Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Feds Requiring 'Black Boxes' in All Motor Vehicles | Threat Level | Wired.com

  • Federal regulators are proposing that new automobiles sold in the United States after September 2014 come equipped with black boxes, so-called “event data recorders” that chronicle everything from how fast a vehicle was traveling, the number of passengers and even a car’s location.

• Venture Capital to Suppress Its Appetite for Risk in 2013 - WSJ.com

  • Internet entrepreneurs have had the upper hand over venture capitalists in recent years but that balance of power is now showing some signs of shifting, a trend that could accelerate in 2013.

• The Baby Boom and Financial Doom - TIME

  • In 1900, 1 in 25 Americans was over the age of 65. In 2030, just 18 years from now, 1 in 5 Americans will be over 65. We will be a nation that looks like Florida. Because we have a large array of programs that provide guaranteed benefits to the elderly, this has huge budgetary implications. In 1960 there were about five working Americans for every retiree. By 2025, there will be just over two workers per retiree.

• Web Stocks Sink on State Rules as E-House Jumps: China Overnight - Bloomberg

  • he Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s lawmaking body, will decide this week on proposed legislation that would require Web users to register their real names to gain Internet access, the Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The People’s Daily newspaper, published by the ruling Communist Party, has featured during the past week front-page editorials calling for more regulation of the Web, saying the “chaotic Internet” needs to be controlled

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Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Windows Firefox stiffs Adobe Flash, plays H.264 YouTube vids • The Register

  • Mozilla is averse to proprietary codecs because they're typically buried under patents and require a licensing fee. By using the video support built into the operating system, the open-source browser maker can sidestep these constraints.
  • The organisation had hoped patent-free codecs, such as Google’s VP8, would succeed at the expense of H.264 on the web, but that hasn’t happened. Google bought VP8 in 2009 as WebM from On2 Technologies for $124.6m and released it under a royalty-free licence in May 2010.
  • As Firefox on Android gained support for the codec, Mozilla chief technology officer Brendan Eich wrote at the time: “H.264 is absolutely required right now to compete on mobile. I do not believe that we can reject H.264 content in Firefox on Android or in B2G and survive the shift to mobile.

• Kleiner Partners' View of the Future of Tech - WSJ.com

  • The biggest single trend is urbanization, people moving from rural to urban areas. And if they urbanize the way we did—they can't, the planet can't afford it. Our green investing doesn't depend on government policies. It's about basic supply and demand.

• Facebook Preps to Bring Video Ads to News Feed | Digital - Advertising Age

  • Facebook is set to unveil a new video-ad product in the first half of next year in its largest attempt to date to attract big swaths of ad dollars from TV advertisers, according to several industry executives who have been briefed on the company's plans over the past few weeks
  • In what's sure to be a controversial move, the visual component of the Facebook video ads will start playing automatically -- a dynamic known as "autoplay" -- according to two of the executives.

• Star Scientific to stop making tobacco products - Yahoo! Finance

  • Dissolvable tobacco is finely milled tobacco pressed into shapes like tablets that slowly dissolve in a user's mouth. They are gaining the attention of tobacco companies looking to offset a decline in cigarette use as smokers face tax hikes, growing health concerns, smoking bans and social stigma

• What Instagram's New Terms of Service Mean for You - NYTimes.com

  • Instagram released an updated version of its privacy policy and terms of service on Monday, and they include lengthy stipulations on how photographs uploaded by users may be used by Instagram and its parent company, Facebook
  • The potentially lucrative move will let advertisers in Facebook’s ad network use data and information that users have shared on Instagram, like details about favorite places, bands, restaurants or hobbies, to better target ads at those users
  • Instagram will also be able to use your photographs and identity in advertisements. “You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you,” the new terms say. This means that photographs uploaded to Instagram could end up in an advertisement on the service or on Facebook. In addition, someone who doesn’t use Instagram could end up in an advertisement if they have their photograph snapped and shared on the service by a friend.
  • the company says ads will not necessarily be labeled as ads.

• IT News Online > - - Frost & Sullivan: Life Sciences Organizations Cannot Afford to Miss the "Next Big Thing"

  • New analysis from Frost & Sullivan's (http://www.healthcare.frost.com) Global Life Sciences Trends and Opportunities research finds that the industry consists of several billion dollar markets totaling $1.35 trillion in 2012, which is anticipated to reach $5.01 trillion in 2015.  This global life sciences analysis discusses three technologies with "bench to bedside" potential, including next-generation sequencing, microRNA and digital polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

• Below the Surface | asymco

  • Early data shows that the PC market has not experienced a “pop” from Windows 8. Market watchers have been anticipating this pop since every previous version of Windows has led to a surge in shipments. PC vendors have also been hoping for this to lift their volumes. Volumes have been stagnant for a while, as the following chart shows:

     

  • The question is whether Microsoft will be successful in shifting to this new computing model? Microsoft’s problem is not that it has difficulty offering an operating system for tablets. The problem is that the economics of both systems and application software on tablets is destructive to its margins.
  • The problem for Microsoft is that pricing systems software at $50 and a suite of apps at $67 for a tablet that costs $200 to the end-user is prohibitive.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Disruptive Energy Technology: GTL Promises Gas Revolution

  • But the disruptive technology is not LNG. The disruptive technology converts natural gas to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Yes, it is possible to make gasoline from natural gas.
  • GTL may also work in the United States. Indiana-based Calumet Specialty Products Partners recently announced plans to build a 1,000 barrel per day GTL plant in Karnes City, PA
  • Natural gas has the potential to transform North America. If supplies of natural gas are as plentiful as experts suggest, energy independence is achievable. Not only can the nation become energy independent, it can export surplus natural gas and distillate products to other nations

• Press Release: Boeing - Neah Power Systems Collaboration

  • Neah Power Systems, Inc. (OTCBB:NPWZ) announced today that The Boeing Company is exploring areas of collaboration to deploy our patented, award winning PowerChip^TM technology to various distributed power sources on Boeing’s current and future airplane and ground systems
  • he current trend in the aircraft industry is the “More Electric Aircraft” (MEA), which focuses on replacing mechanical and hydraulic systems with electrical systems to accommodate ever increasing power requirements. In a letter to our company, a representative of Boeing Commercial Airplanes states “One of the key technologies that Boeing is evaluating for future airplanes are fuel cell systems used for the generation of airplane electrical power
  • We believe that Neah’s technology will help Boeing achieve the objective of greener airplanes in the future. The development of a fuel cell system meeting Boeing’s requirements is a crucial step toward proving the potential for successful deployment of this technology. Boeing would work with Neah on the prototypes for internal validation, developing and engineering the air-worthiness of the system, various certifications needed, and system integration with airplane and ground applications.”

• Stockwatch

  • Destiny Media Technologies Inc., in response to a lawsuit it faces from Richard Angus Bruce McDonald's Noramco Capital Corp., blames Noramco for an 11-year campaign to aggressively manipulate its stock downward. According to Destiny, Mr. McDonald took a naked short position in 2000 as he was negotiating a private placement with Destiny, and in the ensuing 11 years has continued to exert downward pressure on the stock
  • It then began an "aggressive and secret campaign" to push down the stock through naked shorting and other unspecified methods. It continued to short the company as a means of keeping the price down so it could defer or avoid having to cover its naked short positions at a loss, the response states.
  • While Destiny provides no details of the 11-year campaign (it says that information is well known to Noramco and Mr. McDonald) it claims that the campaign continues "to this day."

• Reader

  • "In a survey of 3,000 pentamillionaires ($5 million net worth) the Harrison Group
     (HarrisonGroupInc.com) reported that almost all pentamillionaires made their fortunes in a
     big lump sum after a period of years. Worth repeating: a big lump sum, not “by saving 10% of
     his paycheck for 40 years.”
     “A big lump sum” is just another phrase for *“asset value.”* Furthermore, 80% either started their
  • So, to sum it up, asset appreciation and liquidation is the key to massive, rapid wealth creation - not passive income.
  • 
     It virtually always takes more timeto BUILD vs. BUY.
     
     This is the secret behind why large corporations buy pre-existing companies.....

• Why disc drives are an endangered species - CNN.com

  • the ability to stream music or movies on demand has made CDs and DVDs less essential.

  • CDs? There's music streaming or digital downloads. DVDs? Netflix, Amazon or a host of other online movie sites. Video games? There's digital distribution like Steam and, increasingly, downloads from the major console and game makers.

     

    "As personal cloud services become ubiquitous and broadband speeds increase, there's very little reason for many consumers to use an optical drive on their computer going forward

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Book Report: What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

  • One way to find opportunities is to take an item and list all your assumptions about it, then write all the opposites.  This is how Cirque de Soleil was created- expensive tickets, one act, small tent, no animals, etc
  • • Always act like you’re in a foreign country.  Be acutely aware of your surroundings.  Meet people everywhere you go, take interest in all people and things.

• Mass Megawatts Offers Cost Competitive Green Energy to Retail Customers - Yahoo! Finance

  • Mass Megawatts plans to leverage their knowledge of the wind power industry in their offering of competitive green power to electrical users across the Northeast. The expansion into the retail electrical market is a logical, strategic progression that diversifies their business model while improving future earnings potential. 

• Metabolix Now Shipping MveraTM B5008 Compostable Film Grade Resin - Yahoo! Finance

  • Metabolix,   Inc. (MBLX), an innovation-driven bioscience company focused on   delivering sustainable solutions for plastics, chemicals and energy,   today announced that Mvera^TM B5008, a new   certified-compostable film grade resin, is now available for shipment to   customers. Compounded in Europe for local markets and widely available   for global customers, Mvera B5008 is designed for applications including   compost bags, can liners used for organic waste, as well as shopping and   retail bags that can be reused as compostable organic waste bags.

• Headline Story | equities.com

  • Destiny Media Technologies (TSXV: DSY)  (OTCQX: DSNY) is pleased to announce that it has successfully expanded  the prototype announced August 22nd to include functionality and  features required for full commercialization.  Demo videos at http://www.clipstream.com showcase support for full screen HD on broadband, feature length  movies, instant access to any point chosen from thumbnail scenes  displayed above the seek bar and automatic adjustment of quality to  support a wide variety of environments. 

     

     The solution is much simpler than alternatives which require proprietary  streaming servers and plug-ins.  Once run through Destiny's encoder  software, the video is just dropped into any web page server and it  will play back natively on 100% of HTML 5 compliant browsers

  • The H.265 format, due out in January 2013, won't be  compatible with any existing web browser and is intended to phase out  old videos encoded in H.264. 

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• New York City replaces 250 public pay phones with iPad-like screens — Tech News and Analysis

  • “you have to give people content before you give them advertising.”

• Google wants to take on Apple with an open AirPlay alternative — Online Video News

  • Google is working on an open alternative to Apple’s AirPlay, and it’s hoping to bring a number of device and software vendors on board to provide the industry with an open technology to exchange data between second screens and TV-connected devices
  • And it’s not just about remote control functionality and beaming a video from your mobile phone to the TV we are talking about. The new protocol makes it possible for data to flow in both directions, Drayson explained, which would enable developers to build second-screen experiences that correspond to what’s happening on live TV as well. Also on the roadmap: beaming content from your laptop to your TV screen.

• How to Get Startup Ideas

  • Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.
  • The verb you want to be using with respect to startup ideas is not "think up" but "notice."
  • coming up with startup ideas is a question of seeing the obvious. That suggests how weird this process is: you're trying to see things that are obvious, and yet that you hadn't seen.
  • The next best thing to an unmet need of your own is an unmet need of someone else.
  • Make something unsexy that people will pay you for.

• Energy: The economics of global climate leadership | The Economist

  • Somewhat surprisingly, new exploration and technology—mostly the technique for obtaining unconventional oil and gas known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"—will make America a net exporter of energy within a few decades.

• Report: China 'Affluent' Population to Hit 280 Million by 2020 - China Real Time Report - WSJ

  • the total number of affluent consumers China is expected to have by 2020 – more than doubling the current total of 120 million — according to a new study by consultancy Boston Consulting Group

• Made in USA label popular in China, too: study | Reuters

  • Consumers in China are willing to pay a premium for certain products labeled "Made in USA" because they see them as more durable and of higher quality, a new study found

• Now That Nielsen Tracks Tweets, How Will That Change TV? - Forbes

  • They just said Twitter is the best place to go and buy second screen, because that’s where we’re going to measure
  • We as a network have no idea exactly how many people are talking about our programs on Facebook,
  • Real-time, or linear, viewing has been under siege since the VCR. But nothing has the potential to disrupt watching at the same time quite like on-demand viewing and streaming
  • Tablet viewing, for instance, could not only hasten time-shifting trends, but also completely change the whole condition for “second screen” watching

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Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• New WiFi protocol boosts congested wireless network throughput by 700% | ExtremeTech

  • Engineers at NC State University (NCSU) have discovered a way of boosting the throughput of busy WiFi networks by up to 700%. Perhaps most importantly, the breakthrough is purely software-based, meaning it could be rolled out to existing WiFi networks relatively easily — instantly improving the throughput and latency of the network
  • To solve this problem, NC State University has devised a scheme called WiFox. In essence, WiFox is some software that runs on a WiFi access point (i.e. it’s part of the firmware) and keeps track of the congestion level. If WiFox detects a backlog of data due to congestion, it kicks in and enables high-priority mode. In this mode, the access point gains complete control of the wireless network channel, allowing it to clear its backlog of data. Then, with the backlog clear, the network returns to normal.

• A Venture Capitalist Weighs on the Next Phase of Tech Innovation - Forbes

  • We see significant changes in a number of enterprise technologies such as cloud infrastructure, mobile, storage, software-defined networking and security.

• Republicans lost the culture war - CNN.com

  • According to a Pew Research poll taken last year, 49% of Americans age 18-29 have a positive view of socialism while just 46% have a positive view of capitalism. Such a view has roots.

• Pepsi Special Sold In Japan Claims To Block Fat « CBS Pittsburgh

  • It contains an additive called Dextrin, a fat-blocking fiber that is supposed to keep the body from absorbing fat and lower cholesterol levels. That’s a claim that the Food & Drug Administration has not yet bought.

     

    But if it does, as a marketing tool, a Pepsi drink that blocks fat could be a winner

  • “If you read some of the product claims, there’s one thing I saw that says you’ll be able to eat a piece of chocolate cake and it won’t be absorbed,
  • But a Pepsi ad in Japan suggests you can eat both pizza and hamburger – as long as you drink Pepsi Special.

• visualant_10k-15341.htm

  • Visualant’s SPM technology resides in the general marketplace for spectroscopy (measurement of light according to its spectrum) and spectrometry (the measurement of the chemical or atomic components as a function of light reflected or absorbed by them).  These analytic tools are typically fragile and expensive often costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

• Welcome to The Future: BlueBubbleLab and The Market Research of Tomorrow - Forbes

  • One of BluebubbleLab’ key product is a software that can read people’s face and describe their emotions.
  • Bluebubblelab allows companies to measure consumer reaction by analyzing their facial expressions while they test the product at their own homes or anywhere else.
  • According to Ben Van Dongen,CEO, “Our software allows us to understand people not by listening to what they tell us. It captures the reptile brain information by looking at 128 micro muscles in anyone’s face which are managed by their cortex. Our software tell us if the person likes something or not and if he is happy or sad or angry. We not only analyze the muscles but also measure heart rate, emotions, eye tracking, breathing, behavior, facial recognition, attention time, head pose, and more

• Online viewers start leaving if video doesn’t play in 2 seconds, says study — Tech News and Analysis

  • A new study reports that faster internet connections have made viewers more impatient, and that people begin abandoning videos if they don’t load within two seconds
  • the “four second rule” — the amount of time people will wait for a webpage to download.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Dear Matt Drudge: Stop the race stories - The Hill's Pundits Blog

  • "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic".  Benjamin Franklin.

• The Social Network Quotes (Page 3)

  • Harvard undergraduates believe that inventing a job is better than finding a job

• Web radio growing faster than on-demand services (study) | Internet & Media - CNET News

  • Pandora is supporting legislation that would lower the royalty rates that Web radio services pay labels and artists to play music. The music industry, which had scheduled a pow wow last night to discuss how to battle Pandora's legislation, says that the sector has been shrinking for more than a decade while Pandora's executives are banking millions. They say creators can't take any more hits.

• Mexico to reconsider joint policies with U.S. amid new state marijuana laws - Washington Times

  • A top aide to Mexico’s President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto says votes to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state will force the Mexican government to rethink its efforts at trying to halt marijuana smuggling across the Southwest border.

• The Case of the Missing White Voters | RealClearPolitics

  • In other words, if our underlying assumption -- that there are 7 million votes outstanding -- is correct, then the African-American vote only increased by about 300,000 votes, or 0.2 percent, from 2008 to 2012. The Latino vote increased by a healthier 1.7 million votes, while the “other” category increased by about 470,000 votes.

     

    This is nothing to sneeze at, but in terms of the effect on the electorate, it is dwarfed by the decline in the number of whites. Again, if our assumption about the total number of votes cast is correct, almost 7 million fewer whites voted in 2012 than in 2008.

• Judge denies Fox’s request to stop Dish’s commercial-skipping service | Ars Technica

  • Of course, Fox has the opposite view. "Dish is marketing and benefitting from an unauthorized VOD service that illegally copies Fox’s valuable programming," Fox said. The company has vowed to appeal the decision

• MasterCard rolls out credit card with display and keypad | Crave - CNET

  • Next time you get a new card from your bank, don't be surprised if it has a keypad and an LCD on it. 

    Meet MasterCard's new "Display Card," which basically combines the usual credit/debit or ATM card with an authentication token. The authentication portion features a touch-sensitive keypad and LCD display -- hence the name "Display Card" -- for reflecting a one-time password (OTP). 

• Ink of the Week Merriam

  • I think one of the pros said this year, "If you have to ask why, you'll never understand." I think that's so true about IRONMAN. You will never understand the draw, the feeling of accomplishment, the pain and the true reasons each athlete strives for this until you've been through it. 

• Will Obama Harsh Colorado's Historic Marijuana Legalization? - Forbes

  • The implications for Colorado are serious. Economically, it could both bolster the already legal medical marijuana industry and do damage to the illicit dealer. It could also lead to a tourist boon, the likes of which Colorado has not known since the chairlift.

• Machine-To-Machine 'Internet Of Things' Gaining Steam - Investors.com

  • M2M in buildings, for example, could integrate security, maintenance, electrical and water systems for better management. In the home, M2M technology could help consumers efficiently control and optimize usage of appliances, electrical and water systems. In health care, the technology could monitor patients wearing implantable monitoring devices no matter where they may be

• October, 2012: The Month That Your Smartphone and Four Other Technologies Officially Started To Die - Forbes

  • In record numbers, people are doing their work on laptops and devices that have never been touched by an employee at Microsoft or Intel.  We all knew this was going to happen.  And now we have proof.  So much for the good old days of the Microsoft-Intel alliance.
  • Urban Outfitters, a major retailer, announced that it will no longer have cash registers in its stores, instead equipping salespeople with iPod Touches and self-service iPads for their customers.

• http://xml.10kwizard.com/filing_raw.php?repo=tenk&ipage=8544715

  • Future devices embedded with ChromaID technology can read and record natural chromatic markers by structuring light onto a substance, through a liquid or gas, or off a surface. Once scanned, the technology captures the reflected light in a simple Photodiode and provides a unique ChromaID profile. The ChromaID profile can be matched against existing databases to identify, detect, or diagnosis markers invisible to the human eye

• Measuring your metabolism - Health - Fitness - Smart Fitness | NBC News

  • But now there are other options for determining how fast or slow your engine's running. Two high-tech gadgets available at many health clubs and weight-loss centers promise to give you a more accurate assessment. One is called BodyGem and the other is New Leaf. With both, you breathe into a mouthpiece or face mask that determines your body’s exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide while at rest. The devices then spit out your individualized RMR, which Bryant and other experts say is more accurate than the mathematical formulas.

     

    The RMR figure can then be used, along with estimates of how much energy you burn each day through physical activity and how many calories you ingest, to tailor-make a fitness and diet plan — how much more you need to exercise and how much less you need to eat —to help you achieve your weight-loss and fitness goals.

• How to Measure Your Metabolic Rate - For Dummies

  • Many methods exist for calculating your metabolic rate, but one of the best ways to get an accurate measurement of it is to use equipment that measures your resting metabolic rate (similar to your BMR) by examining your oxygen input and carbon dioxide output. Several hand-held devices are available today for the public, but these can be cost prohibitive and not completely accurate.

• WELCH: US Energy Bigger Than Internet - Business Insider

  • Talking about shale gas, Welch said:

     

    We have a chance in this country to make this the American century. This gas thing is huge. The gas and oil that we have found is in the first inning. It's like the internet in 1990. We're in the first inning of a great American century

• CLYW Message Board | CALYPSO WIRELESS Stock - Yahoo! Finance

  • My wag is that after we win the trial (remember, the jury has to find just one of 30 patent features have been infringed), is a pps of $1.50, after Daic's 28% and receiver's percent (15%?). Then, we sell the patent. Estimated sale value: $1.5 billion. Final pps after expenses and creditors paid, $3.50 - $8.00

• CLYW Message Board | CALYPSO WIRELESS Stock - Yahoo! Finance

  • CLYW shareholders are thus in the unique position of all or nothing. If TM wins the 2013 case, shareholders get nothing for their years of investing and waiting. If CLYW wins and then sells the patent, CLYW shareholders will have their lives completely changed by an insane return of dollars on pennies spent on the shares. The stock cannot be traded on the market anymore but can, of course, be bought and sold privately.

• Romney offers a real alternative to Obama, Bush and the whole New Deal sexy state circus – Telegraph Blogs

  • The creation of a warfare/welfare state consensus under both Republicans and Democrats lumbered the federal government with crippling levels of debt. Using the tax code to buy off segments of the population shrivelled income, while liberalism’s language of class war made it hard to build a consensus for reform.
  • In 2012, Obama is the candidate of the warfare/welfare establishment that has dominated American politics for eighty years.
  • Romney offers an alternative not only to Obama but also to Bush. He offers an alternative to whole New Deal, big spending, debt hiking, contraception distributing, sexy state circus
  • The Romney/Paul ticket seems to have grasped that America simply cannot continue the way it is going. In a globalised world, smaller government is more competitive and more competitive is more beautiful.

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Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Visualant Wins Fourth Patent on ChromaID Technology Using Exclusive Spectral Pattern Matching Technique - Yahoo! Finance

  • Future devices embedded with ChromaID technology can read and record natural chromatic markers by structuring light onto a substance, through a liquid or gas, or off a surface. Once scanned, the technology captures the reflected light in a simple Photodiode and provides a unique ChromaID profile. The ChromaID profile can be matched against existing databases to identify, detect, or diagnosis markers invisible to the human eye.
  • Visualant Founder and CEO Ron Erickson believes ChromaID technology will usher in new angles to protect consumer products, currencies, pharmaceuticals, and a wide variety of products by bringing the power of spectral analysis from the lab and into the field. Erickson states, "Our technology adds another authentication layer to tools used by government and industrial entities who grapple with the identification and security challenges that impact our society at large.
  • The patented technology is disruptive, making it possible to effectively conduct analyses in the field that could only previously be performed by large and expensive lab--based tests.

• Why I’m voting for Romney - NYPOST.com

  • Reader Harold Theurer reports a new disease, writing: “Obama is talking about the ‘big things’ like ‘Romnesia.’ Well, every time I think of four more years of him, I get Obamitosis, which is a really bad taste in my mouth.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Apple removes Java from all OS X Web browsers | Ars Technica

  • Apple stopped including pre-installed versions of Java in OS X and instead gives users the option to install the framework. More recently, Apple issued an update that turns off Java in the browser when users haven't used it recently.

• Summary of MGT CAPITAL INVESTMENTS INC - Yahoo! Finance

  • The Company has agreed to register all shares of Common Stock underlying the Preferred Shares and the Warrant under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") pursuant to the registration right agreement attached hereto as Exhibit 10.4 (the "Registration Rights Agreement"). On October 26, 2012, the transaction was approval by the NYSE MKT

• The Markets Are Open: Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to remove Java from the Macintosh operating systems

  • Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to remove Java from the Macintosh operating systems 

     

     

     

     

     

     
     

     The newest updates of the Macintosh operating system will make sure that all the versions of Java be removed from the system. Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) made this announcement on Friday. Apple, on the official support site revealed that Java script will be removed from their native operating systems, since experts have recently discovered that the Java bugs help attackers infiltrate the security of the system and get information. This discovery was made in August, when the experts had conducted the experiment by launching attacks through the bugs found in Java. They were successful.

• Apple removing Java from users' Web browsers on security concerns - San Jose Mercury News

  • Apple (AAPL) is removing old versions of Oracle's (ORCL) Java software from Internet browsers on the computers of its customers when they install the latest update to its Mac operating system.

  • Apple is implementing that change in the wake of a Java

    ---

    Advertisement

    ---

    security scare that prompted some security experts to caution computer users to only use Java on an as-needed basis.

    Security experts in Europe discovered Java bugs in late August that hackers had exploited to launch attacks. It took Oracle several days to release an update to Java to correct those flaws.

    Adam Gowdiak, a researcher with Polish security firm Security Explorations, said on Friday that he has since found two new security bugs in Java that continue to make computers vulnerable to attack.

• DRM on 3D Printers is a Big Deal. Nathan Myhrvold's Patent is Not. | Public Knowledge

  • DRM is a generic term for a suite of technologies that, in theory, allow people to control how others use digital information.  DRM is usually applied to things protected by copyright (like movies on DVD) in the hopes of preventing unauthorized copying.
    
    DRM is problematic for many reasons, but two are particularly relevant to this discussion.  First, almost by definition, DRM cripples the functionality of devices or programs, making them defective by design.  As applied to 3D printing, DRM could transform a general purpose tool capable of making anything into a specialized tool that can only be used to create a handful of pre-approved items.  Such a transition at this point could cripple the growth of consumer 3D printing

• A Bandwidth Breakthrough - Technology Review

  • Academic researchers have improved wireless bandwidth by an order of magnitude—not by adding base stations, tapping more spectrum, or cranking up transmitter wattage, but by using algebra to banish the network-clogging task of resending dropped packets
  • If the technology works in large-scale deployments as expected, it could help forestall a spectrum crunch

• TransTech Systems to Demo Groundbreaking Visualant ChromaID(TM) Technology at ISC East Exhibition - Financial and Business News - MENAFN

  • The new Cyclops 6 demonstrates the power of the Visualant ChromaID(TM) technology, which reads, records and analyzes invisible chromatic identifiers in gases, liquids, solids and surfaces. The technology promises to spawn a new wave of consumer and industrial applications replacing old spectral analysis techniques found in expensive science labs and making them more accessible to people in the field

• TransTech Systems to Demo Groundbreaking Visualant ChromaID(TM) Technology at ISC East Exhibition - Yahoo! Finance

  • technology, which reads, records and analyzes invisible chromatic identifiers in gases, liquids, solids and surfaces. The technology promises to spawn a new wave of consumer and industrial applications replacing old spectral analysis techniques found in expensive science labs and making them more accessible to people in the field

• Jeff Bezos: The Smart People Change Their Minds | TechCrunch

  • The people who are right a lot often change their minds. Bezos said he doesn’t think consistency of thought as a particularly positive trait. It’s better, even healthier in fact, to have an idea that contradicts one you had before.

     

    The smart people constantly revise their understandings of a matter. They reconsider problems they thought they had solved. They are open to new points of view, new information, and challenges to their own ways of thinking.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Instagram Grows 850% and Tops Twitter in Mobile Users - Techvibes.com

  • Mobile video should continue to prove its worth for platforms like Instagram that won’t have to include any existing company’s video player. There won’t have to be a Vimeo, YouTube, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player for starters

  • Another technology called Clipstream, Destiny’s streaming media technology, enables a single video file to play on all devices. It comes at a 90% lower bandwidth cost and there is no need for a player.

     

    Videos will “just play” in browsers, mobile and Internet alike with no need for player plug-ins. Firefox recently came out with a mobile browser that thus far represents 1% of the marke

• Together, HTML5 and DRM can take out native apps | VentureBeat

  • • For Consumers (all of us): (a) Hope there’s an app for your mobile platform (b) If you have devices operating on different platforms, you need to purchase the app for each platform (c) Hope the app is specifically designed for your phone and tablet.
     

  • The only thing holding back HTML5 from killing native apps is DRM
  • but the ironic thing is that every video delivered through native apps is not Flash-based
  • but you know what’s missing from its current form? Video.
  • few sites outside of YouTube have worked some back-end magic to ensure you can watch what you want when you want it. Ever visit your favorite site on an iPad only to see a black box where you could swear there should be a video? It sucks.
  • • Native Apps fill the Void: Nobody supports Flash on mobile. Not Apple or Microsoft or Android … and soon not even Adobe. Flash on mobile is a dying technology. If you want to watch videos from your favorite places like Hulu, HBO, or even TMZ, then don’t go into the web browser, visit the app store and download the native app.
     

  • And therein lies the rub: if you want to watch videos on your mobile, download the app. The reason? Within native apps, the video content can be protected. Of course, if you get the app, you’re tied to your device (iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.). This is where DRM comes in handy for the ecosystem

  • Yes, there are some who believe DRM in any form goes against the very idea of HTML5. This ideal forces them to make a decision: Either believe that a video-less mobile web world can win or understand that consumers want the good stuff and to get it, it needs to be protected.

     

• MasterCard Selling Your Data Just in Time for the Holidays | Wired Business | Wired.com

  • MasterCard is packaging its transaction data — your transaction data — and selling it to advertisers.
  • When a consumer swipes a credit card in a store, she says MasterCard’s data-packaging division receives information about the date, time, amount and merchant. By aggregating that data and comparing it to its deep well of historical data on spending patterns, Grossman says MasterCard can then divide up consumers into millions of audience “segments

• Amazon's Next Big Business Is Selling You | Wired Business | Wired.com

  • In a digital economy where some of the internet’s biggest companies and the country’s richest people have built their fortunes on the ability to more precisely target ads, one company sits on a trove of data it has barely started to exploit. In internet advertising-speak, visitors to Amazon.com are further down the purchasing funnel than visitors to Google or Facebook. “
  • I think Amazon is just starting to scale the use of shopper data in its advertiser offerings,”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• The Triathlon Execution Magic of Riding Steady, Part I: What is Steady? | Endurance Nation

  • Remember that the metabolic cost of watts increases exponentially, not linearly. There is a BIG price to pay, later in the day, for stepping on the gas like this.
  • Also, resistance increases exponentially with wind speed.

• Visualant(TM) and Sumitomo Precision Products Co., Ltd. Unveils Highly-Disruptive Prototypes at JIMA in Japan - Yahoo! Finance

  • expected to spawn a new wave of consumer and industrial applications bringing the benefits of Visualant Spectral Pattern Matching(TM) (SPM) techniques found in expensive science labs to people in the field
  • Visualant's ChromaID(TM) technology, which reads, records and analyzes invisible chromatic identifiers in gases, liquids, solids and surfaces
  • Our vision is to bring the power of science into the hands of people when and where they need them most," said Ron Erickson, Chief Executive Officer of Visualant

• Five Mental Steps to Achieving a Breakthrough Triathlon Performance | Endurance Nation

  • Race day is about how you drive that vehicle the race distance and across the finishline. All the fitness in the world can’t help you if you don’t know how to drive it properly!
  • as race distance increases, the chance of failure on the run increases dramatically
  • the last quarter to third of the distance, as this is when early pacing and other mistakes will begin to express themselves

• Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril - Jennifer Waters's Consumer Confidential - MarketWatch

  • At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.

  • Under the doctrine, which the Supreme Court has recognized since 1908, you can resell your stuff without worry because the copyright holder only had control over the first sale.   

     

        Put simply, though Apple Inc.      /quotes/zigman/68270/quotes/nls/aapl AAPL  -2.13%        has the copyright on the iPhone and Mark Owen has it on the book “No Easy Day,” you can still sell your copies to whomever you please whenever you want without retribution.   

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Let's Play the Digital Music Dating Game | Wired Business | Wired.com

  • Microsoft is probably in talks to buy Rdio, the music streaming service, according to The Next Web. The deal is just a rumor at this point, but one that raises an important point about the future of media: Tech’s biggest players are now deeply interested in streaming music
  • Beyond the purported Microsoft talks, there are older reports about Apple planning an online radio service and Apple and Google talking about buying Spotify, a streaming internet jukebox. After years of ignoring digital music, and years more focused on digital downloads and lockers, it seems the big names in high technology have finally come around to caring about streaming services

• Deezer Has Reportedly Raised $130m - The Next Web

  • French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting that music streaming service Deezer has raised €100m ($130m) in funding from Access Industries, the company that owns Warner Music Group.
  • The news comes at an interesting time for music streaming services. Spotify is growing fast but struggling to make money due to a huge royalties bill, while we’ve heard word that Rdio is in talks to sell to Microsoft.

• Destiny Media Announces Japanese Watermarking Patent - Yahoo! Finance

  • This novel technique embeds an inaudible digital trace or watermark into the content and this trace survives duplication, filtering, down sampling and conversion into other formats, including non digital ones such as an over the air broadcast. Unlike competing watermarking solutions, it is faster to embed or detect and it is extremely robust without affecting audio quality.  The company is not aware of anything similar and believes this technology has strong commercial value and that this technology could be widely licensed directly outside of other Destiny products
  • Destiny also has a patented locking technology, Digital Media Distribution Method and System (7466823) that is compatible with peer to peer networks, but still locks content to only play on authorized computing devices. These patented solutions give the content owner the choice of locking content, so it can't be copied or allowing copies, but protecting those copies with a watermark to identify unauthorized duplication.
  • An advanced pre-release demo is anticipated later this month

• Obama and Romney to face real lie detector during debate | The Daily Caller

  • A spokesman for the group Americans for Limited Government told The Daily Caller on Wednesday they have contracted with a company to use new truth detecting technology to determine whether either candidate is lying during the debate.

     

    “For the first time, within a few hours of a political debate, the American people will know if the candidates are telling the truth, and better be able to judge what promises are real, and which ones are nothing more than political pandering,” Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government said.

     

    The conservative-leaning group says they hope to release the results from Voice Analysis Technology within three hours of the debate.

• The Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers: Greening Chicago's Skyline With Committed Owners, Innovative Technology and Two Very Smart Guys in the Basement | Rebecca Stanfield's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

  • Ryan and Jim have been working with a company called Telkonet to install motion sensing thermostats in every single one of the 1214 rooms in the hotel.  It’s a simple concept, but it is making a huge energy savings impact at the hotel.   Rather than keeping all of the rooms at a comfortable 72 degrees at all times, why not just heat and cool the rooms that are occupied?  This simple change will lower the hotel’s electric bills by more than $150,000 per year.

  • Here’s how it works.  If a room isn’t even reserved for the day, the system allows the room to go on “deep setback.”  Once a guest checks in, the thermostat automatically resets and the room is comfortable by the time the guest reaches it.  When a guest leaves the room for a meeting or sightseeing, the temperature will be allowed to drift just to the point that it could be brought back to that ideal temperature within 15 minutes.  The system is automatically notified when you check out of the room, so that it can go back into deep setback. 

     

    “It seems so simple, but it’s an enormous improvement in our ability to manage our energy use and costs,” said Egan.   

• The polls show a race that is still up for grabs - Right Turn - The Washington Post

  • So what do we really know? Obama is doing worse, much worse in some cases, in every swing state than he did in 2008. Consider that he won Colorado in 2008 by nine points, Wisconsin by almost 14 points and Nevada by 12.5 percent.. So it’s not 2008. Obama is doing worse than four years ago. Romney is doing much better than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

     

• Rumor: Google Wants To Acquire Facial Recognition Startup Viewdle For $30M | TechCrunch

  • There is clearly a lot of interested in facial recognition startups right now.

• Facebook's new pitch to brand advertisers: forget about clicks | Reuters

  • Fewer than 1 percent of in-store sales tied to brand advertising campaigns on Facebook come from people who clicked on an ad

• Google Passes Microsoft’s Market Value as PC Loses to Web - Bloomberg

  • Google Inc. (GOOG) has surpassed Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to become the world’s second-largest technology company as computing over the Internet reduces demand for software installed on desktop machines.
  • reflects the ascension of the Internet as the delivery channel for more of the software and computing tasks that were once left to the Microsoft-dominated PC industry

• Facebook wants 'Like' button to be exempt from child privacy laws | Internet & Media - CNET News

  • Facebook also argued that a "Like" on the social network is free speech and that eliminating teens' access to the button would be a violation of their constitutional rights
  • COPPA requires Web sites obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children younger than 13.

• 3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine From Desktop Gunsmith | Danger Room | Wired.com

  • desktop-manufacturing company Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer rented out for Wiki Weapon, the internet project lead by Wilson and dedicated to sharing open-source blueprints for 3-D printed guns. Stratasys even sent a team to seize the printer from Wilson’s home.
  • Stratasys’s legal counsel wrote back: “It is the policy of Stratasys not to knowingly allow its printers to be used for illegal purposes. Therefore, please be advised that your lease of the Stratasys uPrint SE is cancelled at this time and Stratasys is making arrangements to pick up the printer,” stated the lette

• More Mobile News Consumers Choosing Web Over Apps - Forbes

  • More and more, tablet computer users are choosing browsers over apps for their digital news delivery
  • Nearly three-quarters of those who favor apps are iPad users
  • that disparity suggests that momentum will continue to swing in favor of the browser

• Internet-Media Employment Fuels Digital Job Growth | Media - Advertising Age

  • Internet media this year became the media industry's second-largest employment sector, according to Ad Age DataCenter's analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data

  • Employment at U.S. internet-media businesses in July passed staffing in broadcast TV. Internet-media employment earlier passed magazines, radio and cable TV. 

     The only U.S. media sector with more employees: newspapers

• New Tracking Frontier: Your License Plates - WSJ.com

  • The rise of license-plate tracking is a case study in how storing and studying people's everyday activities, even the seemingly mundane, has become the default rather than the exception. Cellphone-location data, online searches, credit-card purchases, social-network comments and more are gathered, mixed-and-matched, and stored in vast databases.
  • License-plate databases contain revealing information about people's locations. Police can generally obtain it without a judge's approval. By comparison, prosecutors typically get a court order to install GPS trackers on people's cars or to track people's location via cellphone
  • a professor at George Mason University, did a study in 2010 estimating that about 37% of large police departments were using plate readers. "It's one of the most rapidly diffusing technologies that I've ever seen

• Romney's Challenge: He Is Already the Incumbent

  • The nation will face a fiscal cliff on January 1, and Obama’s plan if he wins is to force tax hikes that may cover some of the gap in the short term but will hurt everyone in the long term through slow economic growth.
  • A Romney loss also means America will have accepted persistent high unemployment and slow growth as the new normal, creating a lost generation and destroying both our entitlement system and our future prosperity. It means Israel will likely be forced to go to war, and likely on its own, against Iran. It means the Supreme Court will be liberal, for at least a generation, as the far-left fulfills its wish to transform our “living Constitution.

• Drop in Ohio voter registration, especially in Dem strongholds, mirrors nationwide trend | Fox News

  • An August study by the left-leaning think tank Third Way showed that the Democratic voter registration decline in eight key swing states outnumbered the Republican decline by a 10-to-one ratio

• Facebook: Federal online privacy rules would violate free speech rights - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

  • Facebook is warning the Federal Trade Commission that its proposed update to children's online privacy rules would infringe constitutionally protected free speech rights.

     The company said that because the proposal would restrict the ability of children to "like," comment on or recommend websites, it would violate the First Amendment

  • The proposal would also ban ads on children's websites from installing tracking files, known as cookies, on users' computers. Advertisers install cookies to track users' browsing history and display targeted ads to them.

     The update would allow sites that are aimed at children and adults to create a log-in page for users to reveal whether they are older than 13. Users younger than 13 would still be able to access the sites, but the sites would face restrictions on the use of the children's information.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.