The argument about the generation growing up with social media and handheld audio/visual recording devices (otherwise known as mobile phones) is a pretty good one. I wouldn’t disparage the generation out of hand, though. It’s entirely possible they grow into a heightened sense of online privacy and a clear understanding of just what’s important and not in the public/private legal debate.

From the link:

If the public wants online privacy it had better fight now for laws to protect it because businesses won’t and individuals don’t have the clout, security expert Bruce Schneier told RSA Conference attendees.

The longer information-privacy policies go unset, the more likely it is that they never will be set, says Schneier, an author of books about security and CTO of security consultant BT Counterpane. As young people grow up with broad swaths of information about them in the public domain, they will lose any sense of privacy that older generations have.

And they will have no appreciation that lack of privacy shifts power over their lives from themselves to businesses or governments that do control their information. Laws protecting digital data that is routinely gathered about people are needed, he says. “The only lever that works is the legal lever,” he says. “How can we expect the younger generation to do this when they don’t even know the problem?”

There’s a serious credit crunch out there right now, as anyone in business — particularly small- to mid-sized business — knows. Remember all that TARP bank bailout money from fall 2008? The biggest recipients of federal dollars continue to cut lending to small companies and seven of the top 11 TARP banks cut their small business loan balances every reporting month from the time they received taxpayers dollars through the end of 2009. Small Business Administration-backed loans are taking up some of the slack, but where else can a small company turn when looking for loans for business or just extra operating capital?

Merchant cash advance

One option is the merchant cash advance market. This industry has existed for around a decade and has really ramped up during these tough economic times coupled with an extremely tight credit industry. Merchant cash advance providers give businesses a lump sum of immediate cash in exchange for a percentage of future sales or future credit receivables. A disadvantage of a merchant cash advance is the equivalent interest rate can be pretty high when compared to a more traditional business bank loan or line of credit, but this capitalization option does offer some advantages over working through a bank.

The upside

The key upside is it’s available, and right now a bank loan in this credit market just might not be an option. Other advantages include a relatively quick approval process, bad credit won’t prevent you from obtaining a merchant cash advance and the only collateral you really need is strong credit card sales.

If you decide to pursue a merchant cash advance remember to consider the money you’re advanced as a loan to be repaid, not as just some extra cash going into the business account. Merchant cash advances aren’t the best way to capitalize your business, but they serve a very necessary function for businesses looking for, or needing, liquidity in a tight credit economy.

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I’ve done a lot of blogging over the last two years on the convergence of cancer research/treatment and nanotechnology. Here’s a HubPages hub that serves as a clearinghouse of those posts to date.

Hit this link if you’d prefer to plow though all the posts here on this blog.

Update 3/13/10 — HubPages doesn’t allow multiple links back to one source, so it pulled my original hub and did not respond to a request to waive the otherwise sensible rule in this case as the hub was not a link-building page for this blog, but simply a method to get a lot of information covering a long time period in one place. Hit this link to find the text of the original hub in its entirety.

Caught a pre-street tonight and I’ll make this recommendation short and sweet. It’s bloody, it’s a lot of fun and it’s jam-packed with action. If you love the ninja genre, or if you just like action films with a little international intrigue, secret organizations and weapon-filled martial arts, “Ninja Assassin” is for you.

Hit the first link for this movie on DVD and head here for “Ninja Assassin” on Blu-ray.

Tax season is here and tax day is looming. If you are currently unemployed, there’s a new one-year only tax break involving your unemployment checks to take advantage of, and the Internal Revenue Service is offering additional assistance for those out of work. Don’t get on the bad side of the IRS because your employment condition and take advantage of every break, deduction and federal assistance and advice out there.

From the second link, the release:

IRS Outlines Additional Steps to Assist Unemployed Taxpayers and Others

Video Owe Taxes But Can’t Pay? English Unemployment Compensation: English | Spanish Job Search Expenses: English | Spanish | ASL For these and other videos:  YouTube/IRSVideos IR-2010-29, March 9, 2010 WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced several additional steps it is taking this tax season to help people having difficulties meeting their tax obligations because of unemployment or other financial problems. The steps –– an expansion of efforts that began more than a year ago –– include additional flexibility on offers in compromise for struggling taxpayers, a series of Saturday “open houses” offering taxpayers extra opportunities to work out tax problems face to face with the IRS, special outreach with partner groups to unemployed taxpayers and the availability of more information on a special section of the IRS Web site. “Times are tough for many people, and the IRS wants to do everything it can to help people who have lost their job or face financial strain,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. “We continue to make adjustments to key programs and expand ways for people to get help. We’re doing everything we can to help ease the burden on struggling taxpayers.” New Flexibility for Offers in Compromise For some taxpayers, an offer in compromise –– an agreement between a taxpayer and the IRS that settles the taxpayer’s debt for less than the full amount owed –– continues to be a viable option. IRS employees will now have additional flexibility when considering offers in compromise from taxpayers facing economic troubles, including the recently unemployed. Specifically, IRS employees will be permitted to consider a taxpayer’s current income and potential for future income when negotiating an offer in compromise. Normally, the standard practice is to judge an offer amount on a taxpayer’s earnings in prior years. This new step provides greater flexibility when considering offers in compromise from the unemployed. The IRS may also require that a taxpayer entering into such an offer in compromise agree to pay more if the taxpayer’s financial situation improves significantly. These immediate steps are part of an on-going effort by the IRS to ensure the availability of the Offer in Compromise program for taxpayers. Hundreds of Saturday Open Houses to Resolve Taxpayer Issues In addition, IRS will hold hundreds of special Saturday open houses to give struggling taxpayers more opportunity to work directly with IRS employees to resolve issues. The offices will be open on March 27 and three additional Saturdays in the spring and early summer. Dates, times and locations will be announced shortly. During the expanded Saturday hours, taxpayers will be able to address economic hardship issues they may be facing or get help claiming any of the special tax breaks in last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, including the: Homebuyer tax credit American Opportunity Credit Making Work Pay credit Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit In addition to these special Saturdays, taxpayers can take advantage of toll-free telephone assistance and regularly scheduled hours at local Taxpayer Assistance Centers. Taxpayers can find the location, telephone number and business hours of the nearest assistance center by visiting the Contact My Local Office page on IRS.gov. Special Outreach Efforts to Unemployed The IRS is working and coordinating with state departments of revenue and state workforce agencies to help taxpayers who are having problems meeting their tax liabilities because of unemployment or other financial problems. These coordinated efforts may include opportunities for taxpayers to make payment arrangements and resolve both federal and state tax issues in one place. Special Section of IRS.gov Created Taxpayers who are unemployed or struggling financially can find information on a new page on the IRS Web site, IRS.gov. This online tax center has numerous resources including links to information on tax assistance and relief to help struggling taxpayers Other Options Available for Taxpayers The IRS will continue to offer other help to taxpayers, including: Assistance of the Taxpayer Advocate Service for those taxpayers experiencing particular hardship navigating the IRS. Postponement of collection actions in certain hardship cases. Added flexibility for missed payments on installment agreements and offers in compromise for previously compliant individuals having difficulty paying. Additional review of home values for offers in compromise in cases where real-estate valuations may not be accurate. Accelerated levy releases for taxpayers facing economic hardship. In addition, the IRS will accelerate lien relief for homeowners if a taxpayer cannot refinance or sell a home because of a tax lien. As previously announced, a taxpayer seeking to refinance or sell a home may request the IRS make a tax lien secondary to the lien by the lending institution that is refinancing or restructuring a loan. The taxpayer may also request the IRS discharge its claim if the home is being sold for less than the amount of the mortgage lien under certain circumstances.

Via KurzweilAI.net — Interesting idea, but boy does this seem ripe for abuse. Imagine a bored fourteen-year-old boy armed with an Android phone and this app left alone in a grocery store. Video message pron anyone? Or malware compromised webpage for that matter.

The Secret Lives Of Objects: StickyBits Turn Barcodes Into Personal Message Boards

TechCrunch, Mar. 8, 2010 Stickybits, a new iPhone and Android app that lets you scan any barcode and attach a geo-tagged message to that physical object, has been launched by Stickybits. The barcode in a greeting card, for instance, could trigger a video message from the sender. One on a box of medical supplies could inventory what is inside. A business card with a code on it could link to a resume or LinkedIn profile. The app lets you follow people and see their object stream, or get notified whenever one of your objects is scanned, moved, or new bits are attached to them. Stickybits is similar to science-fiction author Bruce Sterling’s concept of “Spimes.” Read Original Article>>

Raise the cap on credit union small business lending. Sounds reasonable.

From the link:

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D., Penn.) has offered one solution to this problem: lifting the cap on credit unions’ loans to small businesses, allowing them to extend more loans to help the economy grow. When I spoke with Rep. Kanjorski about his proposal, he told me that credit unions lent wisely before the crisis, and are lending more now. Credit union business lending grew by more than 11% in 2009. Now credit unions are facing a statutory cap on lending. To fill a void in business lending, Rep.Kanjorski says credit unions need Congress’ help.

This move just makes sense.

From the link:

Looking to facilitate what it calls free speech rights in countries that don’t look favorably at such liberties, the US government today said it would ease the regulations around exporting Internet-based applications such as e-mail, blogging and social networking software to Iran, Sudan and Cuba.

Specifically the Treasury Department said it would add general licenses authorizing the exportation of free personal Internet-based communications services – such as instant messaging, chat and email, and social networking – to Cuba, Iran and Sudan. The amendments also allow the exportation of related software to Iran and Sudan, the department said in a release (the US Commerce Department controls software exports with Cuba). Until now all such exports were would have broken federal laws.

Cybercrime against companies is particularly damaging for the victims because commercial bank accounts don’t have the reimbursement protection of consumer accounts. The $25M cited below in small business losses in Q3 2009 were due to wire transfer fraud and ACH. The takeaway here? Make sure you close control over any commercial banking function, particularly if you are a small business that regularly carries a large bank balance.

From the link:

Ongoing computer scams targeting small businesses cost U.S. companies US$25 million in the third quarter of 2009, according to the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.Online banking fraud involving the electronic transfer of funds has been on the rise since 2007 and rose to over US$120 million in the third quarter of 2009, according to estimates presented Friday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, by David Nelson, an examination specialist with the FDIC.

The FDIC receives a variety of confidential reports from financial institutions, which allow it to generate the estimates, Nelson said.

Almost all of the incidents reported to the FDIC “related to malware on online banking customers’ PCs,” he said. Typically a victim is tricked into visiting a malicious Web site or downloading a Trojan horse program that gives hackers access to their banking passwords. Money is then transferred out of the account using the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system that banks use to process payments between institutions.

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

I suppose the idea is alright for bloggers looking for larger audiences, or just too lazy to come up decent ideas on their own. Now on the reader’s side of the coin, being able to request posts on topics you want to read about is a pretty good concept.

From the link:

IBM’s internal records show, for example, that only three percent of the company’s employees have posted to a blog at all. Of those who have, 80 percent have posted only five times or fewer. Many of the people interviewed for the study say they stopped blogging–or never got started–because they didn’t think anyone would read their posts.

In an effort to fix this problem, IBM researchers have been experimenting with a tool called Blog Muse, which suggests a topic for a blog post with a ready-made audience.

“We saw this disconnect between readers and writers,” says Werner Geyer, a researcher at IBM’s center for social software in Cambridge who was involved with the work. The writers surveyed often weren’t sure how to interest readers, and many of their posts got little to no response. Readers, on the other hand, couldn’t find blogs on the topics they wanted to read about.

I first blogged about the Martin jetpack back in July 2008, and here not two years later the thing is available for sale — at a mere $75,000. No longer can you cry out, “It’s the twenty-first century and where is my jetpack?!”

From the second link (be sure and hit the link for a video of the jetpack in action):

Taking a leap into the future, the New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft Company plans to start selling commercial jetpacks to anyone with an interest and $75,000.

As a recent article in The Telegraph has reported, Martin has partnered with an unnamed international aircraft company, resulting in enough capital to produce 500 jetpacks per year. The partnership has brought the jetpacks closer to reality compared with a year ago, when Martin’s goal was to produce 10 units at $100,000 each.

This time from Cornell, and sounds practically market-ready. Hit this link for previous blogging on the topic of electric fabrics.

From the first link, the release:

Cotton is the fabric of your lights…your iPod…your MP3 player…your cell phone

ITHACA, N.Y. — Consider this T-shirt: It can monitor your heart rate and breathing, analyze your sweat and even cool you off on a hot summer’s day. What about a pillow that monitors your brain waves, or a solar-powered dress that can charge your ipod or MP4 player? This is not science fiction – this is cotton in 2010.

Now, the laboratory of Juan Hinestroza, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, has developed cotton threads that can conduct electric current as well as a metal wire can, yet remain light and comfortable enough to give a whole new meaning to multi-use garments. This technology works so well that simple knots in such specially treated thread can complete a circuit – and solar-powered dress with this technology literally woven into its fabric will be featured at the annual Cornell Design League Fashion Show on Saturday, March 13 at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.

Using multidisciplinary nanotechnology developed at Cornell in collaboration with the universities at Bologna and Cagliari, Italy, Hinestroza and his colleagues developed a technique to permanently coat cotton fibers with electrically conductive nanoparticles. “We can definitively have sections of a traditional cotton fabric becoming conductive, hence a great myriad of applications can be achieved,” Hinestroza said.

“The technology developed by us and our collaborators allows cotton to remain flexible, light and comfortable while being electronically conductive,” Hinestroza said. “Previous technologies have achieved conductivity but the resulting fiber becomes rigid and heavy. Our new techniques make our yarns friendly to further processing such as weaving, sewing and knitting.”

This technology is beyond the theory stage. Hinestroza’s student, Abbey Liebman, was inspired by the technology enough to design a dress that actually uses flexible solar cells to power small electronics from a USB charger located in the waist. The charger can power a smartphone or an MP3 player.

“Instead of conventional wires, we are using our conductive cotton to transmit the electricity — so our conductive yarns become part of the dress,” Hinestroza said. “Cotton used to be called the ‘fabric of our lives’ but based on these results, we can now call it ‘The fabric of our lights.’”

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For more information about the Cornell Design League annual fashion show, visit: http://www.rso.cornell.edu/CDesignL/shows.php

It’s getting a little late in the game for this year’s taxes, but if you are unemployed you should make certain you take advantage of every tax break out there. You probably know within certain constraints you can deduct job search expenses, but this year offers a new break on unemployment insurance tax.

From the link:

Traditionally, every penny of unemployment insurance is taxed. But with 8.4 million job losses since the start of the recession, that rule is changing this year.

If you received unemployment checks last year, you can exclude the first $2,400 from your return. You have to remember to do this math yourself, since the documents from your state employment agency won’t exempt it. This benefit won’t be around next year.

Theoretically possible, which lead to a theoretical superluminal computer — a so-called hypercomputer.

From the link:

Physicists have come up with a way to process information faster than the speed of light. But what could they do with such a hypercomputer?

The speed of light represents one of the fundamental limits of the laws of physics. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, right?

Well, yes and no, say Volkmar Putz and Karl Svozil at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. They say there are several ways that signals can cross the superluminal line, although none of them allow the kind of time travel paradoxes beloved of science fiction writers. For example, the quantum phenomenon of entanglement occurs when two quantum particles are described by the same wave function. These particles can be separated by the diameter of the universe and yet a measurement on one will instantaneously influence the other.

So-called “nonlocal” phenomenon cannot be used to transmit information faster than the speed of light but Putz and Svozil today ask whether it can be used to process it, to carry out computational tasks at superluminal speeds. They say there is no reason why not, provided the processing does not lead to any time travel paradoxes.

And:

Assuming that this device could actually be built, what could you do with a superluminal computer? That’s a good question that Putz and Svozil do not address directly. They say such a device would fall into a class of processing machine known as hypercomputers. These are hypothetical devices more powerful than Turing machines, that allow non-Turing computations. They were first discussed by Alan Turing in the 1930s.

In theory, hypercomputers can compute certain kinds of otherwise noncomputable functions. That sounds handy but even though there are uncountably many non-computable functions, it’s actually quite hard to come up with an example of one that might seem useful. If you have any ideas, post them in the comments section.

Nanotechnology is proving to have many medical applications, and the bulk of those apps are in cancer research. Here’s the latest from Cornell.

The release:

Like little golden assassins, ’smart’ nanoparticles identify, target and kill cancer cells

ITHACA, N.Y. – Another weapon in the arsenal against cancer: Nanoparticles that identify, target and kill specific cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.

Led by Carl Batt, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Food Science, the researchers synthesized nanoparticles – shaped something like a dumbbell – made of gold sandwiched between two pieces of iron oxide. They then attached antibodies, which target a molecule found only in colorectal cancer cells, to the particles. Once bound, the nanoparticles are engulfed by the cancer cells.

To kill the cells, the researchers use a near-infrared laser, which is a wavelength that doesn’t harm normal tissue at the levels used, but the radiation is absorbed by the gold in the nanoparticles. This causes the cancer cells to heat up and die.

“This is a so-called ’smart’ therapy,” Batt said. “To be a smart therapy, it should be targeted, and it should have some ability to be activated only when it’s there and then kills just the cancer cells.”

The goal, said lead author and biomedical graduate student Dickson Kirui, is to improve the technology and make it suitable for testing in a human clinical trial. The researchers are now working on a similar experiment targeting prostate cancer cells.

“If, down the line, you could clinically just target the cancer cells, you could then spare the health surrounding cells from being harmed – that is the critical thing,” Kirui said.

Gold has potential as a material key to fighting cancer in future smart therapies. It is biocompatible, inert and relatively easy to tweak chemically. By changing the size and shape of the gold particle, Kirui and colleagues can tune them to respond to different wavelengths of energy.

Once taken up by the researchers’ gold particles, the cancer cells are destroyed by heat – just a few degrees above normal body temperature – while the surrounding tissue is left unharmed. Such a low-power laser does not have any effect on surrounding cells because that particular wavelength does not heat up cells if they are not loaded up with nanoparticles, the researchers explained.

Using iron oxide – which is basically rust – as the other parts of the particles might one day allow scientists to also track the progress of cancer treatments using magnetic resonance imaging, Kirui said, by taking advantage of the particles’ magnetic properties.

###

The research was funded by the Sloan Foundation and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, which has been a partner with Cornell since 1999 to bring laboratory work to clinical testing. The research is reported in the Feb. 15 online edition of the journal Nanotechnology.

Text by Anne Ju, Cornell Chronicle

You might just get it.

From the link:

Lobbyists for small businesses, construction companies, manufacturers and other trade groups are racing the clock to convince Congress to reinstate the federal estate tax they’ve fought for years to abolish.

The National Federation of Independent Business and more than 40 business organizations wrote Senate and House leaders last week asking for quick action on a proposed 35 percent levy on inheritances worth more than $10 million per couple. The Associated General Contractors of America is urging members to contact lawmakers about the plan.

The groups have changed positions in a bid to head off higher taxes on the horizon: Unless Congress acts, current law would raise the tax next year to 55 percent on estates after they exceed $2 million per couple, from nothing this year.

“Clearly, we can’t live with what’s going to come in 2011,” said Chris Walters, an estate-tax lobbyist in Washington for NFIB, the trade group for small businesses.

Via KurzweilAI.net — Oh my, indeed.

Dark, dangerous asteroids found lurking near Earth

New Scientist Space, Mar. 5, 2010 NASA’s WISE mission has spotted 16 formerly hidden near-Earth objects with orbits close to Earth’s. WISE is expected to discover as many as 1000 near-Earth objects, but astronomers estimate that the number of unknown objects with masses great enough to cause ground damage in an impact runs into the tens of thousands. Read Original Article>>

“Moon” is the feature-length directorial debut from Duncan Jones (nee Zowie Bowie) and immediately belongs in the rarefied air of science fiction classics. The movie is essentially a one-man show, and even though the phrase is a cliche and over-used, tour-de-force perfectly fits Sam Rockwell’s performance. The concept of the film is thought-provoking and quietly draws you into the tale, and you certainly don’t have to be a fan of sci-fi to enjoy Moon.

Even Jone’s short film, “Whistle,” included as a special feature on the DVD is worth a watch.

Hit this link to find “Moon” at Amazon.

A simple and addictive game from Robert Eisele courtesy of Chrome Experiments. After a handful of tries my high score is 208.