Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 10.

09 - April 23, 2011 ISSN: 1712-9834

Selected news items from postings to Innovation Watch

in the last two weeks...

brain regions disconnect from each other during sleep... researchers

make advances in mapping brain networks... scientists create a
functioning neuron, and contemplate creating a synthetic brain... a new
mobile app brings newspapers to life in video and 3D... Virgin Media
David Forrest announces 1.5 gigabit per second broadband... the disaster in Japan
advises unsettles global supply chains... Lloyd's insurance subsidiary
organizations contemplates coverage for careless tweets... Spain and Google lock
on emerging horns on the right of people to remove personal information from the
trends, and Web... China and India are expected to drive future IT growth... China
helps to develop secures a growing foothold in Latin America... an Israeli entrepreneur
strategies unveils a network for swapping electric-car batteries... an Italian town
for a radically finds self-sufficiency in solar energy... a US doctoral student explores
different future how outsourcing has changed India, in a new book... the future of
farming is indoors...

More great resources ...

the book, Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create

Opportunities Others Don't, by Stephen Wunker... a link to the Domino
Project website, a fundamental shift in the way books are published...
the audio clip of an interview with Steven Levy, about his book In the
Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives ... a post by
Sarah Lucy on Web 3.0 and next-generation opportunities in data
science...

David Forrest
Innovation Watch
SCIENCE
Top Stories: Forward

Study Finds Brain Regions Go Offline at Different Intervals Know someone who
(PhysOrg) - A new study shows that, rather than being an might be interested
"all or nothing" phenomenon, regions of the human brain go in this newsletter?
silent at different times through the night, losing their ability Forward it
to communicate during certain phases of sleep. This
discovery may partly explain disorders such as sleepwalking. Unsubscribe
It also gives humans something in common with dolphins,
which are known to sleep with one part of their brain while Don't want to
the other part controls swimming to the surface for air. receive the
newsletter?
Computer Model of the Brain is 'One Step Closer' After
Unsubscribe
Scientists Untangle and Map Grey Matter Connections (Daily
Mail) - A computer model of the brain is one step closer after
scientists found a way to map both the connections and
functions of nerve cells in the brain together for the first
time, it was claimed. Researchers at University College
London have described a technique developed in mice which
enables them to combine information about the function of
neurons with details of their connections. The study is part of
an emerging area of neuroscience research known as
'connectomics'. Like genomics, which maps our genetic
make-up, connectomics aims to map the brain's connections,
known as synapses.

TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:

Researchers Create Functioning Synapse Using Carbon

Nanotubes (PhysOrg) - Engineering researchers the
University of Southern California have made a significant
breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the
construction of a synthetic brain. They have built a carbon
nanotube synapse circuit whose behavior in tests reproduces
the function of a neuron, the building block of the brain.

Point… And It Will Come Alive: 'Harry Potter' Mobile App That
Will Make Everything Interactive (Daily Mail) - Newspaper
pictures that came alive in the fictional world of Harry Potter
will soon be a reality thanks to ground-breaking British
technology. Software company Autonomy has developed a
vision recognition system for smartphones and tablet
computers that embeds pictures and videos on top of real-life
objects. Pointing the latest iPhone running the app at a
poster of the animated film Despicable Me, could play a
trailer of the movie and send 3D characters jumping into the
landscape. The company can even duplicate the effect from
the Harry Potter films by finding and playing video of an
event captured in a newspaper photograph.
BUSINESS
Top Stories:

Movie in a Minute: Virgin Tests 'World’s Fastest Broadband'

With Download Speeds of 1.5GB a Second (Daily Mail) -
Telecoms and cable giant Virgin Media today said it will test
the world's fastest broadband as demand grows for lightning-
quick internet connections. The company said it planned to
trial speeds of up to 1.5 gigabits per second - more than 10
times faster than its current fastest service of 100 megabits
per second and 240 times quicker than the UK average.

Japan’s Supply Chain Ripple Effects (PhysOrg) - Yossi Sheffi,

director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics, said
the growing disaster in Japan is already affecting companies
throughout the world. Using examples from the automotive
industry, the aerospace industry and the high tech industry,
he explained the complexity and intricacy of global supply
chains, noting that many of the supply chain implications are
not known yet. Only one month after the earthquake, ships
are still at sea with product dispatched before the earthquake
and many companies will continuously discover dependencies
on third- and fourth-tier suppliers.

SOCIETY
Top Stories:

Tweet Insurance Coverage in the Works (CBC) - As an

increasing number of tweets and Facebook postings speed
onto the information superhighway, some will inevitably crash
and burn. But unlike drivers caught in a car wreck, users
behind careless tweets or nasty Facebook postings haven't
traditionally had any kind of insurance to bail them out. They
soon might. Malcolm Randles, who issues cyber insurance
policies for Kiln, a subsidiary of Lloyd's of London, said
brokers in Canada are keeping a keen eye on social media
trends and are beginning to develop coverage for the
consequences of unruly posts.

Spain Fights for 'Right to be Forgotten' Online (Boston Globe)  

- In a case that Google Inc. and privacy specialists call a first
of its kind, Spain’s Data Protection Agency has ordered the
search engine giant to remove links to material on about 90
people. The information was published years or even decades
ago but is available to anyone via searches. Scores of
Spaniards lay claim to a "Right to be Forgotten" because
public information once hard to get is now so easy to find on
the Internet. Google has decided to challenge the orders and
has appealed five cases so far this year to the National Court.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:

Tick-Tock Goes the Tech Clock as China, India Close Gap

(Forbes) - China and India are coming up fast as tech powers
though a big gap still exists between these emerging markets
and developed nations. That gap is bound to narrow over the
next decade. A recent Global Information Technology Report
by the World Economic Forum predicts that these two
powerhouses will drive much of the growth in information
technology over the next ten years. Out of 138 countries
tracked and ranked by widespread use of mobile phones,
Internet, personal computer as well as regulatory
environment and IT infrastructure, China ranks 36th and
India 48th.

China's Role in Realizing 'Latin America Decade' (Christian

Science Monitor) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff landed
in China to shore up trade and business ties, just a month
after President Obama traveled to South America to lobby on
behalf of US businesses. The presidential hopscotch
underscores the growing competition between the US and
China for a foothold in Latin America. While the United States
is an important partner, says the chief of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), China is
"the perfect fit" as Latin America looks to boost
infrastructure, technology, and overall economic growth.

ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:

Better Place: Turning Israel Into Electric Car Country

(Christian Science Monitor) - In Israel in March, software
entrepreneur Shai Agassi unveiled what could be the start of
the world's first nationwide electric-car battery swapping
station network. A white-and-blue Renault Fluence ZE sedan
silently pulled into a drive-through lane. The floor beneath
opened as a robot removed the car's 550-pound battery and
swapped in a new one. About three minutes later, the car
rolled away, ready for 100 miles of emissions-free driving.
This new station is part of a $175 million system that Mr.
Agassi claims will end the era of the internal combustion
engine, all at the cost of what Israelis spend on seven days of
fuel.

Italy's Last Reactor Town Goes Solar in Fight Against Nuclear

(Businessweek) - Montalto di Castro, the town where Italy's
last nuclear plant was built before a two-decade ban, is
fighting against a return to atomic power and staking its
future on solar energy by hosting Europe's largest
photovoltaic park. "We’ve come up with a better idea," Mayor
Salvatore Carai said in an interview in his Town Hall office,
which has views of the old reactor between the sea and acres
 of farmland. "The solar panels keep us self-sufficient. We
haven’t used a single kilowatt of 'dirty energy' since
December 2009."

THE FUTURE
Top Stories:

Hello, This is Cyber Gen Next (Rediff) - As a doctoral student

in sociology at the University of California, San Diego,
Shehzad Nadeem was interested in issues related to culture,
labour and globalisation. In 2005 he set out to India to
research on the call centres or BPOs -- Business Process
Outsourcing centers -- that had been creating a lot of buzz in
the West, as well as in India. Now an assistant professor of
sociology at the City University of New York's Lehman
College, he is the author of a recent book, Dead Ringers:
How Outsourcing Is Changing the Way Indians Understand
Themselves.

Future Farm: A Sunless, Rainless Room Indoors (Boston

Globe) - Farming is moving indoors, where the sun never
shines, where rainfall is irrelevant and where the climate is
always right. The perfect crop field could be inside a
windowless building with meticulously controlled light,
temperature, humidity, air quality and nutrition. It could be in
a New York high-rise, a Siberian bunker, or a sprawling
complex in the Saudi desert. Advocates say this, or
something like it, may be an answer to the world’s food
problems.

Just in from the publisher...

Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies

Create Opportunities Others Don’t
by Stephen Wunker

Read more...

A web resource... The Domino Project - The Domino Project is named after the domino
effect -- one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person. The
Project represents a fundamental shift in the way books (and digital media based on books)
have always been published. Eventually consisting of a small cadre of stellar authors, this is
a publishing house organized around a new distribution channel, one that wasn’t even a
fantasy when most publishers began.

Multimedia... Steven Levy: Inside the Googleplex (Leonard Lopate) - Technology

reporter Steven Levy discusses how Google has managed to become one of the most
 admired and successful companies in history and an indispensable part of our lives. He was
granted unprecedented access to the company, and in In the Plex: How Google Thinks,
Works, and Shapes Our Lives, he takes readers inside Google headquarters — the
Googleplex — to show how Google works, the keys to its success, its missteps in China, and
how new efforts in social networking have Google chasing a successful competitor for the
first time. (33m 23s)

Ideas and opinions... So Is Web 3.0 Already Here? (TCTV) - Sarah Lucy -- "Tim
O’Reilly is expecting huge changes in the physical world, while Reid Hoffman is betting
more heavily on digital. Either way, if you’re in college now, do yourself a favor and
specialize in data science. The job title that didn’t really exist a few years ago is becoming
the must-have skill set for the next generation of companies, Hoffman says."

 
Email: mail@innovationwatch.com