January 27th, 2012
Rob’s Radar 1/27
TweetScientists: New laser could lead to age of nuclear fusion
Two-million degrees Fahrenheit.
That is temperature produced by a new laser beam, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
The department, which on Wednesday announced the successful experiment of the fastest and purest x-ray laser pulses ever achieved, said the laser could achieve temperatures as hot as 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than the sun’s corona. Scientists say the laser beam is billion times brighter that any other man-made X-ray source, making it the brightest entity ever created.
http://www.thestatecolumn.com/science/scientists-new-laser-could-lead-to-age-of-nuclear-fusion/#ixzz1kbZGG3mx
U.S. Takes First Steps Toward Internet Voting
The 2012 Republican primary‘s first vote was not cast in New Hampshire, as most Americans would assume. An Okaloosa County, Fla., resident living in Thailand got that privilege in December, thanks to a new technology called LiveBallot.
http://mashable.com/2012/01/26/online-voting-absentee/
Tapie-Full Tilt Poker Deal Hits Pay Dirt
No formal confirmations of additional investors yet, but the noise is ever louder today; Group Bernard Tapie has lined up at least one moneyman “ready to punt.” According to several generally informed sources familiar with weeks of efforts to raise more funds, GBT has locked up a commitment with at least one and maybe two substantial participants to nail the acquisition of the Full Tilt brand. Additional funding might not be crucial, but for Tapie’s reluctance to put in more capital of his own than suits his taste.
http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/content/tapie-full-tilt-poker-deal-hits-pay-dirt-11874
Google Spent Nearly $2 Billion On 79 Acquisitions In 2011
Yesterday, Google filed its 10-K with the SEC, revealing the number of acquisitions and money spent on these purchases in the year. As of Q3, Google had spent over$1.4 billion on 55 acquisitions for the year. Google ended 2011 spending $1.9 billion (including cash and stock) on completing 79 acquisitions during the entirety of the year.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/27/google-spent-nearly-2-billion-on-79-acquisitions-in-2011/
The Great Disk Drive in the Sky: How Web giants store big—and we mean big—data
Consider the tech it takes to back the search box on Google’s home page: behind the algorithms, the cached search terms, and the other features that spring to life as you type in a query sits a data store that essentially contains a full-text snapshot of most of the Web. While you and thousands of other people are simultaneously submitting searches, that snapshot is constantly being updated with a firehose of changes. At the same time, the data is being processed by thousands of individual server processes, each doing everything from figuring out which contextual ads you will be served to determining in what order to cough up search results.
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/the-big-disk-drive-in-the-sky-how-the-giants-of-the-web-store-big-data.ars
How Siri is ruining your cellphone service
Like a few million other people this past holiday season, we bought an iPhone 4S, with its much-hyped Siri feature. The vocal interface allows users to speak all kinds of commands into the phone (“What’s the weather in San Francisco?”) and get answers from a sultry-voiced robot/concierge.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/apples-siri-threatens-to-damage-cellphone-service-for-all/2012/01/23/gIQAZ1O5TQ_story.html
Page Rage Escalates As Google Cancels Twitter Android Meeting
We’ve heard from insiders that Google’s PR strategy to the Don’t Be Evil toolbar bombshell– which exposed just how much the search giant is meddling with search results– is just to stay quiet until it blows over. And then press ahead with the“Search-plus-your-world-or-else” strategy.
http://pandodaily.com/2012/01/26/page-rage-why-twitter-doesnt-work-better-on-android/
Facebook Readies IPO Filing for Next Week
Facebook Inc. could file papers for an initial public offering as early as next week and is close to picking Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter for its IPO, said people familiar with the matter.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577187062821038498.html
Twitter isn’t censoring you. Your government is.
It’s barely been a day since Twitter made the announcement that, going forward, tweets could be censored based on the local laws that govern a user’s location, and the rumour mill is hard at work trying to figure out the reasons behind the decision.
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/01/27/twitter-isnt-censoring-you-your-government-is/
January 26th, 2012
Rob’s Radar 1/26
TweetThe Mercenary Techie Who Troubleshoots for Drug Dealers and Jealous Lovers
A while ago, a twenty-something geek we’ll call Martin arranged a meeting with some potential clients in an an unusual place: the sidewalk across the street from a police precinct on Manhattan’s West Side.
http://gawker.com/5878862/
Google and Bing accused of directing users to illegal copies of music
Google and other search engines “overwhelmingly” direct music fans to illegal copies of copyrighted tracks online, a coalition of entertainment industry groups has told the government.
In a confidential document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, lobbying groups for the major rights holders claimed Google and Microsoft’s Bing are making it “much more difficult” for people to find legal music and films online.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/26/google-bing-illegal-music
Apple’s universal remote concept hints at future television set
Apple has shown interest in building a new, simplified remote control that would automatically control a variety of devices while reducing setup and frustration for the user.
The concept was revealed this week in a new patent application discovered byAppleInsider. Entitled “Apparatus and Method to Facilitate Universal Remote Control,” it describes a touchscreen-based controller that would reduce the confusing clutter found on current universal remotes.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/01/26/apples_universal_remote_concept_hints_at_future_television_set_.html
MegaUpload Users Plan to Sue the FBI over Lost Files
In most reports following the MegaUpload shutdown, the site is exclusively portrayed as a piracy haven.
However, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections.
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-users-plan-to-sue-the-fbi-over-lost-files-120126/
Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC Raises $55 Million For Fund III
The micro-VCs are growing up. Case in point: Jeff Clavier, who started out as an angel investor backing Web 2.0 companies and then transitioned his portfolio into a more formal venture firm, SoftTech VC. Clavier just finished raising a total of $55 million for SoftTech’s third fund. SoftTech’s main focus is on three areas: mobile, next-generation e-commerce, and cloud-based services.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/26/jeff-clavier-softtech-vc-raises-55-fund-iii/
How Google keeps your secrets private
How does a company that collects so much information from its users keep all that data private?
Meet Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy.
At the end of a miserable 2010 filled with privacy blunders including thedisastrous Google Buzz fiasco, Google appointed Whitten to the position of privacy director. Since then, Whitten has instituted what she calls a “culture of privacy” at the company. So far it has been paying off.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/26/technology/google_privacy/index.htm
January 25th, 2012
Rob’s Radar 1/25
TweetFacebook Trades to Be Halted for Three Days
Shareholders of Facebook Inc., the Internet site preparing an initial public offering, are facing a three-day suspension of trading on secondary markets this week, people with knowledge of the matter said.
While buy and sell orders can be made, transactions won’t be processed by Facebook’s attorneys at Fenwick & West LLC from Jan. 25 to Jan. 27, said the people, who declined to be named because details on secondary transactions are kept private. The halt pertains to trading of Facebook shares only, one of the people said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-25/facebook-trading-is-said-to-be-halted-for-three-days-on-secondary-markets.html
What’s an Entrepreneur? The Best Answer Ever
As an entrepreneur, you surely have an elevator pitch, the pithy 15-second synopsis of what your company does and why, and you can all but repeat it in your sleep. But until recently, I’d never seen a good elevator pitch for entrepreneurship itself—that is, what you do that all entrepreneurs do?
http://www.inc.com/eric-schurenberg/the-best-definition-of-entepreneurship.html
Kim Dotcom Denied Bail In New Zealand Court
The Megaupload saga continues. Kim Dotcom, Megaupload’s mega founder, was just denied bail by a New Zealand court citing he’s a flight risk. He will remain in New Zealand’s custody until February 22, when the courts will here the US Justice Department’s application for Schmitz.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/kim-dotcom-denied-bail-in-new-zealand-court/
Foxconn employee tells us that the next iPhone is ready for production, indicates likely summer launch
We’ve gotten word from a reliable source at Foxconn in China that the iPhone 5, as it is currently being called, is currently being geared for production. The source said various sample devices are also floating around (which vary slightly from one another) so it is impossible to tell which one will be the final. Some things in common with all of them, however, are:
http://9to5mac.com/2012/01/25/foxconn-employee-tells-us-that-the-next-iphone-is-ready-for-production-indicates-likely-summer-launch/
The Startup Skill Set
I went to LeanCamp London last Sunday. It was a blast – there were a lot of interesting people to meet, and one of the highlights was, of course, seeing Eric Ries answer a whole bunch of questions very intelligently and entertainingly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-tenner/the-startup-skill-set_b_1224293.html
Amazon looking into taking on Netflix
Jeff Bezos and his team at Amazon are weighing a move to beef up the Web retailer’s video-streaming service — possibly carving it out as a standalone, subscription-based operation, industry sources told The Post.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/full_stream_ahead_PpVcvzhXb7mhUO3sczFbuM#ixzz1kUy6zreF
More Power! Microsoft’s New Xbox 720 Will Be 6x More Powerful [REPORT]
“More power!” You can imagine Steve Ballmer yelling it through Microsoft’s halls but that’s exactly what is happening with the Xbox 720, according to reports from IGN.
The next Xbox — rumored to be the “Xbox 720″ — will ship to retailers in late October or early November 2013 and have six times the processing power of its predecessor, the Xbox 360, sources close to the project toldIGN.
http://mashable.com/2012/01/25/xbox-720-rumor/
January 24th, 2012
Rob’s Radar 1/24
TweetCameras May Open Up the Board Room to Hackers
One afternoon this month, a hacker took a tour of a dozen conference rooms around the globe via equipment that most every company has in those rooms; videoconferencing equipment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/technology/flaws-in-videoconferencing-systems-put-boardrooms-at-risk.html?_r=2&ref=technology&pagewanted=all
Physibles on The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay has today added a new torrent category: physibles. Physibles are 3D printer plans for duplicating physical objects. This is a fascinating insight and early glimpse into the post-scarcity economics. This is a landmark event marking the transition of post-scarcity from the online world leaking into the physical world.
http://bitcoinmedia.com/physibles-on-the-pirate-bay/
Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops
American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case.
Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21–or face the consequences, presumably including contempt of court.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57364330-281/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-their-laptops/
‘When Online Gambling Is Legalized, Facebook Will Be A $100 Billion Company’
At a party this evening in Munich, an industry insider close to Facebook made the following prediction:
“When online gambling is legalized, Facebook will be a $100 billion company.”
That’s $100 billion of revenue, not $100 billion in market value (Facebook’s already close to the latter.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-gambling-2012-1#ixzz1kOzOD1s1
Microsoft says anti-virus developer behind Kelihos botnet
Microsoft identified a previous developer of anti-virus software as the creator of the Kelihos botnet today, which sent out 3.8 billion spam messages every day in its prime.
Andrey Sabelnikov, currently living in St. Petersburg, Russia, was once a “software engineer and project manager at a company that provided firewall, antivirus and security software,” according to Microsoft’s amendment (PDF) to its original complaint with the US district court in Virginia. Sabelnikov currently works for a software development and consulting firm as a freelancer. Microsoft alleges that software associated with the control of Kelihos identifies Sabelnikov as creator, operator and controller of the botnet.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/24/microsoft-kelihos-sabelnikov/
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: MPAA chairman Christopher Dodd should be fired
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had fighting words for Motion Picture Association of America chairman Christopher Dodd, calling the former Senator and current lobbyist out on his recent threats and pronouncing that the MPAA should fire its chief.
“Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,” Dodd said to Fox News recently. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”
http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/24/wales-versus-dodd/
Exclusive: Microsoft to discontinue its virtual currency system Microsoft Points
Microsoft’s proprietary virtual currency system, Microsoft Points, will be phased out by the end of the year, according to a source with knowledge of the company’s decision. The change will affect developers for Windows Phone, the Zune marketplace and Xbox Live.
http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2012/01/23/exclusive-microsoft-to-discontinue-its-virtual-currency-system-microsoft-points/
How I made My Millions!
Robert is featured on the CNBC Show 'How I Made My Millions'!
Live on Bloomberg TV
Robert discusses the future of Silly Bandz™ and announces new product lines.
