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'Pill-check' SMS the cure?Activists who use cellphone text messages to expose missing essential drugs from clinics in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Malawi say the same system would work well in South Africa. The Mail&GuardianOnline;...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 3:54 am UPDATE 1-Russian, Turkmen leaders fail to reach new gas deal* Turkmenistan still suffers from lack of export revenuesSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 3:48 am Hypo Real Estate may need more capital - paperMUNICH, Sept 13 (Reuters) - German property lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE) , whose financial troubles forced Germany to nationalise it, has billions of euros in unrealised losses that may swell its need...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 3:27 am Chevron, partners give OK to Gorgon project-sourcePERTH, Sept 13 (Reuters) - U.S. oil major Chevron Corp and partners have given the green light to develop the Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Australia, a source briefed on the decision...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 3:09 am Cell-Phone Bills: Is Text-Messaging Too Expensive?Texting isn't just a hot medium; it's also a big eyesore on many cell-phone bills. Even so, carriers fear that their fat texting profits will soon disappear. TIME reports. Read full article. Related:...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 3:03 am Trust an Insurance Company's "Drive-Cam?"ramen99 writes "Our new car insurance company offered us discounts for our teenage driver if we agree to install a 'drive-cam' that records driving habits and wirelessly transmits video footage to a 'neutral driving coach' for evaluation and comment. While this might be great to monitor a new teen driver, it will also monitor other adult drivers. The insurance company claims that they would never use any information obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds unbelievable. Would you give up your privacy to save some dough? Installation is free, and the camera mounts just under the rear-view mirror. Something seems fishy about this..." Epecially when, according to a British insurance firm, computer engineers are most likely to crash (sent in by antdude).Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 Sep 2009 | 2:44 am Apple Adds Top Grossing Category to App StoreApple announced a Top Grossing category in addition to existing Top Paid and Top Free categories on the store. That change responds to developer complaints that expensive apps get buried in the Top...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 2:30 am Shutterfly Buys Tiny Pictures For A Tiny PriceAfter raising a total of $11.2 million since its founding in 2005, Tiny Pictures sold to Shutterfly on Friday for $1.3 million in cash and another $1.3 million in restricted stock to employees, which...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 2:22 am Shutterfly Buys Tiny Pictures For A Tiny Price
After raising a total of $11.2 million since its founding in 2005, Tiny Pictures sold to Shutterfly on Friday for $1.3 million in cash and another $1.3 million in restricted stock to employees, which has some performance triggers. If you back out the earnout, investors only got back about a tenth of what they put in. Those investors include Mohr Davidow, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and angel investors Reid Hoffman, and Joi Ito. The company’s last venture round was $7 million led by Draper Fisher in February, 2008. But Mohr Davidow, which held preferred shares, might have been the only investor to see any of those proceeds at all. Shutterfly disclosed the acquisition in an SEC filing, which only mentions Mohr Davidow as a recipient of some of the $1.3 million in cash. It also mentions that Nancy J. Schoendorf, a managing partner at Mohr Davidow, sits on the boards of both companies. Although she did not vote on the acquisition, the connection raises the question of whether or not Mohr played a role in bring the deal to Shutterfly in the first place. Tiny Pictures operates Radar, a mobile photo sharing app which never got a lot of traction beyond a core following. The service is actually pretty slick, centered around a photo commenting stream. You snap photos with your mobile phone which instantly is shared with your friends who also have the app. They can then comment on the photos. It sounds simple enough, but the app never achieved a critical mass of users. The service is focused more on sharing life moments through photos with people you actually know than creating a public photo stream. So if you don’t know anyone who uses it, there is little reason to join yourself. The friends-and-family aspect must have appealed to Shutterfly, however, which is based on exactly that type of picture sharing. It already has a rich database of people who like to share photos with one another. Radar helps them extend that to mobile phones in a social and fun way. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Source: TechCrunch | 13 Sep 2009 | 2:22 am Russian, Turkmen leaders fail to reach new gas dealTURKMENBASHI, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Russian and Turkmen leaders failed on Sunday to set a timeframe to restore Turkmen gas flows to Russia, halted since April after a pipeline blast which left the Central...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 2:16 am Lets Not Let Silicon Valley Become Just Like Hollywood
Olson writes:
He goes on, giving a specific example of one time that he read someone’s script and how it all turned out badly anyway. And, he’s right. Dead on right. Asking a writer to read your script is no different than asking a painter to paint your house for free. Except for one crucial thing – The person isn’t really asking Olson to read his script. What he was really asking for is access to the Hollywood power structure. A way in to a very closed off world. There are direct analogies to Silicon Valley. In Hollywood everyone has a script. In Silicon Valley, everyone has a business plan. And when you don’t know many people here, you start networking to get people to read that business plan, and hopefully introduce you to a few venture capitalists or angel investors. Sometimes those people start with me in their quest to break into Silicon Valley. They are way too early to have a story written about them, but they email in and ask me to look at their business plan and/or an early website and give them my feedback. What they really want are introductions. To possible cofounders. Or investors. Sure, they listen to my opinion, but when they really have the fire in their eye, which all good entrepreneurs have, it doesn’t matter what I say. Nothing will stop them. They just want me to introduce them to the next person who can help them. Usually I can’t take the time to look at these business plans, there is always too much to do in my day job. Sometimes, very rarely, I do. But, like Olson with his scripts, the result is the same whether I spend the time or not. If I don’t look at it I get called a jerk. If I do look at it but don’t help move the idea forward with the right introductions, I get called a jerk. It’s easiest just to ignore the requests. We also see this with TechCrunch50 applications. Every year we get about 1,000 applications from bright eyed, hopeful entrepreneurs. Fifty get in. That’s 950 rejection emails we have to send out. Every year, a certain percentage of the rejected entrepreneurs go varying degrees of ballistic on us. Angry emails, trolling comments, etc. Very occasionally, worse. But some of this is understandable frustration. As Silicon Valley gets bigger, with more strangers, it actually becomes harder to reach the power structure that can make your startup go from a business plan to reality (this is why I’ve written that periodic downturns, which weed out some of the fluffier parts of the startup scene, are such a good thing in our community). Those of us in a position to help entrepreneurs need to do more of it. We need to take more time out of our day to read that business plan, and help make connections. Even when it comes at the cost of our day job, and even when there is nothing in it for us. In the past we’ve tried various projects to try to scale this. In the future, we’ll try new things until we get it right. One idea – a once-a-month open demo day at techcrunch where unknown startups can come and show their stuff, or just talk about their idea, to TechCrunch writers. It would be trivial to livestream and archive these events. And who knows, someone may make a crucial connection. But this is a two way street. Budding entrepreneurs, trying to break down the walls that separate them from your angel funding, need to grow up. Most of the time people don’t have the time to help you, and you shouldn’t aim hate at them for it. Instead, try a different angle or a different person. A simple thing – learn to read body language and don’t approach people at the wrong time (like right after they leave a stage and are surrounded by a dozen other people). Choose your moment. If your strategies don’t work, try something new. Dozens of startups have given up trying to get through my hated inbox and have instead reached out to other TechCrunch writers, and many of those have ended up with great connections to angel investors, potential partners, or future employees. But don’t assume someone is a jerk just because they won’t paint your house for free. Or read your business plan. Good luck, and remember that a lot of people want you to win, even when they don’t have the time to help you do it. p.s. – I often find myself on the other side of this type of thing, trying to get someone’s attention for a story or to speak at one of our events or whatever. I try to never take offense at an unreturned phone call or email, or blame the person if they don’t have time to speak at one of our conferences. Instead, I try to think of ways to reverse the situation, so in the future it’s them calling me to write about their company, or to speak at our conference. It doesn’t always work, but it’s more productive than festering and spreading hate. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Source: TechCrunch | 13 Sep 2009 | 1:54 am Lets Not Let Silicon Valley Become Just Like HollywoodI came across a post written earlier this week by A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson titled I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script. It's worth a read because it is funny as hell. But I also can't...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 1:54 am What We Can Learn About Pricing From Menu EngineersLet’s say that you’re an entrepreneur or general manager about to take a new product to market. How do you price it?Traditional economic theory tells us that the market clearing price is the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 1:00 am CORRECTED - CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Dubai exchange merger a 'possibility' - pap(Corrects paragraphs 2 and 6 to remove references to DFSA)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Sep 2009 | 12:07 am Super Mario fingernails Nailchick27's handpainted Super Mario fingernails make me yearn for a manicure. Handpainted mario nails picture by nailchick27 (via Geekologie)
Previously:
 Source: Boing Boing | 12 Sep 2009 | 11:47 pm Super Mario fingernailsNailchick27's handpainted Super Mario fingernails make me yearn for a manicure. Handpainted mario nails picture by nailchick27 (via Geekologie) Previously:Super Mario vs NYC -- street art - Boing...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 11:47 pm Podcast of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
36 weeks ago -- give or take -- I set out to read my 2005 novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town aloud, in installments, in my podcast. And now I am done.
Someone Comes to Town is my weirdest book by far, a fantasy novel about a man whose father is a mountain and whose mother is a washing machine, who moves from small-town Ontario to Toronto to help build a citywide meshing wireless network with a crustypunk dumpster-diver. Reading the book aloud was enormously satisfying. I hadn't read it through since I finished the final draft in 2004, and in many ways it was like coming back to it for the first time. But even more satisfying was the participation from my readers. First there was John Taylor Williams, of DC's Wryneck Studios, who volunteered to master the audio for me, adding bed-music, editing out the gonks, and making it sound really good -- he started this around week 27, and it seriously improved the final 9 episodes. Then Glenn Jones, a reader in the UK, decided to create a dedicated podcast feed for the book, with all 36 episodes, to make it easy to fetch and play in one gulp. Im not sure what I'll podcast next -- I have a little more than a week to think about it -- but I'm really looking forward to it. Podcast feed for Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Podcast of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town36 weeks ago -- give or take -- I set out to read my 2005 novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town aloud, in installments, in my podcast. And now I am done. Someone Comes to Town is my weirdest...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 11:28 pm Surprise Discovery In Earth's Upper Atmosphereelyons sends word out of UCLA of a completely unexpected discovery in the physics of the Sun-Earth interaction — a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. "'It's like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun. This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down,' said Larry Lyons, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences. 'We all have thought for our entire careers — I learned it as a graduate student — that this energy transfer rate is primarily controlled by the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field. The closer to southward-pointing the magnetic field is, the stronger the energy transfer rate is, and the stronger the magnetic field is in that direction. [It turns out that] if it is both southward and big, the energy transfer rate is even bigger.'" The researchers have two papers on the discovery coming out in the Journal of Geophysical Research.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Sep 2009 | 11:17 pm JAL considers raising $2.76 bln by end March-NikkeiTOKYO, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Japan Airlines Corp is considering raising about 250 billion yen ($2.76 billion) by March through measures including new shares issuances and borrowings, the Nikkei business...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 10:51 pm CORRECTED - WRAPUP 1-Private equity firms look to take cos public(Corrects to remove reference in ninth paragraph to special dividend)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 10:49 pm Tina Fey wins Emmy award for Sarah Palin spoofLOS ANGELES, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Actress Tina Fey won an Emmy on Saturday for her uncanny portrayal of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live," while pop star Justin...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 10:12 pm eBay Denies New Design Is Broken, Blames Userskrick-zero writes "eBay recently rolled out a new page design. Many eBay sellers are reporting issues with missing description text, resulting in lost sales. Buyers are reporting the same intermittent issue, on multiple platforms, with multiple browsers. After complaining to eBay customer service, one user got this response: 'I have reviewed several of your listings using my computer and had several of my coworkers view your listings as well and we are seeing the complete listings. Many times when buyers are not able to see the whole description or just bits and pieces it is due to browser issues they are having. A lot of times if they simply clear out their cache and cookies or change browsers (i.e. change from Internet explorer to Firefox or vice versa) they no longer have this problem.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Sep 2009 | 8:44 pm Jeremy Gutsche's EXPLOITING CHAOS on Endless Innovation(TrendHunter.com) The writers of Endless Innovation have featured Jeremy Gutsche's book, EXPLOITING CHAOS, on their website. The blurb explains that Gutsche (who heads Trend Hunter Magazine) has his...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 7:19 pm BusinessWeek.com Features 24-Page EXPLOITING CHAOS Slideshow(TrendHunter.com) With the recent release of Jeremy Gutsche's breakout book, EXPLOITING CHAOS, there has been tons of buzz about in the business world. BusinessWeek caught wind of this eye-catching innovation...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 7:09 pm WITTC50?: Want me to ignore the ridiculous conflict of interest and write a glowing review of TC50? There’s an app for that
I’m sorry – you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, it’s just that I have to prove to you that I haven’t gone native. You see, one of the main reasons I was hired by TechCrunch was for my traffic-driving habit of hurling faeces at unsuspecting industry conferences. Conferences like Jeff Pulver’s inexorably ill-planned 140 Characters in New York or Loic LeMeur’s très froid ‘Le‘ in Paris – both of which saw the sharp end of my tongue when I was at the Guardian. I learned there that no-one cares when I talk about interesting start-ups or noteworthy trends – but when I textually assault a hard-working event organiser, the page impressions flow like gravy. And so you can imagine how worried I felt when I realised that the very first major conference to come along after I moved to TechCrunch would be the one that pays my wages. For weeks friends have been responding to my protests of impartiality with wry looks and knowing chuckles. “Sure,” they said, “even if the wifi’s shit, the venue’s freezing and there’s no food, you’ll still have to say nice things. Arrington’s not going to let you publish a hatchet job about his cash cow. The man is a renowned megalomaniac; worse than Stalin and Kim Jong-il added together.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” I argued back, “that’s just propaganda put about by jealous rivals at lesser blogs. Arrington hired me for my fierce independence, not just because he wanted to make sure I’d toe the line when it came to the most important event on his calendar. No one would be that cynical.” Right? Well, we’ll find out soon enough. In a bold journalistic experiment, this week’s column is split into several installments, of which this is the first. The others will be filed on Monday and Tuesday, live from the conference hall, or from whichever after-party or fringe event I find myself at when my deadline hits. I’ll be working overtime to bring you a true and complete picture of the event, so if you spot a hyper-focussed figure, hunched away from the main throng, obsessively pecking away at a laptop when he should be drinking and having fun, that’ll be me. (Or possibly Gabe Rivera; you’ll know for sure by the shoes.) My original plan was to use this first installment as a prologue, to preview some of the companies that will be launching on Monday and Tuesday and suggesting which pitches you should definitely check out. I wouldn’t give too much away, of course, but hopefully I’d give you an idea of the 50 amazingly revolutionary products that will be competing for the $50k grand prize, plus $4.7bn in advertising credits, 3.76m Beenz and a share in the fortune of the late Dr Clement Okon of Nigeria. There are just two problems with this plan. Firstly, with the exception of Penn and Teller, I have absolutely no idea what start-ups will be pitching. Really. In the interests of impartiality – and laziness – I’ve kept well away from TechCrunch HQ, where I understand frantic last minute preparations are underway to make sure this year’s event is the best ever. MG is charging his iPhones, Arrington is practicing his cynical stage-stare, Lacy is ironing her ‘I *heart* Brazil t-shirt, Daniel Brusilovsky and the interns are doing all the actual work – that kind of thing. But I’m staying behind my Chinese wall. Until yesterday I hadn’t even bothered checking that the venue was the same as last year, or confirming that I actually had a ticket. (It is. I have.) The second problem is that I strongly suspect this year’s companies will fall into the category of evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Which is probably a good thing. The market being what it is, it makes a lot of sense to play safe: develop something that users and investors can easily get on board with, make some revenue, keep up repayments on your home, ride out the storm. The fact that last year’s winner, Yammer, was an evolution (’clone’ is such an impolite word) of Twitter is a case in point, and it wouldn’t suprise me if the selection panel have chosen similar kinds of businesses this year. Which is great for those who value tried and tested ideas and solid business models but terrible news for a columnist who gets off on mocking the sick and jeering the lame. But, then again, I could be completely wrong. I mean, if this year’s selection really does err on the side of caution, how does one explain Penn and Teller? These are hardly men renowned for safe ideas; the last time I saw Teller thinking inside a box, Penn poured in a swarm of bees and did something decidedly innovative with a can of gasoline. So perhaps their presence is a hint that this year’s event will be one filled with ridiculously bold ideas, chosen to inject a much-needed shot of adrenaline in the arm of an industry flirting with the doldrums. And yet that possibility doesn’t quite feel right either. No, actually, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Penn and Teller’s attendance is indicative of a much more cynical plot altogether. Just consider the evidence: a few weeks ago when Arrington asked for my bio for CrunchBase, I mentioned the odd factoid that I used to be a magician. Four weeks later and – lo! – Penn and Teller, the magicians’ magicians, are slated to pitch at TechCrunch50. Coincidence? I hardly think so. A far more likely explanation is that my friends were right about Arrington all along. The poor man really is so desperate to ensure that my TechCrunch50 review is positive that he’s selected each of the participating companies based purely on how likely they are to appeal to me, and me alone. The other 1999 attendees be damned, all that matters is getting my journalistic thumbs up. It’s an audacious plan. And you know what? It might just work. Especially if he’s chosen such me-focussed companies as…
Exciting products, all, as I’m sure you’ll agree. And each absolutely guaranteed to get a much-needed positive review from me next week. Perfect! See you all on Monday! I’ll be the cold, hungry one in the corner, swearing about the fucking wifi. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Sep 2009 | 6:33 pm Microsoft Interns Still Feel the Lovetheodp writes "Despite layoffs and a blip in earnings, the Chicago Trib reports that Microsoft's summer interns still enjoy the VIP treatment. Although there were 20% fewer of them this year than last, still 85% of the interns are offered full-time jobs. In addition to being paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for the summer, the 600 or so Microsoft apprentices enjoyed other perks — such as a police escort to speed their way to a private museum party where they screened the most recent Harry Potter movie and were given a free Xbox 360. 'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton. BTW, before he got mixed up with those MBA-types, De Guzman earned some fame as the Doogie Howser of computer science."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 12 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm Disney to expand Fantasyland at Walt Disney WorldANAHEIM, Calif., Sept 12 (Reuters) - Mickey Mouse's house and his Toon Town world will make way next year for a vastly larger Fantasyland, in the biggest-ever expansion of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Sep 2009 | 4:07 pm RNA Interference Found In Budding YeastsRNAi, a key biochemical pathway in the genetic control networks of most organisms, has now been discovered in Saccharomyces castellii, a close relative of the prototypical budding yeast S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Sep 2009 | 3:41 pm Scientists Clone Oldest Living Organismgoran72 sends along the story of the world's oldest living organism, a shrub that grows in Tasmania and reproduces only by cloning. Tasmanian scientists have cloned Lomatia tasmanica as part of a battle to save it from a deadly fungus. From the RTBG's press release (which seems to load slowly in the US):"The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens [RTBG] is working towards securing the future of a rare and ancient Tasmanian native plant... Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's Lomatia, is critically endangered with less than 500 plants growing in the wild in a tiny pocket of Tasmania's isolated south west. The RTBG has been propagating the plant from cuttings since 1994... 'Fossil leaves of the plant found in the south west were dated at 43,600 years old and given that the species is a clone, it is possibly the oldest living plant in the world,' [Botanist Natalie Tapson] said."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 12 Sep 2009 | 3:30 pm Viral Video: Teen Girl Alert! "Twilight: New Moon" Trailer Loose in the Internet Wild [BoomTown]
Since it was tacked onto the slasher movie, “Sorority Row,” which opened this weekend, some enterprising person managed to videotape the first real trailer for “New Moon.” The second installment of the “Twilight” vampire series debuts November 20th, natch! And, actually, while the first film left me in a mild stupor–BoomTown is so not the demographic for the film–this one looks pretty good, because it seems chock full of the Olympic broodiness of Kristen Stewart (who is also filming a biopic about Joan Jett, which completely redeems her in my book). Here’s the video trailer, which already has 2,732 comments on Google (GOOG) video site YouTube since it was posted just yesterday, most of which are text versions of teen girls screaming: Source: All Things Digital | 12 Sep 2009 | 3:09 pm Viliv S7 spotted on Dynamism with pricing info
Think that the Viliv X70 is hot? (It is.) The unreleased S7 is shaping up to be even hotter with a 9.5 max battery life, physical keyboard, and convertible design. Our review model is currently somewhere over the Pacific so until we can post some hands-on images and first impressions, head over to Dynamism. The retailer just posted the S7 product page that not only lists all the specs but also the price and a whole bunch of photos. I can tell you right now that Dynamism is going to have just as hard time keeping this model in stock as it does with the S5 and the X70 with this model starting out at $629 and the high-end model fetching $799 thanks to the 3G wireless and 32GB SSD. Plus, chances are that Dynamism will do a special pre-order event and throw in some extra goodies too.
Source: CrunchGear | 12 Sep 2009 | 2:38 pm Interview: Vinod Khosla Is On The Hunt For Great Technologies
In venture capital, Vinod Khosla likes to go his own way, which is why he’s been so successful. He was the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, and then moved to venture capital and became a star partner at Kleiner Perkins, where he backed Juniper Networks, Cerent (sold to Cisco for $7 billion) and NexGen (sold to AMD and formed the basis for its challenge to Intel). About five years ago, after becoming a billionaire, he left Kleiner and started Khosla Ventures to invest his own money. He was mostly drawn to clean tech at a time before it was popular, but still kept his hand in Web and other tech startups (Aliph|Jawbone, iSkoot, RingCentral, Tapulous, iLike, Slide, Xobni). Khosla Ventures already has more than 50 companies in its portfolio (see slides below). Earlier this month, Khosla raised $1.1 billion for two new funds, taking money from outside investors for the first time. I spoke with Khosla on the phone about his new fund, his approach to investing, clean tech and more. He compares Web startups to water startups, dismisses entrepreneurs who think about exits before building value, and contends that cleantech companies can command as high margins as hardware or software companies. “It’s a business strategy decision,” he explains.” In the interview, Khosla talks about his investments in Aliph, RingCentral, eASIC, iSkoot, and Xobni. In terms of what he’s looking for, he declares “we love material science.” And in his seed fund, in particular, he says, “We’re not looking for completeness in things. We’re not looking for business plans. We are not looking for meeting every fiduciary requirement of an investor. We are looking for great technical ideas and great technologists.” The 25-minute interview and full transcript are below. I’ve bolded parts for emphasis.
Interview Transcript Mr. SCHONFELD: Well thanks for taking the time to speak to me. You just recently raised a pretty large fund or actually a couple of funds, right, $1.1 billion for two new funds. And I believe this is the first time you really took outside money. Can you talk a little bit about that whole fund-raising process and why you decided to reach to outside investors? Mr. KHOSLA: I think my general feeling is the scale of the opportunity we see is pretty large. You know, when I started doing things on my own, I was figuring – remember it was a very nascent market. And there was a lot that was unknown about the renewable marketplace in 2004, early 2003 when I was planning on it. The world does change for the better. Much larger opportunity set and it probably requires, you know – there’s more opportunity than I would have thought five years ago. Mr. SCHONFELD: Right. Now, you have been really focusing on this area specifically for five years. While still, you’re still making an investment in more traditional web companies and the type of technology companies you’ve been investing in for years. But can you just tell me a little about the difference in the dynamics between the companies that are renewable energy companies versus the companies that our readers probably are more familiar with, web companies and hardware and even chip companies. Mr. KHOSLA: Yeah, still… Mr. SCHONFELD: There seems to be a disconnect, even in the Valley, between the cultures of these two types of tech companies. Mr. KHOSLA: You know, I find that a pretty narrow view on behalf of people who sort of repeat that, I’ll call it a platitude for now. In the following sense, if you look at a venture firm like Kleiner Perkins and look at their portfolio, I would guess that 20 percent of the portfolio —and this is before renewables—ends up in things that are purely capital-intensive like biotech. 20 percent ends up in really capital-intensive stuff like biotech. 20 percent ends up in capital-light things like a Web start-up, let’s say, taking less than $30 million. So, 20 percent will take less than 30, 20 percent will take more than 300. And then the remaining 60 percent ends up in the middle taking, oh, you know, the bulk of the portfolio in venture takes between $30 million and $75 million or a hundred million. I think the profile in renewables will look exactly the same. And so, if you’re a broad-based venture firm and you do biotech and you do some of the capital-intensive projects, your renewable portfolio will not look that different. Not everything in the world is building power plants or build biofuel facilities. There are plenty of things that are in the middle. So if you’re doing LED lighting, it is just like a chip start-up. If you’re doing a new air-conditioner, it’s like a small equipment start-up, or telecom gear start-up. If you’re doing water, it’s like a Web start-up, at least the ones we’ve done. Mr. SCHONFELD: How is a water startup like a Web company? Mr. KHOSLA: Well, for 15, 20 million dollars, they’ll have products in the marketplace and be able to be cash flow positive. Less than $25 million, I would guess, because they’re making membranes. Then you make a membrane, they put it into existing systems. Now, they could have a capital-intensive model and build a desalination plant but they’re not going to. They’re going to build a membrane that goes into existing desalination plants. And so, it’s a very simple model and in all those – in almost all these cases that opportunity exists. Even in the extensive biofuels area, where you’d think it’d be very capital-intensive, you know, it’s easy to cut deals like LS9 announced one with Proctor & Gamble. That’s publicly announced. You can look that up, and make sure it is capital-light. There are companies that are pursuing licensing strategies that are also relatively capital-light. MR. SCHONFELD: Already you have what, about 50 companies in your Khosla Ventures portfolio, somewhere around there? MR. KHOSLA: More than that. I don’t know the exact count but yes, more. Well above 50. MR. SCHONFELD: So the new fund will be used for follow-on investments to the existing portfolio as well as new ventures or is it – or the existing portfolio is already taken care of with the capital allocated to the previous funds? MR. KHOSLA: Well, both of the funds will be new investments. But there are provisions for existing portfolio companies to get in, you know, we’re not going into the details but the bulk of the funds will be new investments. MR. SCHONFELD: And do you see going forward the mix being pretty much the same? It seems like it’s two thirds clean tech and one third more traditional tech. MR. KHOSLA: Yeah. We do expect the mix in the future to look similar to the mix we’ve had in the past. MR. SCHONFELD: Let’s take both of these techs one at a time. So, the Clean Tech companies are – are these located all over the place? Are these Silicon Valley companies and what’s your criteria for investing in these companies? I mean, at first glance a lot of these companies seem like material science companies or companies that other investors maybe wouldn’t even look at or would pass on because it’s not – it’s not a familiar model to them, right? So, you’ve invested in a lot of technology companies. Obviously, the problems they’re trying to address are large, but in terms of the actual business model and economic models of these companies, where’s the leverage? MR. KHOSLA: Well, you know, first because it’s a diverse area and there’s no one business model. There will be a range of business models that will be used and will make sense and just like any other tech start-up, these companies are run by entrepreneurs who are pretty damned adaptive. You know, they’ll move pretty quick and adapt to whatever the environment says. MR. KHOSLA: If the market changes, the money is available or the money is tight, they adapt to that. These things entrepreneurs do all the time. You saw that in the dot-com thing. There were people who could use a hundred million in the dot-com, and people who could adapt and go back to running on a million dollars a year. We saw that in dot-com companies and I think the same is going to be true in this space. And because the space is so large you’ll see a lot of diversity in the range of business models. I forgot the first part of your question. MR. SCHONFELD: I can rephrase it. What are you looking for when you’re going to make investments in this area, what are the key… Mr. KHOSLA: To your question, we love material science. We love serious technology innovations and there is a strong bias towards large technology innovations that are sort of disruptive to the current market. And that is very much a charter of what we are doing and we don’t mind larger technology risks especially in the smaller seed fund, which is really geared towards science experiments, which other people generally, as you say, won’t do. The main fund will look like any venture fund and we’ll invest like any other. We’ll do seed, A and B and C investments. And there the risks probably will be a little less of the speculative stuff the seed fund might do. And I agree with you, there will be fewer people in the domain of the seed fund but the seed fund will do things that take a million dollars here, our $2 million there to roll out a really radical technology idea. And then it becomes a regular business plan. In that stage, in the seed fund, we’re not looking for completeness in things. We’re not looking for business plans. We are not looking for meeting every fiduciary requirement of an investor. We are looking for great technical ideas and great technologists and yes, lots of PhDs in hard-core science disciplines. Or just wild ideas that sort of have huge upside potential and sometimes may not need a radical technology breakthrough. So Xobni, which we did in e-mail , is an example of something that would be—in IT that fits into the seed fund because it’s a wild idea to do e-mail in this day and age. It has gotten great traction. So, that’s what we are looking for in the seed fund. In the main fund, we look for more complete management teams and more complete technology. Mr. SCHONFELD: But for Xobni, that seems at first like the opposite of what you’d be looking for because a lot of people might think that e-mail is done although obviously, it has a lot of problems. Mr. KHOSLA: Well, in fact I would say most people wouldn’t invest in e-mail because they think e-mail is done. In that case, it was an idea that we thought compelling and without going into the details, users have adopted it and used it enough to prove to us that it is compelling. And so all I’m saying is, we will do non-technology IT stuff in the seed area. We’ve just done another seed that I won’t mention but it’s not renewable but green, it’s just a great idea in a completely wild space that most VCs wouldn’t even think of touching. But it’s a regular technology start-up. And hey, great, so we are open minded on what we are looking for. On the green side, generally it should focus on the technology, technologist, a breakthrough innovation, not just a minor iteration. Mr. SCHONFELD: Looking at your portfolio, overall which of the companies are the most mature? Have you had any, have there been any exits from the portfolios so far or - Mr. KHOSLA: You know, we’ve had some – we’ve had a couple of sales and I don’t know which ones we’ve talked about publicly. They’ve been OK, good returns. So, you know, on average sort of a few times our money. Nothing I’d call a home run today but in terms of maturity, obviously, Aliph or Jawbone is a pretty exciting start-up for us. You know, a couple of, sort of nine digit revenues and cash flow positive and all the things you’d look for in a mature company. And you know, and so, eASIC is doing pretty well in semiconductors, we’re happy with that. Let’s see, iSkoot is doing really well in the mobile space. I’m trying to pick different areas. You’ take something like RingCentral. It doesn’t need any more money or financing, it is relatively mature recurring revenue business – not really worried but you know, we could sell it tomorrow. We have not been in a rush to sell it. We don’t care about exits as much. We care about building fundamental value. So, in that sense we are a little bit different than other investors. Our focus is not on exit. In fact if you talk to any of my entrepreneurs, I’m generally saying don’t sell the company when other investors want to sell. I’d much rather focus on building long-term value in building companies rather than worrying about exists. In fact, here is the thing, if a business plan talks about exits in the first two or three pages, I throw it out of the basket because I think, culturally it’s the wrong kind of entrepreneur for us. I literally if they talk, or mention exits in the first, say, in the executive summary or the first three pages of a business plan, it’s two strikes against them right there because I’m not interested in people where exit is top of mind. We care about building companies and building values. And that’s sort of the kind of culture we’re trying to do at Khosla Ventures. Mr. SCHONFELD: Right, so, what advice would you have for entrepreneurs who you know are looking at different options? I mean, when is the right time to sell and when is the right time to keep going? Mr. KHOSLA: You know, we could sell Aliph today. We could keep the cash flow positive company going. I’d rather take it towards an IPO. RingCentral is cash flow positive, going, you know, over a 100,000 small businesses as customers. We could sell it today but I still think, there’s time to generate value. It depends on what’s going on internally. If there’s good growth prospects and more value to be built then you go build that value instead of trying to get an exit. Wide Orbit is cash flow breakeven and sort of mature. You’d call it a mature company by venture standards, we’re not interested in, you know, getting out. Now having said that, if somebody comes with a great offer, we’ll always look at it. You know, we’re not opposed to exits. All I’m saying is it’s not the first thing we worry about. We worry about building value and building companies. Mr. SCHONFELD: Right. And so what should entrepreneurs take from the fact that you were able to raise this $1.1 billion fund which I think is – it’s two funds but it was a sort of a single raise, right? Which I think is the biggest in several years. Is that just because you’re Vinod Khosla or do you see something – you see some - Mr. KHOSLA: You know, I think the message is there are plenty of me-too two investors and there’s good investors around and money from – new money for that kind of thing is tight. But if you’re trying to do something different like we are, then investors, limited partners are willing to put up the money for it. I mean, and there’s definitely, we’re very active with new investors. We’re looking for ventures and our LPs just want us to take the risk for a file I just talked to you about. And there is appetite for risk. Mr. SCHONFELD: Do you think that we’re going to be seeing more money flowing into venture capital? There’s been a big debate as whether there’s been a reset or not, you know, for investments going to venture capital and you know, just the whole financial crisis and how that impacted limited partners and how big institutions, you know, are rethinking their allocation to venture as an asset class. Is this an anomaly or - Mr. KHOSLA: You know, my bet is big institutions will continue investing in venture capital but they’ll be more selective. But I don’t think, you know, frankly, we could have raised a lot more money if we wanted to if we had the people to put it to work. So I do think big institutional investors will continue to fund venture capital, but they will be much more selective and not every venture capital group will get follow-on funding. You know, it’s not too loose in my view and I think that’s going to change, and that’s a good thing. Mr. SCHONFELD: And what’s your view of the IPO window? Will that ever really open up again or are there fundamental structural phenomena that is keeping it down not just the economy, but you know, everything from Sarbanes-Oxley to - Mr. KHOSLA: I am pretty sure it will open up again. When is a little hard to predict and that’s why larger funds and deeper pockets are better for both venture funds and for entrepreneurs. I mean, today if I were an entrepreneur, I’d be very careful about only going with people with deep pockets. Because it matters. Now much more than it did before. Mr. SCHONFELD: So if you’re giving advice to – if I’m an entrepreneur looking for different areas to go into and assuming that I can pull together a team with the required expertise, you know, what’s the counter-intuitive sort of space to go into right now? I would even say Cleantech, there’s a lot of startups out there . . . Mr. KHOSLA: You know, my advice to entrepreneurs is to go into the area of their expertise. Mr. SCHONFELD: What’s the company that you would invest in in a second, but you haven’t really found it yet? What’s the problem that isn’t being solved by the companies that you’ve looked at that needs solving? Mr. KHOSLA: Well, for example, storage for electricity is not a problem that has been solved. So, it is not a problem that has been solved. Mr. SCHONFELD: For portable storage, for large… Mr. KHOSLA: Well, both portable and stationary storage is not a problem that’s been solved. There’s lots of opportunities in bio materials so you know, in information technology there is, like low power is still a big deal. And so it’s hard to sort of single out areas and I see opportunities and interest, in business trends in almost every area. Mr. SCHONFELD: Right. So what are your feelings about your first company, Sun Microsystems, being acquired? Mr. KHOSLA: You know, I don’t want to - I think it’s better Oracle acquired it and stayed in the Silicon Valley culture than, say, IBM acquiring it. But frankly, you know, that was a long time ago for me. Mr. SCHONFELD: Where do these new cleantech companies fall? Are they closer to – do they look more like an industrial company when they mature or do they look closer to, you know, a hardware company or do any of these have software-type margins and how is that possible? Mr. KHOSLA: Yes, it’s possible. You know, in each case, it’s a business strategy decision. I generally disagree with most of the very high margin opportunities. Why? Because it’s a business strategy tradeoff: the lower the margin you take, the faster you grow. Yes, a Juniper can do 65% margin, but I tried really hard to convince them to go with 50 percent. Actually, it just increases market penetration faster. And so what are you trying to achieve? And there are times where . . . take somebody like Infinera. I haven’t been on the board for a couple of years so my data is old. But we had a tradeoff between getting 10% margin on the chassis and 80% margin on the cards, or getting 30, 40, 50 percent margin on the total thing. And one was immediate revenue and margin, and the other was locking in lots of chassis with customers at low margin and then they kept buying line cards from you for ten years. It’s a business strategy question and it worked very well for Infinera. So I think this is a red herring. Every one of our companies has the opportunity to go after niche markets or a large market. And the larger the market, the more aggressive you have to be. Mr. SCHONFELD: OK, great. Mr. KHOSLA: OK. Mr. SCHONFELD: Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate you taking time on your schedule to talk to us. Mr. KHOSLA: Great. Thanks a lot.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
Source: Gizmodo | 12 Sep 2009 | 2:30 pm Parallel Processing For Cardiac Simulations Using an Xbox 360Foot-in-Mouth writes "Physorg has an article about a researcher, Dr. Simon Scarle at the University of Warwick's WMG Digital Laboratory, who needed to model some cardiological processes. Conventionally, he would requisition time on a university parallel-processing computer or use a network of PCs. However, Dr. Scarle's work history included gaming industry experience as a software engineer at a company associated with Microsoft Games Studio. His idea was that researchers could use Xbox 360s as an inexpensive parallel computing platform due to the console's hefty parallel processing-enabled GPU. He said, 'Although major reworking of any previous code framework is required, the Xbox 360 is a very easy platform to develop for and this cost can easily be outweighed by the benefits in gained computational power and speed, as well as the relative ease of visualization of the system.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Sep 2009 | 2:27 pm Softie Ad Exec Siebrecht to Join AdReady Start-Up [BoomTown]
Apparently, not everyone leaves Yahoo (YHOO) to join Microsoft. On Friday, sources said, it was announced internally at Microsoft (MSFT) that Karl Siebrecht (pictured here), the former President of Atlas at aQuantive, is joining AdReady at the end of the month as President and COO. AdReady, based in Seattle, bills itself as an “advertising technology company focused on making online display advertising accessible and effective for advertisers of all sizes.” The start-up has raised a total of $12 million in venture funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Madrona Venture Group. Aaron Finn is its current CEO and President, but is apparently giving up one title to Siebrecht. And–probably no coincidence–aQuantive’s former CEO is Brian McAndrews, who is now managing director at Madrona. But, sources said, Siebrecht was introduced to Finn through David Rosenblatt, an advisory board member of AdReady–and who competed with Siebrecht as CEO of DoubleClick, which was bought by Google (GOOG). Also interestingly, Jason Kilar, CEO of premium video site Hulu, is on AdReady’s board. Oh, it is a small tech world, after all. Microsoft bought aQuantive–which is now called Microsoft Advertising–in mid-2007 for $6 billion and Atlas was one of its units. Source: All Things Digital | 12 Sep 2009 | 2:04 pm Fifth-Generation iPod Nano
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 guardian.co.uk | Review: Apple's fifth-generation iPod nano (2009) Apple Insider The glossy-finished new fifth-gen iPod nano builds upon last year's tall and slim form factor by adding video recording, FM radio with iPod tagging and Live Pause, VoiceOver navigation, a built-in Nike+ step counter, and a slightly ... Summary: Camera-equipped nano highlights Apple's iPod changes New iPod Touch packs Wi-Fi 'n,' FM hardware The new iPod Nano: More features, same size |
Not too long ago, we gave our thoughts on the movie District 9. We did so because it was a big sci-fi movie, and that’s just close enough to the tech-science nexus on which we operate that it justified a quick post. Seeing as though it’s the weekend, and you really all ought to be watching La Liga or playing 360/PS3, we’ll take two minutes to highlight this interview with the movie’s director, Neill Blomkamp.
The take-away:
• Blomkamp is open to doing a sequel.
• Before then, however, he’s going to write another sci-fi film.
• He wants to work with Peter Jackson again, but it probably won’t be on his next film.
• He hasn’t totally, 100 percent ruled out making a Halo movie. Better him than some other hack director, I guess.
In the interest of fairness, I’m gonna watch the movie again this weekend. If so many of you liked, then perhaps it’s worth trying to appreciate, and not watch it through the lens of Michio Kaku (who says that aliens of such an advanced intelligence wouldn’t even bother landing on Earth, let alone put up with human beings’ stupidity).
AP - The national stimulus package passed by Congress in February may have been too enthusiastic about spending money on one particular project: figuring out where broadband Internet access is available and how fast it is.
 Tampa Tribune | Teen charged in theft of stolen zoo animals MiamiHerald.com AP WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Palm Beach authorities have arrested a 17-year-old in connection with the theft of four monkeys and a parrot from the Palm Beach Zoo. The teen, who was arrested Friday night, was not named because he is a juvenile. ... Teen arrested in theft of 3 squirrel monkeys, a Goeldi's monkey ... Florida teen charged in zoo theft Official: Juvenile Arrested In Connection With Zoo Thefts |
A revolution in the science of social networks began with a stash of old papers found in a storeroom in Framingham, Massachusetts. They were the personal records of 5,124 male and female subjects from the Framingham Heart Study. Started in 1948, the ongoing project has revealed many of the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, including smoking and hypertension.
In 2003, Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist and internist at Harvard, and James Fowler, a political scientist at UC San Diego, began searching through the Framingham data. But they didn't care about LDL cholesterol or enlarged left ventricles. Rather, they were drawn to a clerical quirk: The original Framingham researchers noted each participant's close friends, colleagues, and family members.
"They asked for follow-up purposes," Christakis says. "If someone moved away, the researchers would call their friends and try to track them down."
Christakis and Fowler realized that this obsolete list of references could be transformed into a detailed map of human relationships. Because two-thirds of all Framingham adults participated in the first phase of the study, and their children and children's children in subsequent phases, almost the entire social network of the community was chronicled on these handwritten sheets. It took almost five years to extract the data—the handwriting was often illegible—but the scientists eventually constructed a detailed atlas of associations in which every connection was quantified.
The two researchers thought the Framingham social network might demonstrate how relationships directly influence behavior and thus health and happiness. Since the study had tracked its subjects' weight for decades, Christakis and Fowler first analyzed obesity. Clicking through the years, they watched the condition spread to nearly 40 percent of the population. Fowler shows me an animation of their study—30 years of data reduced to 108 seconds of shifting circles and lines. Each circle represents an individual. Size is proportional to body mass index; yellow indicates obesity. "This woman is about to get big," Fowler says. "And look at this cluster. They all gain weight at about the same time."
In 1948, fewer than 10 percent of Framingham residents were obese. By 1985, 18 percent were, and today about 40 percent are. What changed? Social norms of diet and physical appearance. "A bunch of people discovered fast food at the same time," social scientist Christakis says. "Then the network took over."
*Circle size corresponds to body mass index
Images based on graphics created by James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis
There's something strange about watching life unfold as a social network. It's easy to forget that every link is a human relationship and every circle a waistline. The messy melodrama of life—all the failed diets and fading friendships—becomes a sterile cartoon.
But that's exactly the point. All that drama obscures a profound truth about human society. By studying Framingham as an interconnected network rather than a mass of individuals, Christakis and Fowler made a remarkable discovery: Obesity spread like a virus. Weight gain had a stunning infection rate. If one person became obese, the likelihood that his friend would follow suit increased by 171 percent. (This means that the network is far more predictive of obesity than the presence of genes associated with the condition.) By the time the animation is finished, the screen is full of swollen yellow beads, like blobs of fat on the surface of chicken soup.
The data exposed not only the contagious nature of obesity but the power of social networks to influence individual behavior. This effect extends over great distances—a fact revealed by tracking original subjects who moved away from Framingham. "Your friends who live far away have just as big an impact on your behavior as friends who live next door," Fowler says. "Think about it this way: Even if you see a friend only once a year, that friend will still change your sense of what's appropriate. And that new norm will influence what you do." An obese sibling hundreds of miles away can cause us to eat more. The individual is a romantic myth; indeed, no man is an island.
In September, Christakis and Fowler published their first book for a general audience, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Although their research is filled with abstruse equations, the two seem most excited when describing the grand sweep of their work. "The story of modern science is the story of studying ever smaller bits of nature, like atoms and neurons," Christakis says. "But people aren't just the sum of their parts. I see this research as an attempt to put human beings back together again."
Once upon a time, social interaction was bounded by space; we met only in person. But then communication became mediated by technology. From telegraph to telephone to email to Twitter, each innovation fed the same anxieties, as people worried that traditional forms of community were being destroyed. The telephone was ruining family life; we're neglecting our real friends for our so-called friends on Facebook.
But does technology actually change the nature of the social network? Or does it simply extend it? It has long been recognized, for instance, that the human capacity for close friendship is remarkably consistent. People from cultures throughout the world report between four and seven bosom buddies. "The properties of our social networks are byproducts of evolution," Christakis says. "The assumption has been that our mind can handle only so many other people."
On Facebook, though, the average user has approximately 110 "friends," which has led some scientists to speculate that the Web is altering the very nature of human networks. For the first time in history, we can keep track of hundreds of people. The computer, they say, is helping to compensate for the limitations of the brain.
In the early '70s, 65 percent of Framingham residents ages 40 to 49 smoked regularly. By 2001, only 22 percent consumed one or more cigarettes daily. But the smoke didn't clear at random: Friends and family had a decisive influence. "People quit together," Fowler says, "or they didn't quit at all."
*Circle size corresponds to daily cigarette intake
But Christakis and Fowler were skeptical of such claims. They knew that social habits are stubborn things. So they persuaded a university to let them analyze the Facebook pages of its students, devising a clever way to distinguish between casual friends and deeper emotional connections. Close friends, they hypothesized, would post pictures of one another on their Facebook pages, since the relationship wasn't purely virtual.
After analyzing thousands of photos, the scientists found that, on average, each student had 6.6 close friends in their online network. In other words, nothing has really changed; even the most fervent Facebook users still maintain only a limited circle of intimates.
"On Facebook, you've got a few close friends and lots of people you barely know," Fowler says. "Because the cost of information transmission is so low"—that is, the site makes it easy to communicate—"we end up staying in touch with more acquaintances. But that doesn't mean we have more friends."
Although the scientists are fascinated by the online world—"Facebook could become a revolutionary data set for people studying networks," Fowler says—their central research tool remains those handwritten papers salvaged from the Framingham Heart Study. In the four years since Christakis and Fowler built their first social map, they've published several groundbreaking papers documenting the network's influence on everything from cigarette addiction to happiness. In some cases, they've found that the impact of networks disappears abruptly after three degrees of separation. (In other words, if a friend of a friend of a friend stops smoking, then we are also significantly more likely to quit. But more-distant relationships have no effect; they are beyond the "social frontier.")
Although Christakis and Fowler have begun to study the variables, such as genetics, that determine a person's place within a social network—whether we're in the well-connected center or exiled to the fringe, which reflects popularity—they emphasize that there is no ideal social location. During a flu epidemic, the periphery is the safest place, since people with fewer connections are less exposed to the virus. But being on the fringe also reduces access to gossip and resources, which radiate out from the center. Because networks transmit the stuff of life—from happiness to HIV—evolution has generated a diversity of personality traits, which take advantage of different positions within the group. There are wallflowers and Wilt Chamberlains, shy geeks and "super-connectors." According to Christakis and Fowler, there is no single solution to the problem of other people. Individual variation is a crucial element of every stable community, from the Aborigines of Australia to the avatars of Second Life.
And because we're social primates, such communities are essential. When we're cut off from our network, we slip into a spiral of loneliness and despair, which severely affects our health. "Your friends might make you sick and cause you to gain weight," Christakis says, "but they're also a source of tremendous happiness. When it comes to social networks, the positives outweigh the negatives. That's why networks are everywhere." People, in other words, need people: We are the glue holding ourselves together.
Studying the self-reported moods of Framingham subjects, Christakis and Fowler found that happy people have happy friends (and unhappy people, unhappy friends). Examining smiles in Facebook portraits, they found the same pattern: Even online, social networks gather around joyful expressions.
| Happy |  | Unhappy |
Contributing editor Jonah Lehrer (jonah.lehrer@gmail.com) wrote about the neuroscience of magic in issue 17.05.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 CNET News | Video Game Sales Slide 16 Percent in August eWeek Numbers from the NPD Group show the video game industry is still struggling, as sales fell 16 percent compared with August of last year. Video game sales continued their economic slide in August, falling 16 percent, to $908.7 million, and extending the ... Console video game sales fall for sixth straight month EA, Nintendo Titles Rule NPD Top 20 For Another Month Price cut leads to big month for Sony, PlayStation 3 sales |
 Times Online | Why the Cliq Won't Click PC World Motorola has had a rough year with sluggish sales and plummeting revenue. The announcement of the Google Android-based Cliq, and Motorola's MotoBlur interface have generated some buzz, but the Cliq appeals to the wrong market. ... T-Mobile Expands Android Lineup With Motorola CLIQ Hands On: Motorola's New Android Phone Nails Design, Fumbles Software Analysis: Motorola Wrenches Focus Away from Google |
Kids! The new iPod nanos are here! Amazon’s knocked ten bucks off of the 16GB model, too. It’s not much but, hey, ten bucks is ten bucks. Maybe you could use that extra ten bucks to buy yourself something nice, like digital content from iTunes to load onto your new iPod nano.
Don’t forget that these new nanos feature FM radio and a camera, along with a few other new bells and whistles. See our hands-on here for more info and real-life shots of the device.
Get one now for $170 with free shipping, if you’re interested.
Apple iPod nano 16 GB Orange (5th Generation) NEWEST MODEL [Amazon via dealnews]
This doesn’t make a lot of sense. Apple launched all kinds of crazy stuff at their event last week yet they didn’t mention most of them. FM radio? Wasn’t really talked up. The secret slurp folder in iTunes? Ditto.
So now it seems that the iPod touch firmware now only costs $4.95 now, down from $9.95. WTF, right? It would have been nice of Apple to tell us. What else are we missing? A mini robotic dinosaur included in the box with every 64GB touch?
Section: Communications, Computers, Networking, Wireless
We’ve been seeing wireless 802.11n products for so long now, its been easy to forget that what we’ve been using are the pre-certified units. From now on 802.11n is officially approved by the IEEE standards group. The final standard will be published by the group in mid-October, just in time for all those new Windows 7 laptops.
Wireless n actually started development back in 2002, but Atheros and Broadcom both had competing formats for what was then Pre-N. Sine then we’ve seen Draft N, which is the most prevalent. These Draft N products should work with the final version of 802.11n, which features theoretical speeds of 300Mbps. That speed is six times the maximum speed of out current 802.11g, which is quite impressive. The new standard also has a much longer range, as you may have witnessed already with current wireless n routers.
While the approval of the standard obviously has not stopped manufacturers from including the standard in most, if not all current laptops and netbooks, it’s great to know it is finally approved. Now it can finally be on its way to finally becoming a more widely used standard, if only routers using 802.11n would come down in price a bit. The next step is obviously improving our broadband speeds to reach the theoretical peak of the new standard, though that’s likely going to take some time.
Read [Electronista]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
New research performed by online search advertising company Chitika suggests mobile users are far less likely to click on ads than non-mobile Internet users. In fact, they're about half as likely, the study shows based on a sample of 92 million impressions.
Could that be true? Wasn't it the other way around?
First, we should note right off the bat that Chitika is an Internet advertising company that's decidedly not into mobile advertising according to its own website, so that brings along a large truck carrying bags filled with grains of salt. That said, it's worth taking a look at how they got to the conclusion, so we can reach our own.
New research performed by online search advertising company Chitika suggests mobile users are far less likely to click on ads than non-mobile Internet users. In fact, they’re about half as likely, the study shows based on a sample of 92 million impressions.
Could that be true? Wasn’t it the other way around?
First, we should note right off the bat that Chitika is an Internet advertising company that’s decidedly not into mobile advertising according to its own website, so that brings along a large truck carrying bags filled with grains of salt. That said, it’s worth taking a look at how they got to the conclusion, so we can reach our own.
Chitika claims to power advertising for over 55,000 sites, serving ads based on 2 billion monthly impressions. Of the 92 million impressions cited in the study, approximately 1.3 million or 1.5% of the lot came from mobile browsing. The ads that were shown on mobile devices were exactly the same as the ones displayed to non-mobile users, rather than comparing standard online advertising with mobile-oriented ads.
Ad click-through of mobile as a whole pulled only 0.48% according to analysis of the sample, with non-mobile holding steady with a 0.83% clickthrough rate. That would mean mobile commanded just over half of the average.
Of the five major smartphone operating systems – Android, iPhone OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and BlackBerry OS – Apple’s iPhone ranked worst for ad click-throughs representing a mere 0.30% rate. The “Other” group, comprised mainly of BlackBerry users and a handful of other operating systems (including Symbian, Nokia, and HTC) saw the highest ad click-through rate.
Personally, I’m a bit hesitant to believe the outcome of the study – much like Chitika’s earlier one about Bing ads’ click-through rate being twice as big as Google ads – considering the self-serving aspect and the apparent desire to come to controversial conclusions in order to draw attention.
On the flip side, there hasn’t been that much independent research for mobile ad click-through rates yet, and I’m equally keen not to blatantly believe studies that show mobile advertising commands spectacularly high click-through rates compared to web advertising. In my opinion it’s conceivable that click-through rates would be rather similar and largely dependent on context, type of advertising, how well the message fits the medium etc.
In short: more neutral research wanted.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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No need to scour the interwebs for hot gaming news, Gamertell‘s already done that for you! Here’s a look at this week’s top stories…
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The hacker accused of running a massive data theft operation responsible for breaches at TJ Maxx, BJ’s Wholesales, and several other major U.S. retailers has pleaded guilty to 19 charges related to credit card fraud and and hacking and 1 charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
“Computer hacking and identity theft pose serious risks to our commercial, personal and financial security,” Benton Campbell, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. “Hackers, including those who commit their crimes from abroad, will find no refuge from the reach of U.S. criminal justice—they will be found, prosecuted and convicted.”
Albert Gonzalez and his gang stole over 40 million credit and debit card numbers from the above retailers and Boston Market, Barnes and Noble, Office Max and Sports Authority and also hacked into the computer system of popular restaurant chain Dave & Busters. The numbers were stolen via a variety of techniques including war driving and sniffer programs. Gonzalez is also facing charges of being responsible for the Heartland Payment Systems breach, the largest in U.S. history. Over 130 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen via SQL injection attacks in that case.
It’s not known exactly how much the gang managed to steal but it’s believed to be in the tens of thousands at least. Gonzalez faces up to 25 years in prison, millions in fines, and was forced to forfeit over $2.7 million ($1 million of which was cash buried in his backyard) , real estate, a BMW, Rolex watch, and Tiffany diamond ring. He will be sentenced on Dec, 8th.
Read [PCWorld]
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There's been a big brouhaha over comments Steve Jobs made to NYT's David Pogue in an interview following Apple's event on Wednesday. Basically, most people are interpreting what Jobs said about eBook readers to mean that Apple plans to completely stay away from the market. But that's not actually what Jobs said at all.
How do we know? Because before Pogue re-wrote his interview, he posted the transcription of the Q&A, which still resides in Google's cache. Here's the relevant part:
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We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does! Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…
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 Earthtimes (press release) | Help File: A Fix for Unsupported Scanners; ilife '08 in Snow Leopard Washington Post qafter upgrading my operating system, the old drivers for my scanner no longer work, and the manufacturer doesn't have any newer ones for me to download. Now what? athis happens more often than it should -- for example, as I noted in my ... MobileMe Adds IPhone, Snow Leopard Features Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6.1 Apple Releases Updated Brother and Canon Printer Drivers for Snow ... |
The Buddha said that life is suffering and that the goal of right meditation is the easement of this suffering. That is why we have the Shake-n-Chop. This is a tube that you put food in and then shake up and down in a masturbatory motion, thereby rendering the food into the state of “chopped.”
Unlike the SlapChop, the Shake-n-Chop does not cause pain. Instead, it causes kitchen enlightenment. It is not available for purchase and the website was made by a twelve year old on summer vacation but it is clear that the Shake-n-Chop has a great future ahead of it in the manufacture of what appear to be maggots out of any prime organic material.
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I came across a post written earlier this week by A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson titled
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