Minnov8

SmartThings in Wired

Steve Borsch — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:15:31 +0000

You will be hearing A LOT about “The Internet of Things” or “The Internet of Everything” or “Industrial Internet” this year and next. But it was this month’s Wired magazine who devoted the issue’s cover story to “Welcome to the Programmable World.” It starts off with a focus on SmartThings‘ CEO Alex Hawkinson and his ‘smarthome’:

On a 5-acre plot in Great Falls, Virginia, less than a mile’s stroll through exurban scrub from the wide Potomac River, Alex Hawkinson has breathed life into a lifeless object. He has given his house, a sprawling six-bedroom Tudor, what you might describe as a nervous system: a network linking together the home’s very sinews, its walls and ceilings and windows and doors. He has made these parts move, let them coalesce as a bodily whole, by giving them a way to talk among themselves. Open a telnet session in the house’s digital hub and you can actually spy on his chattering stuff, hear what it says when no one’s listening.

There are few more appropriate guides to this impending future than Hawkinson, whose DC-based startup, SmartThings, has built what’s arguably the most advanced hub to tie connected objects together. At his house, more than 200 objects, from the garage door to the coffeemaker to his daughter’s trampoline, are all connected to his SmartThings system. His office can automatically text his wife when he leaves and tell his home A/C system to start powering up.

Great article and it is one you need to read, not only for SmartThings, but because many people (including me) believe strongly that the connected, programmable world will be the biggest thing to hit our world since the internet itself.

Deloitte’s “TMT” Predictions for 2013

Steve Borsch — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:40:53 +0000

Thought you might be interested in a report by Deloitte, LLP, the U.S. branch of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), a UK private company. This global organization (57,000 people just here in the States) sends out an annual predictions report covering the Technology, Media & Telecommunications sectors. Good stuff in here including:

The PC is not dead
The end of password-only security
Enterprise Social Networks
Crowdfunding
Connected TV
LTE adoption
Smartphones ship a billion
Looming spectrum shortage

Download the report here: Deloitte_TMT_Predictions_2013 (PDF)

Minnov8 Gang 217 – Feet Up, Hangin’ Out

Steve Borsch — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:20:07 +0000

The Gang talks Minnesota stories and then a lot about Google I/O and specifically Google Hangout changes.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson (Graeme Thickins is off this week).
Music: Rocket Science from Brain Buckit. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Minnesota Stories
Google I/O
Steve’s Security Tip of The Week
- Do not use secure anything in a Skype IM.

Upcoming Events…

Visualizing Neighborhoods/A Hackathon for Good, Saturday, May 25, 9:00am – 6:00pm
National Day of Civic Hacking MN, Saturday, June 1st – Sunday, June 2nd
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center
WordPress MSP, Thursday, June 27th at 7pm, The Nerdery
Twin Cities Drupal Camp 2013, July 18-20
Cyber Security Summit 2013, October 22-23

Download or listen link

SOPHIA and Bill Nye “The Science Guy” Launch Operation College Success

Steve Borsch — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:18:01 +0000

SOPHIA.org, the “social education platform that empowers students to learn in their own way, helps teachers to innovate and puts college students on a path to a lower-cost degree” just announced that they have partnered with Bill Nye, “The Science Guy,” to address the issue of college readiness and affordability with free resources and low-cost online courses for college credit.

From their press release: “It’s startling to think that two-thirds of high school students don’t have the academic skills they need to succeed in college and with the added cost of remediation, which collectively costs student billions, the goal of earning a college degree becomes that much harder to attain financially,” said Allison Gage, President of SOPHIA. “With Operation College Success, students now have more free resources at their fingertips that can help them get prepared. In addition, we also offer affordable college courses in several high-demand general education subjects that will start them on the path to a degree.”

The Bill Nye connection will certainly help with awareness and marketing. This offering will also help prospective students defray preparatory course costs at their chosen institution of higher learning since they are always expensive. With soaring student debt (see Student Debt and the Crushing of the American Dream by the economist Joseph Stiglitz) the timing of this offering is perfect.

Minnov8 Gang 216 – Passwords? We won’t need no stinkin’ passwords!

Steve Borsch — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:20:10 +0000

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Tim Elliott is off this week).
Music: Don’t Walk Away from Smoke Ring Days. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Minnesota Stories
Internet Sales Tax
- A guide to the Internet sales tax bill, and what it will mean for you
- Internet sales tax: What you’ll pay, and when
Steve’s Security Tip of The Week: We won’t need no stinkin’ passwords!*

Upcoming Events…

Looking for Start-Up Capital? Monday May 13th, Carlson School UofMN
Exploring Big Data and Scaling Social Wednesday, May 15, 7:30am
Visualizing Neighborhoods/A Hackathon for Good, Saturday, May 25, 9:00am – 6:00pm
National Day of Civic Hacking MN, Saturday, June 1st – Sunday, June 2nd
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center
Cyber Security Summit 2013, October 22-23

*Reference to the quote “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!“ (actually a misquote) from the movie, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” (15 second clip from the movie here).

Download or listen link

What Hospitals Charge – Some $8k, Others $38k

Steve Borsch — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:21:58 +0000

One of the reasons healthcare costs have spun out of control is that most consumers are blind to those costs. There isn’t an easy method of shopping for price and little-to-no incentive for doing so since most consumers only care about their small co-pay.

That all changes today with a “big data” play.

“Consumers on Wednesday will finally get some answers about one of modern life’s most persistent mysteries: how much medical care actually costs.

For the first time, the federal government will release the prices that hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. Until now, these charges have been closely held by facilities that see a competitive advantage in shielding their fees from competitors. What the numbers reveal is a health-care system with tremendous, seemingly random variation in the costs of services.”

– From the Washington Post

An interactive table allowing a quick scan of each State’s cost ranges for various
procedures, this data display is one of cost ranges in Minnesota – Washington Post

As an owner of multiple small businesses there is no question that I keep a close eye on medical costs and have had personal experiences with the virtual impossibility of being able to shop for medical procedures by cost and efficacy. This is a fabulous first step in bringing a much-needed level of transparency to a healthcare industry which the U.S. spends more on than any other country in the world (and over 15% of our GDP too).

Minnov8 Gang 215 – We be jammin’

Steve Borsch — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:48:11 +0000

Several good Minnesota stories this week, including about JamStik, a cool device that works with iPad for teaching guitar. We be jammin’ now, heh?

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week).
Music: Surfin’ with Slayer from Glitter Dick. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Minnesota Stories:
- MHTA‘s Spring Conference recap
- SMBMSP
- Carlson School SOBACO event
- Google for Entrepreneurs at CoCoMSP
- Spark Devices Launches ‘Spark Core’
- Best Buy:
- JamStik – Real Strings, Real Frets. Turn your iPad into a Real Instrument
Google:
Apple:
- Apple’s Stock Price and Twitter Analysis Amplification
- Horace Dediu on the bad habits of Apple analysts and why Tim Cook shouldn’t be fired
Whacky Kickstarter Project of The Week?:
- Casetop – Every Phone Becomes a Laptop
Other:
- Palm Foleo

Upcoming Events…

Google for Entrepreneurs, STEP-UP Achieve Training Program, Saturday, May 4, 2013 9:30 am to 4:30 pm
Visualizing Neighborhoods/A Hackathon for Good, Saturday, May 25, 9:00am – 6:00pm
National Day of Civic Hacking MN, Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM – Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 4:00 PM
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center
Cyber Security Summit 2013, October 22-23

Download or listen link

Fargo Roadtrip: Midwest Mobile Summit

Phil Wilson — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:15:15 +0000

There are very few reasons for me (a 6′ 5″ guy) to want to drive for four hours. Family is usually the only reason…with Iowa and (gulp) Kansas frequent destinations. With destinations like that, I’m never looking to see more flat terrain like that found heading to Fargo from Minneapolis. However, the lure of the first ever Midwest Mobile Summit was strong enough for me to caffeine up and set out Sunday for the 2 day event.

I was excited to be heading to an event with a very grassroots vibe. Jake Joraanstad and Ryan Raguse of Myriad Devices were responsible for putting this event together that attracted some 150-200 to downtown Fargo and it appears to have been a resounding success.

The multi-site format showcased mobile technology, strategy and industry tracks and three different downtown locations. The Fargo Theater, with it’s nostalgic feel, including an organ front and center, provided homebase for keynotes as well as the setting for the strategy track. The event even started with the organ rising to the stage. After some brief remarks we were all treated to ‘feats of yo’ from John Narum, Yo-Yo World Champion at 11 years old. It was a nice way to get everyone engaged.

The Sunday keynote from Ryan Raguse set the tone with a dramatic smashing of the “box” that represented pre-mobile technology. The rest of the day and , for that matter, the rest of conference presented an array of topics. Some presentations were ok at best but most were above average and some simply crushed it. (Johnathon Rademacher of Sundog and Livefront‘s Mike Bollinger were the clear standouts.)

Many real world mobile experiences were shared throughout the Industry track. While finance and heavy equipment may not be sexy industries that represent a category that has plenty of need and opportunity for mobile solutions.

For a first-time event this was huge. Not only was there plenty of local talent in attendance but plenty made the trip from outside the state. The chance to enjoy strolling from the historic theater to more modern and artistic spaces provided a nice transition. There was a clear passion for mobile and plenty of opportunity to learn. I look forward to next year. I can even visit my son since is heading off to NDSU in the fall. (See, family is once again I drive for hours across the plains of the heartland.)

*Many of you know I’m co-founder of Mobile March and am happy to see the birth of another mobile event with such a community focus.

Bruce Sterling’s Talk to Startups

Steve Borsch — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:44:41 +0000

Always on the hunt for thought leaders who are thinking strategically about the future, I watched the video below last night and it sparked so many thoughts I was compelled to share it with you.

Bruce Sterling is one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction. A prolific science fiction author, he is generally recognized as one of the world’s foremost visionary futurists. He also has a blog you should follow at Wired called, “Beyond the Beyond.”

In this talk at NEXT Berlin, “The leading European conference for the digital industry,” Sterling talks about design fiction, touts a firm called called superflux out of London (and Anab Jain has recreated her NEXT13 talk in blog post form, “Design for the New Normal“), and brings forth something a bit uncomfortable for anyone doing a startup: You are working to make VCs richer and not yourself.

What is ‘design fiction’? In this Slate interview Sterling sums it up as this:

It’s the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change. That’s the best definition we’ve come up with. The important word there is diegetic. It means you’re thinking very seriously about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends or geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories.

Watch this and make a comment on what you think…

Minnesota Cup Application Process Now Open

Steve Borsch — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:18:59 +0000

The ninth annual Minnesota Cup competition – the largest statewide new venture competition in the country – will close its application window on May 17 at 11:59 p.m. Entrepreneurs, inventors and small businesses have two weeks to enter their breakthrough business ideas on Minnesota Cup’s website for a chance to compete for $200,000 in prize money.

The competition is free to enter and encourages entries from a wide range of business ideas in six divisions - Energy & Clean Tech, General, High Tech, Life Science & Health IT, Social Entrepreneur and Student. Entrepreneurs advancing in the competition will have the opportunity to advance business ideas, gain exposure, learn about resources available to entrepreneurs, be paired with mentors, meet members of the Cup’s review board – and win cash prizes if their idea is judged to be among the best entries.

Submissions must contain a description of the product or service, explanation of the market size or opportunity, a sales and marketing overview, brief operating plan and high level financial projections and assumptions.

For more information and to enter, please visit www.breakthroughideas.org.

Minnesota’s Spark Devices Launches ‘Spark Core’ to Enable Wi-Fi for Everything

Graeme Thickins — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:16:15 +0000

Minneapolis-based Spark Devices today launched a new project on Kickstarter in a major reboot of the company. The new Kickstarter comes as the cofounders are about to complete an accelerator program in China called HAXLR8R (“hack-celerator” – get it?). It’s described as “a new kind of accelerator program for people who hack hardware and make things.” (Mentors include Brad Feld, Nolan Bushnell, and a host of others.) The Demo Day for the current class is May 13.

“There’s been a lot of excitement around Internet-connected devices, but the barrier’s always been pretty high because building Wi-Fi into a product is surprisingly expensive and difficult,” said Zach Supalla, cofounder and CEO. “We want to take down that barrier so that people can experiment with Internet-connected products as freely as they do with electronics in general using an Arduino.”

Spark Devices is building an open source development kit for Wi-Fi enabled products. “Spark Core” — it’s first product (and the name of the Kickstarter project) — is an Arduino-compatible, Wi-Fi enabled, cloud-powered development platform that makes creating Internet-connected hardware a breeze. The team confidently state on its new Kickstarter page, “There’s nothing you can’t build with the Core.”

How big is this “Internet of Things” (IoT) thing?
How does 24 billion devices connected by 2020 grab you? How does the notion of “transforming everything” grab you? A recent survey on IoT found 66% of IT professionals actually believe it will play a part in business and consumer technology converging within 3-5 years. (More about that SAP/Harris Interactive study in this post from ReadWrite Cloud.)

As Spark Devices aptly puts it, “we’re entering a world where products listen and communicate.” It notes that, so far, the Internet of Things is being driven by startups — think Pebble Watch, FitBit, the Nest thermostat, and others that are disrupting sleepy old product categories. But the founders rightly see a huge opportunity to help thousands of established companies take advantage of this connected-devices movement. [That's right, so they don't get disrupted.]

Spark Core works like an Arduino with integrated Wi-Fi. It’s powered by the new Texas Instruments CC3000 Wi-Fi module, and can be easily integrated into any circuit board.

How to manage all these devices?
Spark Core isn’t all that’s being debuted in this Kickstarter project. The company is also announcing it will be building a cloud service to manage its Wi-Fi enabled products in the field. The “Spark Cloud” is a scalable, managed infrastructure for communicating with all Spark-powered devices — an open but secure system, with a developer-friendly REST API. A key point: this cloud will enable over-the-air firmware updates to improve products over time. Read the FAQ on the Kickstarter project. If you’re a hacker, it will blow your mind.

How to back Spark
Spark Core is being sold for $39 on the company’s Kickstarter project page, and later will be sold on its website and through electronics distributors. But if you move fast, 200 Spark Cores are available for $29 each on Kickstarter as an Early-Bird Special. And there are other great options to back the Kickstarter project.

What can you build with Spark Core and Spark Cloud?
Sample products cited on the Kickstarter page include things like a wireless motion detector, a solar-powered security camera, or even, as the Kickstarter video shows, a “pizza orderer.” To say the possibilities are limitless is not exaggerating.

Here’s more on the Spark Devices team:

Zach Supalla, CEO. Formerly worked at McKinsey (operations and product development) and Groupon. Kellogg (MBA), McCormick (MEM), Dartmouth (BA).
Zachary Crockett, CTO. Software developer with broad experience across platforms (Ruby, Java, Objective C). U of MN (Ph.D), Vanderbilt (BA).
Stephanie Rich, VP of Biz Dev. Former director of sales and marketing in the film industry (GreeneStreet Films). Cambridge (MBA), Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism (BS).
Will Hart, Design Engineer. Cook Engineering Design Fellow at Dartmouth College. BE and ME in Mechanical Engineering, Dartmouth.

Recent photo shows the team in China, minus Steph, who stayed home in Minneapolis to hold down the fort. Left to right: Zach, Zachary, Will.

The partnership with the aforementioned HAXLR8R hardware-focused incubator, based in Shenzhen, China, provides Spark Devices an extensive ecosystem of mentors, investors, and fellow startups.

For more on Spark Devices, see its latest web site, and follow the company on Twitter and Facebook. Also catch the founders at the upcoming Bay Area Maker Faire, and (I personally hope) at the Glue Conference later in May. Then, soon, the entire team will be back home hard at work at CoCo Minneapolis at the Grain Exchange.

Congrats to Spark Devices: another great example of Minnesota tech innovation — gone global!

Minnov8 Gang 214 – Chatting with Fido?

Steve Borsch — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:42:29 +0000

Several good Minnesota stories this week, including how to talk to ‘Fido’ when you’re away from your home and whether or not your dog even thinks you’re really there or doesn’t care!

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Please Don’t from Vince Carpentieri. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

MN Stories
Google Glass
Steve’s Security Tip of The Week
- ANOTHER Java Security Flaw (just remove Java if you’re not using it)
  - Remove Java
Gang Mentality: Apple Deathwatch?
Emerging Global Scandal
- Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

Upcoming Events…

WordCamp MSP, April 27, 2013 – Sunday, April 28, 2013
- Lisa Sabin Wilson speaking
Twin Cities Code Camp 14, April 27, 2013
Midwest Mobile Summit, downtown Fargo, ND, April 28-29
MHTA’s Spring Conference, April 30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center
Google Happy Hour, Friday, May 3, 5:30-9:30 pm, CoCo-Minneapolis
Google for Entrepreneurs, STEP-UP Achieve Training Program, Saturday, May 4, 2013 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, CoCo-Minneapolis (More info: Jess Myers, jessm(at)ewald(dot)com)
National Day of Civic Hacking MN, Sat/Sun, June 1st & 2nd
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center

Download or listen link

Minnov8 Gang 213 – Not in the Bathroom!

Steve Borsch — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:51:36 +0000

Good stuff to discuss this week and we spend a bit of time on Google Glass. Will it be a hit? Is there anything beyond voyeurism it can do? Will (shudder) people wear them in to the bathroom?

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Bernie’s Tune from Chris Greene Quartet. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Minnesota
- Minnesotans Rank Last in Creating New Businesses
- Minnesota’s VC take rises to $38M in Q1
- Minnesota Twins adds tech at Target Field for fans
- Local Webby nominees honored on ‘Webbyapolis’ site
- If Google Reader and Pinterest had a love child: Sauna
  - Developed by local startup Curbly
Google Glass
- Glass Explorer Edition gets unboxed, photographed
- Google Emulates Apple in Restricting Apps for Glass
- Larry Page: Google’s Focus On Constant Iteration Will Shift Toward Big Bets Like Google Fiber And Glass
- Google Glass Sucks! (image of guy above from this parody video)
A Review of iSteve. Spoiler Alert: This Movie Sucks
The Best LED Lightbulb Is the Cree Warm White
Steve’s Security Tip of The Week: VPNs

Upcoming Events…

WordCamp MSP, April 27, 2013 – Sunday, April 28, 2013
- Lisa Sabin Wilson speaking
Twin Cities Code Camp 14, April 27, 2013
Midwest Mobile Summit, downtown Fargo, ND, April 28-29
MHTA’s Spring Conference, April 30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center
National Day of Civic Hacking MN, Sat/Sun, June 1st & 2nd
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center

Download or listen link

What Comes First in Fargo – the #MidwestMobileSummit or the Spring Floods?

Graeme Thickins — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:50:38 +0000

They’re both coming soon! And they may actually be arriving about the same time. But, no worries, the first-year Midwest Mobile Summit will be held April 28-29 in downtown Fargo ND, which I’m told is a pretty safe area of town from the rising waters that come every spring to this city partially bordered on the Red River.

But if you really want to find out when the floods might arrive — well, it turns out
there’s an iOS app for that. Its name? Why, H2O Fargo, of course! And it became available a couple of weeks ago in the App Store, just in time for the inevitable rising waters.

I learned about the app when I met with the guys from Myriad Devices, a mobile app development shop that’s the lead sponsor and organizer of the Midwest Mobile Summit. They developed the flood app as a public service for their community, and Jake Joraanstad, CEO, told me the app was approved by Apple in only one day! I guess they understood the urgency of the situation. (Screenshots of the app shown.)

The MIdwest Mobile Summit has big support of the local community, and will draw a large representation of the area’s significant technology industry, including angels and VCs, Microsoft and ex-Microsoft managers, NDSU officials, and a strong mobile development community. Read more about the the schedule, speakers, and sponsors at the event site — and how to obtain tickets. You can purchase Day One, Day Two, or both days. Overnight accommocations for Sunday, April 28, are availabke at the nearby Radisson downtown (info at event site). Several speakers and attendees are coming from the Twin Cities. See you there if you can make it!

Minnov8 Gang 212 – TV Disruption Disrupted?

Steve Borsch — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:53:18 +0000

Lots of tech topics to discuss this week but we focus a bit on Aereo, a television startup that holds the promise of lowering costs and increasing access to TV, and the company also just won a major victory.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Tuckassee Train from Charlie Crowe. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Minnebar (the sessions held)
Heroic, Inc.
Tablets in Education
- Tablets are transforming learning in many west metro classrooms
- iPad Top 100 Deployments (includes education ones)
Aereo
- New Threat to Aereo TV
- Comcast gets 63% of revenue from cable TV
The New Résumé
What’s with all these new music services?
Apple News Roundup
Steve’s Security Tip of The Week
- Global Brute Force Attacks Build WordPress Botnet
  - Easy fix – delete (or never use) the default admin username!
  - Geek fix
- Plugin fix:
  - Limit Login Attempts
  - Wordfence
Others

Upcoming Events…

MinneBar 8, Saturday April 6, 9-5pm, Best Buy Headquarters
2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, April 11, 2013 – Saturday, April 13, 2013
Minne-Fair / Maker and DIY Exposition, April 13, 2013 – Sunday, April 14, 2013
MinneWebCon, April 15, 2013 at 8:00 AM – April 16, 2013 at 4:30 PM
WordCamp MSP, April 27, 2013 – Sunday, April 28, 2013
Twin Cities Code Camp 14, April 27, 2013
Midwest Mobile Summit, downtown Fargo, ND, April 28-29
MHTA’s Spring Conference, April 30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center

Download or listen link

Minnov8 Gang 211 – Everything Looks Like a Nail

Steve Borsch — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:52:31 +0000

Facebook Home debuted this week. Steve believes that its debut is about how Facebook sees the world as “people-centric”—and that means, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail)—but Tim is certain it will be a winner (on Android). What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Hosts: Steve Borsch and Tim Elliott (Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson are off this week).
Music: Easy Job from The Dead Rocks. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Overnight Website Challenge
- Winners Announced
- Nerdery announces winners of nonprofit website design competition
TST Media Lands Investment, Rebrands, Makes Acquisition
- TST Media, Maker of Sport Ngin Software, Secures $6 Million in Series C Financing
- Sport Ngin Acquires e7sports
Best Buy
- Samsung Plans Mini-Stores in Best Buys
Facebook App forks Android?
Live TV Streaming
- Cord-Cutters Rejoice: Streaming Broadcast TV Wins Big in Court
- Aereo (coming soon to Minneapolis)
Google
- Google Forks WebKit And Launches Blink
- Google defies FBI, asks federal judge to challenge ‘national security letters’
The ‘Vintage’ Web
- Steve’s first website ‘The Big Trip‘ to Germany in 1997

Upcoming Events…

MinneBar 8, Saturday April 6, 9-5pm, Best Buy Headquarters
2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, April 11, 2013 – Saturday, April 13, 2013, Hilton Minneapolis
Minne-Fair / Maker and DIY Exposition, April 13, 2013 – Sunday, April 14, 2013
MinneWebCon, April 15, 2013 at 8:00 AM – April 16, 2013 at 4:30 PM, U of M Continuing Education & Conference Center
WordCamp MSP, April 27, 2013 – Sunday, April 28, 2013
Twin Cities Code Camp 14, April 27, 2013
Midwest Mobile Summit, downtown Fargo, ND, April 28-29
MHTA’s Spring Conference, April 30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center

Download or listen link

Minnov8 Gang 210 – The Internet is Broken?

Steve Borsch — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:32:55 +0000

Steve returns to The Gang after 3 weeks and Phil is spring breaking but three of us dissect the top stories of the week including Best Buy’s founder returning, did hackers really break the internet last week and T-Mobile’s aggressive announcements.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is off this week).

Music: Dangerous Things from George Fletcher’s Bourbon Renewal/The Tequila Mockingbirds. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Best Buy
Did the internet break last week?
Steve’s Security Tip of The Week
- Anatomy of the Apple ID password reset exploit
- Password denied: when will Apple get serious about security?
T-Mobile
- T-Mobile’s UnCarrier event roundup
- We Did The Math, And It Turns Out The T-Mobile iPhone 5 Could Save You A Bunch Of Money
Facebook phone?
- Facebook To Reveal “Home On Android”
- Facebook’s Home On Android Could Give You A Sixth Sense For Your Social Life
Others

Upcoming Events…

WordPress MSP, Thursday, March 28 at The Nerdery
MinneBar 8, Saturday April 6, 9-5pm, Best Buy Headquarters
2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, April 11, 2013 – Saturday, April 13, 2013, Hilton Minneapolis
Minne-Fair / Maker and DIY Exposition, April 13, 2013 – Sunday, April 14, 2013
MinneWebCon, April 15, 2013 at 8:00 AM – April 16, 2013 at 4:30 PM, U of M Continuing Education & Conference Center
WordCamp MSP, April 27, 2013 – Sunday, April 28, 2013
Twin Cities Code Camp 14, April 27, 2013
Midwest Mobile Summit, downtown Fargo, ND, April 28-29
MHTA’s Spring Conference, April 30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center

Download or listen link

Minnov8 Gang 209 – March Madness!

Tim Elliott — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:09:15 +0000

Three-quarters of the Gang take time out of NCAA March Madness viewing to talk about the top news of the past week including Mobile March 2013, Adria Richards’ tough lesson in social media etiquette, the emerging smart watch category, Google Keep and what’s going on at Apple.

Hosts: Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Steve Borsch is off this week).

Music: Panacea by bill. From the podsafe Music Alley.

Discussed during the show…

Mobile March 2013 Wrap-up
- Mobile Fans Have a Big Day at the Farm
- Speaker slides for Mobile March 2013

W3i Becomes NativeX
- W3i Rebrands, Launches Native Ad Platform for App Devs, Adds Trip Hawkins as Senior Advisor

Adria Richards – a tough lesson in social media etiquette

Smartwatch Madness!

Google Keep Takes On More Than Evernote
- Google launches Evernote rival Keep for the Web, Android 4.0 and above
- And That, Google, Is How You Lose The Influencers

Apple News Update

Upcoming Events…

WordPress MSP, Thursday, March 28 at The Nerdery
MinneBar 8, Saturday April 6, 9-5pm, Best Buy Headquarters
2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference, April 11, 2013 – Saturday, April 13, 2013, Hilton Minneapolis
Minne-Fair / Maker and DIY Exposition, April 13, 2013 – Sunday, April 14, 2013
WordCamp MSP, April 27, 2013 – Sunday, April 28, 2013
Twin Cities Code Camp 14, April 27, 2013
Midwest Mobile Summit, downtown Fargo, ND, April 28-29
MHTA’s Spring Conference, April 30 at the Minneapolis Convention Center
EyeO Festival, June 5-8, Walker Art Center

Download or listen link

Mobile Fans Have a Big Day at the Farm

Graeme Thickins — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 14:43:45 +0000

A whole bunch of busy tech professionals dropped everything on Thursday and headed to the farm — the Earle Brown Farm, that is (now called Earle Brown Heritage Center – a very cool place). Okay, it wasn’t all that far out of town, only Brooklyn Center, but it was like a trip to the country in a way, getting out of the office to focus on a where our world seems to be heading these days: mobile everything! (Wonder what Earle would think of that?*)

The occasion was, of course, the 4th Annual Mobile March Twin Cities conference, and it drew a sellout crowd of some 300. This conference gets bigger and better every year. The 2013 iteration offered myriad opportunities to network with mobile developers, designers, enterprise IT people, gaming enthusiasts, marketers, and knowledgeable vendor representatives. And an awesome agenda of 32 break-out sessions made for a jam-packed day of learning as well. This ever-changing industry we call mobile is made up of many moving parts and pieces, and it touches every segment of the Twin Cities business community — from the smallest of startups to the hugest Fortune 500 giants. All those segments were well represented at MobileMarch, and there was some serious mixing of the pot going on!

Sessions were in four tracks: Mobile Strategy, Mobile Development, Mobile Gaming, and Mobile Business. A sampling: “Four Key Principles of Mobile User Experience Design” … “The Beginning and End of Mobile Marketing” … “BYOD & MDM FYI” (for enterprise IT types) … “Avoiding Apple Rejection” … and the ever-playful “Using Chipmunk Physics to Create an iOS Game.” It was damn hard choosing from the four concurrent sessions going on throughout the day! Which is why getting to see presentations you missed will be helpful — and many are in the process of being posted on the event site here. So keep checking back.

To get the real lowdown on the event as it happened, one can, of course, go read the very active #mmtc13 hashtag stream. During the day, I was trying to do my share on the Minnov8 tweet stream myself, and I also posted some pix here on Flickr – shot with a mobile device, of course! The official tweets of the @MobileMarchTC team were flying all day, too.

Next time you see one of that team, who do such a great job organizing this event, be sure to thank them: Justin Grammens, our own Phil Wilson, Linda Cummings, and Mike Bollinger. Also, Phil made me tell you to lavish the sponsors with copious amounts of gratitude, as this event would definitely not happen without them: Verizon, Fusion Room, Livefront, Code 42 , SDG, W3i (now NativeX), Microsoft Windows Phone, Compuware, Intertech, and Digineer. They rock, each and every one of them! It was great meeting and talking to many of their people during the breaks and cocktail reception.

Postscript: To illustrate the reach and impact of this four-year-old MobileMarch event, I learned on Thursday that it’s inspired the Fargo tech community to launch one of their own: Mobile Summit, taking place April 28-29. The organizers were in attendance and have already landed some Twin Cities-based speakers.

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* Earle Brown Farm, which went through a major renovation that transformed it into an impressive, sprawling conference center, is the namesake of, you guessed it, a really cool guy named Earle, who was Hennepin County Sheriff in the early 1900s and founded the Minnesota Highway Patrol. He was also quite a horseman. He just never got to own a mobile device, as he died in 1963. More history here. When I worked for Medtronic early in my career, my office was in an adjacent building and looked right down on horses romping around the large corral, which is now a parking lot. See what you learn reading Minnov8! (No, I didn’t ride a horse-and-buggy to work — we had cars then. Just no airbags.)

W3i Rebrands, Launches Native Ad Platform for App Devs, Adds Trip Hawkins as Senior Advisor

Graeme Thickins — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:12:10 +0000

W3i, one of Minnesota’s largest and fastest-growing Internet companies, with headquarters in St. Cloud and offices in Minneapolis and San Francisco, just made a major announcement today. The company has changed its name to NativeX and completely rebranded around a new platform to help developers better monetize their apps. The focus for W3i has long been primarily (though not exclusively) on game apps, so it’s no surprise the announcement was timed to hit the wire as the company prepares for the huge Game Developers Conference, which takes place all next week in San Francisco.

With this move, the company is positioning to jump on what is becoming a clear trend toward advertising that is more specific, or native, to various web platforms, as opposed to the old, tired banner advertising, which everyone loves to hate. W3i, now Native X, clearly wants to own the concept for apps, and what better way than to use the term right in their name?

A key part of the announcement today, adding mucho cred with the gaming community, is the addition of Trip Hawkins as an “advisor to the board.” Trip, whom the company rightfully calls an “industry giant,” has a history going back to Apple’s early days. You can read all about him here on his Wikipedia page.

“Native advertising is the future,” Hawkins says in the news announcement. “Every major publisher on mobile and web has their eye on native advertising right now. NativeX is proving that we as an industry can do better than banner ads.”

What many observers would find even more interesting about this new initiative of W3i (now NativeX) is that a guy named Young Sohn is chairman of its board. (More on Young below.)

I conducted an email interview with Rob Weber, cofounder and EVP of NativeX, after I got early word of this news last night:

Why did you decide to rebrand the company?

“As we reviewed our marketing strategy, it became clear to us that the name “W3i” didn’t convey what we are all about. In the digital media world, most industry experts would agree that display advertising is broken. Even the largest banner ad units result in CPMs for publishers only in the $2.00 range, max. The reason for the low performance is display ads don’t drive engagement, and ultimately value, for marketers. This is why Google invented a more ‘native’ ad unit for its business (paid search), Facebook created new ad units built for the news feed, Twitter launched sponsored tweets, and, locally, DoApp introduced ‘RSS news ads.’ We are focused on solving this problem for consumer app developers, and we felt like the name ‘nativeX’ speaks directly to where we are headed — creating new, native ad units for developers that bring strong monetization to their business.”

How did you get connected to Trip? What role will he play?

“I was first introduced to Trip about a year ago by a mutual friend on a trip to San Francisco. We stayed in touch, and it became clear he could help us in a number of ways. Trip will provide a strategic perspective to our board with respect to what is going on in mobile and in the app space, which is dominated by game apps. Trip will help us build even stronger ties and awareness within the broader app world, and specifically in the Bay Area. On a personal level, Trip has also been helpful as a mentor to me.”

How long have you been planning this? Who drove the rebranding?

“Plans have been in the works for a few months, and the rebranding effort has been led by our new VP of Marketing, Diana LaGattuta, based in San Francisco.” [Ed.: Her photo at right, and her bio appears on the NatixeX web site.]

What changes will result to the organization locally, if any?

“In terms of local changes, we expect a clearer message to our target clients, along with the new technology we are launching, will enable us to continue to increase the value of our company, which will result in us ontinuing to hire even more folks locally.”

How will this affect your SF organization? Will you be expanding it?

“We are looking to grow additional headcount in all three of our offices — Sartell, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. The Bay Area has a lot of relevant talent for a business like ours, and we plan to add significant headcount there. We’ve seen that the Bay Area talent we already have gives us the opportunity to increase our perspective, which helps the rest of the team grow faster.”

Does it mean any significant new hiring plans right away?

“We have lots of hiring plans immediately. Check out our career page for specifics.” [Ed.: That would be here. No specific jobs listed there yet, but there sure is some enticing copy. And an email link to apply.]

What new partnerships, if any, will become a part of this new initiative?

“We will continue to ramp partnerships with mobile and desktop app developers. For example, in October we announced a new partnership with one of the globally most popular mobile app developers in the world, Imangi Studios, maker of the smash hit Temple Run. We have some other new partnerships that will be similar, but taking advantage of our new native technology.”

What are the long-term implications in this for your company?

“We think the rebranding and new technology will help us create further differentiation in the market. We think we can own ‘native advertising’ within the app space. Expect to see more specifics in terms of new products, technology, partnerships, and more tied to this ‘native’ approach.”

What if anything can we read into this because you have the Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung on your board?

“Young was 100% supportive of our rebranding.”

Rob Weber and his company have long been champions of developers, not only helping them make money with their apps, but even helping them get funding to launch or expand. He wrote a guest post on VentureBeat earlier this month, Six ways the Five Horsemen of Tech can build better app ecosystems, in which he spoke about that. (The “Five Horseman” being Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Samsung.)

#3 Lend a Hand: Create Funding Programs for Developers

This one is also fairly obvious. On one hand, you have large thriving companies generating billions of dollars in revenue every year. On the other hand, you have an app market that gets more cutthroat every day and is filled with bootstrapped developers struggling to stay competitive. All of the horsemen should be creating sizable developer funds to help them build the teams and infrastructure they need to make great apps. Such funds would also encourage developers to leverage the horsemen’s technology and make something innovative on their platform. Samsung is a great example of this. With their recently announced $100 million Samsung Catalyst Fund, Samsung will expand their brand, work with great developers, and help build their app ecosystem as clarified at the recent Dive Into Media conference.

Horseman that does this the best: Samsung*

*Full disclosure, the Chairman of our board at nativeX, Young Sohn, is President and Chief Strategy Officer at Samsung, and is involved in overseeing Samsung’s fund.

Young Sohn will surely play a role in guiding NativeX to even more growth going forward. Stay tuned!

By the way, I will be reporting from GDC next week myself, including updates about Minneapolis-based startup Canopy, which also will have a presence there.

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(My disclosure: I provided consulting services to W3i in past years, but have no current contractual relationship with the firm.)