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My joy at receiving Nexus 7 32GB HSPA as a day-after-Christmas present turned to deep disappointment just two weeks later. Google replaced the device, and a second runs down the battery in about 15 hours, whether sitting idle or actively used. Near as I can tell, and others share my problem, Android 4.2 is root problem. My woes with the replacement tablet started with the point-two update, while others suffering similar misery report troubles with 4.2.1. Google really needs to fix this problem. Fast.

I wasted many hours troubleshooting. The prescribed fix is restore and reset, which I’ve done about a half-dozen times. No change. Perhaps the cellular radio drains the battery fast. I removed the SIM. No change. Maybe one of my apps keeps Nexus 7 from going idle. I restored and set up with my wife’s Google account. No change. The battery app consistently lists the “screen” as top consumer, which suggests something prevents the tablet from going idle. Last night, I charged up. Nine hours and thirty-minutes later, there is 45 percent charge. At that rate, I’ll set a new record: 16 — maybe even 17 — hours to zero. What a lucky day this is.

Battery Drains When Off

My story starts with the returned tablet, which developed problems almost immediately after updating to Android 4.2.1. I observed unusually high battery drain when idle, considerably more than the 8GB tablet reviewed last summer. I got such good life, I didn’t think about it. Definitely days. Stated standby in Google product marketing is 300 hours, 8 hours used. I easily got as good or better.

I never found out how much with the first 32 gigger, because the tablet got so little screen time before dying. Being busy the week after Christmas, I let Nexus 7 sit idle for three or four days, only to find the screen dark when looking to use it. My 8GB model never burned down the charge that fast. I plugged in, charged up and didn’t worry. This time, I turned off the device. Two days later, the tablet wouldn’t turn on. WTH? Plugging in revealed a dead battery. While off!

On January 11, I posted to Google+ asking if anyone knew if the 3G radio somehow remained on even when the device was off and explained: “The last two times I turned off the tablet after using. Both times, the second this morning, Nexus 7 wouldn’t turn on. Black screen…all attempts to resuscitate my device have failed. I’m unhappy returning it; being new and not much used”.

I called Google Play customer support, which after hearing my problem and troubleshooting efforts, quickly processed a return. I received an email with link to order a new device at no charge, but got a $299 temporary authorization placed on my credit card (in case the defective unit wasn’t returned). The replacement arrived two days later, and I shipped back the old one. Battery life returned to being exceptional.

Replacement Tablet Troubled, Too

But that changed after updating to Android 4.2.2. which started rolling out to Nexus devices on February 11. On Sunday February 17, I asked on Google+ if any one else had problems with battery drain:

Yesterday, I awoke to find the tablet dark, about 18 hours after charging. Nexus 7 wouldn’t respond even after an hour on the socket. So I tried USB port on Surface Pro, which stirred some life. I later plugged into electrical and charged. This morning, I awoke to the battery drained again, well, nearly. Just 5 percent. This is highly abnormal. I did update to Android 4.2.2 either Thursday or Friday, I don’t recall which.

If you check the online forums, many posters warn never to let Nexus 7 run down the battery, because restarting the device can be rather difficult.

The failed troubleshooting started. Two days later, I lamented: “For my purposes, the device is ruined. Battery life is consistently 15 hours or less no matter how little or much used. Sitting idle, unused, battery burns down in 15 hours. Gone are days of stand-by time”.

While I had searched online for anyone else having problems, not until the weekend just passed did my efforts produce something enlightening and disappointing: Google Group discussion about Nexus 7 battery problems. The first post is November 18. Android 4.2 released five days earlier.

Nexus-shared Misery

Not only was I not alone, but other Google device owners had problems with Android 4.2 and 4.2.1, too. Some struggled with Galaxy Nexus as well. Muhammad Mulla posts about the 8GB Nexus 7:

I have found that after the Nexus 7 OTA update to Android 4.2, my battery is draining a lot more quickly. There is also a square shape appearing on the side of the unlock screen. The battery drain issue is the most concerning, however. Previously the screen would be the highest power consumer, as it should be. Now, since the 4.2 update, battery drain is showing as 51 percent for Android OS, Google services as 13 percent and the screen as 9 percent. I am finding time between charges to be much shorter with similar usage.

Strange, for me, screen time increased with discharging problems. He, like me, runs stock Android, unrooted. “I am having exactly the same issue, in fact mine is draining even when ‘sleeping’”, Paul Apted responds. “If I leave the Nexus in sleep mode at night, in the morning it has gone through 40 percent of the battery. On other forums a reset is suggested”.

That didn’t work for me, while other posters report success.

“After a factory reset my standby usage was better, but after about a week it went bad again (mostly ‘Android OS’)”, Joel Luth posts. Then he states what I also observed: “We’re chasing multiple causes for the standby battery drain. Some of us see Android OS as the big consumer, others Play, Maps, Google Services, whatever. What helps one person may not help others because they have a different root problem”.

December-vintage Devices

While different Nexus device users report similar battery-drain problems, there is little consistency what the device shows as the biggest consumer. Charge-to-zero times vary, as well. I should feel lucky. DionJL says his “tablet rubs through a full charge in under 11 hours with no use”.

On my replacement Nexus 7, battery doesn’t discharge when turned off. Helen Ochej reports same kind of problem I had with my first 32GB model, which is same purchase vintage as hers:

I’ve had my Nexus 7 since December 2012. I don’t use it every day, so I turn if off when I’m done with it. After several days of not using it, I find the battery totally discharged. The first time this happened, I recharged it, but had to reboot to get it to display. It just doesn’t seem to hold a charge very long when it is not used every day. I’m disappointed when I pick it up when I’m going out, only to find it totally dead.

There are plenty more posts like these, lots of troubleshooting stories and modest success. Poster mrsi reports battery problems after updating to Android 4.2 — resolved by what I consider drastic action: “If you go to settings -> apps -> swipe to show ALL -> then select ‘google play services’, you can hit DISABLE. This asked me whether I wanted to uninstall the updates to this app — I said yes. Viola. My Nexus 7 now lasts 72 hours again on standby”.

Evan Selinske “Got my Nexus tab on Xmas — worked great for two days while I ignored the prompts to update. After doing so, the battery drain was immediate and dramatic”. He observed Google Play services as “running constantly no matter what I did so I ignored all the dire warnings and disabled it. Result: After one day (it’s early, I know) all seems peachy. Except of course for the effing update in the first place”.

I haven’t tried that one yet.

Report from Google+

Last night I posted again to Google+ about my battery woes, asking who else might have them. Brian Fagioli has “battery drain on WiFi Nexus 7 since 4.2.2”. Kevin Gault is “running into the same battery drain on my GNex after going to 4.2.2. With so many having battery drain issues, I’m thinking it is more an issue with the OS than the hardware”.

At this point, I get about 5 percent of the standby time that Google marketing promises. That’s unacceptable. Nexus 7 is pretty much useless to me now. I can’t sell it for enough, not wanting to pass on the problem to someone else. I may see if Google Play will issue a refund. Whichever, something is not right here.

Last fall Motorola hinted that they were planning to start moving the interfaces for their devices to being closer to a stock Android experience. Owners of Motorola DROID RAZR and DROID RAZR MAXX devices will see the fruits of that change in strategy as Motorola starts to officially roll out their Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update. According to Motorola’s software upgrade page, several Motorola specific applications have been removed and replaced with stock Android apps.

The upgrade to Jelly Bean comes with the usual set of improvements like Google Now, Voice Search, a new keyboard, camera upgrades, and the latest Chrome Browser. The new twist though comes in the list of items not included in the update. Motorola has removed MOTOACTV, MOTOPRINT, Social Location, Verizon Video on Demand, Alarm and Timer. They specifically indicate that Alarm and Timer have been replaced by Google Clock. In a similar manner, Motorola’s My Gallery has been replaced with the standard Google Gallery app and the My Music app has been replaced by the Google Play Music app. Motorola’s change log also indicates fixes for several apps have been included, mainly to make them function a little quicker and sync more often.

Owners of the devices can wait for a notification message on their smartphone that the upgrade is ready to be installed and then follow the directions. If they do not want to wait, the update can be forced by going to Settings -> About phone -> System updates -> Download. Once upgraded, users cannot revert to Ice Cream Sandwich.

source: Motorola

Come comment on this article: Motorola DROID RAZR/DROID RAZR MAXX Jelly Bean 4.1.2 update gets closer to stock Android

Kakenya Ntaiya was engaged at 5-years-old, her family members regularly whispering in her ear, “Your husband just passed by.” This was the traditional path that unfolded before girls in the Maasai village in Kenya where Ntaiya grew up.

Kakenya Ntaiya: A girl who demanded school “In Maasai culture, the boys are brought up to be warriors, the girls are brought up to be mothers,” says Ntaiya in today’s incredible talk, given at TEDxMidAtlantic. “Everything I had to do from that moment was to prepare me to be the perfect woman by age 12.”

But Ntaiya had a different dream — to be a teacher. And so she offered her father a trade: she would go through with the traditional ceremony that marked her rite of passage into womanhood — which included clitoral circumcision — if he allowed her to go back to school and continue her education.

“The day before the ceremony, we were dancing, having excitement — we did not sleep,” says Ntaiya, remembering the week-long lead-up. But she also recalls the painful circumcision itself and the long healing process. “Three weeks later, I was healed and was back in high school. I was more determined to be a teacher now so that I could make a difference.”

Eventually, Ntaiya she got a scholarship to study at Randolph Macon College in the United States and convinced her village elders to allow her to go.

“My father is not the only father I have.  Everybody who is my dad’s age in the community is my father, by default, and they dictate what my future is,” she explains. “When the men heard that a woman had gotten an opportunity to go to school, they said, ‘This should have gone to a boy. We can’t do this.’”

Ntaiya has great reverence for her Masaai culture — she opens her talk saying, “You know what’s cool? I’m one of them.” To hear how she used her culture’s traditions to get the men of her village to support her education and how — upon returning to the village after graduate school — she was able to gain their support for founding a school for girls, listen to this powerful talk.

As she says, “I learned that ceremony I went through is called female genital mutilation. I learned that it was against the law in Kenya. I learned that I did not have to trade part of my body to get an education … As we speak right now, 125 girls will never be mutilated. 125 girls will not be married when they are 12-years-old. 125 girls are creating and achieving their dreams.”

Below, get to know more about Kakenya Ntaiya.

In addition to her work with The Kakenya Center for Excellence, Ntaiya is an emerging explorer with National Geographic. Here, a video she made explaining more about her motivation in founding her school for girls.

“When I started learning about the things I was in school, it really taught me that this should not be happening to young girls. These girls needed a place where they could be nurtured and a place where they could be told that marriage is not the end,” explains Ntaiya. “I have girls in my school right now — they have dreams of wanting to be pilots, they want to be doctors. They want to explore the world.”

Here, an essay Ntaiya wrote upon returning to Enoosaen, Kenya, to visit her family in 2008:

“I was so glad to be home after a two-year absence but my sense of relaxation was almost immediately replaced by a sense of desperation. The needs of the community are plainly overwhelming; lack of basic needs such as water, power, proper roads, proper education facilities, health care facilities—these are the first things you notice as you near my village. As I drove home on a dusty road, I could not help but wonder how strong my people are and how spoiled I have become living in America. Why did I even complain that there was dust on my nine-month-old son who was having fun watching the open road?” Read the full journal entry »

Here, Ntaiya’s journal entry, written after the groundbreaking event for The Kakenya Center for Excellence in 2008:

“I was very excited but also nervous. I was not sure if the community would turnout in big numbers for the event or if the only attendees would be from supporting women’s groups—Empiris group, the Kakenya Center for Excellence Committee and my friends from Vital Voices.

In preparation for the event, women from the village spent the whole night cooking: a bull was slaughtered and coupled with all of the other wonderful food that we have in Kenya. A film crew from America was busy shooting footage and other guests were beginning to arrive, traveling on rough roads for four hours to reach Enoosaen. I felt truly blessed to have such a group of supporters and friends. “Why worry about the ones who don’t want to come?” I consoled myself.

As you may have guessed, the turn out was unbelievable.” Read the full journal entry »

In 2010, here’s what Ntaiya wrote while raising money for a dormitory for the school:

“I remember my own first experience as a boarder at age fourteen when the doors of education were opened to me. For the first time, I had my own bed with a mattress, bed sheets and a blanket. I even owned my very own towel! As is the case with our girls, I had always shared a bed with my sisters and we used a cow skin as a mattress. We shared the blanket and we never had bed sheets. So, I was completely thrilled to have my own little bed and sheets and towels. You can imagine that our girls will be just that happy to have their own belongings too!” Read the full journal entry »

And here is what she wrote after receiving a grant to help finish the dormitory in 2010:

“When I received the call from Aaron that ‘Kakenya’ had won an award, I could not believe it. I was stunned speechless. When he went on to tell me that the award came with $25,000 that Vital Voices was going to donate to the school, I was overjoyed. The money would make a huge impact on our girls.

We had started building the dormitory, but we were $40,000 short, and Phase 1 must be completed by the first week in January. If construction was not finished, I worried that we would need to choose between not admitting the next group of girls and admitting them without housing. Just as bad would be having to send the 63 girls we currently house in an unused classroom—the one we need for the new students in January—back to their homes at the end of every day. We would no longer be a boarding school in a safe, sheltering environment. Most girls would need to walk long distances—up to 5 miles each way—and would be subjected to the dangers of animal and human predators, And for the 63 girls, the necessity of moving off campus would demoralize them. Although they have been sleeping two to a bed, they have been happy, self-confident girls with a growing sense of academic excellence and a higher self-esteem. Walking would necessitate lengthy chores at home and greatly diminished time for homework, along with the complete loss of extra-curricular activities on which our school prides itself.

The award has renewed hope.”  Read this full journal entry »

And here, watch 7 more inspiring TED Talks from people who went to great lengths to get, and give, an education »

Over the past four years, TV makers have shipped about a billion television sets. If you combined them, that would be equivalent to a single TV set with a 330-million-square-meter screen, according to IHS, a market research company. That is about the same size as the country of Norway. Of course, no one knows what screen size those sets have, but it’s still a fun (if unscientific) stat. As for me, I am about to move and so I am getting rid of all the screens in my house except for four: MacBook Pro (Retina), iPad (Original), Kindle Paperwhite and iPhone5. Everything else is going to eBay.

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The first generation Buick Riviera that were built between 1963-1965 are some of the most classic and understated designs to ever come out of Detroit. Designed strictly as a four passenger, and originally powered by a 325 hp 401 cu.in. V8, they not only had the power to compete with just about anything in their class, but redefined what the executive muscle car could be. From the beautiful grill to the clam shell headlights on the 1965 model, the Buick Riviera has stood the test of time incredibly well. The following ’65 comes to us from eGarage, and although slightly modified, it fully showcases just how beautiful these cars truly are.

Source: Youtube.com

Barnes & Noble announced Thursday that it’s signed partnerships with a number of studios — Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, Relativity Media, National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff — to add new movies and TV shows to Nook Video, the service it launched last fall.

A press release laid out some of the new offerings, including:

“Blockbuster films The Hunger Games, the Twilight movies, Tyler Perry’s Madea Gets a Job, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven, House at the End of the Street; independent films from Film Buff’s catalog including Charles Swan and Exit from the Gift Shop; and TV shows like Mad Men, Border Wars, Great Migrations, Amazing Planet; as well as educational content via Little Pim, the leading foreign language learning program for young children, plus many more.”

The Nook Video store already included content from HBO, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Starz, Viacom and Warner Bros, plus some Disney movies. I’ve asked Barnes & Noble for the total number of titles that Nook Video now offers, and will update this post when I have that number.

A number of Nook Video’s offerings are also available for streaming from Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video. Unlike those companies, Nook doesn’t offer streaming memberships — content has to be purchased à la carte on a Nook tablet. (Barnes & Noble says the content will be able to be streamed from its website soon.) It’s certainly an option for someone who already owns one of these devices, but it’s unlikely to draw users away from Netflix, Amazon or iTunes. Adding these titles is B&N’s attempt to create a viable media ecosystem for Nook — and the company insists it’s “committed” to these devices, even as Nook sales plunged in the last quarter.

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BlackBerry Z10 users, get your thumbs warmed up for a social media app treat! Based on your feedback, we’ve updated versions of our Twitter and LinkedIn apps for BlackBerry 10, adding some features that you’ve been asking for. Twitter users will enjoy an enhanced tweeting experience, while the LinkedIn update provides helpful business tools that allow you to keep connected to your professional networks.

* Please note it could take up to 24 hours for the apps to appear in the BlackBerry World storefront.

What’s new in Twitter v10.0.1:

• Doing more on the Compose Tweet Screen – An enhanced Compose Tweet Screen allows you to take a new photo or add an existing one, add your location, and offers a shortcut for “@”.
• Composing Direct Messages – It’s now easier for you to compose a Direct Message – you can do it right from the “Me” tab within the app. Viewing Direct Messages from your contacts is also available in the BlackBerry Hub.
• Edit Profile – You can now edit your profile picture, header, and details from your BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
• Conversation view – You’ll see full conversation history when clicking on a Tweet.
• Improved Image Viewing – You can now view pic.twitter.com full screen images, as well as pinch to zoom and pan images from the Tweet details. Also, you can view full screen profile pictures from other Twitter users.
• Deleting Tweets – You are now able to delete your own tweets from any screen where their tweet is displayed. It’s as simple as holding down on a tweet and selecting the trash icon.
• Block and Report as Spam – Block and report users as spam.
• Enhanced Menu – Do more from the timeline, with new options to “Quote Tweet” after selecting “Retweet” as well as “Open Tweet” to view the tweet details page.

What’s new in LinkedIn v10.0.1:

• LinkedIn Messages – Allows you to quickly message your connections from their profile page.
• Enhanced Job Search tools – You now have access to view, search and save jobs that are ‘Recommended’ for you.
• LinkedIn Today – Choose the LinkedIn news that matters the most by filtering the news by Industries you are interested in.
• Better Image Viewing – Full-screen viewing of LinkedIn profiles for an enhanced visual experience.

So, to recap: Twitter v10.0.1 offers a variety of updates that gives you more options while you tweet, including an enriched Compose Tweet Screen, better Image Viewing and an enhanced Edit Profile feature. LinkedIn v10.0.1 allows you to keep closely connected to your LinkedIn networks through new features with Messaging, Job Search and Image Viewing.

Twitter v10.0.1 and LinkedIn v10.0.1 are available as free downloads in the BlackBerry World storefront. (Again, please note that it could take up to 24 hours for the apps to appear in the BlackBerry World storefront.) Try them both out and let us know what you think in the comments below.

If you wanted to find the “homes” of the world’s top web sites, the United States would be a good place to start given that 43 percent of the top 1 million sites are hosted there. But according to data released Thursday by Royal Pingdom the top city for hosting is Houston, which hosts a little more than 5 percent of the top sites. How did one of every 20 web sites end up in the Bayou City?

My first guess was that Houston has a lot of data center space, but data from Telegeography shows the city has roughly 400,000 square feet of retail co-location space in the entire metropolitan area, which is a far cry from the 3 million square feet the San Francisco Bay area has, or even the 1 million that Austin, Texas has. So now, I’m frankly stumped.

Houston is home to 50,598 of the top million sites (as measured by Alexa), and it’s followed by Mountain View Calif. at No. 2 and Dallas at No. 3. In total, those million websites are hosted in almost 8,000 cities — 7,936 to be exact, so it’s possible that there’s one near you. But, as the chart below shows almost a quarter of the web’s sites are located in the top 10 cities.

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A patent application from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggests that he, at some point, at least toyed with the idea of introducing a “paid profile” model that would allow users to customize what shows up on their profiles and, more importantly, get rids of ads.

The patent, US20130030987 A1, doesn’t actually mention “Facebook” in particular – instead goes with less-specific terms like “social networking environment.” But it was definitely filed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with Facebook ads product director Gokul Rajaram and former Facebook product management director Prashant Fuloria.

The patent abstract cuts to the chase:

In one embodiment, a system includes one or more computing systems that implement a social networking environment and are operable to provide paid profile personalization functions to users. In particular embodiments, the user may select one or more social networking objects to replace advertisements or other elements that are normally displayed to visitors of the user’s profile page that are otherwise controlled by the social networking system. In particular embodiments, the user may edit elements on their profile page that are otherwise automatically generated and controlled in design and content by the social networking system. In particular embodiments, the user is billed on a recurring basis for profile personalization.

Key words: Billed, replace ads, edit elements.

The ad replacement model would see them replaced with popular photos or videos or the user’s choosing. The profile customization could come in this form (straight from the application):

“For example, after receiving a large number of comments or “likes” on a particular status message, the user may receive a dialog box prompting the user with the text: ‘Would you like to personalize your profile with this status message for 10 credits a month?’”

Notice the mockup below, that features “favorite memories” and videos on the right-hand side instead of ads:

A patent application doesn’t connote intent. There’s no reason to think that some sort of profile subscription offering is on the way any time soon. The patent, which was just published on January 31st of this year, was actually filed way back in July of 2011. That’s why all of the mockups feature a profile that looks severely outdated.

Having said this, the patent is there and it is clear about what it could do.

Despite what plenty of hoaxes have told you, Facebook will continue to be free. You’ll never have to pay a subscription fee to access the core service, or pay a fee to keep information private. But charging for customized profiles, or to get rid of those pesky ads? That is most certainly a possibility. Would you do it?

[h/t GigaOm]

Wall Street is full of “creative” suggestions for how Apple could increase its faltering stock price, from making a cheaper iPhone to splitting the stock to issuing a whole new class of shares that pay a permanent dividend. In general, financial analysts’ tips for how to run Apple run from wishful thinking to concern trolling. But some suggestions — even while unlikely to come to fruition — can be sober and interesting, like what UBS analyst Steve Milunovich suggested in a note to investors Thursday morning: that Apple “take a page from IBM’s playbook.”

Those familiar with Apple’s history may note the irony in that statement. But Apple is no longer the underdog — it’s a company that is wildly successful and starting to mature. Here’s how Milunovich explains his thinking:

• Milunovich compares the two companies, saying that like IBM, “Apple might struggle at the top line given prior iPhone success but will generate cash.”
• Both companies “emphasize quality of revenue—IBM in high value segments and Apple in building great products.”
• Like IBM, who started returning cash to shareholders once its business matured, Apple should consider the same. He predicts Apple will go with more stock buybacks in the next few months over a larger dividend.
• Apple should be more open with analysts. Milunovich suggests Apple start an annual analyst meeting. “Without pre-announcing products, management should be able to outline how it thinks, highlight strengths, and showcase management depth.”

Above $700 back in September, Apple shares are hovering above $400 right now, and the people who once set insane price targets for Apple’s stock are thrashing about to come up with a solution to stop the bleeding. But what UBS is asking seems more sensible than other suggestions. It’s possible Wall Street types might be less likely to launch a proxy fight or high-profile lawsuits against the company if they feel like they have a better idea of what the company is up to.

To be fair, Apple already started to re-purchase stock beginning a year ago and it offers a quarterly dividend. And in the theme of more transparency, CEO Tim Cook has now attended Goldman Sachs’ Technology conference two years in a row as the keynote speaker. He’s used the occasion to give some insight on how he views Apple’s business; and for Apple, that’s already more transparency than it offered before Cook assumed the CEO role.

As far as the question over what it should do with its cash, Cook has shown that he listens to his investors; he’s given them a stock buyback and a dividend already. After the David Einhorn episode, he promised the company is “actively discussing” what to do with its cash, so it seems a good bet that Apple will make another move on that.

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High-end handsets will always be in demand, but so will the lower-end devices. The latest comes from the Times of India that reveal that Samsung is working on a RS 5,500 ($100) contract free 4G LTE smartphone for Reliance Communications in India. Let me repeat..that’s contract free. We have a number of $100 phones here in the U.S., but they are all with 2 year contracts. Right now Samsung is already offering contract free 3G phones in India for $100, so this would be the first 4G LTE offering. No word on the OS, but we assume it will be Android in favor of Windows Phone 8.

Reliance’s new LTE network, of which Samsung will assist with, has a planned soft launch in Mumbai and Delhi by the middle of the year. The formal launch will take place by the end of the year.

source: Times Of India

 

Come comment on this article: Samsung prepping a $100 contract free 4G LTE smartphone for India

In 2010, IBM ran a survey of 1,500 CEOs and found that the most valuable management skill was no longer “operations” or “marketing” but “creativity.” Since then BCG, Accenture and other consultancies have confirmed the global skill shift. Yet, only 9% of all public and private corporations in the US do any product or service innovation, according to the NSF’s Business R&D and Innovation Surveys of 2010 and 2011. CEOs say that creativity is a crucial leadership skill, but few apparently have it.

And no wonder. Managers are trained in the values of efficiency and the skills of quantitative analytics. That’s what most Americans believe in and what most business schools teach. So we now face a difficult transition. After decades of managing to squeeze out profits, how can executives quickly shift to amplifying the creative capacities of their people?

First, map your circles of creativity. Businesses are pyramids built to promote efficiency. But creativity is generated within circles — playgrounds — where a small number of highly talented people, usually in twos, threes or small teams, work. Many of these are formal — labs, product development, design. These are where “creatives” are supposed to work. But there are many more circles that are invisible. Most big corporations have hundreds of people who are sharing ideas, trying things out, connecting existing domains of knowledge in new ways, below the radar of supervision. This can happen as often on the assembly line as it does in a chemistry lab. But it’s not always viewed as “creativity”, and many people don’t see themselves as “creative,” even if they are. When you map your creativity circles, they almost always surprise.

But generating new ideas, even if they’re original, is not enough. Creativity needs to scale in order to generate economic value. So you also need to identify your creativity brokers — people with good judgement and access to resources. Experienced executives are the ones who can better predict when new concepts have real potential; they’re the “wise eyes” to complement the “fresh eyes” on a task. They’re also the ones who can connect your creativity circles to the financial, prototyping, marketing they need. Finding these brokers can also lead to surprises. They have many official titles, from general manager to vice president to assistant to the CEO.

At the top, it’s also important to move toward multi-generational leadership teams. In a period of cascading change, we are all immigrants to new technologies and new shifts in culture. As hard as we try to immerse ourselves, we simply cannot know as much as someone who embodies these changes. The young founders of Google and Facebook were wise enough to bring in more experienced talent as they scaled their start-ups. Older managers of established corporations should be wise enough to do the reverse: bringing in young talent to expand their capabilities.

You should also be ready to change your consumer frame. User experience (UX) was a bold concept in its day and moved us away from merely meeting “needs”. But it is obsolete. People today participate with companies in the design and purchase of products. “Experience” is too passive a term to describe the relationship. User engagement (UE) is the new creative competence for the future. Think about aura — the things that beckon you and keep you interested &#8212 and design it into your products and services as Apple and Nike have done.

Most corporations with decades of building a culture of efficiency can’t organically transform themselves into a den of creativity. They shouldn’t try. The odds of success are pretty low. IBM did it. P&G is still trying. GE may make it. But most others won’t. Established companies can, however, be a platform for creativity. They can learn to go outside their own walls to identify creativity they can leverage, buy and then scale.

Creative competence is like a sport. You can train for it and increase the capacities of yourself and your organization. If you get good at it, you can also transform it into real economic value on a massive scale.

3D printing company Shapeways had a banner 2012 — it locked up a $6.2 million Series B last year in a round led by Lux Capital, and established a full-blown factory in Long Island City. And it’s hoping to make the process of designing and printing physical knickknacks even easier this year.

The plan? To inspire developers to create a slew of new design apps that hook into Shapeways’ printing and shipping workflow. To that end, the company officially released a new dev portal and REST-based API to developers and 3D-printing buffs earlier today.

For the uninitiated, Shapeways is essentially the cross between a 3D printing firm and a consumer-facing marketplace. Artists and designers who upload the digital blueprints for their wares to Shapeways can simply have them printed and shipped to them for their personal enjoyment, but they’re also able to set up shop and list the finished product(s) alongside a slew of others in hopes of making a sale.

The new API features some much-needed modifications like finer-grain controls when uploading models and the ability to generate real-time prices for models regardless of the materials and finishes desired, but the release speaks to a greater focus on apps as a means of creation.

“Apps are now a first-class entity on Shapeways,” said representative Elisa Richardson, who also noted that the company has plans to better showcase those apps going forward.

While the new API was only formally released this morning, Shapeways teamed up with a handful of developers during a private beta period to get a feel for what was possible using the API. The early results are rather nifty — a web app called MixeeMe allows users to design tiny Mii-esque avatars that can be printed and shipped, while TinkerCad acts as a full in-browser object-design tool that hooks into the API to pass along completed designs for printing.

With the API (and the apps that will eventually tap into it) Shapeways is clearly pushing to bring 3D printing to the mainstream. Part of its approach is to play up its consumer-facing side — Richardson also noted that the team is dedicated to showcasing the company’s “marketplace and manufacturing platform” with this launch. Not a bad move, especially considering that Shapeways has been treating some of its sellers rather well.

Shapeways notes on its official blog that the platform’s 8,000 shop owners made “nearly $500,000 in profits” last year, and CEO Peter Weijmarshausen told Forbes recently that he expects to see the first Shapeways millionaire some time next year. That said, Shapeways isn’t without competition — players like Cubify have marketplaces of their own (though arguably Cubify’s main focus is on selling its own 3D printers), and upstarts like Azavy are gearing up to throw hats into the 3D-printing ring.

3D printed guns are creating quite a bit of controversy in the U.S. Proponents say having access to 3D printed gun parts preserves freedom in the face of regulation, while opponents say it will only make it easier for people to sneak guns into gun-free zones. What about other countries though? What’s their take on 3D printed firearms?

A recent report from Al Jazeera UK looked into the matter of 3D printed firearms, and how the easy availability of parts over the Internet may undermine current gun regulation.

This report, much like a previous BBC piece on 3D printing, misses a key fact that was omitted either out of ignorance or in the name of creating a sensational story. Defense Distributed has not made a 3D printed gun. They have made a 3D printed AR lower. Those wanting to build a gun would still need the other heavily regulated parts.

That being said, the central question of the report is still worth asking. How do 3D printers fit into the overall discussion on gun control and regulation? It’s especially important in countries where guns are far more regulated.

It would be unfortunate if any of these countries passed knee-jerk reaction legislation banning certain 3D printers over a fear that the technology may one day produce a fully 3D printed gun. It’s incredibly short-sighted, and ignores the wide array of benefits that 3D printing brings to the fields of medicine and manufacturing.

[h/t: Fabbaloo]

Justin Bieber has been having a tough time in London. Stories about the pop star going around London shirtless after a concert and arriving late to another London show because of “diva-like behavior” (including a backstage “tantrum”) began popping up earlier this month.

Now, it appears that Bieber has had enough of the British tabloid culture and is letting them have a piece of his mind via Twitter.

The pop star tweeted out a dozen different tweets on March 6, railing against “rumors,” “fake stories,” and the public judgment he faces on a daily basis.

Here’s the entire rant, in full:

[Author’s comment: Though the language in this next tweet leaves things up to interpretation, it’s worth noting that Bieber is, presumably, referring to religious beliefs and not to a dominant/submissive relationship with another man.]

No doubt Bieber’s 35.5 million Twitter followers will back up his sentiments, if they can manage to figure what his point was. Bieber himself, on the other hand, will have to continue to live under the scrutiny that comes with having the celebrity to garner that many Twitter followers.

As I wrote last week, the energy innovations of the future will need today’s machines. A young startup called Gridtential Energy is another example of this trend, and over the past three years has been quietly developing a better lead acid battery using chip and hard-disk drive manufacturing processes.

Cheap, low-performance lead acid batteries are commonly used to start gas-powered cars — you know, that battery that sometimes goes dead when you leave your lights on. But higher performance, better quality lead acid batteries are also used in devices like forklifts, wheelchairs, and golfcarts. That’s the first market that Gridtential wants to tackle, CEO Christiaan Beekhuis told me in an interview this week. Down the road the company wants to sell its batteries to power grid operators for applications like storage for a solar energy system.

Using a grant from the California Energy Commission, Gridtential was recently able to prove that several aspects of its lead acid battery are superior to the standard lead acid batteries currently on the market. The company’s batteries have twice the energy density (amount of energy they can store per volume) and also can cost between 50 to 90 percent less when used in bulk over time in a battery bank.

After achieving this milestone Gridtential recently raised a seed financing round of a little over $1 million led by The Roda Group, an investor in Berkeley, Calif. that has also backed startups in energy like algae fuel maker Solazyme and Internet firms like Ask.com. The company plans to raise more money down the road as it gets closer to commercialization.

IT machines

One of Gridtential’s core innovations is that it’s using manufacturing processes from the semiconductor and hard disk drive industry. Traditional lead acid batteries are made using lead plates with the active battery material pasted or printed onto the plate, which can make the layers thick and over time they can become detached from the plate. Gridtential is using the modern manufacturing techniques of the IT industry to create a thin layer of active material and have it bonded to the plate.

Beekhuis tells me that the manufacturing process makes the battery more robust (lasts longer), have a lot thinner active layer, and also makes for a lighter battery. The thin layer also means that the battery can charge and discharge with a higher efficiency, so it loses less energy to heat. In addition the Gridtential battery can be charged and discharged more than a regular battery, and can be charged and discharged to 80 percent of its capacity. In contrast basic lead acid batteries are more commonly charged and discharged closer to 40 to 50 percent of their capacity in order to make them last longer.

Beekhuis joined Gridtential in 2011 to help the team commercialize the technology. Previously he founded solar software company Fat Spaniel, which was sold to solar inverter maker Power-One.

Gridtential was founded by Peter Borden and Michele Klein back in 2010, and both entrepreneurs hail from Applied Materials. Borden developed solar manufacturing processes for Applied, and joined Applied after the chip manufacturing giant bought a processing company he founded. Klein developed energy storage technologies at Santa Clara University, and was a Senior Director at Applied Materials’ venture arm. Gridtential has just a handful of employees currently.

The startup, which is based in San Jose, Calif., plans to use the recently raised seed round to build, install and test alpha units of its batteries in real world settings. Commercial deployments aren’t expected until 2016.

Eventually when Gridtential wants to deploy its batteries commercially, the company can be fabless and can work with IT manufacturers on production. That means scaling up the technology can be a lot less expensive than building their own custom machines. For example, Gridtential has been working with Intevac, which is a major supplier of hard disk drive surfaces, on producing battery plates.

Other companies that are also using IT machines for production include thermoelectrics maker Alphabet Energy, and battery companies Imprint Energy and Seeo. In a year when funding for energy startups is very constrained, many of the new technologies that will emerge from the cleantech world will have to be built on standard low cost machines.

Still, building a battery startup from scratch is a very difficult thing to do. Another startup developing a better lead acid battery called Firefly Energy, which had raised funding from Khosla Ventures and the Quercus Trust, went bankrupt a couple years ago.

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Microsoft (MSFT) was hit with a $731 million fine on Wednesday for not displaying a required browser choice screen in Windows 7. The European Commission found that nearly 15 million people weren’t given an alternative browser option in Europe from May 2011 through July 2012. According to a report from the Financial Times, the Commission was tipped off about Microsoft’s violation by rivals Google (GOOG) and Opera, both of which would have benefited greatly from the mandatory browser selection screen Microsoft failed to display in Windows.

Continue reading…

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the network industry:

Mellanox launches Open Ethernet initiative.  Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced the “Generation of Open Ethernet” initiative, an alternative approach to traditional closed-code Ethernet switches. Mellanox, a high-speed networking specialist, says the program provides customers with full flexibility and freedom to custom-design their data center in order to optimize utilization, efficiency and overall return on investment. With open source networking and SDN trends, Mellanox Open Ethernet is a framework to eliminate proprietary software and encourags the development of an ecosystem environment focused on building Ethernet switch software to move innovation forward. It is supported on Mellanox’s 10/20/40/56GbE switches, with forward compatibility to future Mellanox Ethernet solutions. “The current landscape of proprietary Ethernet switches limits the foundation of compute and storage clouds and Web 2.0 infrastructures. We are excited to facilitate change and to lead the new generation of Open Ethernet that will enable a more open and collaborative world,” said Eyal Waldman, president, CEO and chairman of the board of Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox Open Ethernet allows users to gain control of their network and data center, and to achieve higher utilization, efficiency and return on investment, and will enable our customers to add differentiation and competitive advantages in their networking infrastructure. We have been seeing wide and strong support for this initiative from our partners and users, and expect to see a growing community around our initiative.”

ADARA introduces Meta Controller.  ADARA Networks announced the introduction of the Ecliptic Meta Controller, a layer 1-7 controller, designed to address existing gaps within the Software Defined Networking (SDN) space. The controller enables the implementation of SDN for both service providers and enterprises of all sizes. It can implement and manage supervisory programs such as SDN controllers, cloud software, hypervisors and network hypervisors. This alleviates the need for multiple management systems and communication delays. The Ecliptic Meta Controller is available as software only for a fully virtualized solution, or software on either purpose-built or third party COTS Appliances. “As bandwidth demand from the network continues to increase, theere is a pent up need to strengthen network communication and create a smarter network,” said Eric Johnson, Chairman and CEO of ADARA Networks. “While SDN continues to gain steam, there are major gaps that exist in all common SDN approaches, architectures, products and capabilities. Through our work with our partners, ADARA has designed and engineered the Ecliptic Meta Controller to help address these gaps, which include the lack of a coordinated network and cloud computing orchestration and the absence of a responsive and robust operation in a production environment, among others.”

Cisco selected by St. Andrews Hospital.  Cisco (CSCO) announced that St. Andrews Hospital in Australia has selected Cisco Medical-grade Network (MGN) to develop the foundation for its digital future. The Cisco MGN is designed to support any application and any device. It enables an agile, flexible and dynamic networking environment.  The hospital has also implemented Cisco IP voice to facilitate communication and collaboration between surgeons, healthcare workers and patients. With its partners KPMG and Data Mobility Voice, St. Andrews Hospital deployed the network including Cisco Catalyst 3750-X Series Switches in the core, distribution and edge to support IP telephony and digital theatre environments. “With rapidly changing trends in point-of-care health services, real-time consultations with specialists and e-health records, we need to ensure that our intelligent network platform can support these new technologies.  It had to be highly secure, resilient, robust, with high redundancy capabilities and able to meet the Hospital’s future business requirements,” said Peter Cooper, Director: Engineering & Support Services, St. Andrews Hospital.