The rumors spin ever faster about Apple's iTV device--it'll apparently change everything, including how we communicate with remote family members, and now there's some evidence that Apple is prepping its in-store employees for "something big."

iTV Will Change Everything

Digg's Kevin Rose stirred up lots of irumors with his latest proclamation about the refreshed Apple TV. Rose's leaks are not fabulously reliable, but he has a source, or possibly several, inside Apple--so it's worth paying some attention to what he says. And this time he's saying we should "expect to see the iTV launch in September."

OULU, Finland, Aug 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- --NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

--Intel Corporation, Nokia and the University of Oulu have announced the establishment of their first joint research center.

--One of the first objectives of the new lab is to create new and compelling mobile user experiences that leverage the rapidly increasing capabilities of mobile devices.

--The lab is the latest member of Intel Labs Europe -- Intel's European Research Network.

Intel Corporation, Nokia and the University of Oulu officially opened the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center today. It will employ about two dozen R&D professionals and become the latest member of Intel's European Research Network, Intel Labs Europe.

Initially the lab will conduct research for new and compelling mobile user experiences that could leverage the rapidly increasing capabilities of mobile devices. Creating interfaces that are more similar to interactions in the real world can enable experiences that are more natural and intuitive, in the same way that modern games and movies are more immersive through the use of realistic 3-D graphics.

Last week, we caught Christopher Walken, the Oscar winning actor, hosting an NYC talk radio show for a day. This week, we have him ”covering” Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” in a funny short minute. The Walken reading originally aired last year on the BBC’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The clip comes to us via Jason Kottke.

It takes a filming speed of 200-to-500 frames per second to capture the fast-moving world of the hummingbird at a level where we can really see what's going on. So what are hummingbirds up to? Videographers for a Nature documentary caught hummingbirds foraging for insects, bonking each other on the head in order to get access to a tasty flower, and living happily in high mountains where they hop along the ground to feed off plants growing close to the soil.

Filmmaker Ann Prum explains the nifty technical nitty gritty behind making a movie about hummingbirds and how new ways of observing the birds are teaching us new things about their lives.

As an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, Jeff Bussgang sits in a unique position that allows him to provide advice that is both relevant and helpful to young companies. Such was the case this morning on his aptly named "Seeing Both Sides" blog where Bussgang discussed what he and investors like him look for in startup teams. As we've mentioned before, a VC invests just as much (if not more) in the entrepreneurs themselves as they do in the idea being pitched - and Bussgang has an interesting perspective on why this may be true.

As he sees it, its not just the experience or skills of a given team that make them viable candidates for investment. Team chemistry, he says, plays a large role in the ultimate success or failure of a startup.

Being an entrepreneur can be extremely rewarding. After all, you get to build something of your own — and possibly watch it grow. However, when you are an entrepreneur you have a great deal to do. Personal time for entrepreneurs is constantly in short supply. When you are your own boss, you can’t take vacation days, and there is always something to do, especially when you are just starting your business. While some of these pressures may ease as your business expands, allowing you a little more breathing room, you will find that, at the beginning, you are pressed for time.

It is important to realize, though, that personal time is essential to your health and wellness. You need time to relax and recharge in order to be a good entrepreneur, as well as to keep up with the important relationships in your life. Without some personal time, you will find that the stress in your life can quickly become overwhelming.

The Global Forum / Shaping the Future

• an annual & independent non for profit international event dedicated to Business and Policy issues affecting the successful evolution of the Information Society
  
• supported by organizations around the world, interested in sharing and influencing global IT agendas, and enabling business and government leaders from all ICT sectors to meet, exchange and create projects and PPP partnerships
• bringing together, since 1992, each year, more than 300 high level key actors from the Information Society, from all over the world
  
• providing an arena for the exposure of divergent points of views
  
• presenting a great opportunity for the participants to develop imaginative solutions in partnership with each other during both formal and informal face to face discussions and after the Forum by electronic networking
• enabling its participants to keep abreast with the latest developments in technology, regulation, markets and applications of communications and broadcast (interactive TV, telephony, etc...)

The Global Forum is now in its 19th year. It has been held in numerous cities around the world and is sometimes referred to as the “Davos of IT.” It has the support of the European Commission, many governments and most of the major Western ICT corporations.

Dates: Global Forum 2010, November Monday 8th & Tuesday 9th, in Washington DC
Place: Washington DC, USA
At the Marvin Center, the George Washington University

The 19th edition of the Global Forum is organized by Items International, an international consulting firm based in Paris, France; the Sophia Antipolis Foundation, a science park recognized internationally as one of the most dynamic and fastest growing technological and scientific hubs in Europe, the George Washington University and the support of the US Department of State and the US General Services Administration (GSA).

The focus of the Global Forum 2010 is:

Innovation America and Items International are collaborating in establishing a session on Innovation “OPEN INNOVATION: STRATEGY & POLICIES” The objective of this session is to strengthen the EU and the USA Innovation Dialogue in order to accelerate the efforts to spur growth, productivity, and entrepreneurial activity, including by sharing best policy practices and identifying steps that will improve the policy environment for innovative activities that draw talents and ideas in both markets.

Richard A. Bendis, President and CEO Innovation America will make a presentation and give us his valuable insights in this session.

To participate in the think tank, please contact: Dr. Sylviane Toporkoff, President & Sébastien Lévy,Vice-President, Global Forum / Shaping the Future. Tel: + 33 1 4642 4876, Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For more information, visit our website: www.items-int.com
ITEMS International, 16, rue Kléber, 92442 Issy-Les-Moulineaux, France Tel: +33. (0)1.46.42.48.76    Fax: +33. (0)1 41.08.94.27; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The story of entrepreneurship in the twentieth century was about individuals who got access to sophisticated capital in a few advanced markets and created massive economies of scale. That’s how AT&T, Home Depot, and Microsoft swiftly made their way onto the Fortune 500. But in the twenty-first century, a very different story is unfolding.

Today entrepreneurs anywhere can create value with relatively little capital. Barriers to entry in almost every industry have come crashing down, opening vast opportunities for small companies. These developments are especially apparent in emerging markets, where we’re seeing signs that an entrepreneurial economy is ready to bloom. We’ve spent the past two years studying entrepreneurship in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, and we’ve found hundreds of world-class ventures poised for significant growth there. Most people’s assumptions about entrepreneurship in the developing world—that entrepreneurs either don’t exist there or are microentrepreneurs—are wrong. High potential ventures are surfacing where no one is looking for them—in Beirut instead of Boston, in Cape Town instead of Silicon Valley—among people who have historically been outside the economic power structure.

The Office for Science and Technology (OST) of the Embassy of France (Boston section) organizes each year a full-day seminar called “French American Innovation Day” (FAID).

FAID is designed to emphasize a specific topic having a huge impact in terms of science, therapeutics and innovation.

In collaboration with the MLSC (Mass. Life Sciences Center), the 2010 FAID seminar will be addressing « Alzheimer ’s disease: Towards the Personalized Medicine ». It will be held the 6 of December at the Broad Institute.

Two prominent experts will lead this seminar:
Prof. John H. Growdon, Clinical Core Co-Leader and Founding Director at Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center & Director, Memory and Movement Disorders Units at Massachusetts General Hospital & Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School
Prof. Philippe Amouyel, CEO French National Foundation on AD, General Director of the Institut Pasteur de Lille and Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University Hospital of Lille in France

For this purpose, the OST launches a call for sponsorship to organize the 2010 FAID seminar.

Sponsorship presents an opportunity for leading companies in this field to contact with hundreds of French and American experts in the unique bilateral seminar on AD in Boston of the year.

→ Find more information, In the 2010 FAID presentation :

→ And the sponsorship opportunities in the document below:

For more information,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., deputy attachée – Biotechnology and technology transfer

Previous editions
FAID2009
EAID2008 the E for European, renamed to put the emphasis on the French Presidency of the European Union
FAID2007

Or, based on this sole-source contract announcement from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Google now owns, at the least, visualization of the planet.

NGA says it needs a secure system that will provide Web-based access to geospatial visualization services and Open Geospatial Consortium compliant Web-service interfaces. It says only Google can do the job.

Foundups ™ is the brainchild of Michael J. Trout. By definition, a foundup "is a founder with an idea of a lean startup bootstrapping a proof of concept." Foundups ™ is built around Michael’s 16 years of startup development experience. Since beginning Foundups ™, Michael created the DC Foundups™ meetup group (June 18, 2010) to help folks with technology startup ideas. The meetings are held every 3rd Thursday from 6:30pm- 9:30pm. Each week one foundup is chosen to sit in the "hot seat," while the members play the role of board members, each attacking very specific problems and issues the foundup is having. This is in an effort to help them move in the right direction. At the last meetup, the presenter was D.C. attorney Arron Titus and his very innovative foundup called "Saymondo.com"

“Say Mondo is an English Pronunciation website. Let’s say that English is your second language and you have to give a presentation to a boss or client. You type the presentation into saymondo.com. Then a native English speaker records your presentation, sends you a downloadable link to an MP3, you practice your pronunciation and nail your presentation.”

How does the international economy measure up for designers? Taking the Big Mac Index as an example, this mini-report evaluates the difference in price around the world for the smallest MacBook Pro. The results shed some light on exchange rates, purchasing price parity, and the rise of Apple.

Last month while scanning the front page of The Atlantic Monthly for some news to share on Twitter, I came across a title that caught my eye: Big Macs, Happiness, and Economic Development. Some pretty basic concepts, right? Well I have to admit that my first thought when I read it had nothing to do with Ronald McDonald. Instead, I thought immediately of my MacBook, design bliss, and Apple’s role in the economy. What?!