Joseph Hudicka’s story is typical of most budding iPhone entrepreneurs. His idea for a software application for the phone — known as an app — is a fusion game of hockey and checkers. He successfully pitched it to investors, who shelled out thousands of dollars to an offshore software development firm. His research and development involved an army of testers and reviewers.

And his marketing efforts were tinged with his passion and enthusiasm for both hockey and technology.

But it all had to get done by 6:30 every evening. That is Joseph’s bedtime. He turned 8 years old in January.

American consumers spend more than $25.3 billion a year on video games, both new and used, according to a report released today by market researcher Newzoo.

That number includes how much money is spent on new console and PC games, as well as online transactions and used games. But it doesn’t include sales of brand new game console hardware and accessories in the U.S., which last year included an additional $9.7 billion in spending, according to market researcher NPD.

Joining the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is thought likely to boost Israel's economic standing and help attract investment.

But Palestinians say Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank contradict OECD values on human rights and free trade.

The 31-member OECD said Slovenia and Estonia would also be invited to join.

Pennsylvania’s entrepreneurs and innovators have drawn on their ingenuity to weather the worst economic storm in more than 25 years. In some cases, as evidenced by the companies profiled in this report, they have blossomed in spite of it. One of the resources they count on most is the Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

The report will be availabel here for download on Wednesday, May 12th.

In 2009, the Ben Franklin Technology Partners sustained a 42% reduction in our state funding. As a result of this dramatic cut, as well as the retreat of many private capital sources from investing in early-stage and technology enterprises, the demand for our investment dollars far exceeded availability.

The cleanup of the April 20th BP oil spill is getting desperate. Shrimp boats are collecting as much oil as they can, but the prospect of 5,000 barrels a day continuing to spill into the Gulf is becoming overwhelming. The National Guard is setting up a plastic fence along the entire coast. Some individuals are even sacrificing their fashion: they’re stuffing pantyhose with human hair in an effort to absorb oil approaching the shore.

The residents sacrificing their hair may be elated to hear that technology exists to spare their 'dos. A company called AbTech sells sponges specifically designed to clean up oil spills. They’re called Smart Sponges and they absorb oil while repelling water. Even when they’re saturated with oil, the sponges float for easy retrieval. After retrieval, they can be safely transported to waste-to-energy power plants and burned to generate electricity.

We are all familiar with the classic art and innovations of Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison. Despite the passing of centuries, these geniuses are still well-known and revered. Yet many of us know very little about how these highly intelligent men pursued the innovation process itself.

How did da Vinci and Edison go about developing their great ideas? Are there lessons we can learn from their approaches? Bestselling author Michael J. Gelb has devoted years to researching the lives of these legends. I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Gelb about his work:

Q: You've written two books about how Leonardo da Vinci and Edison innovate. How do these innovation approaches apply to today's connected, digital world?

Gelb: Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci predicted that the world would be linked by communication devices, and 100 years ago, Thomas Edison invented much of the technology that spawned our connected, digital world. The principles of creative thinking that they utilized are universal and timeless, and especially relevant today as innovation becomes ever more important.

Having focused last month on efforts to further entrepreneurship abroad leading up to the global Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, this week I wanted to focus squarely on the United States ahead of next month's Global Entrepreneurship Week Partners Forum convened at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. Who are some of the leading players in 2010 driving America's startup culture and how does Global Entrepreneurship Week each November enable them to combine voices in underscoring to the American people how entrepreneurs built America?

The U.S. of course has a very wide range of organizations promoting “entrepreneurship”.  First, there are the established actors consistently doing great work in leading the charge.  These range from, the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO)founded 20 years ago which now has over 7,000 members with a common desire to grow their businesses by sharing their experiences to Junior Achievement and DECA. The latter started more than 60 years ago with the goal of improving education and career opportunities for students interested in careers in marketing, management and entrepreneurship. It organizes various programs, including the Entrepreneur U for the purpose of informing students, administrators and parents about the opportunities for studying entrepreneurship beyond high school. This innovation has been helping bridge the gap between high school students interested in becoming entrepreneurs and postsecondary institutions that have viable entrepreneurship education options.

While more and more companies are adding community managers these days, too many are leaping onto the bandwagon without actually knowing what they’re looking for.

These next-generation communications persons blend social media savvy with an up-to-the-minute knowledge of online trends and master networking skills. But it’s not a one-size-fits-all role. The person and qualities your company requires depend on a number of factors, including where you are in your business’s growth trajectory, how big the company is, your budget limitations and your specific goals.

I’ve been a Community Manager for a year and a half for Sprouter,. When I began, our goals were simple: Build our brand recognition on a grassroots level while working on new features and functionality behind the scenes.

When we launched the current version of our site last August (with a new name and new branding), the focus shifted to getting media attention, gathering feedback from users and answering questions from the community. These days, my role includes speaking at, attending and organizing events, planning out social media strategy, public relations; customer service, content creation – and sometimes playing receptionist. (I should point out Sprouter only has four people on staff).

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s central bank may offer venture-capital type funding after cutting interest rates near zero and committing 20 trillion yen ($212 billion) into money markets failed to halt deflation.

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa yesterday said he wants to bolster economic growth by helping private companies nurture technological innovation in such industries as energy and the environment. A reference for the initiative is a 1998- era program that funneled credit to banks making new loans, he said at a press briefing in Tokyo.

The BOJ’s effort moves it further away from some of its counterparts, with the Federal Reserve phasing out its programs extending credit to private companies following the start of the U.S. economic recovery. Without deeper policy changes by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, the extra provision of cash may go unused, leaving a limited impact on growth, analysts said.

Last week I wrote up Part 1 of my interview with David Egner, president of the Detroit-based Hudson-Webber Foundation and executive director of the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan. The coalition of 10 community and philanthropic organizations is working to support economic diversification efforts in the Detroit region. Egner talked about the attitude of complacency and entitlement that left the region ill-prepared to recover from the auto industry’s decline, and about the political divides that have long held back cooperative efforts to develop promising sectors such as advanced manufacturing and logistics.

In our conversation, Egner described how the organizations behind the New Economy Initiative realized that were all working to solve parts of the same big puzzle, and how they might accomplish more if they worked together. (The foundations have pooled $100 million in grant funds for projects that support entrepreneurship, retooling, and workforce development and education.)

Translating technological innovations into new products and services is a critical factor for the US economy. The UTSA New Venture Incubator (NVI) program is focused on supporting the translation of research into products and services. Specifically, the NVI program is designed to support three types of target companies, namely:

1. Companies licensing and commercializing UTSA Intellectual Property.
2. Companies collaborating with UTSA researchers on sponsored research programs.
3. New student and faculty start-up companies entering the San Antonio technology-based business ecosystem.

The worldwide semiconductor industry continued a broad recovery in March as sales came in at $23.1 billion, up 58.3 percent from a year ago and 4.6 percent from February.

The chip industry trade group, the Semiconductor Industry Association, said that the first quarter of last year marked the low point in semiconductor sales during the global recession and that a recovery has been boosting sales ever since. For the first quarter of 2010, sales were $69.2 billion, compared to $43.7 billion a year earlier. (All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average, a mathematical smoothing technique).

“Global sales of semiconductors set a new high for the month of March and were second only to the record sales reported in November 2007,” said SIA President George Scalise. “Healthy demand from major end markets coupled with restocking to normal inventory levels contributed to strong first-quarter growth. While we expect that 2010 sales will continue to be strong, the year-on-year growth rate will moderate going forward, reflecting the industry recovery that began in the second half of 2009.”

Scientists will face less paperwork under a new bureaucracy-cutting plan outlined by the European Commission yesterday (29 April), which also aims to make it easier for small businesses to tap into European research funds.

Red tape has proven a major turn-off for top-class researchers who fear being overwhelmed by the onerous audit requirements that accompany EU support.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU commissioner for research, innovation and science, says she wants scientists "to spend more time in the lab and less time in the office".

In-car apps have been a bit of a buzzword for some time, but Ford is in pedal-to-the-metal mode since launching its Sync technology last month. The system allows for all sorts of four-wheel fun and japes, including voice control. The next step: cloud-based apps. Six teams of students from the "Cloud Computing in the Commute" program at the University of Michigan have each developed an app as part of a contest run by Ford's Research and Advanced Engineering program.

The winner, Caravan Track, was designed for friends undertaking the same journey at the same time--Spring Break ahoy! After setting a route via the Web, drivers can share vehicle telemetry like fuel level and speed, keep an eye on their fellow drivers, and send notifications about road conditions and hazards via a multiple-choice interface (no need for a keyboard or typing).

EcoStrategy Group’s new report, Trends in Sustainability Reporting:  A Close-Up Look at Bay Area Companies, provides a helpful overview of the business value for reporting on environmental sustainability and a solid checklist of issues to take into consideration if you are about to embark on a sustainability report.

The study analyzes how the top Bay Area companies report on their sustainability efforts and rates their performance based on 14 specific attributes including: materiality, stakeholder relevance, target setting/tracking and completeness.

The report begins by exploring the question, “Why Companies Report?” I find two of the answers most compelling: to respond to increasing volume of inquiries and to manage reputation and brand image.

It includes an assessment of what elements make a sustainability report stand out.

Cisco, Ericsson and Fujitsu topped Greenpeace’s third annual ranking of global IT companies on their efforts to address climate change.

Greenpeace announced the release of the third version of their Cool IT Leaderboard, which reveals how some global IT companies are leading the industry by proving the potential of IT solutions to address climate change and reshape energy use. The rankings are based on three categories: Solutions — the technologies that a company has developed to improve efficiency; Advocacy — how much effort companies, and particularly their CEOs, are putting toward the passage of global climate legislation; and Footprint — the commitments companies have made to reduce their own emissions.

Greenpeace is urging IT and communications companies to get involved with energy policy and take advantage of the commercial possibilities in lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The NGO estimates that applying IT to power generation, transportation, and buildings can result in 15 percent emissions reduction over the next 10 years. They want evidence that IT companies are not only developing solutions for their customers, but measuring and reporting their own carbon and energy savings potential. It notes that cloud computing, a major IT industry initiative, poses “a major challenge” to IT’s positive contributions to climate control by centralizing compute power and resources in energy-hungry data centers. Read Greenpeace’s new report, Make IT Green: Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change, which shows that cloud-based computing has potentially a much larger carbon footprint than previously estimated.

“Startup”, “Entrepreneurship”, “Venture Capital”, “Social Media”, “twitter”, “Facebook”. All the wrong kind of tags are mightily sized on the blog of an entrepreneur who is not building a product around these tags.

An entrepreneur’s job is to build a product, do sales/marketing, evangelize the same and acquire customers! Simple. However, most of the times the evangelism is around entrepreneurship, startup culture, raising money, etc. Instead, the talk should be around the code you write, the product development you do, the travel to the customers and the mechanics surrounding the business.

Either the tags are incorrect or the right kind of evangelism is missing.

Depending on when you walked into the room, you could have heard a rousing speech on how angel investors have eclipsed venture capitalists in driving innovation or a sober discussion of why VCs and angels need to work together.

That keynote and panel at Thursday’s 2010 Angel Capital Association Summit in San Francisco, on the heels of the National Venture Capital Association’s annual meeting in Silicon Valley, illustrated the range of sentiments flying around as both types of investors rethink their models.

The three-day angel event drew more than 400 investors from across the U.S and nearly 50 other countries. An informal electronic poll of attendees found that 48% sometimes look for investments that subsequently will require venture capital and 55% thought relations between the two groups are okay but have room for improvement.

1. Finland: 608.2

Because of harsh winters and long nights, among other factors, Scandinavia leads the world in per-capita cups; the greatest addicts, by a large margin, are the Finns. Traditionally, cold countries have been the thirstiest importers, while the tropical exporters haven’t been nearly as enamored of their own product. That’s changing. Brazil, the largest coffee producer, is on track to surpass the U.S. as the world’s greatest aggregate coffee consumer in the next few years. Helping the cause, the Brazilian government has started to include café com leite—coffee with milk—in school meals for kids aged 5 and up.

2. Norway: 322.6

3. Denmark: 180.6

4. Germany: 145.9

5. Slovakia: 144.6

6. Czech Republic: 142.8

7. Sweden: 139

8. United: Kingdom: 134.7

9. Canada: 125.6

10. Greece: 116.2