Once purely a form of entertainment, video games are now being used to explore solutions and educate the public on some of the world most challenging social issues. While many social issues are not new to the public video games offer an excellent tool for getting people engaged and thinking about the future.

One of the fastest growing industries in the world is video games, or interactive entertainment as it is more formally known, forecast to grow at close to 17% over the next two years, to a total global spend of close to $82 billion USD by 2017. Much of the industry’s growth is in mobile gaming (as opposed to console games which require dedicated equipment) using a mobile phone or the internet on a computer.  Every day over 30 million people play Angry Birds, and each week over three billion hours are spent playing video games.

With Georgia’s promising technology center still hamstrung by a lack of cash, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is pushing legislation to combine state money and private dollars into a new venture capital fund. It could be a game-changer for the kind of jobs the state covets, but it also comes with high risk.

Cagle’s proposal would dedicate $100 million in state money over the next five years to the fund, which would be overseen by an independent investment board. To do so, the state would offer up either tax credits or draw from its OneGeorgia fund, which it uses to seed economic development.

The board would recruit large venture capital firms to throw private money into the pot. It would then choose which startups to invest money in. If all goes well, based on each contract, it would recoup its original investment plus 80 percent of profits — which would go back into the fund. The firms would get the remaining 20 percent.

Website development is not easy for the web designer or for the client, but there are things you can do to make things easier for your designer. There are also things that you can do that will make them very agitated and angry.

Because the web development process can be difficult and tedious I am going to tell you about some things to avoid doing so your working relationship with your developer will be better. (Side note: I am fully aware that there are web design companies that drop the ball; perhaps we will touch on that in a different article.)

You know Google is huge. Facebook, too. You probably remember Yahoo. Amazon is massive, of course. And oh yeah, eBay! But we bet you can't name the other 15 biggest Internet Web sites … in order. We can, thanks to ComScore, which provided us data on December 2012's most popular Web domains in the US.

Marc Andreessen, the creator of Netscape and a partner of Andreessen Horowitz, isn't afraid to speak his mind. Andreessen, who is invested in Pinterest, Foursquare and Business Insider, recently discussed the future of commerce with PandoDaily's Sarah Lacy. He told her traditional retail stores will die off, and e-commerce stores will be the only way we shop in the future.

For a long time, Facebook was the most dramatic, exciting company in Silicon Valley, if not the world. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was a global icon thanks to his remarkably young age. Before 23, he became a subject of intense scrutiny and hero-worship. This all happened for several good reasons. Facebook was a global phenomenon with users. It grew from a few thousand users at Harvard to a few million at college campuses around the country to more than a billion people in about five years.

Scientists have known for decades that the ability to remember newly learned information declines with age, but it was not clear why. A new study may provide part of the answer.

The report, posted online on Sunday by the journal Nature Neuroscience, suggests that structural brain changes occurring naturally over time interfere with sleep quality, which in turn blunts the ability to store memories for the long term.

Previous research had found that the prefrontal cortex, the brain region behind the forehead, tends to lose volume with age, and that part of this region helps sustain quality sleep, which is critical to consolidating new memories. But the new experiment, led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, is the first to directly link structural changes with sleep-related memory problems.

The New York Times is inviting early-stage startups to come work in its 8th Avenue headquarters in an effort to foster relationships between entrepreneurs and the 161-year-old newspaper.

The Times is accepting applications for its TimeSpace program from now until Feb. 19. Between three and five companies will be invited to interface with Times staffers over the course of a four-month residence period, per the application website. The goal (again, via the website) is to seek out new ways of creating, collecting and distributing news and information. The Times says it's primarily seeking startups focused on mobile, social, video, ad technology, analytics or e-commerce who have raised "at least" seed-stage funding.

The tech startups gearing up to make waves in 2013 (and beyond) are far more than just predictable apps — they're solving real problems and changing the way we interact with our daily technology, from hardware that authenticates smartphone transactions to digital billboards to Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

To find out more, I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs to share which startups they're keeping an eye on in the new year. Here's what they had to say.

SV Angel founder Ron Conway made his fortune placing small, early bets on startups that proved to be huge winners. The best example is Google. Now, says an admirer in the Silicon Valley startup investing scene, Conway and his firm are making his money in a totally different way. What he does is… Cozy up to the management and investors of hot, growth stage startups. Ask these investors and executives if they'd like some liquidity.

The Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) will lead in the evaluation of early-stage technologies, provide a strategic plan for start-up companies, advise BHI on opportunities for new ventures, and lead the commercial strategy for mature assets. The EIR influences the BHI organization by strategically managing and providing information, intelligence and insights that drive critical business decisions. The EIR will oversee primary and secondary research and will provide strategic recommendations and insights on the direction of potential assets.

A longtime Boston venture capitalist is striking out on his own, with a new fund that aims to capitalize on big changes in the IT industry and early stage private investing.

Sunil Dhaliwal, formerly of Battery Ventures, is formally unveiling Amplify Partners. The new fund has raised more than $16 million from about 25 investors, with plans to grow to $40 million, according to an SEC filing.

People who advise entrepreneurs over a decent chunk of time tend to have the kind of world-weary perspective you’d expect from someone who has seen so many startups succeed or fail. They know what can scupper investment opportunities and turn off potential investors.

Wayne Barz manages entrepreneurial programs at Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania, an economic development program to foster new companies and job growth. It runs an incubator for life science and technology companies called TechVentures. In a blog entry for its website this week, he called attention to three things startups should avoid when talking to investors.

Imagine that you drive a car straight into a building at 40 mph. Despite airbags and seatbelts, you’d probably feel lucky to be alive. But when an NFL wide receiver meets a safety head-on, we expect them both to get back up to play second down.

What’s the difference?

“In a car crash, you stop in a matter of feet. In an NFL impact, you stop in inches,” one expert tells me.

In the eyes of physics, a big hit on the field can be just as devastating as a car crash--or in many cases, worse. We’re expecting a mere 1.5 inches of foam and candy shell to decelerate a player’s head gently enough to prevent their brain from bouncing around inside their skull and causing poorly understood, but permanent and devastating injury. After talking to some of the brightest minds in helmet design, helmet testing and football physics, the elephant in the room became clear: A concussion-proof helmet is a pipe dream. If the NFL wants concussion-free football, they’ll need to redesign football.

Everyone has bad days at work or even long periods when they feel disheartened about their job. But how do you know the difference between ordinary, occasional dissatisfaction and a genuine mismatch? How do you know when you're truly ready to move on? And how do you then get out gracefully?

What the Experts Say Quitting a job can negatively impact your career and disrupt your personal life. But staying in an undesirable situation can be worse. "I find a lot of people paralyzed by their unhappiness with their current reality," says Leonard Schlesinger, the president of Babson College and coauthor of Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future. It's often easier to stay put. "Most people stay too long in bad jobs because the corporate world is geared towards keeping us in roles, not matching individuals up with their ideal roles," says Daniel Gulati, a tech entrepreneur and coauthor of Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders. But don't let yourself get stuck. Here's how to decide whether it's really time to quit, and if so, how to leave effectively:

On the season four premier episode of Revolution, we sit down with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to discuss how governments can adapt and improve services by embracing the startup culture.

One of Mayor Lee's first orders of business was to form a tech chamber of commerce called SF CITI (Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation) to leverage the collective power of San Francisco's tech sector. Companies include AT&T, Salesforce.com, Jawbone, Twitter and Zynga. Additionally, San Francisco partnered with Code for America to reexamine the way the city delivers services to impoverished people.

Innovation is a product of human activity. Innovation keeps life interesting, yet it begins first, with ideation: the creation of a new thought or idea. In the following article, innovation practitioner Robert Brands shares a few idea management tips to help companies get back to the business of ideation.

If ideas are the seeds of innovation, idea management is the formalization of the processes involved in gathering, sharing, analyzing and executing the ideas generated within an organization and its collaborative networks.

There is discussion about how much effort should be put into developing an innovation strategy especially by small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). Aren’t many successful innovative offerings just a result of trial, error and finally good luck? Insights in more than 1,500 SMEs from the IMP³rove database demonstrate that strategic focus helps secure profitable growth by innovation.

As the number one priority for ICT research, the 10-year FET Flagship projects in graphene and computer modelling of the brain announced this week are guaranteed €1B each - regardless of any cuts in the proposed €80B Horizon 2020 programme

Jari Kinaret, Chalmers University in Sweden The two winners of the biggest basic research grants in EU history – with €54 million for starters in 2013 alone - have been guaranteed the funding will be maintained over ten years regardless of any cuts to the EU’s overall R&D programme.

The Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagships on Graphene and the Human Brain will also be the most collaborative projects ever funded by the EU, with Graphene involving 126 academic and industrial groups in 17 countries, while the Human Brain Project is comprised of 87 organisations in 23 countries, of which 16 are in the EU.

First things first – your startup needs a name! This may seem a silly and frivolous task, but it may be the most important decision you make. The name of your business has a tremendous impact on how customers and investors view you, and in today’s small world, it’s a world-wide decision.

Please don’t send me any more business plans with TBD or NewCo in the title position. Right or wrong, the name you choose, or don’t choose, speaks volumes about your business savvy and understanding of the world you are about to enter. Here are some key things I look for in the name, with some help from Alex Frankel and others: