Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• The Future Role of the Car and the Rise of New Mobility Business Models - PR Newswire - The Sacramento Bee

  • The world is currently witnessing a paradigm shift in mobility. Car companies are increasingly labelling themselves as mobility service providers, getting into new business models such as car sharing and providing on-demand solutions.
  • technological advancements lead to increasingly smart, integrated, intelligent transport networks, aimed at reducing emissions, accidents, and congestion in particular, while the automotive industry witnesses considerable growth regarding the connectivity of cars

• Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America | Planet Money

  • In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled.
  • There's no diagnosis called disability.
  • back pain, mental illness -- are among the fastest growing causes of disability.
  • Part of the reason our unemployment rates have been low, until recently, is that a lot of people who would have trouble finding jobs are on a different program."
  • Once people go onto disability, they almost never go back to work
  • Two-thirds of all kids on the program today have been diagnosed with mental or intellectual problems
  • Daytime TV in many places is full of ads from lawyers who promise to fight the government and win the disability benefits you deserve
  • Somewhere around 30 years ago, the economy started changing in some fundamental ways. There are now millions of Americans who do not have the skills or education to make it in this country.

• Govt. Spends More on Disability than Food Stamps, Welfare Combined

  • The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it does on food stamps and welfare combined; America’s two largest disability programs, including health care for disabled workers, costs taxpayers $260 billion a year
  • As of 2011, 33.8% of newly diagnosed disabled workers cited “back pain and other musculoskeletal problems” as their reason for being unable to work.  In 1961, the top reason for being disabled was “heart disease, stroke”
  • Joffe-Walt says disability has “become a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills.”

• The real breakthrough of Google Glass: controlling the internet of things - The Washington Post

  • his week the folks at Engadget dug up a patent around Google Glass using wireless connectivity to control connected devices in your home. The glasses could use any number of wireless methods — from RFID, to infrared, to Bluetooth to QR codes — to identify a connected device that could be manipulated, and then, presumably, to manipulate it
  • Essentially you’d just be moving the control function from the cell phone touch screen and your fingertips to the screen in front of your eye and either a facial gesture or hand movement

• What, exactly, WiFiSLAM is, and why Apple acquired it - The Next Web

  • The typical accuracy of GPS when it’s performing well is around 10 meters, points out Huang. This means almost nothing when it comes to traveling down a road in a car, but 10 meters vertically in a building could mean a difference of 6 floors.
  • WiFiSLAM uses a combination of various methods to get better indoor locations. Obviously, WiFi and cell tower trilateration doesn’t work indoors. Instead, WiFi signals can be measured by any device to get an approximate location. In order for that location to be accurate, though, you have to use WiFi fingerprinting to get an idea of what the materials and construction of a particular building are going to do to WiFi signals. Enough scans in one place and you’ll have an accurate profile of a building that can be used to make a map.
  • The SLAM acronym? That stands for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This encompasses WiFiSLAM’s way of gathering location and mapping information without recording any data at all and pairing with more traditional methods. To do this they record ‘trajectories’ from sensors on the phone including the accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers.

• Apple's first quarter of negative income growth since 2003 - Apple 2.0 -Fortune Tech

  • for the first time in a decade Apple (AAPL) will report that its income this quarter was lower than the same quarter the year before
  • it's what analysts call a "tough compare" in terms of gross margins -- a measure of the efficiency with which a company turns revenue into profits.

• U.S. Senate Approves Proposed Internet Sales Tax | TechCrunch

  • An Internet sales tax is inching its way closer to being the law of the land: The U.S. Senate supported a non-binding vote of approval, 75-to-24, for a law that would allow states to collect taxes from Internet retailers. If enacted as is, it would allow states to levy taxes on some online retail purchases from businesses with over $1 million in gross receipts.

• Steve Jobs Was Wrong -- Consumers Want To Rent Their Music, Not Own It - Forbes

  • worth noting that Vevo, an on-demand music video site, is the top video publisher on the web behind YouTube and Facebook
  • The record companies did not yet have systems in place to reliably distribute digital music files and metadata
  • The buzz is that Apple will soon introduce an on-demand music streaming service as will Google and other major media and electronics companies

• Apple can now track you indoors | Fox News

  • Apple is looking to beef up the iPhone’s indoor location capabilities by acquiring WiFiSlam.
  • Using Wi-Fi signals, WiFiSlam determines a user’s location within buildings, which has implications for shopping, advertising and social networking. According to WiFiSlam, its technology can pinpoint a smartphone with 2.5 accuracy

• Oracle Sparks The Next Wave Of M&A -- Who Will Be Acquired? - Seeking Alpha

  • Oracle is among the world's most savvy acquirers. Its 2005 takeout of PeopleSoft was the first in a wave of financially-motivated deals focused on recurring revenue.
  • we expect the other tech giants to begin accelerating their M&A activities. Accordingly, we believe the time has come for investors to reset their sights on attractive candidates.

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Device Under Skin Tells Doc You're OK (or Not) : Discovery News

  • Thanks to a tiny new medical implant, doctors of the future might be just fine with that.

     

    A team of scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne(EPFL) have developed a miniature electronic device that can be implanted under the skin to provide immediate analysis of substances found in blood.

• The Future of Retail: How Mobile Payments Are Changing the Retail Experience

  • NFC is available on only a few dozen phones—meaning it is in few consumer hands—and it is not on iPhone," reports MainStreet.com. "Nor is it, as far as anyone knows, on the iPhone roadmap for near-term deployment. Merchant adoption of NFC readers also has lagged, with only a handful of national retailers (and few local stores) offering the capability. Even if you have an NFC phone, there is nowhere to use it to pay." This prompted Doug Aamoth of TIME to suggest "the true power of NFC lies in its ability to unlock doors without using traditional keys
  • All of a sudden the mobile phone is about to be transformed beyond a spy in your pocket to your bank, your mortgage lender and your landlord,"
  • In a way, it's kind of a privacy tipping point, because one single device knows wherever you go, your geographic history, your social media connections and your financial behaviors,

• Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller, Michael Cera, And The Rebels Saving Hollywood | Fast Company

• Apple's Rumored iPhone 5s Could Jump Start Mobile Payments - Forbes

  • half  of the Harris poll respondents said they don’t want to store sensitive information on their phone, and 40% don’t want to transmit sensitive information to a merchant’s device. One preferred solution among consumers is using a PIN or password.
  • the chatter that the new iPhone model would include fingerprint recognition technology that Apple acquired when it bought AuthenTec last year. If that turns out to be true, Apple would be able to leverage it’s growing Passbook ecosystem along with its more than 500 million iTunes account that have a credit card on file to jumpstart the mobile payments in an easy to use and secure way.

  • Odds are if Apple does introduce an iPhone model that includes fingerprint recognition technology either as a general security function, for mobile payment safety or both, others will follow suit.

     

    Apple is not the only company that recognizes the use of fingerprint and biometric interfaces in device security and mobile payments. Several weeks ago, 3G, 4G and LTE licensing and technology company InterDigital (IDCC) entered into a R&D collaboration agreement with BIO-key International (BKYI), a leader in fingerprint biometric identification solutions and advanced mobile credentialing and identity verification technologies.

• And That, Google, Is How You Lose The Influencers - Forbes

  • the Google Reader decision is going to cause ripples down the line. The number of influencers online is not a huge number and their support of a new project can be vital to a start-up launching a new app or to an existing company with a new product to promote

• As Smartphone Growth Slows, Carriers Turn To The Connected Car - Forbes

  • 2013 is shaping up to be an inflection point in the smartphone space
  • But 2013 is not just a tipping point for smartphones. It’s also one for the Connected Car, a part of the machine to machine or M2M space being targeted by mobile carriers
  • it can turn the car into a 4G LTE hot spot for tablets, smartphones and other devices
  • Connecting the dots among these relationships — GM, AT&T and Apple for example — make for solid prospects for the Connected Car in the coming years, just in time as smartphone shipment grow starts to really slowdown

• Music Streaming will be Apple, Google and Amazon's next big thing | Firstpost

• Music Streaming will be Apple, Google and Amazon's next big thing | Firstpost

  • All of them see a viable music streaming and subscription service as crucial to growing their presence in an exploding mobile environment. For Google and Apple, it is critical in ensuring users remain loyal to their mobile products.
  • Now, as smartphones and tablets supplant PCs and virtual storage replaces songs on devices, mobile players from handset makers to social networks realize they must stake out a place or risk ceding control of one of the largest components of mobile device usage.

• New Study Confirms Correlation Between Twitter and TV Ratings

  • By analyzing Tweets about live TV, the study confirmed a relationship between Twitter and TV ratings. It also identified Twitter as one of three statistically significant variables (in addition to prior-year rating and advertising spend) to align with TV ratings
  • How well does Twitter align with TV program ratings? The recent Nielsen/SocialGuide study confirmed that increases in Twitter volume correlate to increases in TV ratings for varying age groups, revealing a stronger correlation for younger audiences.
  • The TV industry is dynamic and it was important for us to analyze multiple variables to truly understand Twitter’s impact on TV ratings,

• Amazon in talks with record labels about subscription music service | The Verge

  • The signs point to an arms race among online music services

• This Is the Scariest Statistic About the Newspaper Business Today - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic

  • Here it is: In 2012, newspapers lost $16 in print ads for every $1 earned in digital ads. And it's getting worse, according to a new report by Pew. In 2011, the ratio was just 10-to-1.
  • Since 2003, print ads have fallen from $45 billion to $19 billion. Online ads have only grown from $1.2 to $3.3 billion.
  • Who killed newspapers? The classic response is the classifieds,

• ABC Works on an App for Live Streaming Shows to Mobile Devices - NYTimes.com

  • The app will live stream ABC programming to the phones and tablets of cable and satellite subscribers, allowing those subscribers to watch “Good Morning America” on a tablet while standing in line at Starbucks, for instance, or watch “Nashville” on a smartphone while riding a bus home from work
  • With the app, ABC, a subsidiary of Disney, will become the first of the American broadcasters to provide a live Internet stream of national and local programming to people who pay for cable or satellite. The subscriber-only arrangement, sometimes called TV Everywhere in industry circles, preserves the cable business model that is crucial to the bottom lines of broadcasters, while giving subscribers more of what they seem to want — mobile access to TV shows. The arrangement could extend the reach of ads that appear on ABC as well.

• Liquidity of corporate US at record level - FT.com

  • The swelling cash reserves of Apple and a handful of other technology companies have raised the overall liquidity of corporate America to record levels, data revealed on Monday.

     

    Around $6 out of every $10 added to the corporate sector’s cash mountain over the past three years has come from tech companies,

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Zero-TV Doesn't Mean Zero Video

  • This small group of video enthusiasts is tuning out traditional TV—and the trend is growing. This “Zero-TV” group, which makes up less than 5 percent of U.S. households, has bucked tradition by opting to get the information they need and want from non-traditional TV devices and services
  • According to Nielsen’s Fourth-Quarter 2012 Cross-Platform Report, the U.S. had more than five million Zero-TV households in 2013, up from just over 2 million in 2007

• 5 Trends That Will Drive The Future Of Technology - Forbes

  • 5 Trends That Will Drive The Future Of Technology

• Samsung Galaxy S4 features Mobeam, a way to beam barcodes using pulses of infrared light | The Verge

  • Samsung's new Galaxy S4 is one feature that emulates some decidedly old-school technology: the bar code. Thanks to "light-based communications" technology from a company called Mobeam, the Galaxy S4 uses pulses of infrared light to essentially fool traditional scanners into thinking the light represents a barocde. While the utility of such a feature might feel limited at first, Mobeam is convinced its technology will help smartphones interact with the millions of point-of-sale systems around the country that use traditional barcode scanners. At its core, it seem Mobeam is just the latest in a long line of attempts to make smartphones useful at the cash register — with NFC-based payment systems not exactly widespread, alternate tools like Apple's Passbook and now Mobeam are getting more of a shot.
  • The real draw for Mobeam over something like Passbook is the fact that no new equipment is needed — the Galaxy S4 will be able to beam coupons, tickets, or anything else with a barcode to the estimated 165 million standard scanners around the world.

• Darpa's Flu Fighters Ramp Up Veggie-Based Vaccines | Danger Room | Wired.com

  • Plant-based vaccines, however, are developed using “virus-like particles,” which consist solely of protein and are non-infectious. They can’t spread between people, and they help produce anti-viral antibodies. To produce the particles, scientists synthesize the DNA of the flu virus, combine the flu DNA with bacteria, and then soak the plants with it. After soaking for a few minutes, the plants then start producing the flu-fighting particles. The DNA stays in the plant. The protein is then extracted and becomes the basis for a vaccine.

     

    The most popular plant? Tobacco, as it grows relatively fast. The U.S. is also estimated to produce a heaping 450 metric tons of tobacco per year. And the whole process of turning tobacco into vaccines only takes a matter of weeks to complete. On a large enough scale, plant-based vaccines could be conceivably produced at 100 million vaccines a month. Egg-based vaccines, though, can take months just to develop.

• Get Involved, Internet: Help stop patent trolls | Comedy | Great Job, Internet! | The A.V. Club

  • Apple and Google spend more money on patent acquisition and defense now than they do on research and development.

• NTRR: $1.7 Billion Medical Marijuana Market Set to Explode as 'Green Rush' Gathers Steam - Yahoo! Finance

  • The incredible growth of the $142 billion global nutraceuticals industry   has been driven by any number of medicinal herbs over the years, and   that trend appears to be continuing in 2013
  • the biggest story in nutraceuticals this year will stem   from one of the world’s most popular medicinal herbs: Cannabis.
  • Medical marijuana is already big business. Prescription cannabis is now   available in 18 states and Washington, D.C., with 11 more states   considering legislation to legalize the drug for medical use. Currently,   the medical marijuana market in the U.S. is worth $1.7 billion, with   that figure expected to rise as more and more markets open up across the   country
  • nutraceutical companies, the changing laws represent   a huge opportunity
  • New technologies capable of extracting medically useful Cannabidoil   (CBD) from cannabis and hemp are the future of nutraceuticals,

• Can anyone turn streaming music into a real business? | The Verge

  • Spotify has more than five million paying subscribers, proving that customers will pay rather than pirate every month for a rich library of music if it's inexpensive and available everywhere
  • The growth of ad-supported and subscription services alone simply hasn't been enough to change the fundamentals of the business.
  • Everyone wants streaming music to be cheap or free for listeners, offer every song ever recorded, be made available on every device, be consistently lucrative for the industry, and give new and established artists robust support for new music.
  • online music distribution will be controlled by a small number of corporate powerhouses that will use songs as a loss leader, the way that Wal-Mart stores once did for CDs
  • They don't care if they make money," Pakman said, "because they make a bunch of money elsewhere on music

• News from The Associated Press

  • The junior league of smartphone operating systems is getting more competitive. Phones from yet another contender - Tizen - will go on sale this year with a view to eventually competing with the industry leaders, Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

    For now, Tizen will compete with another newcomer, Firefox OS, as well as Microsoft's Windows Phone and a revamped BlackBerry operating system.

    Most of the impetus behind Tizen comes from cellphone carriers, which want a successful counterweight to the clout of Google and Apple. Samsung has become the world's largest maker of smartphones in large part through its embrace of Android.

    Tizen has a powerful backer in Samsung Electronics Co.

• 46,609,072 People on Food Stamps in 2012; Record 47,791,996 in December | The Weekly Standard

  • Over the weekend, Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said that the Obama administration is encouraging growth in the food stamps program as a way to stimulate the economy
  • We spend a trillion dollars each year on federal poverty programs. That’s more than the budget for Social Security or Defense. But poverty seems only to increase. Something is wrong.

• New drug being developed using compound found in red wine 'could help humans live until they are 150' | Mail Online

  • Drugs that could combat ageing and help people to live to 150-years-old may be available within five years, following landmark research.

    The new drugs are synthetic versions of resveratrol which is found in red wine and is believed to have an anti-ageing effect as it boosts activity of a protein called SIRT1.
    

    Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has been testing the medications on patients suffering with medical conditions including cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

  • The target enzyme, SIRT1, is switched on naturally by calorie restriction and exercise, but it can also be enhanced through activators.

    The most common naturally-occurring activator is resveratrol, which is found in small quantities in red wine, but synthetic activators with much stronger activity are already being developed.

• Cheaper Low-Tar Cigarettes Seen As Aid to Quit Smoking... | Stuff.co.nz

  • a health advocate is asking Parliament to consider another pioneering initiative - non-addictive cigarettes. 

      

       Murray Laugesen, chairman of End Smoking New Zealand, said cheap tobacco with very low nicotine content could provide an alternative to smokers over normal-strength brands

  • Laugesen said very low nicotine cigarettes, currently unavailable here but sold in the United States

  • smokers will find it easier and more will successfully kick the habit. 

      

       Laugesen said a body of research, done in New Zealand and abroad, proved just that

  • It's one that's difficult for health people to get their head around - the idea that we should be allowing people to continue smoking, but they're already smoking the addictive cigarettes like crazy
  • He also believed lower levels of nicotine in products on the market could defer or prevent new smokers from forming a habit

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Move To Another Country To Escape The Collapse Of America? | Market Daily News

  • According to the U.S. State Department, an all-time record of more than 6 million Americans are now working or studying overseas.  Of course many of those that have left the country do not believe that the U.S. economy is going to collapse, but without a doubt there are an increasing number of preppers that believe that now is the time to “escape from America” while they still can.  And certainly there are a lot of reasons why the U.S. is becoming less appealing with each passing day.  In addition to our economic problems, crime is on the rise in our cities, our liberties and freedoms are being eroded at a frightening pace, political correctness is wildly out of control, and our corrupt politicians continue to make things even worse.

• Online-Only TV Shows Join Fight for Attention - NYTimes.com

  • The companies are, in effect, creating new networks for television through broadband pipes and also giving rise to new rivalries — among one another, as between Amazon and Netflix
  • But the trend may inflame cable companies’ concerns about cord-cutting by subscribers who decide there’s enough to watch online.

• Revolution in Resale of Digital Books and Music - NYTimes.com

  • a New York court is poised to rule on whether a start-up that created a way for people to buy and sell iTunes songs is breaking copyright law. A victory for the company would mean that consumers would not need either Apple’s or Amazon’s exchange to resell their digital items. Electronic bazaars would spring up instantly
  • The technology to allow the resale of digital goods is now in place, and it will cause a dramatic upheaval,
  • The resale of e-books would send the price of new books crashing
  • Amazon’s patent envisions a book or movie or song being kept in a customer’s personalized “data store.” When an item is no longer wanted, the user could sell or trade it to another user, an action that would automatically delete the item from the first user’s store
  • The patent describes what is essentially a gigantic swap meet

• Marijuana legal in Florida? Bill proposed in Florida Senate to legalize medical marijuana use

  • BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Florida could be the next state to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

    It's estimated seven out of 10 people polled would support a recent bill proposed in the State Senate

• The Scary Reality Of The Student Loan Bubble In 5 Charts | Market Daily News

  • The explosion of the student loan bubble could lead to the next financial crisis in the United States, says a new federal report -which highlights the growing problem in these alarming new charts.
  • As of 2012, about $1 trillion was tied up in student loans – more than the total amount of credit card debt in the nation,
  • No longer does a bachelor’s degree guarantee a secure job, enough income to buy a house or the opportunity to advance in a career
  • We’re in the midst of the greatest investing boom in almost 60 years. And rest assured – this boom is not about to end anytime soon. You see, the flattening of the world continues to spawn new markets worth trillions of dollars; new customers that measure in the billions; an insatiable global demand for basic resources that’s growing exponentially ; and a technological revolution even in the most distant markets on the planet

• BBC News - TED 2013: 4D printed objects 'make themselves'

  • The process uses a specialised 3D printer made by Stratasys that can create multi-layered materials.

     

    It combines a strand of standard plastic with a layer made from a "smart" material that can absorb water.

     

    The water acts as an energy source for the material to expand once it is printed.

     

    "The rigid material becomes a structure and the other layer is the force that can start bending and twisting it," said Mr Tibbits.

     

    "Essentially the printing is nothing new, it is about what happens after," he added.

     

    Such a process could in future be used to build furniture, bikes, cars and even buildings, he thinks.

     

    For the time being he is seeking a manufacturing partner to explore the innovation.

  • Engineering software developer Autodesk, which collaborated on the project, is looking even further into the future.

     

    "Imagine a scenario where you go to Ikea and buy a chair, put it in your room and it self-assembles," said Carlo Olguin, principal research scientist at the software firm.

     

    The 4D printing concept draws inspiration from nature which already has the ability to self-replicate.

• Citi: Demand For Apple Products Is Soft - Business Insider

  • "Citi basically thinks demand for Apple products has reached a peak. Incremental products will be a snooze. No new product categories.

• Mobile data spending outpaces voice for first time - The Washington Post

  • U.S. consumers spent more on mobile data than on voice for the first time in 2012
  • Wireless carriers must improve network efficiency to accommodate the growing demand for data services

• ABC Unified: Disney's new advertising platform could finally put TV anywhere you want it | The Verge

  • ABC is making the biggest leap: its "ABC Unified" campaign sells programs to advertisers across all platforms, from TVs to computers, tablets, and smartphones.
  • If a show's audience is measured and ads are sold in a single buy across all platforms, that creates a tremendous incentive for a network to maximize the number of platforms where its shows are available. It also makes it more likely that networks will push toward parity across those platforms

• YouTube to launch music streaming service, take on Spotify - Fortune Tech

  • Google is planning to roll out a music streaming service to capitalize on the power of YouTube
  • YouTube is already one of the most heavily used music services in the world, but it hasn't yet charged users. Instead, it sells ads against its music videos; a cut goes back to the record companies. Of the ways music is consumed today, spending on subscription-based streaming ("renting" music rather than "owning" it) is a fraction of what spending on digital purchases on stores like Amazon (AMZN) or Apple's (AAPL) iTunes store can reach. Fewer people subscribe, and of those, the spending per month is generally lower
  • major music labels have found that there is money to be made via streaming music services. The Warner Music Group, which, sources say, has partnered with YouTube and Google on the new ventures,
  • Content ID is another notable partnership: a bit of backend software YouTube runs to match videos with their "audio fingerprints," then tags uploaded videos and ensures royalties go to the copyright holders.

• With gesture, voice or eye control, tech gets more human-centered | JWT Intelligence

  • The theme behind a crop of new products is technology becoming more intuitive rather than requiring people to adapt to it. Gesture control, for instance, feels more natural than operating a mouse.
  • Apple and others are pursuing intuitive 3D interfaces using Famo.us, a new Java-based framework
  • claims it will “bring about the next big change in the way we interact with computers and other devices and systems

• YouTube Programmers Complain About Video Advertising Dollars - Peter Kafka - Media - AllThingsD

  • Things are fuzzier for some of YouTube’s biggest programming partners. Their views are also increasing. But the ad revenue YouTube generates for their stuff isn’t keeping pace
  • that’s pushing many big YouTube networks and partners to look hard for new sources of revenue.
  • “Every single person in the entertainment group complained to [YouTube content executive] Alex Carloss: ‘We’re not making enough money,’”
  • Maker Studios, another big “multichannel network,” is looking to boost revenue via alternate streams like iTunes soundtrack sales, among other strategies.
  • Many big programmers are also concentrating on selling their own “integrations” with advertisers
  • Others are working to direct traffic from YouTube to their own sites.
  • Video makers who control their own sites say they are often able to generate much bigger payouts than YouTube provides

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Lack of sleep 'switches off' genes - Telegraph

  • Getting fewer than six hours' sleep per night deactivates genes which play a   key role in the body's constant process of self-repair and replenishment,   according to a new study.

• Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads - New York News | NYC Breaking News

  • The Copyright Alert System, organized by the recording and film industry, is being activated this week to target consumers using peer-to-peer software.
  • Internet users who illegally share music, movies or television shows online could soon receive warning notices from the nation's five major Internet service providers.
  • The Copyright Alert System, organized by the recording and film industry, is being activated this week to target consumers using peer-to-peer software.

• Bill unveiled to legalize medical pot - Kevin Robillard - POLITICO.com

  • Flanked by more than 150 advocates from around the country, Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer on Monday put forward his legislation allowing states to legalize medical marijuana in an effort to end the confusion surrounding federal pot policy.

    Blumeanuer’s legislation, which has 13 co-sponsors — including GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California — would create a framework for the FDA to eventually legalize medicinal marijuana. It would also block the feds from interfering in any of the 19 states where medical marijuana is legal.

  • On the heels of successful referendums legalizing marijuana in both Colorado and Washington state, Blumenauer and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) introduced legislation to end federal marijuana prohibition and set up a scheme to tax the drug

• Logic E-Cigarettes - Business Insider

  • Some other Business Insider folks tried out the Logic too and here is what they had to say:

     

    Money Game Editor, Sam Ro said, "You get a nice thick cloud of smoke, which is great if you like blowing smoke rings. But it doesn't taste like tobacco, and you really don't get the nicotine fix."

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Skype calls now equivalent to one-third of global phone traffic | Ars Technica

  • New research (PDF) from TeleGeography, a telecom market analysis firm, shows that worldwide Skype usage is now equivalent to over one-third of all international phone traffic—a record level.
  • While that doesn’t mean that telcos are going to go out of business anytime soon, it does mean that they are certainly continuing to feel the heat.

• Visualant Retains Howard Nellor to Accelerate Revenue Generation

  • Mr. Nellor commented, “Visualant has the most promising, disruptive technologies and keen strategy that I have seen in many years. It’s a fortunate opportunity to be able to support their transition to significant market penetration and profits

• Rackspace revenue misses as web hosting growth slows | Reuters

  • Web hosting companies like Rackspace and competitors Equinix (EQIX.O) and Internap Network Services Corp (INAP.O) own or lease space on a server, typically housed in data centers, warehouses lined wall-to-wall with powerful storage servers.

    Many companies have migrated to hosting their applications in "the cloud" - using the Internet to provide software, computing power and data storage - as a cheaper alternative to in-house resources in a slow-growth economy.

• AT LEAST two-thirds mobile traffic will be video by 2017 - Cisco report * The Register

  • According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) report, with its quarterly update out this week, video accounted for over 50 per cent of all mobile traffic for the first time in 2012 and this will rise to 66.5 per cent by 2017
  • Overall global mobile data traffic will increase 13-fold between 2012 and 2017

• Visualant ChromaID™ Wins Photonics Award

  • One sector of interest for Visualant is the cosmetic industry since consumer demand for natural, bio-friendly products has increased by 13.9 percent last year, Kline research reports. That means that chemical companies are being asked by cosmetic companies to develop relevant products that satisfy this market demand. Visualant’s ChromaID technology could then be used in the manufacturing process to ensure that all cosmetic products created meet a certain sustainable, green standard
  • The Visualant Spectral Pattern Matching™ technology directs structured light onto a substance, through a liquid/gas, or off a surface, to capture a unique ChromaID™. When matched against existing databases, a ChromaID can be used to identify, detect, or diagnosis markers invisible to the human eye. ChromaID scanner modules can be integrated into a variety of mobile or fixed-mount form factors. 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

• Video ads growing at fastest rate on Web as TV-viewing habits change - SiliconValley.com

  • Internet video ads, long a sideshow in the online advertising market, are gaining in importance to marketers and Web publishers as they look to capitalize on consumers' changing viewing habits and tap a $70 billion television market.
  • There have been media reports that Facebook is developing a video ad service, and analysts will likely be looking for answers on that avenue when the social networking giant delivers its quarterly results on Wednesday.
  • "We're are at a point where television ad budgets are likely to come online."
  • The number of people watching TV seems to be stagnating or declining, and the number of people turning to the Internet for entertainment is surging," said RBC's Mahaney. "It almost inevitably drives these TV budgets online"

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Tech, telecom giants take sides as FCC proposes large public WiFi networks - The Washington Post

  • The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month
  • a free-for-all WiFi service
  • The airwaves that FCC officials want to hand over to the public would be much more powerful than existing WiFi networks that have become common in households. They could penetrate thick concrete walls and travel over hills and around trees. If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas
  • public WiFi could allow many consumers to make free calls from their mobile phones via the Internet

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• 22nd Century Group (XXII): Just recieved a phone call from Century 22

  • If you ever thought of riding a stock out to see how far it could go , this is the one.

• Nearly Half Of Americans Would Support Reducing Nicotine In Cigarettes If And When The FDA Exerts Its Authority To Act On It - PR Newswire - The Sacramento Bee

  • Nearly Half Of Americans Would Support Reducing Nicotine In Cigarettes If And When The FDA Exerts Its Authority To Act On It
  • shows strong public support – nearly 50 percent  -- for a potential federal mandate to reduce nicotine content in cigarettes.
  • Nicotine reduction could be a promising tool to protect the population from the harm and death caused by tobacco products
  • the courts have found that Big Tobacco intentionally manipulated its products' nicotine levels in order to create and sustain addiction

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• SPECTROPHOTOMETRY: ChromaID scanner challenges traditional spectrophotometry - Laser Focus World

  • eliminates the need for delicate optical components and expensive detectors by using a “virtual” light-emitting diode (LED) source and inexpensive photodiode detectors
  • the current supplied to the LEDs is varied through a sequence of steps to vary the frequency of the light produced by the emitter
  • one prototype source incorporates 34 emitters that are fired through 25 current steps in a sequence that is repeated four times; in effect, a single less-than-one-second scan paints 34 × 25 × 4 = 3400 flashes of light onto the sample
  • Recent testing on plastic sample bags containing a variety of similar-looking white powders demonstrated that the SPM ChromaID method was able to distinguish between flea powder, household cleaner, ground Tums, Splenda, baby powder, and cornstarch, to name a few

• CES 2013: The Four-Sentence Summary - Forbes

  • The Internet of Things is really an Internet of Sensors. It was Kevin Ashton of RFID fame who first popularized the phrase Internet of Things. But the way he and others explored the idea made it clear that the key element of this Internet of Things was that things were going to be individually addressable on the network.
  • With enough of the right sensors in my life, the sensors can flexibly identify the things in my environment and provide a very efficient means of addressing them

• Intellicig-maker CN Creative acquired by Footsie giant British American Tobacco | Manchester Evening News - menmedia.co.uk

  • the acquisition was a natural extension of its approach to tobacco harm reduction
  • our goal is to provide those adult smokers who are seeking safer alternatives to cigarettes with a range of reduced-risk products
  • added that the takeover by BAT was a 'game-changer' for the company

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Ten Companies (Including Logitech) Team Up To Create The Internet Of Things Consortium | TechCrunch

  • The “Internet of Things,” for those of you who aren’t too familiar with it, basically refers to the growing trend of uniquely identifiable, Internet-connected electronic devices.

• The new guard: Look at who is buying technology companies now — Tech News and Analysis

  • I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of this in coming months. Why? The reasons are not that complex actually. Typically the tech giants buy startups (loosely speaking) in order to acquire talent and in very rare cases, technology (like Apple buying Siri). But for the most part, the motive behind Internet giants’ buying frenzy is mostly about finding the right people to keep competing with their rivals.
  • Today it might not seem obvious, but a year or two from now, companies big and small are going to realize that emergence of mobile and other newer technologies are going to redefine the a business experience.

• Fast-Food Worker Hours Cut, New Health Care Law Blamed

  • The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, Vice President of Operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week

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

Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• US Electricity Use Falls as Economy Greens | Via Meadia

  • Historically, economists saw electricity use as an accurate measure of growth, but now that everyday products are increasingly energy efficient and the manufacturing economy is streamlined, growth and electricity use have become decoupled. This is another sign that in our new information age growth is green. Declinists and pessimists, take note; growth in the American economy is less and less about producing widgets and more about style, design, services and ideas. It’s likely that the faster we grow the more rapidly the transition to a cleaner and greener economy will go.
  • In response to falling profits, electricity companies are balancing the books by cutting investment in low-emission options like nuclear power plants (which many greens will not mourn) and especially in renewable energy projects. Falling demand for electricity plus rising supplies of cheap and reliable domestic fuels like natural gas makes subsidies for green generation more expensive and less likely to succeed.

• 22nd Century Group Announces Allowance of U.S. Patent for MPO Nicotine Biosynthesis Gene - Yahoo! Finance

  • The allowed claims of Patent Application No. 12/305,483, entitled, NUCLEIC   ACID ENCODING N-METHYLPUTRESCINE OXIDASE AND USES THEREOF, cover   nucleic acids encoding MPO, methods for producing tobacco plants with   either reduced or increased nicotine levels, and tobacco cells and   tobacco plants produced by the foregoing.
  • Scientists have attempted to clone the MPO gene for   decades
  • The MPO gene technology is one of several 22nd Century patent   families representing our second-generation gene technology for   modifying the content of nicotine and other nicotinic alkaloids in the   tobacco plant. Our second-generation technology has significant   advantages over our first generation technology
  • mainly   related to all of the key nicotine biosynthesis genes and potential   modified risk tobacco products produced therefrom

• Rubio promises proposals to bolster middle class - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

  • As a party and as conservatives we need to do a better job explaining to people why free enterprise and limited government is better for them than big government is," he added. "That's true for all Americans, including Cuban-Americans.

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

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

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

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.