MADRID — Portugal avoided a possible collapse of its government after the country’s two leading parties ended on Saturday a monthlong standoff over next year’s budget.

The deal is also likely to be welcomed by investors, who had pushed Portugal’s cost of borrowing to record highs in late September over concerns about the budgetary impasse and the government’s inability to cut its core deficit this year.

Portugal is among a handful of nations using the euro that have struggled to shake off investors’ concerns about their finances, especially after Greece’s near collapse earlier this year, which required an emergency bailout.

AT the annual South by Southwest gathering of techies in Austin, Tex., in March, conference organizers had chosen a hangar-size room to accommodate their star speaker: Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter, the messaging and social networking site that had become a digital phenomenon.

In a private moment before the doors opened, Mr. Williams, who is famously deliberate and cautious, snapped a photograph of the endless rows of chairs facing the stage and posted it on Twitter.

“Gulp,” he wrote.

The classic movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail includes a scene in which King Arthur and his men ignore warnings about a killer rabbit with huge fangs. Only after one of the knights is ferociously attacked do they finally believe that such cuddly-looking creature could be the “most foul, cruel and bad-tempered thing you ever set eyes on.”

The same can be said about the numerous Question & Answer players that people unwisely dismiss but which are working hard to develop fangs and become a danger to Google’s current search dominance.

Q&A companies like Quora, Peerpong and others are seeking to become the next Google in what many are eyeing as the next stage of search: capturing specific knowledge and providing the best answers to any question through the Internet.

there is one technology which is truly essential and ubiquitous in our world, it’s electricity. Yet few of us have any idea how the power grid works. That’s going to have to change. Understanding the grid of today is the key to building the grid of tomorrow, a theme which VentureBeat will explore next week at its GreenBeat 2010 conference at Stanford University. The theme: “Charging the Super Grid.”

So what is the super grid and how will we get there?

The current grid is a complex and aging infrastructure based on 19th-century technology. But lately, the energy sector has been focused on building what some have called a “smart grid” — using information technology to make the existing power infrastructure more efficient and easily monitored. That market itself was worth $21 billion last year and is poised to double to $42 billion by 2014.

Thirty seconds into my pitch for a system that lets users control the ads they see, I can tell that my audience gets it. The problem is clearly understood, the solution is simple, the use cases are well-defined, the market size is compelling. There’s only one hitch: History says this effort won’t succeed.

Over many years, there have been many smart entrepreneurs who have made the same pitch, and all of them have failed. So I must answer the question — the capital-Q Question — “Why will you succeed where the others before you have failed?”

It’s a good question, and it has more wrong answers than right answers. But this question is sometimes the wrong one — especially when it suggests that an idea isn’t worth pursuing just because there’s been a history of failure.

For the second time in history a research organization is rewarded with the EARTO Innovation Prize. The prize honors research that has a high potential for future applications in economy and society. This year a team developing new solar cells receives the award.

»We are honored by the reward given to Fraunhofer,« states Prof. Ulrich Buller, member of the Fraunhofer Executive Board, who took the prize during the ceremony in Brussels. Currently 350 Research and Technology Organizations throughout Europe are members of the EARTO, the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations.

The awarded research was done by a team of scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg. Dr. Andreas Bett and his colleagues developed concentrator solar cells with almost double the efficiency levels of conventional silicon-based cells. This was possible by stacking three different solar cells monolithically on top of each other, thus using almost the entire solar spectrum for energy production. The unique cells have established a new benchmark.

On 27 October 2010, EARTO presented the findings of an independent study on the role and impact of European Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) – the first of its kind at European level. The study, conducted by the Technopolis Group, demonstrates that RTOs are key actors in the European innovation system. It estimates their annual economic impact in Europe at up to €50 billion. The report also highlights RTOs’ importance in tackling key societal challenges. However, the report states that governments are failing to fully leverage the innovation capability of RTOs and makes a number of important recommendations to fully exploit their potential.

The study was released at the award ceremony for the 2010 EARTO Innovation Prize, which went this year to the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft for its highly efficient concentrator module for solar panels. Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn presented the 2010 EARTO Innovation Prize to the winning team, after sharing her thoughts on future direction of European research and innovation policies with the audience. The winning innovative technology has already transformed the future of solar power by doubling the efficiency of solar panels compared to conventional silicon-based cells. It is a good example of how RTOs can exploit and adapt research effectively for the benefit of society and the economy.

The report explains that RTOs build bridges between basic research and practical applications, working with both universities and enterprises to find practical solutions to key societal challenges, from security of energy supply to resource scarcity or healthy ageing. They have a track record of increasing the rate of innovation in Industry by enabling companies to go beyond the limits of their internal technological capabilities. They significantly contribute to economic growth through more effective exploitation of research and adaptation of existing and new technologies for specific applications.

AUTHORS quickly find a certain predictability to many of the questions they encounter on a book tour. But a few weeks ago, during the second stop on the tour for my new book, I found myself being interviewed in front of a Seattle audience and responding to an opening question that I had never been asked before: “Are you a Communist?”

The question was intended as a joke, but like the best jokes, it played on the edges of an important and uncomfortable truth. I had just spent four years writing a book about the innovative power of open systems that work outside of or parallel to traditional market environments: the amateur scientists of the Enlightenment, university research labs, open source software platforms.

If you’re looking for one of those light-bulb moments, Laurel Delaney at Open Forum brings nine ways to jumpstart your creativity in Thomas Edison fashion. A few of her suggestions include:

Assess and maintain your current network. Go look at your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Surprised by the number of people in your networks? If you’re like Edison, you’re not. Edison would list his contacts in a special notebook. The intent was “to plan for regularly touching base to solidify relationships within a network.” In Edison’s communications, he focused on something that might interest or benefit the recipient.

For 25 years, we’ve have Farm Aid to help those who grow our food. We have events like Band Aid and Live Aid to help those throughout the world deal with hunger and famine. And we have memories of Comic Relief helping the homeless. All worthwhile causes, with a clear purpose.

Three years into the worst recession in decades, who’s helping those out of work?

Where is “Job Aid”?

The President? Handcuffed and/or hapless. Politicians? Not even close – way too busy supporting personal and party agendas (and major corporations). Pundits and Preachers? As vocal as these media mouths are, they do little or nothing.

The University of Arizona is making a shift to move at the speed of business by separating its technology transfer efforts into a separate nonprofit corporation; a move that should bring more research dollars, create more local jobs and create a better working relationship with the business community.

The initiative involves the forming of a 501(c)3 organization under the tentative name of the University of Arizona Research Corporation, which will be under the umbrella of the University of Arizona Foundation.

The overhaul of tech transfers and company spin-offs is an effort to take better advantage of the more than $600 million in research expenditures the school will use in fiscal year 2010.

“You almost waste the money spent on research if you aren’t creating new companies right here in Southern Arizona,” said UA Provost Meredith Hay introducing the plan Oct. 28 at Ideafunding, an annual entrepreneur event sponsored in part by the university.

The current Canadian immigration selection system favours skilled immigrants. They are viewed as part of the solution to the problem of an aging population and shrinking workforce. But beyond this, immigrants are making Canada more innovative and that is a good thing according to a just-released report by the Conference Board of Canada, entitled “Immigrants as Innovators”. The report indicates that “innovation” is now the fundamental driver of output and productivity and it is critical for a country’s continued economic growth.

Lester Thurow, the eminent economist and former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management believes that the world has fundamentally changed. According to Thurow, the “old foundations of success are gone. For all human history the source of success has been the control of natural resources—land, gold, oil. Suddenly, the key to success is ‘knowledge’” and in particular, the ability to exploit the value of knowledge. Simply put, innovative individuals use their knowledge and creativity to turn information and ideas into value. They have become the most important currency for industrialized countries and businesses. The report purports to evaluate the extent to which immigrants are contributing to innovation in Canada and concludes that they are making a positive difference.

One of the challenges of small businesses going global is the complexity of dealing with language and local requirements. However, if you do your homework, you can sell your products and services outside the U.S. even if your sales and marketing budget is small. One of the most cost effective ways to sell across borders is to use your website, either for eCommerce, or as an informational and lead generation site. Here are 4 key ways to ready your website for international business:

(1) Internationalize your website content

Buyers are much more likely to buy if a website is in their own language.  For the small business, providing website content in other languages can be a particular challenge because it’s costly to translate text into multiple languages.  One way to keep costs in control is to translate text or provide country-specific sites only for the country or countries where you sell the most.  Organizations like Lisa.org and Gala Global provide resources to help businesses localize their products and websites, including links to translation services.  Don’t forget Spanish speakers in the U.S. — more and more businesses are providing Spanish translation specifically for this market within our own borders.

Expensive hats.

The cost of going to a public college has increased by 24 percent in the past five years. The cost of private school is up 17 percent.

But that’s just the sticker price. The value of grants and scholarships has also gone way up, wiping out the average increase at private schools and blunting it at public schools.

Here are some of the key numbers from a report released today by the College Board.

I’m often asked by people, “how do I get into VC?” and I normally respond by saying, “there is no easy path. It’s often a combination of luck, relationships & timing. Often these jobs aren’t even publicized.”

Well, I know 3-4 VC jobs that are publicly available. GRP Partners is looking to hire two analysts (maybe even three) to join our practice in Los Angeles. There is no “exact” specification I can give you for what would constitute the successful candidate because it could be somebody from a wide variety of backgrounds. At the highest level we’re looking for somebody really intelligent, digitally native, financially numerate and interested in startups.

One of the most important questions you will be asked by potential investors is how your solutions beats the competition, not just today, but over the three to five year life of their investment. There is no perfect answer to this question, but there are many wrong answers which will immediately jeopardize your credibility.

The concept is called “sustainable competitive advantage.” A good answer might be “We have several patents on the base technology, which is so robust that we expect to roll out new products every year for the next ten years, always staying a step ahead of our competitors.” That implies competitive now, and the potential to stay in the lead.

We all recognize that there are no guarantees. So the best responses always require a combination of street smarts, confidence, humility, and honesty. Investors are often just checking to see how you tackle hard questions. Here is a collection of common wrong answers to avoid:

* “We don’t have any competitors.” As everyone should know by now, this is the worst possible answer, since it implies that there is no market for your product, or you haven’t bothered to look for competition. Remember that cars compete with trains, so alternative solutions, or doing nothing, are competition.

If Boston, NYC, and San Francisco are the top three U.S. innovation cities why do their economic, education, health care, and energy systems produce the same poor results as cities around the rest of the country? I read the recent Top Innovation Cities of the Global Economy report from 2thinknow ranking the top 100 global innovation cities with great interest. Of course I quickly scanned the rankings to see which U.S. cities made the list. While I was disappointed my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island didn’t make the cut I was pleased to see our neighbor Boston was ranked number one. Two other U.S. cities joined Boston in the top ten, NYC ranked fifth and San Francisco ranked seventh.

Seems logical to ask if the top ranked innovation cities are delivering more value to their citizens or making more progress on the big social challenges of our time than other cities. What’s the point of innovation if not to deliver value and solve real world problems?

The super grid, the theme of VentureBeat’s next GreenBeat conference, involves a bewildering array of technologies and companies from industry behemoths like GE and Cisco to disruptive young startups. Together, they’re taking existing efforts to build a smart power grid to the next level. With billions of dollars of untapped potential in the profitable collision of information technology, energy, and cleantech, it’s no wonder so many pioneers are staking out territory.

In this article, we cover the major fields of super-grid opportunity and the companies, large and small, playing in them. It’s not an exhaustive list, but rather a guide to the companies we believe are currently best positioned to charge up the super grid.