No action under current federal consideration would be more detrimental to American innovation, venture formation and economic development than the current Patent-Reforming and so-called “America Invents Act” (S. 23) and corresponding H. R. 1249. This situation is particularly ironic given that both the current Administration and Congress seem to “get it”, supporting by a variety of initiatives the reality that most new jobs in our struggling economy are generated by the new venture start-up sector. The current “Patent Reform” proposal seeks to remedy the government’s admitted problems with efficiently carrying out its chartered administrative functions by “killing the goose that lays the golden egg” rather than by reforming its backlog-causing current procedures, and simply ought not to pass!

Specifically, these bills as written put unnecessarily more power (such may be their intention) into the hands of the big business sector, at the expense of the independent inventors and entrepreneurs who have been critical to the American economy since its beginning and remain ever more so today. The proposal to change the fundamental basis of patent eligibility from First-To-Invent to First-To-File, the additional but unspecified further expenses likely to result from broader administrative fee-setting authority, the enhanced opportunities and decreased burden of proof for challenge to patents during consideration or even after award, will all markedly lessen the ability, and thus the motivation, for independent inventors and entrepreneurs to file for and benefit from patent protection, and will therefore critically decrease their ability to obtain needed financing for these fledgling enterprises. Big business, on the other hand, will be further competitively advantaged in these regards, when it needs no such additional protection or support either domestically or internationally due to its already substantial resources.

I remember the first “Sex and the City” movie (sorry, guys—it won’t take long) where Jennifer Hudson, who played Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant, said, “Love is the thing you know.” It stuck with me. When it comes to business, I would add that joy is too.

We spend too many hours a day on the job—whether for someone else or for ourselves—to hate it. (Don’t we?) We need to take joy in what we do if we intend to make it for the long term.

How do you feel about doing your own thing? Some 77 percent of small business owners in the Small Business Happiness Index by Vistaprint are either “very” or “extremely” happy about running a business and working for themselves. (The survey focused on 900 U.S. microbusinesses with one to 10 employees and less than $100,000 in annual revenues–primarily home-based businesses.)

Job interviews are often a nerve-wracking ordeal. But at some places, your suffering is guaranteed.

Glassdoor identified the hardest interview processes out there based on user reviews.

Google, a company known for their interesting interview questions, was just shy of the top twenty. eBay and Amazon interview questions are actually harder.

The hardest interview of all is at consulting company McKinsey -- not surprising when you consider that its business is based on answering hard questions.

The magazine Computerworld has come out with its top 100 places to work for IT staff in 2011. Financial companies like USAA and Securian Financial Group, and global conglomerates like General Mills, grabbed the top three rankings. Five universities also made the list. (The top 100 were whittled down from 500 nominees, based on a survey of institutional features like benefits and employee turnover, as well as surveys of employee satisfaction at each place.)

The University of Pennsylvania snagged the sixth spot, lauded for its benefits and workforce diversity. Also valued by employees: Teams of IT staffers compete in universitywide employee recognition programs for work on particular projects, with small cash prizes and a lunch with Pennsylvania’s top leaders as rewards.

The number of top-level internet domains is set to double over the next few years, after ICANN today approved the launch of a program that will let any company apply to run dot-anything.

In January next year, essentially any organization will be able to submit an application to ICANN for a virtually any gTLD, using the rules set down in a 300-page Applicant Guidebook.

The Cabinet said the Saudi Development and Technological Investment Company (Taqnia) would study the results of applied research programs at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology as well as Saudi universities and research centers.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who chaired the Cabinet meeting, prayed for the success of medical tests on Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, at a US hospital.

The 37th edition of the "TOP500 List of the world's top supercomputers" was released today at the 2011 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg. At first place, a Japanese supercomputer capable of performing more than 8 quadrillion calculations per second (petaflop/s): the K Computer, developed in partnership with Fujitsu at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe.

The ranking of all systems is based on how fast they run Linpack, a benchmark application developed to solve a dense system of linear equations. For the first time, all of the top 10 systems achieved petaflop/s performance - and those are also the only petaflop/s systems on the list. The U.S. is tops in petaflop/s with five systems performing at that level; Japan and China have two each, and France has one.

Rachel Shechtman, Cube Ventures

“A serial entrepreneur, Graham Hill integrates design, function, technology, and new ways of doing business, and as a result, his work is successful and meaning

Cambridge Design Partnership has contributed to a specialist vehicle capable of travelling 1,325 miles on a single gallon of diesel. The small proof-of-concept car was put through its paces by an 11 year old Cambridgeshire girl in partnership with a local school at the annual Mileage Marathon Challenge at Mallory Park. The initiative is intended to promote engineering and technology to school and college students as well as eco-friendly vehicle concepts. CDP has reused elements of its own Lightweight Oxygen Concentrator, as well as various other technologies developed in-house, to aid the car’s development.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1999, David Park founded discussion forum service Coolboard.com. It took more than a dozen software developers, product managers, and quality assurance staff 18 months to build the company's core technology. To fund it, Park raised $10 million in venture capital, of which $4 million was spent before the company was launched. It went down in flames in 2003, a casualty of the dot-com bust.

In 2005, Park launched his next business, MBA admissions blog and forum Beat The GMAT in San Mateo, Calif. Rather than take venture capital, he limited startup costs, spending just $119,000. The site steadily gained traction, but Park was nervous that technologies like Facebook and Twitter would make it obsolete.

Some tech flops are famous and well documented: Microsoft Bob. The Segway scooter. The Iridium satellite cellphone. (You think you’ve got indoor-reception problems with your current cellphone? How’d you like a phone with $8 a minute airtime charges that doesn’t work at all without a line of sight to the sky?)

Other dogs came and went so fast, they’re now completely forgotten, lost among the dust bunnies of consumer-tech history. For those of us in the tech-review business, however, these flopperoos live on as painful memories—and cautionary tales.

Over a year and a half into the recovery, the condition of the American economy is far from satisfactory. For the vast majority of Americans, conditions have improved only marginally since the onset of the Great Recession. Unemployment remains high, job creation meager, and American workforce participation has dropped to near record depths — the lowest rate in a quarter of a century.

Not surprisingly, this spring’s Washington Post-ABC poll revealed that far more Americans feel the economy is getting worse than getting better. There seems to be what the New York Times described as “a darkening mood” among Americans about the future. Confidence in the Federal Reserve’s policies on the money supply has eroded among economists, as few benefits have accrued to smaller businesses and middle-class households.3 Times are particularly tough for entry level workers, including those with educations, and have been worsening since at least the mid-2000s.

Mosquitoes have remarkably refined powers of smell. The insects that spread malaria across sub- Sa har an Africa come exquisitely equipped to find human blood. They home in on the scent of human breath and sweat and swiftly insert their needlelike mouthparts into the target’s skin. As they dine, their saliva transmits the malaria parasite into the wound. With a simple bite, they can ultimately take a life.

Other mosquitoes prefer different species—say, cattle or birds. Some, it seems, even favor selected individuals within the target group; certain people at a summer barbeque will be attacked relentlessly, yet others will remain unbitten. And some mosquitoes can identify their victims from more than 165 feet.

The world's oceans are in "shocking" decline, a panel of scientists at the International Programme on the State of the Ocean has concluded (via the BBC's Richard Black).

The scientists warn that we are "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history."

The problem is not just overfishing, which we've written about here ("We've Eaten All The Fish In The Sea"). It's the combination of overfi

Some startups are nothing more than fads. They get a lot of buzz when they launch -- either by raising huge rounds, having famous founders, or being posed as the next Facebook killer -- then they go MIA.

Some fail, some quietly grow, and others pivot into new ideas.

We racked our brains for 10 startups that generated national buzz then fell of the face of the earth.

While most settle for a kitchen stocked with snacks or a lounge to take a break in, the employees in these offices can find inspiration without leaving their workplace.

Indeed, studies have found that everything -- from the quality of a view to the height of a ceiling, from the wall color to the furniture -- shapes how people think and perform.

Bloomberg's New York's office gives out sodas, fresh fruit, salads and candy bars for free. "I want people to be well-fed and satisfied. I want them to be able to grab a cup of coffee with a colleague and hash things out," Michael Bloomberg told Fast Company. "But most of all I want them to stay here. I don't want them leaving."

Down economies tend to give rise to great ideas, and this one is no exception. As the job market continues to be tight, the option to start your own venture sounds pretty good.

We all have fantasies about becoming filthy rich and super independent, and being able to take vacation whenever we want. But let’s leave those dreams in the fantasy drawer for now. Entrepreneurs have freedom, yes, but most work constantly and awfully hard.

[See And On the Side, I'm an Entrepreneur.]

During a recent speech at an eighth-grade graduation in California, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg shared the following:

"Everything that’s worth doing is actually pretty hard and takes a lot of work. It’s not about a single moment of inspiration or brilliance. It’s about years and years of hard work and practice before you get there.” (Source: TechCrunch)

(Scottsdale, Ariz.) -- In only its sixth year, the unique Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative at Arizona State University experienced significant growth in interest in 2011 – further evidence of the growing entrepreneurial spirit at the university.

The Edson Initiative -- which offers student teams funding, office space, mentorship and training to accelerate their venture concepts -- attracted 250 applications in 2011, a 32 percent increase over the 190 entries the previous year. More than $1.2 million has been awarded to student teams during the life of the program and more than $200,000 will be granted to the student teams chosen this year. The program is one of the largest privately funded business plan competitions at a U.S. university.

The selected student teams, which will be announced on June 27, 2011, will incubate and accelerate their business ideas at SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center. A variety of mentors and venture acceleration services provided by the ASU Venture Catalyst team at SkySong will help catapult their ideas into reality.

I had the opportunity to interview Moises Norena, Director of Global Innovation, Whirlpool Corporation, about open innovation participation, strategies, and barriers to innovation success.

Here is the text from the interview:

1. Do you feel that companies need an innovation strategy? If so, where does open innovation fit in?

I don’t think that having an innovation strategy is an option for companies, it is a requirement, especially in consumer segments. Innovation is the path to sustainability and growth. Innovation can be seen differently depending on which company you are looking at. There are companies like Apple that live innovation, that is what they do, Innovation is their strategy. Companies like Whirlpool, that have existed for 100 years, require an explicit innovation strategy, that translates into actions that people take, that force the change in behavior to stay relevant.

Within a thirty mile stretch of where I am writing the rocks jutting up from the sea are green. Every beach and every cove I walk past is lined with green slime, rotting algae draped over the seaweed and sand. A digger works on a nearby beach, hauling the toxic green stuff off so the beaches can be used safely by humans. In Portugal last year the same green slime was visible. The baked brown cliffs and the clear blue sky were joined by the tinge of green on the sandstone rocks for the first time, in my memory. In Ireland and Portugal and in the UK too. That means much of the Atlantic seaboard of Europe has turned green. Those of us who live near the sea have witnessed the visual transformation of our environment over the past decade. The International Programme for the State of the Ocean (IPSO) is now telling us the oceans have reached a do or die phase. We either take action to prevent further degeneration or large parts of the acquatic ecosystem will die off.