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<title>Haaze.com / Sarah01 / Published News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:10:31 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft prepping Kinect drivers, SDK for Windows]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-prepping-kinect-drivers-sdk-for-windows</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-prepping-kinect-drivers-sdk-for-windows</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:10:31 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-prepping-kinect-drivers-sdk-for-windows</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft&amp;39's Kinect(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)Microsoft is reportedly putting together drivers and a software development kit that would allow its Kinect motion sensor to work with Windows, according to WinRumors.Citing the usual sources familiar with the situation, WinRumors says the drivers and SDK would give third-party developers the ability to create software titles that can use a Kinect plugged directly into a Windows PC.Since its official launch last November, the Kinect has proven fertile ground for developers and hackers eager to stretch it beyond itsXbox 360 roots. People clever enough to write their own drivers have already been tinkering with the product, pushing it to work with PCs and other devices.Microsoft initially reacted negatively to these &quot;hacks&quot; but then seemed to warm up to the idea, explaining that the Kinect was designed to be an open platform. Still, the company would certainly prefer that developers use official drivers and SDKs, so it makes sense that these would be in the works.At this month'sCES, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was directly asked whether the company would allow the ability to plug a Kinect into a PC. Though his response was vague on timing, Ballmer did say that Microsoft would formally support this at the right time.Rumors about Windows 8 that trickled out in December say the new OS would focus on PC gaming as a key component. Combine that with Microsoft's recent move to buy gesture control maker Canesta, and WinRumors believes Kinect integration will be directly supported in the next generation of Windows.Microsoft declined to comment on WinRumors' report.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: Citi swiping Dynamics' 'smart' credit cards]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-citi-swiping-dynamics-smart-credit-cards</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-citi-swiping-dynamics-smart-credit-cards</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-citi-swiping-dynamics-smart-credit-cards</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Dynamics-powered Citi credit card lets you select which account you want to use at the time of payment.(Credit:Dynamics)LAS VEGAS--Dynamics' high-tech update on the old-fashioned credit card, which we covered from Demo in September, has landed a real customer. AtCES here, the company announced that Citigroup will be launching a trial of a credit card that lets users pay with either their regular credit account or with reward points they've accumulated. The user will press a button on the credit card to select a method of payment. That will activate the card's built-in electronics and rewrite the magnetic strip on the back so standard credit card-reading machines will use the chosen account.A small number of Citi customers will get the trial Citi ThankYou Prestige 2G Card later this yearDynamics' technology is designed to enable the creation of credit cards as thin and durable as existing passive cards, but with security features such as coded keypads that unlock the card's number display and magnetic strip, flexible multi-account features like those Citi is using, and other twists on the old, boring, static credit card.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Korean schools welcome more robot teachers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=korean-schools-welcome-more-robot-teachers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=korean-schools-welcome-more-robot-teachers</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:10:11 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=korean-schools-welcome-more-robot-teachers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Teacher&amp;39's pet An Engkey robot educates kids in Korea(Credit:Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)If you thought your English teacher was a robotic bore, spare a thought for kids in South Korea. They're being taught by real robots. The city of Daegu introduced 29 robot teachers in 19 elementary schools as part of a large-scale project to robotize teaching. The ambitious effort envisioned robots in all 8,400 kindergartens in Korea by 2013. Kids at Hakjung Elementary School seemed thrilled to interact with robots like the globular Engkey (above and in the vid below). It's about 3.2 feet tall and rolls around the classroom on wheels, asking questions in English and dancing to music.  Developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) at a cost of some $1.39 million, Engkey is a telepresence bot, controlled by teachers in the Philippines. It has two-way video and audio for interaction with students, and can move its arms around to make a point. The LED shows the teacher's face or an animated CG face. The machines will mostly be used in after-school programs as they can only handle about eight kids at a time. Last month, however, TIME magazine suggested the machines may threaten the jobs of some of the 20,000 to 30,000 foreign English teachers in Korea. It also named the robots one of the 50 best inventions of 2010. &quot;We will continue to study to improve its teaching ability until it's very close to that of real human teachers,&quot; Kim Mun-sang of KIST was quoted as saying by the Korea JoongAng Daily. Why not just use humans According to a New York Times report, state education budgets have been strained by importing thousands of foreign teachers, who are increasingly unwilling to live in remote areas and on islands. I don't think a telepresence robot can really replace a human teacher, but then again I nearly nodded off a few times in class during my teaching stint in Korea. A robot would never do that. Via Korea JoongAng Daily<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[U.S. soldier in Afghanistan gets $16,000 AT&T bill]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=u-s--soldier-in-afghanistan-gets-16000-att-bill</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=u-s--soldier-in-afghanistan-gets-16000-att-bill</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 19 Dec 2010 08:10:10 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=u-s--soldier-in-afghanistan-gets-16000-att-bill</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Updated 1:45 p.m. PT: I have heard from an AT&amp;T spokesperson, who has offered me the following comment: &quot;We are crediting the family's entire bill.&quot; AT&amp;T will be giving me further details in a while. I will update further then.I cannot imagine too many U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are currently having a great time.However, Pfc Jose Rivera has additional troubles with which he has to deal. His wife has just given birth. She is being treated for heart trouble. And AT&amp;T claims he owes $16,000 for his cell phone bill.His commanding officer at Forward Operating Base Shindand, Afghanistan, Capt. Evan Brainerd, is deeply frustrated by what he describes as AT&amp;T's &quot;unethical, unprofessional and inflexible&quot; attitude.He took up Rivera's case because that's what commanding officers should do and because English is not Rivera's first language. He says all he is asking AT&amp;T to do is to see a little reason.The large bill seems to have come about because of a considerable misunderstanding. Before he was posted to Afghanistan in July, Rivera spoke with AT&amp;T, who, he says, told him that for an additional $4.95 a month he could make international calls to his wife.What Rivera was not told, he says, is that AT&amp;T would charge him $5 a minute for every call and around 50 cents for every text.Brainerd agrees that Rivera was naive. &quot;While he should have realized that $4.95 a month was probably too good to be true, he is a young soldier with minimal experience with phone plans or overseas travel,&quot; Brainerd said.However, as the phone bill grew, no one at AT&amp;T allegedly contacted Rivera to advise him of the vastly escalating charges.Capt. Evan Brainerd outside his new HQ in Afghanistan.(Credit:Evan Brainerd)This seems to mirror a story from Massachusetts earlier this year in which an $18,000 bill was rung up when a Verizon promotional period expired and the customers were allegedly not informed.In Rivera's case, the minute he and his wife received a bill for $9,000, they canceled their AT&amp;T plan. However, as Brainerd relates it: &quot;Despite being put on hold for sometimes two hours at a time, they were unable to get any kind of explanation or answers from AT&amp;T. At one point, AT&amp;T's automated customer service sent a vague e-mail that said 'the problem had been resolved.'&quot;Resolution has many definitions. For, by the end of September, the bill had risen to $16,000, and it's mounting. An additional $200-300 a month is being added in interest charges.Sgt. Malcolm McCallum, Rivera's immediate supervisor, has also attempted to intercede with AT&amp;T. He says he has spent hours on the phone with them, mostly, he says, on hold.Brainerd said: &quot;We have initiated multiple formal complaints with AT&amp;T, none of which have gotten any attention. One request to lower the bill to $9,000, still a huge sum for a young PFC in the Army, was denied without any response or explanation.&quot;Brainerd is appalled that AT&amp;T does not appear to have a warning system when accounts behave as Rivera's did. He wonders not only why warnings weren't sent, but why the account wasn't frozen.He added in a letter to AT&amp;T: &quot;I have been disgusted by the way our soldiers have been treated, and largely ignored by AT&amp;T's customer service throughout our efforts to resolve this problem. I am certainly not claiming that our soldier, PFC Rivera, is blameless and should not pay to a certain extent for his phone usage. However, $16,000 (every penny that this soldier and his family can hope to save during the course of this 1 year deployment) is a gross injustice.&quot;Brainerd contacted me in the hope of spurring AT&amp;T to some compromise, or at least some positive action. I have contacted AT&amp;T and will update, should I hear from the company.Somehow, somewhere, the system seems to have broken down. Just as in the Verizon case, there is surely little benefit to AT&amp;T in simply watching a bill escalate beyond the imagination of a reasonable man on the train. In addition, AT&amp;T does pride itself on its support for U.S. troops, so one hopes that a little seasonal goodwill might prevail.In the meantime, Brainerd has just completed his design of the east side airfield base at Shindand, which has been constructed with the help of local Afghans from the ground up. He worries there are more young soldiers posted abroad who are experiencing similar problems with their cell phone bills. He firmly believes that, in the case of Rivera, &quot;AT&amp;T should have communicated fully and honestly to a deploying soldier about his options, costs and benefits.&quot;One can only hope that this difficult situation is soon resolved as sensibly as it can be. And I'm not just talking about the war in Afghanistan.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Oxford, Rice, Open University release eBooks on iTunes U]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oxford-rice-open-university-release-ebooks-on-itunes-u</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oxford-rice-open-university-release-ebooks-on-itunes-u</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oxford-rice-open-university-release-ebooks-on-itunes-u</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:The Open University)Oxford University, The Open University, and Rice University are three of the first schools to release eBooks on Apple's iTunes U, the part of the iTunes Store dedicated to offering free educational content.The Open University has released 100 free, interactive eBooks and promises an additional 200 titles by the end of the year. The school said its eBooks aren't just digital versions of existing books, but rather books that are designed specifically for the electronic format.As an example, Martin Bean, vice chancellor of The Open University, said that if you are learning about Schubert, you can hear the music while you follow the score and read the text.In June, The Open University became the first school to reach 20 million downloads of its material on iTunes U. It now has over 27 million downloads worldwide.Oxford University joined the eBook release party as it pushed out Shakespeare's entire First Folio. Oxford's Shakespeare contribution is available free from iTunes U.Oxford said it is also making six plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare available, including &quot;The Duchess of Malfi&quot; by John Webster.Rice University released 18 of its most popular free textbooks available as part of its open education initiative, Connexions.The books are available for download on iTunes U in the open ePub format. iTunes U, providing free educational material such as lab demonstrations and lectures, launched in 2007. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Discovery crew flies to Florida to prep for launch]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=discovery-crew-flies-to-florida-to-prep-for-launch</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=discovery-crew-flies-to-florida-to-prep-for-launch</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Social</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=discovery-crew-flies-to-florida-to-prep-for-launch</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The six-member, all-veteran crew of the shuttle Discovery flew to Florida today to await their blastoff Monday on a space station resupply mission that will be the orbiter's 39th and final mission.Arriving at the Florida spaceport after staggered flights from Houston aboard T-38 jets, commander Steven Lindsey, pilot Eric Boe, Nicole Stott, Michael Barratt, and spacewalkers Timothy Kopra and Alvin Drew touched down this afternoon.Astronaut Nicole Stott speaks to reporters at the shuttle runway. Her crewmates, left to right: Michael Barratt, Timothy Kopra, Alvin Drew, pilot Eric Boe, and commander Steven Lindsey.(Credit:William Harwood)&quot;Weather permitting, if all goes well, we'll have a nice November 1 on-time launch,&quot; Lindsey told reporters at the Shuttle Landing Facility. &quot;We're looking forward to it.&quot;Discovery's countdown to launch is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. tomorrow. Liftoff from pad 39A is targeted for 4:40:27 p.m. Monday, the moment Earth's rotation is estimated to carry the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit.&quot;We were able to talk to our friends on the space station this morning and they have spent a lot of time getting everything ready up there for us,&quot; Barratt said. &quot;We have a huge collection of hardware up there and I think we'll exceed a million pounds for the first time during our docked mission. We just want to give a nod to the program office that put the space station together and runs it. We're really looking forward to getting up there and doing our part to add to it yet again.&quot;The primary goals of the flight are to deliver a 21-foot-long cargo storage module, the last pressurized compartment NASA plans to launch to the station. The permanent multipurpose logistics module, or PMM, is loaded with 6,536 pounds of cargo, including an experimental humanoid robot known as Robonaut 2.Another 1,500 pounds of supplies and equipment are mounted in the shuttle's crew cabin, and an external storage platform carrying a spare set of folding radiator panels is mounted in the ship's cargo bay. The 8,161-pound storage platform and the radiator panels will be mounted on the space station's power truss.&quot;It's really great to be back here, this place brings smiles to all of our faces for sure,&quot; said Stott. &quot;We're bringing up some pretty cool stuff. We've got a permanent logistics module that we'll be attaching and we have the ELC-4, which is basically an external carrier that will have some large spare parts for the station. So we really look forward to being able to put the station in the best possible configuration for future missions.&quot;Discovery's launch window extends through November 7.NASA, GM unveil Robonaut 2 (photos) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Top 5 things I dislike about Windows Phone 7]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=top-5-things-i-dislike-about-windows-phone-7</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=top-5-things-i-dislike-about-windows-phone-7</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=top-5-things-i-dislike-about-windows-phone-7</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Slacker on Windows Phone 7(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)In general, Microsoft got a lot of things right with Windows Phone 7, and it now has a solid foundation on which to build its mobile platform. However, it's not all sunshine and roses. The OS has its annoyances and is lacking in some areas. I certainly understand that Microsoft had to make some sacrifices to meet its launch deadline, but we're talking about some basic, fundamental features that would have put them more in step with the competition right out of the gate.So as much I love Windows Phone 7, there are also things that sticks in my craw. As promised, here are the top five things I'd like to see come to the platform in the next update. I didn't include a couple of the obvious ones--copy and paste and more apps--since they're coming, but they're important to be sure. That said, let's get on with the list.Third-party multitaskingIt's great that I can listen to music viaZune, go work in another app and still control the player from the status bar. It would be even better if I could also do that with Slacker, Last.fm, or some other app. For now, you have to keep these third-party apps open in order to use and interact with them--if you switch to another app, you're as good as done. For now, part of Microsoft's solution to the multitasking problem is to allow developers to use its notification system to alert users to any updates even if the app isn't running, and to allow to apps to save their place when another program is running in the foreground. OK, except the apps don't always save their place and they can be slow to load. And really, the fact that I can't even simply check my e-mail while listening to Slacker is pretty ridiculous in this day and age.Early on, Microsoft's Charlie Kindel told ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley the company would offer more multitasking support &quot;as things like battery life, network utilization and application predictability improve for the Windows Phone platform&quot; but Microsoft needs to remedy this as soon as possible. An app switcher like Android would also be great.Lack of universal search(Credit:Bonnie Cha/CNET)This goes back to the apps menu issue. I got some from grief from readers during my technical preview ofWindows Phone 7 when I said I wasn't sold on the layout of the Start screen and app menu list. The Start screen I've moved on. The customization abilities let you add as many or as little tiles as you want. However, I still have issues with the long list view for apps. It's not that I'm lazy and hate scrolling. I get it. It's part of how we use touch-screen smartphones. I'm just saying there are more efficient ways to do things.  The Windows Phone 7 apps that I've seen have been very promising in quality, and the Marketplace is continuing to grow on a weekly basis. I've already downloaded at least a dozen apps to the Samsung Focus, and when you add those on top of the core apps, the list is already getting lengthy. Adding universal search would easily solve that problem, and also allow you to search for e-mail, contacts, music, and other content from anywhere on the phone. As I noted in my previous post, contextual search works great, but why not extend those awesome search capabilities to the entire systemRestricted landscape supportDuring the Windows Phone 7 launch event, I was checking out the LG Quantum. I slid open the keyboard and noticed the Start screen didn't switch from portrait mode to landscape mode, like most smartphone do. I thought it might have been a glitch, but no, it's a real thing. Landscape mode doesn't work in all situations.LG Quantum(Credit:Bonnie Cha/CNET)It works for most of the things you'd want it to--messages, videos and photos, the Web browser, and games. But it's a no go on maps, the music player, the Start screen. Part of the reason Microsoft did this is because it said that user testing showed that customers were really rotating the phone only to type messages, but were otherwise using the phone in portrait mode. That may be the case but when you're launching with devices like the Quantum, the HTC Surround, and HTC HD7 that are begging to be used in landscape mode (the latter two have kickstands), wouldn't you want to optimize the system for that Dependency on Zune softwareI'll take the Zune desktop client over Exchange ActiveSync any day, but I do wish it wasn't the only option for syncing music, video, podcasts, and photos to a Windows Phone 7 device. It'd be nice to be able to drag-and-drop files from your computer to your phone, but it's not recognized as a drive when connected and there's no USB mass storage mode. Also, since the Zune software only syncs with the aforementioned content, if you have an Outlook account not connected via Exchange ActiveSync, you'll have to get Outlook Hotmail connector software to get your contacts and calendar into the cloud so they'll sync with your phone.Limited social integrationAs far as social networking goes, Windows Phone 7 really only fully integrates with Facebook for now. You can't merge your contacts from Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, and the like. There is an official Twitter app, but I think it needs a little fine-tuning as takes too long to load and doesn't offer any notifications. I also can't upload photos to Twitter from the Picture Hub. In general, this may be fine for some people, but I use several of these services often for my work and personal life, so it's been a bit of a frustrating experience to not have easy access to them. So there you have it, folks--a list of some of my top gripes with Windows Phone 7. Of course, there are number of issues I didn't address, such as the lack of full turn-by-turn navigation, no tethering support, lack of a unified inbox, no custom ring tones, and others, but these are some of the bigger items I wanted to see addressed pretty quickly. Your needs might differ from mine though, so please share your thoughts with me in the comments section below.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[At SRI, developing an expertise in R&D, innovation]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at-sri-developing-an-expertise-in-rd-innovation</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at-sri-developing-an-expertise-in-rd-innovation</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at-sri-developing-an-expertise-in-rd-innovation</guid>
<description><![CDATA[MENLO PARK, Calif.--If you've never seen a robot climb straight up an entirely flat vertical wall, I dare you not to be impressed the first time you do.SRI, based in the heart of Silicon Valley, is one of the premiere research and development shops in the world. But it also specializes in sending its innovations to market. One of the most exciting in its pipeline now is a technology known as electroadhesion, which allows small robots like this one, to climb walls.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)That was my certainly experience when I watched a wall-climbing robot do its thing at SRI International here the other day. Indeed, my host, who had been with me through several product and project demonstrations over about three hours, noticed how excited I was by watching this little device go straight up the wall, and, I think, began to wonder if I was actually interested in any of the other things I'd seen.In fact, she shouldn't have worried. I was at SRI as part of my ongoing Road Trip at Home series and was getting a rapid-fire lay of the land at this Silicon Valley research and development--and incubation--powerhouse. And while the robot technology may well have been the coolest thing I saw all day (see video below), I liked almost everything I saw during my visit.The wall-climber is the sexy model SRI built to showcase its electroadhesion technology, which, as senior research engineer Harsha Prahlad explained, is as it sounds, an electrical adhesive. &quot;With the power on, there's adhesion,&quot; Prahlad said. &quot;With the power off, there's no adhesion.&quot;At SRI, wall-climbing robots and much more (photos) Prahlad said that SRI sees this technology as a &quot;sticky pad&quot; for objects, a &quot;temporary tape you can attach objects to your wall with.&quot; Yet, there's no sticky residue: all the adhesion is done through the power of attracting opposite electrical charges to each other. An object, like a small robot, has flexible plastic electrodes attached to it, which are charged positive or negative, and then it will stick to any surface because &quot;the world develops opposite charges for us,&quot; Prahlad said. &quot;So wherever there's a positive, the material gets charged negative, and vice versa.&quot;So what is SRI doing with electroadhesion According to Prahlad, it is looking for ways to incorporate it into structural or building inspection--you could have a wall-climbing robot place a camera or a sensor in a hard-to-reach spot' into consumer products--so you can attach objects to a wall' into military use--so soldiers can place a surveillance camera, or to place some other kind of item' into industry--it could be used to move large items, such ascar parts, around. Prahlad said that electroadhesion is a winning idea because the systems that power it require very little power, weigh next to nothing, and are nearly silent. &quot;And they can conform around [any] object,&quot; he said, &quot;so they can adapt to any shaped object.&quot;Today, places like car manufacturing plants use a variety of robotic systems, like vacuum or mechanical graspers, to move items around. But Prahlad said electroadhesion offers as much as 20 times the power and 10 times the mass savings over such legacy systems. First shown publicly in 2008, the wall-climbing robot and other systems built with electroadhesion are at least two years away, Prahlad predicted.A history of innovationFor decades after its 1946 founding, SRI was part of Stanford University, and was known as Stanford Research Institute. But during the Vietnam War, said Norman Winarsky, SRI's vice president for ventures, licensing, and strategic programs, Stanford was getting picketed for having government contracts, and so the institute was spun off as a nonprofit.The irony of that is that today, SRI has plenty of partnerships with Stanford, and at least 70 percent of its contracts are with the government, Winarsky said.Silicon Valley, of course, abounds with companies and institutions geared toward pushing the latest technology and science toward profitable markets. There's the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Stanford' Google and Hewlett-Packard and Intel, and others. But SRI has been leveraging high-tech R&amp;D into start-ups for years, and Winarsky said that around 50 companies that began inside the institute have eventually been spun off. Four of these companies have gone IPO and together are now worth $20 billion. And, of course, this is the institution that spawned the invention of the mouse, the hyperlink, surgical robots, that was in on the very first Arpanet communication ever, and so much more.&quot;Our mission is to be the world's leader in innovation,&quot; Winarsky said, &quot;delivering new innovations and solutions into the marketplace. That's very different from our peers, which are usually [set up] to educate, or to do R&amp;D alone.&quot;At any given time, SRI has around 2,000 projects in the pipeline, spread across five major divisions.Among them are the information technology division--with three sub-divisions focusing on artificial intelligence, speech and natural language, and computer security' physical sciences--clean tech, batteries, alternative energy, and new materials' and engineering systems, where the institute is looking at developing new systems and software.There's also an education division, which was one of my first stops for the day, accompanied by Melissa Koch, a senior project manager in SRI's Center for Technology in Learning. Among other things, Koch is working on a surprising National Science Foundation-funded project she told me about, one aimed at providing low-income, urban girls with after-school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) development.The idea, Koch said, is to help answer the question of where the next generation of innovators is going to come from. Working alongside a nonprofit known as Girls Inc., she is trying to entice middle-school-age girls in underserved communities to consider careers in information technology--through exposure to professional women of color, as well as visits to places like Google and IDEO--and to &quot;get comfortable using new technologies as they come about.&quot;The last of SRI's five areas is its biosciences division, which largely focuses on drug development, Winarsky said.It might be surprising to know that the institution is a major pharmaceutical player, but that's because most of its work ends up being brought to market by companies with professional marketing and sales organizations. Still, the underlying science behind some of the pharma industry's pills comes straight from SRI.One project I got to see is run by Gita Shankar, the director of formulations R&amp;D in the biosciences division. Shankar explained that one big problem in the pharmaceuticals industry is that many drugs require being taken intravenously--something that is not practical in many situations.Even when it's practical, Shankar added, many people prefer to take drugs orally--as a pill or a solution--rather than having them injected, and research shows that people are more likely to take a prescribed oral drug than one that's IV. So at SRI, Shankar and her team are working hard at figuring out the rather complex problem of converting IV drugs into those that can be taken orally.The difficulty, she explained, is that while an IV drug goes straight into the blood stream, a swallowed substance must first transit the stomach and the intestines--and their myriad acids and bases--before making it to the patient's veins. That process can take as much as two hours and easily degrade the drug. As a result, SRI has built up a competency, Shankar explained, in converting existing drugs--such as the antibiotic vancomycin--from IV-only to oral and building a giant database of the substances--known as &quot;enhancers&quot; that can help push a drug successfully through the stomach and intestine and into the veins. Once the division is successful at coming up with a drug transformation, SRI will find a commercial partner to market it, and then collect royalties.According to Shankar, all the drugs in SRI's pipeline are in a pre-clinical pathway, and many are geared toward maladies common in the Third World, often those that are not well served by major pharmaceutical companies. As a result, she said, much of the division's funding comes from philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.At the same time, the division is also working on developing drugs for the military, including one geared toward battling anthrax attacks in the field. Shankar said that an IV approach to such a drug was impractical because it required 18 doses over six months. But by converting an existing drug into one that can be taken through the nose--which shortcuts the stomach and the intestine--that slow, deliberate process can be streamlined for the reality of military life.Siri and Intuitive SurgicalThroughout my visit, almost everyone I met made a point of mentioning Siri, a DARPA-funded company that emerged from SRI's R&amp;D labs and went on to get acquired by Apple, which wanted its mobile virtual personal assistant technology to allowiPhone oriPod Touch users to ask questions about things like services, destinations, or finding consumer goods. Another frequently mentioned success story was Intuitive Surgical, a Sunnyvale, Calif., SRI spin-off that makes the Da Vinci robotic-assisted surgical system. Da Vinci is being used far and wide for high-precision prostate surgery, as well as myriad other procedures.The system was first available in 1999, and in 2000, the FDA made it the first robotic surgical system ever cleared for general laparoscopic surgery, SRI said. Since then, Da Vinci has added cardiac, urological, chest, and gynecological procedures to its FDA-approved repertoire.The point of everyone mentioning Siri and Intuitive Surgical was to showcase SRI's well-known and respected innovation engine. Because while it is a nonprofit that performs more than 70 percent of its contracts for governments, and because much of its funding comes from private foundations and government agencies like the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, and others, it is still in business. And to hear Winarsky tell it, its business, ultimately, is spinning off new ventures.As well, it's about trying to determine, earlier than most, where the next great innovation fields will be. To SRI, Winarsky said, those will be the true emergence of artificial intelligence-based virtual personal assistant systems (SRI currently has four developing ventures in that area)' and cybersecurity--&quot;We're beginning to see malware that's profoundly different than worms and viruses we've seen in the past,&quot; said Winarsky.But for many of the SRI employees, these fields could well end up being their path to millions, Winarsky suggested.Indeed, a chief selling point for its more than 2,200 employees is the chance to participate in hefty royalty checks that can come in from successful spin-offs, or even to join new SRI-spawned ventures as founders or executives.And in the end, Winarsky said, SRI is all about generating an environment that breeds innovation. And that takes a clear and well-defined process.In fact, oddly enough, one of SRI's most consumed products is a two-day course on its innovation process that it teaches both at its Silicon Valley headquarters and around the world. &quot;The theory is that innovation is a discipline,&quot; Winarsky said. &quot;It does and can have a genius moment of creativity. But it's not necessary that the climate be overcoming all obstacles...So what SRI is refining and leading is cultivating the environment to make innovation.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[GE to boost LEDs with jet engine technology]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ge-to-boost-leds-with-jet-engine-technology</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ge-to-boost-leds-with-jet-engine-technology</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:25:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ge-to-boost-leds-with-jet-engine-technology</guid>
<description><![CDATA[NISKAYUNA, New York--General Electric said today it will roll out an LED bulb to replace 60-watt incandescent bulbs next year, part of an expanded line of efficient lighting.GE also showed off a prototype downlight LED bulb which gives off 1,500 lumens, the equivalent amount of light as a 100-watt halogen, but it uses one third the energy. The prototype uses an active cooling system originally used by GE's jet engine business.A prototype of a GE-developed LED downlight with an active cooling system that gives off as much light as a 100-watt halogen.(Credit:GE)The announcements were made at a lighting symposium here at GE's Global Research Center, held to showcase new lighting technologies GE expects to move into the market over the next few years. This year, it will spend about 95 percent of its lighting research budget on new efficient lighting technology, with about half of that going to LEDs. GE expects that by 2013, about 15 percent of its lighting sales will be from LEDs, said John Strainic, global product general manager for GE Lighting.Later this year, GE will release its first LED bulb designed for general use, such as desk lamps and overhead lights. This 40-watt equivalent bulb will last over 20 years, assuming three hours a day of use, and meet the upcoming EnergyStar standard for LED bulbs. It will not be dimmable.Next year, GE will make available a 60-watt equivalent LED bulb which will be dimmable, said Strainic. The company is pursuing a 75-watt equivalent but making an LED with that much light output is technically challenging, Strainic said.&quot;A 75 watt equivalent is a big leap in terms of light capability and heat dissipation,&quot; he said.GE, which makes most of its lighting revenue from commercial customers, is pursuing other more efficient lighting technologies. Countries around the world have legislation in place that sets efficiency standards. Those standards, the analogue of fuel efficiency mandates for vehicles, will start to go into effect in 2012 in the U.S. and is expected to lead to a phase-out of 100-watt incandescent bulbs.By Earth Day next April, GE plans to release a hybrid halogen-compact fluorescent bulb which it says addresses some of the shortcomings of CFLs. A small halogen bulb turns on when the bulb is lit, giving it &quot;instant on&quot; full light. Once the CFL has warmed up, the halogen turns off.The prototype 1500-lumen LED downlight uses &quot;dual cool jets,&quot; small devices near the light source which improve the flow of heat compared to natural convection, GE said. That type of active cooling system, which GE expects to see in commercial products some day, means that more current can be passed through fewer LED light sources, which will reduce the cost, said Strainic.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Tendril buys Grounded Power to get smarter about consumer energy]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=tendril-buys-grounded-power-to-get-smarter-about-consumer-energy</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=tendril-buys-grounded-power-to-get-smarter-about-consumer-energy</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:25:54 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=tendril-buys-grounded-power-to-get-smarter-about-consumer-energy</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Smart-grid company Tendril Networks said it has acquired Grounded Power, a small company with expertise in the social aspects of energy efficiency.Boulder, Co.-based Tendril makes devices and software for presenting electricity usage information to consumers. It makes a small countertop display called the Vision designed to help people better manage home energy and reduce electricity use. People can also access that data via smartphone applications or a Web portal.GroundedPower&amp;39's energy efficiency system combines electricity monitoring with social-networking tools. (Credit:GroundedPower)By buying Newton, Mass.-based Grounded Power, Tendril hopes to add some of the techniques Grounded Power has developed for personalized energy management, said Tendril CEO Adrian Tuck today. Tendril also announced that it has raised a series D round of $23 million.There's growing recognition in the utility industry that a significant number of customers would like to reduce their energy consumption but there's a need for energy-efficiency applications that present information effectively. Tendril timed the acquisition announcement with industry conference GridWeek, where a number of talks address consumers and the smart grid.&quot;What we really wanted to do is give users really tailored information without bombarding them with data,&quot; said Tuck. &quot;And we recognized that we didn't have that DNA in-house and the (Grounded Power) team has solved some really hard problems related to this.&quot;There are about 10 employees at Grounded Power, many of whom previously worked on programs to help people stop smoking. For the past two years, it has worked with municipal and co-op utilities devising energy efficiency programs that use some of the same techniques.Those trials have been successful, with utility customers able to reduce energy consumption by 9 percent on a sustained basis, said Tuck. The trick is being selective with the information that's presented to people, he said.Tendril&amp;39's Vision is a home energy management system designed for ease of use.(Credit:Tendril)Rather than a dashboard with a real-time display of electricity usage, the Grounded Power Web application is designed for consumers to create goals around a plan and to be able to share tips with peers. It also designed a small device, which only displays green, orange, or red to indicate whether it's peak hours for electricity and the prices are higher.Tendril plans to integrate some of the recommendations and social-networking features into the next version of its portal application in the second quarter next year, Tuck said. Consumers will have to opt in to the program, he added.A person, for example, could indicate that she won't check the portal but would rather receive a text message when energy use has strayed from a pre-set budget, Tuck explained. A person could also choose to just receive a paper report with updated reports and recommendations on cutting electricity usage.Tendril will roll out the new features to its existing customer base, which is 38 utilities in North America. With the series D funding, the company intends to bolster support to those utilities as they roll out their smart-grid programs and to expand internationally, Tuck said.Updated at 10:55 a.m. PT with corrected figure of funding amount.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The art of putting out airplane fires]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-art-of-putting-out-airplane-fires</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-art-of-putting-out-airplane-fires</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:25:04 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-art-of-putting-out-airplane-fires</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Two powerful jets of water are sprayed onto the fire from a truck parked alongside the airplane.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.--The flames were raging, and the cries of people trapped inside the plane were audible, even from well over a hundred feet away.Yet despite the fire crews wearing heavy-duty proximity suits, blasting water from a pair of hoses, and a collection of fire trucks gathered near the burning fuselage, no one looked particularly worried. No lives were actually at stake.This was firefighter training at Moffett Field, part of an annual process that the crews from the NASA Ames Fire Department and the nearby Palo Alto and Sunnyvale Fire Departments have to go through in order to be certified to work airplane fires. And while the flames were real enough, this was nothing more than a big, fiery, smoky simulation.At NASA, learning to fight airplane fires (photos) In the past, explained NASA Ames fire chief Steve Kelly, his firefighters would have had to travel to places like Salt Lake City to get their annual certification, a process that meant doling out nearly $100,000 in expenses and which precluded the department's being able to do the training with their own trucks, and on their own turf.But this year, for the first time, Moffett Field--which is adjacent to NASA's Ames Research Center--is playing host to the Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting trainer. The ARFF setup is a Federal Aviation Administration-approved mobile trainer brought in by a team from Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Mich., where it is based, that travels around the country serving crews that need to take care of their annual certification.To call it a mobile trainer is a somewhat stale term. In fact, it appears to be a deeply burned-out Beechcraft 1900, complete with scorched engines and wheels, and more than its share of scars, scrapes, and bruises.Yes, according to ARFF program coordinator Joe Teixeira, the trainer affords fire crews like those from the NASA Ames and the Palo Alto and Sunnyvale departments a chance to work on many of the skills they will need if they ever find themselves having to deal with an actual emergency involving an airplane fire.Further, the training gives each of these crews the chance to work on putting out an airplane fire with their so-called &quot;mutual aid&quot; departments, meaning fire departments that are in close proximity to each other and which would all be called in to handle a real emergency.One thousand degreesWhile fire departments like these have traditionally done this kind of training at facilities that use real jet fuel in their blazes, the ARFF system employs propane, and allows for massive flames that can be extinguished with water--or simply turned off.If one were to wander by without knowing that, however, it wouldn't seem like any kind of benign moment. Teixeira said the flames on the ground outside the airplane, which are meant to simulate fires burning on jet fuel pooled on the tarmac, can reach temperatures of 900 degrees to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.A huge fire rises off the ground, where propane is sending up jets of flames to simulate jet fuel that would be pooled and burning on the tarmac outside a burning airplane.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)At the same time, the fires that are set inside the aircraft, and which the crews must navigate to rescue &quot;passengers,&quot; can top out at about 120 degrees. Yet the billowing smoke that looks every bit real, is nothing more than piped in theatrical smoke, Teixeira admitted.Over the course of several days, the fire crews have been taking turns working through the training, which simulates a number of different kinds of emergencies--single-engine blazes, cabin fires, burning tail engines and wheel brakes, and more, all according to whatever the local training officer wants.And Teixeira and his team will throw curveballs at the fire crews. For example, he explained, while the first few go-rounds will have the fire personnel rushing in the main cabin door to put out interior blazes, he intended to block the door later in the day and force the crews to figure out another way inside.It beginsAt first, all is calm. But then someone walks up to the side of the trainer, opens a hatch, and plugs in the audio system. Suddenly, the sound of screaming emerges from the airplane.With that, a red Palo Alto fire engine comes hurtling across the Moffett Field tarmac, emergency lights flashing, and out hops a group of firefighters. Yet, despite the developing &quot;disaster&quot; nearby, they don't run, they don't rush. They methodically put on their gear. At this point, the flames are only coming out of the wing engines.As they hook up fire hoses to their truck, the screams continue. Finally, two firemen in normal fire suits and one in a proximity suit--a special silver-colored suit meant for very hot fires--start blasting water from a hose onto the blaze. Yet, the flames are only getting bigger. A crew member gets ready to battle the blaze inside and outside the trainer aircraft.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)In a real emergency, crews would be using a solution of water and 3 percent special foam known as aqueous film-forming foam designed to help put out jet fuel fires. While the foam is not hazardous, it still must be completely cleaned up after use, and so Kelly, the Ames fire chief, explains that for training sessions like this one, the crews will use only water to extinguish the flames.Now, two yellow Ames fire trucks have joined the fray, and two more men in proximity suits are helping out. But the flames are now on the roof of the plane, and the crews are now utilizing two hoses and two strong jets of water. At the same time, one of the big yellow fire trucks is blasting two more large jets of water toward the plane.It's not as simple as just trying to overwhelm the fire with powerful water pressure, though. Kelly explained that because the special foam that's used in real emergencies creates a blanket that can smother a fire, it's essential not to break through that film with jets of water. That's why, Kelly continued, the crews are training on creating a &quot;fog&quot; of water from their hoses that can help put out the fire without puncturing what would be the foam film.Big savingsWhile Kelly used to have to spend $90,000 or more to send his crews away to do their annual training, he said that bringing in the ARFF system costs just $20,000 and lets the Ames Fire department train with their own trucks and on their own tarmac. And that's key, he suggested, for getting a realistic sense of what it would be like to fight an airplane fire.And realism is what he's after. He said that in a real airplane fire, it's known that fire can go from the exterior of the fuselage to the interior in just 90 seconds, and so his crews are being trained to attack such a blaze as quickly as possible. That means getting their trucks close to the conflagration and hitting it with &quot;mass application of agent,&quot; essentially trying to overpower the fire with as much foam--or water, in this case--as possible in as short a time as possible.Here, we see the roof of the trainer ablaze.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)In fact, he said, the trucks have just about two minutes' worth of agent on board, so it's crucial to try to get the fire out quickly, even as crews are climbing on board to try to rescue anyone stuck inside. If a truck empties out, and the fire continues, its crews must take the time to re-service--meaning loading up a new tank full of agent--and then repeat. It's a &quot;dance&quot; of &quot;fight fire, re-service, fight fire, re-service,&quot; Kelly said.From the earliest days of Moffett Field in the 1930s, when it was a Naval base, there has been a fire department here. First it was run by the Navy, Kelly explained, and then in 1994, when the Navy left, it was run by the California Air National Guard. In 2006, the department was turned over to Wackenhut Services, a private company based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. But you'd never know it to look at Kelly or any of his 50 crew. Their uniforms all identify them as members of the NASA Ames Fire Department, and they protect everything from Moffett Field to the entire NASA Ames Research Center and all the private partners that are based here.Piercing operationThe last exercise is what Teixeira called a &quot;piercing operation,&quot; in which a very sharp implement at the end of a crane arm on top of one of the fire trucks is extended over the plane in order to puncture through its top. The idea here is to try to put out an interior fire without breaking too large a hole in what might be a highly-pressurized cabin. That could cause a serious problem.One by one, crews of two get in the front of the truck and carefully maneuver the piercer into place above an aluminum plate on top of the plane. It's a tricky move, especially for the inexperienced. As Teixeira puts it, not so delicately, you only want to pierce through the roof of the plane by about four or five inches because &quot;if this was a passenger plane, and you went all the way through, you might go through someone's head.&quot;As a crew member named Bobby calls out instructions to his fellow firefighter Sean, Sean says, cautiously, &quot;You're going to spot me, right I've never done this before.&quot;But Sean is spot on, and though it takes him a minute or so, he puts the piercer in exactly the right place. On a monitor showing thermal images, we can see a flame get blasted with water from above. And not long after, we see water pouring out from the plane's windows.All in all, the training has been a big success, said Ames fire battalion chief Bob Wilson. He explained that he has been very pleased with everyone's performances during the exercises and that the only thing he'd wanted to see corrected was having the crews be quicker to move their trucks and themselves close to the fire.&quot;Your instinct is not to be close to the fire,&quot; Wilson said, &quot;but these vehicles are designed [to get close]. 'No, it's OK to drive two feet close to the flames.'&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Can there be a tech bubble without an IPO frenzy (video)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=can-there-be-a-tech-bubble-without-an-ipo-frenzy-video</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=can-there-be-a-tech-bubble-without-an-ipo-frenzy-video</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=can-there-be-a-tech-bubble-without-an-ipo-frenzy-video</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Since 2008, the initial public offering market for tech startups in the U.S. has been pretty dead. In 2010, 42 tech companies went public, compared to 17 the year before. But that pace is slow compared to past boom years.Many of the IPOs are Chinese or Indiantech companies coming into the U.S. stock market. Of the tech companies that have gone public, only six U.S. firms are in thecategory of digital media and internet.IPOs are no longer the option they once were for smaller or mid-size tech startups, said David Liu, a managing director for digital media and internet deals at investment bank Jefferies &amp;amp' Co., speaking today at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich today.The state of affairs raises an interesting question: Is therea bubble in tech valuations for companies such as Facebook, even though there is no accompanying frenzyaround IPOs The question is critical to tech companies of all kinds, since the ability to cash out is soimportant in the innovation cycle. It helps employees get rich, lets investors get a return so they can invest in new companies, and it allows big companies to buy smaller ones.Some of the biggest potential candidates such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Groupon aren&amp;'t going public because they&amp;'ve raised huge rounds from venture capitalists and private equity firms. That&amp;'s creating a mixed outlook for the valuation of tech companies. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the value of internet companies hit bottom, with shares trading on average at 6 times EBITDA (earning before income tax, depreciation and amortization). Now they are trading at 11 times EBITDA.On the one hand, it&amp;'s kind of insane that Facebook can command a $70 billion market value, said Henry Blodget, panel moderator at DLD and editor in chief ofBusiness Insider.That value is based on the recent trading in the secondary market created by Facebook&amp;'s recent investor, Goldman Sachs, which put $1.5 billion into Facebook. While Facebook isn&amp;'t public, its shares are traded on SecondMarket, which offers liquidity to employees who want to sell their shares in hot companies.On the other hand, there is only one Facebook, Liu said.SecondMarket, headed by panelist Barry Silbert, allows employees to cash out early by letting them sell shares to high-net-worth investors, who presumably know the risks they are undertaking of buying shares in a private company that does not yet release financial information. Through SecondMarket, lots of Facebook employees have sold shares, resulting in a price for the shares that allows observers to calculate Facebook&amp;'s current market value. Silbert say the benefit of secondary market trading &amp;8212' which is only about two years old &amp;8212' is that employees can cash out and relieve the pressure on the company to go public.The attractiveness of this secondary trading is one of the factors that is causing a &amp;''slow death for the IPO,&amp;'' Silbert said, compared to a decade ago. After the Facebook-Goldman Sachs deal was announced, most major banks reached out to SecondMarket to see how they could participate in the secondary market.A decade ago, much smaller companies would go public because they didn&amp;'t have the secondary market option.&amp;''Back then,a company could go public and raise $150 million,&amp;'' Silbert said. &amp;''But today, it&amp;'s $500 million or $1 billion. The only ones with a chance to go public are very large companies.&amp;''Employees are thus impatient to unload shares, and some private investors are desperate to pour money into the hottest companies. SecondMarket takes a three percent to five percent cut from the seller. In the past two years, it has done $100 million in private company transactions for five companies.The Securities and Exchange Commission may crack down on this secondary market (especially if there is aretougher regulations passed), and that could force Facebook to go public, said Matthew Bishop, an editor at the Economist and a panelist. But the SEC is likely only to force Facebook to disclose its financial information.Blodget said that he thinks Facebook will choose to stay private, in part because there are so many difficulties in going public, such as complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory law in the U.S. Bishop alsosaid that the tough regulatory environment, which was implemented after the last bubble, is making it far tougher for companies to go public.Parts of the tech start-up market seem overheated, in addition to the trading/investment in Facebook. Super angels are individual investors who have made a lot of money and have raised their own funds for further investment. Those angels have taken a &amp;''spray and pray&amp;'' approach of investing in tons of tech startups, Bishop said. Also, as Google and Facebook spar for talent, they&amp;'re acquiring companies just to get their hands on good teams. That is inflating startup valuations too.&amp;''This bubble is a different kind of baby,&amp;'' Bishop said.Silbert said that talk about bubbles simply sells newspapers. While the valuations of Facebook and Groupon are high, one could argue they are unique and disruptive companies, Silbert said.&amp;''There are signs of life,&amp;'' Liu said. &amp;''But it&amp;'s more like air pockets than a bubble. In some areas, there is too much euphoria, but in general, that&amp;'s not true.&amp;''Liu said that foreign companies coming into the U.S. stock market could continue to do IPOs. And there are perhaps 30 to 40 U.S. tech companies waiting in the wings to go public &amp;8212' if the barriers to being a public company are somehow alleviated.Even if tech companies wanted to go public, there is more to deter them. In 1970, shareholders hung on to shares for five years, on average, Silbert said. Now the average is three months. Part of the reason is that 60 percent of all trading now is done via computerized algorithms. So CEOs can&amp;'t really break through with a message that extends a couple of years out, since shareholders only care about the short-term outlook. IPO windows are also shorter, with stocks up one month and down the next.&amp;''Volatility in the market is here to stay,&amp;'' Liu said.Blodget said that &amp;''people have been screaming about a bubble in Facebook&amp;'s value since it was $2 billion&amp;'' and the value keeps getting higher. He joked, &amp;''Some day they will be right.&amp;'' Meanwhile, SecondMarket is expanding to overseas markets such as Europe and Israel.Disclosure: The Digital Life Design conference paid my way to Munich so I could moderate a panel. VentureBeat&amp;'s coverage of the conference remains objective and independent.[pictured: from right to left, Henry Blodget, David Liu, Barry Silbert and Matthew Bishop] Check out a partial video of the panel below.Next Story: Did Facebook just hint at its answer to Groupon Previous Story: My favorite flight search site Hipmunk is raising $5.9MPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: IPOs, secondary trading, tech bubbleCompanies: Facebook, Groupon, linkedinPeople: Barry Silbert, David Liu, Henry Blodget, Matthew Bishop          Tags: IPOs, secondary trading, tech bubbleCompanies: Facebook, Groupon, linkedinPeople: Barry Silbert, David Liu, Henry Blodget, Matthew BishopDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[How far can Apple push developers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-far-can-apple-push-developers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-far-can-apple-push-developers</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-far-can-apple-push-developers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple revealed the details of its previously announced subscription feature for applications on the iPad and iPhone today, and therea4a4s been a pretty loud backlash.Whata4a4s the problem At first glance, the rules seem fair enough. Apple takes a 30 percent cut of subscriptions sold through the App Store, but publishers are free to offer subscriptions elsewhere, for example through their website. (Therea4a4s something kind of hilarious about the fact that Apple says explicitly, a4ASince Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple.a4 Uh, thanks)But herea4a4s the catch: If developers offer subscriptions elsewhere, they have to offer them inside their iPhone and iPad apps too, and at the same price. Developers are also forbidden from including links inside their app to purchase content or subscriptions outside the app. That even affects products like Amazona4a4s Kindle app, which includes a link to buy books for Kindle.TechCruncha4a4s MG Siegler does a good job of laying out Applea4a4s likely rationale. The company has created what is likely to be the most user-friendly subscription service anywhere. In order to make it work, however, publishers cana4a4t just increase the prices within their apps to incorporate Applea4a4s 30 percent cut while leaving subscriptions lower elsewhere. Otherwise, users will be torn between the superior experience and the lower price.That may be true, but ita4a4s not sitting well with everyone. Rhapsody, for example, says that its subscription model wona4a4t work if Apple takes a 30 percent cut, and that it will be a4Acollaborating with our market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.a4 At the Think Vitamin a4Aweb practionera4a4s bloga4, Ryan Carson argues that this should be the spur developers need to finally embrace mobile websites using technology like HTML5, rather than building native apps that are subject to Applea4a4s rules.Of course, the App Store has faced to developer criticism from the beginning, yet the number of apps keeps growing. While Ia4a4ve seen a few  startups who focus exclusively on mobile Web or Android, theya4a4re pretty rare. So Ia4a4m very curious to see to most developers will continue to play ball with Apple, or if this will be the restriction that pushes them over the edge. My guess: As is often the case, this will come down to money. If companies can still make a profit through Applea4a4s new model, most of them will learn to live with it.Next Story: Nvidia, Qualcomm in mobile race to power holiday gadgets Previous Story: Waiting for Superman pledge turns up $5M for change in schoolsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: iPad, iPhone, subscriptionsCompanies: Apple, Rhapsody          Tags: iPad, iPhone, subscriptionsCompanies: Apple, RhapsodyAnthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Verizon pushes for rewrite of &''antiquated and anti-competitive&'' US telecom law]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-pushes-for-rewrite-of-8220antiquated-and-anti-competitive8221-us-telecom-law</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-pushes-for-rewrite-of-8220antiquated-and-anti-competitive8221-us-telecom-law</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-pushes-for-rewrite-of-8220antiquated-and-anti-competitive8221-us-telecom-law</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Tell us what you really think, Verizon. The company yesterday issued a press release titled &amp;''Congress Needs to Update the Nation&amp;'s Antiquated and Anti-Competitive Telecom Rules&amp;'' &amp;8212' which, as you can guess, isn&amp;'t exactly a love letter to the FCC.Verizon executive vice president of public affairs Tom Tauke is quoted as saying in the release: &amp;''The grinding you hear are the gears churning as policymakers try to fit fast-changing technologies and competitive markets into regulatory boxes built for analog technologies and monopoly markets.&amp;''The company&amp;'s frustration isn&amp;'t unwarranted. The FCC is still fighting for authority when it comes to regulating the internet, mainly because current telecom rules aren&amp;'t suited to the issues we&amp;'re facing today like net neutrality. The agency tried to reclassify internet communications in a &amp;''third way&amp;'' that gave it more authority earlier this year &amp;8212' after a US court declared that the FCC didn&amp;'t have the authority to impose net neutrality on providers.Verizon&amp;'s position now is even more extreme than its stance earlier this year, when it proposed its policy for an &amp;''open internet&amp;'' together with Google. The company is now proposing four components that it feels are necessary for a new policy to guide the internet: It should be a federal framework' allow for case-by-case rulings' government intervention should be allowed only to protect consumers from harm or to stop anti-competitive activity' and perhaps most importantly, a single federal agency should be given clear jurisdiction.As Engadget points out, Congress already started looking into a revamp of the Telecommunications Act earlier this year. Perhaps Verizon&amp;'s prodding will move things along even more quickly.Via EngadgetNext Story: Zynga and Playdom settle their trade secret theft lawsuit Previous Story: Social media tracker Tynt gives developers content in real-time data streamsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Internet, net neutrality, policyCompanies: FCC, Google, VerizonPeople: Tom Tauke          Tags: Internet, net neutrality, policyCompanies: FCC, Google, VerizonPeople: Tom TaukeDevindra Hardawar is VentureBeat's lead mobile writer and East Coast correspondent. He studied philosophy at Amherst College, worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing about technology since 2004. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at devindra@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @Devindra.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[RIM CEO on Apple: &''We completely disagree with that worldview&'']]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rim-ceo-on-apple-8220we-completely-disagree-with-that-worldview8221</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rim-ceo-on-apple-8220we-completely-disagree-with-that-worldview8221</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rim-ceo-on-apple-8220we-completely-disagree-with-that-worldview8221</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Tech executives seem eager to pile on the criticism of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion, elaborated on his past statements denouncing Apple&amp;'s approach.Summing up RIM&amp;'s position versus Apple, Balsillie said RIM believes &amp;''you don&amp;'t need an app for the Web in mobile.&amp;''In other words, Balsillie doesn&amp;'t agree with Apple&amp;'s emphasis of its App Store over mobile websites or with Apple&amp;'s requirement that app developers use its proprietary tools to turn Web content into iPhone and iPad apps. (Jobs might disagree with that characterization &amp;8212' he has said that the mobile experience is mostly about apps, but he also likes to praise the HTML5 Web format.)&amp;''We completely disagree with that worldview,&amp;'' Balsillie said.In contrast, Balsillie pointed to RIM&amp;'s WebWorks product, which allows publishers to convert websites into mobile apps without any extra coding.The usual defense of Apple is that it has created a better experience than any of its mobile competitors. In that vein, interviewer John Battelle asked if Balsillie thinks apps that aren&amp;'t developed specifically for a BlackBerry device can match the experience of native apps on the iPhone and iPad. Balsillie replied that RIM has already struck back on the experience argument, releasing a video comparing the Web experience on the BlackBerry PlayBook with the experience on an iPad. The video shows the PlayBook is faster.Next Story: Help Pakistan fail faster &amp;8230' then bring in venture capital Previous Story: Net:Work 2010 &amp;8211' The Future of WorkPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Blackberry, BlackBerry PlayBook, Web 2.0 SummitCompanies: Apple, Research In MotionPeople: Jim Balsillie          Tags: Blackberry, BlackBerry PlayBook, Web 2.0 SummitCompanies: Apple, Research In MotionPeople: Jim BalsillieAnthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The 158,221st Best-Selling Kindle Book: The Pedophile&'s Guide To Love And&nbsp'Pleasure]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-158221st-best-selling-kindle-book-the-pedophilersquos-guide-to-love-andnbsppleasure</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-158221st-best-selling-kindle-book-the-pedophilersquos-guide-to-love-andnbsppleasure</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-158221st-best-selling-kindle-book-the-pedophilersquos-guide-to-love-andnbsppleasure</guid>
<description><![CDATA[One thing Amazon loves to tout about their Kindle bookstore is their huge collection of wide-ranging titles. I&amp;'ll say. Here&amp;'s a great example of something I&amp;'m pretty sure you won&amp;'t find in rivals e-bookstores: The Pedophile&amp;'s Guide to Love and Pleasure. Yep, that&amp;'s the actual title.This book can&amp;'t actually be about that, can it Well, here&amp;'s the description:This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught.&amp;''Liter&amp;'' aside, yes, this is outrageous.And Amazon customers are letting their feelings be known about such a book. Of the 59 customers reviews of the product, 58 give it the minimum 1 star (while one joker gave it 5 stars). And it looks like just about all of them are from today, and they&amp;'re all basically either calling for a boycott of Amazon for carrying such a book, or for Amazon to remove it immediately. A few of them say they&amp;'ve called or email Amazon and that the company has said it&amp;'s looking into it.But one commenter says that Amazon already got back to them with the following:&amp;''Let me assure you that Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts' we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.&amp;''&amp;''Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable.&amp;''Another comment says that over 100 negative reviews have been deleted so far, but they keep coming in. This could get very ugly.We&amp;'ve reached out to Amazon for comment, but haven&amp;'t heard back yet. We&amp;'ll update if we do.The book is Kindle-only and is for sale for $4.79. It is currently the 158,221st best-selling Kindle book in the store. That is terrifying.Update: Here&amp;'s Amazon&amp;'s statement:Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. a4sAmazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.CrunchBase InformationAmazonAmazon KindleInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Why Products Suck (And How To Make Them Suck&nbsp'Less)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-products-suck-and-how-to-make-them-sucknbspless</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-products-suck-and-how-to-make-them-sucknbspless</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-products-suck-and-how-to-make-them-sucknbspless</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Editor&amp;'s note: The following guest post is written by David Barrett, CEO and founder of Expensify, whose tagline is &amp;''Expense reports that don&amp;'t suck.&amp;''Now, you might think that making a product that isna4a4t terrible should be so obvious to every company on the planet as to almost be nonsensical.  Indeed, who would ever advocate building a product that sucks  But the fact is: many products do suck.  How can something so obviously important and universally recognized by so infrequently accomplishedIta4a4s a surprisingly complex question.  But I think it all boils down to variations on a single, simple answer: it is much, much easier to build a product that sucks than one that doesna4a4t.  Here are some reasons why that is true (and what you can do about it):1. It only takes one person to make your product suck.I love the movie Twelve Angry Men.  (The Henry Fonda version, not the Tony Danza version.)  Ita4a4s about this jury of 12 people, 11 of whom walk into the jury chamber convinced the accused is guilty.  But as you know, juries can only render verdicts with unanimous consent, so that one lone individual is able to prevent a quick conviction and force the jury to review the evidence and deliberate on the casea4&quot;one by one convincing everybody that the accused is in fact innocent.  Ita4a4s a great movie about the power of the individual to uphold justice in the face of prejudice, expediency, and general carelessness.Unfortunately, your team isna4a4t a jury.  Quite the opposite: anybody can make your product suck, often without anybody else noticing until ita4a4s too late to change, and very expensive to undo.  The fastest racecar cana4a4t move if the gas-cap gets stuck' your product is only as good as its worst component.  Not sucking requires continuous, unanimous consenta4&quot;not on the details, but consent that not sucking is worth the effort.  And you need to do it without security guards lurking outside the door.Suggestion: Convey to your team and the world that not sucking is your primary goal.  More important than new features, more important than new customersa4&quot;even more important than being awesomea4&quot;is the simple act of not sucking, consistently, across the board.  Each awesome feature might attract a new user, but each sucky feature will lose you two.2. Nobody ever got fired for sucking.Therea4a4s that old saying a4ANobody ever got fired for buying IBMa4.  It dates back to when IBM was in decline after a long period of dominance, when there were clearly superior products available but the risk of choosing them was higher than the safety of going with the tried-and-true.  You can always be fired for something going horribly wrong, or for trying something crazy that doesna4a4t pan out, or for doing something that upsets a key customer or loses a major deal.  But nobody gets fired for merely doing something sub-optimal, especially when thata4a4s what everybody else does.  Too often product teams take the the quick and dirty way to get the feature out, or concede to that a4Aone line changea4 to satisfy some new client.  Nobody gets fired for making something merely meet the hard requirements, even if it fails the a4Asofta4 requirement of a4Anot suckinga4.Suggestion &amp;8211' Be slow to hire, and quick to fire.  I know everyone always talks about the importance of exceptional people.  But like the importance of not sucking, that standard is very rarely maintained in reality.  Maintain it.  Therea4a4s that saying a4AA people hire A people, B people hire C people.a4  Be an A person, even if it means doing without for far longer than youa4a4d like.3. Ita4a4s easier to suck more than suck less.Sucking is like a tar pit: once you step in, your struggles only pull you in deeper.  After you make that one product compromise to satisfy some crazy customer, then youa4a4ve got to support that setting forever lest you lose the customer who depends on it.  Then other customers find it (because if youa4a4re going to build it, why not give it to everyone), and those customers have their own unique requirements that pull you further into the sludge.  That one random checkbox for a single customer becomes a full settings page for a niche demographic with esoteric needs.  Supporting those customers places constraints on how you support other customers, affects how you upgrade your data structures over time, prevents sharing of certain types of code, etc.  The tar pit sucks you down, and sometimes the only way out is to go back the way you came, discarding the customer you fought to get in the first place, and upsetting all your other users along the way.  Avoiding the tar pit takes an incredible level of discipline and fortitude.  It should be no surprise that it so rarely happens.Suggestion: Avoid the tar pit at all costs  And when trappeda4&quot;which will happen, often, despite your best attemptsa4&quot;cut off your own limb if necessary to get back on track.  Even if it means upsetting 100% of your users: if theya4a4re the wrong users, ita4a4s what needs to happen to get the right ones.4. There are more ways to suck than to not suck.Anybody charged with building some feature is immediately overwhelmed with choices.  Even ignoring the countless technical options for rendering feature X on platform Y, there are limitless sub-variations to every possible choice.  Something as simple as, a4AShould this link be a button&amp;''  &amp;''Should the button be on the left or right of this other button&amp;'' &amp;''Should clicking it open up a dialog or a new page&amp;''  &amp;''Should you click Save after clicking the button, or does the button auto-save the resulta4  And on and on.  If sucking is like a tar pit, then building a product that doesna4a4t suck is like walking a tightrope over La Brea.  In the fog.  There are countless places to step, but very few of them are on the right patha4&quot;and often you dona4a4t know youa4a4ve slipped until youa4a4re waist-deep in tar.Suggestion: Define what not sucking means to you, and make sure everybody knows it.  Even if the lines are ambiguous, draw them anyway, and work to constantly refine them.  How you circle your wagons is far more important than how fast you can fire your guns.5. Customers demand sucky products.Not intentionally.  But they request features that make your product suck, with depressing regularity.  This is doubly true if your product allows some users to manage other users.  There are features that they think they need but dona4a4t, and features they actually do need but nobody else does.  There are billions of people out there and you will never, ever satisfy even a tiny fraction of them.  So be very selective as to which ones you let dictate your roadmap, and make sure theya4a4re taking it to the promised land and not into a tar pit.  Theya4a4ll threaten to never use you, or to quit, or to say bad things about you.  Some will actually follow through.  But most will eventually realize you were right all along.  That is, if you actually were right in the first place. Suggestion: Trust your instincts and the tiny set of users who use you, and resist advice from the billions of people who dona4a4t.  Either youa4a4re right or youa4a4re wrong.  If youa4a4re right, sticking to your guns will lead to success.  And if youa4a4re wrong, better to fail fast on your own merits and learn something along the way than to take bad advice from people who never intended to use you in the first place.Dona4a4t get me wrong: people complaining about your product isna4a4t all bad.  People only complain about things that matter to them' better to have complaints than disinterest.  And not all complaints are equal: complaints that you dona4a4t support feature X are far better than complaints about how feature Y sucks.But ultimately, if your users hate your product, eventually an alternative will come along that sucks less.  At Expensify, we try to live by these rules and create products that don&amp;'t suck.  Like any ideals, I dona4a4t claim Expensify lives up to them perfectly. If you&amp;'d like a glimpse at what we are working on next and want to help us suck less, please sign up for our Expensify 2.0 Beta.Most products suck.  But yours doesna4a4t need to, and wea4a4re trying as hard as we can to ensure ours doesna4a4t either.  Ia4a4d love your advice on how wea4a4re doing, or any suggestions on how to do better.  CrunchBase InformationDavid BarrettExpensifyInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Recyclable homes made from loofah and corn husks - Springwise]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=recyclable-homes-made-from-loofah-and-corn-husks---springwise</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=recyclable-homes-made-from-loofah-and-corn-husks---springwise</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Social</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=recyclable-homes-made-from-loofah-and-corn-husks---springwise</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and it''s also widespread in Paraguay, where some 300,000 families lack adequate housing. Motivated by that fact&amp;8212'and by the severe deforestation that has been wrought upon the land&amp;8212'a local Paraguayan activist has devised a way to create recyclable housing materials without using wood.Social activist Elsa Zaldvar has found a way to mix loofah, the cucumberlike vegetable that gets dried into a scratchy sponge for use in bathing, along with corn and palm husks into a soup of melted, recycled plastics to form strong, lightweight panels suitable for use in houses and furniture. Loofah are already readily available in Paraguay thanks to a project Zaldvar, as head of nonprofit organization Base ECTA, initiated to empower local women. Working with Zaldvar, industrial engineer Pedro Padrs then devised a machine to combine the vegetable materials and plastics into panels that can be produced with varying strength, flexibility, weight, insulating qualities and colours. The lightweight composite panels are not only easier to handle than lumber or brick, but also much better in an earthquake or other natural catastrophe' if destroyed, they are fully recyclable, too. Combining a melting unit, mixer, extruder and cutting unit, Padrs'' machine can produce a half-metre-wide panel 120 metres long in one hour. Costs have already fallen to less than about USD 3 per square metre, making the material competitive with existing construction materials.A newly granted Rolex Award will finance a promotion centre, the construction of three model houses and a video that will be used to describe the project, which has already attracted commercial interest as well. One to sponsor, test out, or otherwise get involved in (Related: Instead of Styrofoam, fungus and rice hulls.)Website: www.rolexawards.com/en/the-laureates/elsazaldivar-the-project.jsp Contact: baseecta@baseecta.org.py<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Citysearch Lays Off Editorial Employees, Less Than 3% Of&nbsp'Staff]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=citysearch-lays-off-editorial-employees-less-than-3-ofnbspstaff</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=citysearch-lays-off-editorial-employees-less-than-3-ofnbspstaff</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=citysearch-lays-off-editorial-employees-less-than-3-ofnbspstaff</guid>
<description><![CDATA[We&amp;'ve gotten word that local online guide Citysearch has just laid off part of its editorial  department in an continuing effort to reposition itself. The Citysearch business unit of IAC recently rebranded itself as CityGrid Media, which includes the Citysearch listings service, the CityGrid ad network, Urbanspoon and InsiderPages.Kara Nortman, Senior Vice President of Publishing for CityGrid Media, tells TechCrunch that layoffs are an outgrowth of the philosophical restructuring of the group&amp;'s editorial component, &amp;''As part of our evolution to CityGrid, we&amp;'re moving to a more automated experience on Citysearch, migrating from full time staff into freelance staff.&amp;''The move from in-house to freelance writers reflects the company&amp;'s desire to one day become a hub for aggregated local content says Nortman, &amp;''Maintaining an editorial staff of the same size doesn&amp;'t make sense when we can accomplish the same thing with freelance.&amp;''While Citysearch representatives would not tell TechCrunch exactly how many of its over 400 employees remained in the editorial department, they did emphasize that the layoffs did not extend to the entire editorial team.Citysearch is still hiring in other branches of the company and traffic in the entire CityGrid Media portfolio is rising, from 31 million to 37 monthly million uniques over the past year.CrunchBase InformationCitysearchInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Do Twitter&'s Application Naming Rules Spell Bad News For&nbsp'TweetDeck]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=do-twitterrsquos-application-naming-rules-spell-bad-news-fornbsptweetdeck</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=do-twitterrsquos-application-naming-rules-spell-bad-news-fornbsptweetdeck</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=do-twitterrsquos-application-naming-rules-spell-bad-news-fornbsptweetdeck</guid>
<description><![CDATA[MG earlier wrote a post about Twitter&amp;'s rules regarding its trademarks, logos and so on.Here&amp;'s what struck me, going over the guidelines:Naming your Application or Product, Applying for a DomainDo: Use Tweet in the name of your application only if it is designed to be used exclusively with the Twitter platform.Don&amp;'t: Use Tweet in the name of your application if used with any other platform.The reason why this struck me as odd is because one of the most popular desktop and mobile applications with the word &amp;8216'tweet&amp;' in its name is TweetDeck, which comes in both native desktop and mobile client forms (Adobe AIR, iOS and Android).Is TweetDeck &amp;''designed to be used exclusively with the Twitter platform&amp;'' Well, definitely not.TweetDeck enables people to interact with their Twitter friends via a unique interface with lots of bells and whistles, but it does much more than that. To clarify, the application boasts support for platforms such as Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, MySpace and Google Buzz.That&amp;'s five major offenses to Twitter&amp;'s naming rules right there. Question is: does Twitter plan to effectively enforce these guidelines and lay down the law for TweetDeck (and co)I&amp;'ve requested a comment from Twitter and will update when I hear back from them.CrunchBase InformationTweetDeckTwitterInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Skype founder, others catapult $42M to Angry Birds]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=skype-founder-others-catapult-42m-to-angry-birds</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=skype-founder-others-catapult-42m-to-angry-birds</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=skype-founder-others-catapult-42m-to-angry-birds</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures have co-led a $42 million investment round for Rovio, the creator of the Angry Birds Franchise.The Angry Birds game is played by 40 million monthly active users and, with sales of over 2 million plush toys, has become one of the most recognized entertainment franchises. The game has had well over 75 million downloads.Rovio plans to use the money to increase its reach internationally and to expand across mobile and social media markets through merchandising and partnerships.The company has been expanding through 2010 and 2011 and currently has 50 employees in Finland. Earlier this year the company announced that it would introduce an online Angry Birds experience in summer 2011, and would develop an Angry Birds game for all major consoles.Says Mikael Hed, CEO and co-founder of Rovio, a4AAngry Birds will continue to grow, and we aim to create more similar success stories. We will strengthen the position of Rovio and continue building our franchises in gaming, merchandising and broadcast media.a4The funding round was co-led by Accel Partners, the venture capital firm known for having invested in Facebook and Groupon, and Atomico Ventures, the venture capital firm created by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrm. Super angel fund Felicis Ventures also participated. Niklas Zennstrm, who also co-founded Kazaa and Rdio, will be joining the board of Rovio.Here&amp;'s what the Angry Birds folks told VentureBeat&amp;'s Dean Takahashi about getting started on the game last year:Rovio got started in 2003 as Relude. It was started by three students  from the Helsinki University of Technology: Niklas Hed (Mikaela4a4s  cousin), Jarno Vakevainen, and Kim Dikert. They had participated in a  mobile game competition sponsored by Nokia and Hewlett-Packard.  Peter Vesterbacka, who worked at HP, was one of the judges, and he suggested  the trio start their own mobile games company. They did so. Digital  Chocolate published the game, which was called King of the Cabbage  World, a multiplayer real-time game on the now vintage GPRS system. They  started doing work-for-hire games, creating titles such as Need for  Speed Carbon for Electronic Arts.Angry Birds was the company&amp;'s 52nd game. They were so successful that Vesterbacka joined them.  Most of those games were designed for others. They made hits such as  Real Networksa4a4 Collapse Chaos, but always on a work-for-hire basis.Mikael Hed joined as CEO in early 2009 and steered the team toward  thinking about making internally produced games that it could own. The  company took on more work-for-hire projects, but hired its own  subcontractors to make them. That freed up the internal team to make its  own games.The teama4a4s leaders started contemplating how to do the perfect iPhone  game. They wanted to exploit the iPhonea4a4s hardware, create memorable  characters, and do a fun game that people would play over and over  again. They conceived the game and targeted it at everyone: men, women,  girls and boys.a4AWe wanted to eliminate luck from the equation,a4 Hed said. a4ASo we focused on every detail.a4There were other catapult games that had become popular, so they  decided to use that familiar mechanic. The game they created has players  shoot angry birds with a slingshot to destroy structures. The game used  physics, giving people the joy of knocking out items strategically, as  if they were bowling. And while many games have the same kind of  catapult mechanic, the Angry Birds characters are funny to look at. And  ita4a4s fun to shoot at the evil green pigs who have stolen the birdsa4a4  eggs. The pigs mock you if you mess up.Ten  of the companya4a4s developers (only a few of them full-time) worked on  the game. They chose Chillingo as their publisher because it had  numerous other hits on the iPhone and they felt Chillingo could market  their game best. It debuted on the iPhone in December, catching on in  Finland first through the teama4a4s own social circles. Friends showed it  to friends. The title took off like a virus and spread to Sweden. Then  it became the No. 1 hit on the App Store in the United Kingdom, selling  for 99 cents.Apple featured the title, making it easy for users to discover and  try out. The company started a Facebook fan page, uploaded a video to  YouTube, and started its own Twitter account. All of them were  successes. On Twitter, celebrities such as  skateboarder Tony Hawk,  musician Pete Wentz, and Frankenteen tweeted about their addiction to  the game. Hawk said, a4ARecently finished Angry Birds on iPad and now Ia4a4ve  lost my sense of purpose.a4 Jimmy Fallon joked about it on his NBC show. Somebody now tweets about Angry Birds about once every minute.Next Story: Forrester: iPad 2&amp;'s biggest challenger is an Amazon tablet Previous Story: Deals &amp;038' More: BAM Labs gets $2.4M to monitor people while they snoozePrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Angry Birds, Mobile gaming, RoviaCompanies: Accel Partners, Atomico Ventures, RoviaPeople: Mikael Hed          Tags: Angry Birds, Mobile gaming, RoviaCompanies: Accel Partners, Atomico Ventures, RoviaPeople: Mikael Hed Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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