Are you interested in receiving Commonwealth funding to support your Virginia-based research and commercialization? If so, then the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) wants to hear from you!

As many of you may know, during the 2011 General Assembly session, the Commonwealth of Virginia appropriated $6 million for the FY2012 Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF). In order to gauge the level of interest in and understand the need for future state funding for Virginia-based research and commercialization, as well as assist in financing science and technology facilities used to commercialize research, CIT is issuing a Request for Information (RFI). The RFI is open to any individuals or groups from Virginia public and private institutions of higher education, the private sector, federal labs, other research institutes, and political subdivisions.

Many entrepreneurs still dream of “going public,” making billions of dollars, and playing with the big boys. They don’t realize that this option would likely be their worst nightmare, since it costs millions for the road show, usually dilutes your equity to a tiny fraction, and takes away all your entrepreneurial control.

Even though the Initial Public Offering (IPO) alternative for a successful startup seems to be coming back into vogue, it is still extremely rare. Only about a dozen U.S. companies made the IPO transition in 2009, out of thousands of startups. Even in most of these cases, the original startup founders were pushed out, or heavily supplemented, with “experienced” executives.

Alexander Lukashenko is no fan of the internet. True, the President of Belarus, widely seen as the last remaining dictator in Europe, dislikes many things — democratic opposition, for one. But he reserves a special place for the Web. In the past he’s railed against the “anarchy” of the Internet. More recently The Economist reported that his attitude towards the rebels of the online world leans on familiar stereotypes — he described Internet users as nothing more than deluded teenage rebels: “16 or 17 years old, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a girl under his left arm”.

This weekend, however, Lukashenko took things a step further by cracking down on protesters who organized themselves online, and pushing his statewide ban on Facebook, Twitter and the popular Russian social networking site Vkontakte. Why? Because he is worried that young people are using it to try and give momentum to their political protests. Claiming that opposition to his regime is being run by foreign countries, he told AFP that the opposition in Minsk “is using social networks to call for strikes. I will watch and observe — and then whack them in such a way that they won’t even have time to run across the border.”

Just as popular consumer Web apps eventually find their way into the enterprise (Yammer anyone?), the health sector is increasingly taking its cue from the world of Web apps. The Seattle product design firm Artefact, whose future camera concept caught the attention of our readers in April, recently designed a prototype patient care app for the Seattle Children's Patient Information System.

I visited the Artefact office in Seattle last month and was shown the prototype at work on an iPad. The app, as yet unnamed, is designed to help doctors, administrators and patients manage patient care in a hospital. The colorful and eminently usable design is - I can only hope - a pointer to the hospital and doctor apps of the near fut

The Purdue Life Sciences Business Plan Competition aims to foster translational research and accelerate the commercialization of intellectual property in the life sciences arena. In doing so, the Competition exemplifies Purdue's spirit of Discovery-to-Delivery by generating entrepreneurship opportunities and driving economic development of life sciences research.

Commercially-viable business plan entries in the life sciences arena stemming from university-based research are invited to participate in the Competition. Participating teams must represent an actual life sciences company that is no more than three years old; recent start-up life sciences companies are of particular interest. Winning companies are required to provide documentation that the company has clear access to the intellectual property. This stipulation is a method to ensure that the competition makes awards to companies and not just to exciting ideas.

The Competition offers an impressive prize money and in-kind services package that teams will apply towards furthering and commercializing the respective research. Ample opportunities for networking among team members, judges, experts, and attendees will be provided during the competition, including an intimate feedback session between the finalist teams and judges.

The market for mobile payments — which includes mobile shopping, money transfers and near-field communication (NFC) transactions — will hit $670 billion globally by 2015, a significant jump from $240 billion this year, according to Juniper Research’s latest report.

All mobile segments will double or triple over the next five years, according to the report. Juniper’s findings are undoubtedly highly optimistic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes to pass given just how much of a hot topic mobile payments are right now.

(Mobile payments will be a big part of our MobileBeat 2011 conference next week in San Francisco, which will feature Google Wallet head Stephanie Tilenius, as well as guests from PayPal and Verizon to discuss the burgeoning new field.)

We have covered the story last week about the RIM open letters and my colleague's Klint Finley's three suggestions about how RIM can survive. And then there was a story by Chris Nerney in ITworld talking about how key developers are ending their support for Blackberry, including Seesmic and others.

But one of the more surprising factoids to come to light was that RIM has three billion dollars in cash. So I thought I would ask some of my readers what they should do with this hoard? I got some interesting answers.

Several felt it was too late to do much to turn around the company's fortunes. "That's the big problem with being successful, you tend to forget how to innovate. Any new product has problems being as successful as your last success. Apple is one of the few that did not get trapped (yet) in that problem (after Scully)."

It is a truism in Silicon Valley that star employees are worth ten to one hundred times as much as ordinary employees. This calculus is especially true for software engineers, but also applies to product managers, sales executives, and other key employees. If you are a star performer, the sky’s the limit in terms of what technology companies will be willing to attract or keep you.

We’ve seen this again and again. Facebook bought Friendfeed for $50 million just to get its highly talented engineers (co-founder Brett Taylor is now Facebook’s CTO). Last year, Google made a $3.5 million counteroffer to a staff engineer to keep him from going to Facebook. And this year, it paid two top product managers as much as $150 million to keep them from going to Twitter.

“Where should we grab some food?” Perhaps no other question has motivated more consumer technology entrepreneurs. Well, I say that only half-jokingly.

After the age of the Yellow Pages, we’ve all used multiple services that guide us to a restaurant seat. We’ve hunted for restaurants on Google, researched options on Zagat, and offered reviews on Yelp. The trend for how we search for restaurants has shifted from directories (phone books) to guides (ratings) to people influencing our decisions. Today, there’s stiff competition amongst mobile services to drive us to the next restaurant, whether it’s a Living Social daily deal, a Foursquare check-in reward, an UrbanSpoon recommendation, or simply word-of-mouth, serendipitous suggestions that filter through conversations on various social networks or, heaven forbid, in real life.

This position is perfect for you if you are ready for a challenge and are committed to making significant improvements in the operations of one of the world's premier research and science organizations.  NIST is located on a beautiful campus in Gaithersburg, Montgomery County, MD.  This is a great opportunity to have a tremendous impact on an agency's programs and enjoy the benefits of working outside the Washington beltway.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) plays a vital role in supporting technical innovation -- critical to the future economic security of our Nation.  NIST accomplishes its mission through a broad interdisciplinary approach leveraging its physical sciences and engineering expertise.  Its broad scope and technical expertise is matched by few other laboratories in the world.  NIST is organized around scientific and engineering disciplines and encourages research programs that leverage the full talent and expertise across the organization.

NIST programs are at the scientific forefront nationally and internationally, and they provide an important contribution in support of industry, academia, and other government entities. NIST is a dynamic and complex organization undertaking research and scientific endeavors in a multidisciplinary, diverse culture. NIST's human resources are also diverse with over 2,800 full-time employees and over 1,500 foreign and domestic guest researchers, contractors, and other associates. The primary facilities are located in Gaithersburg, Maryland and Boulder, Colorado.

The Director, Technology Innovation Program (TIP) serves as the executive responsible for managing and leading this critical program for NIST.  The TIP was established as part of the America COMPETES Act (P.L. 110-69) to assist United States businesses and institutions of higher education or other organizations, such as national laboratories and nonprofit research institutions, to support, promote, and accelerate innovation in the United States through high-risk, high-reward research in areas of critical national need.

In Silicon Valley the Campbell Union School District's sprinklers used to dutifully water the soccer fields and gardens at 12 campuses even during spring showers. Temporarily shutting off each of the 45 irrigation control boxes, by hand, wasn't worth the custodians' time. But in 2009 the district installed new "smart" controllers that automatically adjust daily watering to the weather. Each box, fitted with a microprocessor and antenna, receives local real-time weather information by satellite from the WeatherTRAK climate center supercomputer run by Petaluma, Calif.–based HydroPoint Data Systems, Inc.

On one April morning after a three-day rainstorm, Campbell Union's facilities supervisor, David Radke, checked the status of the controllers by logging in to WeatherTRAK.net The service had put the district’s irrigation network on pause when the storm began, and according to WeatherTRAK's math, the network would not need to resume watering for eight to 11 days.

In studies where the food intake and energy expenditure of subjects are carefully monitored over a period of weeks to months (which tends to average out day-to-day fluctuations) a remarkable balance between calories consumed and calories burned was observed. When various mammals, from mice to monkeys, are either overfed or starved for a few weeks, their weight soon returns to normal levels when free access to food is resumed. Crucially, our mammalian bodies seem to be able to regulate feeding based on the amount of energy available in the food we consume, not just on the volume of that food. One example of many: When groups of rats were fed nutrient solutions of varying concentrations, they adjusted the volume consumed to achieve a constant inflow of calories. It's a lot like the thermostat in your house: When its thermometer registers a drop in temperature, it sends a signal to the heater to warm the house until the desired set point is reached.

This Fourth of July holiday, collectively Americans will eat some 150 million hot dogs, according to industry analysts. Lined up, that substantial serving of frankfurters would stretch from sea to shining sea—several times.

As of last year, franks made by industry stalwart Oscar Mayer (from Kraft) got knocked out of first place for most-consumed dogs by Sara Lee's Ball Park brand, according to Adweek (excluding sales data from Walmart).

So just what's in these wieners? Here's a quick look at the ingredient list:

Ball Park Franks: Mechanically separated turkey: As the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) describes it, this "paste-like and batter-like poultry product [is] produced by forcing bones, with attached edible tissue, through a sive or similar device under high pressure." Unlike mechanically separated beef or pork, it can be present in hot dogs in "any amount."

On July 4, the Intelligent Community Forum opened nominations for its international awards program for communities using information and communications technology to build prosperous economies and address social challenges. Municipalities and regions can nominate themselves by completing a 6-question form available www.intelligentcommunity.org. Award honorees will be announced in three stages: the Smart21 Communities of the Year (semi-finalists) on October 21 in Eindhoven, Netherlands, which is the 2011 Intelligent Community of the Year; the Top Seven Intelligent Communities (finalists) on January 19, 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii USA; and the Intelligent Community of the Year on June 8 in New York City. There is no cost for nominations. The deadline for nominations is Friday, September 23, 2011.

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Conventional wisdom says it’s good to be young. That, by the time you’ve been around long enough to understand how everything works, you’re too old to enjoy it.

Well, I’m going to challenge that and take on an issue that’s become a personal and professional battleground for many of you.

You see, jobs are at a premium and it’s not at all clear which generation, if any, is being discriminated against. Baby boomers tell me their jobs are going to younger and cheaper talent. But the data shows that younger people have far higher levels of unemployment.

Whatever you may feel about independent "hactivist" groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec, they are good at what they do. In the past few weeks members of these two groups have claimed responsibility for a number of data theft incidents, including the recent theft of more than 1 million user names and passwords from the Sony pictures web site. They then post these stolen names and passwords on message boards and  ordinary web pages for anyone to see. In one case, after publishing the user names and passwords to more than 26,000 users of Pron.com (a pornography web site), LulzSec recommended the following mischief:

These guys probably sign into Facebook with the same email/pass combo, so we suggest the following: 1) sign into their Facebook accounts 2) find their family members 3) tell them all about how the victim (you!) signed up to porn sites 4) watch the hilarity 5) tell us about it on twitter! 6) ??????? 7) PROFIT

SHENZHEN, China — For some time now China has been the world’s great incubator of architectural ideas: the place where architects are free to explore some of their most outlandish fantasies. And more and more, that freedom seems to be giving rise to an architectural renaissance, one that is producing legitimate architectural masterpieces.

Case in point: the Vanke Center, a vast office, hotel and exhibition complex on the edge of this bustling city of nine million in the Pearl River Delta. Steven Holl, the center’s architect, is a major talent, with significant projects in Europe and America, but his most potent urban ideas have sat on shelves for decades.

In China he was given the chance to dust them off, and the results are extraordinary. Nicknamed the “Horizontal Skyscraper,” the Vanke Center is a surreal hybrid — part building, part landscape, part infrastructure. Its jagged form, propped up above a tropical park on piers up to 50 feet high, gives identity to a characterless landscape. It demonstrates what can happen when talented architects are allowed to practice their craft uninhibited by creative restrictions (or, to be fair, by the high labor costs of most developed societies).

Gov. Bill Haslam announced today that Tennessee is becoming part of the Startup America Partnership, touting the state’s entrepreneurial potential and Nashville’s key role in reaching it.

The Republican and members of his administration joined business leaders and entrepreneurs to announce the creation of Startup Tennessee, a public-private partnership that will serve as the state-level version of the national entrepreneurial incubator. Leading Startup Tennessee will be Michael Burcham, CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

The European Commission published this month its 2011 Innovation Union Competitiveness Report. Building on the Innovation Union Scoreboard, it represents the first comprehensive analysis of recent trends and long-term evolution in research and innovation performance in all 27 EU Members States and 6 Associated Countries. The IUC report is intended to monitor Members States’progress in fulfilling the Europe 2020 objective of investing 3% of GDP in R&D as well as reaching their own national R&D targets. It also analyses the strengths and weaknesses of national research and innovation systems and presents winning approaches for progressing towards the Europe 2020 strategy.

The IUC report offers answers to the following key questions:

1. Is the EU making progress towards its R&D target for 2020?
2. What has been the effect of the economic crisis on R&D investment?
3. Are more researchers working in Europe?
4. Has the EU improved its scientific excellence?
5. Is Europe improving its capacity to get knowledge to the market?

Eager entrepreneurs armed with ideas they believe can improve our way of life gathered on Tuesday for the first ever New York edition of the IBM Global Entrepreneur SmartCamp. The competition, which came to Boston last June, brings select groups of startups together with mentors from the investor community. Deborah Magid, director of software strategy with IBM Venture Capital Group, says the objective is to help new innovators hone their plans and foster a fresh crop of companies that IBM may collaborate with.

“What they are working on are outcome-based ideas for changing our corporate and personal lives,” Magid says. SmartCamp, held nine times a year around the world, works in tandem with IBM’s Smart Planet initiative by developing technology to tackle big problems like environmental issues and infrastructure management.