia is the brainchild of townresident John Cummings who was inspired by a similar project at Derby Museum.The 29-year-old…said the aim was to have about 1,150 QR codes placed aroundMonmouth by May. “I went to see a talk about what they did at Derby Museum andI said ‘you could do it for a whole town’ and they said ‘no, you could do itfor a whole town’ – so I am…Monmouth appears in the Domesday book, the Councilfor British Archaeology has designated it the seventh best town in Britain,it’s got a good local history and civic society and there are people willing tovolunteer their time…”

4. Mozilla to buildslow-paced Firefox for conservative (e.g. corporate) users http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57356321-264/mozilla-to-build-slow-paced-firefox-for-conservative-users/ “Mozilla has embarked on its plan to buildits Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Firefox, an edition that standscomparatively still while the ordinary version of the browser changes every sixweeks. Mozilla proposed the ESR version of Firefox…after encountering seriousresistance to its rapid-release development cycle. The fastreleases…approach…doesn't work so well for companies or other organizations thatneed to test their software carefully or make sure custom add-ons don't breakfrequently…Releases of the ESR will occur once a year, providing theseorganizations with a version of Firefox that receives security updates but doesnot make changes to the Web or Firefox add-ons platform…”

GigabitInternet

5. For blazing fast wirelessinternet, Broadcom announces its first 5G WiFi chips http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/05/for-blazing-fast-wireless-internet-broadcom-announces-its-first-5g-wifi-chips/ “Broadcom is announcing today its first WiFichips that will allow wireless to surf the web at a speed of 1.3 gigabits persecond…This kind of faster networking is needed because consumers are watchingvideos and playing streamed games on a variety of devices and screens in thehome these days. It could also be great for activities such as multiplayergaming. The name 5G WiFi is a clever bit of marketing, but accurate enough…Thetechnology uses the 802.11ac engineering protocol, or the fifth generation ofWiFi standards…Broadcom can position WiFi as faster than 4G, which the cellularphone companies are rolling out as the fastest mobile phone data networks…sinceWiFi is faster than mobile networking such as 4G LTE, WiFi is expected to be abig part of gadgetry in the future…802.11ac is the next generation of WiFi thatoperates in the same 5 gigahertz band of the radio spectrum as its predecessors,802.11a and n. (802.11b operated in the 2.4 gigahertz band, but 802.11ac iscompatible with all past versions of WiFi). The technology is faster because ituses a wider channel for delivering data, at 80 megahertz instead of 40. Ituses 256-QAM, a modulation scheme that is four times more efficient than theprior 64-QAM scheme. And it taps multiple antennae using the MIMO spatialstream technology, using twice as many streams as were available before…”

6. Gigabit Internetapplication competitions spreading to Vermont http://www.dailyyonder.com/rural-technology-it-pays-compete/2011/12/19/3651 “…communities put final touches on their 2012economic development plans…should consider incorporating an approach that’sincreasingly popular in the broadband world: contests offering cash prizes forcreating effective broadband apps…Chattanooga recently announced a contestoffering $100,000 to the person or group that comes up with the most creativeapplication to run on their gigabit network…Chattanooga soon added additionalcontests and incentives to its initial offer that now promises up to $250,000in prize money…The two Kansas Cities responded with a contest of their own, the“Gigabit Challenge,” that offers a similar amount…The Northeast Kingdom (NEK)of Vermont consists of the three most northeastern counties in the state…Fiftytowns dot this region with an average of 1,800 residents per town…Fiftyparticipants entered InternetBiz2010 contest after working with localdevelopers to improve their online service…Laura and Al Duey…took an activeinterest in getting NEK residents better broadband…but the service providersreported that in spite of the committees’ enthusiasm, broadband take rates wereunprofitably low. VCRD started a program called the e-NEK Project toconcentrate efforts in three towns to connect businesses to the Web…The e-NEKProject awarded $15,000 in Web-related services for plans determined to be thebest, and the prizes had to be used to help implement these plans. Eight localbusinesses and Internet-service providers were contest sponsors, providing $7,000in cash prizes…110 small businesses from the NEK participated in the contest,either registering for it, attending the educational Webinars, or both.Representatives from the companies attended one or more Webinars, which theycould do without having to enter the contest…the contest does not have to havea high price-tag to be successful. However, it does require a significantcommitment of time from several people…the mechanics of how the contest wasconducted (forums, Webinars, judging) was valuable in helping all contestantsimprove their Web sites, even if they didn’t win any prizes…heavy localpromotion of the contest and encouragement for those who win service prizes tospend locally can keep money flowing inside rural communities…”

7. Three cheers for thedigital divide? http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/blog/ann-treacy/three-cheers-digital-divide “…Thomas Friedman wrote an editorial thatcaught the attention of a lot of folks working towards better broadband.Friedman suggests that to become a world leader, America should not focus ongetting mediocre broadband to the masses, but instead strive to get “ultra-highspeed” broadband to the top 5 percent…Right now…notes Levin, America is focusedtoo much on getting “average” bandwidth to the last 5 percent of the country inrural areas, rather than getting “ultra-high-speed” bandwidth to the top 5percent, in university towns, who will invent the future. By the end of 2012,he adds, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to theInternet at one gigabit per second. “That would be a tenfold increase from thealready blazing national standard, and more than 200 times as fast as theaverage household setup in the United States,”…the National Broadband Plan alsosanctions a digital divide that strives for 100 Mbps for 100 million householdsand 4 Mbps for the rest – much of “the rest” will be rural communities withlower population density and more challenging terrain for installinginfrastructure…Friedman seems to have forgotten Metcalfe’s Law: the value of atelecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number ofconnected users of the system. Only when we get everyone online will we be ableto realize full potential…I am pleased that Friedman has helped lift of up theissue of broadband in the US and offered it up as a solution for unemploymentand job scarcity. I take umbrage as his approach to focus investment in the top5 percent at the expense of the rest…there are at least three issues with hisapproach: He is using last century’s definitions of communities to promote amodern tool that discredits that definition…He turns a blind eye to both theinvestment being made in other countries to support ubiquitous broadband and toMetcalfe’s Law…He seems to assert than an investment made on behalf of ruralcommunities is more valuable than an investment in those communities….Finally Ithink he undersells America. There was a day where we strove to be biggest andbest – maybe we need to consider ubiquitous and ultra-fast broadband…”

Security,Privacy & Digital Controls

8. New virus raids your bankaccount - but you won't notice http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/06/9986119-new-virus-raids-your-bank-account-but-you-wont-notice “The best way to protect yourself from anonline financial scam is to diligently check your bank accounts. At least,until now…an elaborate new computer virus…not only helps fraudsters steal moneyfrom bank accounts -- it also covers its tracks…SpyEye Trojan…swaps out bankingWeb pages…preventing account holders from noticing that their money isgone…First, the virus lies in wait until a customer with an infected computervisits an online banking site, steals their login credentials…after the stolencard number is used for a fraudulent purchase, the virus intercepts any furthervisits to the victim's banking site and scrubs transaction records clean of anyfraud. That prevents -- or at leastdelays -- consumers from discovering fraud and reporting it to the bank…much ofthe virus' effectiveness is attributable to its ability to control what victimssee after fraudulent transactions occur…SpyEye…keeps track of all fraudcommitted by the criminal, and makes sure to remove those line items fromonline transaction lists. It also editsbalance amounts to prevent consumers from getting suspicious…"Most banks'let the first transaction through,' because if they stopped everything thatwas potentially fraud, consumers would get annoyed,"…In some cases,fraud-checking tools kick in only after initial reports, so this version ofSpyEye could buy criminals important time as they try to turn stolen data intocash…The virus doesn’t impact bank systems, merely the characters that aredisplayed within the infected system's Web browser…if your computer is infectedwith financial malware, it's game over anyway," he said. "My takeawayis you need to prevent getting infected with financial malware in the firstplace.”

9. Iran Clamps Down on Web,Blocking Sites and Requiring Cameras in Internet Cafes http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/01/05/iran-clamps-down-on-web-blocking-sites-and-requiring-cameras-in-internet-cafes/ “Iran is mounting new clampdowns on Internetexpression, including rules that will impose layers of surveillance in thecountry's popular Internet cafes, as Tehran's political establishment comesunder increasing strains from economic turmoil…Iran issued regulations givingInternet cafes 15 days to install security cameras, start collecting detailedpersonal information on customers and document users' online footprints.Iranian users also have reported more blocked sites this week, as well as newbarriers to accessing social-networking services. Internet connections, too,have bogged down. "They are closing in on us, and we are already feelingthe dire impact of these announcements. Everyone is afraid," a prominentstudent activist said in an email exchange from Iran. "It will make itvery difficult for us to tell the world what's happening here." Thenetwork slowdown likely heralds the arrival of an initiative Iran has beenreadying—a "halal" domestic intranet that it has said will insulateits citizens from Western ideology and un-Islamic culture, and eventuallyreplace the Internet…” http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398527,00.asp “…most countries, including the U.S., willeventually shut down the "World Wide" Web and instead use thetechnologies developed by the Internet community to cocoon itself. It solvesendless political problems with the Web that plague almost every country…Iranis openly discussing a national Internet with no access to the outsideworld…most Iranians already think their home computers are compromised. Belarusis another country…adopting the national Internet idea. Many countries, includingChina and Saudi Arabia, have massive filters that they use to block unwantedsites…there will be some ways to navigate in and out of the national Internets,but these routes will only be maneuvered by government officials and a few lonewolves who will be illegally hacking and eventually arrested…You'll still beable to buy stuff on Amazon and shop online at B&H. You'll still read TheNew York Times. Some overseas operations such as London's Times might belicensed to operate here…All that you'll be missing are a few foreign blogs,perhaps, and other seemingly inconsequential sites…SOPA completely eliminatesdue process from site takedown orders. In the future, all sites will be subjectto immediate takedown orders…Watch over the next few years as the idea of anational Internet evolves from a tool used to suppress opposition to a goodidea whose time has come…It will be the way we can protect ourselves from aliensites that recruit homegrown terrorists and bomb makers. It will stop offshorepiracy websites from ruining our movie and record industry. It will blockinternational child porn rings from making roads into our nation. It will keepal-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan from easily communicating with the terroristcells in the U.S., probably preventing another 9/11…It will protect the nationfrom spying Chinese eyes…I can explain for days why this is a great idea. I'malmost convincing myself. I can assure you that it will take very little effortto convince Congress and the public that a national Internet in the U.S. isbrilliant…”

10. No Warrant Needed for GPSMonitoring http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/warrantless-gps-monitoring/ “A Missouri federal judge ruled the FBI didnot need a warrant to secretly attach a GPS monitoring device to a suspect’scar to track his public movements for two months. The ruling…is one in a stringof decisions nationwide supporting warrantless GPS surveillance…the SupremeCourt is expected to rule on the issue within months in an unrelated case…Inshort, defendant Fred Robinson…had no reasonable expectation of privacy in hispublic movements, Magistrate Noce said…Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreebentold the Supreme Court in November oral arguments that…the government couldaffix GPS devices, without warrants, to the vehicles of the nine members of theSupreme Court. Many of the justices were skeptical of the government’sposition, saying the United States could evolve into a surveillance state ifthe Supreme Court sides with the government…”

MobileComputing & Communicating

11. Barnes & NobleConsiders Spinning Off Its Nook Unit http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/barnes-noble-considers-spinning-off-its-nook-unit/ “Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largestbook chain, said…it was considering spinning off its Nook e-reader division inan effort to help the nascent — and expensive — digital business grow.Separating the unit could potentially bring new investors into the Nookbusiness to help shoulder its costs…While the company has made quick work ofcapturing almost 30 percent of the e-book market in two years, the rise ofdigital reading has increased the pressure on Barnes & Noble to devise awinning long-term strategy against Amazon, which still dominates in e-booksales. The Nook has been a crucial component of that strategy. And while it hassold well and drawn praise from reviewers, Barnes & Noble has acknowledgedthat the Nook has not been profitable…with the need to develop new software andhardware and to advertise the products. By one analyst’s estimate, Barnes &Noble spends $200 million to $250 million annually on its Nook operations…there’sno doubt that continued growth and international expansion will take sustainedinvestment that Barnes & Noble shareholders will not have the patience for…”

12. OLPC XO 3.0 tablet: an8-inch tablet for $100 http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/6/2688604/olpc-xo-3-0-tablet-a-8-inch-tablet-with-android-and-sugar-options-for “…OLPC is…getting ready to put the slate intoproduction. The XO 3.0 tablet…is built in very much the same way as the XOlaptop. It…has a rugged case, and can be charged via a hand crank or solarpanel. In fact, OLPC's CTO Ed McNierney told us that the two-watt tablet canget 10 minutes of runtime from one minute of cranking. (The cranks will bethird-party accessories and won't automatically come with the tablet.)…the XO3.0 has an 8-inch, 1024 x 768-resolution PixelQi display, which can be readindoors and out, a Marvell Armada PXA618 processor, 512MB of RAM, and will beconfigurable with either Android or Sugar operating systems. Sugar is OLPC'sown Linux operating system, which was designed specifically for kids. "Wedesigned the XO-3 with an open fireware and with open BIOs so it is easy tosupport multiple operating systems…The XO 3.0, like the XO laptops, won't besold directly to consumers or parents. OLPC will sell the tablets in bulk tocountries who want to ensure their children have computers…”

13. Microsoft FacesMake-Or-Break Year In Smartphones http://news.investors.com/Article/596568/201201031810/microsoft-windows-phone-7-at-crossroads.htm “…It could be a make-or-break year forMicrosoft (MSFT) in smartphones. After flailing for years, Microsoft's nextbest hopes are tied to several announcements. For one, later this yearMicrosoft will likely release two major upgrades to its Windows 7 mobileoperating system. For another, later this week T-Mobile USA is expected toannounce it's the exclusive seller of the first Windows 7 smartphone for theU.S. market made by fading cellphone leader Nokia…"From a strategicviewpoint, Microsoft has to succeed (now)," said Avi Greengart…Microsoftis running out of room to attract people who have not yet gone to one of theother platforms."…No. 4 Microsoft's share of the U.S. smartphone OS marketwas just 5.2% for the three months ended Nov. 30…”

14. Top 1% of Mobile UsersConsume Half of World’s Bandwidth http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/technology/top-1-of-mobile-users-use-half-of-worlds-wireless-bandwidth.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all “…mobile airwaves are being divided in alopsided manner, with 1 percent of consumers generating half of all traffic.The top 10 percent of users, meanwhile, are consuming 90 percent of wirelessbandwidth…The gap between extreme users and the rest of the population iswidening, according to Arieso. In 2009, the top 3 percent of heavy usersgenerated 40 percent of network traffic. Now…these users pump out 70 percent ofthe traffic…64 percent of extreme users were using a laptop, a third were usinga smartphone and 3 percent had an iPad…an analyst at…a research firm inHelsinki, Finland…said the disparity in bandwidth use was not surprisingbecause most mobile phone users globally used a 2G telephone for calls andtexts only. Just 13.2 percent of the world’s 6.1 billion cellphones aresmartphones…the rate exceeds 30 percent in…the United States…In…Sweden andFinland, smartphones now account for more than half of all mobile phones…Finnsconsume on average 1 gigabyte of wireless data a month over an operator’snetwork, almost 10 times the European average…This…is bad news for operatorsbecause it means that more traffic is coming and they need to invest…Ericssonexpects the volume of global mobile data to rise tenfold from 2011 to 2016…Theheaviest users of mobile data…watched videos 40 percent of the time, surfed theWeb an additional 20 percent, and used up the rest of their online time ine-mails, social networking, file sharing and software downloads. Advances insmartphones and applications technology are also driving up use…”

15. Are Android tablets thatcost more than $199 doomed? http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/are-android-tablets-that-cost-more-than-199-doomed/17622 “Apple set the stage for the tabletrevolution with the iPad, but it was Amazon with the Kindle Fire that made thebiggest hit in terms of price - by setting the price bar at $199…Androidtablets have, so far, been a failure…who was going to put down $500+ or even$800+ for an Android tablet if they could get an iPad for $499?...$199 iswithout a doubt the price point for 7-inch consumer tablets. 9/9.7-inch tabletshave more wriggle room…There’s no room for a $600+ tablet…are tablets that costmore than $199 doomed? No…Kindle Fire is a 7-inch tablet, and as such adifferent animal to the 9/10-inch tablets. The ceiling here is the price set bythe iPad - $499…”

16. Acer Aspire S5: world'sthinnest ultrabook http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=9509 “Acer…Aspire S5…measures only 15 mm at themaximal point. It weighs less than 1.35 kg…with a 13.3-inch…LCD…Acer GreenInstant On provides instant-resume functionality (in 1.5 seconds)…Acer AlwaysConnect can wake up the Aspire S5 from a remote device like a smartphone.Access to all documents, music, pictures and video files is fast and alwaysavailable…Aspire S5 is Acer's first Ultrabook to feature the MagicFlip I/O portpanel concealed just below the hinge…a press of the MagicFlip key opens thepanel to reveal a selection of I/O ports: HDMI, USB 3.0 and 20 GbpsThunderbolt…Aspire S5 features an Intel Core processor, SSD storage…longbattery life via the PowerSmart battery pack (with a 3X longer life cycle1 thantraditional batteries)…”

Apps

17. Smartphone App DiagnosesMalaria From Drop Of Blood http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2012/01/03/smartphone-app-diagnoses-malaria-from-drop-of-blood/ “…At a recent mobile development summit Ihosted, I asked a few people how many apps they had on their Smartphones – theanswers varied – from 20 to 100. Irefined my question, how many apps do you use regularly?...three to five a daywith the majority being social, entertainment or productivity related…pushingbeyond the social and entertainment apps…the Lifelens Project…point-of-caresmartphone application…addresses child mortality rates caused by the lack ofdetection and availability of treatment for malaria…current state-of-the-artrapid diagnostic tests…only have around a 40% rate of accuracy. The Lifelens’Smartphone app has been more than 94% accurate…The Lifelens Smartphone app issimple. Take a drop of blood from a patient and put it on a slide with amarker, a dye that only the malarial parasite can absorb. Then, take an imageof that slide with the Smartphone equipped with a tiny lens giving 350 timesmagnification…you can see the blood cells at the cellular level. With the imagecaptured in the Smartphone you can take a cell count…that identifies red bloodcells and…you can identify the malaria within those red blood cells. Once theLifelens’ app identifies the cells, data can be pushed to the web including theGPS coordinates of that case which allow healthcare works or scientists to seetrends as well as where malaria outbreaks are occurring…”

18. Samsung smartphone appsfor Wifi SmartCam and video baby monitor http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/ip-cameras/1289404/samsung-smartcam-easy-surveillance-direct-to-your-smartphone “Samsung's new SmartCam is designed to allowanyone to set up a surveillance camera in minutes. Smartphone owners are thetarget audience here with apps for both iOS devices and Android. Plus there's afew clever features that make this easier to manage and far more useful thanmost designs…” http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/08/samsung-introduces-wifi-smartcam-and-video-baby-monitors/ “…Samsung's just unveiled two WiFisurveillance cameras. Both can easily be paired with routers that support WPSand offer remote tracking from Sammy's SmartCam website. That video feed is 640x 480 at 30fps and encoded in H.264. Alternatively on the WiFi SmartCam,footage can automatically be uploaded to YouTube based on predefined activity.And both'll survey in complete darkness thanks to built-in infrared…”

19. How Path became myfavorite social app of 2011 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/feeds/how-path-became-my-favorite-social-app-of-2011/4440 “I wrote about Path a little over a yearago…I was using it off and on but it wasn’t offering me anything in particularthat made me want to use it all the time…On November 29th of this year,everything changed for me…Path 1.0 was a thing of the past. I used the newversion that night and now it’s starting to become my goto for sharing photosand content. Here’s why…Path 2.x has taken everything I loved from varioussocial mobile applications and combined them into a slick, unique, one of akind experience that doesn’t feel cluttered or noisy…text status updates is notput at the forefront of the app. It really helps keep the noise level down aspeople seem to default more to photos, music and emoticon responses so there’snot as much stuff to sift through and read…Facebook was one of the first tointroduce the timeline concept for social activity…Path does something similarand as you slide up and down your timeline with your finger, a little clockpops up and adjusts it’s own time on the fly…so you can see clearly the exacttime and day you posted something. This feature was implemented very nicely intheir new UI…Path took the right approach. They paid close attention to whatpeople really liked most in social and mobile and focused their efforts onproviding a unique experience…”

SkyNet

20. Google punishing Chromefor 60 days because of ‘evil’ Chrome promo http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-punishing-chrome-for-60-days/2012/01/04/gIQADMPGaP_story.html “Google is pushing its own Chrome browserdown in search rankings for 60 days following reports that the company wasinvolved in an ad campaign that paid for links to bolster search traffic…sinceGoogle has rules against that sort of thing and has worked hard to keep paidresults out of its search engine, the reports were more than a bit embarrassingfor the company. The company said…its campaign for Chrome was never supposed toinvolve paid links, and that it “never agreed to anything more than onlineads.”…Google’s PR team said, “We’ve investigated and are taking manual actionto demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period ofat least 60 days…While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can findno remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google shouldbe held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we wouldagainst a typical site…” https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NAWunDzJSHC “Sorry that it took me until now to commenton the situation…I’m in Central America this week and my ability to reach theinternet hasn't been great…Google was trying to buy video ads about Chrome, andthese sponsored posts were an inadvertent result of that…we did find onesponsored post that linked to www.google.com/chrome...even though we only founda single sponsored post that actually linked to Google’s Chrome page and passedPageRank, that’s still a violation of our quality guidelines…the webspam teamhas taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days.After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration requestdocumenting their clean-up just like any other company would…”

21. Google's Chrome GetsSerious About Security http://chrome.blogspot.com/2012/01/speed-and-security.html “Today’s Beta release improves on two ofChrome’s core principles: speed and security…Chrome will now start loading someweb pages in the background, even before you’ve finished typing the URL in theomnibox…Prerendering reduces the time between when you hit Enter and when yousee your fully-loaded web page--in some cases, the web page appears instantly…improvementsto Chrome’s Safe Browsing technology should help protect you from additionaltypes of malware attacks…we’re seeing an increase in malicious websites thattry to convince you to download and run a file that will harm your computer.Some websites even pretend this malicious file is a free anti-virusproduct…Chrome now includes expanded functionality to analyze executable files(such as “.exe” and “.msi” files) that you download. If a file you download isknown to be bad, or is hosted on a website that hosts a relatively highpercentage of malicious downloads, Chrome will warn you that the file appearsto be malicious and that you should discard it…”

22. Google search gets itsbiggest change in a decade with a dose of Google+ http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/they_did_it_google_personalizes_search_it_is_not_e.php “…Today, Google launches Personal Results,Profiles in Search, and People and Pages, new features of its core searchproduct that mark the real beginning of Google's social search era. Googlesearch now has two modes: global and personalized. Personal search results showcontent from your Google+ network, and global search results appear as thoughyou're logged out of Google+…Just last week, I wrote that Google+ was going tomess up the Internet by turning Web search into a popularity contest. But thenew Google unveiled today leaves the user in control…If you don't want Google+-flavoredresults, just switch to global mode. You can even turn off personalized searchaltogether…Flipping between personalized and global results takes one click.Both modes are available in Web search and image search. Even when you searchin personal mode, Google wants to show you the most relevant result at the top,even if its not from Google+…On every search, this toggle lets you switchbetween personalized and global results. There's no more inconvenient need tolog out to see more objective search results…Now that Google users have controlover the level of personalization, I don't think Google+ will mess up theInternet anymore. Social SEO will not take over, because natural search resultsstill matter. My fear last week was that anyone who wanted to use Google wouldbe forced to use Google+. Today's update shows good faith…”

23. Malaysia’s Military LosesBattle Against Bad English, Blames Google http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/01/10/malaysias-military-loses-battle-against-bad-english/ “Next time you visit the Malaysian Ministryof Defence…make sure you don’t wear any “clothes that poke the eye.” If you’rea man, though, a “tight Malay civet” is allowed – at least according to theEnglish translations on the ministry’s website…the Ministry of Defenceoverlooked imperfect English translations on its website, which soon went viralon social media websites…Under a section called “ethical clothing” advisingemployees on appropriate office wear, women were warned against wearing clothes“that poke the eye” – a direct translation of the Malay phrase for revealingoutfits. The civet slip came under the dress code for men, which said “collaredshirts and tight Malay civet” were appropriate. Other unfortunate translationswere found throughout the website…The ministry admitted to using GoogleTranslate…to provide an English-language version of their Malay website…“Wehave corrected the mistakes and translations are no longer done that way. It isnow done manually,” Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said…At the time ofpublishing this story, no English translations were available on the Ministryof Defence’s website.…” http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/10/french_court_fines_google_over_search_suggestion/ “Google has been fined $65,000 by a Frenchcourt after its search engine suggested the French word for 'crook' when userstyped-in the name of an insurance company…The court said Google had ignoredrequests to remove the suggestion from its 'autocomplete' search enginetechnology when users searched for insurance firm Lyonnaise de Garantie…Googlehad unsuccessfully argued that it was not liable for the word associationbecause it had been generated by an automatic algorithm…”

GeneralTechnology

24. Tobiitechnology lets you control computer with your eyes http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/ces-2012-tobii-lets-you-control-computers-with-your-eyes.html “…if looks could kill, then the touchscreenmay be the next victim in the pointer war. Tobii Technology's "gazeinteraction" system enables users to control their computer screens withtheir eyes…The technology from the Swedish company is a descendant of a 2001research project at Stockholm University, first conducted by Tobii's founders.But gaze interaction may soon be going mainstream…the company showed Tobiisoftware hooked up to Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system.Booth-goers could sit in front of a screen and optically swipe through Windows screens,"thumb" through photographs, or go into a Word document and"click" on even the tiniest buttons (think the "B" buttonfor bold) using just their peepers. On another computer, a man played a game ofthe arcade classic Asteroids. But instead of rotating his gun turrets with ajoystick or the keyboard, he simply looked at the asteroid he wanted todestroy, and a split second later it exploded into smithereens…Tobii…wants to…usethe eye-tracking technology for medical purposes, such as allowing techniciansto use their eyes to move through photographs, scans or X-rays, potentiallywhile using their hands to operate medical machinery, make notes or physicallyexamine a patient…”

25. Open Sourceand Technology Predictions for 2012 http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/2012/01/03/open-source-and-technology-predictions-for-2012/ “…I’ve created a set of predictions for thecoming year around Open Source. However, this year I’ve expanded it to thegeneral field of technology…SOPA dies a bloody death…Privacy regulations forchildren under 13 are revisited…Major automobile software fault…According to anIEEE Spectrum report, premium cars contain more than 100 million lines of code.I know enough about software to know that’s a problem…Boxee calls itquits…GNOME falls apart…Netflix gets acquired and Reed Hastings gets fired…Gogets a killer project…Android continues to grow, but not at the expense ofiOS…Internet political meltdown…most of our politicians don’t have a clue abouthow the internet and social media work…Expect at least one candidate forFederal office…to have a meltdown due to something that happened on theInterne…Shakeup at the Free Software Foundation…”

26. Codecademy’sCodeYear Attracts 100,000 Aspiring Programmers In 48 Hours http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/codecademys-codeyear-attracts-100000-aspiring-programmers-in-48-hours/ “…Two days ago, Codecademy — a startup that’slooking to bring programming to the masses — launched a nifty initiative calledCode Year. It’s pretty straightforward: sign up, and each week you’ll receive someprogramming lessons in your email inbox…apparently, there are a lot of peoplewho want to learn how to code. Code Year just had its 100,000th user sign up —a remarkable milestone given that the site has only been up for 48 hours. Andthat number continues to grow at a rapid pace. Codecademy cofounder Zach Simssays that the growth is being driven by a huge amount of sharing on bothFacebook and Twitter. Users are able to Tweet and ‘Like’ the page both beforethey sign up, and immediately after they’ve entered their information. It alsohelps that the entire signup process takes all of five seconds — you simplyneed to enter your email address. Given the viral nature of the site, I askedSims for a breakdown on which services were contributing the most to itsgrowth. The clear leader? Twitter…”

27. The World IsOverflowing With Memory Chips http://allthingsd.com/20120105/the-world-is-overflowing-with-memory-chips/ “…DRAM chips are oversupplied. This is…badnews if you’re in the business of making…Dynamic Random Access Memory chipsthat go into PCs, servers and smartphones…The situation can be good,however…because memory upgrades get cheaper…The stockpile of DRAM chips as ofthe end of the third quarter of 2011 stood at 12.8 weeks, which is…double whatit was in early 2010…the iPad and Kindle Fire are eating into notebook sales,and don’t require nearly as much DRAM as notebooks do…new operating systemsdon’t require the incremental boost in…memory as had been typical…Flooding inThailand has also disrupted the supply of hard drives…Computer makers who can’tget hard drives simply won’t build as many computers, and thus won’t be buyingthe DRAM…The worst…is apparently yet to come…Chip factories…contain billions ofdollars worth of manufacturing equipment running processes that are difficultto stop and start…it’s more expensive to have them sitting there doingnothing…than turning out a product…even if it’s running at…a slight loss.”

28. Vizio toEnter PC Market with Laptops, All-in-One Desktops http://www.pcworld.com/article/247462/vizio_to_enter_pc_market_with_laptops_allinone_desktops.html “Vizio, the flat-panel TV maker known for itssleek designs and low prices, is taking an unexpected move: it's entering thePC business with a range of thin-and-light laptops and all-in-one desktops. Thecompany's capability to get screens for a bargain could allow it to undercutits competitors' prices and shake up the PC market…if Vizio is able to do whatit did in the TV space, consumers looking for an affordable computer withpowerful entertainment features will have more options. Vizio plans to revealtwo desktop PCs and three notebooks at the Consumer Electronics Show…VizioChief Technology Officer Matt McRae said the Windows-based machines will go onsale by June at "a price that just doesn't seem possible."…Apparently,Vizio thinks it can do better than the rest of the field. Its new desktopcomputers will be all-in-one models that house electronics in the display andwill include entertainment functionality that convey audio and video to VizioTVs and speakers…”

29. The future of computers -Part 1: Multicore and the Memory Wall http://www.edn.com/article/520059-The_future_of_computers_Part_1_Multicore_and_the_Memory_Wall.php “…processor expert Russell Fish provides histake on the future of computers, and multicore processing inparticular…Berkeley's Dr. David Patterson handed down his famous "ThreeWalls."…These three immovable impediments defined the end times ofincreased computing performance. They would prevent computer users from everreaching the land of…10 GHz Pentiums…"Power Wall + Memory Wall + ILP Wall= Brick Wall"…The Power Wall means faster computers get really hot…TheMemory Wall means 1000 pins on a CPU package is way too many…ILP Wall means adeeper instruction pipeline really means digging a deeper power hole…Takentogether, they mean that computers will stop getting faster…Intel engineerswent pedal to the metal straight into the Power Wall, backed up, gunned thegas, and went hard into the Memory Wall. The industry was stunned when Intelcancelled not one but two premier processor designs in May of 2004. Intel'sTejas CPU2, Sanskrit for fire, dissipated a stupendous 150 watts at 2.8 GHz, morethan Hasbro's Easy Bake Oven.3…Tejas had been projected to run 7 GHz. It neverdid…So, Intel quickly changed direction, slowed down their processors, andannounced dual-core/multicore. Craig Barrett, Intel's CEO…used a Q&Asession…to explain the shift…dual core…it's the way that the industry is goingto…increase the processing power in an exponential fashion…Barrett's statementwas…marketing hyperbole, an attempt to rally developers, customers, andstockholders behind the badly stumbling technology icon…doubling the number ofcores does not double the performance…Sandia Labs performed an analysis ofmulti-core microprocessors running…data intensive applications…They reported asthe number of cores increased, the processor power increased at substantially lessthan linear improvement and then decreased at an exponential rate…The problemis the lack of memory bandwidth as well as contention between processors overthe memory bus available to each processor…Legacy PC applications do not factornicely into many pieces. Fortunately multicore is really about enabling thefuture rather than accelerating the past. Many of the really interesting andcommercially valuable future computing opportunities are…"embarrassinglyparallel" . This means that the problems may be divided into manyindependent pieces and worked on separately…Intel…described their future viewof embarrassingly parallel problems as "Recognition, Mining, andSynthesis."…future applications will manipulate and manage patterns ofinformation. The pattern might be a sentence of text, a face in a crowd, or aphrase from a spoken speech. The datasets containing the patterns are immense;terabytes, petabytes, and eventually exabytes…” http://www.edn.com/article/520499-Future_of_computers_Part_2_The_Power_Wall.php

Leisure &Entertainment

30. Microsoft Flight takesflying games into new skies http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/04/microsoft-flight-takes-flying-games-into-new-skies/ “…Microsoft, the creator of the long-runningFlight Simulator franchise, is jumping back into the market with a free-to-playtitle that it is previewing today: Microsoft Flight…this is no longer a gamefor simulator fans, who demand the utmost realism and all sorts of hard-to-useoptions. Rather, it is a simpler game aimed at the masses who enjoy theexperience of flying…users can download the initial game and geographic regionfor free and then pay to unlock other features…“This is a whole new productabout the magic of freedom and fun of flying,” said Joshua Howard, executiveproducer of the game…The game is a surprise in part because Microsoft shut downits Aces flight simulator game studio in January, 2009. The thinking at thetime was that flight simulation was a shrinking market, and it was better toput talented game designers to work on games in more popular genres. But in thepast year or so, Microsoft has pulled together many old Aces veterans to createthe new free-to-play game, which is consistent with the way many gamers want topay for games these days…”

31. Digital Music Sales BeatPhysical Music Sales for the First Time http://gizmodo.com/5873471 “…digital music sales has finally toppedphysical music sales. According to Nielsen and Billboard, digital music salesaccounted for 50.3% of total music sales, more than half the pie…even thoughphysical music sales has been trending downwards (5% down in 2011) compared todigital music sales (8.4% up), physical album sales still outsell digital albumsales (sorta makes sense, people still like buying albums). The difference hasbeen that the growth of digital singles has finally grown big enough toovercome the album gap…”

32. SolarKindle cover basksin the sun's rays, charges for days and days http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/07/solarkindle-cover-is-walking-on-sunshine-whoaaa/ “…SolarFocus…the world’s first solar coverfor the Kindle, with a solar panel built right in. The SolarKindle promises “upto three months of unplugged Kindle use under normal sunlight environment.” Inmy experience that means near a window…The cover also packs a reserve battery,which can either power an LED reading lamp (built right in) or offer extrareading time by feeding energy into the Kindle’s main battery. The LED lampwill run for 50 hours continuously before using the Kindle battery. Solar focussays that an hour under direct sunlight can offer 3 days of reading time…”

33. Project Fiona raises thestakes for gaming tablets, packs Ivy Bridge, Windows 8 and integratedcontrollers http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/project-fiona-raises-the-stakes-for-gaming-tablets-packs-ivy-br/ “…Razer's…"Project Fiona,"…conceptgaming tablet flanks a 10.1-inch multitouch screen with a pair of nunchuk-likefour-button controllers, lending the slab a bit of flightstick flair…this slateis a Windows machine. An Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor hopes to keep Fionafragging with the desktop kiddies…The Prototype was built specifically withmobile PC gamers in mind…and will feature a hybrid user interface (a hubactivated via a upcoming Windows 8 app) designed to help gamers immediatelyjump into local multiplayer matches….It sounds like he wants Fiona torevitalize the Lan party. Although most PC games should be fully playablewithout any special tweaks or modificaitons, Min-Liang said developers wouldhave the option of adding Fiona specific controls to a game, such as a touchcontrol scheme, or accelerometer joystick emulation…In addition to its IvyBridge chops, the concept gaming slate features enhanced audio with Dolby HomeTheater v4 and built-in force feedback…”

34. Lenovo launches first IceCream Sandwich TV http://gigaom.com/video/lenovo-android-tv-k91/ “Lenovo…announced the world’s first TV setrunning Android 4.0, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich, Sunday. The device, dubbed theLenovo K91 Smart TV, will initially be available only in China…The K91 ispowered by Qualcomm’s 8060 Snapdragon processor, which clocks 1.5 Ghz…1 GB ofRAM, 8 GB of storage and 2 GB SD card…two models, one with a 42” and one with a50” 3-D LED screen…an integrated 5 MP webcam, which will be used for facial recognition…a3-axis gyro gamepad, but the regular remote control…will have…an integratedmicrophone, and voice recognition will make it possible to control the deviceswithout pressing any buttons…the K91 won’t actually be running Google TV, whichis based on Android 3.1 a.k.a. Honeycomb. Lenovo instead chose to customizeAndroid 4.0…” http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ces-2012-google-tv-devices-coming-from-lg-sony-and-vizio/2012/01/06/gIQAEcZDfP_story.html “…Google…announced that LG, Sony, and Viziowill be showing off Google TV devices at CES 2012, with additional devices fromSamsung coming later in the year. Google's also partnering with MediaTek andMarvell to provide the next generation of ARM-based chipsets for Google TV —Marvell already announced that its new Armada 1500 chip would support Google TVdevices…”

35. Could music streamripping software put Spotify and other music services at major risk? http://news.yahoo.com/could-music-stream-ripping-software-put-spotify-other-164516319.html “…Ever since Napster first appeared on thescene, consumers have been finding ways to get their music for free, at thedetriment of recording labels and artists. One answer to this issue has beenthe subscription music model: Services like Spotify, Last.fm, MOG, and Rdio arecompromises between a market that is searching for profit models and customerswho simply won’t spend what they used to…Indie artists say they’re gettingripped off by such services, and some established musicians won’t allow theirmusic to be sold this way…While in the case of most services consumers don’tactually have ownership over this data, it has largely been linked to cuttingdown on piracy. Still, there are always ways around this. Via stream ripping,users are still able to pirate music, even within what are supposed to be safeharbors for artists…Spotify is one of the services to fall victim to the tool.The site is still relatively new to the U.S., but sites like SpotifyRipper anddozens like it give users a loophole in the system so they can get their musicfor free. Using applications like ReplayMusic, they can record from the serviceto access the music offline…”

Entrepreneurismand Technology

36. Why Best Buy is Going outof Business...Gradually http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/02/why-best-buy-is-going-out-of-business-gradually/ “…Best Buy is headed for the exits…my guessis that it’s only a matter of time, maybe a few more years…Despite thedisappearance of competitors including Circuit City, the company is losingmarket share…In 2011, the company’s stock has lost 40% of its value…To discoverthe real reasons behind the company’s decline, just take this simple test. Walkinto one of the company’s retail locations or shop online. And try, really try, not to lose yourtemper…a friend…wanted to buy the 3D blu ray of “How to Train YourDragon,”…According to the company’s website, it’s…available for pickup at thestore we visited. The item wasn’tthere…my friend decided to buy some other blu-ray discs. Or at least he tried to, until we were“assisted” by a young, poorly groomed sales clerk…who wandered over tointerrogate us. What kind of TV do youhave? Do you have a cable service, or asatellite service? Do you have a tripleplay service plan? He was clearly…trying to sell some alternative…Myfriend…told him he was not interested in switching his service from Comcast…Theused car style questions continued. “Ihave just one last question for you…How much do you pay Comcast every month?”…Icould just imagine the conversation with the…department manager the daybefore. “Corporate says we have to workon what’s called up-selling and cross-selling…you need to be roaming the floorpushing our deal with CinemaNow…We left the store…fuming…at BestBuy…management’s sole focus is improving some arbitrary metric from lastquarter, even when doing so actually interferes with customers trying to buysomething else…Online competitors are certainly part of Best Buy’s problem, butnot for the reasons it thinks…Best Buy just doesn’t understand its customers’point of view…consumers easily adapt to alternative retail channels…For brick-and-mortarretailers, however…online required new thinking, new management structures, andnew strategies…So far, Best Buy fails on every measure. The company has its own website, of course…Butthe website doesn’t seem to be programmed for even basic inventory management…afew days before Christmas that the company had only just informed somecustomers that online orders, some placed the day after Thanksgiving, couldn’tbe filled and were being cancelled…The company issued a statement thatread: “Due to overwhelming demand of hotproduct offerings on BestBuy.com during the November and December time period,we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of ourcustomers’ online orders.”..The company “encountered a situation”—that is, itwas a passive victim of an external problem it couldn’t control, in this case,customers daring to order products…Best Buy doesn’t fill online orders, itseems. Rather, customers “redeem”them. So it’s the customers, not BestBuy, who have the problem…It’s all so passive…the honest and appropriaterelease would have said: “Due to poorinventory management and sales forecasting of the most popular products duringour key sales season, we can’t fill orders we promised to fill weeks ago in timefor Christmas.”…Amazon lives and breathes the customer’s point-of-view…Phonesupport is instant, responsive, and knowledgeable. Returns are simple and unburdened byrestocking fees and other gotchas. Inventory is precisely managed in a single system that spans alldistribution points and third party partners…my friend mistakenly purchased thewrong DVD of a NASA documentary—he accidentally got one he already had. We returned the next day to exchange it forthe correct one. Sorry, said thecustomer service staff, DVDs are “software” and can’t be returned or exchangedonce sold…does Best Buy know that Amazon not only allows easy return orexchange for DVDs without restrictions, the company will even buy back onesyou’re finished with? And even if thecustomer is outside the return window or is otherwise technically not entitledto do what she’s asking to do, the company bends over backwards to bend itspolicies in the interest of happy customers and the on-going customerrelationship…Best Buy is living in the corporate equivalent of what psychologistscall a state of denial. In business,that’s usually the first step in a failure…”

37. Ford opening SiliconValley lab http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-57353474-48/ford-opening-silicon-valley-lab/ “…Ford has emphasized its focus ontechnology, so it only makes sense that the company…would open a facility inthe Bay Area…the lab will take advantage of its proximity to high-techcompanies and local universities to drive innovation in Ford vehicles. The labwill have a broad agenda, from clean drive systems to in-car connectedservices. Partnerships with app developers will also likely be a major task forthe lab, as Ford has just begun to offer app integration in Sync…Withincreasing pressures from urbanization and the need to reduce energy use, we'regoing to see energy storage, wireless connectivity, sensing systems, and evenautonomous vehicles as key parts of the solution…”

38. Carmakers flock to Mass.for digital design help http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/01/08/carmakers-flock-mass-for-digital-design-help/ZPUbksgKAUvxB8lNxm4hRK/story.html “…the 1,000-plus employees at PTC never toucha wrench or ball-peen hammer. Instead they develop and advance software thatallows automakers to design, build, and service the latest automobiles rollingoff production lines all over the world…Twenty years after the last autofactory in the state closed, the automotive industry is in the midst of aresurgence in Massachusetts, where companies crank out software essential tothe creation of the modern automobile…12 miles from PTC’s campus…DassaultSystemes…engineers are improving digital tools used by majorautomakers…Progress Software provides Volvo and General Motors software tomanage the streams of data flowing through their organizations. Automakers useproducts from MathWorks in Natick to help designers find errors before theyreach the prototype stage…as auto assembly lines ground to a halt, a new tideof technology was rising in engineering labs of local universities andcompanies along Route 128…Globalization of the auto industry is a major factorin the demand for software created by Massachusetts companies…a car’s chassiscould be designed in Michigan, the body in China, the powertrain in Japan, andthe interior in Europe…It takes sophisticated software to pull all that togetherand manage it. Another trend…is the increasing complexity of cars and emergenceof high tech features…a typical luxury car now has about 100 million lines ofsoftware code embedded in thousands of interrelated devices andfeatures…Berutti cited new Mercedes automobiles that will automatically startwindshield wipers when a sensor detects rain. If the car is parked, thesoftware will close the windows…“That’s three different systems that have towork together: the sensor, the wipers, and the windows,’’ Berutti said. “Andguess what: They are built by three different companies. Our software makessure those systems all work together…” http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/10/meet-the-one-modular-ev-created-by-fifty-companies/ http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679041/the-streetscooter-a-crowdsourced-ev-that-disrupts-the-auto-industrys-production-models

39. Local ServicesMarketplace Thumbtack Raises $4.5 Million http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/local-services-marketplace-thumbtack-raises-4-5-million/ “…Thumbtack, which operates an onlinecommunity marketplace where people can easily list and book local services, hasraised $4.5 million in Series A funding…Thumbtack aims to “make hiring aservice professional as easy as it is to buy a book on Amazon.com”. It’s upagainst startups like Redbeacon and OpenChime…Thumbtack says a new user hassigned up every minute of every day for the last six months, on average. Thecompany also says 240,000 local merchants (carpenters, life coaches, weddingphotographers, babysitters, math tutors, makeup artists and whatnot) havelisted on Thumbtack.com to date…”

40. SV Angel And FounderCollective Give Hackruiter $200K For Its Hacker School http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/06/sv-angel-and-founder-collective-give-hackruiter-200k-for-its-hacker-school/ “…hacker recruiter platform Hackruiter hasraised a modest seed round from investors SV Angel and Founder Collective. Thecompany raised $200K but could have raised much more, because it is alreadyprofitable…Hackruiter is already profitable because startups like Tumblr, Weebly,Loopt, Artsy and Bit.ly currently pay Hackruiter $20K per programmer referralon average…And Hackruiter finds people to refer through its Hacker School,which is now entering its third batch. Unlike beginner code-learning programslike Codecademy, the in-person Hacker School is exclusively focused on makingalready good coders better. Based in New York, Hackruiter Hacker School is fulltime (eight hours a day, four days a week for three months) and free forstudents. Hackruiter started out with abatch of six students in July, then 12 and will now have 25 places comeFebruary…there aren’t that many good programmers in the world,” says co-founderNicholas Bergson-Shilcock, “We see programming as a craft and we see HackerSchool as environment were people can flourish…”

41. Why everybody in Seattlesuddenly wants to work for Amazon http://www.businessinsider.com/why-everybody-in-seattle-wants-to-work-for-amazon-2012-1 “Amazon has been a cornerstone in Seattle formore than 15 years now, but it wasn't always seen as a great place to work.Employees talked about long hours and a pressure-cooker atmosphere, and thecore business -- e-commerce -- didn't seem very sexy…I visited Seattle for thefirst time since late 2010. A bunch of people in the tech scene told me thesame thing: Amazon is THE place to work now. Here's why…The company used to bein this ugly old building in a boring neighborhood…Now, it's got a gleaming newcampus with all the modern conveniences…It's also in a way cooler part oftown…South Lake Union…Amazon is still a hard working place…But it's not allwork -- for instance, the company has an internal program called"Fishbowl" which features musicians and authors…Amazon was just anonline bookstore…just an e-commerce site…it's got a lot more interestingprojects…Amazon Web Services is now estimated to be a billion-dollarbusiness…Kindle kicked off a thriving mobile business that will only get bigger…Amazonhas rolled out mobile apps for all major mobile platforms…hitting the jackpotlast year with the Kindle 3. This year, it released a $200 tablet, the KindleFire…Amazon is increasingly looking more like a big media company…online videostreaming service…There's also a thriving online music store and related musiclocker service…People are starting to say Jeff Bezos is a genius…”

DHMN Technology

42. DIY autoremote uses iPhone and Arduino to start a car http://biobug.org/index.php/2011/12/11/sms-remote-start-working-prototype/ “…I can now start my Subaru outback via SMScommand from wherever I am. I used an older Arduino simply because I wanted aquick and dirty 3.3v source for the iphone to arduino serial interface. Theperfboard has a tip120 to drive the remote start, all the interface wiring forthe car, power supply and the iphone interface. I tossed in a .01 cap at thepower source just for extra filtering. The power supply is a switching chargerfrom a broken iphone car charger…”

43. Swarm ofArduino robots create patterns with glowing trails http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/09/lumibots “…Lumibots is a project comprising a swarm ofnine autonomous robots that emit UV light, leaving a glowing trail of theirjourney across a large phosphorescent surface…the bots collectively generatecomplex glowing patterns. Each robot has an Arduino micro-controller, two lightsensors, click switches for collision detection and a UV LED. Their movement isbased on a couple of basic rules: to follow the light and to turn after bumpinginto something -- be it another robot or the edge of the phosphorescent pen…Therobots do not have a memory chip, but the glowing trails can be seen as a kindof external memory…” [you definitely should watch the Lumibots video – ed.]

44. Cube 3Dprinter http://ces.cnet.com/8301-33372_1-57354827/chessmen-belts-other-ephemera-come-to-life-with-cube-3d-printer/ “…the Cube underscores that 3D printing canbe consumer-friendly, and that a growing number of vendors see it as a viablebusiness. The design of the Cube printer is a contrast to the garage workshopaesthetic of the MakerBot product. Instead of the Thing-O-Matic's exposedcircuity and a wooden housing, the Cube and its friendly-looking plastic chassislooks more like a sewing machine…Each relies on an attached spool of plastic:ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), the same material from which Legos aremade, in the Cube, or ABS and PLA (polylactic acid, like that used for kegcups) in the case of the Thing-O-Matic…The two printers also depend on acommunity of designers to make printing plans available to others. The Cube hasa Web site for hosting designs called Cubify in development, and MakerBot hasits Thingiverse, already home to more than 15,000 object plans…it's smartbusiness for a 3D printer vendor to cultivate a library of plans for users whomight not be handy with a 3D design application. But the Cube, theThing-O-Matic, and other 3D printers like Ultimaking's Ultimaker and DeltaMicro's Up 3D Printer all use common .STL design files, which means no one haspursued a lock-in strategy via proprietary software…the Cubify site will alsolet you place an order for 3D@Home to print and ship out objects too large toprint on the Cube. The object-to-order business mirrors that of Sculpteo…”

45. Arduino lampcontrolled by waving your hand http://makeprojects.com/Project/Luminch-One/1773/1 “Luminch One is an interactive lamp controlledby the movements of your hand. Wave your hand over it to turn it on or off, ormove your hand up or down above it to change its brightness. Inside the lamp,an Arduino hooked to an infrared distance sensor tracks your hand and sets thestate and the brightness of the LED lamp…”

46. LimitlessComputing Unveils Only Android Augmented Reality App for Google SketchUp http://www.marketwatch.com/story/limitless-computing-unveils-only-android-augmented-reality-app-for-google-sketchup-2012-01-10 “Limitless Computing Inc…today announcedSightSpace 3D for Android users, the only mobile Augmented Reality applicationfor Google SketchUp. It is available now on the Android Market for $14.99. SightSpace3D enables mobile viewing of Google SketchUp designs on Android devices,offering Augmented Reality capabilities, which overlay digital models overexisting physical environments…SightSpace 3D is integrated with the Google 3DWarehouse…Educators can show famous buildings to students, furniture shopperscan see how pieces would look in their own homes and new countertops,appliances, and more can be viewed as if they were in one's own kitchen or bath…”

47. MicrosoftReinvents Wi-Fi for White Spaces http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39429/ “Microsoft has developed a new kind of Wi-Finetwork that performs at its top speed even in the face of interference. Ittakes advantage of a new Wi-Fi standard that uses more of the electromagneticspectrum, but also hops between the narrow bands of unused spectrum withintelevision broadcast frequencies…Microsoft developed the new network partly asa way to push Congress to allow much broader use of white spaces…The fastestWi-Fi networks, which can transmit data at up to a gigabit per second, use asmuch spectrum as possible, up to 160 megahertz, to maximize bandwidth. KrishnaChintalapudi and his team at Microsoft Research have pioneered an approach,called WiFi-NC, which makes efficient use of these white spaces at thesespeeds. Rather than using a conventional Wi-Fi radio, it uses an array of tiny,low-data rate transmitters and receivers…Bundled together, they work just likea regular Wi-Fi radio, but can switch between white-space frequencies far moreefficiently…The team calls these transmitters and receivers"receiver-lets" and "transmitter-lets." Together, they makeup what's known as a "compound radio."…The new radio integrates witha previous Microsoft project that provides a wireless device with access to adatabase of available white-space spectrum in any part of the United States.That system, called SenseLess, tells a device where it can legally broadcastand receive…”

48. VR ‘goggles’for ~ $1000 http://dvice.com/archives/2012/01/sensics-smartgo.php “…Instead of asking what these goggles (calledNatalia) are, it might be faster to ask what they aren't, because theyseriously seem to be able to do almost everything.You get two individual SXGA(1280x1024) OLED eye displays, which means that you can get 3D without anyheadaches. Stereo over-ear headphones and a mic come standard. Also standard isa head tracking system that's set up so that moving your head moves whateveryou're looking at inside the goggles. The front of the goggles have camerasthat look out in front of you to provide hand tracking for gesture recognition.And inertial sensors know when and how you move (whether it's walking orjumping up and down), and those motions can be passed back into the virtualworld too. Under its three pound hood, Natalia is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-coreprocessor, a graphics accelerator, a gig of memory, and Android 4.0. It's alsogot…rechargeable batteries…so you can use the goggles completely untethered (inpublic!) for about an hour. Put all this together, and hypothetically you couldplay a game out in the real world, running and looking around and doing thingswith your arms and all of that would be translated directly to your in-gamecharacter. Yeah, you run the risk of smashing headlong into a tree, but thatcan just be part of the realistic experience…”

Open SourceHardware

49. MakerBotAnnounces Their New 2-color 3D Printer, The Replicator http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/makerbot-announces-their-latest-3d-printer-the-replicator/ “…The MakerBot Replicator…will debut at CESin Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday, January 10th…The MakerBot Replicator™ is theultimate personal 3D printer, with MakerBot Dualstrusion™ (2-color printing)and a bigger printing footprint…Assembled in Brooklyn by skilled technicians,the MakerBot Replicator™ is ready within minutes to start printing right out ofthe box. Starting at $1749, The MakerBot Replicator™ is an affordable, opensource 3D printer that is compact enough to sit on your desktop. Want to printin two colors? Choose the Dualstrusion™ option! With a build envelope that’sroughly the size of a loaf of bread, The MakerBot Replicator™ gives you thepower to go big…”

50. Ford and BugLabs working on the personal mobility experience http://www.slashgear.com/ford-working-on-a-better-segway-06206733/ “Ford has announced plans…to come up with abetter alternative to the Segway or other “personal mobility experience”concepts, as well as integrating mobile tech better…Ford has also begundistributing its open-source collaboration with Bug Labs…The OpenXC researchplatform – consisting of hardware and software developer kits created inpartnership with Bug Labs – is being shipped this month, with MIT, theUniversity of Michigan and Stanford among the first wave of universities takingpart…Ford’s own work on that will involve opening up its in-car sensor feedbackto developers. Weather Underground is looking to use windshield use data forreal-time weather proximity reporting, for instance, with 3G-enabled vehiclessending back information that can be mashed up with other news…” http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/pr-ford-and-bug-labs-develop-35245

Open Source

51. Mandriva in danger ofclosing its doors http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/238291/mandriva-danger-closing-its-doors “…rumors and vague confirmations point to theFrench Linux company possibly shuttering its doors on January 16. The reason?An apparent shareholder fight that is blocking an influx of much-needed capital…FormerlyMandrakeSoft, the company merged with Brazilian Linux vendor and formerUnitedLinux partner Connectiva in 2005…the company never seemed to have much ofa direction, and it's developer community continually declined in strength…popularityof Ubuntu on the desktop and the one-two punch of Red Hat and SUSE on theserver side has also put a strong squeeze on Mandriva…a minor shareholder(Linlux) refuses the capital injection required for Mandriva to continue, eventhough the Russian investor had offered to bear it alone…Townarea, aCyprus-based investment group that appears to be comprised mostly of Russianinvestors, seems perfectly willing to move forward and provide the €4 million.But Linlux (formerly Occam Capital) seems intent on preventing the investment…Sincethe creation of the community-led Mandriva fork Mageia on 2010, the work doneby Mandriva and its community over the years won't be lost…whatever itsname--Mandrake-Linux, MandrakeSoft, or Mandriva--this company has a long andvalued history within the Linux community…Hopefully the company will pullthrough again… but signs are not looking good…”

52. NASA opens it Open-SourceCode Doors http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/nasa-opens-it-open-source-code-doors/10094 “…NASA is centralizing its open-sourceofferings at the Code NASA Web-site. The idea of this new Web-site is to“continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities. The site will serveto surface existing projects, provide a forum for discussing projects andprocesses, and guide internal and external groups in open development, release,and contribution.”…NASA is first “focusing on providing a home for the currentstate of open source at the Agency. This includes guidance on how to engage theopen source process, points of contact, and a directory of existing projects.”Then, NASA will provide “a robust forum for ongoing discussion of open sourceconcepts, policies, and projects at the Agency. In our third phase, we willturn to the tools and mechanisms development projects generally need to besuccessful, such as distributed version control, issue tracking, continuousintegration, documentation, communication, and planning/management. During thisphase, we will create and host a tool, service, and process chain…”

53. Canonical DemonstratesUbuntu TV http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/247571/canonical_demonstrates_ubuntu_tv.html “…Canonical will be demonstrating a versionof its popular Ubuntu Linux OS that can be used for running TVs…at the ConsumerElectronics Show this week in Las Vegas…The company is hoping televisionmanufacturers will adopt Ubuntu as a base for their own smart television sets."We're focusing on making the TV intuitive and usable again, with asingle, elegant interface."…A smart TV is one that can not only show cableand over-the-air television shows, but, thanks to some built-in computationalability, also offer a user interface to allow viewers to pull video from theInternet, run applications and peruse channel guides more easily…the company'splans to court television manufacturers such as Sony and LG is part of abroader strategy to offer Ubuntu for a wide range of processor-embeddedconsumer devices, including automobiles, tablets and various householdappliances…”

CivilianAerospace

54. KickSat theFirst Personal Satellite- Webinar with Inventor, Zachary Manchester http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/1/prweb9084148.htm “…Zachary is an engineer at CornellUniversity in the Space Systems Design Studio who has created the Sprite- a“cracker-sized” satellite that changes the economics and accessibility ofspacecraft by several orders of magnitude. In the near future, members of thepublic will be able to purchase a satellite for a few hundred dollars. On Tuesday,January 10, at 11 AM PAC, 2PM EST, 7PM GMT, Zachary will be interviewed abouthis groundbreaking research, where it’s going in the future, and how thischanges everyone's relationship to space. The webinar will be free to join.Here is the link for the event: https://buzzumi.com/daniel/dFCCvyw1U7…”

55. Leader of 100Year Starship Project Chosen http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16427876 “…The Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency (Darpa) and Nasa are sponsoring the project, known as the 100-YearStarship. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space, wasnotified last week that she had won…Her organisation, the Dorothy JemisonFoundation for Excellence, is partnered on the Darpa project with IcarusInterstellar, a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to interstellartravel, and the Foundation for Enterprise Development…the goal is not to havethe government fund the actual building of spacecraft destined for the stars,but rather to create a foundation that can last 100 years in order to helpfoster the research needed for interstellar travel. The money for the winningteam, $500,000, is small, but is designed to help jumpstart the effort.According to a copy of the notification letter, Jemison's proposal was titled:"An Inclusive Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth &Beyond"…”

Supercomputing& GPUs

56. After Radeon HD7970'Tahiti', GPU Compute becomes mainstream http://vr-zone.com/articles/after-radeon-hd7970-tahiti--gpu-compute-becomes-mainstream/14469.html “…AMD Radeon HD7970'Tahiti'…scaled…well…between one and four cards…The AMD GCN new GPUarchitecture…did provide for much higher usable vs peak FP rate, especially fordouble precision FP critical for mainstream PC and HPC applications…the OpenCLprogramming model has now matured well to handle single and multiple tasks withmany threads being well balanced and spread across multiple GPUs…the GPUcompute is not limited by CrossFire - or SLI, on Nvidia - four-GPU barrier. Ifyour application, or multiple tasks, can handle it, and the underlying boardhas enough PCIe slots to support it, there's nothing to stop you from having,say, eight or more GPUs in a single system, all running GPU compute and/orgraphics at the same time…the upcoming Xeon E5 4600 quad-socket LGA 2011 platform…willhave a whopping 160 PCIe v3 lanes available direct from the CPUs, enabling 8 ormore GPU cards in the system. If each of these is a…1.1 GHz pre overclocked 6GB RAM HD7970, it would mean a 9 TFLOPs DP FP capability in a single box, yetwith 48 GB dedicated RAM on these GPUs for large local dataset processingwithout having to go to the over an order of magnitude slower PCIe link…Inthose apps where you can tolerate even higher PCIe latency induced by PCIebridges present on dual-GPU cards, in return for higher total performance, thatsame Quad Xeon E5 box could take eight dual-GPU, say 975 MHz pre overclockedAMD HD7990, cards, and have 16 TFLOPs peak DP FP performance in a single box…”

57. The Year Ahead in HighPerformance Computing http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-01-05/the_year_ahead_in_high_performance_computing.html “…I expect 2012 to continue the major trendswe've seen over the past couple of years, namely the increased adoption of GPUcomputing into the mainstream and more parity of HPC capability around theworld, as exemplified by China…By the end of the 2012, the top 10supercomputers in the world will be dominated by 10 petaflop-and-abovemachines. Currently, Japan's K computer is the one and only double-digitpetaflopper on the planet…10-petaflop-and-above contingent -- Blue Waters(NCSA), Sequoia (LLNL), Titan (ORNL), Mira (ANL) and Stampede (TACC) -- are allscheduled for boot-up in the second half of 2012. The big machines mentionedabove are all US-based systems, but it wouldn't be too shocking to see aChinese super or two in the 10 petaflop realm before the end of the year…theprevalence of so many multi-petaflop systems in the States will reestablish theUS as the leader for elite supercomputing…By next November, I'm guessing Chinawill claim more than 100 of the top 500 systems in the world…Accelerators,especially GPUs, will continue their inroads into HPC. I expect NVIDIA'sintroduction of its next-gen Kepler processor to be the biggest news in thisarea for 2012. Kepler looks like it will be in production no later than thesecond half of 2012…”

58. Chinese tackling humangenome with NVIDIA GPUs http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/genomes-and-gpus/ “The world’s largest genome sequencing centeronce needed four days to analyze data describing a human genome. Now it needsjust six hours. The trick is servers built with graphics chips — the sort ofprocessors that were originally designed to draw images on your personalcomputer…This fall, BGI — a mega lab headquartered in Shenzhen, China —switched to servers that use GPUs built by Nvidia, and this slashed its genomeanalysis time by more than an order of magnitude. In recent years, the cost ofsequencing genomes…has dropped about five-fold each year. But…the cost ofanalyzing that sequencing data has dropped much more slowly. With its GPUbreakthrough, BGI is shrinking the gap…the feat BGI and NVIDIA pulled off wasporting key genome analysis tools to NVIDIA’s GPU architecture…TeHennepe callsBGI’s accomplishment “an important step forward in the effort to apply thepromise of GPU computing to the challenge of scaling the mountain ofhigh-throughput sequencing data”…To achieve the same genome analysis speeds withtraditional CPUs, BGI would have to use 15 times more computer nodes, with anequivalent increase in power and air conditioning, according to bioinformaticsconsultant Martin Gollery. With GPUs, Gollery says, BGI gets faster results forits existing algorithms or use more sensitive algorithms to get better results…”

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NEW NET location for 10 Jan 2012 Mtg = Sergio's Restaurant

2012-01-09T19:38:00.002-06:00

The NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurial and Technology issues) 10 January 2012 meeting from 7 - 9 PM will be at Sergio’s Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton; backup location, Tom’s on Westhill Blvd. Come and join in the tech fun!

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NEW NET Weekly List for 03 Jan 2012

2012-01-03T15:59:00.002-06:00

Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 03 January 2012, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1. China’s Parallel OnlineUniverse http://the-diplomat.com/2011/12/27/china%E2%80%99s-parallel-online-universe/?all=true “…Asthe showdown escalated between Chinese security forces and residents of Wukan,where villagers revolted against the Chinese Communist Party, you didn’t find…muchdiscussion of the incident in Chinese social media…it wasn’t only because theinternet was shut off in the town. It was also a result of China’s developmentof…“social media clones” that ably mimic the functions of…popular,internationally recognized social media…such as Facebook and Twitter. Thereplicas, however, come with a major catch: they systematically comply with theChinese Communist Party’s strict censorship requirements. This innovativeapproach…satisfies the growing demand of hundreds of millions of Chinesecitizens for social media tools…while still enabling the Communist Party tocontrol what they say to each other on matters of political consequence.[ref. Ministry of Truth and Ministry of Love“1984” – ed.]…the big transnational social media players – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube– are blocked in China…homegrown firms, such as Renren, which provides Facebook-typefunctions, Youku.com, a YouTube-like video sharing service, and Sina Weibo, aTwitter-like microblogging service…are then required to have automated ormanual monitoring and censorship mechanisms in place to quickly identify anddelete user-generated postings or disable accounts that run afoul of theCommunist Party’s ever-changing censorship red lines. It’s a daily reality forChinese…academics, activists, and even ordinary users to discover a postingdeleted, their account locked, or their “friends” unable to view what they havejust shared…Sina Weibo reportedly employs some 700 people to perform around theclock monitoring of millions of tweets…Testing by researchers…found that asearch for the names of seven prominent Chinese lawyers, activists, andjournalists on Sina Weibo returned no results, only an Orwellian notice that“According to related laws and policy, some of the results are not shown here.”Within this alternate reality…the democratic ambitions of the Arab Springprotestors are absent, Liu Xiaobo’s 2010 Nobel Peace Prize is hidden from view,and…Hillary Clinton’s speech with Chinese microbloggers are deleted…Beijing authorities on December 16 formallyannounced new rules to be imposed on microblogs…the new measures will creategreater incentives for individual users, inaddition to companies, to self-censor…officialsfrom the highest echelons of the Communist Party made the rounds…Sina Weibo’schief executive, and…chairman of Tencent Holdings Ltd…have indicated thatthey’ve gotten the message, announcing their readiness to implement newmechanisms of control at their firms…Their business success depends oncompliance…” [I, for one, feel Google made the right decision inwithdrawing from China and wonder what self-censoring Microsoft, Yahoo andother American companies are willingly continuing to do in order to generaterevenue from what will undoubtedly be the largest national internet marketsegment – ed.]

2. Cloud storage sites byAmazon, Google, Apple, Carbonite compared http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tech-savvy-cloud-20111229,0,5265913.story “…asthe Internet has gotten faster and data centers have multiplied, the price ofstoring files in the cloud has dropped. For many consumers, storing copies ofall of your music, photos and documents in the cloud is now an affordableoption…Carbonite…for $59 a year will create a complete online copy of yourcomputer, so that if you lose any file — or all your files — you can restore itthrough a Web browser…Amazon has a…general storage service called Cloud Drive,which allows you to upload and store videos, photos, documents and other files.The service is free for the first 5 gigabytes of storage…probably not enough tohold your entire collections…you can upgrade to larger accounts, from 20gigabytes ($20 a year) to 1,000 gigabytes ($1,000 a year)…Cloud Drive has abothersome limitation, though: Instead of an automatic upload feature like theone Carbonite has, you have to manually upload files…Google offers a similarservice through its Google Docs feature. You can upload most kinds of files toyour Google Docs list, up to 1 gigabyte for free. Its prices for more space arelower than Amazon's: $5 a year for 20 gigabytes and $100 a year for 400 gigabytes…upto 16 terabytes for $4,100…Apple…iCloud, which tends to store only documents ormusic files that you create or purchase through Apple..Those storing highlysensitive data…invention blueprints, compromising photos — may want to hold offfor now…for regular old family snapshots, music files and writing drafts, thecloud is providing an affordable and convenient way to keep your digital stuff…” http://www.apppicker.com/news/201112285560-skydrive-takes-swing-google-docs-misses.html “As anavid and loyal fan of Google Docs I decided to try SkyDrive, Microsoft’s…cloudservice that allows you to access stored files from anywhere with access to aweb browser…Simplicity might be an overstatement when reviewing the design andfeatures of SkyDrive…You can upload files from your computer to be viewed orshared on your SkyDrive app or you can upload files and pictures that arecurrently stored on your phone. Files that are uploaded can be shared via emailwith another person or downloaded to your iOS device…Hopefully, for Microsoft’ssake, the app evolves quickly and in the future becomes more efficient for personaland business uses…”

3. Stanford Free Classes – Areview from a Stanford Student http://pennyhacks.com/2011/12/28/stanford-free-classes-a-review-from-a-stanford-student/ “…Stanford…starteda new initiative to bring free classes to the public…this venture has beenextraordinarily successful with over 100,000 sign ups. Most likely only afraction went through with the class, but that’s still a lot of people,especially for the first time…I was not at all satisfied by the CS229a: AppliedMachine Learning, one of the three courses offered to the public fallquarter…there are quite a few things that hopefully Stanford will change in thefuture. First and foremost, the academic rigor of Stanford classes should beupheld. Going into CS229a, I knew it was going to be easier than itscounterpart, CS229, since 229a focused on the applied side of machinelearning…At the beginning, some of the programming assignments were challengingsince I wasn’t used to matlab/octave programming or machine learning. However,the level of difficulty dropped off drastically as the quarter progressed…Icompleted the program without even knowing what I was doing…comments associatedwith the programming assignments became so informative and gave so many hintsthat almost no critical thinking was needed…the programming assignments weretailored to fit the needs of the public (apparently large streams of questionscame in after the first assignment was released)…to sacrifice critical thinkingso that there are less questions is not something I’m OK with…the reviewquestions…were simple from the beginning to the end…I have found that half ofmy classes are now open to the public in the online format…If all of my classessuddenly become as easy 229a, I will be seriously disappointed. I cameprimarily to Stanford to learn and study…Stanford needs to keep rigor even intheir online courses…it’d be best for Stanford to separate the students fromthe public for a few reasons….these new classes are getting rid of in-personlectures completely. I met barely anyone in my CS229a class…Stanford “free”classes aren’t free. Stanford students have to pay for them…if I’m going tohave to pay $50,000 a year to go to Stanford then the classes should betailored to fit the students – not a working professional who wants to learn alittle machine learning on the side…If all of Stanford’s classes are to be opento the public, then all those classes will quickly lose their value…”

4. IFTTT Triggers Loyal,Nerdy Following http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/28/ifttt-triggers-loyal-nerdy-following/ “One ofmy favorite services to pop in the second half of 2011 is “If This, Then That,”or…IFTTT. Among a small group of faithful nerds on Twitter, IFTTT is a simpleyet powerful service that generates warm, fuzzy feelings…IFTTT is a servicethat allows users to set a number of alerts, or “tasks,” that will “trigger” apreset function based on what you set. For example, you can set IFTTT to sendyou an email every time a specific user on Twitter sends a tweet or have a copyof every Instagram photo you snap to be automatically sent to your Dropbox…Thedifferent permutations of “triggers” you can set are sort of endless. To helpyou wade through them, you can browse different IFTTT “recipes” and browse thisthread on Quora…it’s becoming easier to see why IFTTT is gaining steam…thereare just too many services to keep track of. If you’re monitoring a series ofbrands across many channels, IFTTT enables you to track and route all relevantmessages to a specific place, especially Dropbox…IFTTT makes it both easy and,strangely, fun and addictive with its big bold letters and slick interaction.You can also temporarily turn off tasks without losing the recipes entirely…”

5. Insync is your GoogleDocs-loving alternative to Dropbox and it’s free http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/12/30/forget-dropbox-insync-is-your-google-docs-loving-alternative-and-its-free/ “…Ifyou’re the kind of person who uses Google Docs and Dropbox a lot…you will beinterested to hear that…Insync…announced that its cloud-based sharing platformis available for free…It isn’t just Google Docs that can be synced; PDFs, MP3and almost any other file type can be shared through the service, it justhappens that its Docs support is particularly strong…We put an emphasis onsharing and collaboration…Read/write and read-only sharing…Nested sharing…Filescan be viewed from the Web-based app…Paying users will receive an email in aweek or two giving them the option of a refund or Insync credit…However, itseems that many users are shunning the opportunity of reimbursement, preferringinstead to contribute to the Insynchq “beer fund”…we believe that storage willbe commoditized…pretty soon…we believe that money will be made in value-addedpremium features, not sync/storage limits…premium features might include asecure remote wipe of local Google Docs, nested selective syncing, businesscontrols on what filetypes can be synced, and more…”

6. Dropbox AutomatorProcesses Dropbox Files Automatically http://www.ghacks.net/2011/12/30/dropbox-automator-process-dropbox-files-automatically/ “DropboxAutomator monitors Dropbox folders of your choice to perform automatic actionson new files that get added to the folder. This includes uploading documents toGoogle Docs and photos to Flickr, converting documents to pdf, adding awatermark to photos or uploading the files to an ftp server of your choice…Fourgroups of actions are available…Documents: Convert to pdf, summarize,translate, pdf to text, upload to Google Docs, upload to Slideshare, sign pdf(electronic signature)…Pictures: Upload to Facebook, upload to Flickr,downscale, rotate image, write text on image, photo effect, stamp a logo on theimage, stamp a map on the image, stamp a dislike on the image…Any file: E-mail,zip file, save it to another Dropbox folder, rename, upload to ftp server,encrypt, decrypt…Send Info: Tweet, Set Facebook status…”

7. 12 Ways to Use LinkedInin 2012 http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2011/12/28/12-ways-to-use-linkedin-in-2012/ “LinkedInis the largest social network of professionals, now boasting more than 135million members in over 200 countries and territories. If you have signed upfor LinkedIn but rarely use it, or haven’t even signed up yet, consider usingLinkedIn more regularly as one of your New Year’s resolutions. If you need afew reasons why, here are 12 ways you might not have thought of to use LinkedInin 2012: Look for a Job…Collect References…Get Answers to Your Questions — OrAnswer Questions…Stay Connected Wherever You Are…Share Your Content…Prepare foran Interview…Prepare for a New Job…Facilitate Introductions…Advertise…Find MoreCustomers…Network with Like-minded Professionals…Stay in Touch with YourCollege Classmates…”

GigabitInternet

8. Getting to agigabit;Sonic.net will taking on AT&T in San Francisco http://gigaom.com/broadband/getting-to-a-gigabit-how-sonic-net-will-take-on-caps-residents-and-att-in-san-francisco/ “…Sonic.net…permits…tobegin the pilot build out…are far from certain…the city’s residents are activeprotestors of some of the infrastructure a fiber network requires…When it comesto better broadband, the cabinets holding the electronics raise the ire ofresidents who would rather not have refrigerator-sized boxes on theirlawns…because Sonic.net is deploying fiber to the home, he will use fewercabinets (he estimates 188)…Aerial deployments are cheaper because there’s lesslabor associated with stringing the cable…Sonic.net is profitable as a company,and has been in business for 17 years. The question is if Jasper can keepSonic.net in the black while building out and selling fiber to the home toconsumers for $70 a month…Sonic.net’s well known for declining to cap itsbroadband service…Jasper is using…Sabastopol buildout to help model the costsand demand for fiber in San Francisco. To help keep costs in line, the fiberlinks are for consumer accounts only…the lack of applications for gigabitnetworks probably helps Jasper here, as does the fact that most consumerstypically use downlink services to consume content…there’s a limit to how muchthey can consume, even with three or four TVs downloading or streaming HDcontent…it really does end up normalizing down to a reasonable level,” Jaspersays…between Google’s plans to deploy fiber to the home in both Kansas Cities,a few municipal networks, Verizon’s FiOS network and Sonic.net’s plans, we’regetting more people to a gigabit…”

Security,Privacy & Digital Controls

9. EFF appeal win reopensNSA dragnet spying case http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/dragnet-surveillance-case/ “Afederal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a closely watched lawsuit accusingthe federal government of working with the nation’s largest telecommunicationcompanies to illegally funnel Americans’ electronic communications to theNational Security Agency without court warrants…The San Francisco-based appealscourt reversed a San Francisco federal judge who tossed the case against thegovernment nearly three years ago. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, nowretired, said the lawsuit amounted to a “general grievance” from the public,and not an actionable claim…Judge Margaret McKeown ruled…the EFF’s claims “arenot abstract, generalized grievances and instead meet the constitutionalstanding requirement of concrete injury. Although there has been considerabledebate and legislative activity surrounding the surveillance program, theclaims do not raise a political question nor are they inappropriate forjudicial resolution.” The EFF’s allegations are based in part on internalAT&T documents, first published by Wired, that outline a secret room in anAT&T San Francisco office that routes internet traffic to the NSA…”

10. Hackers Said to bePlanning to Launch Own Satellites to Combat Censorship http://www.pcworld.com/article/247147/hackers_said_to_be_planning_to_launch_own_satellites_to_combat_censorship.html “Hackersreportedly plan to fight back against Internet censorship by putting their owncommunications satellites into orbit and developing a grid of ground stationsto track and communicate with them…the satellite plan was recently outlined atthe Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. It's being called the "HackerspaceGlobal Grid."…hacker activist Nick Farr said knowledge is the only motiveof the project, which also includes the development of new electronics that cansurvive in space, and launch vehicles that can get them there. Farr and hiscohorts are working on the project along with Constellation, a German aerospaceresearch initiative…You might think it would be hard for just anybody to put asatellite into space, but hobbyists and amateurs have been able in recent yearsto use balloons to get them up there. However…they have a hard time trackingthe devices…the German hacker group came up with the idea of a sort of reverseGPS that uses a distributed network of low-cost ground stations that can bebought or built by individuals…these stations would be able to pinpointsatellites at any given time while improving the transmission of data from thesatellites to Earth…”

11. Printer malware: print amalicious document, expose your whole LAN http://boingboing.net/2011/12/30/printer-malware-print-a-malic.html “One ofthe most mind-blowing presentations at this year's Chaos CommunicationsCongress (28C3) was Ang Cui's Print Me If You Dare, in which he explained howhe reverse-engineered the firmware-update process for HPs hundreds of millionsof printers. Cui discovered that he could load arbitrary software into anyprinter by embedding it in a malicious document or by connecting to the printeronline. As part of his presentation, he performed two demonstrations: in thefirst, he sent a document to a printer that contained a malicious version ofthe OS that caused it to copy the documents it printed and post them to an IPaddress on the Internet; in the second, he took over a remote printer with amalicious document, caused that printer to scan the LAN for vulnerable PCs,compromise a PC, and turn it into a proxy that gave him access through thefirewall…”

12. San Francisco robot appstore http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/31/BUJT1MI754.DTL “…Apple'sApp Store marked a seminal moment of the smart-phone age…It spawned thedevelopment of hundreds of thousands of new uses for the devices, apps forconsuming media, playing games, making music, navigating cities…Elad Inbarhopes the same could be true for robots. Late last year, the industry veteranlaunched RobotsAppStore.com, a robotics software marketplace…My firstimpression on hearing about a robot app store was: It's an idea ahead of itstime. That was also my second and third impression…But Inbar…said there areroughly 14 million personal and service robots worldwide, a leap of 66 percentin the past two years…He previously founded another robotics company in hisnative Israel and served as chief technology officer of mobile advertisingcompany MassiveImpact.com. Popular personal robots today span the price range.There's the Keepon toy…for $20…the roughly $16,000 talking android known asNao…Willow Garage's $400,000 PR2s…can bake cookies, fold laundry and fetch beer…inthe middle of the price spectrum are iRobot's Roomba vacuums ($299 to $599) orthe several-thousand-dollar AIBO robot dogs…AIBO is actually a prime example ofthe potential demand for a robot app store…owners took to trading aroundhomegrown software that cracked the source code to teach the dog new tricks,like dancing and talking…Naturally, Sony responded to this customer enthusiasmfor its product by filing a cease-and-desist order…The company eventually sawthe error of its ways, backtracking so far as to offer up a softwaredevelopment kit…pretty much all personal robot manufacturers provide thesesorts of kits today…Inbar expects to launch to the full public early in theyear. He hopes to have around 500 apps in the marketplace at that time…In 2009,researchers at the University of Washington managed to hack commerciallyavailable robots and warned that they could be used to spy on people, swipekeys, vandalize homes, terrorize children or trip the elderly. It kind of makesa phishing scheme sound quaint…For now, Inbar just hopes that an app store canbegin to spark the sort of excitement around robots that they did for smartphones, winding up a virtuous cycle of more users, more apps and more robots…”

MobileComputing & Communicating

13. Samsung Galaxy Note http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397903,00.asp “…theSamsung Galaxy Note…"phablet"—part phone, part tablet—boasts a5.3-inch, 1280-by-800 screen…I did find it small and comfortable enough to usewith a single hand. On the other hand…it's tough to picture the masseswalking…with gargantuan 5-inch screens pressed against their cheeks…Galaxy Notealso acts more like a tablet than a phone. In addition to multitouchpinch-to-zoom finger-based input, the aforementioned stylus, dubbed the 'SPen,' tucks into the bottom panel of the phone, and can be used in a variety ofapps. In the Messaging App, for example, you can write on the screen, and theGalaxy Note will convert your scrawls to email or SMS messages with the aid ofpredictive text. In the browser, you use the pen to annotate, then capture Webpages with your notes. Input with the pen was very responsive, and…textconversion worked well. Besides integration with the native apps, Samsung plansto release an SDK for the S Pen so developers can write third-party apps thatuse it for input…It runs Android Gingerbread 2.3.5…There's an 8-megapixelcamera on the back and a 2-megapixel one on the front…dual-core, 1.4Ghz SamsungExynos processor…Galaxy Note will get an upgrade to…Android, 4.0 "IceCream Sandwich" in 2012…”

14. India’s $45 Akash tabletracks up 1.4 million pre-orders in 2 weeks http://thenextweb.com/in/2012/01/03/indias-45-akash-tablet-racks-up-1-4-million-pre-orders-in-2-weeks/ “Thisyear is shaping up to be the year for low-cost tablets in India…the Akash —which is the world’s cheapest tablet — has received 1.4 million pre-orders injust two weeks. That’s a rate of 100,000 customers for the $45 tablet everyday…manufacturer Datawind is duly increasing its production capacity by openingthree new factories…With the Akash, Ubislate and Classpad all launching forless than $150, this year looks set to be a major one for India’s tabletmarket. The growth of tablet users could boost the country’s Internet access,which stood at 112 million in September, that’s less than 10 percent of India’s1.2 billion population.” http://www.thinkdigit.com/Tablets/Datawind-revises-retail-Aakash-name-announces-Ubislate_8354.html “DataWindhas slightly revised the names of the retail versions of the Aakash andUbislate 7 tablets…Aakash, will now be called Ubislate 7, while the originalUbislate 7 become s the Ubislate 7+…UbiSlate 7+ runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbreadplatform and is powered by a Cortex A8, 700 Mhz processor with HD Videoco-processor. It has a 256MB of RAM, while supports (Internal) 2GB Flash /(External) 2GB to 32GB storage…The UbiSlate 7+ has 7-inch of display with800x480 pixel resolution…the device supports GPRS & WiFi IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/…”

15. Traditional Cell ProviderText Messaging Is in Decline in Some Countries http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/text-messaging-is-in-decline-in-some-countries/ “…allsigns point to text messaging’s continuing its decline in several parts of theworld…Cellphone customers on Sonera, a Finnish mobile network, sent 8.5 milliontext messages on Christmas Eve, down from 10.9 million on the same day theprevious year…In Hong Kong there was a steep decline in text messaging onChristmas Day, down nearly 14 percent compared to the previous year…Australians,too, sent fewer text messages — down 9 percent from 2010…The fading allure oftext messaging is most likely tied to the rise of alternative services likeFacebook, Twitter, BlackBerry Messenger and iMessage, which allow customers tosend messages free using a cellphone’s Internet connection…in the UnitedStates, the number of text messages sent by cellphone customers is stillgrowing, but that growth is gradually slowing…texting in the United States grew10 percent in the first quarter of 2011. That was down from 16 percent growthin the fourth quarter of 2010…he predicts “SMS erosion” will hit AT&T andVerizon in the next two years.…”

16. Sanwa Supply Rolls OutMicro Projector For iPhone 4/4S http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/sanwa-iphone4-projector/ “…SanwaSupply started selling the 400-PRJ011 in its online store, a DLP microprojector that slides onto an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S. The device comes with a2,100mAh battery, which takes about five hours to fully charge and providesenough juice for 2.5 hours of projector usage. With the projector functionturned off, buyers can also use the device to charge their iPhone (it adds 100%to the life of the phone’s battery)…the projector produces images with 640×360resolution, 1,000:1 contrast ratio, and up to 65 inches in size. The deviceweighs 103g and also features internal speakers that can be used in addition tothose in the iPhone. Sanwa is selling the 400-PRJ011 for 19,800 Yen (US$260…”

Apps

17. Autodesk Starts TestingAndroid Mobile Apps http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&doc_id=237159 “Engineersare hardly knocking down doors for mobile design tools, but response…has showna consistent, albeit slightly hesitant, interest…most of the early design toolapps have been for Apple iOS devices…Late last month, Autodesk put out a callfor beta testers to help start troubleshooting a working version of its mobileDesign Review program for Android devices. The app, which lets users read,write, and markup DWG files, was released in mid-2011 for the Apple iPhone andiPad. Its release gave engineers a tool to view and collaborate on 2D and 3D drawingswherever they are in the field…”

18. Starting a New Year’sResolution? Gympact Makes You Keep It or Pay http://mashable.com/2012/01/01/gympact-keep-it-or-pay/ “HappyNew Year! Now it’s time to…get started on that New Year’s resolution thatseemed like such a good idea last night…Gympact, which launches its first iOSapp today, employs tough love rather than rewards to keep its users visitingthe gym. At the beginning of each week, users set a goal for the number oftimes they’ll visit the gym and name a price they’re willing to pay for notmeeting that goal. If they miss their goal, they pay the price. If they makeit, they receive a portion of the cash collected from all the people who missedtheir goals. Gympact collects a 3% fee on this transaction…People are lot moremotivated by the thought of loss than the thought of reward…”

19. New ClockworkMod appoffers free tethering to Android phones, sans root http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/2/2677391/clockworkmod-tether-non-rooted-android-free-tethering “FamedAndroid developer Koushik Dutta has released a new Android tethering app thatdoesn't require root access. It's called ClockworkMod Tether, and…Koush claimsthat the app is not detectable or blockable by carriers. The developer is knownfor creating the popular ClockworkMod recovery and a ROM Manager that makes iteasy to change and backup various ROMs for Android phones. We tested out theapp today, and for an alpha product the installation is simple…Once we ran theapplication and plugged in a Galaxy Nexus, the tethering app was installed onthe phone and we were up and running. Currently the app only works over USB…”

20. Israeli Engineer CreatesUniversal Remote App for the Man Cave http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/jewish_techs/israeli_engineer_creates_universal_remote_app_man_cave “Usingyour iPhone or Android-powered smartphone to operate your television, Blue-Rayplayer, DVD, stereo, or well, anything else electronic in your house shouldreally be a no-brainer at the end of 2011…I remember using several PDA’s fromthe Sony Clie to the Palm/Handspring models to operate my TV as far back as adecade ago. However, there has been a dearth of apps available for downloadthat allow you to control your entertainment system…Tom Henderson filed areport about how two men looking to make $4,000 with an app wound up launchingthe company that would create the universal remote control app for the iPhone,iPad and iPod Touch, as well as Android phones and tablets…Last year, ItaiBen-Gal, an engineer from Israel, and Victor Nemirovsky, a software developerfrom Russia, were working in the auto supply chain. Today, to their surprise,they are smart-app entrepreneurs who work for themselves…A plan to make $2,000each last year on the side by developing and selling software for a universalremote control app for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch has morphed instead intotheir company, iRule LLC, with serious funding…The goal of making $2,000? Thatwas how much Ben-Gal, a self-described audiovisual geek, figured was enough tohelp pay for a family vacation and reward his wife for her patience and indulgencefor the nine months and small fortune he'd spent in 2008 on his "mancave" in the basement of his Novi house…Instead, Ben-Gal and Nemirovskymade enough last year…for each to buy a new four-door family sedan. This year,iRule has raised $500,000 from investors, including the first investment fromthe fledgling Compuware Ventures LLC, a new investment subsidiary of CompuwareCorp…”

21. BarCrowd app http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/08/29/1439380/new-app-can-tap-into-the-bar-scene.html “WhenCole Harper was home in St. Louis on breaks from the University ofMissouri-Columbia, he and his buddies discovered the bar-hopper's Goldilocksparadox: The places they stopped in were often too empty or too crowded, butnone seemed just right."I kept thinking, 'Wouldn't it be nice to know whatthe scene was like before paying $20 for a cab?' " Harper, 27,said."Are there people there? Girls? Is it a young crowd or moremature?" To help answer thosequestions, Harper and friend Marc Doering founded SceneTap. The free mobileapplication uses cameras loaded with facial-detection technology to feed users'phones real-time data about the number of people in a bar, their average ageand the male-to-female ratio.SceneTap launched last month in Chicago, and sofar about 75 venues there have paid to be included in the app…He has beenfielding requests from bar owners from California to Israel."We've gotteninterest from people in every continent except Antarctica…”

SkyNet

22. Google launches hub fortracking 2012 election info http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/keeping-up-with-2012-us-election-with.html “…justin time for the Iowa Caucuses, we’re launching google.com/elections, anelection hub where citizens can study, watch, discuss, learn about, participatein and perhaps even make an impact on the digital campaign trail as it blazesforward to Tuesday, November 6, 2012. The site enables voters, journalists andcampaigns to quickly sort through election info by popularity, race or issues.People can also check out the Trends Dashboard to take the web’s real-timepolitical pulse by comparing candidates’ YouTube video views, search trafficand Google News mentions. Campaign staffers, advocates and everyday citizenscan utilize our tools and features to reach, engage and inspire voters…”

23. Google Plus 'will havemore than 400m users by the end of 2012' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2080207/Google-Plus-hit-400m-users--overtake-Facebook.html “…Google’ssocial networking site Google Plus will have more than 400million users by theend of 2012…The prediction comes from U.S. analyst Paul Allen, who said thatGoogle Plus, which went public in September, has just passed the 62millionmark, with a quarter of those signing up in December. He said 625,000 membersare signing up every day and expects that number to rapidly increase – partlybecause over 700,000 Android devices are bought every day, which makes signingup to Google Plus easier, and partly through integration with other productsand the power of word of mouth…”

24. Google grabs IBM patentsincluding “Computer phone” http://www.slashgear.com/google-grabs-ibm-patents-including-computer-phone-03205647/ “…Googleis continuing to work with IBM to build up their patent portfolio so that theycan avoid as many 2011-esque litigations as possible…this past week…showedGoogle acquiring another 188 granted patents and 29 published pending patentapplications from IBM. Patents in this deal contain such names as bladeservers, data caching, server load balancing, instant messaging applications,video conferencing…What we’re seeing here is patents for everything from“Selecting and Rendering a Section of a Web Page” to the “Transfer of WebApplications Between Devices.” Perhaps most interesting is the one by the nameof Computer Phone, whose abstract reads thusly…A computer integrated cordlessphone. The phone can include a cordless handset transceiver configured forcoupling to an antenna shared with a wireless network adapter through amultiplexer/demultiplexer so that both of the cordless handset transceiver andthe wireless network adapter transmit and receive data within a common wirelessfrequency spectrum…”

25. 4 big moves Google shouldmake in 2012 http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/03/tech/web/four-google-moves-2012-mashable/index.html “Inpeeking ahead to predict what 2012 holds for Google, it's informative to lookback at the eventful year it had. While one can't help but see the big productintroductions -- a social network, a mobile-payment system, a music store --it's the deletions that are much more interesting. Google got rid of a host ofunwieldy and barely used products and features in 2011. While Google regularlydoes "spring cleaning" to trim its vast portfolio, the projectsscrapped this year were many, and most were originally intended to be majorfocuses of the company…There are sure to be some collisions in 2012. Let's takea look at some key ones…Google+ comes into its own…Android puts its house inorder…Ceding tablet territory while building content…GDrive cements dominationof the cloud…”

26. Retailers value Google+more than Facebook, Twitter http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/retailers-value-google-more-than-facebook-twitter/6797 “…Retailersare embracing Google+ faster than Facebook or Twitter, at least when it comesto social plugins…Google+ is already embedded on more retail websites thanFacebook or Twitter…across 20 popular e-commerce destinations, the socialplugins were implemented as follows: Google +1 (45 percent), Facebook (40percent), Twitter (15 percent), and AddThis (15 percent). The 20 e-commercewebsites that were tracked are as follows: Best Buy, CouponCabin, SportsAuthority, LL Bean, Gap, Dicks Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, SVPPLY,DSW.com, Modells, Zappos, Old Navy, Disney, Target, Walmart, Gilt, Sears,Amazon, NewEgg, and Piperlime. This is no fluke; these are big names…Six monthsago, Facebook plugins were the most used, but the Google +1 button had alreadypassed Twitter’s various buttons. I would wager Facebook is still first, butonly when considering all types of websites, and its lead may not last for muchlonger. So, why is Google+ winning with retailers? Well, by adding +1 buttons,retailers could potentially improve their Google search ranking. That’ssomething that Facebook, Twitter, nor any other social network can offer…”

General Technology

27. Tentechnology flops of 2011 http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/01/9833806-10-technology-flops-of-2011 “1. HPTouchPad and webOS: Early termination award…HP dropped its TouchPad tabletfaster than NBC cut "Free Agents." The news was a shocker because HPpaid lots in pilot production costs, namely $1.2 billion for the TouchPad’swebOS operating system…2. AT&T's faux G…If you bought an AT&T 4Gsmartphone in 2011, you were really getting 3G speeds…the carrier provides thefollowing caveat…4G speeds delivered by HSPA with enhanced backhaul…when itlaunched its true 4G LTE network in September…test results varied wildly…3.BackFlip into oblivion…Cisco, the company that paid $590 million for PureDigital’s popular Flip camcorder in 2009, canceled the device this spring.Until the purchase, Flip cameras created, defined, and lead the pocketcamcorder market…It was clear the company lost focus with the $279 Flip SlideHD(pictured) , an overpriced device with an awful resistive touchscreen and aconfounding design…The company killed the signature pocket camcorder, and cut550 jobs along with it…4. Bad JooJoo re-do…In 2010, a company called FusionGarage launched the JooJoo Tablet, a hefty 12-inch slate with bad battery life,a lame web-centric interface…Fast forward one year and Fusion Garage was at itagain with the Grid 10 tablet…Fusion Garage's second chance came to aresounding end after a series of debacles earlier this month…5. MeeGo goesnowhere…In February 2010, Nokia teamed up with Intel to form MeeGo…one yearlater, Nokia threw MeeGo in the trash heap in favor of Windows Phone 7. Intelput on a brave face for the platform at first, telling us, “We’re not blinkingon MeeGo.”…In September, Intel announced it was ditching MeeGo in favor of anew OS project called Tizen…6. AT&T/T-Mobile merger gets slammed…39 billionbucks. That’s the price AT&T announced it was paying for T-Mobile in March…InNovember, the FCC weighed in and backed up the DoJ’s decision that an AT&Tand T-Mobile merger threatened to saddle consumers with “higher prices, lessproduct variety and innovation, and poorer quality service."…AT&T hadto pay T-Mobile $4 billion in broken-merger fees and give the company loads ofAdvanced Wireless Spectrum…7. The Netflix backlash…Netflix discovered thefastest way to lose nearly 1 million customers this summer. In July, thecompanyannounced a new pricing plan that, at minimum, charged customers $7.99for its popular online streaming option and another $7.99 for itsone-DVD-at-a-time mail service, a total of $15.98 a month…8. RIM extends"amateur hour" to a year…RIM’s decline hit nose-dive speeds thisyear…9. Color me bad…No CEO should say this about his or her service: “Even Ihaven’t used the product in months.” But Bill Nguyen said it. Nguyen’s thefounder of Color, an app for Android and iOS that melds photo-sharing with aninternal social network…As it turns out, Color’s sharing function dependedheavily on having a robust number of users close enough to walk over and say“hi” to each other, but the app never reached that level of engagement…10.Mario's next level: Denial…Nintendo’s much-hyped next-gen 3DS handset sold just380,000 units in its first three months on shelves, and many believe Apple isto blame for the low numbers. Thanks to the combined might of the iPhone, iPodtouch, and iPad (not to mention Android games), Nintendo is no longer themobile gaming king…”

28. Recyclingelectronics http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/12/29/holiday-waste-how-not-to-throw-out-your-old-electronics/ “…chancesare you have some outdated electronics on your hands…few municipal waste firmscan recycle electronics. So what should you do then?...1) Re-gift them…2)Donate them…EBay’s Rethink Initiative, which includes a list of organizationsthat can make use of your leftover electronics…Cell Phones for Soldiers, whichprovides gently used phones for deployed and returning troops…3) Becapitalistic…you can use a digital middleman like NextWorth.com. The companywill quote a price, and you can either send the gadget directly to them, ortrade it in at a Target superstore—a useful option if you’re dealing with alarge desktop or similar-sized device. You can also try Gazelle…4) Recycle it:This is trickier than it sounds because not every e-waste recycler is doing itright…Scores of electronics retailers and manufacturers like BestBuy and HP nowsponsor convenient recycling programs…” [what recycling options do you useor do you know of for consumer electronics? – ed.]

29. AboutLearning To Code http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/new-years-resolution-programming/ “…manyof you are probably in the middle of writing your New Year’s resolutions. Well,here’s a good one (especially considering that the tech sector seems to be theonly bright spot in a sort of lackluster economy) … Learn to code. The folks atCodecademy have teamed up with a numberof partners like Girl Develop It, Techstars and YCombinator to help make codingskills a reality for those that wish they had them, with Code Year, a programdesigned specifically for those that want to make 2012 the year they buildtechnical skills…”

30. State of theweb: of apps, devices and breakpoints http://www.zeldman.com/2011/12/29/state-of-the-web-of-apps-devices-and-breakpoints/ “…If …you have built your mobile site using fixed widths (believing that you’vedesigned to suit the most ‘popular’ screen size), or are planning to servespecific sites to specific devices based on detection of screen size, Android’ssettings should serve to reconfirm how counterproductive a practice this canbe. Designing to fixed screen sizes is in fact never a good idea…there is justtoo much variation, even amongst ‘popular’ devices…As consumers, we’ve all hadthe experience of seeing the wrong layout at the wrong time…Considering our ownexperiences and reviewing Rieger’s chart, it is easy to share Drummond’sconclusion that breakpoints are dead and that all sites should be designed asminimally as possible…Eric Meyer’s Master Compatability Chart for Web Review…useda variety of colors to show how each detail of the entire CSS specification wasor was not supported…in every browser which was available at the time,including, if memory serves, close to a dozen versions of Netscape, Explorer,and Opera. Looking at that chart induced nausea and vertigo…In the short runit’s going to be hell, just as the browser wars and their lack of support forcommon standards were hell. But it is the short run…Eventually this nuttymarket will stabilize around a few winning Android platforms (e.g. Kindle Fire)and common breakpoints will emerge…When I see fragmentation, I remind myselfthat it is unsustainable…and that standards always emerge…This is a frustratingtime to be a web designer, but it’s also the most exciting time in ten years…”

31. MostImportant Gadgets Of 2012 http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/29/2012-predictions/ “…someof the gadgets that will change the world in the next few years…I think 2012will also be the year of Windows Phone, 3D printing, and fitness technologythat actually makes a difference…our picks for the best of 2012…Autom andFitbit…promise what geeks crave – stats…better health and decreased bodymass…Nokia Lumia 710…With the arrival of cheap Windows Phones…Nokia is lookingto take back the low end…Makerbot…is working on better ways to get 3D printingto the masses…3D printing…machines are prohibitively expensive and complex, butwith a few UI and marketing twists, I foresee a day when the kids print outmodel car parts the way they print out book reports…ultrabooks are a necessaryaddition to the laptop ecosystem and should be taken seriously…Kindle Fire isAmazon’s first salvo against the iTunes juggernaut. Amazon wants to sell youstuff…The device is Amazon incarnate…tablet for readers that will become, formany, the primary way to consume streaming video…PSP Vita…is the first of thenext gen consoles to roll, inexorably, towards our living room…”

32. First Siri,Now Threat Detection: Inside SRI’s Amazing R&D http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/sri-threat-detection/ “…anon-profit R&D powerhouse called SRI International conducted decades ofresearch in artificial intelligence to build the foundations of Apple’s virtualdigital assistant. The project was called CALO…and in 2007, SRI spun out afor-profit enterprise called Siri, Inc to bring CALO technology to consumerdevices. Siri became an iPhone 3GS app in February 2010, and two months later,Apple purchased the start-up from SRI for a rumored $200 million. It’s an impressivesuccess story…And Siri is also just a small portion of SRI’s greater techcatalog…In this article, the first of a three-part series, we’ll focus on SRI’sresearch in threat detection…Formerly known as Stanford Research Institute, SRIis located on a sprawling, 65-acre campus nestled among towering oak trees andwell-curated lawns in Menlo Park, California…we followed our guide throughlabyrinthine white-washed hallways…and up to a darkened second-floor office…Glowingon a large touchscreen display was BotHunter, a powerful software package thatdetects malicious software botnets across the Internet…BotHunter is free, andhas already been given away to more than 200,000 users. The software detectsbots and other types of malware using a technique called network dialogcorrelation…BotHunter doesn’t look inside packets…Rather, it looks for knownpatterns of bad code — anomalous patterns that indicate an attack…SRI uses alarge honeynet of computers that wait for attacks, and record the results. Thisinformation is then plotted on a map, showing where known attacks are happening…AlthoughBotHunter only detects malware, SRI has a few other tools that aid in networkattacks. One called Blade is a “Windows immunization system” that preventsinbound attacks altogether. And one called Eureka reverses and decryptsmalware, so it can then determine the type of attack and suggest a response…”

33. MilitaryRadar Technology to Be Used to Detect Potholes http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/02/military-radar-technology-to-be-used-to-detect-potholes-in-louisiana/ “Radarused in the stealth bomber and to find roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraqis moving into the sewers of Louisiana. The aim is finding empty spaces wheredirt has seeped into sewers and water pipes before they spread to create huge potholesor sinkholes that can collapse roadways and sidewalks above them…All around thecountry, water and sewer pipes laid 50 to 100 years ago are cracked andbreaking…The condition of nation's sewer and drinking water systems both gotD-minus in a 2009 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers…”

34. Wide IO next-generationmobile RAM products http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-elpida-sample-shipments-next-generation-mobile.html “WideIO Mobile RAM is a next-generation mobile memory chip that provides solutionsto opposing needs for faster speed and lower power consumption. The risingperformance of smartphones and tablet devices in recent years has led to demandfor faster DRAMs (DRAMs with greater data transfer rates), but in turn this hasgenerated concerns about increases in system power consumption. The solution isthat Wide IO Mobile RAM expands the I/O width by using x512-bit, a data widththat is more than 10 times larger than the width for existing DRAMs, whichenables a data transfer rate of 12.8 gigabytes per second (GB/s) per chip whileoperating at a low speed of 200MHz. The reduced DRAM speed results inapproximately 50% less power consumption compared with DDR2 Mobile RAM(LPDDR2), currently the leading DRAM choice for mobile devices…LPDDR3 isanother of Elpida's new next-generation mobile memory. This new chip achieves adata transfer rate that is twice as fast as LPDDR2. A single LPDDR3 has a datatransfer rate of 6.4 GB/s or 12.8GB/s based on a two-chip configuration forhigh-end mobile devices. When compared with LPDDR2…LPDDR3 consumes roughly 25%less power, enabling it to extend the operating time of smartphones and tabletdevices…”

Leisure &Entertainment

35. Movie ticket sales fellsharply in 2011 http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500184_162-57350854/movie-ticket-sales-fell-sharply-in-2011/ “…Domesticrevenues closed out at $10.22 billion for 2011, down 3.4 percent from2010's…movie admissions were down sharply for the second year in a row.Factoring in higher ticket prices, domestic attendance slipped to 1.28 billionin 2011, off 4.2 percent from 2010 admissions and the smallest audiencesHollywood has had since 1995…Some studio executives had predicted recordrevenues for 2011. The movies themselves may simply have held less appeal tofans than expected, though audiences also could be skipping trips to theatersto watch movies on big-screen home setups or to play with the countlessentertainment gadgets now on the market. Viewers can watch films at home or onportable devices for a fraction of the cost of going to theaters…”

36. Arcade Game Emulator MAMENow Out For Google Chrome http://www.mobilemag.com/2012/01/02/arcade-game-emulator-mame-now-out-for-google-chrome/ “It wasa serious project for Google’s Robert Muth, but now Multiple Arcade MachineEmulator (MAME), an emulator for a large number of classic arcade games, isported to the Native Client of Google Chrome. So all of you who feel nostalgicabout their favorite classic games like this pictured Robby Roto, then Pac-Man,Galaga, and whatnot, might want to go to Chrome App Store and get some of oldjoy…There’s also that mobile MAME imame4all app which will give you the sameMAME games on both Android and iOS…”

37. Netflix To Debut OriginalSeries “Lilyhammer” Next Month http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/netflix-to-debut-original-series-lilyhammer-next-month/ “…Netflixis launching a new original series next month called Lilyhammer, which willkick off the company’s foray into original programming for 2012. The serieswill star The Sopranos actor and E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt in a“fish out of water” story that takes place in Norway. The story follows NewYork mobster Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano as he enters the federal witnessprotection program. He moves to Lillehammer – the Norwegian town that hostedthe 1994 Winter Olympics…”

Entrepreneurismand Technology

38. How IBM is staying aleader in technology http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/business/how-samuel-palmisano-of-ibm-stayed-a-step-ahead-unboxed.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all “…behindI.B.M.’s relentless progress over the last decade is a game plan that has beenanything but conservative. The company shed multibillion-dollar businesses. Itchose higher profit margins over corporate size, and expanded aggressivelyoverseas…A large portion of the credit goes to Samuel J. Palmisano, who stepsdown on Sunday after nearly a decade as chief executive. During his tenure,I.B.M. has been a textbook case of how to drive change in a big company…He sayshis guiding framework boils down to four questions: “Why would someone spendtheir money with you — so what is unique about you?”…“Why would somebody workfor you?”…“Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography —their country?”…“And why would somebody invest their money with you?”…after hetook over, Mr. Palmisano told colleagues that I.B.M. was still good, but thatit wasn’t the standard-setting corporation that it had been when he joined in1973…The four questions, he explains, were a way to…prod the company beyond itscomfort zone and to make I.B.M. pre-eminent again…To focus on doing uniquework, with its higher profits, meant getting out of low-margin businesses thatwere fading. I.B.M.’s long-range technology assessment in 2002 concluded thatthe personal computer business would no longer present much opportunity forinnovation, at least not in the corporate market. The hub of innovation wouldshift to services and software…Today, that is called cloud computing; whenI.B.M. started promoting the concept several years ago the company called iton-demand computing…Mr. Palmisano led a lengthy strategic review of the PCbusiness, deciding to sell while it was still profitable. Internal argumentsagainst a sell-off were intense…But if you decide you’re going to move to adifferent space, where there’s innovation and therefore you can do uniquethings and get some premium for that, the PC business wasn’t going to be it…”

39. RIM Co-CEOs May Soon BeStripped Of Their Chairmen Roles http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/rim-co-ceos-may-soon-be-stripped-of-their-chairmen-roles/ “As RIMnavigates some particularly rough seas, it appears as though the company maysoon kick-off a good old-fashioned corporate governance shakeup in order toplease their shareholders. Although they’ll retain their positions as co-CEOs,the Financial Post reports that RIM’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie may soonbe ousted from their positions as chairmen of the board…Time is quickly runningout, and if the FP’s sources are to be believed, there really isn’t reason forthings to stay the way they are. As a result, RIM is reportedly eyeingindependent director Barbara Stymiest to take over as chairperson of the board…thecompany has suffered crisis after crisis since then. Anemic PlayBook sales, aworld-wide service outage, and a pair of drunk (and possibly superhuman)executives raising hell on a plane are just a few of the things that thecompany has had to weather recently, which could explain why Lazaridis andBalsillie may not be putting up much of a fight…”

DHMN Technology

40. AI willchange our relationship with tech http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16367039 “Skynet,the Terminator series computer network, was to go live in 2011 and bring theworld to an end…we have just survived 2011 without such a cataclysmic event.And the closest we got to computers achieving self-awareness was Apple's Siri.It doesn't promise self-awareness per se, but does promise to listen and tolearn - and hopefully not systematically destroy us. It seems likely that in2012 a computer will pass the Turing Test - which might get us closer to adigital machine with true artificial intelligence (AI). The irony is that mostof us will not care…the debate around human-computer engagements has moved onfrom the Turing Test and the notion of a computer that can seem human bysimulating human reasoning and interpretation…We want machines that will takecare of us, not just reason with us. We want machines that will look out for usand our interests, not ones that can parse the difference between othercomputers and computer scientists. And there are signs of such machines on thehorizon, which is good…”

41. Drone Stationlets you fly an AR.Drone using a Mac http://www.gizmag.com/drone-station-ardrone-mac-controller/20968/ “TheAR.Drone quadricopter really is quite a nifty toy ... or tool ... or whateveryou want to call it. Up until now, however, it could only be controlled by aniPhone/iPad/iPod touch, an Android smartphone, or for the people who have one,a Linux PC…folks over at Drone Apps realized that a lot more would be possibleif the aircraft could be piloted through an iMac or Macbook - most importantly,controllers such as joysticks and gamepads could be used. The result is an OS Xapplication called Drone Station…the app lets users record video or snap stillsfrom the drone's front and bottom cameras, and practice their flying skills ona simulator before sending their US$300 quadricopter skyward. The onscreendisplay also provides real-time readings on attitude, altitude, direction, andbattery level…by using an external USB WiFi dongle on their computer, users canreportedly get over three times the range possible using a mobile device.Probably the biggest selling feature, though, is the fact that pilots can usecommonly-available gaming controllers…”

42. Best of MAKE:My Ten For 2011 http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2012/01/best-of-make-my-ten-for-2011.html “I tooksome free time over the break to review the stuff I covered last year and pickout about 50 personal faves. Then I went back through that list and producedthis highly unscientific “Top 10″…Small Screw Top Capsules from Plastic BottleCaps, Necks…Lemon Hand Grenades…How-To: Ultralight Camp Pot from Heineken “Keg”Can…Scratchbuilt: M65 Atomic Cannon…Car Tire Pottery Wheel…Circuit Tree…UltraSimple 360 Degree Photo Hack…How-To: Form Fitting Case, Drawer Liners from OldT-shirts, Canned Foam…Harvard’s $14 Swarm Bot Design…Pico Projector + LightFixture + Free Code = Desktop Spherical Display…”

Open SourceHardware

43. Open-source solar PVmonitoring system http://revoltlab.com/2012/01/02/open-source-solar-pv-monitoring-system/ “Hereis the documentation for a solar PV monitoring system that’s been developed aspart of the OpenEnergyMonitor project. It’s based on Arduino and is fullyopen-source…The system monitors both generation and consumption and gives theuser a clear indication of when their household electricity demands are beingmet by their solar PV array (green light) or when their not (red light). Thewireless display also shows how much electricity is currently being exported orimported…This development is part of the actively on-going OpenEnergyMonitorproject to design and build open-source tools for the monitoring, visualizationand control of energy.”

Open Source

44. E4rat Seriously Cuts Downon Linux Boot Time With a Few Simple Commands http://lifehacker.com/5790311/e4rat-cuts-your-linux-pcs-boot-time-in-half-with-a-few-simple-commands “…Whetheryour computer already boots pretty quickly or you're trying to eke some extraspee dout of your old computer, free command line tool E4rat will seriouslydecrease your boot time…As you may know, the files on your computer are usuallyspread all over the physical drive itself. When your computer looks for thefiles it needs to boot, it usually has to scan all over the drive to find them.This takes awhile, and contributes to a good percentage of your boot time.E4rat is a tool that will log which files you access in the first two minutesof booting, put them in order on your disk, and preload them so it can read thefiles much, much quicker. The process of getting it up and running takes threesteps: collecting information about your startup, reallocating the files, andthen setting them to preload on each boot. Note that your disk needs to beformatted in Ext4 for this to work, and you don't want to do this on an SSD…”

45. Microsoft to enable Linuxon its Windows Azure cloud in 2012 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-to-enable-linux-on-its-windows-azure-cloud-in-2012/11508 “Microsoftis preparing to launch a new persistent virtual machine feature on its Azurecloud platform, enabling customers to host Linux, SharePoint and SQL Serverthere…What does this mean? Customers who want to run Windows or Linux “durably”(i.e., without losing state) in VMs on Microsoft’s Azure platform-as-a-serviceplatform will be able to do so…Microsoft has been balking at customer requeststo add persistent VMs to Azure, hoping to get customers to develop Azure appsfrom scratch instead. But the lack of the ability to host apps like SharePointand other third-party business applications with persistence was a deal breakerfor a number of business users who were unwilling to consider Azure untilMicrosoft added this support…Running Linux on Azure has been a surprisinglybig business-customer request, as well,my contacts said. Microsoft won’t be supporting Linux once the late-Marchpersistent VM CTP launches; instead, it will be up to customers to provideuploads of their own Linux images…” [so, if MS lets people run Linux onAzure without getting a “Microsoft license” to avoid the liability ofunauthorized use of Microsoft’s claimed IP related to Linux, does that weakentheir legal position vis-à-vis Android or other Linux uses? – ed.]

46. Thunderbird 9.0 Arrives http://ostatic.com/blog/thunderbird-9-0-arrives-via-mozillas-rapid-release-cycle “Mozillahas delivered the latest version 9.0 of its Thunderbird email and news client,a free and open source application that Windows, Mac and Linux users can takeadvantage of…Here are some of the enhancements in the latest version ofThunderbird…Thunderbird…is based on the Mozilla Gecko 9 engine and includesimprovements to Personas, better keyboard support for handling attachments…anda new opt-in system to send performance and usability data back to Mozilla toimprove future versions of Thunderbird…” [many people, myself included,have switching in recent years from a client email program, such as Thunderbirdor MS Outlook, to a webmail approach, such as Gmail or Yahoo mail; do you stilluse a client email program and, if so, which one? – ed.]

CivilianAerospace

47. Importantspace missions in 2012 http://www.space.com/14040-2012-spaceflight-anticipated-missions.html “…Here'sa look at the 12 most anticipated space missions of 2012: 1. First CommercialSpaceship Flights to ISS…In 2012, the first of these private vehicles is set tomake its maiden voyage to the orbiting laboratory. The Dragon space capsuledeveloped by…SpaceX is scheduled to launch atop the company's Falcon 9 rocketFeb. 7. A few days later, the craft is due to autonomously rendezvous with thespace station…the Cygnus capsule being developed by Orbital Sciences Corp…isdue to fly atop Orbital's Taurus 2 rocket in May…2. Virgin Galactic PoweredFlight…experts are hoping to see SpaceShipTwo's rocket engines ignited forflights sometime in 2012. These test flights will be a major step toward flyingspace tourists, more than 400 of whom have already paid in full…3. China'sManned Space Laboratory…This year the nation launched its first space stationtest module and conducted its first in-orbit rendezvous and docking. Thoughthese spacecraft were unmanned, Chinese astronauts are expected to fly on asubsequent docking test flight in 2012…4. NASA's GRAIL Probes Arrive at theMoon…5. LightSail-1 Launches…LightSail-1 is made of three small cube-shapedspacecraft attached to four triangular Mylar sails arranged like a kite. Thevehicle will rely on pure sunlight for propulsion…6. Dawn Probe Departs forSecond Asteroid…NASA's Dawn probe…has been in orbit around the asteroidVesta…the second-most- massive body in the asteroid belt between Mars andJupiter…In July, the $466 millionDawn spacecraft is due to…head toward thedwarf planet Ceres, the only larger body in the asteroid belt…7. CuriosityRover Arrives on Red Planet…Curiosity…is expected to land on the Red PlanetAug. 6…to search for signs that Mars is, or ever was, habitable to life…Curiosityis due to descend to the planet's surface as no vehicle has done before. NASAengineers devised a sky crane descent module that will parachute down to hoverover Mars, then lower Curiosity on tethers…8. Dream Chaser Drop Tests…Thisorbital flier is another bid to take over the task of ferrying NASA astronautsto the International Space Station…For Dream Chaser's first test flight, thespace plane will be lofted to high altitudes by Virgin Galactic'sWhiteKnightTwo mothership…to test its landing capabilities…9. Air Force SpacePlane Landing…The U.S. Air Force has a secretive spy spacecraft called X-37B inorbit right now…launched…on March 5, 2011. It is the second craft of its kind…thehush-hush is vehicle is expected to land sometime in early 2012…10. SpaceStation Gets New Additions…In May 2012, Russia will launch the NaukaMultipurpose Laboratory Module (MPLM), a new room to be added onto the spacestation's Zvezda nadir port…Nauka will house science experiments and cargo andwill be used for docking, as well as work and rest areas for the crew…the EuropeanRobotic Arm…will be attached to the Russian side of the space station to assistwith work on the station's exterior…11. Planetary Exploration Milestones…12.Permanent Human Presence in Space…the five partner space agencies behind theInternational Space Station will continue to send people to the outpost tomaintain the human presence in space that's been constant since 2000…These menand women will spend around six months each living and working in space,performing experiments in a wide range of sciences inside humanity's onlymicrogravity laboratory.”

48. Musk sayshe’ll put millions of people on Mars http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/elon-musk-says-he-will-put-millions-of.html “Muskdeclared recently that he could put a human on Mars in 10 to 20 years' time. Itis a remarkable claim, yet even more astonishingly Musk tells me that he coulddo it for $5 billion, and possibly as little as $2 billion - a snip when youconsider that the International Space Station (ISS) has cost at least $100billion to build and operate, or that $2 billion is roughly the cost oflaunching four space shuttle missions…In his Heinlein prize acceptance speech,he said he wants to put 10,000 people on Mars…a call for 10,000 would-beMartians is extraordinary, even by his standards. When I query him on thispoint, he pauses. Is he reconsidering? Yes... but, as with so much else aboutMusk, not in a predictable way. "Ultimately we don't really want 10,000people on Mars," he says, after letting the pause linger a few secondsmore. "We want millions…”

Supercomputing& GPUs

49. FortranCL: An OpenCLinterface for Fortran 90 http://gpgpu.org/2011/12/30/fortrancl “FortranCLis an interface to OpenCL from Fortran90 programs…It allows Fortran programmerto directly execute code on GPUs or other massively parallel processors. Theinterface is designed to be as close to the C OpenCL interface as possible, andit is written in native Fortran 90 with type checking. FortranCL is notcomplete yet, but it includes enough subroutines to write GPU accelerated code…”

50. Nvidia Announces Carma:Cuda ARM Development Kit http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-cuda-arm-9-tegra-3-carma,14335.html “CalledCarma, the board includes the company's Tegra 3 quad-core ARM A9 processor, aQuadro 1000M GPU with 96 cores (good for 270 single-precision GFlops), as wellas a PCIe X4 link, one Gigabit Ethernet interface, one SATA connector, threeUSB 2.0 interfaces as well as a Displayport and HDMI. Included in the package,which will be available in "limited quantities", is the CUDA toolkitand a Ubuntu Linux-based OS. Nvidia said that Carma will be shipping sometimein Q2 of next year. The developer kit is generally targeted at hardware andsoftware designers who are working on "energy-efficient computing initiatives…”

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NEW NET location for 03 Jan 2012 Mtg = Sergio's Restaurant

2012-01-02T21:07:00.001-06:00

The NEW NET (NorthEast Wisconsin Network for Entrepreneurial and Technology issues) 03 January 2012 meeting from 7 - 9 PM will be at Sergio’s Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton; backup location, Tom’s on Westhill Blvd. Come and join in the tech fun!

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