The philanthropic organization One Laptop per Child (OLPC) never quite managed to hit its price point for its "$100 laptop," but now the organization is sketching a concept for a $75 tablet computer that it hopes will further decrease power consumption and pioneer the first flexible LCD display.

"A tablet is simpler than a laptop, so it's easier to make a tablet cheaper," says Ed McNierney, OLPC's chief technology officer. But beyond that basic advantage, he says, the key to achieving super-low cost while also innovating is by working to establish common designs that can be broadly adopted and customized by other companies.

The project starts with processor technology from a commercial partner, Marvell, known for super-low power consumption--potentially as little as one watt, compared to the five watts consumed by OLPC's flagship machine, the XO. Marvell is already customizing tablet platforms for use in U.S. schools.

James Sinclair, head of the hospitality industry turnaround firm OnSite Consulting, says one of the biggest challenges his employees have had adapting to the way he runs his business is answering the question, "But where is your company based?"

The answer: Wherever the work needs to be done. "We have 65 people, and we have no office," Sinclair explains. Headquarters is a post office box; he also has an Internet-based phone and unified communications system.

Sinclair used to have an office. "Sure, we picked out a nice office with a conference room and people working away. But our clients don't want to see our office, don't want to see the conference room. They want us to come to them," he says.

Montgomery County's Department of Economic Development is seeking $2 million from the county's rainy day fund to attract biotech companies.

The County Council passed a bill in March allowing the department of economic development to offer biotech firms tax credits, as an incentive for them to relocate to Montgomery.

"We don't have a funding source at this point," Steve Silverman, director of the economic development department, told The Washington Examiner. "It will require a special appropriation of money that would be likely to come out of reserves."

President Obama has made it a priority to address one of America’s greatest challenges, meeting energy demand in a sustainable way by transforming the ways we produce and consume energy. He assembled a team that could help him in this task, such as science adviser John Holdren, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and energy adviser Carol Browner. Congress in turn is working on climate change legislation that could foster a new wave of energy innovation. Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have recently unveiled their new energy bill that would introduce fees on carbon emissions. Other recent developments in Washington have included entrepreneurs, which signals a government push to leverage their risk-taking behavior and the power of individual innovators.

Last month, I joined over 140 participants at a White House Energy Innovation Conference sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation to discuss how to accelerate energy innovation, and support entrepreneurs and small businesses in the energy sector. I encountered many entrepreneurs and innovators among leaders from the federal and state governments, academia, the private sector and the nonprofit sector. Given the nature of the energy challenge, the ability of our nation to innovate in energy requires the risk-taking, ingenuity and determination of entrepreneurs.

Divide your salary by 1,000. While recommending business books on a blog post last week I said a business book pays for itself in less than an hour. A reader asked me how I measured that. If you want quick and dirty, then divide the annual salary by 1,000 and that’s the hourly cost to the company. That’s your time-is-money rate. It’s valid for you, for your team members, for your company.

When I say it’s valid, I mean as a guideline for understanding costs and making decisions. It’s just a rough estimate. And I think it’s probably a useful exercise, so here it is, as you would work it out in your favorite spreadsheet:

First lady Michelle Obama and Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Patrick Corvington announced today that several foundations and private philanthropists have committed a total of $45 million over the next two years to be used primarily as matching funds for programs chosen by the $50 million Social Innovation Fund (SIF).

The rationale behind SIF, which is overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service. is to leverage public money to bring in private money to help develop new social programs that work, and then to replicate those programs. The first batch of 69 applications are now being considered. Grants are to be awarded in July.

If you are a subscriber to Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis's listserv (you are, right?), you probably found your email inbox slammed last week when the list briefly allowed recipients to reply to the entire list. In today's "Jason Nation" missive, Calacanis apologized, explaining the error and using it as a launching pad to discuss what can be an unpleasant but sometimes necessary task: firing an employee at your startup.

In the case of Calacanis's email, it seems, the sys-admins who set up the list accidentally left the "post to list" setting on for several thousand list members. Oops. Calacanis recognized the problem almost immediately and shut the email server down. And according to Calacanis, the individual responsible was apologetic, fearing that he'd be fired.

To achieve victory in the corporate world, a start-up needs three things, says serial entrepreneur and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. One of those – a product that’s ten times better than the nearest competitor – has a little wiggle room, but the others need to stand firm. Andreessen describes all three in this entrepreneur thought leader lecture given at Stanford University.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) has announced it is soliciting applications for the FY 2010 "Mapping Regional Innovation Clusters Project" competition.

EDA is allocating $1,500,000 in FY 2010, anticipating that the mapping regional innovation clusters award or awards made under this competitive solicitation will involve a multi-year project period, with total funding for this research effort reaching up to $1,000,000 for each year. Funding beyond the first year for the grant award shall be contingent on satisfactory performance, availability of appropriations, and EDA priorities.

A Chinese machine clocked in as the second-fastest on the latest list of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers—making the country a serious challenger to American dominance in the industry.

The speedy Chinese computer, called Nebulae, is based at the National Supercomputing Center, in Shenzhen. It reached a computing speed of 1.27 petaflops, a rate of one quadrillion calculations per second. The machine is theoretically capable of running at almost three petaflops, the highest speed ever. The Cray Jaguar supercomputer, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, remains the world's fastest machine on record at 1.75 petaflops, though its theoretical peak performance is lower than Nebulae's.

America needs to transform its energy system, and the Great Lakes region (including, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and western New York) possesses many of the needed innovation assets. For that reason, the federal government should leverage this troubled region’s research and engineering strengths by launching a region-wide network of collaborative, high intensity energy research and innovation centers.

Currently, U.S. energy innovation efforts remain insufficient to ensure the development and deployment of clean energy technologies and processes. Such deployment is impeded by multiple market problems that lead private firms to under-invest and to focus on short-term, low-risk research and product development. Federal energy efforts—let alone state and local ones—remain too small and too poorly organized to deliver the needed breakthroughs. A new approach is essential.

A Nova Southeastern University study recently presented at a national conference found that 80 percent of poker players around the world reported using drugs and other substances to enhance their performance in poker.

Poker players are using drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, Valium, and other prescription medications, as well as substances including caffeine, energy drinks and guarana to get an edge over their opponents.

The latest crop of Facebook rivals is not driven by monetary ambitions but more altruistic causes. These efforts at snubbing the world's most popular social network site are being spearheaded by those aggrieved or even outraged by Facebook's actions.

A group of four students from NYU’s Courant Institute are in for a busy summer, with their concept of a “privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network” having received $200,000 from nearly 6500 backers on fundraising site Kickstarter.com. Their still-to-be-coded network is called Diaspora.

How do you bring up a successful entrepreneur?

During a Q&A earlier this week in New York City, one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs had a chance to ask his father that question.

Bill Gates Sr., father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the author of the book “Showing up for Life,” told a packed auditorium at the 92nd Street Y that he wasn’t quite sure.

There are many things that make me a crappy entrepreneur. Just naming a few: I second guess myself, I spend too much time on projects, and the act of speaking to people in real life makes me want to throw up. Not exactly a shining example of a business owner, right?

That said there is something that has helped me in my trials as a reluctant entrepreneur. Do you want to know what it is?

I’m competitive. And I’ve been taught how to compete.

As a kid, my competitiveness was channeled through sports. Being tiny and less than 100 pounds through the age of 14, I broke a lot of bones hurling my body at competitors on the soccer field. I had no fear of getting hurt, even if that meant I spent much of my youth in arm casts.

SAN FRANCISCO — When one of the most important e-mail messages of his life landed in his in-box a few years ago, Kord Campbell overlooked it.

Not just for a day or two, but 12 days. He finally saw it while sifting through old messages: a big company wanted to buy his Internet start-up.

“I stood up from my desk and said, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ ” Mr. Campbell said. “It’s kind of hard to miss an e-mail like that, but I did.”

The message had slipped by him amid an electronic flood: two computer screens alive with e-mail, instant messages, online chats, a Web browser and the computer code he was writing. (View an interactive panorama of Mr. Campbell's workstation.)

National Science Foundation - A new initiative promises to monitor the impact of federal science investments on employment, knowledge generation, and health outcomes. The initiative--Science and Technology for America's Reinvestment: Measuring the Effect of Research on Innovation, Competitiveness and Science, or STAR METRICS--is a multi-agency venture led by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

STAR METRICS will help the federal government document the value of its investments in research and development, to a degree not previously possible. Together, NSF and NIH have committed $1 million for the program's first year. There are two-phases to the program. The first phase will use university administrative records to calculate the employment impact of federal science spending through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and agencies' existing budgets. The second phase will measure the impact of science investment in four key areas:

• Economic growth will be measured through indicators such as patents and business start-ups.
• Workforce outcomes will be measured by student mobility into the workforce and employment markers.
• Scientific knowledge will be measured through publications and citations.
• Social outcomes will be measured by long-term health and environmental impact of funding.

For more information about STAR METRICS, please visit here.

The process of selecting, pitching and ultimately negotiating with a VC can be intimidating, especially to those not accustomed to the world of high finance. I asked Lori Hoberman, head of Chadbourne & Parke LLP's emerging-companies/venture-capital practice in New York, to explain the various steps. Here's what she said:

Pinpoint the ideal VC.

First, an entrepreneur must target the right venture capital investment fund to pitch. That requires some research. It's a good idea to attend venture capital and private equity conferences. Ask an attorney or accountant for a referral. Online databases such as VentureSource (owned by Dow Jones) provide information on the latest venture deals. And most VCs host websites that describe their "sweet spot" and existing portfolio investments, Ms. Hoberman says. Don't waste time pitching your biodiesel fuel business to a VC that only invests in software.

Prepare a "teaser" document.

This one-or two-page document that you send to VCs is your way of introducing yourself—and it's got to be memorable. Tell the VC who you are, what need you fill in the market and how that market translates into dollars. Because most VCs are barraged with investment requests and can give each one only limited consideration, every sentence of your teaser needs to "answer the question about why an investor would ever dream of putting money into you," Ms. Hoberman advises. "It forces you, as the entrepreneur, to think in sound bites." She recommends incorporating text and graphics (pictures, pie charts or graphs) into the document. "The whole idea is to tease the investor into wanting to hear more," she says.

In this post, I am pleased to be able to share some insights on what Chris Thoen, Managing Director of Open Innovation at P&G believes will drive and/or impact the future of (open) innovation.

Developing regions: There will be a tremendous amount of innovation in and from developing regions which is driven by population as well as capability growth in countries such as India, China and Brazil.

Consumers/communities: Innovation will be driven by consumers and communities with the keywords being co-creation, “wisdom of crowds”, crowdsourcing and social media.
Societal bets: Societies will drive more innovation through their bets on alternative/renewable energy, communications technology and software/networks/smart grid, etc.