The high cost and limited range of electric vehicles can make them a tough sell, and their costliest and most limiting component are their batteries.

But batteries also open up new design possibilities because they can be shaped in more ways than gasoline tanks and because they can be made of load-bearing materials. If their chemistries can be made safer, batteries could replace conventional door panels and other body parts, potentially making a vehicle significantly lighter, more spacious, and cheaper. This could go some way toward helping electric cars compete with gas-powered ones.

Image: www.technologyreview.com

A startup spun out of Stanford says it has solved an age-old problem in radio communications with a new circuit and algorithm that allow data to be sent and received on the same radio frequency—thus doubling wireless capacity, at least in theory.

The company, Kumu Networks, has demonstrated the feat in a prototype and says it has agreed to run trials of the technology with unspecified major wireless carriers early next year.

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On a recent morning Natanel Dukan walked into the Paris offices of the French robot maker Aldebaran and noticed one of the company’s humanoid NAO robots sitting on a chair. Mr. Dukan, an electrical engineer, could not resist. Bending over, he kissed the robot on the cheek. In response the NAO tilted its head, touched his cheek and let out an audible smack.

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In 2009, the UK Innovation Investment Fund raised £175m from private investors that was matched with government money – the first of several such funds.

There is a general uneasiness surrounding these sorts of schemes.

I’ve heard concerns expressed around Tech City that they are distorting the investment process.

Image: techcitynews.com

Creativity is the X factor of modern industry. When it slumps, our economy splutters.

Creativity is the source of the unprecedented wealth of the last two centuries. Yet we still understand very little about it.

Ideas create the industries and societies that generate the capital and income that lifts the world up. That is simple to say but difficult to achieve.

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In Michigan, we hear a lot of discussion about the challenge of keeping talented, young workers in the state after they graduate from college. According to a new report out last week from the Global Talent Retention Initiative of Michigan (GTRI), one area where Michigan might have a leg up on other places is international talent retention.

The report by GTRI—the nation’s first international student retention effort of its kind— says Michigan’s international students are choosing to stay in Michigan after graduation at three times the rate of out-of-state students.

The PROFIT 500 ranking of Canada’s fastest-growing companies is separated by region and industry. The data will tell you where the high-growth firms are located and where the jobs are.

At MaRS Data Catalyst, we thought it would be cool to show you those statistics. Using Tableau Software, we created an interactive visualization to explore Canada’s small and medium enterprise landscape. Where is the job growth? Where is the highest growth in retail? Which provinces and cities have the most high-growth companies per capita?

Image: www.marsdd.com

I still get the terms confused all the time…young adults are labeled as “Millennial’s”, “Generation Y”, “Boomerang kids” – all to describe Americans currently aged 18-35.   Life was much easier for me as I grew up in the “Generation X” era.  We only had one label similar to baby boomers.  I still don’t know why this group has so many different labels?

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The 1980s-inspired Halloween costume has become predictable. Other things happened in the decade besides Flashdance and "Physical." Really.

Look to television, toys and Ronald Reagan for inspiration. Or, just skim Reddit and Imgur to find creative people rocking Halloween looks inspired by history's most bitchin' 10 years.

Image: mashable.com

Ohio State's marching band bills itself as the "the best damn band in the land" and Saturday's halftime show is just the latest example of why.

Last week it was a giant moon-walking Michael Jackson. This week it's a collection of movie theme songs paired with incredible choreography. Watch the video, above, as scores of musicians form a flying Superman, a broom-riding Harry Potter — even a giant T-Rex bending down to eat one unlucky human.

Mike Hartwick and Sarah Ponn were getting worried. Their company, Surfset--which makes training surfboards that mimic the movement of the ocean--was starting to take off, and they had more orders than they could handle. They tried to get a bank loan, but that didn't work out. So Hartwick and Ponn decided to audition for ABC's Shark Tank, where entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to a panel of mega-successful "sharks," hoping one or more will invest their (real) money in exchange for a stake in contestants' companies. They came in offering 10% of Surfset for $150,000.

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Email is a universal plague, though some people make it feel more of a plague than others. And since we've already seen that phrases such as "trusting you are well" and "picking your brain" are guarantees for annoying your recipient, we at Fast Company figured we'd, ahem, "reach out" to our readers to find the other habits that cause email aggravation.

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There was something odd in the latest issue of Wired magazine: eight full-page ads (totaling nearly 4% of the magazine) were taken out by traditional non-smartwatch companies like Rolex, Tudor, Seiko and Burberry.

image: readwrite.com

The crowdfunding service Kickstarter reached an important milestone last week. The company’s website reported that Kickstarter has now funded over 50,000 projects, with pledges coming from over 5,000,000 individual backers. Since its founding in 2009, Kickstarter has helped fledgling projects raise nearly $1 billion in donations.

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In business, volatility used to be more limited to the realms of finance and high tech. But as the tech wave has continued to sweep the globe, the environment for all organizations, including non-tech ones, has shifted from stability and predictability to rapid, unpredictable change. Innovations like Amazon price checks, or changes to healthcare or shipping enabled by mobile phones, are becoming commonplace. The only sure thing, especially when it comes to technology, is continuous discontinuity. Organizations need to enhance their design and capabilities to survive and stay competitive in a world where innovation matters more.

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As I was running a mentoring session last week at the FailCon conference in San Francisco, the popular notion that entrepreneurs should be “authentic” kept rattling around in my head.

When I first arrived at the conference, and as I listened to various speakers and chatted with attendees, I kept thinking, “Wow. These people really need a hug.” But as the day progressed, I began to consider a different notion of “authenticity” than I previously had.

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Today’s world is increasingly driven by technology, so it’s invaluable to have someone on the team who understands how technology is evolving and the way in which it’s going to be shaping society. The ability to get in front of those trends can unlock enormous value. Two examples of people who showed this ability are Bill Gates, for recognizing that the cost of computing would continue to drop such that there would be a computer on every desk top, and Elon Musk, who did something very similar with regard to the cost curve on sustainable capital electricity, specifically, what that did for Tesla.

Image: beacon.wharton.upenn.edu

I think most entrepreneurs should dedicate some time out of their week just to watch TED Talks. It might seem silly or a waste of time — after all, you are trying to build an empire here. That is why you should do it. Being an entrepreneur is not easy and sometimes you need a little bit of inspiration to keep you going. These seven talks explore some of the reasons why entrepreneurs are needed in society and why entrepreneurial thinking is necessary. From pasta sauce to robots, these ideas are worth spreading.

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During his nine years working in the phar­ma­ceu­tical industry, Michael Pol­lastri learned to pro­tect his research and data with extreme cau­tion. “In the drug industry, every­thing is super secret,” said Pol­lastri, now an asso­ciate pro­fessor of chem­istry and chem­ical biology at North­eastern. “It’s the culture.”

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This is the start of the third year teaching teams of scientists (professors and their graduate students) in the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps). This month we've crossed ~300 teams in the first two years through the program.

I-Corps is the accelerator that helps scientists bridge the commercialization gap between their research in their labs and wide-scale commercial adoption and use.

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