New Florence. New Renaissance.

Man Made Waves

coming to a park near you even if you are nowhere near a beach..a couple of Memorial Days from today

Photo Credit

 

 

 

 

Energy – and Water – from Wind

Wind turbines have long produced renewable energy but a French engineering firm has discovered another eco-purpose for the towering structures.

Eole Water claims to have successfully modified the traditional wind turbine design to create the WMS1000, an appliance that can manufacture drinking water from humid air.

The company aims to start rolling out the giant products for sale later in 2012, initially focusing on remote communities in arid countries where water resources are scarce.

CNN

For Memorial Day

Facebook developed an app and asked 2 million people to hang a Memorial Day Wreath on their Facebook profile in honor of fallen soldiers.

As of Sunday night over 31 million wreath had been posted!

Happy 75th, Golden Gate Bridge

The iconic structure celebrates its anniversary today. Visit this site for plenty of celebration activities, and a walk back into the history of this engineering marvel.  

The viral success of a humble bracelet

I heard Lance Armstrong speak of the amazing success of the yellow LIVESTRONG bracelet at SapphireNow last week –over 50 million since they were introduced in 2004 (particularly striking since I was walking around asking why SAP itself cannot show more than a handful of sales of its own new products)

It is an inspiring story especially when you hear it against the backdrop of his cancel survival. I had first heard its story a few years from Doug Ulman, another cancer survivor, and CEO of the LiveStrong Foundation and along with Lance, a social media star on his own.

BTW, in the humility thread I like the fact that Lance in his Twitter description highlights he is “father of 5 amazing kids”. In his talk, he took time to describe a meeting with the Dalai Lama more than talk about his current Ironman passion. 

The latter, of course,  will help popularize the bracelet even more.

Photo Credit

ESPN’s 80+ cameras at Indy 500

“On the new DW12 chassis, we've been able to work with Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IZOD IndyCar Series and the chassis developers to install four cameras on every car,” said Rich Feinberg, ESPN vice president, motorsports production.  “If we achieve our goal of 12 cars, that would be 48 onboard cameras, which is a first in terms of volume for us. Additionally, for the first time, all the cars that have systems will offer our viewers driver shots which we've not been able to do in many, many years.”

Feinberg added that ESPN will also return to Indianapolis with its “Batcam,” a camera that provides unique views running on a cable over pit road and the frontstretch and can move at more than 80 mph. “We can use it for beauty shots, crowd shots… we can also use it for coverage as the cars are coming down the frontstretch headed towards turn one,” Feinberg said. “It’s an exciting shot, unique to that racetrack, and offers some glorious views of the pageantry of the Indianapolis 500.”

TV Technology

The exciting finish at last year’s race

Digital Cat and Mouse

I went into sleuth mode thinking through the m.o. of the SAP executive who is alleged to have pasted fraudulent barcodes on LEGO toys at Target stores in California. Did the cashiers not notice the description of the items on the receipt were different from the items? Were there any self check-out lanes in those stores? Does Target not segregate the payment from the delivery step for high valued or bulky items as some other stores do?

While the detailed steps probably varied, this arrest warrant from Montgomery County, PA in November 2011 describes a similar operation against Target stores in a different part of the country. It involves similar UPC tampering on Dyson vacuums and Bose speakers in addition to Lego sets. The eBay sale process of those items under assumed names and the money laundering of the proceeds is even more elaborate.

I was amazed at the complexity of the theft – seems like a lot of work and risk for a net gain of $ 50 or $ 100 on an item. I was also impressed at how much technology they likely used to decide which items to target, the UPC code home printing (good quality to not attract attention), the eBay sale process, the payment laundering. In reverse, get a feel for the technology Target and the banks and law enforcement used - Target’s surveillance tapes, the POS data analysis, the identity tracking (driver’s license etc) and money trail analysis. For more elaborate and much less sophisticated similar scams read this article here.

I post this on my innovation blog with a sense of awe. Not because I condone such crimes, but to reflect how much more complex “shop lifting” and its investigation have become.  

Picture of UPC Code I generated using this site for a package of Ramen noodles. Retail value = 12c. Seriously high value :) 

Sprint’s HD Voice

Senior electronics editor Mike Gikas had an opportunity to try HD Voice, which is currently available only for the HTC EVO 4G LTE on Sprint. He was impressed: "When speaking on the older EVO model, voices sounded typically tinny. But on the EVO 4G LTE, it was as though the Sprint rep was speaking directly into my ear. I could even hear the sound of his lips moving."

Consumer Reports

Next-gen Heads-up Displays

Microvision's system uses a set of three lasers—red, green and blue—and a single, millimeter-wide silicon mirror that tilts on two axes. The lasers put out light at different intensities, and the three colors are mixed to produce the final pixel color. As the lasers shine light on the mirror, it rapidly scans horizontally and vertically, painting the image onto the windshield one pixel at a time. This happens so fast that the image looks static. Evans says that the lasers' pure, saturated colors result in more vivid images with a higher contrast ratio, so they are visible in daylight. Illuminating one pixel at a time also saves energy. And the use of a single mirror rather than an array makes the device smaller, simpler, and cheaper.

MIT Technology Review

Some light reading on SAP HANA

From this week’s  ACM SIGMOD/PODS Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, a paper by Dr. Vishal Sikka and others at SAP

“Within this paper, we highlight the main features that differentiate the SAP HANA database from classical relational database engines. Therefore, we
outline the general architecture and design criteria of the SAP HANA in a first step. In a second step, we challenge the common belief that column store data structures are only superior in analytical workloads and not well suited for transactional workloads.”

Download PDF below. Thanks to Nenshad Bordoliwalla for sharing,

Download Efficient transaction processing in SAP HANA database - the end of a column store myth

Safelite: Mobile Windshield Repair

My son recently shattered his rear window on a fishing trip (don’t ask). It was a write-off which the dealer had to replace and re-tint, but I considered calling Safelite, which makes repairing windshield chips a breeze.

Once a mobile repair appointment is confirmed, the company sends the customer an email containing the name, picture and background information of the technician who will be sent to complete the work on their vehicle via email.The email also contains other pertinent information such as appointment time, claim number, vehicle information and insurance claim data.

The tech injects liquid resin into the damaged area using Glass Medic technology, seals it with Mylar and hardens the resin with ultra-violet rays.

Here’s even better news.   Many insurance companies cover the claim in full – even waive the deductible for glass repair since it is much cheaper than replacement.

The Factory Floor as Classroom

Indeed, the leapfrogging of ivory tower with factory floor puts the lessons of each in context so that theory becomes concrete and actual business problems and technical issues inform class discussion. "At GE, they try to get you to do more critical thinking" rather than just following instructions, Kirievich says. "You get to see technology in action, and you get to see how things are done in the real world."

She hopes to get hired by GE when she graduates. The Georgia Tech Graduate Co-operative Education Program, which according to CEED is the nation's largest among engineering and science programs, counts nearly 750 grad students working in paid co-op assignments. Half hail from the engineering school; most are getting master's degrees, while some are working toward a Ph.D.

US News and World Report

Photo Credit – U. of Cincinnati which has been offering a co-op program since 1906

When Jobs met Bezos, Doerr and Kamen

I set next to a gentleman on a flight last week who marveled at how the author of a book he was reading made him feel he was at Gettysburg during the battle 150 years ago. It made me realize this short read about a 2 hour meeting in 2003 took me off and running in just as many ways.

John Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins lead investor, Steve Jobs of Apple and Jeff Bezos of Amazon are providing design and product launch feedback to Dean Kamen’s team about the Segway personal transporter, then code named Ginger. Kamen is a brilliant serial entrepreneur with over 400 patents to his name.

Jobs, Bezos, Doerr and Kamen in one room.

Think of the firepower. Listen to Jobs and Bezos talk about global trends and threats a decade ago. Listen to their keenness on design excellence.  Listen to Jobs’ views on outsourcing manufacturing even back then. Listen to his philosophy on big bang launches. Listen to them debate intellectual property theft and exclusive component sourcing philosophies.

I was fascinated Jobs had such mature (and opinionated) thinking about so many product areas long before the learnings from the iPhone and iPad processes. I wondered how much Bezos was influenced by that meeting as Amazon built its Kindle. I marveled at Doerr’s ability to invest in so many revolutionary technologies in so many sectors. I also salivated at Doerr’s network and for his ability to pull such a group together (Jobs was a neighbor and he is on Amazon’s board). I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Kamen and Jobs met the day before at Jobs’ house. I wondered if any of them would today hold such a critical meeting at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt ( a perfectly fine overnight hotel) given today’s security and surveillance paranoia. And yes, I wondered what other colorful language Jobs used during the meeting. 

Photo Credit

Social Security Statement goes online

“Social Security has gone digital. The federal retirement program, which last year stopped mailing out estimated benefit statements to everyone who has paid into the system, launched an Internet tool this month that can be used to view several aspects of your personal status.”

Los Angeles Times

Recognizing how squeamish people may be about the "security" of a site about Social Security data, it allows for a cell phone alert feature when your account is being accessed and in the set up process, the validation questions reflect your personal history from the Experian credit database.

 

The Lytro dissertation

NetSuite last week kindly gave a few of us the revolutionary Lytro light field camera (Lytro is one of NetSuite’s growing base of fast-growing tech companies). The video below shows off its very different look and feel and functionality.

My friend Michael Krigsman, who is a great photographer and has written guest columns for this blog, suggested I read founder Ren Ng’s Ph.D dissertation at Stanford which explains the principles behind light field photography. It is an easy read, if 200 pages, available here

 

Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth, er network

He has had an amazing week – an IPO and a wedding - but this BusinessWeek graph shows his really impressive asset: his network.

Re-inventing Carpooling

A San Francisco-based startup called Zimride is using the power of social media to connect drivers with people needing rides -- saving people money, helping the environment and sometimes helping its customers make new friends…

Today, the company has partnerships with more than 100 universities and companies, including Facebook, Intuit, Genentech and PwC. The colleges and companies pay Zimride a service fee to arrange rides, many of which are commutes of less than 50 miles roundtrip.

GreenBiz

Your flight Avatar

Turkish Airlines is running an ad campaign which features artist Craig Redman’s renderings of athletes like the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, the famous Manchester United soccer player, Wayne Rooney and other stars. The colors in their portraits are meant to depict the in-flight services Turkish planes offer them such as flat-beds, video gaming etc. 

I was wondering how Redman would paint me if he had seen me on the Virgin America flight this week from Orlando to San Francisco. I splurged on an upgrade and had an empty seat next to me (actually there were only 2 passengers in the front cabin). So, I had 3 monitors going – my laptop with the GoGo wi-fi service, my Virgin Red monitor with the Google flight path map and the neighboring seat monitor with a live baseball game on the Dish network. I also watched “Dragon Tattoo” briefly on the on-demand option. (The mood lighting confused my smart phone camera so all I got was a blurry photo of all 3 monitors below)

I enjoyed a Blue Moon with a slice of real orange (I asked for a lime not believing a plane would have an orange and was pleasantly surprised) and two helping of nuts (no peanuts should tell you about the quality). I finally took a cue from the mood lighting and took a nap on the 55 inch pitch seats with automated sleep and landing settings while the outlet at the seat charged my laptop.

Turkish and Singapore and Lufthansa and Emirates are constantly improving creature comforts on international flights. I am impressed at what Virgin America is doing for domestic US travel. The only other passenger in First on the flight told me this was his first Virgin flight. He is a frequent US Air and Delta flyer and kept asking if he would ever see such service from them. If Redman were to paint his portrait, it would mostly highlight his very happy grin!

“Net Promoter” applied at Amex

“The perception of service is that it's all about problems. Problems are actually a very small percentage of why customers interact with American Express. What we've learned is that the power of that interaction gives us an opportunity to expand the perception of the brand in a very positive way.

There's a tendency to see service as a sunk cost -- the customer is reaching out to you. So people say, "It's a cost. Let's look to eliminate it." And over time we can eliminate friction points, which eliminates the need for some customers to interact with us. But the reality is, it's a very powerful opportunity to build a relationship.”

Fortune

Look Ma No commercials

“Hopper stores the shows for eight days after airing. Ergo, what you get is a running set of prime-time programming, about 100 hours of prime time TV, stored on your DVR, that you can watch commercial free. Whee!

The feature allows you to start watching the shows you’ve recorded starting at 1 a.m. Eastern Time the day after a show has been recorded. Before that, you can watch using the Hopper system’s 30-second “hop forward” feature to skip through ads. Dish notes that Auto Hop does not work on live broadcasts.”

Forbes

The WSJ on the reaction of the TV networks. Photo credit also WSJ.

Cloud based medical voice transcription

“This (Nuance cloud) approach makes the use of speech recognition very flexible. We no longer have to roll out the software. The users can use practically any device and start dictating wherever they want”, says Andreas Kaysler, CIO of the Augusta-Kranken-Anstalt hospitals in Germany. The Head of Surgery at the same organisation, Dr B. Mann adds: “Being able to dictate at the cursor, directly in the EHR is a major breakthrough! The time it saves is astonishing, as is the improvement in quality.”

IT-Director

Photo Credit

Credit to Dennis Howlett for bringing to my attention

A week of “Green”

No this is not about cleantech, but a wide range of salads I have enjoyed in the last week. Travel usually plays havoc with my diet and my exercise and this week I tried hard to get as many salads as I could and was amazed at the variety I enjoyed. There was protein and resveratrol to go along with these meals, but a salad was my main “entree”.

Friday night – in prep for trip at home - Baby greens from a package by Organic Girl, topped with deboned tandoori chicken and a mint and yogurt sauce

Saturday night – Mother’s Day dinner at Bella’s, Tampa – chopped romaine with ditali pasta (think small macaroni), sundried tomato, Gorgonzola in a dijon vinaigrette 

Sunday night – Hilton Orlando – Baby Red and Green Romaine, with wilted olives, asiago crustini and oregano vinaigrette

Monday lunch  - SapphireNow, Orange County Convention Center – Caprese – best mozzarella and tomato I have ever had in an event buffet lunch!

Monday night – Virgin Airways flight Orlando-San Francisco – greens wrapped in a cucumber (see photo).

Tuesday lunch – Fang’s, San Francisco – Jade spinach and marinated Bok Choy ( a Chinese cabbage)

Tuesday dinner – Le Charm, San Francisco -  Butter lettuce salad with lemon olive oil and herbs

Wednesday lunch – SuiteWorld, San Francisco Marriott Marquis – Gemelli Pasta, Feta Cheese, roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, baby spinach

Wednesday dinner – Espetus Churrascaria , San Francisco – In this carnivore’s delight like most Brazilian grills, I found one of the biggest and most internationally varied salad bars I have ever seen (photo below) . I tried Mexican guacamole, S. American quinoa and mango, N. African couscous, Middle Eastern hummus, Mediterranean grilled eggplant, and an arugula with honey vinaigrette. They had at least 10 other items including Brazilian stews on the salad bar.

Thursday lunch – Delta flight – San Francisco-Atlanta – surprisingly no salad on this wide body plane, so I had a Boar’s Head chicken slider. Tasty but only green was in the pesto mayonnaise. Should have had the wedge of iceberg before flight at Perry’s in the Delta terminal at SFO.  

Ok, so not everyone wants to eat like a rabbit, but hope you agree it is nice to see so much green food available in so many events, low and high places and in so much variety. That's innovation too!

Solar Cells on Paper and Clothes

Chemical vapor deposition changes the quality of a surface without using extreme temperatures or solvents that might cause damage. When Barr’s team at MIT figured out how to use the process to make solar cells, he says, they went to an office supply store and loaded up on stuff to test it on: “Saran Wrap, copy paper, tissue paper, almost anything you can imagine,” he says. Barr maintains the technique could be adapted for mass production. Because it relies on abundant organic molecules, rather than heavy metals or rare elements, it could be cheap, too. Right now, Barr’s solar cells convert only about 2 percent of the energy in light into electric power, compared with 10 percent to 20 percent for conventional photovoltaic panels, though he thinks he can eventually raise the efficiency to 10 percent.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Photo Credit

Cleaning up the Tantalum supply chain

Other hardware makers have taken a more creative tack. The world’s supply of tantalum is small—most of it would fill a 200-square-foot room—and 12 percent to 14 percent comes from the DRC. The companies saw no way to compete without tapping the country’s deposits, yet to do so they had to upend the traditional supply chain. “There were too many layers,” says Bill Millman, technical and quality director for electronic component maker AVX (AVX), in Fountain Inn, S.C. Typically manufacturers buy ore from refiners in China—long after it’s left the mine. “So we decided to take ownership of the materials from the mine to the customer,” says Millman.

AVX needed a partner in the DRC that would allow independent auditors to supervise both extraction and transport. After much scouting, the company found MMR, an Indian company with a government license to mine in Katanga, a relatively peaceful province. AVX helps to finance MMR’s operation and purchases its ore at global market prices—about $100 a ton. Auditors take notes on every sack of tantulum ore, recording its weight and myriad other details every time it changes hands on its way to port, where AVX handles shipping it to China for refining. The company says the paper trail provides a clear provenance for customers. “We’ve put our name on the line with this,” says Millman. Within the last year, Intel, Motorola Solutions (MSI), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) signed on to buy AVX’s tantalum. Jay Celorie, who manages HP’s conflict minerals program, visited the DRC to observe the process. “We wanted to be assured that they were putting the right kinds of … checks in place, and that it wouldn’t fail.”

BusinessWeek

Photo Credit for Tantalum capacitors

The evolution of the public library

Scaling the vast helix of white that swirls around the library’s central atrium (of the new City Centre Library in Surrey, BC), I accosted a staffer who was preoccupied with asking children to please take off their shoes before jumping on the furniture. When I despaired at the measly number of books in the literature section, she explained, with diplomatic care, that I was missing the point. “Our jobs are becoming more about helping newcomers with their language skills, or helping people access government services,” she explained. “We’re kind of social workers, actually.” Her fuzzy job description reflects a new reality for libraries, which have become much more than staid warehouses of content managed by shushing greybeards.

The Walrus

saw it courtesy of Sandy Kelmsley

Flying Virgin America

I am on a Virgin flight to San Francisco this evening. Wish they flew into Tampa (hint, hint) so I regularly could enjoy all the cool features that led me to write a case study on them in my book in the chapter focused on Technology enabled design elegance. The case study is attached below  - enjoy, but you really should experience the service yourself.

Download Virgin Case Study

 

 Photo Credit

Top Brands

10 respected brands from Amazon to Target are analyzed in this Entrepreneur article.

“The Values Institute, which conducted the study, identified five values that influence trust in a brand: ability (company performance); concern (care for consumers, employees and community); connection (sharing consumers' values); consistency (dependability of products/services); and sincerity (openness and honesty).

A total of 1,220 U.S. consumers were asked to rate each trust value on a five-point scale, from "very unimportant" to "very important."”

The Mile-High Bar

I have enjoyed stretching my feet and pouring a drink and noshing on some nuts from a self-serve bar on a Virgin Atlantic flight, but this Co.Design article shows a much more ambitious setting

"The atmosphere is meant to focus on the “immaterial” in which every surface reflects light like a JJ Abrams film, from the polished aluminum stools to the space’s champagne lacquered finish. It’s a mix of plastic, stone, and metal--all punctuated by color-changing LEDs to set the mood--combining to create an ethereal bar experience that might only make sense at 30,000 feet."

Saw it courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang

Mother’s Day Tech Ideas

I scoured several sites for ideas and some had nothing but mobile devices and apps. This site had the most balanced – and most colorful – list of suggestions pictured below.

For the record, the best mom in the world – Margaret – got a dinner last night and will get some flowers today. Hey, her day – her choice.

Nike’s “body-led design” for NFL uniforms

The base layers of the new uniforms have foam impact protection built into the “hit zones,” like the shoulders, hips and tailbone. Players’ thighs are protected by new lightweight carbon-fiber plates. Even the seams are strategically placed, designed to lie flat to avoid chafing. The fabric for the under-layer is Dri-FIT mesh, to soak up that mid-game perspiration.

The outer layer is made with Nike’s Flywire technology, developed originally for their footwear. It weaves together fibers in such a way that adds support where needed that doesn’t add any weight. This “lockdown” fit brings the pads back down to the body, getting rid of any loose fabric that someone could grab onto.

Nike also calls this a “shrink wrap” fit, “a design that enables speed without compromise.”

The company is proud of the light weight, but also the flexibility, of the new system. The fabric has a four-way stretch to maximize full range of motion– and this includes every part of the uniform, even the numbers sewn on the back.

The new fabric is also hydrophobic, doing its best in preventing the motion-limitations caused by wet uniforms during rainy games. Even the belt loops got some attention: they are made from aluminum and not steel, to shave some heft.

Smart Planet

Photo Credit: Nike

The NBA Nerds

Time to retire those baggy shorts. 

Time (sub required) reports

A Nerd-fashion wave is spreading across the NBA--a movement that is transforming the image of young, rich, African-American athletes. You would have spotted geek chic all over this year's All-Star Game, where Kevin Durant (in photo), LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Russell Westbrook and others sported Steve Urkel--style glasses throughout the weekend.

You see it in Dwyane Wade's cool-dweeb bow ties, in Amar'e Stoudemire's prep-perfect plaid shirt.

Sorry, George Clooney..

..but John Doerr’s dinner for the President sounded more interesting than yours last night. So, you did better with Wolfgang Puck’s menu which included an artichoke salad, roasted duckling "Peking style" and sweet corn tortelloni (Doerr kept his meal somewhat simple in deference to Steve Jobs’ diet), but Doerr’s technology executive guest list was awesome.

Now, if you ask my wife Margaret, no question what she would have picked. As she says, “you are easy on the eye” :)

And as the President said “They like me, but they love him (George)”

BTW, nice touch on the $ 3 crowdsourcing idea. I will happily pay higher for an invitation to your Lake Como home! 

Photo Credit

The Puzzler's Dilemma

The Puzzler’s Dilemma explores the world of classic math and logic puzzles and tells the amazing stories behind them, from the Lighthouse of Alexandria to the “15” puzzle and even the now-famous Monty Hall problem. Using real-world analogies, infectious humor, and a fresh approach, this deceptively simple volume will challenge, amuse, enlighten, and surprise even the most experienced puzzle solver.

In addition to his books, (Niederman) has produced some twenty crossword puzzles for the Sunday New York Times. He is also the inventor of the mathematical three-dimensional puzzle 36 Cube and the geometric word game PathWords.

College of Charleston (founded in 1770 where author teaches math)

The New Yorker Innovator Issue

Looks like a must-read issue with these articles among others:

• Michael Specter on geoengineering
• Nick Paumgarten on drones
• David Owen on photosynthesis and the energy crisis
• Evan Osnos on online matchmaking in China
• Larissa MacFarquhar on Clayton Christensen

The Fortune 500 issue – soaked with technology

 

Love this year’s issue.

There are many technology angles – full stories on HP, Honeywell, Amazon and galleries such as:

10 Technology Visionaries

Top 10 Social Media Users

Sleep and Creativity

Most REM sleep comes in the last four hours of sleep, says cognitive neuroscientist Jessica Payne of Notre Dame University. "Dreams in the early, NREM phase can be kind of literal. It's in the REM phase that you get all these crazy binding errors--you dream that you're walking in New York and suddenly wind up in Paris."

Binding errors is one of those lovely scientific terms that means pretty much what it sounds like. Your waking brain is orderly, your sleeping brain is fragmented, and as with all broken things, the bits can get reassembled the wrong way. But "the wrong way" suggests that there's just one way, and the genius of sleep is that it allows you to explore other, untried avenues.

Time (sub required)

Photo Credit Cleveland Clinic

Sapphire Now registration innovations

At last year’s SAP event, I posted about the impressive event technology. I am sure it will be just as whizbang this year with 12 miles of network cable and 150 wireless points on the show floor.

I have already been impressed with the smoothness of the registration process.

The web event and hotel registration was one of the easiest I have seen, and today I got an email with a confirmation bar code. On Sunday I could check in with my PDA at desks at Orlando airport, the Hilton (the media hotel) or the conference center and get my badge.

There is a mobile app for the personalized conference agendas – helpful with 600 educational sessions and 150 partner booths. There will be plenty of social coverage -  Facebook pages, LinkedIn Groups, Youtube channels, Twitter hashtags for the conference and 10 designated SAP “Social Ambassadors” for various topics/regions. 

I am surprised there is no dedicated Ambassador for the Van Halen concert on Wednesday. That’s one session I want updates for as I will be on West Coast by then.

Photo Credit

Coinstar’s vending machines of the future

Before launching Redbox, Coinstar focused mostly on coin-counting machines installed at supermarkets and other venues. For the uninitiated, a customer pours coins into the machine and has the option of getting the amount counted in a gift card to businesses like Amazon and the Gap. Or, for a “convenience fee” of nearly 10%, the coins can be counted and exchanged for paper currency—something your bank should do for you for free.

In recent times, reports the New York Times, Coinstar has also been looking into expanding its kiosk systems well beyond the coin-exchange and movie/video content business. In recent months, it has been testing all sorts of new kiosks and vending machines around the country. Around 500 new kiosks will be installed by the end of the year, and they might be selling quality coffee (from Seattle’s Best Coffee) (in photo), refurbished video games and electronics (iPhones, video game consoles), or other goods that are unexpected in a vending machine.

Time

Photo Credit

Technology of The Avengers

“Between those two brains and an unlimited budget, plus help from S.H.I.E.L.D., the African country of Wakanda, and the occasionally happy accident, the Avengers have saved Earth on multiple occasions using some very cool technology. Here's our run down of the greatest inventions created by or for Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Iron Man, Thor, and the rest of the hundreds of heroes who've carried an Avengers ID card.”

Gallery at PC Mag

Photo Credit

VPNs and repressive regimes

Egyptians turned to VPNs when the Mubarak regime blocked access to Facebook and Twitter, which activists used to share information and organize protests. Workarounds such as AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield, which Gorodyansky says has been downloaded 60 million times since 2007, are becoming increasingly important for people in countries where the Web is censored, particularly as repressive regimes get better at blocking access.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Photo Credit

Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm (BRAD)

The guy has a nice sense of humor. Read his FAQs after watching the video. 

 

The Internet Minute

Infographic from Intel

Nokia in the Valley

Its new Sunnyvale digs are quite colorful. See other photos here

Churchill Downs and Technology

Last year while presenting at the Keeneland race course in Lexington, KY, I was impressed at the wide range of technology there. Of course, the Kentucky Derby (being held today) is much bigger and Churchill Downs is a much bigger technology player

“In early 2007, Evans announced the launch of TwinSpires.com, CDI's first owned and operated ADW platform, in addition to a 50-percent ownership in HorseRacing TV (HRTV), a national television network featuring live horse racing from popular tracks around the country. CDI acquired three additional ADW platforms (Winticket.com, BrisBET.com and TsnBET.com) in June 2007 and, later in the year, consolidated all four businesses under the TwinSpires.com brand.  As part of the June 2007 acquisition, CDI also acquired the industry-leading data and pedigree information provider, Bloodstock Research Information Services (BRIS) and continues to operate the data business under the BRIS brand.

CDI invested in a 33,000 square foot expansion and Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots was opened in November 2008 with a facility capacity of over 700 slot machines, in conjunction with their simulcasting relocation and the opening of their new racing season.

Calder Casino and Studz Poker Club were completed and opened adjacent to the existing Calder Race Course in January 2010 and, coupled with Fair Grounds Slots, put 1,863 slot machines and 807 video poker machines into operation for CDI, between Louisiana and Florida, complimenting its core racing business.

In june 2010, CDI added to its ADW holdings by acquiring Youbet.com, one of North America's largest and most-established online horse racing and wagering platforms. CDI fully integrated Youbet.com into TwinSpires.com in November 2010 and now operates both businesses under the TwinSpires brand.

As part of the Youbet.com purchase, CDI also acquired Youbet's United Tote subsidiary, a leading supplier of totalizator systems, equipment and technology, including mobile wagering technology, that process wagers and payouts and is a provider of pari-mutuel tote services to racing operations such as leading racetracks Aqueduct, Belmont, Churchill Downs, Keeneland and Saratoga.”

Photo Credit

The Moon and Margaritas

Happy Cinco de Mayo

“Should you choose to celebrate ....with a few margaritas, be forewarned. The giant moon in the sky is not caused by the effects of the alcohol.

Due to the moon's position in the sky, its relationship to the Earth and the fact that it occurs during a full moon, what you'll see late on the night of May 5 is called a "supermoon."

At precisely 11:34 p.m. ET, the moon will be at its perigee, the closest point to the Earth along its elliptical orbit. The moon will also be full, making for quite a spectacle.”

KFVS

Lufthansa’s new 747-8

“Weighing 442 tonnes and with a wingspan of over 225ft, German flag carrier Lufthansa debuted on Tuesday its largest passenger jet.

Executives gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Everett, Washington that marked the official delivery of Boeing's 747-8 Intercontinental, scheduled to take its maiden commercial flight on June 1 from Frankfurt to Washington, DC.”

UK Daily Mail

Photo below of business class section
on the plane.

Thanks to Bill Wohl for pointing me the article

 

Foods your grandma would not recognize

I was at Subway this morning picking up a sandwich for Margaret and I saw this white round looking bread. Curious I asked – and the lady said it has no carbs..it is the egg white pre-shipped to the store to use in breakfast sandwiches.

And it occurred to me there are so many food and drinks so differently shaped and packaged than a decade or two or three ago.

They include

Breath mints

Instant Coffee 

Sous Vide packs

Chicken 

Soda Pop configured in countless combinations

Fruit Punch

Then you add in all the ethnic influences in our food and Rip Van Winkle would rather go back to sleep than eat our meals today!

Asteroid Mining

“First came space exploration. Then came space tourism. But the next big thing in space is the exploitation of resources, specifically precious metals and water mined from asteroids. So says a group of billionaire investors and its crack team of already-successful space entrepreneurs and former top NASA engineers.

Planetary Resources, headed by Space Adventures founder Eric Anderson and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, will announce in Seattle today an ambitious plan to identify, explore, tag, and eventually mine some of the thousands of asteroids within 5 million to 10 million miles away and which contain valuable resources.”

Popular Mechanics

Amazon Prime keeps evolving

To me, it was one of the most innovative things Amazon did – take shipping cost and time out of the web buying equation. With Prime at $ 79 a year (in US, other countries vary) you can get as many orders as you want shipped in 2 days – no minimum order value required.

And it keeps adding to the Prime features, as my recent renewal email pointed out:

• Prime instant videos — unlimited streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows
• Instant access to thousands of Kindle books to borrow for free through Kindle Owners' Lending Library (as in photo below)
• Ship to multiple addresses and send gifts to anyone in the continental U.S.
• Share your benefits with up to four members of your household at no additional cost
• Special Prime 1-Click buttons, order cutoff details, and delivery dates on every product page

I offered to add my daughter at college, and she responded “As a University student, I already get it for free”.

The Innocence Project

As DNA technology continues to rapidly evolve, the Innocence Project, made up of several prominent lawyers and artists (including John Grisham who has written many a legal bestseller) have helped free 290 prisoners across the US wrongly sentenced.