Sometimes you're crammed into a line or on public transportation and don't have much choice other than to snuggle up with strangers. Industrial designer Siew Ming Cheng's Spike Away vest ensures unknown people won't want to squeeze next to you. Cheng created the vest for a workshop at the National University of Singapore. "Trains are usually crowded during peak hours. Everybody will push each other to try and get onto the train. How can I protect my personal space? The idea was then conceived," Cheng writes.

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I’m very excited to announce that Balaji S. Srinivasan is joining Andreessen Horowitz as our newest General Partner.

Balaji is both an entrepreneur and an academic. He was the cofounder and CTO of Counsyl, where he developed a new pre-pregnancy genomic test for a variety of heritable diseases.

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Just last week, a new biotech company called Juno Therapeutics was launched to the tune of $120 million in Series A financing. Where did this money come from? From the generous coffers of venture capital firms, including ARCH Venture Partners and the Alaska Permanent Fund. Such it is with every startup—venture capital is part of what makes new biotechs and biopharmas blossom. So, which VC companies invested money in those fields this year? Below is a list of 30 top venture capital firms, and broader financial firms that invest venture capital or other equity in early- to late-stage biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, ranked by total capital under management or, for some firms, total active “committed” capital from funds in use.

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As the virtual currency Bitcoin climbs in popularity and in value, state regulators would be wise to start figuring out a way to make the currency safe and user-friendly in their borders, experts said Thursday.

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Most of the economic activity, resources, growth, and innovation is happening in the cities across the world. The global top 600 cities are projected to generate 60 percent of the worldwide GDP by 2025. And it’s for this obvious reason that startup ecosystems are growing in the hearts of cities and not the countrysides. The cities pack all the venture capitalist money and tech founders and employees all into one place. This is great for Europe and Northern America where cities can be the engines that develop products and services for a large middle class outside of the cities. However, Asia, Africa, South America, and the rest of the world are different.

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EU ministers today (3 December) formally agreed funding for educational and research programmes Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020, two of the largest budget gainers for the 2014-2020 period. The decision by ministers meeting for the Competitiveness Council seals two budget tranches that will rise over the next seven years by 30% from the current period to a total of €80 billion in the case of Horizon, and 40% to €14.7 billion for Erasmus+

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"Mom and Dad, where do babies come from?"

"Oh, sweetie, it's simple. The Amazon drones deliver them to our doorstep in less than 30 minutes!"

Sounds a tad insane, right? But so did Amazon's Prime Air program when it was first announced last week.

Image: http://mashable.com 

One ring to rule them all — or at least manage all of your incoming smartphone alerts.

That's the idea behind Smarty Ring, a Bluetooth-enabled wearable gadget that allows users to check smartphone alerts and manage incoming calls right from their finger.

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We need to come clean about something: we've underestimated the shower. Yes, some very clever innovators have made showers themselves more awesome, like the showerhead that turns from green to red when you're lingering too long or this sleek contraption that lets you shower and does your laundry at the same time.

But there's more to the shower, like the power to free your clothes of wrinkles, fill your ears with knowledge, and open up the spout of your ideas. Here's how.

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People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. --Thich Nhat Hanh The end of procrastination is the art of letting go.

I’ve been a lifelong procrastinator, at least until recent years. I would put things off until deadline, because I knew I could come through. I came through on tests after cramming last minute, I turned articles in at the deadline after waiting until the last hour, I got things done.

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Not every entrepreneur's story is a bootstrapped fairytale. Recently, a HackerNews user going by "themanthatfell" made this lament in a post called "Started a stupid company. Failed.":

Ran out of money. Ran out of credit. Losing house in two months (already foreclosed). Wife pregnant. Three kids all under 6. Pretty sure I am the opposite of everyone here. I am no man. Just a statistic. Everything is gone. Selling spare parts to keep the lights on. It was a nice fantasy. To the rest of you: fight hard and good luck.

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The Wall Street Journal is out with a funny (and brutally honest) takedown of a word that has achieved almost-mythical status among business thinkers like me. That word is innovation, and it’s quickly losing whatever meaning it once had.

Journal writer Dennis Berman begins by citing Kellogg CEO John Bryant, the respected head of a well-run company, who was describing one of its “innovations” for 2013. What was the game-changing, head-spinning new offering that Kellogg unveiled? The Gone Nutty! Peanut-butter Pop-Tart. That’s right, a world that has had to survive for decades with Pop-Tart flavors such as strawberry, raspberry, and cinnamon, can now revel in the spirit of innovation that delivered a Pop-Tart with peanut butter.

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I admit it: The reference to Nixon and kimchi in the headline got me to read it, but this piece on how Bangladesh came to be a world center for apparel manufacturing held my interest. Back in the 1970s, the newly formed country of Bangladesh needed something —anything — to build an economy on, so Bangladeshi businessmen looked to South Korea, which had climbed out of poverty by manufacturing textiles. As people from both countries collaborated to build a textile industry in Bangladesh, most of the culture clash seemed to focus on food: Kimchi made the Bangladeshis vomit, and the South Koreans found the Bangladeshi food repellent. (Nixon's role in the story has to do with global trade limits, which favored Bangladesh once South Korea had hit an export quota.)

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Five years after the start of the worst six months for the U.S. labor market since the Great Depression, we learned Friday that 203,000 new jobs were created in November and the unemployment rate dropped to 7%. Discussion in the immediate aftermath of the news centered on whether the report marked more of the ho-hum same or a sign that, after three years of puttering along, the economy might finally be preparing for a return to something approaching prosperity.

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Flu or influenza (caused by influenza virus) is a miserable experience as it daunts the victim with countless sneezes, head aches and fever.

Flu develops when tiny droplets coughed or sneezed into the air by an infected person are inhaled by an uninfected person. Flu is often confused with common cold. But, they are different, though certain flu symptoms are the same. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, fever and muscle pain associated with flu goes away with prevention and treatment in a day or two, however, fatigue may last for a week.

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It took Dubai more than five years to build the 828-meter Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

But the Chinese construction company Broad Sustainable Building has announced their plans to beat that height record and build the world’s tallest building in 90 days.

Though it sounds unlikely the company has built a 15-story building in six days and a 30-story one in 15 days.

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These days every new entrepreneur understands that an innovative product or service is necessary, but not sufficient, to start a business. You have to build a web presence with marketing content to get visibility above the 51 million other new websites created last year, and attract the customers you need. But most entrepreneurs don’t know where to start.

From Ghana's sprawling electronic waste dump to the gold mines of Borneo, these are places that you won't add to your bucket list of travel plans, but which are killing all the people who don't have a choice about living there.

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While her friends dressed Barbie dolls, Lucy Sanders designed and constructed buildings with Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, and playing cards.  She learned physics by playing with her slinky, and chemistry through her chemistry set.  Sanders says that the board games she played with her family taught her strategy, empathy, and how to win and lose.  Her parents did get her a Barbie — but she and her sister turned her into “gladiator Barbie,” “medieval Barbie,” and “superwoman Barbie.”

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The federal spending cuts brought on by sequestration—cuts that amount to $984 billion in indiscriminate, across-the-board federal program cuts over the next nine years—are putting our nation’s long-term economic competitiveness at risk. The cuts include roughly $85 billion in cuts to federal support of research and development, or R&D. Sequestration is damaging numerous points along the R&D pipeline, including K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, education; university STEM education; and the support of basic research. The federal government plays a critical role in promoting innovation through its support of R&D, but even before sequestration, the federal government’s commitment to R&D investments had reached its lowest level in a decade. As congressional leaders hammer out their long-term fiscal policy in the coming weeks, they must act to reverse this recent trend—and the first step must be repealing sequestration. In order to recommit to and stimulate R&D, however, the government must pursue new and greater investments.

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