Cardiothoracic surgeon Pierre Theodore recently performed surgery wearing Google Glass, the wearable computer by Google Inc., and found he could alternate between looking down at his patient and glancing at that patient’s medical imagery on the lens, the same way a driver can alternate between looking at the road and glancing in the rearview mirror.

University of California San Francisco Dr. Pierre Theodore “I had thought it was going to be a gimmick, but after that I became a zealot,” said Dr. Theodore, who works at University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

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In looking back over the last 3 years, I am completely amazed at how far our region has come in such a short period of time and we are continuing to see substantial momentum and increased velocity in 2013. With help from a recent study completed by our Startup NC partnership, I have listed below several key areas of growth within the Triangle over the last 36 months.

Companies – Anchored by big exits from Sharefile (acquired by Citrix), iContact (acquired by Vocus), Hosted Solutions (acquired by Windstream), and Yap (acquired by Amazon), as well as a recent IPO announcements by Channel Advisor, Quintiles, Chimerex, and LipoScience, the region continues to exhibit the ability to nurture entrepreneurs and grow local startup companies.  Over the past 3 years, more than 400 new companies have been started, representing over 2,000 new jobs.  In addition, over 100 high-growth companies have expanded, representing over 4,000 jobs. These companies represent a wide variety of different industry sectors including software, hardware, tech/media, consumer products, clean-tech, life sciences, agriculture, gaming, healthcare, and social entrepreneurship.

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A recent survey found that Boomers are not going quietly in the night upon hitting the age that was once assumed to be that of retirement. Whether it be for financial reasons, or because they are just not ready to stop working, many between the ages of 45-74 can now be found starting their own businesses rather than relaxing on a beach.

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From big media entities like Google announcing its new Chromecast device, to startups such as Boxee's reported $30 million sale to Samsung, companies of various sizes and specialties have made recent news in TV technology. A space that's rife for disruption, the online video arena has seen players from Apple to Netflix wrestle for years to declare living room dominance. But as a complex ecosystem that involves content protection, syndication rules and ad targeting, this market has been difficult to master.

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A decade ago, I helped found a business dedicated to helping entrepreneurs bring their business ideas to fruition. I've mentored and coached hundreds of entrepreneurs since. Many of my students have licensed their ideas to powerful companies or brought them to market themselves through venturing. I've often wondered what differentiates successful entrepreneurs from their peers. Are there certain qualities they share? I think so. But I also think it's important to acknowledge that timing, luck and simply being in the right place at the right time play a part in many success stories.

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As computers have matured over time, the human brain has no way of keeping up with silicon’s rapid-fire calculating abilities. But the human cognitive repertoire extends far beyond just fast calculations. For that reason, researchers are still trying to develop computers that can recognize, interpret and act upon information—like the kind pulled in by eyes, ears, nose and skin—as quickly and efficiently as good old-fashioned gray matter. Such cognitive systems are critical to transforming waves of big data collected by sensor networks into a meaningful representations of, say, automobile traffic on a particular roadway or maritime weather conditions.

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If your startup is looking for an Angel investor, does it makes sense to present your plan to flocks of Angels, and assume that at least one will swoop down and scoop you up? In reality, hitting large numbers of Angels in multiple locations with a generic pitch is one of the least productive approaches.

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Real-life “Iron Man” CEO Elon Musk, who has conquered space travel and pollution-free land vehicles, will reveal designs for a mysterious 720 miles-per-hour “hyperloop” transportation system today. He’s previously called the system a cross between a “Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table.”

Good bosses have strong organizational skills. Good bosses have solid decision-making skills. Good bosses get important things done.

Exceptional bosses do all of the above--and more. Sure, they care about their company and customers, their vendors and suppliers. But most importantly, they care to an exceptional degree about the people who work for them.

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Is a cluttered or clean desk better for the workplace? A new study published in Psychological Science concluded that it's most beneficial to have a messy desk at the beginning of a project and a clean one at the end.

A messy environment promotes creative thinking and unconventional new ideas, whereas a clean desk will help your mind focus on order and expectations. The move away from chaos (the messy desk) will help you finish your project.

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Everyone's heard of startups being "run out of a garage" — from Apple's original home to Facebook's early residence in Palo Alto, working out of a house has been point of pride for tech entrepreneurs. 

It's not often that we get to take a look inside one of these startups while they're still at this point. Usually, office walkthroughs only happen once a company has moved into a slick HQ that comes complete with a gym and game room.

Small business employment has grown more slowly than big business employment since the end of the Great Recession. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Conventional wisdom is that small business employment declines more in economic downturns, but rises more in economic expansions. Small companies, the argument goes, are more nimble, making their employment decisions more responsive to economic conditions.

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People trying to lose weight  may not always be able to tell whether a new diet or exercise regime is having the hoped-for fat-burning effects. Researchers at Japan’s NTT Docomo, the country’s largest mobile-phone provider, may have a solution—a smartphone-connected device that measures acetone in the breath as a sign of fat-burning.

The exhaled breath of people who are burning fat contains comparatively high levels of the gas acetone. That’s because when fatty acids are broken down, one of the end products is acetone, which is released into the blood and through the lungs in breath. By monitoring acetone concentration, dieters could get a more accurate sense of whether their efforts are working.

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Figuring out how to keep your workforce happy and productive is a skill. It’s one of those things that seasoned CEOs will instinctively know how to do over a fresh-faced counterpart. You’ve just got a startup though, maybe it’s even your first company, so you don’t have the 30 plus years of experience at the helm that your father has. Don’t fret, looking at what drives people (money included), can help you create a work environment — your company culture — that fosters a productive, happy and, most importantly, loyal staff.

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As a growing number of Internet-connected home appliances hit the market, David Bryan and Daniel Crowley worry that digital ne’er-do-wells will get new ways to take control of these devices, unlocking your house, running up your heating bill, flushing your toilet—or worse—from afar.   

Bryan and Crowley, both security researchers at Trustwave Holdings, have been trying to sound this alarm since they heard about the Lockitron, a $179 gadget designed to fit on a standard deadbolt and allow you to lock or unlock your home from your smartphone. At the time, the device had not yet begun shipping to customers, but it piqued Bryan and Crowley’s curiosity. They figured they’d try out other “smart” devices while they were at it, and over the past several months they’ve found that nearly all of them, including lights, a scale, and a toilet, had significant security shortcomings.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra needs money to "Preserve The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Legacy," according to its Internet campaign on Kickstarter.com -- an online, donation crowdfunding portal.

More specifically, ASO's said to prospective backers, "Your donation will enable the ASO Archives to purchase technology necessary to convert three videos of the Orchestra led by world-renowned former ASO Music Director Robert Shaw into digital form."

In return for their donations, ASO offered its $25 backers, "Special recognition on the ASO Archive website."More generous donors received additional tokens of appreciation, and one $1,000 backer got the same tokens of appreciation that all the others received plus, "2013-14 concert season program book signed by Music Director Robert Spano."

Competing in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race--one of the most dangerous offshore ocean races in history--skipper Ed Psaltis and his crew did more than survive the deadly storm. The AFR Midnight Rambler went on to become the overall winner of the race--the smallest boat in 10 years to win the prestigious Tattersall's Cup.

How did they do it? What enabled the Midnight Rambler team to prevail against all odds? And what can your team learn from their experience?

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Does this sound like anyone you know?

"You yourself may be more of the problem than your office and your co-workers are," cautions Randy Murray. "Finding a new, temporary work place may help you get out of your own way and to complete a task, to get some work done."

But why does the workplace shift work well?

Stroll with us, and let's see.

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BHI CEO Rich Bendis recently served as an expert panelist contributing to a special report from the "White House Lab-to-Market Inter-Agency Summit." Panelists examined the U.S. federal government's investment in drug R&D and the resulting private sector commercialization. According to the Summit report:

Federal research has done exceedingly well at accomplishing its original intent, which is to increase human knowledge, meet mission needs, and undertake high-risk research of long-term importance to the U.S. economy that is beyond the reach of the private sector. But commercialization of resulting discoveries from agency research has largely been an after-thought, despite clear Congressional and Presidential intent expressed through a series of legislative mandates and Executive Orders. While research to meet agency missions is critical, the members of the Panel believe that if the U.S. is to remain globally competitive in the 21st century, it must accelerate the translation of federally-funded R&D into commercial outcomes that create economic and public value, thus maximizing the return on the public dollars invested.

By: Joesph P. Allen and Diane Palmintera

On May 20, 2013, the White House Lab-To-Market Inter-Agency Summit was held in Washington, D.C. The Summit was organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The purpose of the meeting was extraordinary: asking national experts outside of the federal agency system to recommend ways to increase the return-on-investment for the $140 billion annual taxpayer expenditure on federally-funded research and development.

The format for the meeting also was unusual. Research agencies nominated 20 national experts experienced in various phases of technology commercialization to participate in the Summit. The Administration placed no preconditions or limitations on the expert Panel and asked it to focus on “transformative” ideas. We were privileged to be asked to serve as the Summit’s co-chairs.

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