An #Outsider Newsflash: On An Update On one of Our KickStarter-Backed Projects

We just received this within the hour at our Virtual Studios--we're quite excited about it as we will be incorporating it in our Production Gear:

12 Dev Team Diary No. 7 - New Year, New Developments Posted by Matter And Form Inc.

Hey everyone, It's been a while since I've given you an update. We're not even a month into the new year and so much has already been going on and I'm stoked to tell you all about it. We're finally at the point where we can show you guys a real-time example of what the Bevel can do, so check out the first Dev Team Diary of 2016 to see it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEra8SZ6BuM

Notations On Our World: As #Davos2016 is Beginning.....

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The idea of the "4th Industrial Revolution" is one of the key themes that we will be on the prowl to understand as we are on the "virtual prowl" over the nex three days. Some 2500 of the leadings lights of our World will be converging.As we have been gearing up for Davos, the World is facing potential economic challenges as markets are taking a nose-dive and entering bear territory.

 

#Davos2016 is here!!!








One of the key interesting ideas we saw while on the "Grid" as we gear up for #Davos2016 was this which we hope to think about and reflect upon:

The top 10 job skills - 2015 versus 2020 @wef @davos #davos2016 https://t.co/9ySD5q27Rm pic.twitter.com/8y3quFK8qe

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) January 18, 2016

Notations On Our World: On #SolarImpluse and other brief thoughts

One of the higlights of 2015 for us was reporting on the adventures of the Solar Impulse.  We just received this at our Virtual Studios and look forward to reporting on it over the ensuing days especially as we also will be reporting on the so-called "4th Industrial Revolution" as #Davos2016 begins...

Exciting times!!

BRING IT ON 2016!Our new year’s resolution has been ready since July: finish the Round-The-World tour we started in March 2015. Test flights will begin in Hawaii in February, before the plane is ready to take off at the end of April. And from there? Solar Impulse 2 will cross the rest of the Pacific, the United States, the Atlantic, Europe, before landing in Abu Dhabi, our host city. Due to the increasingly unpredictable weather, there will be a lot of improvisation along the way, but that’s also what will make the adventure so stimulating! Discover the full roadmap HAPPY NEW YEAR!2015 finished in a great way, with the success of the UN Paris Climate Conference COP21 for which the #solarTEAM worked very hard.  This makes us all the more keen and eager to continue the Round-the-World tour and keep demonstrating the power of clean technologies. The first part of the adventure was fantastic but we intend to make the second one legendary! So we hope you’ll be following us, and for the time being, the pilots wish you and your family all the best for 2016.Watch the video 2015 FLASHBACKWith the first part of the Round-The-World tour, 2015 was very intense for André Borschberg, which is why he would like to share some of this year’s moments with you.  The crossing of the Pacific which lasted 5 days and nights, the discovery of so many countries and people, the Paris Climate Conference COP21, are of course on the list, but he also wanted to evoke some more personal events like his becoming a grandfather, or his introduction to Vipassana, 10 days of silent and intensive meditation.Read his Top 16 SOLUTIONS ARE HEREEven if climate change didn’t exist, it would still make sense to switch to renewable energies and clean technologies.  Why? Because they’re a great economic and industrial opportunity which will create profit and jobs of course! But to ensure this transition goes well, there are five things we cannot do without: diversification, storage, profitability, energy efficiency, and a legal framework. Without forgetting a key ingredient: ambition!Discover the recipe   ADVENTURERS OF THE YEAROur two pilots are on National Geographic’s list of nominees for the 2016 Adventurers of the Year!  Being elected would reward their efforts to place dreams and emotions back at the heart of scientific adventures, and all we need for that is a little vote once a day until the 31st of January. Thanks for your support!Vote here

Happy #MLK2016: Celebrating the Life & Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We here @ #Outsiders are celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.   We have decided to feature a number of his admonitions throughout our Network which were reminders to us all here @ #Outsiders on what we have embarked and hope it serves as an inspiration to all.  

Happy #MLK2016 to all as we extend our thanks to the team at +Global Citizen for the wonderful retrospective they put together!!

Notations From the Grid (W-End Edition): On 7 Start-Ups That can be Household Names!!!

As we were on the "prowl" for the week-end, we saw this featured on +Business Insider  based on a reporting from +The Guardian on the latest batch of "Unicorns".   We look forward to "following" them over the year to see how they're doing and reportng on them here in the "Visions" Channel:

7 startups that hope to become household names in 2016 

What will be the next household-name app-based service like Uber? Where... 
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Tip of the Week (W-End Edition): 5 Qualities You Need to Reach Your Biggest Goals

As we begin the Week-End here in #Outsiders, we wanted to begin by sharing this "tip of the week" from the team at Inside Success on some common sense strategies by understanding 5 Qualities You Need to Reach Your Biggest Goals to ensure that you reach your goals.

On the Eve of the Week-End: The Ultmate Admonition To Remember

Enough said!!!

On behalf of the entire #Outsider team, we wish all a fabuous WeekEnd!!!

The Friday Musical Interlude: OceanLab Performs If I Could Fly :))))

On this Friday, once again we are pleased to present the Friday Musical Interlude.  For this, our team chose the artist "OceanLab" which we hope all enjoy: 

An #Outsider Newsflash: Late Breaking Development on another of our Kickstarter-Backed Projects

We have just received another late breaking news on one of our other projects that we are pleased to report with excerpts from the team @Kickstarter  as we await the arrival and testing here at our Virtual HQ

32 New Years Resolution: Addressing C.H.I.P. issues. Posted by Next Thing Co. In only two short weeks, we’ve seen C.H.I.P.sters run ownCloud on C.H.I.P. and turn C.H.I.P. into an Amazon echo. If this is what happens after two weeks, we can't wait to see what the next 50 bring! Needless to say, it’s been a hell of a rush, but we weren't without a few rough patches. When you supported us during the Kickstarter campaign, you pledged for a working C.H.I.P.  WE WILL BE MAKING GOOD ON THIS.  If you experience an issue with C.H.I.P., let us know at ahoyahoy@nextthing.co.. A huge part of making C.H.I.P. all that it can be is working with the community to find our mistakes and correct them for C.H.I.P.sters past, present, and future.  Curious how we're getting better?  Read on! Click through to C.H.I.P. documentation! We've worked long and hard to provide extensive documentation.  Check it out at docs.getchip.com.  If you're having an issue with C.H.I.P., check out our newTroubleshooting section or drop into the larger community conversation on the NTC forums. Have a suggestion to improve our documentation?  Submit a pull request here! Superbackers soderstrom and DudeJuice have started aC.H.I.P. wiki and a C.H.I.P. subreddit respectively!  Check them out!

An #Outsider Newsflash: An Update From one of KickStarter Projects

We just received this at our Virtual Studios:

9 Current production status Posted by Pierre Charlier

Hi everyone, The production of KeyDuino boards is going well, and NFC tags are done. Hopefully the production will be completed this week, but we still have to manage programming and quality check before packaging. We hope to start the delivery before the end of January ; Mega Packs and Master Packs will be sent through DHL and others via registered airmail. KeyDuino team

The #Outsider APP Watch: An #Outsider Newsflash (Special Edition)

We wanted to launch the #APP Watch here as we begin the new year.    We will be featuring these over the ensuing days weeks     We hope all will have a chance to check it out and share their perspective as well.

View of the Week (Special Edition) : ON CES 2016 & BEYOND (with some late breaking updates from #Uber)

 Now the Hype over CES is over, our team decided to release this very interesting column Dylan Tweney eleased on the eve of CES.   There were a lot of cool devices out there that will probably gain a lot of traction.   But the reality as laid out by Dylan is quite interesting in laying out a sense of the reality--it was a fabulous show, though.  Whether it was the Human Drone, the latest and greatest on Television--it was quite a sight to see!!!

As we went to press though here with this column, we received reports here at our Virtual Studios on the latest from Uber.   As it had delivered 1 Billion Rides, it has some challenges before it.   Reports we have seen as noted by the Business Insider based on updates from the Information reflects a Billion Dollar Loss--with Uber being hopeful that it will be able to overcome losses out of its' existing markets.

Truly interesting times......

Dylan’s Desk: At CES, the ridiculous never goes out of style By Dylan Tweney, Contributing Editor A lot of us sort of expected CES 2016 to reveal a new, more practical side to the consumer electronics industry. Guess again. Despite a looming global economic slowdown, the devaluation of tech-company unicorns, and the fact that everybody already has as many smartphones, tablets, and wrist gadgets as they need, CES continued to show us the same cavalcade of craziness and excess that it always has. Smartphone-connected kegel exercisers? A Wi-Fi-enabled Febreze scent dispenser? Modular TV screens? Yeah, baby. Some of it was even kind of cool. Facebook’s Oculus division finally announced the price and shipping date for its VR headset, the Oculus Rift. Despite being almost twice as expensive as expected, at $600, eager consumers snapped up all the available preorders almost instantly. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey went onto Reddit to humbly beg forgiveness for understating the price last year, when he led everyone to believe that it would be about $350. Even at $600, it’s still worth it, Luckey said: “I will use whatever credibility I have left to assure you that you are getting a pretty crazy deal.” The Oculus is what most observers regard as the most promising VR headset, and with Facebook’s reach and marketing muscle behind it, we’re sure to hear a lot more about this in the coming year. Segway announced a combination hoverboard/personal robot, and somehow managed to not get laughed out of Las Vegas. It’s a smallish, self-balancing two-wheeled contraption that rolls around on its own, with a cute little face and optional arms, so it can take photos, carry your stuff, or maybe even act as a tiny personal teleconference robot. When you’re ready to head home, you literally squeeze the robot’s face between your legs and off you scoot. And several old brands embraced decidedly retro products, in hopes of eking out a few more moments of relevance, perhaps. The most ambitious: Kodak (which went bankrupt a few years back) has re-emerged, teamed up with famed industrial designer Yves Behar, and is planning a revival of the Super 8 camera that launched a thousand film careers. The new Super 8 will shoot movies on film, just like the old one, but will also have some unspecified digital capabilities. We don’t know much, except that it will take film cartridges ($50-$70 each) and will also have a USB port and a slot for an SD card. You may chuckle, you may lust for it, but either way, one thing is certain: Kodak lined up a truly impressive array of Hollywood directors for its press release, with quotes from Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, J.J. Abrams, and a host of others. This is all in striking contrast to the realities of the marketplace. As VentureBeat learned earlier this week in aconversation with Accenture, the consumer technology market is in a serious global slowdown. Consumers have reached a saturation point — first noticed a year or two ago when tablet sales started tapering off — and are less likely to buy the latest shiny new thing until it’s demonstrably useful and necessary. (Hello, Apple Watch.) Many gadget categories, like smartphones, have matured to the point where the differences between market leaders are marginal at best, based largely on design and brand. And, as Accenture noted, consumers are worried about security and privacy. Electronics makers have forged blithely forward into a world where your every step is logged and stored in the cloud, and where even your wall sockets and light bulbs have Internet connections. Yet at the same time, over the past year we’ve seen onehorrible security breach after another — 76 million customer records here, 40 million there, 240 million there. No wonder buyers are leery: They’re not idiots. So in the coming year, will you buy an Oculus headset, a Segway robot, a weird digital/film camera from a failed brand, or a fitness tracker with a color screen? Probably not. You’ll hold out for something more useful — and if you’re smart, you’ll wait until you hear more about how these companies are going to protect the increasingly personal data they have on you. Maybe these things will be useful enough, or cheap enough, to buy in 2017. In the meantime, enjoy the show.

On This New Day Here in #Outsidiers: A "View of the Week" On How A Vision Can be Made Possible :)))

Our team thought this images we received at our Virtual Studios was simply too beautiful not to feature as we look forward to the privilege to serve.   It brought smiles to our faces as we hope it does to all:  

View of the Week (W-End Edition): On the Future of Digital Media

As our team continues its' on-going development work, we wanted to feature this courtesy of Business Insider that is telling in terms of the possibilities it represents: 

Forget the doomsayers: Media is a fine career choice thanks to the digital shift 

Every so often, a journalist who thrived in the old days decries the current state of mostly digital journalism and discourages youngsters from pursuing a career there. Things were so much better in the old days, these columns usually say. Nowadays, everybody's just chasing clicks, it's a race to the bottom for advertising money, great journalists can't find decent paying work, and the work isn't very satisfying — basically woe and gloom.

Here's some data that suggest journalism isn't such a bad career choice after all. This chart from McKinsey used U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stats to plot compound annual wage growth in various industries between 1997 and 2014 (vertical axis), and guess which industry came in 2nd place? Media. Wages grew at an average rate of more than 4%, second only to the oil and gas industry.

What's more, that growth is directly related to the shift to digital. The horizontal axis on the chart plots industries on McKinsey's "digital labor index," which measures factors such as the amount of digital capital invested and the share of occupations and tasks that are digital. Media has undergone the most dramatic transformation to digital of any industry in the U.S.

It's true that not all "media" jobs are journalism jobs, and money is certainly not the only factor in job satisfaction. But as somebody who started a journalism career back in 1992, this rings true to my experience: There are far more living-wage entry-level journalism jobs today than there were before the internet took off.

Read »

The Friday Musical Interlude (2016): The Music of AR Rahman

As the year has begun in earnest here in #Outsiders, our team settled on a bit of an unconventional choice for the first Friday Musical Interlude of #2016:  The Indian Maestro AR Rahman.   As noted in the tribute by the Hindustan Times, he's got  "... two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Grammy Awards, four National Film Awards, a Golden Globe, 15 Filmfare Awards and 13 Filmfare Awards South to his credit. It was his Birthday this week and we hope all enjoy this (as we hope all enjoy the selections we're releasing throughout our properties):