Category: News

Back in the 1990s, I coined the phrase “cusper” — or thought I did — to refer to people like me who were born at the end of the Baby Boom era but didn’t share the generation’s values. In January 2001, I registered the .com, .net and .org variants of cusper and cuspers. For a reason. I am a Cusper. But I never properly used the domains (someday! someday!) and later let the .org variants go. This year I re-acquired cusper.org for $3.99 domain registration. Some nutcase wants $3,000 at auction for cuspers.org. Good luck.

So much aimed at Boomers doesn’t apply to me, or others of my tweener generation. Amazon’s new “50+ Active & Healthy Living“, which opens today, is another affront. If being over 50 is a lifestyle that Boomers boast, or Amazon wants to sell them, let me out of here. I want no part of it. I don’t read their kind of books or listen to their style of music or swallow vitamins like they popped pills of a more illicit type in their youth.

My first reaction to the new Amazon store: Why would anyone want to shop someplace that makes them feel old? I may be over 50 but identify more with younger folks or those of my generation, like President Barack Obama, who still evoke vitality and youth (surely his daughters’ energy helps there). I don’t obsess about vitamins, don’t want to shop anywhere prominently promoting adult diapers or see model images of the elderly. Hell, describing the store makes me feel old. Yuck. It’s why I would never move to an old folks community or retirement state like Florida. What? To be old?

Adult Diapers R Us

“We’re excited to offer customers in the 50+ age range a place to easily discover hundreds of thousands of items that promote active and healthy living”, Amazon’s Chance Wales says. “This is a destination where a customer can purchase anything from vitamins and blood pressure monitors to skin care items and books on traveling the world”.

The sagging balls this company has. I’m quite shocked that among the benefits touted in the official announcement is category “incontinence”. What’s aspirational about getting old and wearing diapers? Oh, yeah, I so aspire to live that lifestyle.

Yet, there’s something sadly appropriate about Amazon’s 50+ store, which by generation for now really appeals more to Baby Boomers. The retailer is welcome to them.

Aren’t Boomers supposed to be the love, peace and protest generation that refused to conform to the stuffy suits of their parents’ generation? Now look at them. They’re geriatric and more like their parents every day.

Boomers are a huge economic force, and it’s not surprising that Amazon wants to tap the well. But there is another. The generation coming of age now — Millennials/Next-Geners — are about as large a group. They come to adulthood at a time when technology takes knowledge long the propriety of the old and gives it to the young. I watch fascinated as these two cultures clash.

Boomers Busted

Baby Boomers, are in my book, the self-centered generation. The freedom their generation craved — to have lots of sex with anyone anywhere, to trip on drugs whenever and wherever and to protest war so they wouldn’t have to serve in it — is all about self. Mottos like “make love, not war” boasted higher ideals but were really about saving themselves first before anyone else. Their do-good persona is undeserved.

I entered college just as punk rock, and the rebellious lifestyle with it, swept from the United Kingdom across the globe. Cuspers didn’t protest the generation separating their parents but the cultural gulf with their Boomer siblings. Cuspers shook off disco music and polyester clothes for spiked hair, piercings and tattoos — what today is lifestyle for some was rebellion in my teens.

In my youth, Generation Xers were called Baby Busters, which is hilarious and somewhat appropriate. I claim no affinity with either group, having been born between them. I certainly don’t share those touchy-feely, let’s-not-be-responsible-to-anybody values of the Boomers. However, I share some of their idealism. Likewise, I shine to some of the realistic, work-hard-and-be-successful values of Xers.

Since I started referring to “cuspers” in the 1990s, and after acquiring the domains in 2001, others caught on — or perhaps had similar ideas around the same time. There are several books and guides available that refer to “cuspers” as a subcategory of Baby Boomers, but there’s some dispute about who belongs in it. Typical range is 1960-65 or 1954-65. Most of the academic literature focuses on the workplace and employee management, but more recently there is increased emphasis on marketing.

Perhaps Amazon’s over-50 store reflects some of that marketing research. Go back to the books, Jeff Bezos. I won’t shop there.

Photo Credit: lineartestpilot/Shutterstock

People who successfully tackle big social, environmental, and economic problems are driven by what I call a moment of obligation — a specific time in their life when they felt compelled to act. These moments become their North Star; they keep them going in a positive direction when everything seems dark. The obligation is not only to the world but also to themselves.

Activists or social entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones who are moved this way. We all have experiences that deeply inform who we are and what we are supposed to do. But only if we allow them to.

Take Socheata Poeuv. She borrowed a bulky video camera from her office job at a television studio and carried it all the way to Cambodia. But when she got there, it felt nearly impossible to get anyone to talk about the Khmer Rouge genocide. Not even her parents — survivors who had accompanied her on the trip — would open up. Socheata followed her father through an empty field, video camera in hand. There is nothing to see here, she thought. It seemed to be the story of her entire trip. But she continued, driven by the haunting memory of the day a year prior when her parents sat her down and told her the truth about their experience with the genocide and the adoption of those she had always thought of as her siblings after their biological parents had passed away at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime.

She trailed after her father in the field remembering this moment when suddenly, he began to speak.

“We buried your aunt near here after she died,” he uttered. Then he raised his hands to his face and cried. This conversation became a central part of the film Socheata created about her family. This film later led Socheata to found an organization that shares stories of the genocide to support the healing process of generations of surviving Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans. Neither of these would have happened if Socheata’s parents had not sat her down and told her the truth. This was her moment of obligation.

As a leader at Echoing Green, a social change organization that has supported Socheata and nearly 550 social entrepreneurs like her through a fellowship program, I’ve heard countless stories of these moments.

For 2006 fellow Andrew Youn, the moment came was when he went to Bungoma, Kenya and visited the home of a widow who only had enough to serve her hungry children one meal of flour and water that day because her crops were failing.

For 2012 fellow Rachel Armstrong it was when she was forced to give up her childhood dream to become a farmer in rural Minnesota due to crippling cultural and environmental poverty and a growing lack of connections between rural neighbors, urban eaters, and farmland.

For 2012 fellow Markese Bryant, it was when he read The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones who argued that the environmental movement was an extension of the civil rights movement. If that was true, Markese wondered, why wasn’t environmentalism penetrating the campuses of historically black colleges and universities, and how could he change that?

We’ve all been deeply moved by problems in the world. We see that something isn’t right, that a community deserves better, or a social injustice needs to be corrected. It could be that something terrible — or even something wonderful — happens to us or someone we know. Perhaps we witness an injustice. Perhaps we simply read an article about one, but something about it moves us as powerfully as if we were the one who wrote it.

Unfortunately, many of us are not prepared to recognize these moments for what they are. As a result, we let them pass by. We chalk them up to emotional experiences or brief blips of inspiration and move on with our daily routine. And we lose out on creating meaningful careers and lives.

Here are a few tips for recognizing your own moments of obligation.

• They’re strong. You can recognize the moment by the intense feelings it invokes. The moment itself doesn’t necessarily need to be dramatic, but what it brings up in you is.
• They keep showing up. Sometimes, the experiences will reoccur. You’ll notice an issue again and again. Patterns will emerge and you will see that, for whatever reason, you are drawn to delve deeper into this particular issue.
• They’re personal. The moments are very often personally meaningful. They are connected to your own experiences, or the experiences of people you care most about, the way in which Socheata’s moment of obligation was.
• They take hold. Finally, they just won’t let you go. They scream for your attention, creeping into your mind when you are minding your own business — sitting on the couch, watching TV, or trying to get a good night’s sleep.

Everyone is moved this way from time to time, but what sets those who help solve the world’s biggest problems apart is the decision to turn that feeling into action. They say, “Someone has to take responsibility for this problem. And that someone is me.”

Since Socheata responded to that first moment of obligation by lugging a borrowed video camera to Cambodia, she’s had many more moments and has found new and innovative ways to respond to them. Today, Socheata is the Chief Executive Guru at goBlue Labs, which combines ancient wisdom about mindfulness with 21st century neurotechnology in order to help people perform better in life and work. And I am sure she will have more moments that will allow her to build a meaningful, purpose-driven life and have an impact on the world.

As will you. But will you recognize them? Will you not let them pass you by? And can you turn these powerful moments into action?

Sagar Pushpala, a former operating partner with Khosla Ventures, was tapped to take over TSI Semiconductors as CEO. TSI, formerly known as Telefunken Semiconductors, also added three other executives to its team.

PRESS RELEASE

TSI Semiconductors Appoints New CEO

Sagar Pushpala to Lead Expansion of TSI’s Technology Development and Foundry Operations

Roseville, Calif. – April 15, 2013 – TSI Semiconductors, LLC, a world-class specialty foundry offering flexible technology development and manufacturing services, today announced that Sagar Pushpala has been named its new CEO. Pushpala, who was most recently with Khosla Ventures and brings more than 25 years of experience managing technology development and supply-chain operations at leading analog and mixed-signal companies, will lead TSI as it expands its operations and R&D capabilities in the Silicon Valley area and around the world. In addition, today TSI also announced several new additions to its executive team.

TSI, formerly Telefunken Semiconductors, is focused on providing its customers – from small startups to multi-billion dollar corporations – services with a personal touch. Located in close proximity to its customers’ design and engineering teams, TSI intends to drive innovation closer to home by enabling customers to develop unique technologies and IP onsite with its advanced fab equipment. TSI also offers greater flexibility than traditional foundries, enabling customers to choose from off-the-shelf solutions, port technology from other wafer fabs or jointly develop technology in partnership with expert technologists in TSI’s R&D organization, Technology, Development & Commercialization Services (TDCS).

“Having previously been on the customer end of the technology development and manufacturing process in the analog and mixed-signal space, I know how important it is to have a strong working relationship with a foundry partner,” said Pushpala. “TSI’s model, which encourages close engagement with its customers and brings technology development and manufacturing closer to home, is a key differentiator and a strong foundation for the company’s growth.  I look forward to nurturing the environment for innovation that TSI has created and working with the newly appointed executive team to achieve our goals.”

Pushpala’s wide-ranging experience — from technology development to manufacturing — gives him a well-rounded view on how to innovate, adapt to environments and serve customers that are on the leading edge of technology. For more than a quarter century, Pushpala has held executive and senior-level operations, engineering and technology management positions at such analog mixed-signal companies as Intersil, Maxim Integrated Products, National Semiconductor, Saratoga Semiconductor and Advanced Micro Devices. Most recently an operating partner at Khosla Ventures, he continues to serve in board and advisory roles for many system and medical device companies. In addition, he has held board positions in various industry consortiums, including the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) and the Fab Owners Association (FOA).

“Sagar has an impressive background, with deep experience and an intellectual curiosity about what businesses need to do to succeed,” said Michael Gontar, chairman of TSI and chief investment officer and a director at Wafra Capital Partners Inc. “With his strong knowledge of the semiconductor industry and a wide network, Sagar is ideally suited to drive the company’s growth strategically and lead the strong team we have put into place.”

###

About TSI Semiconductors, LLC
TSI Semiconductors, LLC is a world-class, specialty foundry offering flexible technology development and the highest industry quality manufacturing solutions for projects ranging from the smallest to very large lot sizes. With its 8-inch fabrication plant in Roseville, Calif., and 6-inch fabrication facility in Heilbronn, Germany, TSI can manufacture in a large array of versatile processes that include analog/mixed-signal, deep-submicron, high-voltage BCDMOS, including SOI for power management applications, and solutions such as novel materials structures and devices. Technology Development & Commercialization Services (TDCS), TSI’s research and development organization, provides dedicated fab equipment to enable customers to manage their own development activities. For more information, visit www.tsisemi.com.

The post Onetime Khosla Operating Partner Joins Chipmaker appeared first on peHUB.

In an online class of 80,000 students, breaking up into small groups is no easy task — as we saw from a suspended Coursera class earlier this year (that tried to use a Google doc to create groups), it can lead to confusion and technical glitches.

But a new startup called NovoEd wants to build on the massive open online course (MOOC) phenomenon with a service that puts collaboration and team learning at the center of the student experience.

Starting Monday it will open up to the general public with seven courses and, going forward, it said it plans to partner with other universities. For the past year, the startup, which is backed by investors including Costanoa Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kapor Capital, Learn Capital, Maveron, and Ulu Ventures, has been used at Stanford University.

Like Coursera and Udacity – two of the startups leading the MOOC movement – NovoEd was also launched by Stanford professors. Co-founder and CEO Amin Saberi, an associate professor of management science and engineering, said he started creating the service last year, after a colleague said she wanted to put an entrepreneurship class online but couldn’t find a service that supported her pedagogical style.

While existing MOOC services may work for classes that focus on mastery learning, like computer science, Saberi said, many teachers want a better way to teach subjects like entrepreneurship and creativity online.

In those classes, it’s not just about watching a video of professor and then doing the work alone, he said, “It’s about peer learning, social learning – it’s collaborative and experiential. In the transition from brick and mortar to online, you shouldn’t strip away these aspects, you can use the social web to amplify them.”

Over four weekends, Saberi said he and a student came up with an approach that brings social networking techniques to online learning. When students first join the course, they’re automatically assigned to small groups (of less than 10) based on their experiences and locations. As the group works together, each team member is asked to rate their peers, which informs each person’s “Team Rank” score. Later in the course, students are asked to form groups organically and those scores can help students recruit and build teams.

Because the entire experience is more social and students feel accountable to their peers, Saberi said, NovoEd sees higher engagement rates than other MOOCs. For example, in its first class, of the 80,000 students who enrolled in the class, 37,000 said they would do the group project and 10,000 ultimately finished the project and the course. Most MOOCs have a 10 percent completion rate, but NovoEd says theirs is closer to 13 percent or higher.

More importantly, the startup says, students don’t sacrifice the chance to work on the group learning, leadership and critical thinking skills that develop in offline classes.

Schools that already partner with other MOOC startups, like Coursera, Udacity or edX, might not want to evaluate and work with yet another online course provider. But Saberi said that the online higher education space is very big and schools are still in the early days of experimenting.  While the startup is exploring different revenue models, he said that one possibility is charging students for certificates, a strategy already adopted by other MOOC providers.

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Last year SoftBank sent waves through the wireless industry when it made a $20 billion offer for 70 percent Sprint. The name SoftBank might not have been familiar to many, because it’s a Japanese company. By buying Sprint they’re making a big move into the lucrative US market. The deal was expected to close at some point this quarter, but a US company has thrown a wrench in that: this morning we learned that Dish has submitted a bid for Sprint.

Dish has already set up a site, explains his company’s position and why the Dish offer is superior to that of Softbank. There is also a fact sheet, though many of them are phrased as opinions (e.g., “Offers superior shareholder value,” which is up for debate). The long and short: Dish is deadly serious about acquiring Sprint.

On one level, the move might look a bit odd. Sprint is a larger company than Dish, and we don’t often see the smaller company making a bid for the larger one. But on the other hand, Dish has $10 billion in cash, which, according to FierceWireless, is about the level of Exxon Mobil. That extra cash in hand allows Dish to make an offer that another similarly sized company cannot.

The idea is to create a total communications solution. Dish already has its cable TV service in millions of homes, and Sprint reaches many millions more through cellular connections. A combined company would have massive reach. With a single account a customer could potentially fulfill all media and entertainment needs. “There really is no one company on a national scale that puts it all together,” said Ergen. “The new Dish/Sprint company will do that.”

There are problems, of course. For instance, the combined Dish/Sprint entity would carry $36 billion in debt, plus the amount Dish borrows to complete the transaction. So while they’re offering shareholders a higher cash payout and a greater ownership in the combined company than SoftBank, they’re also taking on a lot more risk. But the rewards could be even higher, as Dish claims the combine company could earn $50 billion in revenues.

Like most merger and acquisition information, much of this is inside baseball. Dish has made it clear that wireless is a priority, and it does have spectrum holdings. By acquiring Sprint, and perhaps Clearwire along with them, they could not only make an enormous mobile play, but also improve upon the spectrum it acquires with these two resources.

The consumer takeaway: this could be just the thing needed to move Sprint into closer competition with AT&T and Verizon. The deal with SoftBank might give them more combined subscribers, but that counts subscribers from Japan, which isn’t a very relevant metric for US comparisons. With Dish, Sprint could make a serious marketing play and expose itself to a whole new brand of consumer, one who wants a whole package of services under one umbrella.

The next step: waiting to see if SoftBank makes a counterproposal. If they do, it could be the start of a long bidding war between SoftBank and Dish.

The post Dish Makes Its Wireless Gambit with Bid for Sprint appeared first on MobileMoo.

What did you and your friends do this weekend? These guys successfully performed a 30-person backflip, on skis.

The world record attempt took place in Quebec, Canada. Check it out below (this was their second attempt):

According to the reddit poster, who says that they’re the second from the right in the video, they plan on getting Guinness involved:

“I wasn’t in charge of the whole thing, but I know that they want to try it again more officially next year. We were a bit last minute this year. But Guinness or not, I’m still pretty stoked about how well it worked!” they say.

World champion and future Olympic participant Mikael Kingsbury was a part of the jump, and tweeted about it:

We bet the world record !! 30 back flip hand in hand! Thanks to Mont St-Sauveur!

— Mikael Kingsbury (@MikaelKingsbury) April 14, 2013

[reddit, image via]

As previously reported, Dish Network announced a proposal on Monday to merge with Sprint Nextel in a deal worth $25.5 billion. According to Dish, the offer is a 13% premium over the pending acquisition by SoftBank announced last year.

In a letter to Sprint Nextel Chairman of the Board, James Hance, Jr., Dish chairman Charlie Ergen wrote, “We are offering Sprint shareholders a total consideration of $25.5 billion, consisting of $17.3 billion in cash and $8.2 billion in stock. Sprint shareholders would receive $7.00 per share, based upon DISH’s closing price on Friday, April 12, 2013. This consists of $4.76 per share in cash and 0.05953 DISH shares per Sprint share. The cash portion of our proposal represents an 18% premium over the $4.03 per share implied by the SoftBank proposal, and the equity portion represents approximately 32% ownership in the combined DISH/Sprint versus SoftBank’s proposal of a 30% interest in Sprint alone. Together this represents a 13% premium to the value of the existing SoftBank proposal.”

“Our proposal provides a highly-compelling and unique opportunity for Sprint shareholders,” he continued. “We are offering an ownership interest in a combined company with a comprehensive product and services suite, a significantly enhanced subscriber base, considerable financial and operating scale, as well as a spectrum portfolio that would lead the industry. As a result, this merger creates sizable cost and CAPEX savings and promises extensive new revenue opportunities.”

You can read the letter in its entirety here.

Dish held a conference call this morning discussing the proposal.

The boards of both Sprint Nextel and Softbank approved the $20.1 billion deal back in October, but the companies noted it was still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. The deal was expected to close in mid-2013.

It’s already half way through April, but today’s news gives all parties involved some major new things to consider.

Disney and Capcom made a lot of people happy at PAX East when they announced an HD remake of the NES classic Ducktales. Now Disney is reviving another classic platformer of ages past.

Sega and Disney announced today that they’re remaking Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse exclusively for the PS3. Unlike Ducktales, which is getting a hand-drawn 2D remake, Castle of Illusion will get a full 3D makeover as it moves to a 2.5D platformer.

For those too young to remember early Disney games, Castle of Illusion was one of the very best Disney platformers of the early 90s. It was released exclusively on the Sega Genesis and is still fondly remembered to this day as one of the best, if not the best, Mickey Mouse game ever released. In fact, the only good parts of Disney’s Epic Mickey were the 2D platforming sections that were reminiscent of Castle of Illusion.

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse will release later this year exclusively on the PS3.

It looks like consumers in Taiwan interested in grabbing a pink HTC Butterfly will get that opportunity according to Taiwanese website ePrice. Their site is reporting today that HTC is making a pink cherry powder colored HTC Butterfly available on April 30th. According to the site, pre-orders are now being accepted at both Yahoo! and PCHome. The pink version will be sold for NT$21,900 ($731 USD). This is slightly less than the red and white versions that have been released.

Last month we reported on rumors that HTC is working on a successor to the HTC Butterfly. The appearance of additional colors on the market is typically a sign that a manufacturer is ready to move on to their next version of a device and are content to drive sales of their previous generation device with new versions, like different colors.

source: ePrice

Come comment on this article: Pink HTC Butterfly to grace Taiwan market

There’s no question that Facebook Home puts Facebook front and center on your phone. I guess that can be a good thing for those that love Facebook, but one thing that you might be missing is your status bar. You know that little bar at the top of your phone that shows you the time, your signal, how much battery life is left, and what notifications you have? Hopefully you didn’t forget about it already.

Facebook by default turns that off because they want you to only care about people and nothing else. You can still get to it with a swipe down at the top, and for some of you that might be okay, but it’s an easy fix if you would like to get your status bar back full time again. Just go into settings for Facebook Home and make sure that “Show Status Bar” is checked. Hit the break for a quick video showing you how it’s done.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: How to get your status bar back full time with Facebook Home

Pantech is looking to take on the Galaxy S 4, and come April 18, we’ll get all the details. Called the Vega Iron, this phone appears to be the new flagship device we reported on last week. Here are the rumored specs:

• 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display
• 1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor
• 2GB RAM
• 16 or 32GB internal storage with microSD card support
• 13-megapixel rear-facing camera
• 2-megapixel front-facing camera
• Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean
• 2150 mAh battery
• 136.3 × 67.6 × 8.8 mm at 154 grams (5.4 oz)

The Pantech Vega Iron is also supposed to have an aluminum frame. Several alleged renders were posted recently that show off the design, and you can check them out below.

Via: Phone Arena
Sources: Gizchina and VegaViet

Come comment on this article: Pantech Vega Iron To Be Unveiled April 18, Takes On The Galaxy S 4

Renowned English conductor Sir Colin Davis has died at the age of 85.

According to the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), Davis died on Sunday evening following a short illness. From the LSO statement:

He will be remembered with huge affection and admiration by the LSO and our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Though Davis first conducted the LSO in 1959, it wasn’t until 1995 that he became the principal conductor for the orchestra. He went on to become the longest-serving principal conductor in the LSO’s history, retiring from the position in 2006. The following year, Davis became President of the LSO – the first since Leonard Bernstein’s death in 1990.

During his years of work with the LSO, Davis received many awards, including the 2006 Grammy award for best opera for the LSO live recording of Falstaff. Davis was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and was knighted in 1980.

(Image courtesy the London Symphony Orchestra)

If you’re trying to promote a new mobile industry standard called Weightless, it makes sense to hire an industry heavyweight to do the lifting. U.K. wireless startup Neul has hired former Icera CEO Stan Boland to take over the company.

Boland co-founded phone baseband chipmaker Icera in 2002, heading up the company as president and CEO for nine years. In 2011, Nvidia — anxious to add radio chips to its mobile processor portfolio — acquired it for $367 million in cash. Boland stayed on as Nvidia’s SVP of mobile communications, but according to his LinkedIn profile Boland left the company in October.

Cambridge-based Neul makes wireless chips, but not for the cellular industry. It’s focusing on the emerging white spaces broadband segment — in particular the Weightless standard gaining traction in the U.K.

White spaces use the spectrum in between TV transmissions for two-day way data communications. The Weightless Special Interest Group hopes to use those airwaves as a backbone network for the internet of things, connecting low-power devices such as smart meters and mobile sensors.

Neul’s principal founders will remain with the company. Former CEO James Collier will become CTO, while William Webb has moved from CTO to chief strategy officer and will maintain his role as CEO of the Weightless SIG. Formed in 2010, Neul has quite the pedigree in mobile silicon. Many of the company’s key executives founded CSR, the U.K. fabless semiconductor giant. Neul, however, has only 45 employees and spent its first two years developing its first radio chip.

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Meat Loaf had to postpone a concert in Nottingham on Sunday. According to Reuters, the show was canceled just hours before the band was set to perform.

The official Meat Loaf Facebook page put out the following statement:

NOTTINGHAM:
We are very sorry to announce that tonight’s performance has had to be postponed due to medical reasons afflicting several members of the band

MLH
xxx

As you can see, the statement does not specify which “members of the band” are having medical issues, but that Reuters report indicates Meat Loaf himself is indeed one of them, saying that “health problems continue to dog” him.

He has canceled a tour due to health issues in the past (when he had a cyst on his vocal cords), and a couple years ago, he reportedly collapsed on stage.

The current tour is supposed to be Meat Loaf’s farewell tour. It’s called: Last At Bat.

Continue reading…

The elderly get a bad rap when it comes to technology. It’s entirely unfair to say that the elderly can’t accept new technologies when one grandmother not only uses innovative technologies, but fully endorses it as well.

Paul Rivot, who recently got his hands on an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset dev kit, had his 90-year-old grandmother give it a go. What follows is an adorable exchange between Rivot and his grandmother as she explores a Tuscan house. Her reactions are endearing, heartwarming, and makes me miss the kind of starry eyed reaction that a lot of used to have when it came to new technologies.

I can only hope that this charming woman makes us realize that we’re all taking technology for granted far too often. As Louis C.K. once said – “The shittiest cellphone in the world is a miracle.”

[h/t: Gizmodo UK]

Power giant Siemens and data warehouse veteran Teradata have joined hands to sell big data tools to utilities, including a system that can combine data from both smart meters and grid operational data. As GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser wrote recently in his report on energy data, when smart meters are fully deployed they could generate 1,000 petabytes of data a year, about five times the amount of data on AT&T’s network.

Teradata sells software that can pull together disparate data from different sources and make it available to be analyzed. The company already works with utilities Southern California Edison and Oklahoma Gas and Electric. Utilities can use Teradata’s software tools to analyze data around things like blackouts, power supply and demand, weather conditions, and energy efficiency programs to help them manage the grid better.

Siemens is one of the largest power grid technology suppliers in the world, and in recent years has been bulking up its grid software assets. That move has included acquiring venture capital-backed eMeter, which manages smart meter data, as well as partnering with some of the leading grid software companies.

The union between the big data player and the power grid gorilla shows how the power grid is slowly adopting the network technologies of the internet and other IT-based networks. With grid assets like smart meters and substations increasingly becoming connected, the power grid could be one of the largest “internet of things” type networks in the world.

And to manage those connected things, utilities will need to embrace the most cutting edge data analytics tools.

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A Philadelphia man is being held on $1 million bond after stabbing his wife in the face and neck over a Facebook like.

49-year-old Thomas Troy Young admitted to stabbing his 33-year-old wife Carla Brown back in March over her Facebook actions. Reportedly, Young stabbed Brown because he was angry that she had liked someone else’s post on the site.

According to court records, Young and Brown were fighting in their bedroom on the night of March 10th. Later, after Young had left the house, Brown’s daughter found her in the locked room lying on the floor, covered in blood.

Brown had multiple stab wounds to her face, neck, back, and hand. She also suffered a punctured lung as a result of the attack.

Records indicate that Young also tried to strangle her with a plastic warm-up suit, and threatened to kill her children if she attempted to get help.

“If he was going to jail for one murder it didn’t matter to him if it was three or more,” Young reportedly said to Brown.

Young, who has had assault charges filed on him in the past, is scheduled for trial on May 22nd.

Sadly, this isn’t even close to the first time that we’ve seen domestic altercations linked to something ridiculous involving Facebook. In 2011, a Texas man was charged with battery after he allegedly punched his wife in the face for failing to like one of his Facebook statuses. Last year, a drunk guy called 911 on his wife after she refused to allow him to browse Facebook in peace. Also, you probably remember the guy who assaulted his girlfriend after seeing a photo of an unfamiliar man on her Facebook Timeline. That man turned out to be former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

[Philly Burbs via Daily Dot]

Aaron was on his way to what was perhaps the most important presentation of his life: a presentation to Chinese investors about luxury New York City apartments he’s been developing on the Lower East Side. Aaron had been a successful real estate developer in New York for years, but recently was feeling challenged finding clients to pay top dollar for his inventory. After reading up on wealthy Chinese investing overseas, he decided to make a play in China. He had the goods — two beautiful new luxury buildings — and all he needed now was to interest the newly affluent in China to buy a piece of the Big Apple.

For the last three months, Aaron took his well-tested and highly successful marketing approach and tweaked it for the Chinese market. He hired an American who spoke fluent Mandarin on a part-time basis to call businesses and high-net-worth individuals. He booked a top-rate hall in Shanghai to host the event. He hired the best catering company for food, drink, and decorations, and finally, he blanketed the local media. He promoted it from all angles: the New York angle, the experienced developer angle, and most importantly, the “value” angle — how right now was the prime time to invest in the New York market and how his hot new property would provide the buyer with financial upside and “face.” Aaron was so sure that he had hit a home run that on the day of the event he ordered 50 more platters from the catering company — just to make sure.

But when his limo rolled up to the door, Aaron could not have been more shocked. Not only was the hall not full to capacity, as he was expecting, but there were only eight people there, and all of them looked quite young. He looked at his watch, but the time was correct. As Aaron made frantic calls to his publicist, he wondered: What could have gone wrong?

As it turns out, a great deal!

The first mistake Aaron made was thinking that his American best practices would translate across cultures, which is certainly not true given China’s significantly different socio-business culture, historical framework, and language. From Aaron’s perspective, it made sense to make this event open to all comers. He was playing the odds, and he might as well put as many feelers out there as possible, right? Wrong — at least in China, where, ironically, the wider the net cast, the less likely to land a big fish. To interest people in China — especially the nouveau riche — you need exclusivity. You need to give them the sense that they have been singled out for a special opportunity that signifies status for them in the very hierarchically oriented Chinese society. As a result, Aaron inadvertently cheapened his brand — and undermined his effectiveness.

But that wasn’t the only blunder he made. Another was to assume that simply “making the business case” was the way to a Chinese investor’s heart. In China, you clearly need to have a business case to succeed, but here’s the key: No one will listen to your business case unless it comes from a trusted, credible source, which is typically cultivated over a long period of time. Chinese consumers are no dummies: They want to do business with companies with a tangible, permanent presence on the ground — not fly-by-night companies that are sometimes referred to as “seagulls,” who fly into to China, drop nonsense everywhere, and go home without having built a nest. In China, you need to take the time to invest in relationships so that your trusted personal connections can then ultimately help endorse and legitimize you, your business, and your event. Without such contacts, your plan is likely doomed to fail.

Although this particular case is about China, translating best practices across cultures is a recurring challenge for businesses around the world. What can companies do to increase their chances of success?

The first thing they can do is carefully evaluate whether their existing best practices need a tweak or a major reframe. A tweak is a very minor adjustment that doesn’t change the essence of what you do, but instead changes the way you go about it, such as translating materials into a different language or altering some other superficial aspect of the process. For instance, if you are an apparel brand whose marketing success depends on using famous movie stars to sell your clothes in the U.S., you can tweak your strategy by using famous Brazilian, Indian, or Chinese movie stars in those markets.

Tweaks are great because they require little effort and you can be well on your way to making the transfer into a foreign setting. However, in many cases, tweaks are not enough; they only skim the surface of the much deeper challenges that you face. In these cases, you need a reframe: a major reorientation in your strategy based on very different cultural values, beliefs, and mentality of a foreign marketplace. The case of Amway in China, for example, is a classic situation where a reframe, rather than a tweak, was essential for transferring of business practices cross-culturally. In this case, the company had to develop an entirely new way of selling products when their traditional method of direct selling butted up against official, legal, and cultural obstacles and a 1998 ban on direct MLM selling. Aaron’s case above was similar: He clearly tweaked when he should have reframed — and that decision, in part, led to his downfall.

So how can you make this critical decision for your business? Find a “cultural connector” — someone who is knowledgeable about your industry and your company, who also possesses the critical skill of “global dexterity,” the ability to adapt behavior across the two cultural settings and diagnose the degree of adjustment necessary for success. This person can be an outside expert, consultant, or even someone internal to the company. But the key is that he or she must have the cultural insight to determine the degree of adjustment necessary and the professional savvy to actually put a successful plan into place. For Aaron, he only went halfway toward cultivating a cultural connector; his part-time American employee who spoke Mandarin lacked the sophisticated understanding of the Chinese consumer culture and the networks to make Aaron’s plan succeed.

No one ever said transferring best practices across cultures is easy. But with ingenuity, patience, commitment, and the help of a cultural connector, you can make it happen. You can leverage the opportunity of globalization without falling prey to its inherent challenges.