1. The Acai Berry - Americans have always loved their miracle cures. Little wonder the Acai berry (pronounced Ah-Sigh-EE), from Brazil's tropical rainforests, has become the "it" food of 2008. (Sorry, pomegranates!) If the snake-oil salesmen are to be believed, that $7 Acai drink you're about to quaff will restore your youth AND do your laundry.
2. Twitter - Twitter allows users to write and send, via SMS or online, short (140 characters max) messages to a network of fellow Twitters, usually off-the-cuff updates describing what they are doing at the moment. Facebook offered $500 million in October for the service, but Twitter's CEO and co-founder Evan Williams turned him down.
3. Music Video Games - In 2008, gamers everywhere cranked the volume up to 11, rocking out to Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2. When this blogger's dad sat down at the drums and played through Gimme Shelter for the first time, he knew that music games had arrived.
4. Bud Light Lime - Earlier this year, Budweiser introduced Bud Light Lime, a citrus-flavored concoction, to compete with Miller Chill, a lime-flavored beer introduced by Bud's major competitor in 2007. Accompanying the release of this new beverage, Bud launched a $35 million ad campaign, a strategy that paid off with a 2% rise in sales in the first three quarters of 2008.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d68a4-003b5-03c49-400cb8e1
5. BlackBerry Smart Phones - Swimming in the wake of the Apple iPhone is BlackBerry, with its army of addicted executives eager for the sexy features of touchscreen technology but unwilling to give up the workhorse dependability of RIM's network. This year it unveiled two new phones, the Bold and the Storm, to slake that thirst.
6. Speedo LZR Razor Swimsuit - Speedo spent three years and untold millions researching and designing a super swimsuit. It tested 100 different fabrics and suit designs, and conducted body scans of probably every top-level swimmer in the world (more than 400, the company claims) to come up with the Speedo LZR, the ultimate suit for hydro-propulsion.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d68a8-000a5-03c49-400cb8e1
7. Smart Cars - The smart fortwo started selling in Europe in 1998, but a recent redesign has made it a hot commodity in America in 2008: 20,000 smart cars have been sold in America this year so far; worldwide, around 140,000. Americans eager for the mileage and attention that comes with the smart will have to be patient, however; waiting lists are long.
8. Amazon Kindle - Amazon's Kindle is the first electronic reader to give print media a run for its money. The Kindle's cutting-edge electronic paper technology provides crisp, clean print in any light conditions. The device is thin and light enough to carry anywhere, and can store hundreds of books at your fingertips. Another reason it's so hot? Oprah loves it and gave it a ringing endorsement, calling it her "new favorite thing."
9. Vibrating Mascara - Both Estee Lauder's TurboLash and Lancome's Oscillation debuted in 2008, with celebrity trendsetters test-driving the products and touting their benefits. At one point, Lancome's waiting list numbered 21,000 and NPD says it was the number one mascara in dollar sales in department stores and Sephora combined.
10. Wii Fit - Playing video games used to be a fun excuse for sitting on the couch, relaxing and doing much of nothing. Then came along the Nintendo Wii, and its healthy counterpart, the Wii Fit, and video games were sedentary no more.
11. 3-Ply Toilet Paper - In September, 2008, Georgia-Pacific took toilet paper further than it has ever gone before. With the introduction of Quilted Northern Ultra Plush, the world's first premium three-ply toilet paper, it not only broke tissue boundaries, but may have changed the "face" of America's bathrooms forever.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d73cb-000be-03c49-400cb8e1
12. Flip Mino - The Flip Mino, pronounced Minnow, weighing only 3 oz., is smaller than an iPhone and only slightly taller than a deck of playing cards, yet can capture an hour's worth of VGA quality video on the 2GB of internal memory.
13. Aloft & Element Hotels - Aloft, named because the rooms are like "a loft," have nine-foot ceilings, oversized windows and the wonderful beds for which Starwood is known. Aloft rooms also have high-tech office and entertainment areas with free wireless Internet access, one-stop "connectivity solution" for multiple electronic gadgets -- all linked to a 42-inch flat-panel, HDTV-ready TV.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d73cd-001d7-03c49-400cb8e1
14. iPod Touch - In the beginning, there was the Apple iPhone, and users named it good. So good, in fact, that Apple quickly transformed its iPod into the same form, the iPod Touch, and it too has been deemed good. Very good, if sales are any indication.
http://www.walletpop.com/specials/hottest-products
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
25 E-Commerce Tech Terms You Should Know
1. Access Control - The process of determining whether an individual has access to a specific function or piece of information. Authentication and Access Control are related processes with Access Control usually following Authentication.
2. Affiliate Program - Where a company provides a tangible benefit (typically a fee or portion of sales) to the affiliate site for directing traffic toward the site or for providing additional promotion to secure a sale. Affiliate programs have been used for everything from book sales to political campaigns to blogging, and represents an active form of advertisement.
3. Authentication - The process of determining whether the individual signing in under a specific user name actually has an account with permissions to perform specific actions. Authentication can be as simple as providing a user name and password, but especially in high dollar e-commerce settings authentication is usually done in conjunction with access across secure channels and sometimes alternative authentication mechanisms (from thumb prints to retinal scans).
4. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) - A language for specifying business behaviors using Web services, it is a standard produced as part of the OASIS XML standards. BPEL is itself two specifications, an abstract version for describing business processes from a modeling standpoint, and an executable version that can actually perform business processes in conjunction with a BPEL processor. Like most business language specifications, BPEL is written using XML (eXtensible markup language) and is considered an orchestration language rather than a choreography language.
5. Choreography - The establishment of business rules and logic in a distributed environment where there is no central controller--typically the case when the e-commerce systems are across different companies or vendors. Compare with orchestration. Choreography is usually accomplished by building a messaging-oriented architecture.
6. Discovery - The process by which a machine determines the capabilities that a Web services provider offers. This process usually involves determining both the business objects that are exposed (typically via a Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, or UDDI, document) as well as the specific services that these objects exposed (usually using a WSDL document). Once a Web services client has this information, they can more readily build applications that use these services.
7. ebXML - Electronic business extensible markup language is a family of specifications intended to replace the EDI binary standards developed by the United Nations in the 1970s. It encompasses several standards for performing everything from messaging and discovery to handling orchestration, business object modeling and authentication.
8. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - The process of sending messages across a network in order to perform financial transactions. EDI systems evolved in the 1970s in order to handle e-commerce--like messages between a large corporation (such as an automobile manufacturer) and its suppliers. While the EDI standards established by the U.N. (via the UN/EDIFAC organization) involved binary formatted data, most EDI in the 2000s use XML messages and SOAP-based Web services to accomplish the same thing.
9. Federated Identity - The process of creating a way that different service providers (say a hotel and an airline) can provide a common way to share basic identity information and perform authentication across each provider's systems. A federation is a collection of distributed entities, so the federated identity is the total of all pieces of information for a given individual. Federated Identity lies at the heart of single sign-on systems, and is also used (with some difference) as the foundation for the OpenID standard.
10. Federation - Systems built on Web Services are distributed by nature; this term describes multiple independent Web services, which cooperate as a single system to external systems.
11. HTTPS/SSL - Secure HTTP (HTTPS) combines the venerable HTTP standard for Web communication with a security system built using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). A Web site or Web service that uses HTTPS provides a "certificate"--an electronic document--that is issued by a trust authority indicating that the site is indeed who they claim to be and that they are not involved in fraudulent activity. Once the browser receives such a certificate, then it uses the information in the certificate to encrypt the contents being sent back to the server. This provides a reasonable degree of security for handling sensitive electronic information, such as credit card numbers.
12. Long Tail - his idea states that the Internet makes it possible to capitalize upon smaller micro-markets that nonetheless in the aggregate make up a considerably larger market. Chris Anderson first proposed this in Wired magazine in 2004, though a study by Anita Elberse of Harvard Business School argues that marketing and business trends do not in fact support the long tail hypothesis.
13. Merchant Account - A line of credit extended by a bank, which accepts payment on behalf of a merchant, required to process and accept credit cards online.
14. Messaging - A messaging oriented architecture sends message packets (electronic documents) from a Web service to a queue, which then processes each message in periodic batches. Messaging architectures work better in distributed systems such as the Internet, because they don't force the participants to remain in contact with one another once the message has been sent (in computer parlance, this communication is asymmetric).
15. Orchestration - In an orchestrated architecture, a single controller (like the conductor in an orchestra) is responsible for the coordination of information flow between vendors in a network. Orchestrated systems have the advantage of being simpler to develop, but at the cost of potentially making the controller into a bottleneck. Compare with Choreography.
16. PCI/DSS - A set of standards that provide for secure communication for financial transactions over the Internet. The PCI Data Security Standard was a concerted effort in 2006 by a consortium made up of members including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover in order to minimize Internet-based credit card abuse, though the DSS standard is finding its way into other secure financial transactions as well.
17. Phishing - A form of fraud where malicious users fake information--usually e-mail--from a legitimate entity in hopes of tricking users into logging in to a lookalike site under someone else's control. From there, the attackers steal login credentials.
18. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of configuring Web content in order to gain the highest potential rankings for a given search engine. While early SEO systems involved simple keyword matches, SEO has evolved considerably to the level of performing semantic searches on content, optimizing the specific layout of a page to make its terms more indexable and using complex mathematical algorithms to better match anticipated search engine behaviors.
19. Single Sign-On - An approach to authentication in which a person maintains some kind of "wallet" (either locally on their machine or Web-based), which stores user names and passwords for various sites. When the user revisits that site, the sign-on provided by the system "unlocks" the user name and password for that site, rather than the user having to remember both of these keys for different sites.
20. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) - An XML-based language for describing a particular kind of document called an envelope that can in turn be used to hold other documents, computer services calls, or error messages. SOAP-based systems prevalent in financial and eCommerce services, either in a messaging mode or as a vehicle for performing remote procedure calls (XML-RPCs).
21. Universal Business Language (UBL) - A standard produced by OASIS-XML that defines a large set of common business terms and their relationships, making it easier to model these in a way that will have the least degree of discrepancy between different organizations' data model.
22. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - An XML-based document that specifies the services that are available on a given Web services provider, including how these services are invoked and what the applications expect as parameters. WSDL is used most commonly with SOAP-based systems, especially when SOAP is used as an XML-RPC.
23. XML Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - An XML-based specification designed to simplify corporate accounting and financial reporting. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the governments of England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all either accept (in some cases even require) or are developing pilot programs to explore XBRL as part of their regulatory mechanisms.
24. XML-RPC - A remote procedure call is a request from one computer in a network to another computer to perform a certain action and (generally) return a response once that operation is completed. XML-RPCs use XML messages in order to contain the instructions to perform these actions and get responses, with SOAP/WSDL- based XML-RPCs being the most common XML-RPC types. Note that Web architects are moving away from RPCs toward messaging systems because RPCs tend to make for fragile applications that have too many interdependencies.
25. XML - A language for marking up document and data structures in a human readable and easily computer understood format. It is used heavily in e-commerce, describing everything from orchestration systems to SOAP messages to business objects to the Web pages that provide a human interface for these documents.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/22/tech-starter-kit-ent-tech-cx_db_1022ecommerceglossary.html
2. Affiliate Program - Where a company provides a tangible benefit (typically a fee or portion of sales) to the affiliate site for directing traffic toward the site or for providing additional promotion to secure a sale. Affiliate programs have been used for everything from book sales to political campaigns to blogging, and represents an active form of advertisement.
3. Authentication - The process of determining whether the individual signing in under a specific user name actually has an account with permissions to perform specific actions. Authentication can be as simple as providing a user name and password, but especially in high dollar e-commerce settings authentication is usually done in conjunction with access across secure channels and sometimes alternative authentication mechanisms (from thumb prints to retinal scans).
4. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) - A language for specifying business behaviors using Web services, it is a standard produced as part of the OASIS XML standards. BPEL is itself two specifications, an abstract version for describing business processes from a modeling standpoint, and an executable version that can actually perform business processes in conjunction with a BPEL processor. Like most business language specifications, BPEL is written using XML (eXtensible markup language) and is considered an orchestration language rather than a choreography language.5. Choreography - The establishment of business rules and logic in a distributed environment where there is no central controller--typically the case when the e-commerce systems are across different companies or vendors. Compare with orchestration. Choreography is usually accomplished by building a messaging-oriented architecture.
6. Discovery - The process by which a machine determines the capabilities that a Web services provider offers. This process usually involves determining both the business objects that are exposed (typically via a Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, or UDDI, document) as well as the specific services that these objects exposed (usually using a WSDL document). Once a Web services client has this information, they can more readily build applications that use these services.
7. ebXML - Electronic business extensible markup language is a family of specifications intended to replace the EDI binary standards developed by the United Nations in the 1970s. It encompasses several standards for performing everything from messaging and discovery to handling orchestration, business object modeling and authentication.8. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - The process of sending messages across a network in order to perform financial transactions. EDI systems evolved in the 1970s in order to handle e-commerce--like messages between a large corporation (such as an automobile manufacturer) and its suppliers. While the EDI standards established by the U.N. (via the UN/EDIFAC organization) involved binary formatted data, most EDI in the 2000s use XML messages and SOAP-based Web services to accomplish the same thing.
9. Federated Identity - The process of creating a way that different service providers (say a hotel and an airline) can provide a common way to share basic identity information and perform authentication across each provider's systems. A federation is a collection of distributed entities, so the federated identity is the total of all pieces of information for a given individual. Federated Identity lies at the heart of single sign-on systems, and is also used (with some difference) as the foundation for the OpenID standard.
10. Federation - Systems built on Web Services are distributed by nature; this term describes multiple independent Web services, which cooperate as a single system to external systems.
11. HTTPS/SSL - Secure HTTP (HTTPS) combines the venerable HTTP standard for Web communication with a security system built using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). A Web site or Web service that uses HTTPS provides a "certificate"--an electronic document--that is issued by a trust authority indicating that the site is indeed who they claim to be and that they are not involved in fraudulent activity. Once the browser receives such a certificate, then it uses the information in the certificate to encrypt the contents being sent back to the server. This provides a reasonable degree of security for handling sensitive electronic information, such as credit card numbers.
12. Long Tail - his idea states that the Internet makes it possible to capitalize upon smaller micro-markets that nonetheless in the aggregate make up a considerably larger market. Chris Anderson first proposed this in Wired magazine in 2004, though a study by Anita Elberse of Harvard Business School argues that marketing and business trends do not in fact support the long tail hypothesis.
13. Merchant Account - A line of credit extended by a bank, which accepts payment on behalf of a merchant, required to process and accept credit cards online.
14. Messaging - A messaging oriented architecture sends message packets (electronic documents) from a Web service to a queue, which then processes each message in periodic batches. Messaging architectures work better in distributed systems such as the Internet, because they don't force the participants to remain in contact with one another once the message has been sent (in computer parlance, this communication is asymmetric).
15. Orchestration - In an orchestrated architecture, a single controller (like the conductor in an orchestra) is responsible for the coordination of information flow between vendors in a network. Orchestrated systems have the advantage of being simpler to develop, but at the cost of potentially making the controller into a bottleneck. Compare with Choreography.
16. PCI/DSS - A set of standards that provide for secure communication for financial transactions over the Internet. The PCI Data Security Standard was a concerted effort in 2006 by a consortium made up of members including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover in order to minimize Internet-based credit card abuse, though the DSS standard is finding its way into other secure financial transactions as well.
17. Phishing - A form of fraud where malicious users fake information--usually e-mail--from a legitimate entity in hopes of tricking users into logging in to a lookalike site under someone else's control. From there, the attackers steal login credentials.18. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of configuring Web content in order to gain the highest potential rankings for a given search engine. While early SEO systems involved simple keyword matches, SEO has evolved considerably to the level of performing semantic searches on content, optimizing the specific layout of a page to make its terms more indexable and using complex mathematical algorithms to better match anticipated search engine behaviors.
19. Single Sign-On - An approach to authentication in which a person maintains some kind of "wallet" (either locally on their machine or Web-based), which stores user names and passwords for various sites. When the user revisits that site, the sign-on provided by the system "unlocks" the user name and password for that site, rather than the user having to remember both of these keys for different sites.
20. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) - An XML-based language for describing a particular kind of document called an envelope that can in turn be used to hold other documents, computer services calls, or error messages. SOAP-based systems prevalent in financial and eCommerce services, either in a messaging mode or as a vehicle for performing remote procedure calls (XML-RPCs).
21. Universal Business Language (UBL) - A standard produced by OASIS-XML that defines a large set of common business terms and their relationships, making it easier to model these in a way that will have the least degree of discrepancy between different organizations' data model.
22. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - An XML-based document that specifies the services that are available on a given Web services provider, including how these services are invoked and what the applications expect as parameters. WSDL is used most commonly with SOAP-based systems, especially when SOAP is used as an XML-RPC.
23. XML Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - An XML-based specification designed to simplify corporate accounting and financial reporting. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the governments of England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all either accept (in some cases even require) or are developing pilot programs to explore XBRL as part of their regulatory mechanisms.
24. XML-RPC - A remote procedure call is a request from one computer in a network to another computer to perform a certain action and (generally) return a response once that operation is completed. XML-RPCs use XML messages in order to contain the instructions to perform these actions and get responses, with SOAP/WSDL- based XML-RPCs being the most common XML-RPC types. Note that Web architects are moving away from RPCs toward messaging systems because RPCs tend to make for fragile applications that have too many interdependencies.
25. XML - A language for marking up document and data structures in a human readable and easily computer understood format. It is used heavily in e-commerce, describing everything from orchestration systems to SOAP messages to business objects to the Web pages that provide a human interface for these documents.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/22/tech-starter-kit-ent-tech-cx_db_1022ecommerceglossary.html
Sunday, April 20, 2008
World's 20 Most Innovative Companies
No. 20: Boeing
The world is awaiting the arrival of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which, manufactured with 50% composites, promises to be lighter weight and use 20% less fuel than conventional commercial aircraft. The globally sourced project has been plagued by delays, however, which have begun to overshadow excitement over the plane’s groundbreaking technology.
No. 19: Reliance Industries
The Indian petrochemicals giant made it onto our list this year thanks to fans of its aggressive growth. But its ambitious plans to reach into grocery retailing, which is dominated in India by small shopkeepers who’ve rebelled against corporate entrants, have faltered.
No. 18: General Motors
CEO Richard Wagoner Jr. is making design a top priority in his efforts to jump-start GM’s struggling business, giving stylists a first crack at new models before engineers. Add in new hybrid-electric SUVs, along with plans for the ultrahigh-mileage Volt in 2010, and it’s clear GM is trying to shake its stodgy image.
No. 17: Walt Disney
Disney is Hollywood’s leader with online offerings. It was first to ship its TV shows online. These days it’s filling the Web with social networks for kids that let them become avatar “fairies” or join communities of pirate-playing gamesters. Digital revenues will jump this year by 25%, to $1 billion.
No. 16: Honda Motor
At a time when most carmakers are worrying about high gas prices, sales of fuel-efficient Hondas are growing. Next up, the automaker will introduce gas-sipping clean diesels, small affordable hybrids and, in 2010, a private jet that’s 30% more fuel efficient than rival offerings.
No. 15: Hewlett-Packard
The 69-year-old info tech company’s Innovation Program Office helps it to absorb the startup vibes from recent acquisitions. The new service “CloudPrint,” developed in a matter of months and inspired by the iPhone, helps users send documents to printers from their mobile devices.
No. 14: BMW
While other carmakers talk about hybrids and electric motors, this German maker of sports sedans has concentrated on getting the most out of existing technology. As a result, the latest BMWs and Minis challenge the Toyota Prius for gas mileage and low emissions.
No. 13: Research In Motion
Twenty-eight million thumbs on 14 million devices say RIM still dominates the wireless e-mail market. The makers of the ubiquitous BlackBerry are now reaching into the vast consumer market, putting it on a collision course with iPhone maker Apple.
No. 12: IBM
With over 3,000 scientists at IBM Research, Big Blue has been the leading U.S. patent winner for 15 years in a row. Now the new head of research, John Kelly III, plans on making bigger and bolder bets. One example: trying to invent the next-generation transistor.
No. 11: Amazon.com
Now far more than an e-tailer of physical goods, Amazon.com has added the ability to download videos and MP3s. And it's selling the very Web services it uses for its own operations to hundreds of startups, which employ the back-office tech programs to run their own companies.
No. 10: Nokia
The Finnish handset maker employs anthropologists who study mobile-phone users in emerging markets. Their insights have made Nokia the leader in India and China. As it pushes beyond hardware into Web services, it’s tapping outsiders to create games and offer feedback.
No. 9: Sony
Now that its electronics business is healthy and Blu-ray is the new DVD standard, Sony's priority is online content. Its PlayStation 3 video game consoles will soon feature Home, a 3D social networking and gaming world, and PlayStation Network, an expanded channel for music and videos.
No. 8: Procter & Gamble
The world’s largest consumer-products maker has out-hustled rivals in new product launches through more spending on design and willingness to turn to outsiders for ideas. But P&G is just as creative in finding new markets: It's now pushing to sell its products in overlooked neighborhood stores in developing regions.
No. 7: Nintendo
The video gamemaker is new to our top 25 after its wildly popular Wii console tapped an entirely new gaming audience. It recently launched a Wii fitness game that makes staying in shape a family affair. New service WiiWare will soon offer indie programmers a low-cost way to deliver games online.
No. 6: Tata Group
The Mumbai-based conglomerate jumps onto our list for the first time, fueled by its paradigm-busting $2,500 “Nano” car for the masses. The car, from its Tata Motors unit, is the world’s cheapest, thanks partly to a distribution model that sells the auto in kits to entrepreneurs who assemble them for buyers.
No. 5: Microsoft
Often mocked for following rather than leading, the software giant tapped its vast research arm to launch Surface, a new touch-screen computer that moves a step closer to the Holy Grail of natural user interfaces. To catch up with Google, it continues to pour research funds into perfecting search algorithms.
No. 4: General Electric
CEO Jeff Immelt is so encouraged by GE’s “ecoimagination” initiative that he’s raising the revenue target for green projects from $20 billion to $25 billion by 2010. This year, the industrial giant tapped Dartmouth prof Vijay Govindarajan to be its own in-house “chief innovation consultant.”
No. 3: Toyota Motor
Determined to retain its mantle as the hybrid leader among carmakers, the Japanese company plans to roll out a more fuel-efficient Prius in 2009. It’s also trying to match rival GM’s promise to deliver a plug-in gas-and-electric car using lithium ion batteries. Toyota is targeting 1 million hybrid sales annually by the early 2010s.
No. 2: Google
The search giant, which last year hiked R&D spending 72%, took on Microsoft in its own backyard with a concerted push into online office software. This year Google will try to expand beyond search ads into banner and video ads with its $3.2 billion acquisition of display-ad firm DoubleClick.
No. 1: Apple
Our repeat winner has rocked the wireless handset world with the iPhone, spurring rivals to imitate the touch-screen design. After just nine months on sale, it’s already No. 3 in the global smartphone market. Meanwhile some 150 million iPods have been sold since 2001.
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0417_mostinnovative/index_01.htm
Friday, February 15, 2008
Top 10 Up-And-Coming Tech Cities
Where will the next Silicon Valley spring up? Philip Auerswald, professor of public policy at George Mason University, knows where to look. He surveyed regional innovation trends across the U.S. and cobbled a list of up-and-coming tech centers. Auerswald concentrated on specific pockets of science--including advanced materials, nano-crystals and quantum dots, polymers and plastics, micro-systems and cell microbiology--that most experts consider today's most promising frontiers of innovation.
He then looked for important relationships among patents within each one. The most important patents are generally referenced by other inventors in the field when they file for their own patents; lesser patents garner fewer citations. The greater the increase in the number of important patents in a given city, the higher it ranked on Auerswald's list. The results may surprise you.
No. 1 - Columbus, Ohio
In 1997, the Battelle Memorial Institute, Ohio's largest research center, based in Columbus, managed a single lab for the U.S. Department of Energy with an annual budget of $1 billion. A decade later, Battelle oversees seven major laboratories for different federal agencies; budget: $4 billion in research funds annually. The institute has become a force in almost every area of emerging technology, especially life sciences and energy research. One of its children, Velocys, is working on a way to cut the cost of capturing the 3 trillion cubic feet of the world's stranded natural gas by converting it into easily transportable liquid.
No. 2 - Santa Fe, N.M.
Santa Fe has plenty of dirt roads. It also has major federal laboratoriesmore within a 100 mile radius than any other city on this list, including Los Alamos Laboratory, the birthplace of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb, and Sandia National Laboratories, a leading solar-energy research center. A growing number of wind and solar energy start-ups have popped up in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, N.M. Blue Energy USA, for example, has created a 6-foot-tall wind turbine in the shape of a spiral helix. The turbines use solar energy cells that allow them to convert both solar and wind energy simultaneously and can be used for residential use.
No. 3 - Palm Beach County, Fla.
The playground of the rich is also becoming a haven for cutting edge biotech and life-science research. Both the Scripps Research Institute (the world's largest private biomedical research center, headquartered in Southern California) and the Max Planck Institute (Germany's leading life sciences center) are building facilities there. In 2006, BioCatalyst International, a major investor in biotechnology start-ups led by Genzyme co-founder Sheridan Snyder, opened a new office in West Palm Beach to get the first shot at the hottest new prospects.
No. 4 - Houston, Texas
If you want a 10-gallon disruptive technology, smash different discoveries together. To wit: Houston's itRobotics, founded in 2002, has developed new cost-cutting robots that inspect a variety of boilers and energy pipelines for structural flaws. Other Houston start-ups are commercializing technologies originally developed at local research institutions. Nanospectra Biosciences, a local drug delivery company, is working on a nano-scale particle (pioneered at Rice University) that destroys cancerous tumors. The particles are injected in the bloodstream and accumulate inside cancerous tumors. When the tumor is exposed to a laser, the particles absorb the near-infrared light and convert it into thermal energy, destroying the tumor.
No. 5 - Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wis.
Globalization and poor training may have gutted America's manufacturing base, but stalwart metal-bender Milwaukee is not backing down. Rather than just crank out widgets, local companies are attacking bottlenecks in the manufacturing process itself. For example, Rockwell Automation makes snazzy sensors and controls that boost assembly-line productivity. Johnson Controls, inventor of the thermostat in 1885, has produced energy-efficient heating, air-conditioning and lighting systems running throughout 1 billion square feet of commercial real estate. Chief Executive Stephen Roell plans to expand Johnson's workforce 35%, to 190,000 employees, in the next three to four years.
No. 6 - Pittsburgh, Pa.
Resuscitated after decades of economic malaise, the old steel town has become an innovative force in such areas as health care, biomedical technology, nuclear energy and robotics. A big help: Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute is making great strides in robot development. The school's Collaborative Innovation Center, funded by Pittsburgh and the state government, has also helped entice stalwarts like Intel and Apple to build labs in the area.
No. 7 - Boise City, Idaho
Since the 1970s, chip maker Micron Technology and computer giant Hewlett-Packard, along with the Idaho National Laboratory, had buoyed Boise's technology sector. But now there are new faces. In 2006, Idaho ranked seventh nationally in the percentage increase in venture capital investments and 11th in concentration of high-tech workers. One home-grown start-up, Quantum Point Technologies, provides a suite of information-technology management services to agencies at the U.S. Department of the Interior and regional businesses like Washington Trust Bank.
No. 8 - Iowa City, Iowa
There's more than corn in Iowa. Like Asoyia. Founded in 2004 by group of 25 farmers, this biotechnology company commercialized a new strain of soybean developed at Iowa State University. Asoyia's soybean is genetically designed to produce trans-fat-free oils. Iowa City is also a hotbed of new technologies in health care and renewable energy. BFC Gas & Electric can generate enough electricity from solid waste in nearby Cedar Rapids to light up 4,000 homes. Fueling the effort: new venture capital and private equity firms that target renewable energy start-ups. Likewise, the government-backed Grow Iowa Values Fund puts up $2 million a year to support the University of Iowa's Centers for Enterprise.
No. 9 - Lake Charles, La.
Soaring oil profits in recent years have pumped life into Lake Charles' economy. The city's port is the 12th largest in the U.S. and a leading center for offshore drilling and extraction technologies used on platforms around the world. CITGO, ConocoPhillips and other players in the energy industry have expanded operations in Lake Charles, rapidly making the port city a key choke point in America's energy distribution network. The region already boasts one liquefied natural gas facility, and three more are under construction. When those come online in a few years, as much as a quarter of all natural gas used in the U.S. will flow through Lake Charles, estimates the Southwestern Louisiana Chamber of Commerce.
No. 10 - Yuma, Ariz.
This small desert town in southern Arizona has more prisons than patent lawyers. The local chamber of commerce fishes for new business by hyping the tourist flow from Mexico and heavy highway traffic. So what's Yuma got? The U.S. armed forces. The Department of Defense runs a testing facility, U.S. Yuma Proving Ground, near the city of Yuma that spans over 1,300 square miles of desert terrain. As the primary U.S. site for desert warfare research, Yuma is now the third-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country, according to its Web site.And where the military goes, so does tomorrow's top technology.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/10/columbus-milwaukee-houston-ent-tech-cx_wp_0310smallbizoutlooktechcity_slide.html?thisSpeed=20000
He then looked for important relationships among patents within each one. The most important patents are generally referenced by other inventors in the field when they file for their own patents; lesser patents garner fewer citations. The greater the increase in the number of important patents in a given city, the higher it ranked on Auerswald's list. The results may surprise you.
No. 1 - Columbus, Ohio
In 1997, the Battelle Memorial Institute, Ohio's largest research center, based in Columbus, managed a single lab for the U.S. Department of Energy with an annual budget of $1 billion. A decade later, Battelle oversees seven major laboratories for different federal agencies; budget: $4 billion in research funds annually. The institute has become a force in almost every area of emerging technology, especially life sciences and energy research. One of its children, Velocys, is working on a way to cut the cost of capturing the 3 trillion cubic feet of the world's stranded natural gas by converting it into easily transportable liquid.No. 2 - Santa Fe, N.M.
Santa Fe has plenty of dirt roads. It also has major federal laboratoriesmore within a 100 mile radius than any other city on this list, including Los Alamos Laboratory, the birthplace of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb, and Sandia National Laboratories, a leading solar-energy research center. A growing number of wind and solar energy start-ups have popped up in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, N.M. Blue Energy USA, for example, has created a 6-foot-tall wind turbine in the shape of a spiral helix. The turbines use solar energy cells that allow them to convert both solar and wind energy simultaneously and can be used for residential use.No. 3 - Palm Beach County, Fla.
The playground of the rich is also becoming a haven for cutting edge biotech and life-science research. Both the Scripps Research Institute (the world's largest private biomedical research center, headquartered in Southern California) and the Max Planck Institute (Germany's leading life sciences center) are building facilities there. In 2006, BioCatalyst International, a major investor in biotechnology start-ups led by Genzyme co-founder Sheridan Snyder, opened a new office in West Palm Beach to get the first shot at the hottest new prospects.No. 4 - Houston, Texas
If you want a 10-gallon disruptive technology, smash different discoveries together. To wit: Houston's itRobotics, founded in 2002, has developed new cost-cutting robots that inspect a variety of boilers and energy pipelines for structural flaws. Other Houston start-ups are commercializing technologies originally developed at local research institutions. Nanospectra Biosciences, a local drug delivery company, is working on a nano-scale particle (pioneered at Rice University) that destroys cancerous tumors. The particles are injected in the bloodstream and accumulate inside cancerous tumors. When the tumor is exposed to a laser, the particles absorb the near-infrared light and convert it into thermal energy, destroying the tumor.No. 5 - Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wis.
Globalization and poor training may have gutted America's manufacturing base, but stalwart metal-bender Milwaukee is not backing down. Rather than just crank out widgets, local companies are attacking bottlenecks in the manufacturing process itself. For example, Rockwell Automation makes snazzy sensors and controls that boost assembly-line productivity. Johnson Controls, inventor of the thermostat in 1885, has produced energy-efficient heating, air-conditioning and lighting systems running throughout 1 billion square feet of commercial real estate. Chief Executive Stephen Roell plans to expand Johnson's workforce 35%, to 190,000 employees, in the next three to four years.No. 6 - Pittsburgh, Pa.
Resuscitated after decades of economic malaise, the old steel town has become an innovative force in such areas as health care, biomedical technology, nuclear energy and robotics. A big help: Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute is making great strides in robot development. The school's Collaborative Innovation Center, funded by Pittsburgh and the state government, has also helped entice stalwarts like Intel and Apple to build labs in the area.No. 7 - Boise City, Idaho
Since the 1970s, chip maker Micron Technology and computer giant Hewlett-Packard, along with the Idaho National Laboratory, had buoyed Boise's technology sector. But now there are new faces. In 2006, Idaho ranked seventh nationally in the percentage increase in venture capital investments and 11th in concentration of high-tech workers. One home-grown start-up, Quantum Point Technologies, provides a suite of information-technology management services to agencies at the U.S. Department of the Interior and regional businesses like Washington Trust Bank.No. 8 - Iowa City, Iowa
There's more than corn in Iowa. Like Asoyia. Founded in 2004 by group of 25 farmers, this biotechnology company commercialized a new strain of soybean developed at Iowa State University. Asoyia's soybean is genetically designed to produce trans-fat-free oils. Iowa City is also a hotbed of new technologies in health care and renewable energy. BFC Gas & Electric can generate enough electricity from solid waste in nearby Cedar Rapids to light up 4,000 homes. Fueling the effort: new venture capital and private equity firms that target renewable energy start-ups. Likewise, the government-backed Grow Iowa Values Fund puts up $2 million a year to support the University of Iowa's Centers for Enterprise.No. 9 - Lake Charles, La.
Soaring oil profits in recent years have pumped life into Lake Charles' economy. The city's port is the 12th largest in the U.S. and a leading center for offshore drilling and extraction technologies used on platforms around the world. CITGO, ConocoPhillips and other players in the energy industry have expanded operations in Lake Charles, rapidly making the port city a key choke point in America's energy distribution network. The region already boasts one liquefied natural gas facility, and three more are under construction. When those come online in a few years, as much as a quarter of all natural gas used in the U.S. will flow through Lake Charles, estimates the Southwestern Louisiana Chamber of Commerce.No. 10 - Yuma, Ariz.
This small desert town in southern Arizona has more prisons than patent lawyers. The local chamber of commerce fishes for new business by hyping the tourist flow from Mexico and heavy highway traffic. So what's Yuma got? The U.S. armed forces. The Department of Defense runs a testing facility, U.S. Yuma Proving Ground, near the city of Yuma that spans over 1,300 square miles of desert terrain. As the primary U.S. site for desert warfare research, Yuma is now the third-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country, according to its Web site.And where the military goes, so does tomorrow's top technology.http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/10/columbus-milwaukee-houston-ent-tech-cx_wp_0310smallbizoutlooktechcity_slide.html?thisSpeed=20000
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Gadgets Technology to Watch in 2008
iPhone Redux :: Apple's Next iPhone
As it first needs to approval from the Federal Communications Commission, it will have to be disclosed publicly a few months earlier. Expect Apple CEO Steve Jobs to announce iPhone 2.0 no later than March, in time for a July release.
The next iteration is likely to include access to faster 3G wireless networks, speedier Wi-Fi connections, and GPS reception. Also rumored, but not confirmed by Apple: an iPhone mini.
iPhone Rival :: BlackBerry 9000
A major iPhone rival is Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry. The devices may appear to be aimed at vastly different audiences, but they overlap in an increasing number of ways. BlackBerry phones now play music and video, while iPhones handle text messaging and e-mail, and are increasingly in demand among business users.
The BlackBerry 9000 series, as yet only the subject of rumor, is said to look an awful lot like an iPhone, even sporting touch-screen technology.
Connected Navigation :: Dash Express
Navigation devices, with their ability to get users from place to place using Global Positioning System technology, were all the rage in 2007. In the coming year, expect them to become Internet aware.
In February, startup Dash Navigation will debut its $600 Dash Express, a car navigation device that uses wireless phone networks to get live traffic updates and load addresses and routes from a PC or Mac. The navigation industry will be watching closely for signs of the product's success. If it is successful, Dash may find itself in the crosshairs of a suitor.
Mobile Matchmaker :: GE Cell Fusion
GE's Cell Fusion products let you link your cell phone using wireless Bluetooth technology. The point is to mesh the sound quality and other benefits of a landline phone with the convenience and cost savings of a cell phone. Consumers could, for example, take calls to a cell phone on a home phone when the wireless device is charging, or make long-distance calls on a home phone while using a cell-phone plan.
Digital Readers :: Amazon Kindle
Reviewers called it ugly and overpriced. But consumers couldn't get enough of Amazon.com's (AMZN) Kindle e-book device. Despite the pans, the item was sold out in a matter of days and Amazon is rushing to replenish the supply.
While e-book readers are still a curiosity for many in the mainstream, the concept simply won't die. Sony (SNE) is on the second generation of its digital reader, and eyes will be on Amazon for evidence of strong sales.
Smartpens :: Nokia, Livescribe, Epos
Digital pens, a footnote from the last tech bubble, are poised for a second run at commercial success in 2008 thanks to products from no fewer than three vendors.
In February, Livescribe will introduce its smartpen, which not only records your written words so they can be read on a computer, but also records surrounding sounds—an obvious boon to college students taking lecture notes. Others pens from Epos and Nokia (NOK) stick to storing what you write on a computer.
Wi-Fi Video Phones :: CREATIVE Technology
Wi-Fi calling, a category that includes Apple's Touch and iPhone as well as devices made by Cisco Systems (CSCO), is set to expand in 2008.
A notable addition, judging from FCC filings, is the InPerson from Creative Technology (CREAF). It looks a little like a laptop computer, but is aimed at making Internet videoconferencing calls without a PC.
Open Cell Phone :: Google's Android
The first phones bearing Google's (GOOG) Android operating system are expected to hit the market in the second half of 2008—just in time, it would seem, to compete with the second-generation iPhone and whatever new BlackBerry device Research In Motion cooks up.
The cost of the OS (it's free) can't help but upend the competitive landscape for smartphones, but only if Android lives up to the hype.
Built PC Tough :: Solid-state PC hard drives
Hard drives are delicate. Notebook PCs tend to be dropped. It's a recipe for data disaster. One answer is solid-state hard drives, which store data using flash memory chips, rather than the spinning glass platter of a traditional hard drive.
Already appearing in some high-end notebooks from Dell (DELL), solid-state hard drives are likely to make a bigger splash across the mainstream PC market in 2008. The benefits for users are faster boot-up times and notebooks that are less sensitive to drops. The downside? Higher cost per gigabyte, though the prices on flash are dropping fast.
Make-or-Break Year :: Palm
The company whose name was once synonymous with handheld computing is in the doldrums. Palm's been there before and recovered. The question is whether it can bounce back again. Palm's Treo line of smartphones is looking hopelessly outdated compared with the BlackBerry and iPhone; its Foleo clamshell device, announced with much fanfare, attracted shrugs, and was ultimately killed.
Palm's latest device, the Treo 755p, was late getting out the door in time for the holidays. This could be Palm's make-or-break year. Devices running a badly needed update to the Palm operating system won't appear before 2009, raising the impolite question: Will anyone care by then?
Sunday, January 6, 2008
2007 Technology of the Year Awards: App Dev
The best and most innovative products in business rules management, AJAX toolkits, Java test tools, and more.
Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor 6.1 [Best Business Rule Management System]
Blaze Advisor 6.1's major enhancements include richer reporting and increased speed, and the newly incorporated Rete III algorithm enables it to surpass old rival JRules in performance benchmarks. Blaze still provides a wealth of tools for implementation, extensive debugging, and strong factory support. The improvements make it the top enterprise BRMS.
Sun NetBeans 5.5 [Java IDE Innovator]
NetBeans already had the most complete collaboration features among IDE platforms. This year it added important new modules such as Matisse, the most advanced Java GUI designer available today, and complete support for Java EE 5. NetBeans is likely all that developers of enterprise Java applications will need.
Parasoft Jtest 8 [Best Java Test Tool]
Jtest was already a great Java testing tool; now it's even better. Version 8 adds more pre-loaded rules and the new BugDetective analysis module for locating problems and identifying their origin. It takes on everything from unit tests to functional tests, and it does not limit your testing of any particular Java component.
Klocwork K7 v. 7 [Best Source Code Analyzer]
Klocwork K7 is a robust and scalable analytical suite for C, C++, and Java, featuring excellent defect discovery and extensive tools for managing the many results. In addition, it provides superior code navigation and analysis tools. This is a comprehensive and very impressive package.
Backbase 3.2 [Best AJAX Toolkit]
Backbase is a smooth, crisp collection of widgets with a nice, modern look. Coding amounts to dropping together XML tags to specify everything from the event routines to the layouts. Server-side support is tightly integrated with Java platforms such as JSF and Struts. Impressive tool, elegant results.
Dojo Toolkit [Best Open Source AJAX Kit]
Dojo has an excellent editing package, a wide selection of animating boxes, some drag-and-drop tools, and a slew of customizable widgets. It's a broad, deep, and well-packaged open source AJAX project, and it continues to improve as it attracts more developers with more ideas and code from other projects.
Adobe Flex 2.0 [Best Rich Internet Application Platform]
Adobe Flex 2.0 constitutes a big leap forward for this RIA platform, thanks to a new Eclipse-based IDE for drag-and-drop layout and code management, and a separate data services application for server-side messaging and data integration. Easy connections for Web services and Java objects bolster this very good choice for enterprise RIA scenarios.
http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/2007/01/25-2007_technology-1.html
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Best and Worst in Tech :: 101 Best Web Freebies
1. Load Up Your PC - Ubuntu, OpenOffice.org, Pandora Recovery, Libra
2. Safeguard Your System - AVG Anti-Virus Free, SpyBot
3. Home on the Web - divShare, T35 Hosting, WordPress
4. Phone Home - Skype, Gizmo Project, The Pudding
5. Manage Your Money - Mint (Personal accounting software), Freerealtime.com
6. File Your Taxes - TaxACT This Web-based tax software is part of the Internal Revenue Service's Free File program. But unlike other IRS partners who limit free filing services to those with incomes of $54,000 or less, TaxACT is open to all.
7. Credit Check - AnnualCreditReport.com The Fair & Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 gave all consumers the right to access their credit reports once every 12 months. The Act also created AnnualCreditReport.com to simplify the process of applying to credit reporting agencies.
8. Play the Housing Market - Zillow.com, Trulia
9. Land a Job - Emurse, Indeed
10. Raise Salary - Salary.com Have a hunch you're underpaid? Who doesn't? Before you go to the boss, get some hard evidence at Salary.com. The site will show you what others with similar job titles and geographic locations are earning, based on survey data.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071121_708667.htm
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