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| Posted: 11 Feb 2012 08:29 AM PST  Editor's note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him @jaltucher. I was once backstage at a news show. Six people were on a box in the screen screaming at each other about the economy. The producer was laughing. He leaned over to me and said, "the whole idea of this is to fill the time between one commercial segment and the next." Every day they want to scare me. Greece is going to suddenly disappear. Or have some sort of debt "contagion" that will spread across the Atlantic. Everyone is a "contagion" expert. Just like we were all experts on "Avian Flu". Whatever happened to that one? Did anyone die of Avian flu? Here's what happens in a newsroom. I know this because I've been in many newsrooms: Top editor/producer says: Ok. What do we have to work with? Reporter says: Well, the economy is up. Editor says: Not good enough. Reporter says: Well, radiation from a tiny island in Japan might hit San Francisco tomorrow. Editor/Producer: BINGO! And then it's all over the news. And then everyone in San Francisco gets sick from iodine pills. And then no radiation hits. And the media moves on: ECONOMY HEADING FOR PROBABLE RECESSION! No apologies. I want an apology. For me, its personal. Some economist (Mish Shedlock) wrote a blog post in 2010, "James, you are completely whacko”" because of my stance on the economy. Nouriel Roubini thought I was crazy that we weren't going into another recession (in mid 2010). Some random guy made a cartoon video "Altucher is a douchebag" a year ago because of my economic stance. The stock market is up 30% since then. No apology. Why do they make it so personal? I never in my life called anyone a "whacko". Who even says "whacko"? Isn’t it spelled “wacko”? Or "douchebag". Here's my daughters watching the "douchebag" video. I thought it would be educational for them to learn why people think their dad is a method used to clean the inside of a vagina. Entrepreneurs don't need to care about the economy. In fact, the worse the economy, the better the time it is to start a business. Because the one thing I know about every bad economic situation in the US – it always gets better. Since 1600. But, unfortunately now, the economy is on fire and is going to stay that way for awhile. Here's why, in quick bullet points: - 23 consecutive months of private sector job growth. Just an aside. I searched on Google News to track the occurrences of the words "jobless recovery" across every news source. Here's the result: In other words, after every single recession, all the newspapers spoke about a "jobless recovery". Well, we had one again. And guess what. 23 consecutive months of private sector job growth is what's called "good news".
Well, what about Greece? Yeah, I say, what about Greece. I was on TV a month ago and this came up. I said, "Greece to the Eurozone is like Rhode Island to the United States in terms of GDP." And I live 40 minutes from Rhode Island and have never set foot in it. So why should I care about some beach resort 5,000 miles away. So the response from the erudite reporter was, "but investor psychology cares about Greece." "Yeah," I said, "because of you every day blabbering about it on TV. Let's talk about Kim Kardashian instead. A much more interesting topic." So what does this all mean? Does this mean your life is going to be better because the economy is going to be better? Who knows. That's up to you to choose. Does this mean the media will start apologizing for all the misinformation? No, of course not. They will just figure out the next thing that scares you. Does this mean that I will start getting apologies. Absolutely not. I'm nobody. It does mean this: turn off the TV. Don't read the newspapers. Stop blaming the economy or Greece or "Avian Flu". Sleep 9 hours a day. And once you can ignore all of these distractions you will have the time to start a business and get rich, regardless of what the talking heads (including me) are saying about the economy. Good luck and godspeed. (Or you can also read my latest post on “How to Break out of Prison”)
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| Motorola Droid 4 Review: Initial Impressions (Video) Posted: 11 Feb 2012 07:37 AM PST Before we chat out the Droid 4 there’s a bit of other news we need to address right quick. As you’ll surely notice, we’re doing smartphone reviews a little differently now. That said, this video and my basic hands-on impressions are just the first in a three-part series reviewing the phone. Stay tuned for what comes next! Alright then, back to business… The Motorola Droid 4 has spent exactly 24 hours on shelves, and from the time I’ve spent with the phone I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s doing quite well there. If you keep up with phones you know that the Droid 4 is a big deal, the fourth in Motorola’s Droid brand (which happens to be one of the most successful Android brands we’ve seen to date), and a QWERTY-packing beast if I may say so. The thing about it, however, is that the keyboard (any physical keyboard) is becoming less and less necessary. To be clear, I think that the Droid 4 keyboard is possibly one of the best I’ve ever used. It gives a solid tactile feedback and is fairly easy to navigate. The fact that it’s backlit only adds to my infatuation. But… a combination of great auto-correct and Swype nearly makes that keyboard useless. I understand that back in the day typing on a touchscreen was super annoying, since the auto-correct wasn’t quite up to snuff. That’s not really the case anymore, and I almost feel like anyone who insists on a physical QWERTY is doing so simply because they’re so used to it. Truth be told the transition can be tough from QWERTY to soft keys, but Swype can make that transition a lot easier and you’ll ultimately be much faster in the typing department. Still, for those of you who demand QWERTY-style satisfaction, I can’t recommend a better handset than the Droid 4. The 4-inch screen compliments the size and weight of the phone perfectly, and it honestly doesn’t feel that much smaller than the 4.3-inch Razr display. Watching movies and playing games is still just as great, in terms of size, but it only made me feel “eh” in terms of quality. Sure, it’s plenty bright and pixel-dense, but it doesn’t have the wow factor of these 720p displays we’re seeing lately. I didn’t experience any serious issues with the phone in terms of performance, and it would seem that 1GB of RAM combined with that 1.2GHz dual-core processor can handle basic tasks and multitasking just fine. At the same time, I’ve only spent about 24 hours with it, so things may change with heavier testing. As you can see in the video, the Droid 4 looks much more like the Razr or Razr Maxx than it does its other Droid family members. I almost wish that Kevlar fiber casing was along for the ride, too, but that might ruin one of the best things about the Droid 4: its $199.99 price tag from Verizon. We’ll be hitting you with more on the Droid 4 as the week progresses, so stay tuned for the rest of our review. Note: I mistakenly stated in the video that the Droid 4 runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, when it in fact runs Android 2.3.6. My apologies.
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| Patience is a Virtue, for Losers Posted: 11 Feb 2012 07:15 AM PST  Editor's note: Contributor Ashkan Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of WatchMojo. Follow him @ashkan. Patience is one of the seven virtues, the lesser-known cousins of the seven sins. And indeed, "patience is a virtue" – or so goes the saying. But another saying states that "fortune favors the bold." So which one is it? Well, here's the thing. Yes, life is a marathon, but whether you define success by recognition, respect, money, power or fame – success is subjective, relative and fluid and boils down to Ambition, Vision, Determination, Execution, Luck and Timing. In other words, success doesn't fall in your lap; never has, never will. Besides, life’s too short, so don’t sit back. "I haven't got a lot of patience", Jeffrey Katzenberg It's not that patience isn't valued; it's that no one else is actually all that patient. Whether you are growing a business or chasing a girl or trying to lose weight or auditioning on American Idol, no one will sit around and wait for results. They will be impatient. This doesn't mean you should be impatient, it just means that in the words of George Jackson: "Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice." Success is Most Definitely a Target, Albeit a Moving One Regardless of what drives you and how you define it, people care about the outcome of your efforts and not the journey; frankly, the experience you gain throughout your journey is really only of value to you. But since we have limited needs but infinite wants, we tend to compete with everybody for the spoils. As such, if you think that you will be rewarded for your patience, you're a sucker, and will end up a loser. This Ain't The Super Bowl It's commonplace to use sports analogies in business, I do it all the time. But whereas in sports you compete with one or multiple individuals or teams, in business you ultimately compete against yourself: Apple really didn't care that much about Research In Motion's Blackberry. Once you venture into a business, you need to put enough points on the board and then manage the clock (told you I liked sports analogies). To do that you need to get ahead. People who Preach Patience are Patronizing You "We are telling the American people to have patience, courage, resolve and determination" Muammar Gaddafi. Oftentimes those who urge you to remain patient are in fact patronizing you. As football coach Steve Spurrier said: "If people like you too much, it's probably because they're beating you". Be honest: how often has someone you looked up to told you that if you basically sat on your ambition and dreams they'd eventually open doors for you. How often did they deliver? Let me jog your memory: never. If they did, it's because you posed no threat to them. You will be successful despite those people, not because of them. Life is a Big Game of Musical Chairs All of this Tony Robbins-esque talk is nice, but how does it help you: If you're working on a product, don't wait for perfection. "Perfection is the enemy of The Good". Even that messiah of perfection and attention to detail, Steve Jobs, reminded everyone that “real artists ship". So did Mark Zuckerberg: Stay Focused, Keep Shipping. If you see an opening for a job, don't sit still. No one will pull you aside and offer you the gig. Go for it. No one will think any lesser of you for going after the ball. They'll respect you, albeit reluctantly. Don’t wait to close that round of funding before tackling the big opportunities you see; make it happen to the best of your abilities. Now, A Word of Caution 1) Balance is everything in life. Too much impatience never helped anyone. I can list 100 quotes to that effect. 2) Shortcuts get a bad rep, but they're there for a reason. Those who fail to take advantage of them are in fact, ironically, lazy or unimaginative. 3) Nothing replaces tact, dignity, respect and diplomacy. It's fine to press the pedal to the metal, but treat people the way you want to be treated. 4) Wearing your ambition on your sleeve is a recipe to get cut off at the knees; hence the Russian quote "The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe". 5) If you're perceived as too brazen and ballsy then you won't even know whose butt you should kiss since no one will give you the time of day to start off with. 6) Reduced patience only means heightened risk. You can score by moving down the field 10-yards at a time or throwing a Hail Mary. Clearly, one comes with more danger. 7) Nothing can replace preparation and practice. The Paradox of Patience Of course, patience is in itself not static. For example,
When it's over and done: if you want to end up in a better position than where you started, then burn the playbook they give you and write you own. Photo credit: Nicolò Paternoster
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| Posted: 11 Feb 2012 01:00 AM PST  Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: Android Hack Exposes Google Wallet PIN On Demand Review: Benarus Megalodon Diving Watch
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| Instagram Just Gave You One Less Reason To Use Camera+ Posted: 10 Feb 2012 11:59 PM PST  Photosharing app Instagram went through a subtle redesign this afternoon. In addition to the brand new “Sierra” filter, Notifications improvements and a UI/UX refresh where the feed, popular, share and news buttons have all been divorced of their copy and are now just streamlined symbols, the company has added the “Lux” feature. Lux, denoted by an eclipse symbol in the bottom left hand corner of the app’s image edit dashboard, is basically an adjustment of image brightness, midtone contrast and saturation in order to bring out the details in an iPhone photo — sort of like what iPhone HDR wishes it was. Those of you familiar with iPhone photography might be familiar with the basic premise of Lux (boost midtones) as you’ve probably already been using it in another popular app, Camera+ I downloaded the $1.99 Camera+ app a couple months ago just so I could use this much-lauded “Clarity” feature, which, if you’re the type of person who likes to impress your friends with your iPhone “photography” skills, was the secret first step in the process of creating a successful Instagram post, basically … 1) Open Camera+ 2) Use Clarity. 3) Save photo to Camera. 4) Open Instagram. 5) Upload photo from Camera. 6) Use filter. 7) Post. 8) Revel in the Likes. Instagram Lux saves users steps 1 through 3 — Which is huge (and brings things to a level playing field for those of you that And just you wait until Instagram starts letting people rotate their photos! Or comes to Android even! In the meantime iOS users can find Instagram in the App Store here.
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| Zynga Marketing Master Padma Rao Joins Foundation Capital As An Entrepreneur In Residence Posted: 10 Feb 2012 06:31 PM PST  Padma Rao’s analytical marketing skills have made a big impact at more than one company in the Bay Area, and now she’s bringing a decade of experiences to her new role as an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital. Her most recent efforts helped turn a gaming startup into a booming public company. Few people realized it at the time, but in late 2008 and early 2009 social game developer Zynga had figured out how to get a great return on investment from Facebook advertising. The social network had developed its ad system over the previous few years to the point that it was able to deliver ads closely targeted to users’ interests — but most people hadn’t realized that yet, so prices were cheap. Rao joined Zynga at the beginning of 2009 to help lead the development of its marketing platform. An engineer by training, she took a look at the few third-party ad bidding tools available for Facebook and decided the company needed to build its own. She did the same for its user email system. The market timing turned out to be perfect. Zynga had also just figured out how to monetize casual-style simulation games, and in quick succession over the course of the year, it launched hits like FarmVille, Café World, PetVille and FishVille. As I detailed in this December article, the inexpensive growth it got via ads and social communication features during this period brought it up to traffic levels that it has worked hard to pass even today. “I like having the technical chops to understand what needs to happen and why — and to understand why something might take a long time,” she tells me. “It makes a big difference, especially in online marketing, which is actually a very technical business. Having that background has saved me more than once… my approach is, if a tool doesn’t exist, we’ll build it.” Zynga wasn’t the first place she’s done this. During a three year stint at Gap earlier last decade, she discovered that getting results from direct marketing were taking up to two and a half weeks. So she created a tool that would deliver results in 30 minutes. “This didn’t just mean faster results, it meant iterating faster, it changed the business” she explains. “It’s all about getting the right tools for people.” She’s becoming an EIR for the same reason a lot of other product people do, including her new Foundation EIR colleague and former Twitter product head Anamitra Banerji. “I’ve had my head down working at companies,” she says, “and I’ve never taken the opportunity to see everything that’s out there.” So what is she working on at Foundation? She’s actually already been doing some consulting work with social browser Rockmelt and other startups already. But she’s far from deciding whether to join or found. “I want to stay on the consumer side of things, and obviously mobile is fascinating — there’s lots of functionality that’s not probably not leveraged like it could be…. My dream is to start something, but I don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it. If I find something great that someone else has started, I’m not going to ignore that because ‘I want to be a founder.’”
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| Busta Rhymes Waxes Enthusiastic On Google Music Posted: 10 Feb 2012 05:56 PM PST  When Google Music launched a couple months ago, there was some criticism regarding how the service was promoted. What many saw as just another music locker and streaming service (albeit a perfectly good and free one) others saw as a great new vector for music sales and distribution. But the music locker portion seemed to hog the spotlight, and the cool Band Camp-esque new artist hubs lurked in the gloom. Busta Rhymes seems to be a fan of the latter, and not just because he’s in an official partnership. In an interview on MTV, he was positively effusive about Google’s new platform. Check out the short clip, from MTV’s Sucka Free: I think he’s being truthful when he says that “with that power that they have, that it was almost blasphemous for them to not have their hands in music as well.” Google, via YouTube, is the world’s foremost player in video distribution on the web (though as far as purchased content goes, Netflix is king). One almost wonders why music didn’t come first. In case you were wondering that, the reason is that the user-focused structure of YouTube makes it a platform for viral videos and self-expression, not studio-produced content. They’ve been trying to change that, but it hasn’t been very effective (people don’t think of YouTube that way, for good reaosn). Google Music lets them start fresh and try to build something that works both from the top down and the bottom up. So whether they “sign” guys like Busta or a dude recording on an 8-track in his living room, they can provide an end-to-end buying, listening, and sharing solution. “Google ain’t really trying to just sell music” is about as capsule-sized a summary as you can get, and it’s true. Google hates selling things, in fact. And in the music world, it might be that in a few years, selling things like music tracks just won’t be something you do, and Google will have positioned itself well to be a non-purchase solution.
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| Whale Hunting: Facebook Hooks 1st-Time Buyers With $5 Of Game Credits For $1 Posted: 10 Feb 2012 05:16 PM PST  Only about 5% Facebook gamers pay to play freemium games. If Facebook could up this percentage, it and its third-party app developers could make a lot more money. That’s the idea behind a new promotion Facebook announced today where those who’ve never bought Facebook Credits virtual currency before will be offered $4 in free Credits when they buy $1. This gets users to set up their credit card and experience the rush of paying for an enhanced gaming experience. Years ago when Facebook first launched its Credits virtual currency, it offered free Credits to some users. While this might have got them hooked on spending virtual currency, it didn’t addict them to paying for it. Facebook needs credit card numbers badly. Apple has amassed an enormous collection after 10 years of iTunes Mp3 sales, which is now helping it easily sell apps and in-app purchases. If Facebook wants to grow its revenue to satisfy outside investors and be a competitive mobile gaming platform, it needs to get users ready to pay. But like the street corner pusher says, “this ain’t no charity”. Facebook is only surfacing the promotion in sidebar ads, and TrialPay in-game promotions and offer walls to those who haven’t already bought Credits. User than have to set up a credit card or connect a PayPal account and pay $1 to get the extra $4, or 40 Credits. And next time, they’ll have to pay full price. Facebook wisely does not provide any way to reach the promotion directly in order to deter users from trying to cheat their way to free currency. If you want to claim your own free Credits, your best bet is to play games by clients of Facebook’s official offers partner TrialPay, such as those by Playfish, Playdom, Kabam, Crowdstar, and iWin. These include The Sims Social, Gardens of Time, It Girl, and Kingdoms of Camelot. Then visit the offer wall or click through Deal Spot signs within games. With any luck, Facebook will be able to up the percentage of users who monetize, and thereby discover new whales — gamers who spend orders of magnitude more than the average payer and drive the bottom lines of both indie developers and giants like Zynga. Call him Ishmael…Zuckerberg. [Image Credit: Screenrant]
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| Kickstarter’s Big Day: $1.6M Pledged In 24 Hours Posted: 10 Feb 2012 03:15 PM PST  They say when it rains, it pours. That’s not usually a good thing, but when it’s raining money, things are a little different. That was the case at Kickstarter yesterday, where they had their biggest day of funding ever, beating the record set… the day before yesterday. It was also the day that marked the first Kickstarter project to break $1,000,000 in funding. And the day that marked the second project to hit that number. And New York’s city council endorsed the site as a way to highlight community projects that need funding. Oh, and they’re on Portlandia. Definitely the biggest day in the site’s history, then. They’ve commemorated it with a great blog post that might just make your Friday a little better. It also brings up a few new and interesting questions regarding how the site should or will be used. But first, watch the Portlandia clip: Double Fine, whose adventure game drove much of the funding sum (and is up to nearly $1.5M alone as of this writing), is different from many projects we’ve seen. Often Kickstarter is thought of as a venue for people with very limited means but a good idea to execute that idea. The Elevate Dock is a good example of this. But Double Fine is an established game studio with office space, employees, and many products under its belt? Why should it go to Kickstarter? Well, Tim Schafer explains that in the video, at least for this project: no publisher would go near a point and click adventure game, but they knew at least some people wanted it. Reasonable enough. The question, really, is why we even question it. If people want to make something, and people want to fund it, why shouldn’t it be on Kickstarter? The easy stuff — cool accessories or small devices that need a little capital to get started — are just the first wave. Why not pothole repair on a neighborhood street? Why not a new coffee shop? Why not a feature film? Some of these have been tried, no doubt, and perhaps failed — but the principle is sound. If you want to make it, and others want you to make it, this is a way for you to connect. Congratulations to the Kickstarter, Elevation Dock, and Double Fine teams. Great way to end the week.
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| Look Out AT&T Customers, Your Upgrade Fee Doubles On Sunday Posted: 10 Feb 2012 03:03 PM PST  If you're an AT&T customer coming off of a contract and looking to snap up a new phone, you should probably get on that right now. According to an AT&T memo obtained by BGR, AT&T will be raising their device upgrade fee from $18 to $36 as of February 12, which means you've got until Sunday to swap phones before your first post-upgrade bill gets even bigger. The memo states that the fee hike is needed because "the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased." In AT&T's defense, it's a fee that's most people will only have to deal with once every two years or so, but the additional cost is unlikely to please customers. They're also not the only big carrier that has had to hike up their fees — Sprint made the transition to a $36 upgrade fee this past September. But still, AT&T doubling their upgrade fee is a puzzling move when their biggest rival (Verizon) still doesn't charge one at all. Strangely, the part of the memo that BGR has released doesn't mention anything about a cap like the one Sprint offers, so it's possible that families and groups looking to upgrade en masse could really get stung here. And here's a question worth thinking about: what will the consumers have to say? Verizon Wireless got a very public earful when it was discovered that they planned to charge customers a $2 "convenience fee" whenever they used a credit card to make an online or over-the-phone bill payment. After one day, public pressure and scrutiny from the FCC forced Verizon to kill the plan in its tracks. Given enough exposure, AT&T customer may be inclined to lash out in a similar way. Hopefully this move doesn't inspire Verizon to try something similar. We’ve seen it happen before: Verizon killed their unlimited data plans one year after AT&T did, and AT&T began requiring data packages for messaging phones not long after Verizon implemented the idea.
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| New Hybrid Solar Cells Harness More Of The Sun’s Light Spectrum Posted: 10 Feb 2012 01:38 PM PST  Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK have found a way to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells by as much as 25% through harnessing more of the sun’s spectrum than most traditional silicon-based solar cells can. The new design, developed at the university’s Cavendish Laboratory in the Department of Physics, can absorb both red and blue light, and generates electrons from photons at a two-to-one ratio on the blue light spectrum. Most current solar cells lose blue photon energy as heat, leaving them unable to turn more than about 34% of the sunlight they absorb into power. The team, led by professors Neil Greenham and Sir Richard Friend, recently published results in a paper. The hybrid cells have an added organic semiconductor called pentacene, which helps harness blue light energy to strengthen the electrical current coming from the cell, making the product up to 44% efficient. The university’s team also innovated on how the cells are made, by producing the cells in bulk using a roll-to-roll printing technique. While cheaper, more efficient photovoltaics sound promising, there remain hurdles to be overcome. The greatest costs in building a solar power plant are installation hardware, labor and land, so a cheaper solar cell is only a piece of the puzzle.
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| StartX Demo Day: A Direct Link Between Silicon Valley And Top Stanford Student Entrepreneurs Posted: 10 Feb 2012 01:28 PM PST  On the surface, the StartX Demo Day last night could have looked like any other accelerator pushing its latest class of startups. Nine groups got on stage and fired off presentations about how they were working on something cool, and why they deserved funding. But it wasn’t the rash of lightweight consumer applications you often see at other demo days. These were Stanford students, particularly technical graduate students, who have been nerding out on solving real problems for years in their labs and dorm rooms, and who are now in the middle of commercializing their hard work. Big-name investors from around Silicon Valley unsurprisingly showed up to check them out. Before I get into the companies, which ran the gamut from health care to batteries to professional networking, it’s important to understand what StartX is. It’s the non-profit accelerator arm of Stanford Student Enterprises, which is a student-run, independent organization that handles a variety of stores, directories, financial services and other businesses for students. SSE is the business branch of the student government, and it’s independent enough from the university that StartX companies get maximum freedom. They own their own intellectual property, and neither StartX/SSE nor any other entity takes any equity. The only requirements are that at least one cofounder of each applying company needs to have enrolled at Stanford within the last three academic quarters before the application period, and that person needs to own significant equity. The program is young — it started in 2010 and this is its fifth class. but it’s on the right track. The energy in the room was what you feel at that rare tech event where everyone present knows they’re getting in early on something big. We’ll no doubt be covering many of the presenting companies in more detail over the coming months, but here’s a quick look at each, in the order they presented: MindSumo: Employers want to find smart students with skills and interests that they can develop. The problem is that student resumes are normally skimpy on this information because, well, students have mostly been in school and not the workforce. MindSumo’s answer: partner with employers to create “challenges,” or sets of questions for students to answer. For example, Recology, a large recycling and trash disposal company, is currently asking “What can you do or make with glass (A LOT of it)? Propose three alternate uses for recycled glass so that we can use our resources in an innovative way and keep them from landfill!” Currently in private beta, MindSumo has already been running challenges for seven companies (some of whom are paying), with 500 or so Stanford students participating. AgeTak: Health care data is currently separated across insurers and health care providers, which makes it hard for doctors to do comprehensive analysis of diseases and other conditions. AgeTak uses distributed databases to combine, anonymize and get user consent for data sharing. Founder Pratik Verma, who recently got his PhD in computation chemistry from Stanford, is on a personal mission here. His father passed away in 2010 from nerve cell disease ALS, which has no known causes or cures. His father’s only option was to participate in extensive clinical trials over the years, in the hopes that doctors would make breakthroughs by discovering trends among those afflicted. But, as Pratik discovered, data from patients was not being shared by researchers because it was siloed at institutions, and held back by privacy concerns. Through AgeTak, the anonymized and aggregated data can be used by analysts, researchers, physicians and pharmaceutical companies. Insurance giant United Health is already using it for a drug claims database, and OptumHealth is using it to offer graphs that show consumers how their health care costs stack up against the average. AgeTak has already made $3.7 million in revenue; it’s headquartered in Minnesota with offices in Menlo Park and India. Check out this recent writeup by Barb Darrow at GigaOm for more details. Zoku: If you’re trying to build a network — let’s say, to help with your new startup — you want to know who out there is doing something relevant to your needs. But it can be hard sorting through all the noise on Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites to spot the key people and activities. Zoku lets you combine your email and social networking contacts, then pick out people and actions that you want to keep track of. It uses algorithms to filter for what you care about, then shows you the signals – people who are visiting town, changing jobs, or doing anything else relevant to what you might need to get done — in a dashboard on its site. Vi Energy: In what looks like the most ambitious technical idea out of all the presentations, Vi Energy is developing a new kind of rechargeable battery that promises to be three times cheaper and last 50% longer than anything on the market today. Over the past twenty years, lithium ion batteries have dominated, but they can be unsafe, have relatively weak capacity, and are expensive. As a mature technology, there’s only marginal improvements to be had from them. Sister-cofounders Meghali and Sonali Chopra have, with the support of top scientific researchers, already created a pilot battery that uses significantly cheaper raw materials, can be easily synthesized, and has a unique spherical morphology with conductive codings for better performance. Their lab tests already show that the new battery lasts longer than the lithium ion ones on the market today. Breakthrough: This online mental health treatment startup has been featured before — on stage at TechCrunch 50 (Disrupt) back in 2009. It uses secure video and chat features to help people connect with professionals to get the help they need privately and immediately. As Leena noted before, clients can search for providers (including psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses) on a variety of criteria, including price, speciality (i.e. depression, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder), and gender. On a provider's page you can see his or her education, experience, pricing for services, the insurance the professional accepts, and even a video introduction of the provider explaining his or her specialities. BreakThrough certifies all providers are credentialed professionals. TipTopMed: How much will a trip to the doctor’s cost? How much, in particular, if you don’t have a good insurance plan? That’s a question more and more Americans are asking themselves — that TipTopMed is trying to answer. Its site will show local providers, and include information about them like the upfront price, and other details about provider specialties. Users can then book an appointment, and pay online. Providers — mostly small and medium-sized businesses — want this because they lose lots of money on patients who can’t or don’t pay. The site is launching at the end of this month, and will feature a proprietary database of Bay Area health care professionals. Smit’s Crew: The only entertainment-oriented startup out of the mix, it offers a web site and mobile app that lets venue owners (bars, clubs, etc.) create a type of loyalty program for regular patrons. The app lets customers receive advance notifications of discounts and other deals, particularly on slow nights, then buy them immediately. They then go to the establishment and show the waiter or bartender the purchase; because payment has been received, the food and drinks can be delivered immediately, without the hassle of trying to pay with cash or credit card at, say, a packed bar. Even more importantly, the app lets owners keep track of which people are visiting the most regularly and buying the most — this allows them to figure out who they should focus on providing the best service to. The “crew” concept lets customers group themselves together around specific establishments, so the venue can provide group discounts if they show up. There were also two more health care startups that presented, but they haven’t publicly launched yet so I won’t be including them here. All in all, as you can see, this is a serious bunch of companies, that are interested in solving hard real-world problems. Venture firms and law offices in Silicon Valley have sensed the opportunity to get in early, and they’ve rallied behind the effort. VC supporters, who provide dollars and mentorship, include Benchmark Capital, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Greylock Partners. Legal backers are Cooley LLP, Fenwick & West LLP, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Goodwin Proctor, and Orrick. Resource partners include Amazon Web Services, First Republic Bank, Fog Creek Software, Github, Rackspace and Usabilla. And even that distant global media and advertising conglomerate that owns TechCrunch is involved, it turns out, because it provides office space and other material support. So time for a Full Disclosure: I didn’t even know AOL was involved until I got to the event this afternoon — but good job, whoever made that call at my parent company. I also attended Stanford as an undergraduate, and while I have a variety of feelings about my alma mater, I generally expect a lot out of its graduates — maybe this connection is one reason I think StartX is pretty great? On the other hand, I worked at a key campus competitor to SSE, The Stanford Daily student-run newspaper. So maybe I’m biased against SSE and so my biases all equal themselves out….
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| The Government Wants To Build An App Store For Real-Life Jack Bauers Posted: 10 Feb 2012 01:19 PM PST  The US Department of Defense Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit is look for a few good coders to help build apps and an entire app store for bomb technicians and soldiers involved in ordnance handling. This is when sliding to unlock could mean the difference between life or death. The request for proposals is as dull as dirt (you can read it here) but the requirements are clear: they’re looking for apps that will replace paper pocket guides and references used by the folks that blow up the big badda booms. If you’re interested the funding can run as high as $750,000 and $1,250,000, according to an engineer familiar with the proceedings and all you have to do is ensure the product is encrypted and password protected and that it involves lots of cool, wire-frame graphics so it looks like all of those computer programs used by hackers in the movies. Develop a Smartphone Software Applications (Apps) and distribution system and procedures (known commercially as an App Store) or individual Apps for Joint Service EOD and/or public safety bomb technicians that would provide immediate access to required technical and tactical information and preclude the need to carry paper pocket guides and reference material on site. The application distribution system or individual Apps shall be accessible to all EOD and/or Bomb Squad personnel to view and/or download information as needed and must be compatible with one or more major operating systems of commercially available smart devices (e.g., Android, Apple, Blackberry, etc.). This developed Joint Service EOD distribution system shall adhere to military regulations for distribution of unclassified but limited distribution information. The Apps shall be encrypted (e.g., AES-256) and password-protected or otherwise controlled for limited access to only bomb squad and EOD technicians. A requirements analysis shall be conducted to determine the most feasible and effective method for conversion of existing and future publications and system oversight, including information access, password issuance, and periodic updates of publications. The deadline is March 9, 2012, so get cracking. Don’t keep the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office waiting.
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| Gillmor Gang Live 02.10.12 (TCTV) Posted: 10 Feb 2012 01:00 PM PST |
| Air Force Could Buy Thousands Of iPads And Android Tablets Posted: 10 Feb 2012 12:41 PM PST  The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command will be putting in a request for the purchase of a number of tablets soon in an effort to lighten their pilots’ loads. Many commercial airlines are already taking this step, and American Airlines has already gotten FAA approval. The Air Force is feeling the sting of jealousy, and in consequence may be requesting as many as 18,000 devices. The number could also be as low as 63; the Command was not forthcoming on this point. The lower number would probably indicate a pilot program, so to speak, for a few devices, to determine which should get the big order. Which tablet would actually be ordered is also not specified. Bloomberg cannily plays up the iPad angle in its report (U.S. Air Force May Buy 18,000 Apple IPad 2s), but the spokesperson they talked to, Captain Ferrero, said the request might also be for Playbooks, Galaxy Tabs, Xooms, or Nooks. If these were to be general-purpose tablets, this little menagerie would be hard to winnow down. But the fact is they are going to be used as virtual flight bags, and the iPad is the only one that has the thousands of hours in the air that the Air Force will require. In a year, maybe, Android tablets will have a little more experience under their belts, but for now it’s probably safe to say that any tablets purchased by the government for the purpose of being electronic flight bags are going to be iPads. Eventually, these platform issues will have to be settled, though: if part of the military is going with Android for security purposes, and others are going with iOS for EFB and, say, general communication, there’s going to be a reckoning sooner or later.
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| Posted: 10 Feb 2012 12:30 PM PST  Rumors of a 7- to 7.85-inch iPad have been swirling around for a long while now. We’ve seen reports get killed moments after they initially break, only to be sneakily resurrected weeks or months later. The rumor simply won’t die. The problem, however, is that this one in particular is a tough nut to crack. When you take all the evidence both for and against a little iPad, you’re still left with no real conclusion. So conclusion aside, here are some of the reasons Apple may, or may not, introduce the little iPad: For:The greatest threat to Apple’s iPad is the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire. It retails at about $300 less than the iPad, sports a solid browser, has access to plenty of Android apps, and is a great hub for any and all of Amazon’s media content. It also happens to be a 7-inch tablet. Should Apple choose to offer a smaller iPad at a lower price (which the market would most certainly demand), it could snatch back the market share Amazon’s stolen in the past few months. Gaming on tablets is big, but too big a tablet ruins the fun. According to numbers out of comScore in November, 2011, gaming topped the list of entertainment activities on a tablet, beating out watching video and listening to music, with 67 percent of owners gaming at least once a month, and 23 percent playing daily. That said, Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad isn’t what I’d call the best for gaming. Graphics and display quality are top-notch, to be sure, but holding the device for very long — especially stretching that thumb around the edge — can be incredibly tiring. Despite the fact that it has failed me considerably, I still prefer playing games on my 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook, even if there aren’t many games to choose from. Most smaller Android tablets use a widescreen aspect ratio, leaving a dead zone in the middle of the screen that’s mostly untouchable. The iPad 2 sports a 4:3 screen, which makes even the 10-inch model full touchable. A 7-incher would only be that much better, with greater pixel density and a lighter, easier feel in the hand. Apple is kind of obsessive when it comes to “thin and light,” and a smaller iPad would also mean a thinner iPad. See, if Apple were to build a smaller iPad, chances are it’d be built using the normal screen assembly technology that allows for the iPad 2′s incredibly thin profile. However, a smaller iPad/screen means a smaller battery, which usually takes up a solid chunk of space under the hood. Less screen means less power needed for backlighting it, which inevitably takes us back to a smaller battery. Thin and light! Thin and light! Thin and light! Amazon may release a 9-inch Fire… Why not fight Fire with fire? The word right now is that Amazon has plans to release a 9-inch Fire to compete with the iPad. While, like the 7-inch Fire, it probably won’t have all the capabilities of the iPad, a larger Fire will still retail at a (much?) lower price point than its competitor. For people who mostly browse the web, read, email, and Facebook/Twitter, a lower price point will be more than enough incentive to venture away from the iPad. To be clear, it’s not like Apple’s in some dire position. Cupertino still dominates the market with a 58 percent share as of January, 2012. But that’s down 10 percent from the previous quarter, while analysts claim that 40 percent of Android’s 39 percent share in the tablet market are attributable to the Nook Tablet and the Fire. It’s undeniable: Apple is slowly but steadily losing share to Android, most notably the Fire, and what better way to steal it back then by launching a 7-incher right in Amazon’s face? AgainstThe most notable and evidential reason why Apple wouldn’t release a little iPad is because Steve Jobs said so. In an earnings call in October of 2010, Jobs said that “7-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with the iPad. These are among the reasons that the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA — dead on arrival.” Jim Dalrymple points out that Apple made both a 7- and a 9.7-inch iPad right at the beginning and chose to go with the bigger version, which at a first glance would indicate that it’s not going to happen. At the same time, that was a long time ago if we’re counting in tech years and it wouldn’t be the first time Jobs obliterated a product category only to announce something similar to it shortly after. Anyone remember iBooks? Why release a product to compete in a market you already own? Though its market share has fallen since its debut, Apple still absolutely dominates the tablet market right now. A 58 percent share of a market, with not one of its competitors anywhere near that share, leaves Apple with no real reason to put anything smaller in stores. I’m sure some of you will say I made an entirely contradictory point up there with Amazon grabbing share, but it’s all about perspective. Perhaps one person thinks that now is the time to plug up any leaky market share dribbling into Amazon’s hands, while someone else may think that Apple should wait until it absolutely has to throw a lower-priced option into the ring. Too many choices can be a bad thing, and Apple’s well aware of this. Look at iPhone releases: one model at a time. Apple’s all about making one absolutely stellar, blow-your-mind, make-you-believe-in-magic product and selling it well. Design, sell, repeat. Tablets are meant to be simple, easy-to-use products. It’s not like a PC, where users have to review list after list of specs and configurations before figuring out what fits. Some companies, like Samsung, want to stretch across every category of the tablet market with different spec’d and sized models under a shared brand. One of the iPads greatest advantages is being the iPad, rather than an iPad Lite, or an iPad Air, or whatever. It would be a deviation from Apple’s current strategy and over-arching mission statement of “Keep it simple, stupid” if they were to start switching things up now. So… Will Apple release a 7-inch iPad? Truth be told, your guess is as good as mine, but it would seem that there are advantages in either case.
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| I Wanna Be On The StartupBus…So Freakin’ Bad (Video) Posted: 10 Feb 2012 12:14 PM PST Just a little candy to kick off your weekend: Looking to get its state on the StartupBus radar, a group of Lousiana’s innovators met with founder Elias Bizannes this week for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber's February Innovation Take-Out. After Bizannes’ presentation (which he concluded by announcing the first Louisiana StartupBus!), the members of the local tech community unveiled this parody video: “I Wanna Be On The Startup Bus.” And yeah, it’s pretty cute, guys. Plus, it’s always good to see the excitement for building startups outside NY and the Valley. If the song sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Here’s the source. The video was also blasted on a big screen in the middle of downtown Baton Rouge. StartupBus, for those of you unfamiliar, is the combo hackathon/road trip started by Elias Bizannes nearly three years ago which heads out to SXSW. The group doubled the number of events it’s running in 2012. This year, there will be a maximum of twelve buses, including those that run from San Francisco, New York, L.A., Cleveland and Tampa, plus whichever others get voted in here. Can someone transcribe those lyrics, by the way? Because that part about TechCrunch sounds pretty weird to me. UPDATE: Got the lyrics! I wanna be on the Startup Bus so frickin bad [Chorus] Yeah I would be like Zuckerberg [Chorus] Oh oooh oh oooh When I’m on the Startup Bus
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| VEVO CEO Tries To Explain Their Hypocritical Act Of Piracy At Sundance Posted: 10 Feb 2012 11:54 AM PST  Yesterday I reported on a bizarre incident I witnessed at Sundance last month: VEVO, the music portal owned by some of the biggest record labels in the US, had a pirated NFL playoff game playing on screens throughout its ‘PowerStation’ venue. The incident was immensely hypocritical, given that VEVO is owned in part by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment (with EMI licensing its content to the service) — the same music labels that have made a habit of attacking consumers over alleged acts of piracy. Now VEVO CEO Rio Caraeff has written a post to the VEVO blog, where he tries to explain what happened. In it, he writes that the game was accessed and streamed by a guest of the event without VEVO’s knowledge.
I don’t have any proof to indicate that what Caraeff writes is incorrect, but I’m raising my eyebrow at this explanation. The game was playing the entire time I was at the PowerStation — this wasn’t just a brief blip — and it was playing on several screens, so it was hard to miss, too. After all, one of the key aims of this event was to feature VEVO videos, it wasn’t as if these screens were hidden in a corner. Likewise, this wasn’t a case of someone launching the stream and walking away — I saw the mouse cursor appear onscreen at least twice, and someone was pretty clearly doing their best to make sure it was watchable. That said, as you can see toward the end of the video below at around 1:39, the computer was potentially accessible to non-employees. But it was hardly inviting, and I have a hard time believing a random guest could just commandeer the computer without any employees noticing. In any case, imagine what the music industry would say were it on the other side of this. Is there any doubt it would dismiss these explanations and, lawsuits in hand, cry foul over such an overt act of piracy? Furthermore, this seems no different than an accused pirate explaining that they left their Wifi open, only to have it used by someone else to download content illegally. Which happens to be a defense the RIAA has previously fought vigilantly against, when it sought to make owners of ISP accounts liable for any infringing activity, even if the owner had no knowledge of it. Hypocrisy, indeed. Below you’ll find Caraeff’s whole post.
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| New Android App Lets You Flashback To The Arcades Of Yesteryear Posted: 10 Feb 2012 11:50 AM PST  The arcade scene here in the United States is but a fraction of what it was back in its heyday, but that doesn’t mean that the love for those classic games has just evaporated. Capcom’s CPS2 arcade board has attained legend status in certain retro gaming circles because of its catalog of instant classics, and a developer named Cpasjuste has just given those games a new lease on life with a new CPS2 emulator for Android. Before we go any further, know that I’m not here to debate the legality of possessing ROMs — it’s been a sticking point for the emulation community for years. Suffice it to say that CPSEmu was capable of running every retro shooter and beat-em-up I loaded onto my Galaxy Nexus (purely for testing purposes) without so much as a hiccup. Your mileage may vary there though, as some people have noted some issues with crashing on devices like the Asus Transformer. If you do decide to indulge your inner arcade junkie, just know that getting a feel for the controls will take a little getting used to. The arrows on the d-pad seem thin and easy to miss while in the heat of battle, while the on-screen action buttons are just a bit too small for my tastes. Of course, as useful as CPSEmu is, it doesn’t do much to make you feel like you’re slinging quarters in a poorly-lit arcade of yore. Those of you looking for a more authentic experience while playing Super Street Fighter II on your Android tab may want to turn down the lights and crank up one of these amazing Arcade Ambience tracks — it’ll be 1993 again before you know it. Developer Cpasjuste has made the emulator available for free on the xda forums, but feel free to show your support for his work by buying the app from the Android Market for a hair under $4.
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| 2011 API Trends: Government APIs Quintuple; Facebook, Google, Twitter Most Popular Posted: 10 Feb 2012 11:21 AM PST  Online directory of APIs and mashups, ProgrammableWeb, just hit a big milestone this week: 5,000 APIs listed. The site has a long history of tracking the API landscape, starting with the launch of its directory back in 2005, five years after eBay created the first web API. Not surprisingly, big names like Google, Facebook and Twitter are now leading the way in terms of sheer numbers of APIs offered, usage, and popularity. Among developers tracking APIs on the site, Facebook now has the most popular API, and it’s followed by Google Maps and Twitter. However, according to ProgrammableWeb executive editor Adam DuVander, there were some new trends spotted among the last 1,000 APIs added to the directory, too, including an increasing number of government APIs becoming available. Of the 231 government APIs now listed in ProgrammableWeb’s directory, over half have been added in the last four months. While 2009-2010 has often been heralded as the time when government began embracing transparency, that was mainly true in terms of opening up access to gigs of data, sometimes simply in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. It wasn’t until 2011 that governments really began making that data available through programmatic means, explains DuVander. Notably, he mentions how New York City's annual Big Apps contest added an API in 2011. Plus, the NYC Open Data API now gives access to over 750 public datasets. And the San Francisco Ethics Commission Lobbyist API is part of a law requiring transparency of lobbyist disclosure statements, something ProgrammableWeb calls the first ethics API. Elsewhere in the world, platforms like Socrata and CKAN have also made it easier to access public data. There were just 28 government APIs listed on the site in 2010, but in 2011, there were 130. So while the number of APIs has doubled over the past year, government APIs have nearly quintupled. While government APIs are trending upward, also retaining their popularity are two other top categories: Internet and Social. There are 500 Internet APIs found on the site, including many cloud and platform-as-a-service APIs. There are also now almost 600 social APIs, a category which saw 35% growth over the past year. Meanwhile, the site serves up 96 Google APIs, 8 Facebook APIs, Twitter’s 3 official APIs and the 100+ derived APIs, referring to the trend of creating new APIs from Twitter data, like the Klout API and Topsy API, for example. Most APIs are REST, but SOAP is still popular in the enterprise. ProgrammableWeb says it expects to hit a couple more 1,000 API milestones in 2012. At some point, every company will have an API, DuVander believes. “Think back to the web of 1995. There were plenty of companies without websites. Very quickly, all these companies realized they needed to have a website to compete,” he says. “We have seen the same thing with social media and that is the way APIs are headed.”
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