WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced that B&D Consulting Senior Vice President Dr. Phillip Singerman will join the agency's leadership team on January 31, 2011, as its first Associate Director for Innovation and Industry Services.

In this newly created position, Singerman will be responsible for NIST's suite of external partnership programs, including the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program, the Technology Innovation Program and the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program.

Something surprising happened during the recent lame duck session of US Congress. Lost amid a flurry of year-end activity, the America Competes Act, which overhauls how the federal government supports private-sector R&D, was reauthorised to the tune of US$45 billion.

Renewal of the act has been seen as a major boost in the face of Republican Party attacks against science-funding “waste” and the end of the US stimulus package. And it’s an indication of the different approaches nations are taking to fund science in the face of continuing economic and political obstacles. While the US government is casting a wide net to fund science, the UK and Spain have cut science funding in real terms. France, China, Sweden, and Germany are among countries that are increasing science funding, despite making cuts elsewhere.

A brush fire has been swirling through the blogosphere of late over whether RSS is dead, dying, or possibly severely injured and in need of assistance. It seems to have started with a post from UK-based web designer Kroc Camen that got picked up by Hacker News and re-tweeted a lot. The flames were fanned by a blog post from TechCrunch that drove RSS developer Dave Winer into a bit of a Twitter frenzy. But is RSS actually doomed, or even ailing? Not really. Like plenty of other technologies, it is just becoming part of the plumbing of the real-time web.

Camen’s criticisms seem focused on the fact that Firefox doesn’t make it easy to find or subscribe to RSS feeds from within the browser (although Mozilla staffer Asa Dotzler takes issue with that case in a comment near the bottom of the post). Instead of the usual RSS icon, he says, there is nothing except an entry in a menu. But did anyone other than a handful of geeks and tech aficionados make use of those RSS icons? It’s not clear that many regular web users have done so — or ever will. Browsers like Internet Explorer have had built-in support for RSS for years, but there’s little sign of it becoming mainstream.

Mobile phones — and particularly smartphones, with their web browsers and GPS, photo-sharing apps and so on — have become such a crucial part of many of our lives that they are difficult to live without. The fear of losing a phone stems in part from the wealth of information we keep on our mobile devices, from photos to passwords and banking data. Imagine what the police could find out about you if they had the ability to search your phone and all it contains — something that is now more than just a hypothetical situation, at least if you live in California.

For some people, innovation is not enough. Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande is one of those people. Let’s just say the Boston-area tech entrepreneur and billionaire philanthropist has earned the right to make such a claim.

“For innovation to have impact, it needs relevance,” he says. “Innovation plus relevance equals impact.”

Deshpande is talking about global impact, but his latest project is in his own backyard. Last month, his foundation committed $5 million over the next five years to support a new innovation center housed at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The Merrimack Valley Sandbox, as it’s called, will work together with local colleges and nonprofits to boost entrepreneurship among students and professionals, and to develop local leadership through mentoring and seed funding programs.

In the news, the main number you hear about the recession is the unemployment rate, which is hovering just below 10% -- as compared to 5% just a couple years ago. If you were only hearing that, the recession can seem less dramatic (if still quite harsh) than it is: All this hubbub about a mere 5% of the population?

The United States should capitalize on a new trend, convergence — which involves the merger of life, physical and engineering sciences — to foster the innovation necessary to meet the growing demand for accessible, affordable health care, according to a white paper issued Tuesday by 12 leading MIT researchers.

“Convergence is a broad rethinking of how all scientific research can be conducted, so that we capitalize on a range of knowledge bases, from microbiology to computer science to engineering design,” MIT Institute Professor and Nobel Laureate Phillip Sharp, one of the report’s authors, told the AAAS forum.

In 2011 green will be the thing. It's the fastest growing trend in food, buildings, and businesses. Don't miss out--green is the new bottom line. Here are 11 habits that will get you out of the dark and into the green. Get good at them and you will save resources, money, and your health AND you will have fun in the process.

1. Make ORGANIC a habit

Organic food, products, and materials can improve your chances of living a healthy life (especially for children), decrease your propensity toward certain diseases (like obesity, certain cancers, and even ADHD), and keep dangerous pesticides out of the environment. The majority of green house gas emissions from food occur before leaving the farm gate—so eating organic food can reduce your carbon footprint even more than eating local, but doing both is the best. Make a habit of visiting your local farmer’s market and you will be helping your local economy, getting the healthiest food possible, and spending less per nutrient than in the aisle of the grocery store. Memorize the dirty dozen and you will never be stranded wondering whether it is worth more to buy the organic apple versus the conventional one.

It’s the New Year! Time to make all those resolutions about losing weight and walking the dog… but how about taking some quick steps early in January that might save your business money throughout the entire year?

Here are five steps my management team is taking to save us money in 2011:

1. Set the tone.

Your team will take their cues from you, so meet early with them and remind them of the importance of being frugal this year. Getting everyone focused on intelligent thriftiness at the beginning of the year can pay dividends as the year progresses. Remind the team of simple actions they can take to save money, like asking for discounts when purchasing goods and services for the business.

When people ask me what the city and state government can do to help the technology driven startup community in NYC, I tell them two things.

First, there is not one tech ecosystem. There is the software, internet, digital media sector which is thriving and on a tremendous growth spurt. And then there are the biotech, biengineering, materials science, and energy sectors. These sectors are languishing in NYC with very little commercial activity given how much research and science goes on in the city.

Sometime in 2011, the world’s population is expected to tick past 7 billion. That’s a difficult number to get one’s head around, but National Geographic does a pretty good job in 2 minutes and 58 seconds of video.

The piece notes that five people are born on Earth every second while, in the same span, two people die. In Australia, according to the Bureau of Statistics, the nation’s population growth breaks down this way:

* One birth every minute and 44 seconds.
* One death every 3 minutes and 44 seconds.
* A net gain of one immigrant every 2 minutes and 47 seconds.

This article comes with a warning. So please ensure you have read the next paragraph before proceeding.

Networking is an important marketing activity for almost any start-up business but it can kill you. The reason: there are some well-meaning people who regularly attend such meetings and events and they possess a stealth-like ability to bore others to death.

Getting on with people is a very important skill in business. Entrepreneurial minds tend to be much more relaxed about meeting others for the first time and networking events are organised so that people can do just that.

Which markets have the best prospects for long-term growth in solar energy? The winner, surprisingly, is India, with its abundant sunlight, exploding demand, and gigantic, mostly off-grid population.

That’s according to a new report by a  new report by Lux Research examining emerging markets for solar power.

The current global poster child for solar is Germany, which added 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2010 and accounted for half of the global solar market. At minimum demand the entire German electricity grid consumes around 31 GW. However, Germany’s solar dominance may be starting to wane since its generous guaranteed rates for solar power are being reduced.

A patient who receives a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer has only a 5 percent chance of surviving for five years, a harrowing prognosis that scientists have long struggled to understand. Part of the problem, new research suggests, is that the disease is not typically diagnosed until 15 years after the first cancer-causing mutations appear, by which point the cancer has spread and become highly aggressive. The findings indicate that there may be plenty of time for doctors to intervene before pancreatic cancer becomes lethal—an exciting prospect given recent advances in diagnosing the disease early, when it can be successfully removed with surgery and chemotherapy.

Is the green home here?

A host of manufacturers are touting energy management systems this week at the Consumer Electronics Show. Verizon, for instance, said it would begin to test its energy monitoring system with consumers in New Jersey in the first part of 2011. Motorola, meanwhile, is touting the technology it obtained late last year from 4Home for controlling energy consumption in homes.

Panasonic has a display with everything from home fuel cells (which have been on sale in Japan for over a year) to dual-sided solar panels and a centralized control panel. Panasonic showed us these things back in October at Ceatec. See video below: it's the same display they are showing in Vegas.

Booz & Company’s annual study of the world’s biggest R&D spenders shows why highly innovative companies are able to consistently outperform. Their secret? They’re good at the right things, not at everything.

Why are some companies able to consistently conceive of, create, and bring to market innovative and profitable new products and services while so many others struggle? It isn’t the amount of money they spend on research and development. After all, our annual Global Innovation 1000 study has shown time and again that there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending, in terms of either total R&D dollars or R&D as a percentage of revenues.

I know, I know. You’ve already consumed enough “Top Whatever ” lists of 2010 to provide a lifetime bout of indigestion. Stay with me. What I’ve compiled here isn’t a list of milestones, mega-trends or movers and shakers from the past year. It is, however, a short and sweet mash-up of innovative stories that managed to cut through the clutter and capture my imagination. Food for thought as we head into 2011? Only one way to find out…

Pink Snails Invade Miami Beach

How do you raise awareness about the importance of recycling? If you’re the REgeneration Art Project, you build giant snails made from recycled plastic, paint them pink and display them in public places like Miami Beach. Here’s what Gloria Porcella, co-owner of Galleria Ca’ d’Oro, which backed the project had to say about the significance of the snails in a recent Miami Herald article:

“We run and we work too much, and the snail is one of the slowest animals on earth. The concept is the snail wants us to think about ourselves and they want to teach us something. We run, run, run but what are we reaching? What are our goals? We are destroying our planet.”

2010 was an amazing year for startup action and activism in Minnesota. The community is coming together in recognition that the innovation economy can’t be grown through luck or grand schemes – but from real digging in the Minnesota soil. This means a macro/micro focus – improving the overall ecosystem for new technology and business launch and engaging directly with startups.  Here are just a few 2010 highlights (in no particular order) that are keeping Minnesota on the front burner:

(a)    Tax Credits – Angel Investor/R&D

The 10-year wait is over – Minnesota got an angel tax credit. And none too soon. With our friendly neighbors friendlying up to our local tech community with siren songs of support and subsidies, the Gov and Legislature hunkered down and got us not just a robust angel tax credit – but a generously expanded R&D tax credit (10% of the first $2 million in R&D expenses over base expense).  And the R&D tax credit is fully refundable, which is great benefit for early-stage companies.