Nerd Stalker

Wired Looks At the Most Advanced Oceanographic Ship in the World Sally Ride Model Rendering ( Photo Courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment / Scripts Institution of Oceanography) This 238-foot beauty isn’t just oddly comfortable—it comes equipped with some serious tech  for some serious oceanography and called the Sally Ride. From the Scripps Press Brochure   "Owned by the United States Office of Naval Research and operated by Scripps Institution of  Oceanography, R/V Sally Ride is an Ocean Class Auxiliary General Oceanographic Research  (AGOR) vessel designed to perform multidisciplinary oceanographic research  worldwide,  from littoral environments to the deepest ocean, from the tropics into first-year  sea ice. Check out the specs below and the video from Wired's Channel on Conde Nast Entertainment's  The Scene . R/V Sally Ride  Specializations Gross tonnage: 3,043 long tons Sustained speed: 12 kts Maximum speed: 12.8 kts Dynamic positioning & tr

Ivy League Powered Invite-Only Startup Event Premieres in November Startup Events (photo courtesy of Pablo by Buffer) Always great to see another startup event creating community within a given startup ecosystem.This time, an organizer is putting up 12 selected startups from the Ivy League schools to pitch to investors in New York. The inaugural event called the Ivy Startup Conference , which will be held on November 9th, is invite only and will start to create community not only with some elite private schools in the U.S. but also celebrates female founders and investors who will make up a fair percentage of the attendees and especially the investor panel. We talk with co-founder/serial entrepreneur Cheryl A. Robinson who also wrote a great piece last week for Nerd Stalker on her journey to create this event called Exclusive Yet Inclusive - Insight from a Female Entrepreneur . Cheryl explains below her vision for inclusiveness at this conference celebrates the strides women ar

Yeti LLC Releases Product Design Sprint Guide Product Development (photo courtesy of Pablo by Buffer) Want to rapid develop?   Today, San Francisco-based design and development firm,  Yeti LLC   founded by , has released “ The Definitive Guide to Product Design Sprints ,” a comprehensive, start-to-finish manual covering why, when, and how a proper design sprint can take an idea to tested prototype in just five days. Pioneered by the Google Ventures team, a design sprint is a five-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. It's a rapid prototyping session in which your product's riskiest assumptions are tested with real users, providing valuable design insight to maximize the product's impact.

Commercial UAV News Releases Report on How Commercial Pilots Can Operate Within the New FAA Part 107 Rules   Drown News (photo courtesy of Pablo  by Buffer) Well the day has finally arrived.  Although the details around Part 107 were announced in June, today represents the first day people may legally operate a drone for commercial purposes under the new FAA regulation.  To coincide with the new Small UAS Rule, aka Part 107,  Commercial UAV News  announced today the release of a free online report,  What You Need to Know to Legally Operate Your Drone Under New FAA Regulation” ,  that helps define what it means to legally fly drones under the new FAA regulation that went into effect today. The ruling represents a critical moment that will forever change the commercial U.S. drone industry, and the report is an accessible article that outlines the essential guidelines for non-hobbyist small unmanned aircraft (UAS) operators looking to understand the impact of Part 107 and the sti

Elephant Chart - AVC For me, the story this chart tells is the movement of low cost labor from the developed world to the developing world over the past 25 years. This movement has allowed the "global middle class" to raise their incomes 60-80% while the middle class in the developed world has been stalled out.

Follow rangers on a journey to places most people never go. Experience the sights, sounds, and adventures of Kenai Fjords, Hawai'i Volcanoes, Carlsbad Caverns, Bryce Canyon, and Dry Tortugas in stunning 360° video. Continue the adventure at http://g.co/nationalparks .

Labels on Mobile Forms - Prototyping: From UX to Front End Labels describe the purpose of form controls, including text fields, check boxes, radio buttons, drop-down menus amongst others. On mobile apps, screen real estate is limited. This forces app developers to save space by placing labels in varying positions on tiny screens. Labels can be placed in many different ways.

Smithsonian Channel Reveals  Cutting-Edge Technology Reveals New Insights Into Pompeii, Roman Gladiators, China And Burm a Dr Jeffrey Riegal, UC Berkeley (photo courtesy of Smithsonian Channel) The Smithsonian Channel launched two weeks ago launched a five week series called  BEHIND THE LOST EMPIRES .  This week, we screened the latest release called " RAIDERS OF THE JADE EMPIRE. "  This episode  examined the Han dynasty which ruled the East, bringing a lasting identity to the country and people of China. They left behind incredible treasures of jade, sculpture, gold and silk. Unfortunately for modern archieologists, tomb raiders long ago made off with many of the Han’s greatest treasures. Three spectacular royal tombs have been uncovered that offered scientists a chance to examine artifacts the raiders left behind or never found – treasures that show the source of the Han’s wealth and power and reveal their ideas on life and death.  With this exclusive access to

Cheryl Robinson of Ivy Startup Conference Shares Her Thoughts on Female Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship (courtesy of Pablo by Buffer) A guest post by Cheryl A. Robinson Have you ever evaluated your life and wondered how you got to where you are? There was never any doubt that I would one day run my own business. Ten years ago I couldn’t tell you what that would look like but I knew I wanted to lead a team of people to create something amazing. Fast forward tens years with a Master’s from Columbia University and two LLC’s, and I’ll tell you that the journey has been long and a huge life lesson, but overall, this has been the best experience of my life. Being an entrepreneur feels exclusive. Exclusive in that you feel alone in the quest to find the right partners, the right co-founders, who believe in a vision just as much as you and compliment your skill set. You are inclusive with everyone that you meet and network with because you never know whether or not that pers

#FF Summaries from Our Retweeters and Followers Enjoy the Tweets from our Retweeters & Followers. Have a great weekend! - The Nerd Stalker Team

Wired Looks At the Science of Track & Field  The Science of Sports- Track & Field (photo courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment) Now that the olympics is in the books, all you couch potato olympians can start training for Tokyo be the next Usain Bolt. Maybe? Possibly? In this video form "The Science of Sports" on The Scene's Wired Channel, olympians give you some tips and talk about the dynamics of running. See you in four years.

Albuquerque Startup Looking to Build Socially Responsible Products  Social Responsibility (photo c/o Pablo by Buffer) Most people start with a product concept. Not many start with a social construct first. Enter DermaTec LLC. Don't let the name fool you. It's not a skin and beauty startup but the beauty is in using technical solutions merged with social responsibility. DermaTec closed a seed round just last week and we are excited to speak with Ahn Le of DermaTec LLC who is looking to change the world with their first product - a skin patch to monitor alcohol levels in the body to encourage socially responsible driving. In this early stage startup, you will get a view of what it is like to take a concept to reality. Ahn also shares his view of the Albuquerque startup culture and ecosystem.

Profile of People's Ride: a co-operative, driver-owned alternative to Uber People's Ride is a co-op ride-hailing company in Grand Rapids, Michigan: drivers own the service in common and collectively decide how to spend its profits (for example, on deploying an app to go with its website); for-profit competitors like Uber take 30% commissions from their drivers and deliver them to investors, while People's Ride spends all the revenue paying drivers and improving the service. Funny this comes out right when I was thinking about why someone has not created an opensource Uber type app that gets rid of the middleman aka Uber.

Understanding VCs I saw Joe Fernandez ' tweet a few days ago and thought "he is making an important point." too many young entrepreneurs talk about vc's like they're heroes and their blog posts are scripture - Joe Fernandez (@JoeFernandez) August 19, 2016 VCs are not heroes. We are just one part of the startup ecosystem.

With Human Emotion Recognition AI, MJI's Tapia Robot Can Now Understand Your Emotion Tapia Integrates Human Emotion (photo courtesy of MJI) Japanese robot maker, MJI , announces that they integrates human emotion recognition AI into their communication robot Tapia . MJI adopted Smartmedical's Empath, a vocal emotion recognition technology utilized in various business fields such as mental health, call centers, and entertainment. With Empath, Tapia can understand human emotion through dialogue with users: joy, calm, sorrow, anger, and vigor.

IEEE Contest for Makers Looking for Contest Submissions by September 17 Makers, Inventors & Tinkerers get your idea shoes strapped on. The Institute of Electrical Electronic Engineers (IEEE)  latest initiative to support the community-at-large of engineers and makers, opened the IEEE Maker Project in May and soon will close submissions on September 17.  Since it is a voting contest, earlier the better but anything goes in social contest voting. The  IEEE  Maker Project welcomes  innovators, makers and tech enthusiasts  to battle it out for great prizes and the chance to work with an IEEE member.  Last year, IEEE hosted the DIY Project which attracted over 300 student entries with  winner   Usman Maqsood and his team, Amir Salman and Reeba Raza, who won for their EcoSens,  a Wireless Sensor and Actuation Network project.

GfK  Upgrades 2016 Smartphone Sales Forecast; Buoyed by Emerging Asia & Africa & Resurgent China Markets  Data courtesy of GfK Key Takeaways New connected consumers in emerging markets, especially rural  China , continued to drive smartphone growth in 2Q16   Resilient mid- to high-end sales drive GfK to upgrade its 2016 smartphone market value forecast to USD 426 billion   No immediate impact in the UK from Brexit    Analysis of the latest smartphone sales trends has prompted GfK to upgrade its forecast for the year. Full year global smartphone sales value in 2016 has been increased from  USD $400.7B  to  USD $426B , up five  percent  year-on-year. The cause is strong sales of mid-range to high-end units which has reversed the previous trend of low-end (< USD 100 ) share gains.   

We talk About Tech stories of the Week - Google, Google and Stuff Getting Expensive Listen to our podcast for our talk on tech.

5 Mad Movie Makers Make Big Small Movies Screenshot from "Hot Wheels Road Trip" ( courtesy of 5MMM ) We normally don't do toys but what the these mad people did was nice-actually nerdy nice. These people are mad about making movies build with LEGO, Hot Wheels, K'NEX, Quercetti Skyrail and many more toys.  The 5 Mad Movie Makers is the brain child of  Robert Carlson, a 21-year-old and the second of five children.  In 2015 he graduated from college with a degree in Film Production.  He splits his time between Colorado and California to play with toys and work on writing. This is a wonderful movie from the POV of a hot wheels car (with GoPro packed) taking your through backyards, fields, roads, and even underwater. Check it out!

#FF Summaries from Our Retweeters and Followers Enjoy our Tweets from our Retweeters & Followers. Have a great weekend! - The Nerd Stalker Team

SCORE Shares Growth Industry Statistics for Budding Entrepreneurs Industry Growth Statistics to Consider (photo courtesy of SCORE) Our friends at SCORE , in partnership with  The Deluxe Corporation Foundation , the nation’s largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, has gathered statistics into an infographic which identify today’s most promising growth industries for entrepreneurs looking to start a successful small business. Now, before you get excited and rush off,  i ndustry growth is just one factor in choosing the best industry for a new small business . Other important considerations can include target market, location and competition.  Do some homework and enjoy.  

Neil Young of N3TWORK Presents Guide to Market Adoption of Disruptive Products Everything You Know is Wrong - kinda At the last Casual Connect USA - a popular gaming conference, we attended their "Industry Insights" track where the movers and shakers in the gaming industry present their take on current and future state of the gaming industry. There was not anything casual was N3TWORK   Neil Young' s "Everything You Know is Wrong". A very bold statement indeed. As Neil Young was presenting this topic from the slant from a gaming perspective, I thought his advice on market adoption was globally adoptable in all markets and great advice for startups. Indie game developers are startups. Mr. Young takes two product categories - VR and Mobile games and shows how the model explains its market growth. We break down his presentation into four parts. 

Wired's Digital Series 'Tech Guts' tears down Nokia 3310 and iPhone6s Classic Nokia 3310 and Apple iPhone 6s (photo courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment) The classic Nokia 3310 was introduced in Y2K and the Apple iPhone6 was released almost a year ago. That's a whopping 15 years of technology. We would like to say that the indestructable Nokia 3310 was the predecessor to the popular "Chocolate bar" series of phones. You can learn a lot from TechRadar's memorial article on the 3310 . Wired's digital video series Tech Guts tears down the phone duo to show how technology has progressed in 15 years. Check it out!

Bobby Samuels of Startup The Daily Distiller Introduces a Bite-Size Daily News Source The Daily Distiller (photo courtesy of The Daily Distiller) Having trouble keeping up to date with the happenings in your busy and active world? Recently launched news startup, The Daily Distiller,   will help you stay up to date. The Daily Distiller is a compact, bite size summary of News, Culture, Sports and Business/Technology delivered daily to your inbox. The best way to describe the look and feel would be a tradition newspaper brought to the digital era.  Traditional newspapers have a mix of news-breaking stories, special sections and cartoons. The Daily Distiller brings all that and a recipe for a mix drink on top of it in a "distilled" format. Curated by a former editor of Harvard's The Crimson - Bobby Samuels and former president of Harvard's  campus comedy magazine  The Lampoon -  Eric Brewster, the duo has a team of media talents from around the country to brin

SHIKUMI DESIGN's Launches a Motion Music Composer Called KAGURA KAGURA Screen (courtesy of SHIKUMI DESIGN) No musical talent? At the last  J-POP SUMMIT Festival at Fort Mason in San Francisco, we found a unique musical composer called KAGURA (KA-GU-RA) that does need knowledge of a major or a minor chord. KAGURA is a motion interface for musical sounds where one uses the motion of the body to initiate sounds. Sounds can be defined in many ways. The demo at J-POP SUMMIT was percussion or drums but can be defined with many different instruments and instruments you can import through. You can also use KAGURA if you know music as well. With a Digital Audio Workstation(DAW) and KAGURA and a mixer an interesting mix of dance and music can be created.  The key technology for the KAGURA motion interface either by webcam or Intel's RealSense technology which uses three cameras - an HD camera, IR camera and Laser projector. SHIKUMI DESIGN in partnership with DMM-make has an acti

Steve Utaski's Short Satirizes Email Opt-Outs Opting Out (photo courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment) Steve Utaski wrote and directed this satirical short of a common frustration - Opting out of an email subscription. An office guy, played by Randy Scholtz, tries to opt-out of a email subscription only to be treated like going through a bitter relationship breakup. Thanks to Conde Nast Entertainment for the opportunity to review. Check it out below!

#FF Summaries from Our Retweeters and Followers Enjoy our Tweets from our Retweeters & Followers. Have a great weekend! - The Nerd Stalker Team

Shufflrr's James Ontra Explains Why a Presentation Management Strategy is a Good Idea Image courtesy of Shufflrr LLC We all do presentations but how many times do you feel they were "one offs"? The "one offs" are the presentations created for a specific conference, a specific presentation for a client or just one to promote yourself or business. In bigger organizations that I have been in, the presentation creation flow was this: (1) product marketing would produce what we call the "deck of slides" and the "recommended" order of presenting. (2) I would go out to the field and find out from our local sales team what they believe the client wants to hear this. (3) I will rearrange the slide deck and present to a room of c-level executives only to find out there was no interaction (4)  From the time of exiting the meeting to the next presentation, I was always wondering what happened and how would I feedback my thoughts back to the hea

Global Telecoms Awards Presents 22 Ways to Celebrate Your Project  2015 Award Winners (Photo courtesy of Global Telecoms Awards) Enter now startups. Now in their 4th year, the  Global   Telecoms  Awards recognize innovation and excellence in the  global   telecoms  industry. Entries are due  August 15  so get the application completed and submitted by Monday.  Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony which will take place  on Thursday,   November  3 rd  2016 in London.

BuddyGuard Releases Their Top 100 of Tech Influentials in the World Guy Kawasaki Tops the List (Photo Courtesy of Guy Kawasaki) We are list fans, so when BuddyGuard released a ranking in homage to today’s most influential voices in tech journalism and expertise, we just had to see it. Technological titans such as Guy Kawasaki - a Tech Evangelist and authoritative Keynote Speaker/Writer - and Kara Swisher - Co-Founder of technology news site Recode - tops the list, which included as many specialists from across the globe as possible. Four of the top five are influential journalists. According to BuddyGuard, In order to rank the influencers, multiple factors were taken into account, including Vuelio media score , Klear True Reach and number of followers across various media, besides other indicators of authority. These were factored in to calculate influence levels into the following categories; Social Media Presence, Influence via Media, Online Reach and Physical

WIRED's Data Attack Series Reveals the History of DC and Marvel Films DC vs. Marvel (Photo Courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment) You need to create a Super Hero startup. Since 1978, DC and Marvel have released 69 live action films and in the next 4 year years 19 superhero movies. We spend over 27.6% of our discretionary income on Super Hero flicks. Both brands have over 17,000 super heroes in their IP vault. That means they can make films for a long time. Between the two brands, Marvel was the phoenix which declared bankruptcy in late 1996 to being a Disney conglomerate flagship today. Marvel has released over 75 films, shorts and series since 1978 which is considered the start of the modern super hero era. DC , like Marvel, started in the 30's and now is a flagship brand of Time-Warner. DC has released over 60 films, shorts and series since 1978. Check out WIRED’s popular digital video series,   Data Attack , reveals the history of  DC and Marvel films in stop mot

Mike Seymour breaks down Star Trek Beyond Special Effects Star Trek Beyond Title (Courtesy of Conde Nast Entertainment) The Nerd Stalkers love special effects (FX). Thanks to Conde Nast Entertainment for the opportunity to review.  fxguide.com 's Mike Seymour takes viewers into a deep dive as he breaks down  Star Trek Beyond FX  in the latest episode of WIRED’s  Design FX . From the digital construction of the Starship Enterprise all the way down to the creation of the extraterrestrials, WIRED’s popular digital video series has all the secrets of the film’s incredible special effects. Check it out this weekend.

RIS News' ENGAGE Retail Industry Conference is Hosting a Startup Pitch Competition in Florida RIS News , the source for retail business intelligence, will host a live competition for technology startups at its fall conference ENGAGE , the retail industry’s conference focused on the customer experience. The startup competition will be judged by a panel of retail experts consisting of a retail CEO, a Wall Street analyst and a venture capitalist. The competition will take place at ENGAGE! ,   September 7-9 at The Ritz-Carlton in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in front of senior-level retail industry executives.