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Article Tags: ClimateGate, Headline Story, Terry Hurlbut

The UK Meteorological Office released what it described as temperature data for over a century and a half from more than 1500 land weather stations throughout the world, along with what the Met Office described as the code used to plot temperature trends for the time frame in question. But the data are apparently not the raw data, and questions remain as to the validity of the adjustment of the data, an inconsistency in reporting a lack of valid temperature measurements in one year, and the accuracy of the source code.

The Met Office states that the land station records, going back to 1850, came from the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This has long been the understanding of the genesis of the HadCRUT dataset: the CRU collected land station data, and the Hadley Centre collected temperatures from ships at sea.

John Graham-Cummings was the first person to take note of the release, and to examine the source code for accuracy. Within hours, Graham-Cummings had found two possible errors. First, he found an apparent error in the code that caused the program to use suspect data in its data plots. Graham-Cummings introduced a quick correction to the code, and was able to produce a trend line similar to the official version, with this difference: the data point for the year 1855 is missing, and this gap in the data is not shown on the official version.

Click source to read FULL article by Terry Hurlbut

Source: examiner.com

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Eco Factor: House constructed from sustainable materials.

H3AR Architecture and Design has come up with an Instant House proposal for an international student design competition. The theme being a temporary residential mini unit, the Instant House can be constructed easily and is designed to be made from sustainable materials.

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Luke Timmerman wrote:

This was the last week of 2009 that anybody could realistically get deals done, and quite a few did.

—Bothell, WA-based OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: OGXI) secured a partnership to develop its experimental prostate cancer treatment with Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical, the generic drug giant. OncoGenex pulled in $60 million in upfront cash, but investors objected to the deal when they learned that Carlsbad, CA-based Isis Pharmaceuticals will actually capture almost one-third of the future milestones and royalties that would otherwise go to OncoGenex.

—ZymoGenetics (NASDAQ: ZGEN), the Seattle-based biotech company, said it has regained full U.S. rights to recombinant thrombin (Recothrom) after its partner, Bayer, decided to walk away from the product in al markets except Canada. This drug has been a big disappointment in the marketplace, although CEO Doug Williams says the company still expects it to supplant a rival drug from King Pharmaceuticals as the dominant product for stopping excess surgical bleeding.

—Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CTIC) found a way to survive a near-death experience in 2009, and now the board is offering up a potentially lucrative series of management bonuses if the company can hit a few more goals over the next couple years. The executives will certainly be in a much better position to cash in if they succeed in persuading an FDA advisory panel that the company’s treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, pixantrone, should be cleared for sale in the U.S. That big day is now scheduled for February 10.

—VLST, the Seattle-based company seeking to discover new targets for drugs against autoimmune diseases, has cut an undisclosed number of jobs to preserve its cash. The company is still working to fill up the pipeline of drug candidates for its partner, Novo Nordisk.

—Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN), the Bothell, WA-based developer of antibody drugs for cancer, put the capstone on a big year when it clinched a licensing deal with GlaxoSmithKline that brought in $12 million in upfront cash. GSK will use the Seattle Genetics technology for linking antibodies against an undisclosed number of targets to potent toxins.

—Oncothyreon (NASDAQ: ONTY) looked like a goner a year ago, …Next Page »

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As the majority of the business world gets set to take a break after an extremely difficult year, we’d like to say a million thanks to our readers for your kind patronage during 2009. As of this week, that’s one heartfelt thanks for each and every one of you. According to Quantcast, which measures Gizmag.com traffic directly, we reached the million unique visitors a month mark on December 17, so we’ll all be celebrating extra hard as we head into 2010 with a full head of steam up. For the record, the top ten countries where Gizmag.com readers live are U.S. 53.27%, U.K. 8.64%, Canada 6.26%, Australia 4.29%, India 2.49%, Germany 1.44%, Netherlands 1.29%, France 1.02%, Italy 0.89% and Brazil 0.80%, with “others” growing larger every day. ..

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A biking book I was reading claimed Minneapolis (meaning St Paul) was the coldest major city on earth. That might be true of the US if you exclude cities with metro areas under 1 million …

Article Tags: ClimateGate, Tim Ball

It was probably a whistleblower that released files from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA)? If so then the information is admissible in court and we will get greater detail on the greatest deception in history.

Phil Jones, former Director of the CRU knew the potential damage and legal implications of the file’s content. Jones told the police the files were from CRU, and claimed a crime was committed. Ludicrously, he said the information had no value because it was criminally obtained.

Why an Insider?

Major clues suggest the leaks were from an insider. A few emails were sent to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Paul Hudson on October 12, weeks before full release. This indicates someone trying to draw attention, but Hudson did nothing. He knew of the wrath and reach of Michael Mann. As a CRU member noted on October 26 2003, Anyway, there’s going to be a lot of noise on this one, and knowing Mann’s very thin skin I am afraid he will react strongly, unless he has learned (as I hope he has) from the past….” He didn’t as his later reactions showed.

Source: canadafreepress.com

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Eco Factor: Device harvests static electricity from air.

We’ve seen devices that can produce potable water from thin air. Scientists in Russia have discovered another green use of air, by harvesting renewable energy from it. These researchers have come up with a device, which they call the Chizhevsky chandelier, that can convert energy from static electricity into usable electricity.

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Article Tags: Letter

What do you do when “global warming” turns into global cooling? How does a “scientist” handle data that does not support his theory? What’s a “scientist” to do when he cannot prove man-made global warming after millions of dollars and many years trying? What do you do when 31,000 real scientists completely refute your contention of man-made global warming? What happens when your computer-generated models turn out to be 180 degrees out of synch?

If you are a global warming “scientist,” you do several things: Hide all conflicting data, erase or destroy data that doesn’t support your agenda, suppress any and all dissent from skeptics, tell everyone “the argument is over,” change your vocabulary from “global warming” to “climate change” and try your best not to let the real data come out.

Sadly, this is exactly what has happened in the persistent and continuing hoax called man-made global warming. In a series of leaked, and damning e-mails, the truth about the “scientists” who push this agenda has finally been made public.

Source: Lufkin Daily News

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Not everyone’s feeling the holiday cheer. Section 8 developer, TimeGate, has filed suite against SouthPeak for allegedly withholding royalty payments and entering into a PS3 licensing deal with another company when it shouldn’t have.
 
 

Green Building of the week from Inhabitat is this Chinese tower – SAKO Architects’ Jenga-Like Building Provides Optimum Sunshine.

What’s black and white and sunny all over? It’s the BUMPS housing complex in Beijing, created by SAKO Architects. Typical buildings in China face north and south, but SAKO’s design rotates the buildings 45 degrees from the north-south axis to provide maximum exposure to sunlight. The designers also staggered the two-floor units to create additional space between the units, which tenants can then use as terraces. The integrated project, which includes both residential and commercial buildings, is located in a developing area in southwest Beijing and was one of this month’s WAN Awards residential category entries.

Also from Inhabitat, this nice looking biomass power plant in the UK (though the “greenness” of biomass based power itself is debatable) – New Biomass Plant for the UK Looks Like a Giant Green Volcano

The United Kingdom is splattered with fossil fuel based power plants and concrete cooling towers which are major carbon producers as well as eyesores. Luckily, plans for a new biomass power plant covered in native grasses in the UK have just been released and they will complement the surrounding ecology as well as decrease carbon emissions by 80% compared to coal or gas fired power stations. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, a London-based firm, the 49.3 MW power plant located on the banks of the River Tees will be a man-made mountain covered in plants and will certainly be a welcome replacement to the older, pollution-spewing plants around the country.

Powered by palm kernel shells, which are the byproducts of palm oil plantations, the plant will reduce carbon emissions by 80% compared to traditional coal or gas fired stations. The palm kernel shells, considered a renewable fuel, will be delivered directly by boat, eliminating the need to haul the fuel by truck. The 49 MW plant will provide enough power for 50,000 homes, providing cleaner, lower carbon baseload power for the region. Inside, the power plant will also contain offices, a visitors’ center and an education resource center for renewable energy.

Our guest columnist Megan Berry named Evernote one of the best productivity applications for the iPhone today, but it sounds like a new, just-released version of the app is even better.

The big change, according to the Mountain View, Calif. company’s blog post, is the fact that when you create a note (which can include text, photos, or a voice recording), it’s stored locally, on your iPhone. That means that if you have a bad cell connection or lose your connection altogether, you can still read the notes that were created on your phone and search through them. Users who have paid for the premium version can also download entire collections of notes, called notebooks, to their phones.

This seems like a pretty key improvement — being able to access notes anytime, despite the vagaries of my cell connection, means Evernote becomes useful in more places and less frustrating.

Other improvements include improved speed, a button for upgrading to the premium service (which costs $5 million a month or $45 a year) from within the app, and the ability to record audio notes that are 20 minutes long (twice as long as was previously available).

Evernote has raised $6.5 million in funding. When it announced its most recent funding in September, the company said it had 1.5 million users. You can get the Evernote iPhone app here.

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Yale 360 has an article from Bill McKibben on the failed talks at Copenhagen, saying the “summit turned out to be little more than a charade” – Copenhagen: Things Fall Apart and an Uncertain Future Looms.

It’s possible that human beings will simply never be able to figure out how to bring global warming under control — that having been warned about the greatest danger we ever faced, we simply won’t take significant action to prevent it. That’s the unavoidable conclusion of the conference that staggered to a close in the early hours of Saturday morning in Copenhagen. It was a train wreck, but a fascinating one, revealing an enormous amount about the structure of the globe.

Let’s concede first just how difficult the problem is to solve — far more difficult than any issue the United Nations has ever faced. Reaching agreement means overcoming the most entrenched and powerful economic interests on Earth — the fossil fuel industry — and changing some of the daily habits of that portion of humanity that uses substantial amounts of oil and coal, or hopes to someday soon. Compared to that, issues like the war in Iraq, or nuclear proliferation, or the Law of the Sea are simple. No one really liked Saddam Hussein, not to mention nuclear war, and the Law of the Sea meant nothing to anyone in their daily lives unless they were a tuna.

Faced with that challenge, the world’s governments could have had a powerful and honest conversation about what should be done. Civil society did its best to help instigate that conversation. In late October, for instance, 350.org — the organization of which I am a founder — held what CNN called the “most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history,” with 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries all focused on an obscure scientific data point: 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2, which NASA scientists have described as the maximum amount of carbon we can have in the atmosphere if we want a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed, and to which life on Earth is adapted.”

In fact, that kind of scientific reality informed the negotiations in Copenhagen much more thoroughly than past conclaves — by midweek diplomats from much of the world were sporting neckties with a big 350 logo, and 116 nations had signed on to a resolution making that the dividing line. A radical position? In one sense, yes — it would take the quick transition away from fossil fuels to make it happen. But in another sense? The most conservative of ideas, that you might want to preserve a planet like the one you were born onto.

From the beginning, the most important nations chose not to go the route of truth-telling. The Obama administration decided not long after taking office that they would barely mention “global warming,” instead confining themselves to talking about “green jobs” and “energy security.” Perhaps they had no choice, and it was the only way to reach the U.S. Senate — we’ll never know, because they clung to their strategy tightly. On Oct. 24, when there were world leaders from around the globe joining demonstrations, they refused to send even minor officials to take part. Instead, they continued to insist on something that scientists kept saying was untrue: The safe level of carbon in the atmosphere was 450 ppm, and their plans would keep temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) and thus avoid “catastrophic consequences.” (Though since 0.8 degrees C had melted the Arctic, it wasn’t clear how they defined catastrophe).

In any event, even this unambitious claim was a sham. That’s strong language, so here’s what I mean. Thirty-six hours before the conference drew to a close, a leaked document from the UN Secretariat began circulating around the halls. It had my name scrawled across the front, not because I’d leaked it but apparently because it confirmed something I’d been writing for weeks here at Yale Environment 360 and elsewhere: Even if you bought into the idea that all we needed to do was keep warming to 2 degrees C and 450 ppm, the plans the UN was debating didn’t even come close. In fact, said the six-page report, the plans on offer from countries rich and poor, if you added them all up, would produce a world where the temperature rose at least 3 degrees C, and carbon soared to at least 550 ppm. (Hades, technically described). It ended with a classic piece of bureaucratic prose: Raising the temperature three degrees, said the anonymous authors, would “reduce the probability” of hitting the two degree target. You think?

The document helped make already-suspicious vulnerable nations even more suspicious. Remember: The reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have made it clear that a two-degree temperature rise globally might make Africa 3.5 degrees C hotter. Almost everyone

The most vulnerable nations didn’t knuckle under quite as easily as usual.

thinks that even 450 ppm will raise sea level enough to drown small island nations. There wasn’t much solace in the money on offer: $10 billion in “fast start” money for poor nations (about $2.50 a head — I’d like to buy the world a Coke) and an eventual $100 billion in annual financial aid that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised when she arrived on Thursday morning. Even if that money ever materialized (Clinton couldn’t say where it would come from, except “special alternative financial means”) it wouldn’t do much good for countries that weren’t actually going to exist once sea levels rose. They were backed to the wall.

And so, they squawked. They didn’t knuckle under quite as easily as usual, despite the usual round of threats and bribes. (One island nation left a meeting with the U.S. fearing for its International Monetary Fund loans; one African nation left a meeting with the Chinese hoping for two new hospitals if only it would toe the line.)

This annoyed the powerful. When President Obama finally appeared on Friday, his speech to the plenary had none of the grace and sense of history that often mark his words — it was an exasperated and tight-lipped little dressing-down about the need for countries to take “responsibility.” (Which might have gone over better if he’d even acknowledged that the United States had some special historical responsibility for the fix we’re in, but the U.S. negotiation position all along has been that we owe nothing for our past. As always, Americans are eager for a fresh new morning). In any event, it didn’t suffice — other nations were still grumbling, and not just the cartoonish Hugo Chavez.

In fact, the biggest stumbling block to the kind of semi-dignified face-saving agreement most people envisioned was China. According to accounts I’ve heard from a number of sources, Obama met with 25 other world leaders after his press conference for a negotiating session. It was a disaster — China turned down one reasonable idea after another, unwilling to constrain its ability to burn coal in any meaningful way (and not needing to, since power, especially in any non-military negotiation, has swung definitively in its direction).

Mark Lynas has a column in The Guardian blaming the Chinese for the failure of the summit – How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room.

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Here’s what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.

Shifting the blame

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world. …

This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China’s growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action.

Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store

Evernote for iPhone [Free, iTunes Link] has received a major update to version 3.2.0, which went live late this evening in the App Store and should be arriving in App Store updates soon. According to our contacts at Evernote, the new app is much faster, with speed improvements in launching, searching, syncing, creating new notes, and browsing.

As TUAW heard during a November interview with Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, the updated app provides local caching and searching. Any note that is created or viewed on the iPhone is cached locally for viewing and searching, even when offline. Premium users can choose to have any or all of the notebooks they’ve created fully downloaded to their devices, once again enabling offline usability. Rich text notes can be converted to plain text for editing, and a copy of the original note is moved into the trash for future recovery.

Other new features include:

• In-app purchase of premium accounts
• A new “sync” tab
• Ability to search while syncing
• Additional languages
• A number of bug fixes and improvements to the app

A quick tour by the App Store on my iPhone this evening showed that the update was not yet available, but I was able to download the new version. For all Evernote users, this is a nice early Christmas present.

TUAWMerry Christmas Eve: Evernote for iPhone gets a major update originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Luke Timmerman wrote:

Quite a few of the companies we cover here at Xconomy received some good fortune this year right before the holidays. These 28 life sciences companies will pocket a total of $25 million in tax incentives, according to a statement from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who staked a fair bit of his political capital on the 10-year, $1 billion program that provides these tax breaks, noted that the companies have committed to create an estimated 918 jobs in the Bay State over the coming year. The jobs have to be maintained for at least five years, otherwise the state can demand the incentives be fully or partially paid back, according to the statement.

Here’s the full list of tax break recipients, with the biggest winners listed on top:

1. Shire Human Genetic Therapies, Lexington—$6,277,057

2. Genzyme, Cambridge—$6,000,000

3. Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Lexington—$1,740,000

4. Biogen Idec, Cambridge—$1,500,000

5. Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge—$1,500,000

6. Sepracor, Marlboro—$750,000

7. InfraReDx, Burlington—$630,000

8. Morgan Advanced Ceramics, New Bedford—$570,000

9. Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge—$540,000 …Next Page »

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Back in November, at our Realtime CrunchUp event, I sat on the geolocation panel with members of Twitter, Foursquare, SimpleGeo, GeoAPI, Hot Potato, and Google. At one point, I raised the question if location was going to be the next battleground between startups large and small, much like social identity plays (Facebook Connect vs. Google Friend Connect) and status updates (Twitter vs. Facebook). All of the panelists indicated that it wouldn’t be, because they could all get along. How sweet. Sadly, I don’t believe them. I believe they might think that right now, because it’s still very early in the game. But it’s still a game, and people are going to play to win.

I’m sure some of them would counter that because location data is fairly standard right now, and moving easily between services, all of them will win. But that’s not true either. While location, as a whole, will win, there will be individual companies that end up ahead of others in the space. More to the point, there will be one or two services that people will go to for their social location data. That’s what we’re moving towards. And the bigger companies are starting to realize it. That’s why today we saw what may be the first maneuver in an upcoming rush to secure the location landscape, with Twitter snatching up Mixer Labs, the team behind GeoAPI.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams writes today that “We will be looking at how to integrate the work Mixer Labs has done with the Twitter API in useful ways…” and notes that they’ll be working on adding contextual local relevancy to tweets. But those vague statements don’t mean a whole lot. Here’s what likely really went down, based on what we’re hearing: Twitter scooped up some solid talent in the location space, on the cheap (in the mid-seven figure range, we’re hearing from multiple sources). Mixer Labs CEO, Elad Gil, for example, was the original product manager for Google Mobile Maps. Four of the other six Mixer Labs employees are also former Googlers, including co-founder Othman Laraki.

What Twitter likely won’t be doing is getting into the core location platform business anytime soon. Though GeoAPI says it has “no plans to retire the current GeoAPI” that seems quite likely to happen as Twitter will just cherry-pick whatever they want from it and merge those elements into its own location APIs. But again, this was mainly a talent acquisition. Twitter is unlikely to compete with what a company like SimpleGeo is doing (and what GeoAPI was doing) because their main goal is to attach location to tweets, for now. SimpleGeo wants to provide general location information to startups, tweets or not. “Unless Twitter was to change their policies regarding distribution of location tagged tweets (or there was a disparity in the availability of aggregated location data), the acquisition doesn’t change our approach at all. We’re still going to continue working with SimpleGeo,” Hot Potato’s Justin Shaffer tells us.

Going forward, however, Twitter is likely to try and position itself as the main syndicator of location. That’s likely to put them up against Foursquare, Gowalla, and yes, eventually, Facebook and Google.

Again, right now Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, and many of the other smaller players in this field play very nicely with one another. That’s because they all have a common goal: Getting location to take off. And it’s working. But the problem that the Foursquares and the Gowallas have is that their core product is based around location. If people decide that they’re getting sick of the gaming elements, or someone like Twitter or Google moves in to secure better local coupons based on location, the location-only players could feel the heat. Of course, both are also likely to be very pretty acquisition targets in their own right next year. And guess who will be buying? Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

In my mind, this is how this is shaping up. The companies with the clout (because they do other things) are going to start scooping up the smaller location-only services. Of those bigger players, Twitter is by far the smallest and weakest, but they’re smart to get started in the buying spree early with the GeoAPI purchase. Don’t be surprised if they scoop up another location service sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, Facebook has been dragging its feet (to say the least) getting into the location game. We’ve been hearing for months that they’ve been at work on their location solution, and at one point were even racing Twitter to beat them to it. Obviously, that didn’t happen. And last we heard, they were still a few months out mainly because of the privacy implications. But you can bet Facebook will enter the location space in a meaningful way in 2010. And if whatever they’re working on doesn’t get traction. Look for them to start making acquisitions in the field quickly.

The third big player, Google, has Latitude, but they may be too far ahead of the curve with their thinking there. So far, the check-in model has proven to be the one people are gravitating towards. Latitude employs the “always updating” model. That may be the future, but we’re not ready for it yet, and it’s hurting Google in the location space. Again, a quick aquisition could solve that. Of course, Google had a perfect chance to be way ahead of the game when it bought Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley’s previous startup, Dodgeball, in 2006. But it badly dropped the ball (pardon the pun) with that one, letting the service die, as Crowley left in a huff. Because of that, a Google/Foursquare marriage may look to be out of the picture — but money heals all wounds, so never say never.

Location, as a trend, remains on fire. Startups are getting funding from big name investors left and right. And you can expect that to continue into 2010. And you can expect the big players to step up their game in the space as well, as they all look to connect the social online world with the real world — a real world that has also has a lot of money potentially tied to location.

I asked SimpleGeo co-founder Matt Galligan for his thoughts on Twitter’s move today. “I think it validates the Geo space in a very, very big way. One of the hottest companies just made a major bet on it,” he says. As he went on, his sentiments echoed mine, “I don’t think it’s far behind that we see similar plays from other big companies.” With its biggest rival now neutralized, that could include SimpleGeo down the road. Consider every location player now on acquisition watch.

Game on.

[photos: flickr/Serge Melki]

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Managing a baseball team, school club, or fraternity can be a rewarding experience. It can also be a total nightmare, at least when it comes to getting everyone to cough up their dues. WePay is a very promising startup in private beta that’s looking to fix group payments for good. Earlier today news broke that the company had raised $1.65 million from August Capital and some angel investors. That’s obviously great news for WePay, but also impressive is the company’s roster of angels: as of tonight the company can count PayPal cofounder Max Levchin as an investor. Given Levchin’s experience in this industry, that’s a very strong endorsement. PayPal alum Dave McClure is also onboard, as are Paul Buchheit, Ron Conway, Mark Goines, Andrew McCollum, Joe Campanelli, and Angus Davis. WePay is also a part of the Y Combinator program.

So what exactly does WePay do that PayPal can’t? The difference stems from the way payment accounts are set up. With PayPal, your account is tied to your name, without any way to separate the payments associated with your soccer team from those of your fraternity or your own personal transactions. On WePay, you can create a unique, FDIC insured account for each of these. The account is still associated with your name, but you can keep each group account totally separate.

This gives you much more freedom than you’d have otherwise. If you want to share your fraternity’s transaction history with the entire group, you can do that without having to worry about a personal transaction ever popping up. The site comes with controls for specifying who can have access to these histories.

There’s much more to WePay, of course. The site can also fully manage the payments to and from each of these accounts. If you need to collect money from your soccer team, you can automatically shoot an Email to each player informing them how much they owe. They can pay immediately through the website using a credit card or direct account transfer, or they can submit a check. If they don’t pay soon, the site will automatically remind them a few days later. If you’re managing a WePay account, you can also sign up to receive a special WePay credit card that draws directly from the shared account.

WePay makes money by charging a 3.5% transaction fee (there’s also a different plan that charges 50 cents per transaction and limits you on the methods of payment you can accept).

WePay looks like it could be a winner. The company is solving a problem that nearly everyone has had to deal with, and they’ve got a proven way to make money doing it. Look for their launch early next year.

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If you’re looking for a starting point for better spring garden and or landscaping planning then a good questionnaire can help. Check out the questions below to get started.

First make note of your home and existing landscape properties to help guide your choices, such as.

• House color and size (i.e. one story, two story) which can help you plan for garden color and tree heights.
• House architectural style – classic, mod, etc.
• Where do the overhead utilities lie – very important when planning for trees.
• Best and worst views from the house and from the yard.
• What sorts of walks and paths are in place? Cement, brick, stone, etc.
• Is there a fence? What sort? Wood, iron, etc.

Next take a look at what nature has handed you so you can plan accordingly…

• Type of soil in your garden plots/yard.
• Amount of sun specific areas of your yard get.
• Wind factors – where is the wind blowing in from in the different seasons. Are you going to need wind shields?
• What’s the elevation like?
• Are there any overly soggy or dry areas?

Decide how you’ll be using the area and how hard you want it to be…

• How hard do you want maintenance to be? High? Medium? Low?
• Who will be using the area? Kids, adults, pets?
• What sort of style interests you? Formal? Informal? Or maybe consider a theme (i.e., English, herbal, natural, etc).
• Is there or would you like to plan a deck or patio and how will that affect your landscaping?
• Will there be outdoor lighting for entertaining or security?
• What sort of outdoor features will be needed (or wanted). Structures and features include things like patio furniture, kids play equipment, raised beds, a shed, and so fourth. Also consider an area to store garden goods.

Later we’ll look at how to start choosing the best plants for the area but for now, the above questions should be enough to get you going.

If you’ve go to your local extension website, you’ll usually find a wealth of garden and landscaping information pertaining to your own climate and area. Look for terms like gardening techniques, planning, or landscaping to get started.

Post from: Blisstree

Planning your landscaping & garden

Alzheimer’s syndrome is associated with reduced risk of cancer. I’m not surprised, I wrote about this sort of thing back in 2006.