Microsoft may well be readying itself to talk about Windows 10, but it has also been busy designing a new wireless charging technology deep in the bowels of its Research Center.

Dubbed AutoCharge, the prototype technology uses standard lamps to charge smartphones, eliminating the need for a nest of cables under your desk.

The world is aging, and that matters for growth. In the past, an abundant and growing labor pool was a powerful engine of the world economy; today, the number of workers is starting to decline in many countries. This leaves no alternative but for companies, individuals, and governments to work in smarter ways. In an era of profound demographic change, another productivity revolution is a necessity.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

If you can’t deal with failure, then the entrepreneur lifestyle is not for you. Don’t believe that urban myth that all you need is a good idea, a little fun work, and the money will start rolling in. When you are pushing the limits, nobody gets it right the first time, or even maybe the tenth time. That’s why the term “pivot” was invented, so you don’t have to call every change a failure.

The digital health space likely won’t slow down anytime soon in terms of investment, and more tech companies beyond healthcare are likely to join the fray in the coming year.

So said Bryan Roberts, a partner who focuses on health IT, biotech, medical devices and diagnostics for Silicon Valley venture capital firm Venrock.

John Stuelpnagel – one of Illumina‘s cofounders – has never had his genome sequenced.

“I didn’t feel the need,” Stuelpnagel said.

It’s not because of the cost, nor the fear he’s got some genetic disorder. It’s not even because he believes it’s an unnecessary move for a healthy man:

“It’s just that sequencing isn’t good enough today for many of the applications we’re looking at for future clinical use,” he said.

Image: http://medcitynews.com

More women than ever are launching start-ups. But there are stumbling blocks, with many still believing entrepreneurship is a man's world. Josephine Fairley (who took the plunge and bought two tons of chocolate with her savings), separates fact from fiction

Do young people view entrepreneurship as a viable career option? Not according to a recent analysis by The Wall Street Journal that showed that only 3.6 percent of households headed by adults younger than 30 owned stakes in private companies. This figure represents a 24-year-low in young entrepreneurs.

Do you work for someone that never seems to stop thinking about the next big thing that needs to be implemented? You know the type? Rushing into the office and stealing productive time to call a meeting about some new idea he thought up on the toilet that morning, implementing untested ideas, and blaming the staff when they backfire? Or are you that person? Do you live in constant fear that the competition is getting one up on you? Are you convinced that your ideas are the best and should be implemented immediately without discussion? Has it occurred to you that you may be doing more harm than good?

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87793853@N00/526384959

Medicine these days entertains all kinds of ambitious plans for reading off brain signals to control wheelchairs, or using electronics to bypass spinal injuries. But most of these ideas for implants that can interface with the nervous system run up against a basic materials problem: wires are stiff and bodies are soft.

Image: An implant made of silicone and gold wires is as stretchy as human tissue.

Call it a side business, a second shift, or a night job. For entrepreneurs with a typical nine to five — whether that's as a student or a full-time employee — moonlighting is a challenge. Not only are moonlighters launching a startup after traditional work hours and often on little sleep, but they're also building a dream without a dedicated office space.

Technologies created at universities face a funding gap after government research grants run out and before investors step in, if they step in. Nancy Sullivan is working to bridge that “valley of death” with several proof of concept funding programs that she hopes will improve faculty and student inventors’ chances of bringing their ideas to market. Sullivan, CEO and senior managing director of IllinoisVentures, the University of Illinois’ startup investment arm, explains the programs and how failed investments led to these efforts.

Image: Nancy Sullivan is CEO and managing director of IllinoisVentures. (University of Illinois photo)

The last thing an employee wants to feel on their first day of work is lost and confused. Each company should have an organized, specific system in place to make the onboarding process go as smoothly as possible.

To learn more about how to make this possible, we polled nine entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) on unique ways they welcome and orient new hires. Their answers are below.

In 1989, Liz Wiseman took her first job out of business school at a mid-size startup called Oracle. With no previous experience, she was recruited as a technical trainer, charged with teaching programming to all of the company's new engineering recruits. She admits she barely knew what the company did, much less how to teach engineers. A year later, she was promoted to manage the training department and make CEO Larry Ellison's vision for what he called 'Oracle University' a reality. She was 24.

Confidence is a precious thing in business. Having the confidence to succeed, the belief in yourself that your ideas will work and the drive to turn those ideas into reality are key traits of the high-achieving entrepreneur. But how confident can someone be when they confront new strategies for growth or realise that they are going to have to try something different to help them succeed in their role? Where can they turn to for advice and guidance?

Image: http://ventureburn.com

The average length of a funding pitch to Angel investors is ten minutes. Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. The biggest complaint I hear from investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- 2014 was a very good year for companies that got their start with private funding, or venture capital. Some 738 companies either went public or were acquired outright last year -- up 43% from a year ago, according to The 2014 Venture Capital report by CB Insights, which runs a venture capital database. The total valuation of these so called exit deals reached about $131 billion, up 28%.

A few paralyzed patients could soon be using a wireless brain-computer interface able to stream their thought commands as quickly as a home Internet connection.

After more than a decade of engineering work, researchers at Brown University and a Utah company, Blackrock Microsystems, have commercialized a wireless device that can be attached to a person’s skull and transmit via radio thought commands collected from a brain implant. Blackrock says it will seek clearance for the system from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so that the mental remote control can be tested in volunteers, possibly as soon as this year.

Image: A wireless brain interface uses the head-worn transmitter, shown. - http://www.technologyreview.com

Facebook will today publish a report – seen by EurActiv – claiming that its social network generated €195 billion and enabled 4,540,000 jobs throughout the world last year.

The report comes as a rebuttal of criticism over Facebook's contribution to tax and business within the EU during 2014.

The rate at which Americans create new companies has fallen by nearly half over the past thirty-five years — from 2.56 new businesses with employees per thousand people in 1977 to 1.31 in 2012 — data recently released by the Census Bureau reveals. That alarming trend has policy makers scurrying to identify the causes of the decline, and to reverse it.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com/ 

A Pittsburgh eatery has done away with one of the most common practices in the restaurant industry. Bar Marco announced last week that it will eliminate tipping and instead pay its full-time employees a living wage. Full-time servers at Bar Marco currently make $5 per hour in addition to tips, which is above the state-required minimum wage for servers. But starting in April, the restaurant will instead pay full-time employees an annual salary of $35,000 with health care and company shares.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com/