'Fabbers' could launch a revolution Lindsay France/University Photography Hod Lipson, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, right, and engineering graduate student Evan Malone work with a Fab@Home machine in the Computational Synthesis Lab in Upson Hall Feb. 22. On the stage is a Lego tire duplicated by the Fab@Home. The Altair 8800, introduced in the early 1970s, was the first computer you could build at home from a kit. It was crude, didn't do much, but many historians would say that it launched the desktop computer revolution. Hod Lipson, Cornell assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, thinks a little machine he calls a Fab@Home may have the same impact. Some day, Lipson believes, every home will have a "fabber," a machine that replicates objects from plans supplied by a computer. Such machines could evolve from the 3-D printers currently used by industrial engineers for "rapid prototyping." Lindsay France/U. "Fabbing" a Lego tire. Provided The Lego tire on the vehicle.
Raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi is a $25 computer that is powerful enough to run Quake 3, a pretty intense 3D video game. It plugs straight into a TV with an HDMI output and it's designed to be cheap enough that anyone can buy. So why is the Raspberry Pi foundation, the organization behind this charming device, making the computers in the first place? We spoke with Eben Upton, executive director of the Raspberry Pi foundation to find out why. It's primarily intended for the education market. And here's the full interview: BUSINESS INSIDER: Why did you guys want to build such a cheap computer? Eben Upton: We came up with the idea because we'd been interviewing potential undergraduates to come to Cambridge university about 5 years ago. We looked around for reasons why this happened. I started looking for a way you could provide a machine cheaply enough that you could give you children, settling on this $25, $35 price point. BI: So it's a shot at getting kids to learn how to program? Fingers crossed.
Startups TechStars Launches Accelerato.rs, A Common App For Startups And A Results Tracker For Accelerators For a young startup, sometimes you want any funding you can get. For an incubator program, sometimes any startup is what you’re looking for. Finding each other won’t necessarily make either one successful, but more pairings might help overall. Or so believes TechStars, which is launching what it intends to be the Common Application of the startup world. Called Accelerato.rs, the application is a standard online form that asks founders basic investor-type questions, and lets them write one version then send it to any of the dozen or so participating programs. “One of the big things that a lot of the accelerators are looking for are more applications,” TechStars cofounder David Cohen tells me. ” Y Combinator, Seedcamp, TechStars and some of the other big accelerators are getting thousands of applications but only accepting a few percentage points.” The foundation will also be studying how participating startups do to better understand what makes accelerators successful.
Jewelry Site Plukka Turns Group Buying On Its Head The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Plukka Quick Pitch: Social shopping with a group buying twist — more jewelry buyers means a lower price for everyone. Genius Idea: Applying the group-buying model to the manufacturing process, not just the final product. Today's group buying sites often exist to get rid of leftover inventory from last season; both the designer and the website get a cut, while you get the last season's threads for half the price, three months late. Plukka founder Joanne Ooi says that its test-demand-before-you-create-supply model means that the designs are riskier and more creative, since the company isn't investing in manufacturing until sales are locked in. Plukka hopes to have a mobile app on the market by the end of 2012. Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
Why Everyone Is Talking About Node The Web Development Series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace's hosting solutions here. On the 20th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper, a handful of developers are working on a new technology that's changing the way real-time web apps are built and how they scale. This technology, called Node.js, is being hailed as "the new Ruby on Rails" by some in the developer community. But it's not a magic bullet, nor is it appropriate for all programming scenarios. Joyent, an SF-based cloud software company, is sponsoring the growth and development of Node. In the process, we learned a lot about how and why Node works for the real-time web — and how Node is changing the way the developer community creates the Internet as we know it. What Makes Node Different Node had a watershed year in 2010, and it's shaping up to be as popular as Ruby on Rails among developers. Then there's the community. Node's Explosive Growth Node for Real-Time Voice Node for Gaming
9 Twitter Accounts Every Startup Investor Should Follow Startup Funding by the Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC] The Social Media Infographics Series is supported by Vocus' Social Media Strategy Tool, a free, six-step online tool that lets you build a custom social media framework tailored to your organization’s goals. In many cases, money is a key fertilizer for startup growth. Many startups, and many more small businesses, fund themselves through traditional bank loans. Others exchange portions of their companies for an influx of cash. This type of startup funding, known for its high-risk, high-reward nature, is an interesting game to keep track of — and there are entire publications dedicated solely to doing just that. Infographic design by David Foster Series supported by Vocus This series is supported by Vocus' Social Media Strategy Tool, a free online tool which lets you build your own custom social media framework in six easy steps.