Nerd Stalker

Lynda.com announces the new title, "Migrating from Flash to Edge Animate" by Jake Stroh. In this interview we talk to Jake about the title, working with Lynda, his other work and more.

[ Guest Post by IMD's Mike Wade]  With the recent launch of retail giant Amazon's new smartphone, experts are speculating as to whether it will radically change the telecommunications industry as the company has done to publishing, or if its Fire phone will fizzle out the way Facebook's recent product did.  I don't think that the Amazon Fire phone will enjoy hot sales initially, but Amazon's venture into the industry will eventually ignite innovation and consumers will warm up to its benefits.    

Tonight we interviewed Jason Browne, CEO and co-founder, of SPOR Chargers . His SPOR team has developed a portable battery charging device which is recharged by solar or wall charging. This product is being funded by a Kickstarter campaign which is running till June 30. The interesting part of this story, is that Jason is a business major from Drexel has learned the ins and out of his product just by access to the internet and learning from makers. Yes, you can learn from the internet. Listen to his great entrepreneurial story below.

We followed up with Lisa Abdilova , Product Marketing Manager of Microsoft and discuss Microsoft's new outreach program called 'Idea Lab'. Lisa announced the service at SF New Tech a few weeks ago and discusses how they plan to work with participants in this program. Check out her interview.

Here's are Nerd Stalker picks of the week: In a stunning verdict, the Supreme Court has tossed out a patent because it is a software patent" http://t.co/NXC0ui5o8Y   Harley-Davidson’s First Electric Motorcycle Surprisingly Doesn’t Suck http://www.wired.com/2014/06/harley-davidson-livewire/ (Alex Davies / Wired)  Former FCC commissioner to Washington: "You should be ashamed of yourself"   http://t.co/S36s2G5fkA Adobe's Big Plan To Infiltrate Your Creative Apps via @FastCoDesign   bit.ly/UQ2kf3 (Mark Wilson / FastCoDesign) Al Gore Tells Techpreneurs Some Truths They May Not Want to Hear About Inequality http://t.co/asimao4pTW The Electronic Frontier Foundation Wants You To Make Your Router Public http://buff.ly/1nTA3Oi (Micah Singleton / Gizmodo) 

Want to know not only a person's opinion but about how they vote? Martijn (Martin) Atell , CEO of startup VoteBash , says his new service does that. By viewing a Pinterest-like array of voter buttons, you can quickly see how and what the voter's interests follow. See why Martijn his passion about business and brands makes VoteBash is a different type of Voting/Opinion social network.

Check out the 6/11 SF New Tech Event Post Show with our SocialGreg - Greg Viloria and That Tech Girl - Liberty Madison . We recap demos from  BrainBot , Kindr , Infrastructure Upgrade, Inc. , PresentiGO , Contract Live , Antidot and Squid Solutions with special guest Marc Lewis from Merriman Capital .

Microsoft announced a program where you can interact directly with Microsoft developers. Lisa Abdilova, product marketing manager at Microsoft, announced at SF New Tech last night a way for Microsoft product engineers/developers to "hear" and "interact" with their audience called Microsoft's Idea Lab . Lisa came up with this idea as she has been interacting at different tech meetups in the area and told us at Nerd Stalker was that "(Microsoft) is finding other avenues to connect with the tech community and bounce some ideas off of." You can even become a certified Product Expert and earn gift cards. Check out her announcement at SF New Tech last night.

Want to see some cool up-and-coming tech and contribute to a great cause? Silicon Valley’s up-and-coming young professionals will pitch their startup live on stage tomorrow June 6 at Fairmont SF to an audience of thousands and a panel of respected venture capitalists with the goal of securing seed funding and fundraising for cancer research through HackCancer to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). Get your tickets here !

When traveling through the Maker Faire, Sony was the last company I expected to see in the Make:Electronics area of the Expo hall. It was pleasant to see that Sony was trying to embrace the maker movement. We interview Takehiro Hagiwara, MESH Project Leader, on their view of bringing creativity and innovation to the common person. Give it a look.