Nerd Stalker

Very interesting Amazon is offering tuition assistance for their full time associates of 3 years or more. From Amazon, "Amazon Career Choice Program FAQs What is the Amazon Career Choice Program? The Amazon Career Choice Program is an innovative program designed to expand the choices available to our associates in their future career, whether that's at Amazon or in another industry. Many Associates will choose to build a career at Amazon. For others, a job at Amazon may be the first step in a career path in another industry. The Amazon Career Choice Program provides associates with a resource for building the job skills needed for today's most in-demand and well-paying careers, such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technology, medical laboratory science, dental hygiene, and nursing, to name a few. Who is eligible for this program? All Amazon full-time hourly associates in the U.S. who have been employed for three consecutive years are elig...

I'm a (was?) Huge fan of Sparrow the uber clean email client popularized on the mac, today brings huge news that they have been acquired by Google. I'm cautiously  optimistic  that Google will incorporate or improve on the fantastic foundation of Sparrow, however I'm pessimistic on the existing mac and ios application based on this quote from the Sparrow CEO, " We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as we’ll be busy with new projects at Google, we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps.". Hey existing Sparrow users, will you jump ship for another client? If so what alternatives are you considering? Let us know in the comments.

We caught up with Ahmed Siddiqui, Leader of Startup Weekend Bay Area at their headquarters located at the RallyPad . Ahmed gives his perspective on big companies and how they are reaching out to developers. Also, he gives some tips to entrepreneurs on providing value to big companies.   SoLoMo Startup Weekend is Coming on July 27 Ahmed talks about the next event on July 27 called SoLoMo. Qualcomm is sponsoring the event. Check it out here Here is a link to Ahmed's previous interview here on Nerd Stalker.

Greg Viloria aka @SocialGreg interviews Paul Liao of the Ford Go Further Marketplace Pop-up at 685 3rd St in the heart of SF SOMA. “ Go Further Marketplace in San Francisco is an effort to demonstrate the steps Ford and other key partners are taking to deliver smart and green products. Partners help share similar messaging within the retail space in a fun, exciting way and the result is an increased awareness and consideration of Ford and our partner's products. Culinary demonstrations assist in the story telling by showing how materials we use in our vehicles are some you may already have in your refrigerator at home.  ”      Travis Calhoun, marketing development manager-Ford West Coast market area , told Nerd Stalker.  “(The)  Go Further Marketplace in San Francisco is an effort to demonstrate the steps Ford and other key partners are taking to deliver smart and green products. Partners help share similar messaging within the retail space in a fun, exc...

Our friends at btrax need your help. They are testing a new social photo app from a major player in consumer electronics and need some beta testers for an app called aquoria. Here is a video sampler on the service: The test itself is easy. Sign up with the service from the following link Click the "Invited" button and follow the tutorial steps. Then upload your photos and view them on an iPad. Once the test is done, please leave comments on aquoria's Facebook page. They would love to hear from you. Thanks for helping.

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Download MP3 Nerd Stalker Techweek Podcast: From $200 Million to $500K: Lessons from Digg's Slow Demise bit.ly/N74Rvh  (:55) Facebook endorses Google's SPDY networking protocol http://cnet.co/M0mOrd (6:05) Apple "Investigating" In-App Purchase Fraud bit.ly/NEorgz (9:18) Preview of Full Blown XBMC For Android http://bit.ly/MoF81R  (11:05) Apple: No wait, we're green again bit.ly/LpPqwY (13:33) Apple Reverses Its Stance On Green Products bit.ly/NTCYTR   Speed Round:  Damages figures like the $147M verdict against RIM could make smartphones unaffordable http://bit.ly/M0oYHb (16:02) Ford Upcycles Industrial And Biodegradable Waste Into Car Parts bit.ly/LV4q2I  (17:50) IE to auto update, sorta (19:03) Why Adobe Really Dropped Their Mobile Flash Support bit.ly/PHYWyn  (20:52) Tips: Social Greg’s Tip of the Week: 10 Best Tablets for Kids bit.ly/RWT55P  (21:22) Adolfo’s Tip of the Week: Browser extension converts all YouTube commen...

Our favorite media center solution XBMC has released an announcement with video demo. "Today we announce XBMC for Android. Not a remote, not a thin client; the real deal. No root or jailbreak required. XBMC can be launched as an application on your set-top-box, tablet, phone, or wherever else Android may be found." - Read More

Greg Viloria aka @SocialGreg interviews Andre "Champagne" Patrick, Executive Director of the just announced Transbay Festival. The Transbay Festival hopes to create Innovation, Entertainment and Community with their event focussing on Media, Interactive and Social. In this interview, Andre explains the vision for this inaugural event. The event already has the closing night with  " Let It Ripple : Mobile Films for Global Change", an ongoing Transmedia Project by The  Moxie Institute , which really began with Tiffany Shlain's film, " Connected : An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology ."  Tiffany Shlain, is an acclaimed director and known as the Founder of the Webby Awards. Here is the link to the press release  announcing the event.

Were sorry to hear about the great NYC startup Hashable calling it quits, " Dear Hashable Users, We regret to inform you that the Hashable mobile apps and Hashable.com will be shutting down on July 25th. The service will be unavailable after this date. While we are still very passionate about making better connections and meeting new people, the time has come for us to focus our energy elsewhere.   Some of you have stored valuable information in Hashable, and we want to give you the opportunity to save that data for your own records.  If you’d like to receive a file with your complete history, please log onto Hashable.com , navigate to the "Profile" tab, then to the “Your History” section on that page. You can download the file by clicking “Export full history to .csv” and accepting the dialog that pops up. We are incredibly grateful for all the people we have met through Hashable.   Thank you for all your support, and we hope to connect w...

We here at Nerd Stalker often sign up for startup betas under non Nerd Stalker accounts so we can fairly evaluate how a particular company is going to treat the general consumer. Some time back I signed up for a banking startup which was then called "Bank Simple" now just called "Simple". Long story short I finally got my email invite which read as follows, " Hi Java::JavaNull , Awhile back on July 23, 2010 you signed up for an invite to try Simple, a new way to save and spend. We know you've been waiting to replace your bank, and today we're pleased to invite you to do just that! ... " Note that my name is not Java, so I combed the Simple site for a contact (not easy to find fyi guys), I quickly emailed notifying them of the marketing mistake. What I got back was totally unexpected, welcome, funny and probably what will push me over the edge to try the service. "Oops! We got your name wrong on your invitation! Here’s a special me...

Download MP3 Our Top Stories A: Bribery, Porn, and Spam Are the Path to Riches in the App World http://is.gd/JVMXGo  (:11) G:Thousands could lose internet access July 9 due to virus bit.ly/PdhjLg  (3:59) A: That was Quick. Facebook Shuts Down Face.com APIs http://tnw.co/PvCw3f  (6:21) G: Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered; e-mail lost bit.ly/LoS9mW   (9:08) A: Facebook to Launch Job Postings Board--Sources http://is.gd/1nPlRO  (13:44) G: Apple pays $60-million to settle China iPad trademark dispute bit.ly/N7clbJ  (16:17) Speed Round: What the Twitterverse is Talking About and What Our Community Wants to Hear  A: Def Leppard re-record own songs to win back digital download revenue http://vrge.co/Rv6odm  (21:03) G: Facebook Testing “Want” Button? bit.ly/LtWOEl  (22:22) A: Chris Rieger's Levitating, Wirelessly-Powered LED Light - Core77 http://bit.ly/RzVRNZ  (23:22) G: LinkedIn Says Twitter Posts No Longer ...

Photo by Peter Dutton Two products caught my Nerd Stalker eye this week. I am not sure this is a tech trend but worth mentioning. Two emotion-based products were mentioned in the news. One from our friends at Gizmodo about mood-catching robotic cat ears from Neuroware and the another from our friends at evolver.fm which features an app where music is sorted/tagged/shared by mood from Stereomood . Is Your Partner Really Excited to See You? Image courtesy of ITMedia Posted from Original Article from Gizmodo's Andrew Tarantola The Neccomimi (ネコのミミ） ears—an animatronic headband controlled through the power of your mind—that we first  covered last year  are finally coming to America! Designed and built by Neurowear, a Japanese fashion electronics company, the ears respond to their wearers emotions, perking up and flopping over depend on your mood. They will retail for $100 and be available at Comicon and through the  Neurowear website . These are obviousl...