Techerous

Looks like the 49ers have a bit of a Moneyball thing going

unexpectedtech:

With Nike+, a shoe company made its first step into the digital revolution. And with the Nike+ FuelBand, Nike proved that they could build electronics on par with the world’s best. So maybe it shouldn’t seem so surprising that it is now teaming with accelerator TechStars to found the Nike+ Accelerator, which will fund and mentor 10 companies tasked with creating “products and services that will inspire athletes across a broad range of activity and health goals, including training, coaching, gaming, data visualization and quantified self.”

Each company receives $20,000 in funding, along with IT support, work space, and mentorship. The mentor panel really is illustrious, too, including Stefan Olander, Nike’s vice president of digital sport; David Cohen, founder and CEO of TechStars; and Naveen Selvadurai, cofounder of Foursquare. Interestingly enough, Nike won’t retain any equity in these companies, while they will ensure opportunities to pitch investors, VCs, Nike execs, and other “influential industry leads” at the three-month program’s culminating Investor and Demo Day.

(via unexpectedtech-deactivated20130)

smartercities:

WELCOME TO CITYSDK

CitySDK is creating a toolkit for the development of digital services within cities. The toolkit comprises of open and interoperable digital service interfaces as well as processes, guidelines and usability standards. CitySDK enables a more efficient utlisation of the expertise and know-how of developer communities to be applied in city service development.

The project is working in the areas of participation, mobility and tourism and has 8 cities across Europe as partners: Helsinki, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Manchester, Lamia, Istanbul, Lisbon and Rome.

If you are a city interested in the approach we are taking and would be interested in the interface and toolkit and if you are a developer looking to develop Apps that work in different European cities then get in touch.

This is a good way to improve living conditions in urban environments.  It’s also a great example of crowd-sourcing.  It would be cool to see this project hop the pond to one of our cities.

smarterplanet:

Soon, your phone will know more about your health history and fitness goals than your doctor does. And according RunKeeper founder Jason Jacobs, when this plays out at scale, it will change the dynamic between you, your doctor and the traditional healthcare system.

Imagine a day when your phone has all of your health information. It knows your goals, your time horizons and what activities you need to focus on to achieve those goals. It knows your schedule, whether you like to do things alone or in groups and who you like to train with. It knows what you eat, how much you’ve slept and all of your vital signs in real-time.

Based on the information it collects, your phone will lay out a plan to help you live a healthier life. It will notify you when it’s time for an activity (i.e. taking a pill, going on a walk or taking your blood pressure), and adjust this plan as you go, based on what is and isn’t working. The more it learns about you and others like you, the more effective its guidance will become. There will be a day when the phone will be able to predict if a runner is on a path to overtraining, or tell someone who is trying to lose weight if he would get better results by adding another hour of sleep per night. And this day is coming sooner than you may think.

Already is

(via emergentfutures)

“You can find [music] on the radio and TV, but those songs are chosen for you. The Internet allows you to find your own music. It’s more personal.”

“I think ownership is access, you don’t have to have music on your local hard drive to own it.”

Changing perception of music as a medium.  What’s yours?

Some behind-the-scenes stuff on the Obama reelection team. I’m happy to see technology being considered so important, however I feel from a regulatory perspective policy should be created to make all IP developed for purposes such as these open-sourced after the campaign, barring they deal directly with a security matter. It’s really the only fair way in my opinion, given the public nature of it’s creation and to further serve the nation’s well being. However, one of the commenters brings up an excellent point that is missed in the article, that being the 2014 elections. Like the article says, current regulations allow certain methods of transfer for IP between campaigns and given the benefit the president would receive from having a house/senate majority of their party they certainly have incentive to hold out for these campaigns.

One of the most influential musicians since the 1970s discussing how music and performance are factored into today’s society.  I definitely agree that performance becomes more important during difficult times as we are in greater need of an escape.  I also find his views on modern technology, such as mobile apps being an art form, particularly interesting.  The 70’s prog community were always the most open to the adaptation of modern technology, unfortunately that led to a lot of crap in the 80s haha.