30 Cool New Products from Amazon Launchpad | Small Biz Trends

August 18, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you happen to be browsing on Amazon’s site and you’ve wondered how many items are available from the online mega retailer, click right here. As of this posting, there were 366,874,689 items being offered for sale, which is quite daunting if you’re looking to introduce a new product and compete with the hundreds of millions out there. Granted there are many departments, but even a simple search for watches turns up more than two million items.

In order to give startups a leg up when breaking into this vast online marketplace, Amazon introduced Launchpad last year.

Crowdfunding sites like such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo and accelerators like Y Combinator have partnered with Amazon to identify products with the greatest potential and placed them into the Launchpad product listing.

Source: 30 Cool New Products from Amazon Launchpad

This is how Apple will make your home smarter | Mashable

August 18, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s worth wondering if we’d be further along in our quest for the ultimate smart home if we had never called it a Smart Home.

The idea that an entire dwelling could achieve something approaching sentience in one-fell swoop was always ludicrous. While our homes represent a singular idea, they’re comprised of a million competing ones. Invariably it’s a hodgepodge, an eclectic mix of design, decor, gadgets and interfaces.

We buy what we like and what we think will fill a utility gap. The refrigerator is purchased for one reason, while the electric stove is for another. Our dish washing machine might be from Kenmore while our clothes dryer is from Samsung.

We buy one set of shades for one room and a different set for another.

In the early days of the smart home revolution, manufacturers tried to sell consumers on a cohesive idea: turnkey systems installed by professionals with a centrally managed interface that only a Mensa candidate could figure out.

How La Niña could impact Asian currencies | Business Insider

August 17, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One of the biggest drivers of Asian currencies in the coming months could be the weather.

In a note out Wednesday, strategists at Deutsche Bank examined the impact that the climate pattern La Niña could have on Asian economies, and how a pass through effect from the weather could ease a jump in inflation and eventually weaken currencies.

The National Oceanic Administration Agency has confirmed that La Niña is coming. It will follow a record-setting El Niño, which is marked by unusually dry weather.

Canadians Support A Basic Income–But Not If Taxes Have To Go Up | Co.Exist

August 17, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Canada is one of a small but growing number of countries considering a basic income guarantee. In March, a key parliamentary committee said the government should be studying the idea. Several members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet support basic income (the Liberal Party manifesto endorsed it, though it wasn’t in the election platform).

And, most importantly, Ontario has announced a full pilot, and Quebec has a minister investigating the potential. With the Liberals in power in seven of Canada’s 10 provinces, “potential exists for pan-provincial support for a guaranteed minimum income if Ottawa and provincial governments work together,” says Global Risk Insights, a news site.

Open Source Won. So, Now What? | WIRED

August 17, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

THE GOVERNMENT IS now a little more open. This week, the White House released its first official federal source code policy, detailing a pilot program that requires government agencies to release 20 percent of any new code they commission as open source software, meaning the code will be available for anyone to examine, modify, and reuse in their own projects. The government agencies will also share more code with each other, essentially adopting open source practices within their own governmental universe.

It’s the latest in a long line of high-profile victories for the open source movement. As recently as a decade ago, the worlds of both government and business worried that using open source software would open them up to bugs, security holes, and countless lawsuits. But despite these early fears, open source came to dominate the digital landscape. Today, practically every major piece of technology you interact with on a day-to-day basis—from the web to your phone to your car—was built using at least some form of freely available code.

Millennials: 10 Things Old Farts Won’t Tell You About Entrepreneurship (Seventh in a Series) | Peter Mehit

August 15, 2016August 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

7. Be Wrong, be Strong

The ability to be truthful goes directly to the heart of whether you get funding, attract customers and recruit great employees. But that is just one part of it. The ability to be wrong can determine if you survive at all.

We’ve all had bosses, friends and relatives that just couldn’t admit they’d made a mistake. We know how we feel when we know the facts and someone tells us we’re wrong or don’t understand. The longer we are in that environment, the less we trust the person, the more we doubt reality, or both.

Make no mistake, we presently live in a say anything to win environment. Sometimes people are intentionally dishonest. These situations tend to be self-liquidating. Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, who famously said that having a backup plan is admitting failure, is the latest example where outright deceit brought someone crashing down. While spectacular, these cases relatively rare.

Continue reading “Millennials: 10 Things Old Farts Won’t Tell You About Entrepreneurship (Seventh in a Series) | Peter Mehit” →

South Korea gaming: How a T-shirt cost an actress her job | BBC News

August 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The “Gamergate” controversy which roiled the world of video gaming has hit a new level. The name was coined as a row over whether Western gamers were mostly male and anti-women. Now, a similar row is rocking South Korea, arguably the country with the strongest culture of gaming in the world. As the BBC’s Steve Evans reports from Seoul, it all started with a slogan on a T-shirt.

On the face of it, the slogan “Girls do not need a prince” doesn’t seem that controversial.

In many parts of the world, it would pass as the kind of thing any young woman might wear without prompting a second look.

But when the actress, Kim Jayeon, tweeted a photograph of herself wearing the garment, she generated a storm and lost herself a job.

This Company Has Built a Profile on Every American Adult | Bloomberg

August 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Forget telephoto lenses and fake mustaches: The most important tools for America’s 35,000 private investigators are database subscription services. For more than a decade, professional snoops have been able to search troves of public and nonpublic records—known addresses, DMV records, photographs of a person’s car—and condense them into comprehensive reports costing as little as $10. Now they can combine that information with the kinds of things marketers know about you, such as which politicians you donate to, what you spend on groceries, and whether it’s weird that you ate in last night, to create a portrait of your life and predict your behavior.

Fuel Your Business by Answering These Two Questions | Entrepreneur

August 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Think niche! That’s actually a scary thing for entrepreneurs. You are starting a brand new business, and you don’t want to say no to anyone. You want — and need — to make sales. Naturally, the idea of targeting a very specific market, thereby excluding others, is scary.

I get it. When I started out, I positioned myself as a life, career and business coach. I was making sales, but was also targeting three distinct personas. This was no easy task, and it left me feeling drained.

‘renegade’ is the pen that recycles plastic bottles into 3D printed sculptures | Design Boom

August 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

‘renegade’ is the pen that recycles plastic bottles into 3D printed sculptures

‘renegade’ was born with the aim of being the perfect solid tool to eliminate overpriced 3D printing filaments and to save the environment by directly recycling and reusing household plastic waste for 3D printing. the sustainable technology specializes in one thing, and one thing only — it prints models by recycling plastic bottles, files, and bags. it does this providing a great 3D printing experience with no compromises.