One day I woke up and realized it had been years since I'd thought about my old Dell Axim X30 personal digital assistant (PDA), let alone touched one. The device quickly became extinct, replaced by other technology forging ahead. PDAs are the ancestors of our modern mobile phones, in the same way a lot of the items we're currently carrying around today will be looked back on in a few years the same way—in laughable disbelief that they lasted for so long.

Image: http://www.fastcolabs.com/ 

(Reuters Breakingviews) - Rampaging animal spirits have given birth to a biotechnology unicorn. It's apt that a stellar year for initial public offerings in the sector will be capped by its biggest float ever. Juno Therapeutics is a year old and revenue free, but its cancer fighting technology is hot. At nearly a $2 billion valuation, the company shows capitalism's ability to catalyze investors' hopes and resources.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Santa Claus might seem like the embodiment of delight— Silicon Valley's buzzword of the year—but investors should take pause before making a bet on the North Pole.

This Grinch-like forecast goes against the conventional wisdom in the Valley, where Kris Kringle is revered for his global brand equity. Consider this recently-published post on Medium by Kurt Leafstrand, vice president of products at Mountain View, Calif.-based sales analytics startup Clari: “Everything I Ever Needed to Know (About Startups), I Learned From Santa Claus".

This year, we got down to the tough questions. Where can personal lives, family, and career intersect? How can businesses impact the world—and their bottom lines—for the better? Where do we find meaning in our work?

These lessons in leadership aren't just worn-out self help advice: They're experiences lived by people who've wrestled with those questions and more, and are often still grappling with what works and what doesn't. Creative, conscious leadership often doesn't arrive at neat solutions, but keeps moving forward anyway.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com/ 

After first debuting the design in May, Google has just announced that it has completed building the first complete prototype of its self-driving car, with plans to take it on the road next year. And yes, it still looks like a big cartoon ladybug.

Much of the prototype's original design has stayed intact, with the addition of useful elements like blinkers, brake lights, and real headlights. Other differences: Whereas the original Google car looked like it literally had a big smiley face drawn on the front, the new design is more subtly anthropomorphic.

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com/ 

The Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), signed into law by President Clinton in 1998 and extended three times since, was scheduled to expire on November 1, 2014 if Congress did nothing – which they are very good at. ITFA placed a moratorium on new taxes either for Internet access services or for products and services not already taxed in local commerce. A more definitive action, the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA), has been attached to various versions of the ITFA renewals. The MFA would force all remote vendors (regardless of physical presence) to collect and remit sales taxes for every state where buyers take delivery of goods (and services, if subject to sales taxes).

Image: http://www.newgeography.com/ 

Last week, President Obama signed the Tax Increase Prevention Act, which includes several benefits for small businesses and also a benefit for angel investors. We want to get this information out to you, as this benefit relates to investments made in 2014 (retroactively and through December 31).

The new law includes a 100 percent exemption for gains made in Qualified Small Business Stock (also known as “Section 1202”) and this new law effectively means that you pay no taxes on gains from your investments that meet several criteria below and Alternative Minimum Tax does not apply. If you are interested in this program, PLEASE TALK TO YOUR ACCOUNTANT to ensure you have all the information you need to structure your investments to meet all requirements.

The future of the United States is largely an urban one, as Americans old and young flock back to cities in ever increasing numbers. For millennials, the adult ideal is no longer a house and garage in the suburbs, but a condo by the waterfront. Empty-nesters are also jettisoning their sidewalk-less neighborhoods bound by cul-de-sacs for walkability and proximity to the cultural attractions of urban areas. With this rebirth of cities, new demands are being placed on the machinery of urban governments by constituents clamoring for more effective and responsive city governance.

Image: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/ 

As a creative, resourceful entrepreneur, you bring many talents to the table. Some of these skills and gifts are innate, some come from experience, and many come from life outside of business.

Busy people often engage in hobbies and weekend adventures as a way of blowing off steam, building endurance, and having fun. But there are other benefits: Your hobbies and personal interests could enhance your entrepreneurial and leadership abilities. They may also make you more resilient when you're facing a stressful situation. What entrepreneur wouldn't like that?

At the outset, let me state that there is no magic wand for success or a stated formula for an entrepreneur to succeed in his business. However, there are some common traits and qualities that every successful entrepreneur possesses, five of which I list below.

Fortune’s Andrew Nusca and Erin Griffith name some tech trends of 2014 like the selfie stick and emoticons and evaluate their worthiness.

Image: http://fortune.com/ 

When you curl up in bed, consider reading an old-fashioned printed book rather than a smartphone or tablet. Your sleep should be deeper and more restful. That’s the finding of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Anne-Marie Chang et al, Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness]   Researchers had 12 healthy young adults read either a printed book or an iPad for four hours before bed during five consecutive evenings. During the fifth night blood samples were collected every hour via an IV during both the reading and sleeping periods.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When looking at your end-of-year checklist, you may be questioning whether or not now is a good time to incorporate your business. It’s actually a great time to do so, especially if you want to start a new year fresh as a corporation. Benefits to Incorporating Before the End of the Year Incorporating now means that you start the new year as a new business structure. You may have operated as a sole proprietor previously, but you’ll start out with a corporation or LLC in the new year.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

What are some tell-tale signs that you are acing a job interview?

Answer below by Quora user Jeff Schaffzin, outbound marketer

In general, it is hard to tell if you are doing well during the interview, but there are a few signs that show you have a better than average chance of being moved forward:

The interviewer asks that you stay longer so you can speak with other individuals that you were not expecting to speak with until later in the process.

With the New Year just around the corner, digital marketers are already looking at the 2015 calendar and seeing where they can improve on their marketing efforts, and with everyone making their predictions about that the trends we will see in the coming months, it’s clear to see that everyone in the industry is expecting some big changes in the digital landscape.

Whether a startup makes or breaks depends on if you have the right people on the team. How can you know? During my start-up journey as an early employee of an online education startup, co-founder of a social enterprise, and sole founder of my health technology company, ClickMedix, I've been through and witnessed the birth, growth, decline, and eventual end of startups.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

In 1977, at the International Center of Photography in New York, the late American photographer William DeLappa exhibited a series of black-and-white images entitled “The Portraits of Violet and Al.” Revolving around the title characters, it appeared to be a collection of several dozen photographs made by different people from the late 1940s through the early ’60s. Most were snapshots, though one looked like an ID picture made for some official purpose.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com/  - This portrait of Violet from “The Portraits of Violet and Al” is the first in a portfolio of 28 photos by William DeLappa.

The next time you feel frustrated with your aging personal computer, just watch the video above. In these fifty seconds, the National Museum of Computing fires up the Harwell Dekatron, also known as the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computation — or, naturally, the WITCH. Holder of the title of the world’s oldest working original digital computer, the WITCH, first built in 1951, went into retirement from Wolverhampton’s Staffordshire Technical College in 1973. A three-year restoration of the computer — all two-and-a-half tons, 828 flashing Dekatron valves, and 480 relays of it — began in 2008. Now, having just finished returning the machine to tip-top shape, they’ve actually booted it up, as you can see. “In 1951 the Harwell Dekatron was one of perhaps a dozen computers in the world,” The National Museum of Computing’s press release quotes its trustee Kevin Murrell as saying, “and since then it has led a charmed life surviving intact while its contemporaries were recycled or destroyed.”

Image: http://www.openculture.com/ 

Four million privately-held businesses stand to change hands over the next two decades as baby boomers, the largest group of owners of these companies, continue to retire. For a reported 75% of these owners, an exit plan is not in place. There’s one ownership transition few of these companies have thought about: finding a talented millennial, fresh out of business school, and putting him or her in charge. But believe it or not, this is an increasingly appealing option.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved more than $17.6 million in Angel Investor Tax Credit investments to support four New Jersey companies in Somerset, Mercer and Middlesex Counties.

"Investors have pumped more than $46 million in private investment funding into New Jersey tech companies since the Angel Investor Tax Credit program was established last year," EDA CEO Michele Brown said. "This program continues to strengthen New Jersey’s competitive edge and encourage investment in our most promising companies."