Silicon Valley, London, NYC: Startup Genome Data Reveals How The World’s Top Tech Hubs Stack Up Last year, we covered an ambitious collaborative R&D project called “Startup Genome,” created by three young entrepreneurs, Bjoern Herrmann, Max Marmer, and Ertan Dogrultan. The goal of the ongoing project was (and is) to take a comprehensive, data-driven dive into what makes tech startups successful — and not so successful. Out of its research came, among other things, Startup Compass: A free benchmarking tool that leverages its data to allow entrepreneurs to evaluate their progress compared to other startups in their space. While part of the team has since split off to focus on Blackbox, an educational program and startup accelerator, Herrmann and Marmer have continued toiling away at Startup Genome, collecting data from the some-16K startups that signed up for Startup Compass — and beyond. In terms of the overall health of the global economy, these fertile startup ecosystems are essential, as they have the potential to become both regional and global engines of job creation.
Click listeners test 'filter bubble' 14 July 2011Last updated at 14:22 By Gareth Mitchell Presenter, Click on BBC World Service Click listeners shared their search results through the show's Facebook page. How personalised is the web? That's the question that Click listeners all over the world have been helping us answer. The worry is that we are cosseted in an information cocoon based on personalised results from search engines, automated recommendations from online bookstores and social networks that feed us gossip and news only from our innermost circle of friends. On Click radio a few weeks ago, we interviewed Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You. Mr Pariser is concerned that there is an illusion of objectivity in Google search results, when in fact they are filtered according to what we are most likely to click on when we browse the all important front page of results. Our Facebook group was soon deluged with screen grabs. Results
Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts To use a keyboard shortcut you press a modifier key with a character key. For example, pressing the Command key (it has a symbol) and then the "c" key copies whatever is currently selected (text, graphics, and so forth) into the Clipboard. A modifier key is a part of many keyboard shortcuts. Here are the modifier key symbols you may see in OS X menus: Startup shortcuts Press the key or key combination until the expected function occurs/appears (for example, hold Option during startup until Startup Manager appears). Sleep and shut down shortcuts Finder keyboard shortcuts Application and other OS X shortcuts Note: Some applications may not support all of the following application key combinations. *Note: If no text is selected, the extension begins at the insertion point. Universal Access - VoiceOver keyboard commands For information about VoiceOver key combination differences in Mac OS X v10.6, see this article. Full keyboard access Universal Access - Mouse Keys See also: Shortcuts for Mouse Keys.
Soluciones What Lucky People Do Different Today’s guest contributor is former Wall Street Journal and Fortune writer, Erik Calonius. Erik collaborated with Dan Ariely on Predictably Irrational and he has a new book out from Penguin Portfolio, Ten Steps Ahead: What Separates Successful Business Visionaries from the Rest of Us. A few years ago I was standing in the garage where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer. I had an excellent guide that autumn morning: Steve Jobs himself. “Look at this,” he exclaimed, pointing to the far wall. Today we certainly know what a personal computer is. The thing we don’t know today concerns Steve himself. But there’s another other issue at play in Steve’s illness, and Jonathan, I think you raised it your recent post, Dust in the Wind. Recently I stumbled upon a Stanford graduation address that answers that question surprisingly well. This is what he said: That’s a blunt confession, especially delivered to an assembly of fresh-faced college graduates. Great thought. He added,
The robot that reads your mind to train itself 25 October 2010Last updated at 01:02 By Lakshmi Sandhana Technology journalist Rajesh Rao is a man who believes that the best type of robotic helper is one who can read your mind. In fact, he's more than just an advocate of mind-controlled robots; he believes in training them through the power of thought alone. His team at the Neural Systems Laboratory, University of Washington, hopes to take brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to the next level by attempting to teach robots new skills directly via brain signals. Robotic surrogates that offer paralyzed people the freedom to explore their environment, manipulate objects or simply fetch things has been the holy grail of BCI research for a long time. Dr Rao's team began by programming a humanoid robot with simple behaviours which users could then select with a wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) cap that picked up their brain activity. Skill set "What if the user wants the robot to do something new?" On-the-job training
Gamification: what are the rules? As multichannel commerce becomes commonplace, it’s more important than ever to focus on long-term engagement and coherence, creating a uniform, satisfying customer experience across every platform. Recently, Gamification has become an increasingly important part of this mix, using game mechanics to enhance UX and guide user behaviour. When it’s done well, the rewards can be impressive; boosting engagement and brand awareness as well as vastly increasing direct conversion, shareability and repeat business. But what exactly do we mean when we use the term? Here’s a quick roundup of some points you should be aware of if you are considering gaming as a marketing tool. Gamification vs pointsification First of all, let’s define our terms. Unless you happen to be Blizzard, you probably won’t have millions in resources and a crack team of designers, artists and coders to hand. You are adding a layer that contains certain mechanical systems. What’s the score? New players have entered the game
Estudios, publicaciones, artículos, etc Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool » Real Dan Lyons Web Site It’s tough being a journalist, especially if you’re covering technology and living in Silicon Valley, because it seems as if everyone around you is getting fabulously rich while you’re stuck in a job that will never, ever make you wealthy. What’s worse is that all these people who are getting rich don’t seem to be any brighter than you are and in fact many of them don’t seem very bright at all. So of course you get jealous. And then you start thinking maybe you could find a way to cash in on this gold rush. This is the conundrum, but lately I’ve been thinking of a business plan that sounds like it could work. So you raise $10 million or $20 million, and now you’re an “angel investor.” You might think of this as a new kind of PR, only you’re way meaner and more effective than a PR flack, and instead of getting paid in billable hours, you’re taking payment in angel-round equity, which in a few years should be worth 10-100x whatever those billable hours would have been worth. Nice, right?
When algorithms control the world 23 August 2011Last updated at 01:42 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter Algorithms are spreading their influence around the globe If you were expecting some kind of warning when computers finally get smarter than us, then think again. There will be no soothing HAL 9000-type voice informing us that our human services are now surplus to requirements. In reality, our electronic overlords are already taking control, and they are doing it in a far more subtle way than science fiction would have us believe. Their weapon of choice - the algorithm. Behind every smart web service is some even smarter web code. It is these invisible computations that increasingly control how we interact with our electronic world. At last month's TEDGlobal conference, algorithm expert Kevin Slavin delivered one of the tech show's most "sit up and take notice" speeches where he warned that the "maths that computers use to decide stuff" was infiltrating every aspect of our lives. "We've rendered something illegible.