Nerd Stalker

Happy New Year everyone. We wrap a great year of Startup Blog Insights for 2013 with a Best of Startup Blog with Taffy Williams, Examiner.com writer and entrepreneur. We do a deep dive on the top five blogs of 2013. Listen or watch Taffy as he shares some stories around each blog.

At the SF New Tech / MacWorld|iWorld "Old Tech / New Tech" holiday event, the Nerd Stalker crew asked the attendees - "What are you grateful for in Tech in 2013?" Here are their responses. Enjoy!

Nerd Stalker Picks of the Week: Apple's iOS Completely Blew Away Google's Android For Shopping On Christmas - Business Insider http://read.bi/1fL3VqU 12 Maker Pro Trends That Expanded the #Maker Movement in 2013 http://bit.ly/JuVcxY via @make (DC Denison / Make Magazine) Amazon Prime tops 20 million members as company touts its best holiday season ever - GeekWire http://bit.ly/1fL43Hc In-depth Interview: Nimrod Madar of @glassesoff bit.ly/1ijEFfw (SocialGreg | Nerd Stalker) Target hackers stole encrypted bank PINs - source | Reuters http://reut.rs/1fL9eGZ Tech Stocks Hover Near #2013 Highs, Paving Way for #2014 IPOs (Alibaba, Box & Dropbox) (Kara Swisher | AllThingsD) Adolfo's picks of the year: fl.ux Car Share service's go mainstream (Lyft, Uber, Sidecar, Relay Rides). Evernote with after the book (gtd) air server/xbmc google chrome google calendar google hangouts/hangouts on air clearly dashlane ios7 Mavericks Free Greg's picks of t...

You've probably seen a lot of press that an App is delivering a promise of losing your reading glasses. If you are 40-64 years old and reading this with glasses, take note of this. We interview Nimrod Madar, CEO of New York based, Israeli developed start-up GlassesOff -  ranked in the Top 5 of the  Medical App category .  GlassesOff  improves reading by enhancing the image processing function of the visual cortex (for the lay people, let's call that the brain). Watch or listen to Nimrod talk about their app with a little about their business as well. 

Photo by Damien Gadal Looking for last minute gifts this eve. Gift cards are the one, right? Check out some data from our friends at CardCash.com . on what gift card should you be buying. CardCash.com, the web’s leading gift card exchange, recently polled nearly 400 of their customers and asked them what gift card they would like to receive this year. If you’re still shopping for Christmas gifts and you’re not sure what to get, gift cards are always a good bet; 80% of Americans plan on giving a gift card as a gift, according to the National Retail Federation. 

How do you make your email work better? We interview Eliot Sun, CEO of kloudless , whose browser plug-in for Chrome and Firefox allows you to seamlessly drive data from email to your cloud storage. Watch or listen as Eliot talks about kloudless, the issues surrounding productivity across apps and the integration of work environments. 

Picture by Michael O'Donnell The Future of Money & Technology Event  held earlier this month in SF Japantown, featured talks from mobile payments to a futurist panel discussion on money moderated by Dan Robles . But, Bitcoin is just the hottest thing in the bar right now as far as chatter goes. Recently, it has cooled in value from a high of $1278.00 on Dec 1 to $706.96 at time of press). We present excerpts from the morning session on Bitcoin from Micky Malka of Bitcoin foundation and Carmen Medina of Deloitte Consulting. Check it out.

Liberty Madison (#ThatTechGirl) and Greg Viloria  (SocialGreg) visited the annual  Future of Money & Technology Summit last week in San Francisco Japantown. As you can imagine, a lot of Bitcoin talk was dominating the air there but we found three startups in the eCommerce ecosystem moving the dial upwards challenging the existing money system -- frictionless payments ( @Pay ), personal finance management ( Nerd Wallet) and cyber-security ( Socure ). Take a look at what our stalkers #ThatTechGirl and SocialGreg found.

listen to ‘NewAer impressive platform at #sfnt’ on Audioboo This is a live interview at the SF New Tech Holiday party. NewAer is an evolution of location based services (LBS) from a team that figured it was about time for your smartphone to become smart. The idea is simple: Have it do things for you, instead of you telling it what to do. They built an engine for it to have automated control over things in your digital life. Then they made it open so you could tweak and customize it to your liking.

The SF Bay Area rental market is tough. In fact, it is the most expensive rental market in the  country says the New Yorker recently . We talk with RentalRoost founders, Nitin Shingate and Vikram Raghavan.  RentalRoost   helps you find the perfect home using search criteria that you select. See how Nitin and Vikram's interesting story of how they came to create RentalRoost.

Who likes lynda.com ? Raise hands. We got re-acquainted recently when they opened their vault in November for a taste test. We had a chance to talk to one of their "content producers" - Nick Brazzi . Nick describes how online instruction has evolved and how lynda.com has evolved with it. Check out Nick's thoughts on today's online video instruction.

This Week’s Nerd Stalker Picks: Yahoo Tells SEC: 31% Of Our Revenue Comes From Microsoft (Danny Sullivan/Search Engine Land) http://bit.ly/18AUaKC Meet the pitcher: HOT Smartwatch CEO @Shariq_Hamid pitches on 12.11 at sfnt ow.ly/rwnea (SocialGreg/Nerd Stalker) Yahoo acquires QuikIO, yet another startup to add to its video team (Hamish McKenzie/PandoDaily) http://bit.ly/18ATaWT Ubuntu Touch OS wins its first smartphone partner (Steven Shankland/CNET) http://buff.ly/18lhePG Microsoft may finally bring back full Start menu with Windows 8.2 http://bit.ly/19eUW0D The Pirate Bay (Domain) Flees To A Volcanic Island (Luke Plunkett/Kotaku) http://buff.ly/18lho9I Speed Round: "Meet Kubo, The Crowdfunded Electric Cargo Scooter Made By Lit Motors" (Colleen Taylor/TechCrunch) feedly.com/k/1hLoOWS The 9 best-selling smartphones in Japan are all iPhones http://bit.ly/1f4FN28 Zackees: Bicyclist's Safety Just Went Up a Couple of Notches nerdstalker.com/...

At Broadcom's #GeekPeek13, we were able to "stalk" some impressions of how wearables and other devices need to interact with us moving into the future. A subject called connectivity. Liberty Madison (aka ThatTechGirl) and Greg Viloria (SocialGreg) talk with Eric Migicovsky of Pebble (Wearables), Robert Acker of Harman (Car Connectivity), and   Zak Murase (Investor) about their thoughts on device connectivity from their vantage points. Check them out below!

In San Francisco, Bicyclist's deaths  this year have hit a high- the most since 2001. Why? More bicyclists have hit the road, especially in South of Market Area(SOMA), because of high gas prices, lack of car parking and increased population density to name a few. Enter Zackees . Zach Vorhees and Murat Ozkan developed the gloves for " utility and fashion." Listen to the interview of co-founder Murat Ozkan on the design and philosophy behind the gloves.

Do we take enabling technology lightly? In today's world, processors, chips don't have the cache they once did. Now, Broadcom is changing the game with connectivity enabling chips from everything from car to wearable technology. We were proud to stalk Broadcom's GeekPeek13 event held at Tank18  in San Francisco. Catch reports from Liberty and SocialGreg on some of the applications demonstrated by Broadcom and its partners below.

Nerd Stalker's Top Stories Car-Sharing Just Makes Sense for Airports - right? bit.ly/1cLO7SZ Node Summit Recap Followup: Man searches landfill for $7.9m bitcoin fortune Windows 8 isn’t saving the PC market as sales continue to tank http://t.co/s1HyCVRggn Salesforce adds second $1 million hackathon winner bit.ly/18WLpLz via @SFBusinessTimes Google launches compute cloud (and slashes prices) to rival Amazon Web Services http://t.co/HXwv2BToc6 Nerd Stalker’s Speed Round The New Audi A3 Will Have The Fastest Internet Of Any Car | via @SAI sco.lt/8UWqav Turns Out People Don’t Really Like Being Called “Techies” http://t.co/6Fr3pLjHLD Bio-Sensing Necklace Will Let Wearer Test Their Own Blood And Fluids feedly.com/e/iDUUsFv _ via @PSFK Zappos Turns Baggage Claim Carousel Into Wheel of Fortune http://t.co/X4WcqWWpVu Nerd Stalker Tip of the Week Yule Log 2.0 - Happy Holidays http://t.co/vYEQlEd7HJ Pebble watch https://getpebble.com/ Events 12/9 - Future of Money...

Adolfo Foronda of Nerd Stalker demos one of his favorite browser extensions Evernote Clearly.

Graphic Provided by Ampush 2013 Cyber Monday will be big. Our economy is doing a bit better, the Black Friday crowds a deterrent, and a bigger mobile adoption. Our friends at Ampush has released an infographic(below) showing the Cyber Monday momentum. Also, Forbes mentioned recently that " more people will visit Cyber Monday online than visit Brick and Mortars on Black Friday ." Attention Brick and Mortars: Do you think you need an on-line presence now? Still, in terms of revenue, Black Friday still is the king and online security concerns keep some e-shoppers at bay. In the Forbes article above, they outline some safeguards for Cyber Monday shopping and Zippycart has a great article for e-tailers on security. Check out the Cyber Monday stats below.

This week’s Nerd Stalker Show Picks: DNA Testing Startup 23andMe Hits A Snag As FDA Shuts Down Sales Of Home Testing Kit | TechCrunch http://tcrn.ch/1c9rWYx Jury grants photographer $1.2M over Getty and AFP’s use of Twitter pics bit.ly/1aPMtQw via @GigaOMTech Google admits that Youtube/Google Plus integration increased ASCII porn, spam and trolling - Boing Boing http://bit.ly/1aZJ5mj Rings Turn Sign Language Into Spoken Word To Help The Deaf Communicate bit.ly/I4uE6g via @PSFK Woof to Wash: Bark-activated washing machine lets service dogs do the dirty work http://bit.ly/1aZKOIt Restaurant on Google Glasser: Man-child stinking up the joint feedly.com/e/3OsqKnpg via @CNET Nerd Stalker’s Speed Round: H-P Will Replace Verizon in Hosting HealthCare.gov Website (Wall Street Journal) http://bit.ly/1aZKedD Get Rewarded for Being Social with Your Purchases This Season | Nerd Stalker bit.ly/196q7aH CyanogenMod Installer Application Removed f...

If you are on social, most likely you share shopping experiences with your friends. Before you drop some cash on the big cyber monday coming up, check out SocialRebate . SocialRebate is an eMarketing service or solution that rewards you ($$) for being social about your e-purchase. See what Tom Larkin and Ben Stewart see the future of social commerce.

Living and working here in San Francisco, we think that the start-up universe centers here and for all practical purposes is the San Francisco / Silicon Valley (wink). Well, not true. The global ecosystem seems to be taking hold at a feverish pace and you don't have to be here in San Francisco to be relevant. After the conclusion of Global Entrepreneurship Week, we catch up with Torsten Kolind , CEO of YouNoodle to discuss the global startup ecosystem. Give it a watch. Also, a bonus infographic from YouNoodle, Startup Weekend and Global Entrepreneurship Week is found below.

Over 140,000 attendees. I will have a larger write up later regarding the Salesforce Dreamforce 2013 conference. Sorry for the latency in the beginning of the video I was dependent on the conference Wi-Fi but it gets better as it goes along. In this recap I discuss such topics as the fact that Heroku partially usurped the show, how salesforce is truly a platform now, how effective their sales process is in terms of closing deals with the enterprise so quickly, and how an Evernote booth person gave me the cold shoulder when asking about their new Evernote for business Salesforce integration.  They had a $1 million hacking prize.

Photo by Marie Domingo Check out the SF New Tech Post Show with #ThatTechGirl Liberty Madison and our Nerd Stalker writer Greg Viloria. They talk about they favorites and not-so-favorites of the 11.20 SF New Tech Event with  Mosey ,  Polkast ,  Tame ,  AirPair ,  SkyDrive  and a date challenge with #ThatTechGirl via  Mosey . Watch to learn more.

Today, we continue our monthly segment called Startup Blog Insights with Examiner writer and entrepreneur, Taffy Williams , who is the co-founder & CEO of Colonial TDC. Colonial TDC offers a professional team of scientific and business experts to build and grow medical and technology companies. Taffy also writes for the Small Business section of the Examiner.com with his own personal advice based on his personal insights and he has his own blog called Startup Blog .  He has some great stories for the years of experience that he shares in his blog. This month we are focusing on an article that was released on November 13 on examiner.com called ” 4 Ways to Enhance Idea Generation and Selection Critical to Business ” in light of Global Entrepreneurship Week .

Traveling to the US and want to avoid high roaming rates.   Ready SIM recently announced the release of new Data Only plans designed for travelers to the U.S. or anyone in America that needs short-term data access for their unlocked smartphone, tablet or hotspot. Available on a self-activating SIM Card, the Data Only plan allows people to use a nation-wide 4G data network without signing a contract or providing any personal information. Wow! We talk with Emir Aboulhosn , CEO of Ready Sim about this new plan.

Want to get an advanced degree in Sustainability? Until December 1, the Presidio Graduate School is accepting submissions to their Big Idea Prize . If you have a great idea in sustainability, the Presidio Graduate School is willing to support you by offering their educational resources at their graduate school. It is a great opportunity to get into a progressive educational program with alumni at some great places like Facebook, Salesforce.com or at cities like Austin, Texas. We talk with Ryan Cabinte , Associate Dean at Presidio Graduate School, about the contest and their program. Give the video a look on what moves the needle in the contest.

Watch Adolfo and Greg's picks of the week for their show. Nerd Stalker's Top stories: Young people aren't reliable predictors of tech trends. So where does that leave Snapchat? (Farhad Manjoo/Wall Street Journal) http://bit.ly/1824Bcs Coin consolidates 8 swipe-able cards into 1 | @SFGate sco.lt/5YTkDh New, Massive Solar Power Plant Goes Online in Japan - Core77 http://bit.ly/1azPVPf An Intel Store in NY? theverge.com/2013/11/14/510… Implantable bio-patch grows bone where it's needed http://bit.ly/1822GEF Things You No Longer Needed Because of Smartphones | via @LaughingSquid   sco.lt/6SmB05 Speed Round: An Oscilloscope Watch! http://bit.ly/1822dSS LinkedIn Kicks Off Its Pulse Integration bit.ly/17UxKGm via @allthingsd by @MikeIsaac American Eagle, Target, and other retailers follow Wal-Mart in opening labs in Silicon Valley (Anne D'Innocenzio/Associated Press) http://apne.ws/1azUJ7m Smartphone Video Ads Over 100% More Effective with M...

I introduce to you the Graviton G6 high-end professional driving simulator which lets you experience real forces of an F1 car. The G6 is a head mounted force feedback interface. Simply put it is a driving simulator which lets you feel the forces of the car. They have found that most of the force is felt on the head that led them to design the G6, to give you an immersive feel of the virtual vehicle. This is because the weight of the head makes the neck muscles work harder, and this is also felt by the inner ear which is the main sensor of balance and movement of the human body. By not releasing a whole body solution they are able to reduce the price, offer larger force feedback, be more accurate with faster response time, and it can be integrated in any racing cockpit. They did extensive prototyping with professional and regular drivers. They found that most of the race car drivers did not like racing games because they did not provide enough realism compared to their ac...

Adolfo Foronda of Nerd Stalker interviews Michael Domaguing, Director of Product Marketing at Jumpstart . Jumpstart is featuring a 3-D MMO RPG game called " School of Dragons " based on DreamWorks animated movie " How To Train A Dragon ". The game looks like a ton of fun, your kid can actually fly a dragon, multiple dragons really. Your child will recognize all the familiar characters from the movie. Believe it or not the game is free although there are monthly subscription options and in game purchase options. The game runs on the unity platform via any web browser (iOS and Android apps are coming) so no gaming hardware is needed. The game is ever-expanding and given that it is web-based you will see updates as they release them. At first we thought this was strictly entertainment but there is a science educational angle to the site as well. Under their resources section there are science worksheets, experiments, activities and a page on the scie...

Like to learn more about OSX Mavericks? Our friends at lynda.com has opened their video vault for a limited time. For those unfamiliar with  Lynda.com, it is an award-winning provider of educational materials co-founded by Lynda Weinman  and her husband Bruce Heavin . Their membership service features an Online Training Library® (OTL) which includes video-based elearning courses on Adobe and Microsoft applications and technologies; web design; digital photography, video and audio; Mac applications; programming, and more.  Until November 17 ,  lynda.com  is making its one-hour Mac OS X Mavericks New Features available. Go to their Facebook page (you know the drill, you have to like it)   to access the video. Enjoy!

Beauty App Blow Me connects available hair stylists with guests interested in a professional blowout in the convenience of their hotel room, office, or home or anywhere with a chair and an outlet. As of right now stylists are servicing West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, CA and then will eventually expand throughout LA and to other major cities. You can simply download the app on your iPhone or Android and a professional hair stylist will be at your door within an hour. Upon completion of the service your credit card will be charged a fee of forty dollars. (the same price as drybar). It is a completely cashless system - gratuity included in the, one set price.

Photo by Jason Weaver Stop texting while driving! Enter the "It Can Wait" Video Contest and win a free trip to Vegas! With the support of AT&T, sf.citi , the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation, is sponsoring a video contest aimed at encouraging people to stop texting while driving as part of the "It Can Wait" Campaign.

Sorry Google, Samsung has flat out conquered Android | BGR http://bit.ly/1bgK0j7 Ollo Mobile Hopes to Keep Your Family Safe sco.lt/6jtFfl Harvard scientists develop a transistor that learns http://bit.ly/1bgNOkv Infographic: The Value of the Second Screen bit.ly/1htWxot Elop reportedly on board with killing Bing, Xbox as next Microsoft CEO http://t.co/4CofUshpJx Pheebo TV Mirrors Your iOS Video Experience to the Big Screen | @pheebo sco.lt/6UsgxV Speed Round SURFAIR all you can fly airline http://t.co/0HbUvM2p6Q Phone Concept Could Eliminate The Dangers Of Texting And Driving http://bit.ly/1htZbLa via @psfk After 8-year absence from YouTube, co-founder posts bitchy comment about comment policy http://t.co/pr466KxO9L Japanese events this week: Digital Garage’s DG717 http://bit.ly/1hWpVBC , SF Japan Night http://bit.ly/1hWpJ5m Tip Time Regex Runner: a game to teach regular expressions to kids http://t.co/pLm9A5Hzsp Connect with an...

The Nerd Stalker gang was happy to be a part of the sixth Japan Night produced by btrax, Inc. This event featured six startups from all aspects tech -  Wearable tech(Ring), language tech(Cooori), learning tech(CODEPREP), battery savings(Ojisan), HW Technology (FOURBEAT) and bicycle technology(Fukushima Wheel). Check out Greg's takes on all the presenters and some pics from the Twitterverse.

Photo by  Robert S. Donovan Hey Nerd Stalker audience, what do you think of the second screen? We think the second screen is here to stay but what about those companies trying to deliver that experience to your living room couch? The infographic shared with Nerd Stalker by Wowza Media Systems  shows data why you should create a second screen app and user trends to that end. But, the GetGlue acquisition this week shows a ROI chink in the armor for the have nots. For the have nots it means access to content and the ability to secure the rights to that content. The content game that apps have to play to feed our second screen behavior is causing a digital content divide akin to the rich get richer. It is hard for small companies to leverage good content licenses. But either way, the infographic is loaded with great data. Take a look.

Making sure your family is safe and secure can be worrysome in today's world. Well, we interviewed  Hugh Geiger , CEO & Co-founder of Ollo Mobile . Ollo Mobile is an Australian based start-up hoping to create a way for you to keep track of the elders as well as the young ones in your family. We met Hugh at the well-known tech meetup in SF called SF New Tech . CloudPhone3G was Liberty Madison (#ThatTechGirl) and my pick of the night on the post show . Watch as Hugh describes their dream of creating a mobile device to deliver a promise of a safe family environment.

In our Nerd Stalking adventures, we were proud to be invited to the launch of a new tech incubator space at 717 Market in San Francisco called DG717 . DG717 was created by the famous Digital Garage of Japan who is famous for bringing the likes of LinkedIn and Twitter to Japan. Catch SocialGreg's  summary below and our guest reporter's interviews of impressions of people at the event. There is a cameo from SF Music Tech Founder, Brian Zisk. Enjoy!

Are you a marketer trying to balance a tight advertising budget and trying to make sense of 60 Billion impressions a day? Well Marketeers, Netherlands based  FlxOne is launching a platform today with real-time actionable insights with optimization for Buy and Sell. We talk exclusively with Matthijs Keij , CEO and Co-founder of FlxOne. He discusses the current state of real-time advertising and discusses how the FlxOne platform eases Buy/Sell decisions.

This is a Nerd Stalker review of Ubooly a children's technology toy. The toy is made up of a stuffed animal and iOS application. The stuffed animal comes in multiple colors and the iOS application is free. To use Ubooly you place your iPhone with the application turned on upside down into the stuffed animal. The application can be personalized for multiple children, this is a nice touch. Each toy includes over 1000 activities, free credits to unlock lessons, and customizable content for your child. The recommended ages from 4 to 10 although we have observed more interest on the younger end of that spectrum. The toy is dead simple to use, this is a huge plus for a child, it takes almost no time to learn. The toy is like a tutor and friend and includes educational learning packs like language, math, science, music, history lessons for K through five and developed by teachers. We did experience a couple application hangups but these should be quickly resolved with updates be...