Techstars selects the first class of its New York-based IoT accelerator | TechCrunch

September 29, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Techstars has selected the first class for its New York-based internet of things accelerator. It’s the first program that Techstars has done with a consortium of industry partners instead of just linking up with a single, large corporate partner.

For the accelerator, the first class is the culmination of a year of work putting the pieces together for the new initiative. One of the big four accounting and consulting firms, PWC, was the first company to sign on to the Techstars vision.

Since the first agreement last October with PWC, General Electric, Verizon, Bosch and SAP have all come on board. General Electric has been pushing hard to remake itself as a more innovative company; while Bosch is making similar efforts. For its part, SAP has announced its own partnership with Bosch, and is aggressively pushing into the Internet of Things to counter moves made by its arch-nemesis, Cisco.

Apple To Abandon Lightning Port? iPhone’s Next Massive Gamble | Forbes

September 29, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

First they came for the bulky 30-pin docking connector. Then the 3.5mm headphone jack was removed from the iPhone. What will Apple remove next? A newly granted patent published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office offers another clue. In a bid to reduce the physical imperfections on the iPhone’s external design, Apple could drop the lightning port.

Patent #9,453,976 was granted today, and details a system where data could flow between two devices through an optical interface. This would use a series of tiny holes that in concert would allow enough optical information to pass through:

5 Cool Ways Creative Talent Can Help You Market Your Business | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It takes a village to grow a business. The creatives of the professional world bring an intangible element to a marketing campaign. Without their unique skills, brands wouldn’t be memorable and a logo wouldn’t be able to convey an idea.

Creative professionals think outside of the box. They’re the ones revolutionizing the way we market and the mediums that are used. They give us new channels to connect with customers.

Here are a few of the most creative ways creative types are winning over customers.

Venezuela crisis: I flew to U.S. to buy toilet paper | CNN Money

September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Carmen Mendoza came to New York to visit her daughter Anabella — and also to buy toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, beans, corn flour, tuna fish, mayonnaise and aspirin.

Mendoza, 66, can’t find these basic goods in her home country: Venezuela.

Venezuela’s deep economic recession has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis. Venezuelans are suffering through severe food and medical shortages while crime skyrockets and massive protests call for President Nicolas Maduro to resign.

Mendoza has spent the past month in New York with her daughter and realizes she’s lost a sense of what normalcy means. In Venezuela, she lived without toilet paper for a month in July, using paper napkins instead

The Bitcoin Revolution is Coming | Getentrepreneurial.com

September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

How can unrelated parties negotiate securely and transparently without having to rely on expensive intermediaries? Some programmers believe that bitcoin is the answer to that question and that it will revolutionize the way we do business.

What started as a nine page proposal in the white paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto (whose true identity remains unknown), has now become the way that more than 200,000 transactions per day are done. The rising popularity of bitcoin has caused markets and financial institutions to invest in the development of products based on this revolutionizing technology.

To understand what the buzz over bitcoin is all about and how to make the most of it, we need to become familiar with the concepts of bitcoin and blockchain, the opportunities that they are creating, and the approach that regulators are taking.

FedEx Follows UPS in Announcing Shipping Rate Increases | Small Biz Trends

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

FedEx Express, the popular express delivery and parcel shipping service, announced Monday it will increase shipping rates by an average of 3.9 percent for U.S. domestic, U.S. export and U.S. import deliveries. FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery will also increase by an average of 4.9 percent. The new shipping rates will take effect January 2, 2017.

New FedEx Express Shipping Rates

In a nutshell, the recently announced FedEx rate changes include:

FedEx Express rates which will increase by an average of 3.9 percent for U.S. domestic, U.S. export, and U.S. import services,
FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery rates which will increase by an average of 4.9 percent, with FedEx SmartPost rates also changing,
FedEx Express and FedEx Ground U.S. domestic dimensional weight advisor which will change from 166 to 139, and
FedEx Freight rates which will increase by an average of 4.9 percent.

How Facebook’s last year shows dominance in mobile advertising — and what’s next | Mashable

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There’s plenty of shiny toys to look at when it comes to Facebook — Oculus Rift, WhatsApp, Messenger and ambitious plans to bring the internet to every corner of the globe.

At its core, however, is good old advertising. Well, maybe not old.

“We’re going to pursue any avenue we can to help business owners, all within the bounds of privacy control,” said Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s vice president of ads and business platform. “Consumers need to feel comfortable if we ever creep anybody out we’ve done a poor job.”

Ahead of Advertising Week 2016 in New York, Mashable spoke with Bosworth to learn how Facebook has grown in digital and mobile advertising and what the team is creating next.

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf fake-accounts scandal Mike Mayo CLSA | Business Insider

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Wells Fargo has a lot of explaining to do.

The bank, once the largest bank in the US by market cap, and its CEO, John Stumpf, have been raked over the coals following the revelation that 2 million accounts were opened without customers’ knowledge from 2011 to 2015.

According to Mike Mayo, a banking analyst at CLSA, even after Stumpf’s testimony on Capitol Hill, there are still some important questions the bank has to answer.

This Redesigned Map Of U.S. Train Routes Might Make You Actually Want To Take Amtrak | Co.Exist

September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If it’s hard to picture the U.S. with a high-speed rail network like China’s—with trains going 186 miles an hour, and rail trips more than 70% faster than they are today—a subway-like map makes it feel more realistic.

“The transit map metaphor, with its straight lines and evenly spaced stations seems to make this easier to imagine,” says designer Cameron Booth, who created the map.

With the redesigned map, it’s possible to imagine the train as a viable option for travel in the rest of the country—even if the stops it shows now are just along existing Amtrak routes.

Flybrix Turns Your Legos Into DIY Minidrone Masterpieces | WIRED

September 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

THE FLYBRIX TEAM didn’t set out to build an adorable DIY mini-drone out of Lego bricks. But as any road-tripper can tell you, sometimes the journey turns out to be more fun than the destination.

Amir Hirsch has a masters from MIT. Robb Walters has a PhD from Cal Tech. And Holly Kasun has a marketing background that spans from Nike to Nokia. Together, they set out to make small drones smarter, not STEM toys.

“What we were doing originally is going after autonomous flight for microdrones, using computer vision and some other technical milestones,” says Kasun. “While we were developing our product, we used Lego bricks to rapidly prototype our early drone designs.”