Category: News

Duke University researchers who previously demonstrated invisibility cloaking in the lab have employed 3D printing to build their latest “cloak” – a disk that can block microwaves.

The thickness of the donut-like disk roughly matches one wavelength, and its combination of air and dielectric (insulating, nonconducting) composite material deflects microwaves. An object placed in the center effectively “disappears” when microwaves are aimed at it. Because of the properties of transformation optics (physics of electromagnetic radiation that behaves similarly to relativistic warping of space-time), the shell of the disk eliminates any backward reflection that a viewer or detector would use to see the object, and also suppresses shadows and scattering.

The cloaking disk is made of plastic, but another transparent polymer or glass would work equally well, the researchers say. Simulations shows that the cloak could be made thinner and larger in area, and could potentially work for shorter wavelengths, like visible light.

Transformation optics also underlies another advance towards invisibility with metamaterials. These are engineered materials with new kinds of properties that don’t normally exist in nature. The key development by the researchers from Stanford and Spain is tailoring the new metamaterial’s refractive index, or the degree to which it can bend light. Only positive refractive indices (like 1.33 for water) exist in nature, but using transformation optics the investigators were able to design constituents of the new material that have a negative refractive index.

In order for metamaterials to have the interesting properties they were designed for, they need to interact with both magnetic and electric fields. The constituent “atoms” of the new material can do both, which means their interactions with light over broader wavelengths can be controlled. The visible spectrum of light extends from 400-700 nanometers, but previous invisibility efforts have only been able to cover about 50 nm of this range.

In their theoretical analysis, the researchers started with an infinite sheet of material that they fold into a crescent-shape on the nanometer scale. This is their constituent “atom,” which is placed into an array with other identical ones in a background material. The result is a structure that has negative refractive index, i.e. “invisibility” over much of the visible spectrum, in a band over 200 nm wide. Engineering a material from the bottom up opens up new optical potentials, like precisely controlling the light path, and changing the geometry of the nano-crescents or shrinking them could help the invisibility band grow to cover the whole visible spectrum. The material’s negative refraction is shown in the video below.

Image of Yaroslav Urzhumov via Duke University

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Ah, high school, rife with awkward growth, social situations, and trying to just make it to college so you can party somewhere other than a field or at a parent’s house. A high school in Issaquah, Washington has taken the awkwardness to a whole other level, by none other than rating the hotness of their female peers. In an online tournament called ‘May Madness’. The high school females are pitted against one another, and the boys vote on who’s the sexiest.

According to a local news affiliate, the tournament has become a tradition in the last five years, and there’s nothing the local school district can do to shut it down.

According to the local school district, they’re powerless to do anything beyond discouraging the tournament since the contest doesn’t take place on school grounds. The police have gotten involved in the past, able to shut the site down temporarily due to vulgar and profane comments attached to people’s names, but were only able to do so much. Many parents, students, and community members have spoken out against the contest, claiming it sexualizes young girls, leading to self-esteem issues.

Sarah Niegowski, the district’s spokesperson, said this about the people running the website, “These are pretty smart folks behind this. They know their first amendment rights. They’re very quiet about who it is and the group behind it”

There is a May Madness Facebook page, however, there are only photos of the boys attending the school. According to those who have been tracking the contest, the people running it have done a good job in keeping outsiders from accessing it.

If you’re confused about all the action with EMC, VMware and Pivotal over the past several months, you’re not alone. CEOs have traded places, joint ventures have been struck, product lines have been sold and GE even came on board. And that’s before you even start talking about all the new technology.

I sat down with EMC SVP and CTO John Roese on Tuesday at the company’s annual EMC World conference to find out what’s up. Here’s what he had to say.

On three companies under one roof

While they’re technically three separate companies, EMC is really in control. It’s the majority shareholder in VMware and owns more than 60 percent of Pivotal, its new joint venture with VMware that includes the Greenplum, Pivotal Labs, SpringSource, Cloud Foundry and Cetas business lines. When it comes to everyone working toward a common goal, Roese said, “The good news is that while there is independence, Joe Tucci is the chairman of all these companies.”

Roese calls himself the “gravitational center” of the three companies when it comes to technology. This is a reinvention of the CTO role at EMC, which used to be more of a research position. Now, he puts the stake in the ground and generally directs everyone toward it, even if they’re not all taking the same path to get there.

On why Pivotal happened and why it matters

My takeaway from Roese’s comments on formation of Pivotal is that Greenplum is really the linchpin of the whole company. At its core, Pivotal is about building big data infrastructure that can handle next-generation workloads, but it’s aware that broad adoption is only possible if that high technology becomes easier to consume. That means new higher-level applications, which is where SpringSource, Cloud Foundry and Pivotal Labs come into play.

All of this technically could have been accomplished by just selling Greenplum and Pivotal Labs (the only assets of the new company that was under the EMC umbrella) to VMware, but Roese said VMware wasn’t the right home because VMware is not so important in the places where next-generation workloads are popping up. There’s not a lot of VMware inside carriers’ data centers, he acknowledged, but there is a lot of OpenStack popping up. And there’s a lot of Amazon Web Services everywhere you look.

“We would like the big data infrastructure to not care about that,” Roese explained. From EMC’s perspective, it doesn’t need to own the middle — the cloud operating system, if you will — if it can still engage customers at the storage and application-platform layers.

On keeping independent while working an ‘unfair advantage’

Roese doesn’t think a vertically integrated approach is the best way to do business in today’s technology world, which is why EMC, VMware and Pivotal all operate independently and no one relies on another in order to work within customers’ data centers. That’s why VMware has its own cloud computing efforts but Pivotal is cloud-agnostic, why EMC storage can operate with any higher-level software and why VMware doesn’t care about what’s running underneath or, usually, above it.

However, he added, it’s only natural the three companies seek an “unfair advantage” from the incestuous bonds they share. What he means, of course, is that they should keep a close eye on what the others are doing and work together to ensure they’re all optimized for the same types of workloads. For example, Roese said, if EMC didn’t reconsider how storage had to perform given that virtualization is the norm or that technology like Hadoop exists, it would “become suboptimal or generic.”

The same holds true for Pivotal and VMware. Pivotal needs to think about how big data applications run on virtualized resources differently than on big bare metal systems, as well as on flash-based arrays like what EMC is about to roll out based on its XtremIO acquisition. VMware and EMC need to think about how their software-defined data center and software-defined storage approaches can build off each other.

From EMC’s perspective, it’s easy to see why this all matters. It is at its core an information infrastructure company, but “the challenging thing with that is that it’s a moving target,” Roese said. A company like EMC can’t get by on storage arrays alone anymore, but it also can’t be dumb enough to think it can be everything to everyone and still be good at anything.

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We’ve been big fans of cult strategy game Auralux for some time now, but one of our major complaints of the game is well— it was only intended for owners of Tegra-based devices. Fortunately, those of you out there who have been hankering to get in on the great action will now have a shot as Auralux received an extensive update which not only features expanded features and stability enhancements, but now owners of any Android 3.0+ device can finally get in on the action as the game is no longer limited to Tegra-based devices.

In case you aren’t familiar with the basic game concept, Auralux allows gamers to begin campaigns with one type of unit upon one planet and the end goal is to send your units to other neighboring planets with the hope of taking them over. The basic premise of the game allows for hours of addictive gameplay, but as an added treat, there is a new level pack that has been tossed in with the update for even more awesome potential. Oh and lest we forget— there’s third-party controller support, so if you find that playing with the touchscreen doesn’t strike your fancy, you’ll have at least one alternative to choose from. Sweet.

The update is now available in the Play Store for all Android 3.0+ devices— tablet or smartphone. You’ll want to make sure that you have at least 33MB of free storage space in order to run the game, but trust us— the download of this game will be worth it.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: Auralux gets updated to include new level pack, controller support and oh— support for non-Tegra devices

There’s a place in Switzerland where scientists travel on bicycles through tunnels filled with atom-smashing tubes, where the first webpage was born, and where a giant wooden globe watches over researchers replicating the very beginnings of our universe. That place is CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, and last Friday, it held its first TEDx event: TEDxCERN.

At the event, 23 speakers and performers — including a Nobel laureate, an Ig Nobel Prize founder, a Google Science Fair winner, and an opera singer — gathered together in CERN’s Globe of Science and Innovation to talk about the Higgs boson, science education, classifying galaxies, and — naturally — an analysis of the forces required to drag sheep.

So what did we at TED HQ learn at TEDxCERN? A lot. But to make things easy, here are seven takeaways from TEDxCERN:

1. In 2010, when prompted to draw a “scientist,” only 33% of schoolchildren asked drew a woman.
In 1980, the figure was 8%. At TEDxCERN, Londa Schiebinger, head of the Gendered Innovations project at Stanford University, talked about some of the issues women in the sciences face today, and the importance of recognizing gender bias in science and technology.

2. Animated elephants and double scoops of ice cream make pondering particle physics a lot more palatable.
Thanks to a collaboration between the whip-smart scientists at CERN and the talented animators at TED-Ed, four new TED-Ed lessons premiered at TEDxCERN — bringing mind-boggling concepts like antimatter, big data, the Higgs boson, and the origins of the universe to life in a way that even the most science-averse student could appreciate: with chocolate-almond ice cream, a lemon, and a giant pile of leaves.

3. Brian May from the band Queen is an astrophysicist.
Yeah, we didn’t know that either. But thanks to a talk from Zooniverse head Chris Lintott, we learned that not only is May a card-carrying astrophysicist (he earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007), he is a fan of Lintott’s Galaxy Zoo project — a herculean effort to gamify and crowdsource galaxy classification.

4. Science goes beyond geography.
People called SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) “an impossible project.” But this lab in Jordan, built around a giant synchrotron particle accelerator, has brought together Israeli, Jordanian, Palestinian, Turkish, Pakistani and Iranian scientists to study a universe bigger than us all. At TEDxCERN, SESAME scientists Eliezer Rabinovici and Zehra Sayers talked about the project’s groundbreaking work.

5. Cool teachers bring their students on field trips via Google Glass.
Physics class can be boring. But not so much if your teacher is Andrew Vanden Heuvel, the TEDxCERN presenter and online physics teacher who traveled to Switzerland to give his students a live tour of the world’s largest particle collider live through his eyes, using Google Glass. At TEDxCERN, we got to see a video diary of his trip, and it is mesmerizing:

6. Herrings communicate by farting. Really.
When you’re a scientist, what you think you’re looking for isn’t always what you find, and Marc Abrahams — organizer of the Ig Nobel Prize, the annual celebration of “improbable” science — thinks this is awesome. At TEDxCERN, he spoke on improbable findings, and shared some surprising discoveries by past Ig Noble winners, including one Robert Batty, who — with his team at the Scottish Association for Marine Science — discovered that strategically released gas allows herrings to communicate at night.

7. The Higgs field is a big deal. In fact, if its value changed too much, it’s quite possible “all atomic matter would collapse.”
Theoretical physicist Gian Giudice knows a lot about the Higgs boson, the Higgs field, and researchers’ attempts to understand it better. At TEDxCERN, he pondered the question, “What might the Higgs mean for the fate of the universe?” and got us all flustered when he said that new discoveries about the famed boson might mean that someday the value of the Higgs field could change and all would be doomed. But not to worry — whatever happens, we’ve got a lot of time before it does.

For more dispatches from TEDxCERN, including some killer photos, visit the website or check out their Facebook or Instagram.

The war-torn country of Syria effectively disappeared from the Internet Tuesday afternoon, according to multiple monitoring services. The disruption, which appears to have affected all Internet traffic from the country, began about 2:45 p.m. Eastern time, which is about 9:45 p.m. in Syria.

The dropoff in Internet traffic is clearly visible in monitoring from Google (see chart above). It has been confirmed by Rensys, a leading network monitoring service. “Renesys confirms loss of Syrian Internet connectivity 18:43 UTC.BGP routes down, inbound traces failing,” the company tweeted.

The outage was quickly noted by Umbrella Security Labs in a blog post by CTO Dan Hubbard.

“Effectively, the shutdown disconnects Syria from Internet communication with the rest of the world,” wrote Hubbard. “It’s unclear whether Internet communication within Syria is still available. Although we can’t yet comment on what caused this outage, past incidents were linked to both government-ordered shutdowns and damage to the infrastructure, which included fiber cuts and power outages.”

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time this has happened. Syria was previously cut off from the Internet last November.

“Many Syria-watchers feared that the (November) Web shutdown was a precursor to some sort of coordinated regime counterattack or campaign; that President Bashar al-Assad had not wanted the world to see what he was about to do,” notes the Washington Post. “No such campaign ever appeared to come, however. Later, many Syria analysts concluded that the regime may have been seeking to hamper rebel communication.”

Continue reading…

Three bodies were found on a farm in Kansas on Monday, and investigators believe one of them belongs to a young mother who disappeared with her 18-month old daughter last week.

The bodies were discovered when two friends of 21-year old Kaylie Bailey visited the home–which belonged to her boyfriend, Andrew Stout, and his roommate, Steven Eugene White–to check on some animals there. The women–Kortni McGill and Corey Schlotzhauer–quickly smelled a foul odor coming from the garage and called police, who did a brief search of the home and found nothing. After they left, the women decided they weren’t satisfied with the quick inspection and returned with another friend, 21-year old Shona Osladil, to investigate. They then found a decaying body beneath a tarp that had been weighted down.

“I reached down and saw teeth through the square in the cinder block. I said, ‘Corey, there’s a body here,’” Kortni McGill said.

The reported reason the police didn’t find the body is that it was covered in trash, but Osladil is extremely unhappy with the way things have been handled.

“I’m very frustrated,” she said. “Without us going out there how long would it have been before they found that body?”

Investigators aren’t releasing details regarding how the victims died, saying it is crucial to their investigation. The baby, Lana Bailey, has yet to be found. They are, however, looking for two men in connection with the murders: Kyle Flack, 27, and Cyle Mathew Bailey, 22. They are believed to be driving a Toyota Corolla.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc,  the largest investor in DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc, has entered an agreement allowing it to nearly double its stake in the largest U.S. operator of dialysis clinics to 25 percent, Reuters is reporting.

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, the largest investor in DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc, has entered an agreement allowing it to nearly double its stake in the largest U.S. operator of dialysis clinics to 25 percent.

According to a regulatory filing, the companies on Tuesday entered a “standstill” agreement, which is often used to prevent unsolicited takeovers, indicating the maximum percentage of shares that Berkshire can own.

DaVita shares rose $3.84, or 3.3 percent, to $121.40 in after-hours trading after the agreement was disclosed.

Berkshire owned about 15 million DaVita shares, or 14.2 percent, as of March 4, according to another regulatory filing.

These shares were worth about $1.76 billion, based on Tuesday’s closing price of $117.56 for DaVita. That price gave DaVita a market value of about $12.4 billion.

Buffett’s company ended March with $49.1 billion of cash, of which $12.1 billion is being used to help fund the pending purchase of ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co (HNZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
DaVita has long been a favorite investment of Ted Weschler, one of two portfolio managers Buffett hired to run portions of Berkshire’s $95.9 billion portfolio of equities.

Buffett recently gave Weschler and the other portfolio manager, Todd Combs, an additional $1 billion each to invest.

Within the last five years, Berkshire has held stakes exceeding 20 percent in railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp, which it later bought, and credit rating company Moody’s Corp (MCO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), whose shares it has recently been selling.

Separately, Denver-based DaVita reported on Tuesday an adjusted first-quarter operating profit excluding a legal reserve of $196.9 million, or $1.84 per share. Analysts on average expected $1.79 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The post Berkshire May Boost DaVita Stake to 25 percent appeared first on peHUB.

That’s the word late today from Microsoft. The next version of Windows will be available, as a preview, during Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference June 27-29 in San Francisco.

To ship this year, as the company plans, the preview would need to be brief, with release to manufacturing ideally coming by end of August latest. PC makers generally need four to six weeks of testing before qualifying final images. That makes the timetable tight to get Windows Blue on holiday 2013 PCs.

The new version comes as Windows 8 fails to lift PC shipments and some analysts contending the operating system hurts them. “At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market”, Bob O’Donnell, IDC vice president, says.

“While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI, removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices”, he says. “Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market”.

Most analysts cite Microsoft’s emphasis on touch but PC manufacturers’ inability to bring appropriate models to market as a big problem. Apps selection is one reason.

“Thus far, Windows 8 has had a limited impact on driving touch adoption in notebook PCs, due to a lack of applications needing touch and the high cost of touch on notebook PCs”, Richard Shim, NPD DisplaySearch senior analyst, says. He emphasizes: “Form factors aimed at differentiation from standard clamshell notebooks will help to drive consumer adoption of touch-enabled notebook PCs, starting in the second half of 2013”.

That said, DisplaySearch and IDC predict touch models will comprise a small number of PC shipments for the foreseeable future. That circumstance leads to much speculation that Microsoft will make the Desktop mode more a priority in Windows Blue.

My question: What do you want Microsoft to change in Windows Blue?

Haystax Technology, which is backed by Edgewater Funds, said Tuesday that it acquired FlexPoint Technology. Financial terms weren’t announced. Reston, Va.-based Flexpoint, professional services company, provides private and public cloud solutions that supplies secure collaboration and application development capabilities.

PRESS RELEASE

Haystax Technology, Inc. (Haystax), a portfolio company of the Edgewater Funds, today announced the acquisition of FlexPoint Technology, LLC. Haystax provides multi-source information integration, big data analytics and visualization to address the challenges posed by exponential increases in data volume to customers in the intelligence, defense and security communities. The FlexPoint acquisition extends Haystax products and services in defense and intelligence markets and marks their second acquisition in three weeks.
FlexPoint Technology is a professional services company providing private and public cloud solutions that deliver secure collaboration and application development capabilities to security-demanding environments. Defense and intelligence community customers rely on FlexPoint solutions to rapidly deploy secure cloud computing environments for substantial improvements in performance and reduced operating expenses. FlexPoint software and engineering services deliver custom mission applications and manage internal users and external partners, ensuring the right people have the right information to make the right decisions
Haystax Technology CEO, William B. Van Vleet , said, “The addition of FlexPoint Technology’s cloud computing and security services perfectly complements our existing capabilities in big data analytics and mobile solutions. This combination results in a full spectrum of products and services with expertise in each of the four technology forces that are revolutionizing government and private industry.”
FlexPoint Technology President, David Conrad , added, “Haystax Technology provides additional capabilities and resources in real-time analytics and mobile solutions to extend the range of our capabilities for our clients’ critical missions. Joining this team strengthens our overall capabilities and provides an outstanding cultural match for our employees and customers.”
Following the acquisition, FlexPoint will be known as FlexPoint Technology, a Haystax Company, and will continue to be led by its president, David Conrad . The terms of the transaction were not released.
About FlexPoint Technology, LLC
FlexPoint Technology is a Virginia-based IT professional services company that specializes in delivering cloud computing and enterprise content management services to government customers with extremely demanding security requirements. FlexPoint solutions leverage commercial off-the-shelf technology to deliver identity management, secure collaboration services, infrastructure management and application development. Visit FlexPoint on the Web at www.flexpointtech.com
About Haystax Technology
Haystax Technology, Inc. provides next generation products, systems and service solutions to sift, refine and analyze large, disparate and unstructured volumes of data to reveal undiscovered connections and enable precise, actionable intelligence for government and commercial market clients. In essence, these technologies allow users to find “the needle in the haystack” quickly and reliably. For further information about Haystax Technology, visit our website at www.haystaxtechnology.com.
About The Edgewater Funds
The Edgewater Funds is a Chicago-based private equity firm with $1.4 billion in committed capital. Edgewater Growth Capital Partners with management to help accelerate growth in their businesses. Edgewater focuses on funding high quality middle market companies where we can add substantial value through our capital, our experience and our broad network. Edgewater leverages the experiences of its Partners and Advisory Board who have distinguished themselves as successful CEOs and business leaders.

The post Haystax Buys Flexpoint Tech appeared first on peHUB.

Microsoft fights an uphill battle against iOS and Android, but it is a war the company is determined to persevere in, especially given the latest TV ad, which is viral. Now within back-to-back days the mobile platform adds both Foursquare, Hulu and updated YouTube.

Today, an updated YouTube app joins the party, with Microsoft announcing a new version that allows pinning videos, playlists, channels, and search queries to Start as Live Tiles, gives new playlist design, plays videos in the background when the screen is locked (perfect for music videos) and makes easy video sharing to social sites. It even leverages the YouTube safety mode to keep the little ones from viewing unfit content. However, as my colleague Mihaita Bamburic points out, “You can’t upload videos, sadly. That’s a pretty basic feature, albeit one that’s missing”.

Before you get the impression that Microsoft and Google have mended fences and made nice with each other, let me explain.  The new YouTube app is not produced by the Google team, but by Microsoft. Version 3.0 was released today, is free and is compatible with both Windows Phone 7.5 and 8.

Windows Phone fans also got another gift today, with Foursquare announcing an app for the handset. “We’ve been working closely with Nokia and Microsoft, and today, we’re finally taking the covers off a brand new version of Foursquare for Windows Phone 8, specially optimized for Nokia’s shiny new Lumia phones”, the company tells us. This brings 33 million users with it, along with the ability to view maps, get insider tips and browse trending places.

Yesterday Hulu announced the premium video service, known as Plus, was launching on the Microsoft platform, telling us that its “team has been focused on creating a beautiful and comprehensive Hulu Plus experience that is optimized for Windows Phone 8”. Clicking on the app will launch a panorama of clips, episodes and shows that are organized neatly, making for quick and easy access. Hulu Plus is free, but requires a subscription for content.

Nine months into her tenure as Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer offered some insights into what might lie ahead for the company and its mish-mash of products. Speaking at a Wired Business conference in New York City, Mayer emphasized the role of video but downplayed the role of Google Glass and the prospect of a Facebook-style takeover over smartphone homescreens.

“We want to have a portfolio approach — no one is going to use the whole suite of products,” said Mayer, adding that Yahoo is fine with an à la carte approach where different users pull up two or three of what the company calls its “daily dozen” tools such as stocks or weather.

Speaking with Wired’s senior writer, Stephen Levy, Mayer also addressed the role of video; the company has earned some buzz in this area with announcements that it acquired the rights to Saturday Night Live clips and that it will be putting out original shows like “Losing Your Virginity with John Stamos.”

This appears to be part of what Mayer calls a “tiered approach” in which Yahoo will put out a small tier of original content alongside a larger tranche of curated content from across the web, as well as encouraging user-generated fare on Flickr.

The CEO also addressed, once again, her diktat to curtail working from home — a controversial decision that’s provided nearly endless grist for debates over gender and workplace.

“I didn’t mean for it to be an industry narrative,” she said. “We were just saying it wasn’t right for us right now … Everyone at Yahoo works in teams [and] stopping “causes drag.”

She added that the policy has lots of exceptions and been really well-received inside the company, and argued that it has produced a “Reese’s peanut butter effect” that can only happen when disparate people run into each other on the job.

In response to Levy’s question about search, Mayer said she “believed in it” and “understands it” (which is no doubt true after her long tenure at Google) but that the company will continue to hitch its wagon with Microsoft on the search front for the time being.

As for a description of the company’s “moonshot,” Mayer said it was to be on billions of screens. And, in a note that may give hope to exasperated investors, she added that she wants the company to return to faster-than-market growth.

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It’s not a secret that replicating what the human brain and senses do naturally still presents a substantial challenge in engineering. New advances in restoring and improving hearing are getting closer to the real thing by going mobile and taking cues from nature.

A little yellow fly that lays parasitic eggs is actually the inspiration for a next-gen hearing aid. Its complex “ear” near the base of the front legs responds to male cricket calls, and is the model for tiny microphones. Two or more microphones detecting the pressure changes in sound waves are better for hearing aids, but the smaller and closer the microphones, the harder it is to accurately detect those waves. The mechanics of the MEMS microphone design come directly from the fly, and new research scheduled to be presented at the International Congress of Acoustics in June shows that by tweaking certain parameters, the prototype hearing aid can be made much smaller than conventional ones, with a greater tolerance to noise.

Of more immediate impact are hearing aid apps for smartphones, which contain the microphone, processor, and headphones needed for a hearing aid at a fraction of the cost of a separate device. Hearing aid apps with diverse features and prices are available, but one recent app that stands out is BioAid, a free and open source hearing aid.

The difference with BioAid is that its algorithm performs compression and amplification selectively across different frequency bands, instead of a uniform gain across all frequencies, like turning up the volume. Since it was built by hearing researchers in the U.K., it has been lab tested with real hearing-impaired volunteers. With the app’s sliders, users can adjust and save filters for different background noise levels. Plus, the phone’s touchscreen and charger save users from the tiny-battery-fat-fingers dilemma.

On a regulatory note, the Food and Drug Administration is paying close attention to mobile health services, which may explain why some apps shun the “hearing aid” label or are plastered with heavy disclaimers. Congressional hearings in March were a prelude to upcoming new FDA guidelines on smartphone and mobile health apps; 75 apps have been approved so far.

The bulky cochlear implant, one of the great successes of sensory prosthetics, is also getting a makeover. Georgia Tech researchers, for example, have developed a thin film electrode array that flexes to fit the tiny, two-millimeter diameter cochlear surface to better stimulate the auditory nerve. This still needs to be connected to a battery, microphones, and processor; the externally visible part of conventional cochlear implants. A fully internal system, trialed by industry leader Cochlear in 2007, means users never have to remove it to swim, sleep, or shower. The downside with an internal microphone, apparently, is that you can really hear your chewing and heartbeat, but with signal processing this effect can be mitigated.

With the cost of conventional implants being reduced by upstarts like Nurotron thanks to cheap manufacturing and fast-tracked regulatory approval in China, and biotech providing new materials and designs, a true bionic ear (3D printed of course) may be arriving at the speed of sound.

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Polaris Wireless said Tuesday that it completed a recapitalizatoon of of existing equity interests on April 25. The recap included closing a Series C financing with $10 million from Industry Ventures. Victor Hwang, an Industry Ventures MD, joined the Polaris board. Mountain View, Calif.-based Polaris provides software-based wireless location solutions.

PRESS RELEASE

Polaris Wireless, the global leader in high-accuracy, software-based wireless location solutions, today announced that the company closed on a recapitalization of existing equity interests on April 25, 2013. As part of the recapitalization, Polaris Wireless completed a Series C financing with $10 million from Industry Ventures, a leading investment firm focused on the venture capital market, and Industry Ventures Managing Director Victor Hwang has joined the Polaris Wireless Board of Directors.

“Industry Ventures seeks to invest in market leading growth companies and we believe Polaris Wireless is a clear leader in the wireless location market,” said Hwang. “We are very excited about Polaris Wireless’ strong growth trajectory and global presence, and look forward to working with Manlio Allegra and the senior team at Polaris Wireless in their next chapter of growth.”

The investment by Industry Ventures also returned capital to Series A investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and will also be used to fund Polaris Wireless’ future international growth.

“We look forward to an exciting new growth chapter for our company with Industry Ventures by our side,” said Manlio Allegra, Polaris Wireless CEO and Co-founder.

Polaris Wireless has emerged as a leader in the wireless location services market, with a record increase in revenue and profitability in 2011 and 2012, driven by aggressive growth for its location solutions across the globe. Twenty-four U.S. wireless carriers, six managed services partners, and fifteen international deployments now rely on Polaris Wireless location solutions to enable emergency call applications, lawful and mass location surveillance, and other location-based services.

About Polaris Wireless

Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., Polaris Wireless is the global leader in providing high-accuracy, software-based wireless location solutions to wireless operators, law enforcement/government agencies and location-based application companies. Since 2003, Polaris Wireless has successfully completed 39 global deployments – 15 for lawful location surveillance and LBS in Asia and EMEA, and 24 to meet FCC E911 Phase II requirements in the US. The company has offices in Dubai, U.A.E., Bangalore, India, London, UK, and Santiago, Chile.

Polaris Wireless is the recipient of the prestigious Frost & Sullivan “2011 Enabling Technology of the Year” award and was named to the 2012 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies, recognizing the company’s accomplishments and leadership in developing location solutions. The company participates in location committees and other groups within the 3GPP and OMA standards setting bodies, and also participates in regulatory and industry bodies related to E911, lawful location surveillance, and location-based services. Polaris Wireless is located at 301 North Whisman Road, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA. For more information about Polaris Wireless, please visit http://www.polariswireless.com.

About Industry Ventures LLC

Industry Ventures is a leading investment firm focused on the venture capital market. The firm manages a family of funds that invest in secondary direct investments, limited partnership interests and other special situations. Founded in 2000, the firm manages over $1 billion of institutional capital and is headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.industryventures.com.

The post Polaris Closes $10 Mln Series C Financing from Industry Ventures appeared first on peHUB.

PineBridge Investments said Tuesday that Jason Fisher joined the firm as SVP, Head of Consultant Relations for the Americas and Europe. He will be based in Los Angeles and report to John Baumann, Head of Institutional Sales and Client Service, Americas and Europe. Most recently, Fisher was at J.P. Morgan Asset Management where he held a number of senior sales and consultant positions over the last decade.

PRESS RELEASE

PineBridge Investments (“PineBridge”), the global multi-asset class investment manager, today announced that Jason Fisher joined the firm as Senior Vice President, Head of Consultant Relations for the Americas and Europe. Mr. Fisher will work closely with PineBridge’s Sales and Client Service Teams to enhance the firm’s relationships with global institutional consulting firms. Mr. Fisher will be based in Los Angeles and report to John Baumann, Head of Institutional Sales and Client Service, Americas and Europe.

David Jiang, Chief Executive Officer at PineBridge said, “Jason’s strong business development acumen and experience will be instrumental in strengthening the firm’s relationships with the consultant community in the Americas and Europe. His appointment underscores our continued commitment to deepening our relationships with institutional investors and to growing our firm’s client base.”

John Baumann said, “I am pleased and excited that Jason will be joining our 38-person business development team in this key role. We are focused on strengthening our ties and expanding the growth of our consultant relationships. Jason has a long track record in the industry, and insightful knowledge of the different asset classes.”

“PineBridge is a world-class organization, with strong global products and capabilities. This will be an interesting role, and I look forward to working with the investment and business development teams to raise the knowledge base with consultants about PineBridge’s distinguished track record within the consultant community,” said Jason Fisher.

Mr. Fisher joins PineBridge from J.P. Morgan Asset Management where he held a number of senior sales and consultant positions over the last decade, most recently serving as Consultant Advisor and Executive Director of US Institutional Consultant Sales based in Los Angeles. Mr. Fisher holds FINRA securities licenses, including Series 3, 7 and 63, and earned a BBA in Marketing from the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

About PineBridge Investments

PineBridge is an independent asset manager with over 60 years of experience in developed and emerging markets. We manage US $71.5 billion across our platform for institutional and individual investors worldwide as of 31 March 2013. Our globally integrated investment platform offers innovative, core and specialized alpha-oriented solutions across asset allocation, equities, fixed income, private equity and hedge funds. What differentiates us is our integration of on-the-ground investment teams across asset classes, bringing investors the combined benefits of global perspectives and structured insights.

The post Fisher Joins PineBridge Investments appeared first on peHUB.

Every few months I hear rumors with these two words: HTC and tablet. On Tuesday, I heard them again with a source telling Phone Arena that HTC is expected to debut a pair of new tablets by year’s end. One is allegedly a 7-inch tablet while the other is expected to be a 12-inch device. A tablet isn’t what HTC needs to turn around its sales and profits problems.

HTC’s prior tablets and the market for Windows RT

HTC did create a 7-inch Intel Atom-powered tablet in 2007 called the HTC Shift. It had a hardware keyboard and ran Windows, but like many other UMPC models from that time, it was never a hit. The company doesn’t have expertise with Intel chips and the full version of Windows, however. A few Android tablets from HTC — the Flyer and the Jetstream — came and went without fanfare as well. Given HTC’s experience with ARM-powered chips in smartphones, it would likely build new tablets with similar silicon. That would mean both would run Windows RT and not the full Windows 8 software.

Unfortunately, I’m not yet convinced there’s a market for Windows RT devices. I fully understand that some readers may have purchased one and are quite happy with it. However, there’s no data to support that Windows RT is a success by any measure: Microsoft hasn’t yet broken out Windows RT license sales from Windows 8 sales.

And after spending time with Surface RT and other Windows RT slates, I haven’t been able to recommend them to anyone. It’s not because they’re bad products; I actually like the user interface and the hardware of the various models. But at a similar price point, it may make more sense to buy an Intel Atom slate that provides similar battery life and performance to RT tablets but also adds support for legacy Windows software.

HTC’s current issues stem from several problems

I can understand why HTC might want to expand its product line to include Windows tablets: The company’s smartphone sales have been falling and so too are HTC’s revenues and profits. Instead of leading the pack with Android phones like it used to, HTC is losing out to Samsung. So too are other companies that used be smartphone stars; HTC isn’t unique. As a result, HTC reported just $2.88 million profit on $1.45 billion in revenues last quarter and unless it can quickly reverse its fortunes with the new HTC One, it could see profits dip into losses.

We’ve previously discussed why HTC is in its current predicament. Stronger competition is one part of it. The relative lack of brand awareness and marketing is another big reason. And a lack of focus — too many different permutations and combinations of similar products — haven’t helped either. And therein lies the rub: all three of these issues would only be magnified in the market for Windows tablets.

Losing focus isn’t a winning strategy

A better idea for HTC might be to get its smartphone house in order. It’s definitely on the right path with the HTC One; it’s a top-notch Android smartphone. If the phone is successful, I supposed the company could re-invest profits into designing a Windows tablet or two, but it might be better to continue improving the smartphone line first.

Tablet sales are growing, even as PC sales are slowing, but the market for smartphones is still bigger than both. I’d hate to see HTC lose focus by entering an already crowded market for products that haven’t yet proven successful. It just seems like a big risk that HTC isn’t in a position to take right now.

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