Articles about how free online courses, or MOOCs, could disrupt higher education dominated the headlines last year here at the Wired Campus blog, and they were the most popular with readers as well. Several articles about e-textbooks also topped our list of most-read articles of 2012, highlighting what has been a time of change, and anxiety, for colleges and universities.

Coursera and Udacity appear most frequently in this year’s top headlines. Both offer MOOCs, or massive open online courses, and both were founded by Stanford University computer-science professors who are now on leave. Together, they now claim more than two million students, though some of those sign up but never complete work in the courses.

Here at Business Insider, we go on a lot of office tours. Only a handful have blown us away. From sprawling roof decks to skeeball, check out 15 spectacularly decorated startups. We've been to them all and can vouch that they're really as cool as they seem.

Only clairvoyants or perhaps Nate Silver can say with certainty what's on tap for technology next year--but here are eight educated predictions:  1. Social commerce margins collapse.   Why, you ask? Surely companies like Gilt Groupe, One Kings Lane, HauteLook, etc., are hot, hot, hot? I don’t think so--at least, not forever. Like social gaming, most will be seen as more of a flash-bang, not a steady flame. The Internet is responsible for a motivated and empowered consumer, who researches the best deals with a few fast clicks of her iPhone. Unfortunately, that translates into the absence of brand loyalty for social commerce companies.  Unless a company has exclusivity--it’s the only place to get a deal on Armani, for example--it’s just part of a passing parade of options for the growing legions of Web-savvy consumers. This trend will really take off as meta-price engines accelerate. 

“Microsoft Bows Out Of CES 2013″ read the headline. It was December 21, 2011, several short weeks before CES 2012 and Microsoft just dropped a bomb: Microsoft would not be returning to CES. Steve Ballmer’s 2012 CES keynote would be his last. It was clear the consumer electronics landscape was changing. As Greg Kumparak wrote for TC at the time, CES 2012 was the noisiest show in recent history. It was dying under its own weight. Something had to change.

And change it has. Next week’s CES 2013 is shaping up to be radically different. It’s the year of the gadget startup.

This year’s CES will not feature Microsoft, Nokia, Dell or HP. The pre-show press coverage has been very quiet. There hasn’t been a circle jerk around blurry images of upcoming flagship gadgets. The traditional gadget blogs have not talking about the show as much because it’s shaping up differently. It’s no longer about the massive players and this rejiggering really excites us at TechCrunch. CES 2013 might finally live up to the show’s potential: to be the greatest gathering of forward-thinking products and electronics.

Tech incubator and seed fund 500 Startups is building its presence in the Big Apple with a new coworking space for entrepreneurs and  portfolio companies.

The news was announced today on Twitter by Shai Goldman, a New York-based venture partner at 500 Startups. An application form is already available for entrepreneurs, although the desks are not available until next month. To apply, you’ll need to be bootstrapped, seed or angel funded, or have raised a first round of institutional funding.

According to 500 Startups, spots are reserved for portfolio companies, but the office also has space for startups in the community. This coworking space is in the Flatiron district, where many startups and tech companies are settling. As TheNextWeb’s Harrison Weber points out, it’s a stone’s throw from rival coworking space and startup hub, General Assembly.

Earlier today, we gave you our picks for the films you need to see this year – and there are a lot of them.  However, if you were forced to pick just five – because no one wants to shell out $200+ on movie tickets – which potential blockbusters would be on your list? Fandango surveyed 2000 people to find out which films audiences are most eager for this year.

Where in the world are the most innovative people? Who works for the world's most innovative companies? Discover why Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore are ranked as the top countries. Find out why Apple, Google, Monsanto and P&G are ranked as the leading innovative companies. Click on the convenient links below to see some suprising results.

January inevitably brings reflection and consideration for what’s next in life. For many of us, as we begin 2013, that means dreams of throwing caution to the wind (as well as reliable paychecks) to make a go of it as entrepreneurs. But dreaming isn’t doing ― and the reality is that most people aren’t willing to take on the risk associated with entrepreneurship.

Since leaving Google nine months ago to found Upstart, I’ve spent a lot of time visiting college campuses, talking to aspiring entrepreneurs across the spectrum of engineers, MBAs, artists, and writers. Thinking back on these visits, I’m struck by the fact that the focal point of entrepreneurial activity on campuses tends to be among freshmen and sophomores. The e-ship clubs and classes are dominated by underclassmen, who are busy starting companies in their dorm rooms, sometimes one right after the other.

We have moved from the Great Recession to the Great Malaise. Despite massive government stimulus, the world’s largest and most advanced economy continues to limp sideways. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. Growth remains slow and prospects for employment growth remain bleak. Wages continue to stagnate. Recent college graduates and young professionals may well be the first generation to live a life inferior to those of their parents, conventional wisdom holds. The United States has entered a period of slow decline, much like the sun finally setting on the British Empire in the 20th century.

Image Courtesy of Rosemary Ratcliff / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With every new year comes change, and change can be scary. Thankfully, we know that there’s at least one way 2014 will be like every year that came before it. Watching scientists make stuff levitate is still cool as hell, same as it ever was.

Image: http://www.wired.com 

For highly innovative group collaborations, do what the big tech firms do: Cycle through collaborations with different pairs and take the long view.

Here’s a deceptively simple question: What company brought you the iPhone? If you said Apple, you’re correct, of course -- but that answer fails to account for the highly collaborative process required to produce a game-changing gadget. In reality, that phone in your pocket would not have gotten there were it not for dozens, if not hundreds, of collaborations between the tech giant and its partners around the world.

Image Courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Companies have access to untapped value in their partnership networks, but many miss out on the available opportunities.

The decline in the fortunes of BlackBerry, the once touted leader in smartphones, could be blamed on many factors; its slow speed to market with new products, its innovation strategy or its niche markets. But one failure that particularly stands out is its lack of a strong alliance network.

Being smart is not enough for creating a successful startup.

There is a wide shelf of good books on how to build a new company, providing a range of useful and practical advice. Two of the best recent examples include Steve Blank’s 4 Steps to the Epiphany and Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup. If you are new to the startup game, Blank and Ries are smart guideposts on the road to becoming a technology entrepreneur.

Signs of late blight appear suddenly but predictably in Ireland as soon as the summer weather turns humid, spores of the funguslike plant pathogen wafting across the open green fields and landing on the wet leaves of the potato plants. This year it began to rain in early August. Within several weeks, late blight had attacked a small plot of potatoes in the corner of the neat grid of test plantings at the headquarters of Teagasc, Ireland’s agricultural agency, in Carlow.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

We’ve talked about robot burger makers. How about virtual tasting, so you could sample your burger before buying it, without grossing everyone out — even taste a pizza before having it delivered?

A National University of Singapore (NUS) researcher has taken an early step in that direction. Dr. Nimesha Ranasinghe has invented a digital gadget that can recreate the taste of virtual food and drinks.

Image: http://www.kurzweilai.net 

Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia that anybody can edit, is one of the more extraordinary collective efforts of the crowd. Wikipedia’s own estimate is that it has some 77,000 contributors working on more than 22 million articles in 285 languages. The largest edition, the English version, alone offers over 4 million articles.

So it’s not surprising that disputes arise over the wording of these articles. Indeed, the controversy can sometimes reach war-like proportions with one editor changing the wording and another immediately changing it back again.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

You’re probably going to flunk out on your New Year's resolutions.

So why make them?

Instead, do what I did along the way to losing 83 pounds: Stop making decisions.

Make Fitness The Default

Image Courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Nest, a startup that makes a "smart thermostat" and an equally intelligent smoke detector, is now hotter than ever with a $2 billion valuation, according to a report.

The figure is based on a $150 million round of funding led by DST Global, according to a report in Re/code. The report states that the valuation could be as high as $3 billion. Nest's last reported valuation figure was $800 million, which was based on an $80 million funding round last January.

I often get asked how I ended up becoming a venture capitalist. When people ask me how they can become a VC, I point them to my partner Seth Levine’s excellent blog posts How to become a venture capitalist and How to get a job in venture capital (revisited). But it occurred to me today – after getting another email asking me how I’d become a VC, that I wasn’t really answering the question.

Amy likes to remind me that when I was an entrepreneur, I used to regularly give talks at MIT about entrepreneurship. I’d say – very bluntly – “stay away from VCs.” I bootstrapped my first company and, while we did a lot of work for VCs, I liked taking money from them as “revenue” (where they paid Feld Technologies for our services) rather than as investment.

Babson College Entrepreneurship Professor Joel Shulman is launching a new mutual fund that invests in “Entrepreneurial” companies. The new fund (ticker IMPAX), considered the first-of-its-kind, has been funded with over $120M in institutional capital. Professor Shulman’s private funds have an 8+ year performance track record and are based on his proprietary models for selecting entrepreneurial companies. YTD performance for the US All Cap fund is over 41% and approaches 50% for US Large Caps.