Google X’s vision of the future

Thomas Edison

Larry Page, CEO and co-founder of Google, wants to be more like Thomas Edison than Nikola Tesla. “If you invent something, that doesn’t necessarily help anybody,” he recently told Fortune. “You’ve got to actually get it into the world; you’ve got to produce, make money doing it so you can fund it.” Edison did that with practical incandescent light, the phonograph, the movie camera, and hundreds of other inventions. Tesla had his grandiose successes, too, but a shrewd businessman he was not. “He couldn’t commercialize anything,” Page added. “He could barely fund his own research.”

 

 

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3D printing is creating a ‘new class of entrepreneurs’

Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics

Chris Anderson is building drones in an industrial park on the outskirts of Tijuana. The former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine readily acknowledges that just a few years ago, he knew almost nothing about the aerospace industry. But after building a small plane out of Lego parts with his kids, and realizing that even children’s toys now come packed with advanced sensors and controls, Mr. Anderson decided to start a company called 3D Robotics Inc. and manufacture his own aerial vehicles.

 

 

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Study finds more fresh air in classrooms means fewer absences

The study finds correlation between higher illness absences and lower ventilation rates in California elementary schools.

A new study by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has confirmed that opening windows to let in fresh air might be good for you. Analyzing extensive data on ventilation rates collected from more than 150 classrooms in California over two years, the researchers found that bringing classroom ventilation rates up to the state-mandated standard may reduce student absences due to illness by approximately 3.4 percent.

 

 

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A third of smartphone owners go BYOD without IT department’s knowledge

The majority of staff who own a smartphone or tablet used them at work.

Employees continue to use their own smartphones and tablets at work without the approval of the company’s IT department.  Just over half (56.8%) of 4,371 employees worldwide were using personal devices at work, according to a survey by analyst house Ovum.

 

 

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Researchers developing new technology for printing electronics

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE_G9pljp6Q[/youtube]

Researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have been taking significant strides in developing a new technology that makes it possible to print electronic components like sensors, transistors, light-emitters, smart tags, flexible batteries, memory, smart labels, and more.

 

 

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The micropublishing explosion

Micropublishing is one of the most significant publishing trends of 2013.

Marco Arment announced last week that he sold The Magazine to the minimalist iOS publication’s executive editor, Glenn Fleishman. Arment said he had accidentally built a business he was ill-suited to running. “Glenn’s doing almost everything already, so I’m effectively a figurehead,” he said.

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Entrepreneurs in Colorado say they are doing awesome and now have data to prove it

“Colorado has developed into a state that every investor should watch.”

Silicon Valley is no longer the only option for entrepreneurs. Burgeoning tech hubs like Seattle, Boulder, Austin and Denver offer a strong community, tax breaks, and a lower cost of living.

 

 

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Digital health is redefining the house call

Doctor making a house call.

A house call is done from the comfort of your home combined with the personal attention of your doctor. There are two key words here that really drive the point home–home and your. Your doctor provides care in your house. The house call is also, in many ways, a reflection of things past. Today, healthcare has eliminated the ‘luxury’ of this type of intervention leaving patients and caregivers to languish in the germ-fill waiting rooms of physician offices, hospitals and medical clinics.

 

 

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Colonoscopies explain why the U.S. leads the world in healthcare expenditures

A recent colonoscopy for Deirdre Yapalater’s at a surgical center near her home on Long Island went smoothly: she was whisked from pre-op to an operating room where a gastroenterologist, assisted by an anesthesiologist and a nurse, performed the routine cancer screening procedure in less than an hour. The test found nothing worrisome but racked up what is likely her most expensive medical bill of the year: $6,385.

 

 

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AlgaeBulb lights up with green algae

Algaebulb

Designer Gyula Bodonyi has harnessed the power of green algae in a light bulb. Algae projects have already been seen powering power entire buildings, but Bodonyi’s concept brings green power to the public on a more user-friendly scale. With the Algaebulb, algae powers a single LED activated by a tiny air pump and hydrophobic material able to create a teeny-tiny power house for light. (photos)

 

 

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Android is becoming the operating system for the Internet of Things

Android is everywhere.

The work space of Ken Oyadomari at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., looks like a triage tent for smartphones. Dozens of disassembled devices parts are strewn on workbenches. A small team of young engineers picks through the electronic carnage, carefully extracting playing card-size motherboards—the microprocessing heart of most computers—that will be repurposed as the brains of spacecraft no bigger than a softball. Satellites usually cost millions of dollars to build and launch. The price of Oyadomari’s nanosats, as they’ve become known, is around $15,000 and dropping. He expects them to be affordable for high school science classes, individual hobbyists, or anyone who wants to perform science experiments in space.

 

 

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