According to multiple news sources, including The New York Times, Amazon is peddling racially biased facial recognition software to the unsuspecting public. But these allegations are more fiction than fact, as they confuse and conflate two similarly named, but otherwise very different technologies—facial recognition and facial analysis. A closer look at the details of the story shows that the headlines are not supported by the evidence.

SALT LAKE CITY — Intermountain Healthcare is utilizing 3D modeling technology to improve patient experiences and help surgeons prepare for difficult surgeries.

Still, in a testing phase, some Intermountain patients have been able to experience this new technology as they underwent treatment for significant medical conditions.

Cheryl Ledward, a local Utahn, awoke one summer morning and noticed that there were spots in her vision where she couldn’t see some things.

Image: https://www.ksl.com

Companies that hope to compete in the digital world are coming to see that it requires a fundamentally new way of working. On the customer-experience side, digital natives have raised the bar considerably; for example, banks today benchmark their websites and apps against companies such as Amazon and Uber. Internally, despite big investments in digitization, process redesign, and automation, the efficiency ratio at most large companies has stalled. Their improvement initiatives reside in different pockets, such as a digital factory or automation center of excellence, and are seldom integrated.

Hello friends,

It’s that time of year again: new year’s resolutions, hot cocoa, and a frantic pressure to put together a plan to somehow be innovative as the calendar starts anew.

Let’s pause on the panic and look closer at innovation. It takes two factors to make innovation real at an organization:

1. Concepts 2. Culture

Work on both at the same time and the rest will emerge as a byproduct of the process.

In 1938, Bill Hewitt and David Packard, two graduates of Stanford University’s engineering program, decided to start a company in a rented garage with an initial investment of $538. In the decades that followed, their company, Hewlett Packard, became one of the most prominent technology firms in the world.

Image: https://www.innovationexcellence.com

It’s no secret that fried food isn’t good for you. But a new study published in The BMJ details exactly how eating these foods may affect your health over time — and spells out which kinds may be the worst for you.

“People know fried food may have adverse health outcomes, but there is very little scientific evidence to demonstrate what the long-term adverse outcomes are for eating fried foods,” says Dr. Wei Bao, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health and a co-author of the study. “In general, we found that fried food consumption is associated with overall mortality.”

Almost any startup looking to make waves in its industry will end up talking about innovation at one point or another. "Innovation" is that magic word that signals a company’s ability to thrive and not merely survive in the crowded world of startups. And, yes, it may be easy to talk about, but actually setting up a company for innovative success is a bit more complicated.

Entrepreneurship is hard but it doesn’t have to be complicated. More often than not, new entrepreneurs struggle to get their footing and end up quitting before they experience wins because they focus too much on making magic happen instead of working towards effectiveness. Businesses exist to solve a problem and to service others. In this, there are fundamental ideas that can help steer you in the right direction and to help guarantee you some kind of success.

The entrepreneurial bug loves the millennials for their higher risk appetites. Contrary to popular belief, the entrepreneurial spirit is not innate but is an acquired trait. It is built on a foundation of iron-clad determination, grit, and above all, discipline. These qualities prevent the entrepreneur from committing the following five cardinal sins that slowly but surely lead to the death of the enterprise and the dream that sparked it.

Once again, it is that time of year when we swear — on our ancestors’ graves — that we will join the gym, eat healthier and, of course, become wealthier. This will be the year Anno Agendi (this Dholuo sounding Latin phrase means the year of action). This annum, we will make like an Irish leprechaun and find that pot of entrepreneurial gold at the end of the rainbow.

Innovation is a team sport. For projects to succeed, they must be staffed with the right combination of talent. Here is how to ensure your initiatives have the players they need to win.

The CEO of a globally recognized bank is frustrated with the lack of innovation performance delivered by her company. She sets up an incubator charged with developing a portfolio of new high-growth businesses. Inside this incubator, she places teams of high performers from the core businesses of the bank in part-time roles. Recipe for success, or a road to nowhere?

LOS ANGELES, January 24, 2019 - Utah's Provo-Orem metropolitan area took the No. 1 spot in the Milken Institute's Best-Performing Cities index for a second consecutive year, reflecting the robust growth of high-tech industries outside the coastal enclaves that launched the digital revolution.

Provo-Orem was among several Middle American cities in the top-10. Their success did not preclude growth in Silicon Valley. San Jose rose nine places to finish second with the help of tech giants such as Apple and Google. Austin, Texas, placed third after adding nearly 5,000 jobs in its professional, scientific, and tech-services sectors during 2017.

Image: https://www.eurekalert.org

Save U.S. innovation. "America needs a national agenda to ensure that the country remains the global leader in innovation," The Business Roundtable declares in a new study that finds the U.S. complacent in its longtime role as the world's innovation lab. While still tops in R&D spending—public and private spending hit a record $511 billion in 2016—the lead is shrinking relative to efforts by China and other competitors. Among its recommendations, the study calls upon the government to create initiatives that let companies focus on long-term growth over the short term, "a critical condition for undertaking long-term and often-uncertain R&D ventures," the report says.

Image: Alfredo Sosa, a robotics engineer with Diligent Robotics, walks behind the company's medical assistant robot, Moxi, in a hallway at the University of Texas Medical Branch's Jennie Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas, Jan. 21, 2019. PHOTO: STUART VILLANUEVA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The past decade has seen intensified research collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. Although such partnerships are recognized as a source of innovation and a key pillar to advance science in drug discovery, they are replete with challenges. Despite much anecdotal evidence and debate, fact-based evidence on the nature of these challenges and how to manage them is scarce. Here, we present results from a systematic analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from the portfolio of academic collaborations at a major pharmaceutical company, Novartis, which illuminate the challenges associated with industry–academia collaborations.

Image: https://www.nature.com

Until the recession a few years ago, market research indicated that as many as 90 percent of the roughly 20 million American small business owners were motivated more by lifestyle than growth and money. More recently, the desire for extra income has become the key driver in new startups, according to the popular press. It seems that more people are focused on money today.

In the past decade, venture capitalist firms have been investing in blockchain and businesses using technology, but their financial contribution in the industry became more noticeable in the last two years, when the crypto market started to grow. There are more than 120 capital venture firms that have invested in blockchain projects. Our list contains some of the leading blockchain venture capital firms in the industry.

Thank you so much for joining us Jon! What is your “backstory”?

I grew up in California and started my career in Silicon Valley at Fisher Investments helping high net worth individuals with investments.. I quickly moved in to tech consulting which provided a lot of exposure to Silicon Valley’s robust startup ecosystem in mid 2000s.

Corporations are maligned for conducting “innovation theater” instead of taking serious approaches to working with external partners. CB Insights even created an infographic describing eight ineffective patterns of corporate innovation, including pilgrimages to Silicon Valley, adopting tech jargon, and launching an accelerator. Corporate executives often make excuses for these stereotypical behaviors, claiming they are taking it slow.

Today, Anurag Jain is sitting atop the corporate and investment world, despite having first arrived in the U.S. almost 25 years ago via a 20-hour low-cost smokin- section flight from India to Detroit.

Jain previously told D Magazine, “I got off [the plane] in this new country, and I’m just like, ‘Where is my story going to be?’ I still remember not being able to afford coffee.”

Fast forward to the present where Jain—managing partner, Perot Jain, and chairman, Access Healthcare—is taking the lead in investing in early-stage startups with a recent emphasis in B2B emerging tech including AI, AR/VR, big data, cybersecurity, and blockchain. Given this investment approach, Jain has a lot to say about emerging technologies and the business climate that surrounds them. If North Texas is to take its place in the pantheon of tech hubs, Jain says four ingredients are vital to such a breakout moment.

Image: https://dallasinnovates.com

When it comes to job interviews, first impressions are everything. You probably know to avoid certain faux pas–like being late, or saying something mean to the receptionist. But you also need to stay away from giving clichéd answers that will discourage your interviewer from advancing you to the next stage.

As a hiring manager (and the founder and CEO a staffing firm), here are some of the most common ones I hear: