VALLADOLID, 3 (EUROPA PRESS)

La música irlandesa protagoniza la programación de las Noches de San Benito de 2010 en Valladolid, que se celebrarán entre el 2 y el 31 de julio, y que contarán con la actuación entre otros de Sharon, una de las hermanas que formaron el grupo The Corrs, Sinead O'Connor, y el espectáculo de baile y música 'Celtic Legend'.

El alcalde de Valladolid, Francisco Javier León de la Riva, el director general de El Norte de Castilla, Ignacio Pérez, y el representante de Aguas de Valladolid, Javier García García, presentaron hoy el ciclo musical veraniego, que, como subrayaron los ponentes es "uno de los mejores de los últimos años".

Como nota característica de la programación se puede señalar la coincidencia de hasta tres actuaciones de grupos o solistas irlandeses --Sharon Corr, Celtic Legends y Sinead O'Connor--, Marta Sánchez, el belga Milow --de actualidad por su exitoso single 'Ayo Technology'--, Paul Carrack con el London Community Gospel Choir, y el espectáculo 'Flamenco Hoy' de Carlos Saura.

El primer edil vallisoletano recalcó que en esta cita tradicional del verano vallisoletano se trata de ofrecer "todas las variedades posibles con lo mejor del talento de los artistas en un entorno muy cercano" por el recinto del patio de San Benito. El ciclo cuenta con el mismo presupuesto que el pasado ejercicio, 150.000 euros, más las aportaciones de los patrocinadores Aguas de Valladolid y El Norte.

El regidor destacó que cada año se "internacionaliza más" el elenco de artistas que acude a San Benito y justificó este hecho por la existencia en la ciudad de otras citas más recientes como Valladolid Latino o el 'Vive la Música', que han permitido "abrir más el abanico" en esta programación.

Así, el ciclo arrancará con el cantaor Luis 'El Zambo', el día 2 de julio, que tratará de enlazar con la semana flamenca que acoge la ciudad a finales de junio con la fase previa local del concurso del Cante de las Minas de La Unión (Murcia).

El sábado 3 será el turno de la irlandesa Sharon Corr, que se dio a conocer en los años noventa con 'The Corrs' el grupo que formó con sus tres hermanos. En el conjunto 'pop' Sharon tocaba el violín, componía y acompañaba en los coros.

El miércoles 7 saltará al escenario la artista Marta Sánchez, que volverá a la ciudad después de la breve presencia en septiembre de 2009 para acompañar a Carlos Baute en el concierto que éste ofreció en la Plaza Mayor. La cantante, con 25 años de trayectoria musical, recibirá también el Premio San Benito de la Música, que en anteriores ocasiones reconoció a María Dolores Pradera y el etnógrafo Joaquín Díaz.

La única actuación que repetirá en el escenario dos días será la exhibición 'Flamenco Hoy' ideada por el director de cine Carlos Saura, que se podrá ver los días 9 y 10 de julio. El miércoles 14 subirá al escenario Solomon Burke, veterano artista norteamericano que interpreta tanto soul como rhythm and blues e incluso country.

El día 12 está programado el cantautor belga Milow, que el pasado 2009 cosechó un éxito en numerosos países europeos con la canción 'Ayo Technology' versión de un tema de '50 Cent' y Justin Timberlake. El regidor vallisoletano destacó que este joven cantante es "como Juan Palomo" porque además de interpretar, "hace de director artístico y productor".

El viernes 16 se podrá ver a los 'Celtic Legend' con la actuación de baile y 'tap dance' típico de Irlanda, mientras que el martes 20 llegará el turno de la cantautora estadounidense de jazz y blues Madeline Peyroux.

CANTO Y BALLET.

El 23 de junio se programa la actuación más amplia, con un doble registro clásico. En primer lugar el tenor Manuel Beltrán Gil ofrecerá un recital acompañado al piano por Fernando Hervás, antes de que las "figuras del ballet" de 'Russian Stars' realicen su exhibición.

El 24 de junio volverá la música sureña americana con Johnny Winter. Posteriormente, el viernes 30 el ex integrante de 'Mike and the Mechanics' Paul Carrack ofrecerá un espectáculo en el que une su voz al coro formado por cantantes de gospel procedentes de todo el área urbana de Londres 'The London Community Gospel Choir'.

Por último, cerrará el ciclo el 31 de julio la irlandesa Sinead O'Connor, que con una ya larga trayectoria cuyo último fruto será el álbum que graba actualmente con Marco Pirroni, basado en las guitarras eléctricas.

Además, como complemento de Las Noches de San Benito se programan dos actuaciones de jóvenes orquestas internacionales con entrada gratis hasta completar el aforo del patio. En primer lugar, el domingo 18 de julio actuará la Joven Orquesta City of Leeds; mientras que el día 25 llegará el turno de la Joven Orquesta Oxfordshire County.

Los precios de las entradas se mueven entre los 15 euros de la primera actuación de El Zambo y los 37 del recital y gala de ballet del día 23. Se pueden adquirir en la página web www.ticketcyl.com, en el local comercial de El Norte de Castilla en la calle Platerías de Valladolid, en la oficina de turismo de la Acera de Recoletos y en Disco Center.

VALLADOLID, 3 (EUROPA PRESS)

La música irlandesa protagoniza la programación de las Noches de San Benito de 2010 en Valladolid, que se celebrarán entre el 2 y el 31 de julio, y que contarán con la actuación entre otros de Sharon, una de las hermanas que formaron el grupo The Corrs, Sinead O'Connor, y el espectáculo de baile y música 'Celtic Legend'.

El alcalde de Valladolid, Francisco Javier León de la Riva, el director general de El Norte de Castilla, Ignacio Pérez, y el representante de Aguas de Valladolid, Javier García García, presentaron hoy el ciclo musical veraniego, que, como subrayaron los ponentes es "uno de los mejores de los últimos años".

Como nota característica de la programación se puede señalar la coincidencia de hasta tres actuaciones de grupos o solistas irlandeses --Sharon Corr, Celtic Legends y Sinead O'Connor--, Marta Sánchez, el belga Milow --de actualidad por su exitoso single 'Ayo Technology'--, Paul Carrack con el London Community Gospel Choir, y el espectáculo 'Flamenco Hoy' de Carlos Saura.

El primer edil vallisoletano recalcó que en esta cita tradicional del verano vallisoletano se trata de ofrecer "todas las variedades posibles con lo mejor del talento de los artistas en un entorno muy cercano" por el recinto del patio de San Benito. El ciclo cuenta con el mismo presupuesto que el pasado ejercicio, 150.000 euros, más las aportaciones de los patrocinadores Aguas de Valladolid y El Norte.

El regidor destacó que cada año se "internacionaliza más" el elenco de artistas que acude a San Benito y justificó este hecho por la existencia en la ciudad de otras citas más recientes como Valladolid Latino o el 'Vive la Música', que han permitido "abrir más el abanico" en esta programación.

Así, el ciclo arrancará con el cantaor Luis 'El Zambo', el día 2 de julio, que tratará de enlazar con la semana flamenca que acoge la ciudad a finales de junio con la fase previa local del concurso del Cante de las Minas de La Unión (Murcia).

El sábado 3 será el turno de la irlandesa Sharon Corr, que se dio a conocer en los años noventa con 'The Corrs' el grupo que formó con sus tres hermanos. En el conjunto 'pop' Sharon tocaba el violín, componía y acompañaba en los coros.

El miércoles 7 saltará al escenario la artista Marta Sánchez, que volverá a la ciudad después de la breve presencia en septiembre de 2009 para acompañar a Carlos Baute en el concierto que éste ofreció en la Plaza Mayor. La cantante, con 25 años de trayectoria musical, recibirá también el Premio San Benito de la Música, que en anteriores ocasiones reconoció a María Dolores Pradera y el etnógrafo Joaquín Díaz.

La única actuación que repetirá en el escenario dos días será la exhibición 'Flamenco Hoy' ideada por el director de cine Carlos Saura, que se podrá ver los días 9 y 10 de julio. El miércoles 14 subirá al escenario Solomon Burke, veterano artista norteamericano que interpreta tanto soul como rhythm and blues e incluso country.

El día 12 está programado el cantautor belga Milow, que el pasado 2009 cosechó un éxito en numerosos países europeos con la canción 'Ayo Technology' versión de un tema de '50 Cent' y Justin Timberlake. El regidor vallisoletano destacó que este joven cantante es "como Juan Palomo" porque además de interpretar, "hace de director artístico y productor".

El viernes 16 se podrá ver a los 'Celtic Legend' con la actuación de baile y 'tap dance' típico de Irlanda, mientras que el martes 20 llegará el turno de la cantautora estadounidense de jazz y blues Madeline Peyroux.

CANTO Y BALLET.

El 23 de junio se programa la actuación más amplia, con un doble registro clásico. En primer lugar el tenor Manuel Beltrán Gil ofrecerá un recital acompañado al piano por Fernando Hervás, antes de que las "figuras del ballet" de 'Russian Stars' realicen su exhibición.

El 24 de junio volverá la música sureña americana con Johnny Winter. Posteriormente, el viernes 30 el ex integrante de 'Mike and the Mechanics' Paul Carrack ofrecerá un espectáculo en el que une su voz al coro formado por cantantes de gospel procedentes de todo el área urbana de Londres 'The London Community Gospel Choir'.

Por último, cerrará el ciclo el 31 de julio la irlandesa Sinead O'Connor, que con una ya larga trayectoria cuyo último fruto será el álbum que graba actualmente con Marco Pirroni, basado en las guitarras eléctricas.

Además, como complemento de Las Noches de San Benito se programan dos actuaciones de jóvenes orquestas internacionales con entrada gratis hasta completar el aforo del patio. En primer lugar, el domingo 18 de julio actuará la Joven Orquesta City of Leeds; mientras que el día 25 llegará el turno de la Joven Orquesta Oxfordshire County.

Los precios de las entradas se mueven entre los 15 euros de la primera actuación de El Zambo y los 37 del recital y gala de ballet del día 23. Se pueden adquirir en la página web www.ticketcyl.com, en el local comercial de El Norte de Castilla en la calle Platerías de Valladolid, en la oficina de turismo de la Acera de Recoletos y en Disco Center.

Milow - Ayo Technology
Vincent - Miss Blue - Main Version
System Of A Down - Chop Suey!
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend - Explicit Version
Paramore - Ignorance
Cascada - Can’t Stop The Rain
Muse - Assassin
HIM - The Funeral Of Hearts
David Guetta, Kid Cudi - Memories (Featuring Kid Cudi)
t.A.T.u. - All About Us
Sum 41 - Still Waiting
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
Limp [...]

On the Engadget Show, PlayStation R&D boss Richard Marks said Sony basically checked out the kind of tech Microsoft adopted for Natal, and turned it down because it wouldn't have enabled "as many new experiences" as the company wanted.

“We tried a lot of different 3D cameras. I love the 3D camera technology; personally, I like the technology part of it,” said Marks. “We worked closely with our game teams at what it would enable, and it enabled making the things we already did with EyeToy more robust, but it didn’t really enable as many new experiences as what we were hoping it would enable, so it made the things we were already able to do a little bit more robust – which is good – but it adds a lot of cost and it didn’t enable some of the other experiences we wanted to achieve.”

So the motion control wars are heating up, people. Who do you think will come out ahead -- Natal or Move? Personally, I wonder how Natal will be able to work in low-light conditions, and whether the actual payoff will be even close to the hype. Move, on the other hand, shouldn't have a problem with lighting, what with the lighted globe on top.  Time, as they say, will tell.

Source: Engadget Show (via PlayStation Lifestyle)

Phil Lesh :: Yuri's Night '08 :: by Susan J. Weiand

This year, Symbiosis is teaming up with Lumatech Lighting and Ankh Marketing for what will be the largest Yuri's Night celebration in the world on April 9-10 at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. Over 15,000 people will join astronauts, artists, musicians, scientists and engineers for two days of learning, celebrating and connecting with space at Yuri's Night Bay Area 2010.

Friday April 9 :: Multiverse Education Day :: 9AM - 3PM
A FREE Event for Bay Area Students and Educators!
Visit the website for info and registration.

Saturday April 10 :: Festival Day :: 12PM - 12AM
Artists from all over the world will assemble at NASA Ames to captivate Yuri's Night participants. Significant aircraft from past decades will be on hand as static displays with tours and flying demonstrations. Speakers from NASA, space industry, and groundbreaking technology organizations will inspire attendees with the possibilities of the future.

Yuri's Night Bay Area 2010 Lineup

The Black Keys
Common
Les Claypool
N.E.R.D.
DJ Q-Bert
The Glitch Mob
Hamsa Lila

Bayonics - Beats Antique (DJ set) - Blix Cannon - DJ Apollo - Dyloot - The Flying Skulls - Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime - John Beaver vs. DJ Hill - Majitope - Random Rab - Savage Henry - Super Natural & DJ Shortkut - Tomas Cruzio - Vibesquad - Zen Finger Painting

Stage and Atmosphere Design by SYMBIOTIC CREATIONS

Tickets can be purchased here.

Check out the JamBase review of the previous Yuri's Night celebration!

Does this look familiar?

@YourBuddy
 I'm at the Apple Store Palo Alto in Palo Alto http://gowalla.com/spots/9591
 about 7 hours ago via Gowalla

It looks all too familiar to me. And these messages are increasing in frequency in inboxes and social sites. What's going on here is that a fairly new kind of app, the "location check-in" service, is starting to get more traction among early adopters, and the usage is resulting in rapidly increasing "10-20" updates. Last week, the SXSW conference was ground-zero for this battle, as two of the hottest players, Foursquare and Gowalla, battled it out a year after both launching at the same event. Gowalla, behind for most of the year, gained steam at SXSW, winning a SXSW Web Award. Gowalla launched an updated app in Austin...and that's where my trouble began.

It seems that many of my social contacts have decided to try Gowalla this past week, and as a result, my Status Updates from my Contacts in LinkedIn, and "What's Hapenning" in Twitter are getting stuffed with spammy updates of every time one of them shows up at some coffee shop. This is the worst of social...the anecdotal "I'm brushing my teeth now" update that we all made fun of before we discovered the real value of Twitter.

What has happened is that these Check-In apps are degrading the average value of the messages my friends send. As a "follower", I tend to only follow people who put tight filters on their tweets, usually offering some deliberate thought about politics, telecom, or technology. But once these people connected Check-In apps to Twitter, their deliberate, pensive, witty tweets are being overrun by location spam. I'm not your mom, and I don't care where you are!

To be fair, the Check-In apps, by themselves, are not bad, and can be quite cool. I like being able to sign into locations, leave virtual notes there, leave pictures on a virtual board, rate the place, get discounts. Many of the uses are fun, informative, and even whimsical. I like the goofy competition for "being the mayor" of the bubble tea shop. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Shane Snow over at Mashable describes the leading apps well, including a head-to-head feature chart. So while the apps can be engaging, it's just the optional connection of these apps to automatic outbound messages that is problematic and can generate too much chaff.

Not only can automated messages add up in quantity, but they can occasionally send the wrong signals, or be cause for embarassement. On one funny occasion, my wife visited someone at the hospital, and she turned on Foursquare. Because of the lingo of these apps, her Facebook page and friends were pushed the message "Liz just checked-in @ Kaiser Permanente Medical Center - Walnut Creek". Now, much as we liked the free flowers, we're not sure she was sending the right signals.

Like email and spam in the 90s, the good-quality, human written missives are being substituted by pointless, automated messages. It's far easier for a server to crank me out a message than for a person to type out 140 characters, so I predict this unfortunate trend to continue. An increasing number of status updates will be coming - not from your friends - but from machines they've allowed to send on their behalf. Too bad. I wanted to stay in touch with my friends, not their software.

See UNISA – Summary of 2010 Posts for a list of related UNISA posts. Continued from UNISA Chatter – UNISA Chatter – Design patterns in C++ Part 3: Generics & Serializer Pattern  .

QT and Environment Summary

The following is a summary of findings as I worked through the course related book. See the summary post for details on the book.

Design Pattern Summary

The will post the sample solution I developed as soon as I submit the assignment, which use most of the QT features summarised above. When I am done with UNISA, I will probably rewrite all of these samples using Visual Studio 2010 and demonstrate the phenomenal features and productivity of that environment as well.

Here are a few screen shots, which should highlight the favourite sample program emerging through the technology forest once again:

… 8! = 512 … it even works :)

I once had lots of fun writing the code and debugging the gremlins and odd behaviours using the QT IDE.  Not sure what the problem is, but there are often locked files, especially after a debug session, forcing an IDE restart … brings back memories from very early Visual Studio builds and can be rather tiring late at night.

Next post will explore the QVC pattern … a pattern that has also settled firmly in Visual Studio 2010 samples. If only we could complete these assignments using Visual Studio 2010 :|

I have for some time thought that ebooks will not oust print books until we have decent ebook reader devices. By “decent” I mean devices that are effective and affordable and are therefore in widespread use. For the last few years it has seemed that such a device would look something like the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle, with their high-resolution e-ink technology. Some people have been telling me that the Que, from Plastic Logic is the thing to get. It is a more flexible, lightweight device but it has not yet been launched, which is a slight drawback. It was due to launch in April 2010, but the company has recently announced that it is postponing release until summer 2010 in order to “further fine-tune features and enhance the overall product experience.” Some commentators suggest that this delay may wound the new device fatally. Once Apple’s full-colour iPad is launched, then monochrome E-ink devices, like the Que, Kindle and the Sony reader, will look less appealing. In short, the coming of the iPad will change the game, redefining what we expect of an ebook reader. I am inclined to agree with this diagnosis. My worry about the iPad was that as it doesn’t use e-ink technology it would not provide a reading experience that was easy on the eye as the Kindle etc. However, a commenter on the technologizer blog points out that bq. Most of the pages (print and Web) in the world are color, it’s not suitable to have a reader that does not show color. He goes on to claim that, whilst e-ink screens have slightly higher resolution, iPad has good enough resolution and is readable in direct sunlight. This chimed in with a recent very thoughtful blog post from Craig Mod about the tricky transition from printed books to electronic books. He says that, as a book designer, he feels excited about the potential of the iPad for making content available:bq. With the iPad we finally have a platform for consuming rich-content in digital form.He draws a distinction between different kinds of books, those with “Formless Content” thatbq. can be reflowed into different formats and not lose any intrinsic meaning. It’s content divorced from layout. Most novels and works of non-fiction are Formless.and those containing content with form — “Definite Content” — thatbq. is almost totally the opposite of Formless Content. Most texts composed with images, charts, graphs or poetry fall under this umbrella. It may be reflowable, but depending on how it’s reflowed, inherent meaning and quality of the text may shift.Put another way, “Formless Content is unaware of its container; Definite Content embraces the container as a canvas”. Formless content is usually only text. Definite content usually has visual elements along with text. Craig Mod suggests that the iPad brings the excellent text readability of the Kindle/Sony readers to a larger canvas. bq. It combines the intimacy and comfort of reading on those devices with a canvas both large enough and versatile enough to allow for well considered layouts.I’m not sure about the terminology, but I think I see what he getting at. The iPad will expand what will fit comfortably into an e-device.Now, devices are all very well. But we need business models that work for all sides (creators, publishers, consumers and, dare I say, libraries). We are not there yet but the market places is getting more complicated and I am optimistic that means a solution will emerge. Think early to mid 1990s and e-journals – it went crazy before we had a model that looked like it would work.When I heard at the end of last year that Highwire were starting to look at ebooks I was very pleased. At last here was a publisher that understood researchers and digital information, and was not primarily motivated by the desire to make huge profits. Maybe there is a chance we might see an ebook publishing model that will work for research. Highwire decided that the first step was to gather some evidence about the ebook market and ebook usage and they have recently published the results of their research into ebooks (see press release). The key findings they have highlighted are predictable: * Simplicity and ease of use seem more important than sophisticated end-user features. * Users tend to discover ebooks through both the library catalog and search engines. * While users prefer PDFs, format preference will likely change as technology changes. * DRM (digital rights management) seems to hinder ebook use for library patrons; ability to print is essential. * The most popular business model for librarians is purchase with perpetual access.The DRM finding has been highlighted by several people commenting on the report, not unexpectedly. This theme comes up again and again. Freedom to use what you have paid for seems like a no-brainer, but publishers are very anxious that they will lose revenue if easy sharing of ebook content becomes the norm. The entry of new players like Google, the Internet Archive and Apple into the ebook supply business has yet to play out. I hope we’ll see a real open market, with any device able to display any format and access any distribution channel – but that is by no means an assured outcome. We’ve been waiting so long for ebooks it seemed they would never become reality. We are still not quite there, but a new stage of the game has begun and before long we should know who the winners are. I will be keeping an eye open for Highwire’s next steps in the ebook arena.Another thought-provoking blog post on ebooks, from Nathan Bransford about the future potential of e-books, ended thus:bq. The e-book era is going to be one of incredible innovation and unlimited opportunity, and people who don’t see e-books dominating the future of the book world are ignoring the coming innovation and creativity and affordability. I refuse to believe the skeptics and pessimists. Books are about to get better.I think he is right.

Whooooa Man

The HP Officejet Pro L7680 Color All-in-One. It’s not a bad trip. Can you dig it? Can you?

Every HP Officejet Pro L7680 Color All-in-One is a self-sufficient reality on the edge of consciousness. It’s a wild journey to the center of the place where your mind is born, and back again. When you start printing, faxing, scanning, man! You’ll be slipping into a new dimension of honesty and truth.

 How do you feel? You don’t yet know how you feel. Not truly. Let the HP Officejet Pro L7680 Color All-in-One open your perceptions and take you to a place you’ve never even thought about. The HP Officejet Pro L7680 Color All-in-One will turn you inside out and take you to the center of the being you think you want to call you.

Warranty: 1 Year HP

Features:

• Professional quality color, 12ppm black and 10 ppm color in laser quality
• 35 ppm black and 34 ppm color maximum print speed
• Replaceable print heads
• 8.5×14 inch maximum scan size at 2400×4800 dpi
• Reduce or enlarge documents from 25% to 400% from their original size
• Stores up to 125 faxed in memory, even when powered off
• 2.4 inch color display
• Built in Ethernet networking
• Memory card compatibility
• 250 sheet paper tray, 50 sheet automatic document feeder, and automatic two-sided printing
• Scan and store directly to memory devices or network folders with Direct Digital Filing

HP Photo Book Features:

• Gives you everything you need to create professional-looking, customized photo books right at home
• 12 glossy sheets of HP Advanced Photo Paper
• Cloth, hardcover book
• HP Photosmart Essential design software
• Print and insert up to 100 pages, so you can keep on adding to your photo book whenever you have new photos or special items you want to include
• HP Photosmart Essential gives you a ton of easy layouts and themes (over 70 combinations) for customizing your photo pages

HP Bluetooth USB 2.0 Wireless Adapter Features:

• Wirelessly connect your Bluetooth-enabled devices to your PC and Bluetooth-compatible printer
• Wirelessly transfer documents, photos, music, and email to your PC from your Bluetooth-enabled devices
• Wireless print documents, email, text messages, photos, and graphics-just plug the adapter in any HP-Bluetooth enabled printer
• Connect up to seven Bluetooth-enabled devices within a range of 30' with EDR
• Compatible with Microsoft 2000, XP, Vista, and Mac OS X

Specifications:

In the box:

• HP Officejet Pro L7680
• HP Photo Books
• HP USB Bluetooth Dongle
  
• Power Cable
• Ethernet Cable
• Phone Cable
• Duplexer
• Bezel
• Yellow 9ml C9388A Ink Cartridge
• Magenta 9ml C9387A Ink Cartridge
• Cyan 9ml C9386A Ink Cartridge
• Black 20.5ml C9385S Ink Cartridge
• Black/Yellow Print Head C9381A
• Magenta/Cyan Print Head C9382A
• Installation CD

The idea driving Fiberforge isn't fuel. It's lighter cars. "Anything that needs to be moved from Point A to Point B would use less fuel and less energy to accelerate it, move it, and decelerate it if it were lighter," says Jon Fox-Rubin, President & CEO of Fiberforge. "And that's really where the Fiberforge process is aimed at creating affordable structures that are lighter in weight."

[twistage 7c29684dbe61d]

Amory Lovins: CEO & Co-Founder of Rocky Mountain Institute: A typical car today uses everyday a 100 times its weight in ancient plants inefficiently converted into gasoline. What happens to that fuel energy when it goes into your tank, 7/8th of it gets lost before it even gets to the wheels, of the 1/8th that gets to the wheels half of that either heats the air that your pushing aside or heats the tire and road. Only the last 6% of the fuel energy actually accelerates the car and then heats the breaks when you stop. And yet 95% of the mass you’re accelerating is the car not the driver, so 6% of 5%, that's about 0.3%, of the fuel energy ends up moving the driver. This is not very gratifying after 120 something years devoted to engineering effort.

Jon Fox-Rubin: President & CEO Fiberforge: Anything that needs to be moved from Point A to Point B would use less fuel and less energy to accelerate it, move it and decelerate it if it were lighter. And that’s really where the Fiberforge process is aimed at creating affordable structures that are lighter in weight.

Amory: We use carbon composites in military and aerospace where cost is almost no object, it's worth $700 present value to take a lb out of an airplane so they're willing to pay a lot to do that. But to move into automating you need to make these composite structures in a thousand times higher volume and lower cost then now.

Jon: Our main goal for any particular market is really affordability. And so the way we do that is we try to automate the process and turn the carbon fiber into a finished product that can be stamped, just like a steel part today. In an automobile you can stamp a thermoplastic tailored blank that’s made by the Fiberforge process.

The parts are typically designed in industry standard CAD tools, computer aided design tools designed for composites in the 3-D shape they're intended to be, and then we take that and flatten it into a 2-D shape and translate that into a Cad-Cam system. So computer aided design, computer aided manufacturing software system that makes the tool path for the tailored blank. That is the automatic layout system that makes the tailored blank. What you're seeing is a motion table that's moving XY, and rotates under a fixed head that’s part of our patented process. And it's laying up the tape a strip at a time next to one another. And we can layup a blank on the order of a few minutes.

Amory: This has 14 layers that are laid down kind of like plywood with carbon fibers pointing in different directions so you get the strength in the directions you want and not otherwise. And then since this is thermoplastic you can heat it up until it softens, stick it on a hot dye and mold it into the shape you want.

Jon: The heater heats the blank with infrared energy and once the resin is fully molded it shuttles it into the system and then essentially it gets compressed and frozen in place.

Amory: You end up with an amazingly strong material; this particular one is tougher than titanium, and really stiff as you can tell from the sound. So plastics have changed since The Graduate. And you can make this in thirty or sixty seconds and stamp out the parts just like steel, except you need about 10 or 20 times fewer parts to make the auto body, the parts snap precisely together for gluing, no hoist no jigs no robots no welders. And lay color in the mold you can make whatever color you want so you get rid of the paint shop, that's another half-billion dollar investment. So very different way to make cars, it's what's called a disruptive technology. Of course it's smart for automakers to adopt something like that right away before their competitors do and sell them their steel stamping equipment to slow them down.

Jon: I think the first automaker that really gets serious about light weighting and either licenses our technology or comes up with its own competitive technology will really own a key piece of the next generation of transportation.

Amory: An automaker will be smart to spend its own money making the cars lighter rather than try and make the fuel cells cheaper and tanks smaller. You'll get to the same place but with much less time, money and risk.

About this Blog

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about major Joomla websites and the developers who built them.

• First was Jack Bremer and the U.K. arts website theArtsDesk.com.
• Second was Fotis Evangelou and the Greek sports website Gazzetta.gr.
• Third was Dan Lopez and Linux.com.

This week we're talking with Azrul, Mike Carson and Sam Moffat about their roles in Linux.com.

Hi Azrul. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I am currently the lead developer at JomSocial.com and Azrul.com overseeing a small team of very talented developers. After finishing my degree at Imperial College in London, I was an investment analyst for close to two years before I realized that I'm really just a geek at heart...so I went back to programming! Before Joomla, I was mostly a C/C++ developer, working primarily on low-level mobile application programming. However, after developing for the web, and in particular, the open source world, I was hooked and haven't looked back.

Which of your products is being used by Linux.com?

Linux.com uses almost all of the products we've developed for Joomla--which are JomComment (our commenting component), MyBlog (our blogging component) and our newest extension, JomSocial (our social networking component). The funny thing is, we weren't aware of the site until they notified us about using our products. We're very honored they chose our products to power their community.

Is Jomsocial being used on any other large-scale websites?

JomSocial is being used on thousands of websites--both large and small. It's pretty amazing, really. We have sites with a few hundred members all the way to hundreds of thousands of members. Regarding the large-scale sites, there is of course Linux.com; and there's TheProdigy.com -- the official website for the band The Prodigy; quite a few verticals like kenyahub.com which has over 120,000 members, and there's a new sci-fi portal called MyOuterSpace.com which uses JomSocial to power their community (and is being heavily promoted by Star Trek actor William Shatner).

Those are just a few of the larger sites, but it's important to remember that size isn't everything in social networking. Some communities never need to be extremely large to be effective. Basically, most communities just need the right communication tools to keep their members happy and connected, and that's really where JomSocial comes in. We have JomSocial powering personal sites; school alumni communities; and even a community for extended families. These kinds of communities are not going to grow into the thousands daily, but they can still benefit greatly with JomSocial.

What do developers need to consider when they're preparing their extensions for heavy-traffic?

There are a lot of issues that need to be considered. There is always a balance between having tons of features and making sure a site runs fast and efficiently.

Basically, there are 3 major points that need separate optimization. First, the code within PHP. Then, the database, and finally, the actual data transferred from your server to the user's browser. Any optimization, either to reduce processing load, de-normalization or deploying caching really needs to be looked at within these 3 separate points.

What improvements and changes are you planning for Jomsocial?

We have huge plans for JomSocial in 2010. Our users send us new ideas every single day. The list of planned improvements really won't fit into this interview, as it's pretty extensive, but here are just a few things you can look forward to seeing in JomSocial very soon:

• Better content management & classification
• Drag and drop layout editing
• Support for multiple plugin views--similar to the Open Social application model
• ... and of course, better performance through advanced caching.

Although JomSocial is already distributed with its source code un-encoded, and users are free to modify as they wish, I am proud to announce that we are actually working towards making JomSocial a true Open Source project. The next major release of JomSocial will, in fact, be released under GPLv2 license!

We will also be introducing a new way which will make it easier for anyone to deploy a Joomla + JomSocial powered site (visit our website for more information about this over the coming months)

Hi Mike. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Being a long-time trainer in vertical markets, I dreamed up a small start-up company in 2004 with the primary focus on corporate training solutions. I am the CEO of Integrated Technology and Design, and the well-known online storefront called Joomla Showroom. My firm created and produced the first Learning Management System (LMS) for Joomla, called Joomlearn LMS, to serve a primary market of corporate education-driven solutions.

I have been a Joomla! designer and developer primarily since its inception in September 2005 and followed the fork from the previous Mambo CMS (cough, cough). My service line has expanded to include some of the most sought-after Joomla! extensions online today, including Event Registration Pro, Pro Desk Support Center, and the Joomlearn LMS. My entrepreneurial experience has given me the experience to listen to the market and deliver winning solutions on a consistent basis.

I truly love working with the Joomla project and think it is a wonderful piece of open source technology. I really enjoy working with an open source technology such as Joomla because it's not just a software app, it is a huge community of very smart and talented people from all over the world.

How did you get involved with project of the size of Linux.com?

The Linux Foundation was in the process of a very large rebuild of their website using Joomla! as the core foundation. Their lead web architect, Dan Lopez, had contacted me for a solution they could use for handling all of their Linux events around the world. Dan was very interested in our Event Registration Pro extension but needed a few additional customizations to better fit their needs and business model. I spoke with Dan about how we could enhance the product and it wasn't long before we were deep into a brainstorming session of endless possibilities for expanding their event registration and promotional needs.

The Linux Foundation has also expressed interest in working with us to help them with online learning management system capabilities and also helping with solutions where they can integrate registration solutions to webinar events that are being considered in the future.

What was your role in the project?

After speaking with Dan about how the Linux Foundation would be integrating Joomla and our extension with other open source applications we knew that we had to deliver a quality product within budget and in a timely manner. We could see that they were well underway with the new website development.  Dan asked use if we could help build and integrated event calendar and shopping cart functionality directly into Event Registration Pro. Dan had asked about the feasibility of integrating our software with some already existing 3rd party Joomla extensions and I explained that we could build him a brand new solution that was integrated and not linked to using any 3rd part extensions. We explained the benefits of not having to deal with multiple extension updates and potential security risks involved when doing that. We have always taken the principle of least privilege philosophy to ensure security is the top priority.

Our development team then began coding a new shopping cart type of checkout feature that was intuitive for the general front end user yet still gave all the reporting funcionality that The Linux Foundation required. We also began coding a new front end calendar that would co-exist with our event listing display so that the Linux events could be displayed into a customizable calendar format. The Linux Events website can be found here.

What challenges did you face and overcome working on Linux.com?

Our largest challenge was to deliver a robust solution, yet keeping it simple to use. We made sure that the calendar integration was fully CSS styleable so that it could easily be changed with any redesign implimentations that may come down the road at a later date. We had to make sure that the new shopping cart feature was integrated fully and offered the ability to sell additional sale items beyond event tickets such as dinner options, books, etc. The shopping cart had to allow for discount coupons to also be used so our few new features and customizations became many new features very quickly. The largest challenge was that we had to meet a timely deadline and offer an open payment plugin gateway architecture so that The Linux Foundation could develop their own open source customized payment plugin to fit their needs perfectly.

Do you have any other major projects or announcements coming up?

We are currently working on 2 new Joomla Extensions that are soon to be released at Joomla Showroom. A nice testimonials extension and a Video Tutorials extension. Stay tuned for these to be released in early April.

We are also working on many other projects, some large, some small, but we can guarantee that you will be seeing a lot of very nice things from us in 2010.

Hi Sam. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I'm a small town developer who works on the Authentication Tools project for Joomla! in his spare time and I work at USQ in the Library there as a Systems Co-ordinator.

How did you get involved with project of the size of Linux.com?

By chance really. I work on the JAuthTools project which handles extra authentication options for Joomla!, in this case there are some alternate LDAP plugins for handling user registration and storage. The Linux.com guys were having issues getting things to work properly in their existing custom configured infrastructure so they contacted me to see what I could do to make it happen.

What was your role in the project?

I customised my LDAP user plugin to handle Linux.com's custom LDAP schema and integrated it with the custom registration fields that they were using.

What challenges did you face and overcome working on Linux.com?

I'm not entirely sure there was any big challenge in getting things up and running on Linux.com, a lot of it was (for me at least) run of the mill changes and customisations to get stuff to work for them. Some of the other non-Linux.com specific stuff has gone into the relevant SVN repo and will be in a release in the future.

Do you have any other major projects or announcements coming up?

Does Joomla! 1.6 count?

Over to You ...

Do you know of a major or particularly interesting site that we should feature here? Email your suggestions to steve.burge@opensourcematters.org. Be sure to include:

• The website URL
• Why the site is interesting
• An email address for the developer

Aunque el problema del consumo de energía es aplicable a todo tipo de ordenadores, su importancia es mayor si cabe entre los ordenadores más grandes como servidores, que pueden requerir sistemas de refrigeración que consumen aún más electricidad que ellos mismos, y los más pequeños, aquellos destinados a funcionar con baterías, como teléfonos móviles, tablets o portátiles, en los que un menor consumo significa una mayor autonomía.

Errores de funcionamiento a bajo voltaje

Pero la progresiva disminución en el tamaño físico y en el consumo de los microprocesadores trae parejo un problema: se incrementa el número de errores en los procesos internos y de intercambio de información.

Al haber menos electrones circulando por los circuitos la pérdida de alguno o de unos pocos de ellos puede suponer la pérdida de la información que se está procesando, según recoge Technology Review,

Es como intentar ducharse con la lavadora y el lavavajillas funcionando. Igual que esa mayor demanda de agua puede reducir la presión en la ducha, con los microprocesadores funcionando a bajo voltaje puede suponer la pérdida de tensión circulando entre los miles de millones de transistores que lo forman, y esto puede llevar a errores en su funcionamiento.

Además este tipo de circuitos de bajo voltaje están más expuestos al ruido, a interferencias en su funcionamiento y son más vulnerables a los cambios de temperatura.

Para solucionar esto Intel explora varias vías a través de su programa Energy-Efficient Systems Architecture, que entre otras soluciones desarrollo un mecanismo de control de errores que es capaz de variar el voltaje de funcionamiento del procesador, incrementándolo si detecta que se está produciendo una pérdida de datos y reduciéndolo cuando los procesos se están ejecutando con normalidad. De este modo se logra reducir el consumo sin comprometer a la fiabilidad.

MONROVIA, California and SEOUL, Korea – March 24, 2010 – Tanner EDA, the catalyst for innovation for the design, layout and verification of analog and mixed-signal (A/MS) integrated circuits (ICs) and Dongbu HiTek, a world-class wafer fabricator, are jointly developing foundry-certified process development kits (PDKs) that will be integrated seamlessly into Tanner’s cohesive, integrated tool flow. Designers using Tanner software solutions will have certified libraries to draw on as they create ICs at critical process nodes for production at Dongbu foundries, reducing design risk and providing faster time to market and higher quality of outcomes.

Dongbu HiTek has distinguished itself as a global A/MS technology leader since launching the world’s first foundry BCDMOS process at the 0.18 micron node in June 2008. Tanner EDA is focused on providing innovative solutions to designers of breakthrough A/MS ICs. Driven by customer demand, jointly developed and maintained foundry-certified PDKs will deliver access to Dongbu HiTek’s 0.35 micron BCDMOS process on Tanner’s tool flow. This BCDMOS process is ideal for integrating analog circuits (using Bipolar), logic circuits (using CMOS) and high-voltage circuits (using DMOS) all on the same chip.

“Our aim is to be the most respected analog foundry in the business,” said Taek Soo Kim, Ph.D, vice president of Dongbu’s HiTek’s technical engineering division. “This collaboration with Tanner, which has provided complete A/MS design solutions for so many leading-edge products, demonstrates our continuing commitment to provide Dongbu customers with the best choices in electronic design automation software.”

‘This joint PDK is ideal for designers creating solutions in consumer electronics, mobile handsets and automotive applications,” said John Zuk, vice president of marketing and strategy for Tanner EDA. “At 0.35 microns, Dongbu HiTek’s analog process has proven effective in reducing both manufacturing cost and time to market. Collaborating with a foundry as well respected as Dongbu HiTek will enable us to continue delivering on our commitments of interoperability, productivity, and quicker design cycles for our customers.”

Availability of Foundry-certified PDKs

Joint development is ongoing. Tanner EDA and Dongbu HiTek anticipate the first set of foundry-certified PDKs in Q3, 2010, with additional PDKs available later in the year.

About Tanner EDA

Tanner EDA provides of a complete line of software solutions that catalyze innovation for the design, layout and verification of analog and mixed-signal (A/MS) integrated circuits (ICs). Customers are creating breakthrough applications in areas such as power management, displays and imaging, automotive, consumer electronics, life sciences, and RF devices. A low learning curve, high interoperability, and a powerful user interface improve design team productivity and enable a low total cost of ownership (TCO). Capability and performance are matched by low support requirements and high support capability as well as an ecosystem of partners that bring advanced capabilities to A/MS designs.

Founded in 1988, Tanner EDA solutions deliver just the right mixture of features, functionality and usability. The company has shipped over 33,000 licenses of its software to more than 5,000 customers in 67 countries.

HiPer Verify and HiPer Silicon are trademarks of Tanner Research, Inc.

All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.

Keywords: analog, mixed-signal, A/MS, integrated circuit, IC, foundry, wafer fab, process development kit, PDK, BCDMOS, CMOS, 0.35 micron, layout, verification, power management, imaging, automotive

# # #

Contacts:

For Tanner EDA :

John Zuk, Tanner EDA – (626) 471-9765, john.zuk@tannereda.com

Linda Marchant, Cayenne Communication LLC – (919) 451-0776, linda.marchant@cayenne.com

Credit: 2010.census.gov

Legend has it that every time an American drops his or her completed census form in the mailbox, a tiny register in the basement of the U.S. Census Bureau makes a ca-ching!, ca-ching! noise. If you stand very quietly, they say, you can even hear it from the street. Why's that? Because, according to government research, every one percent increase in the rate at which Americans mail back in their census forms can save up to $85 million in taxpayer money. That's the savings from the reduced need to send a human wave of door-knockers to pester people into completing the decennial survey. If all 120 million American housesolds sent census forms return them by mail, and they can do away with going door-to-door altogether in 2010, the Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. would have an extra $1.5 billion in its pocket.

And so, the Census Bureau is counting on the web. They're partnering with Google to create an interactive map showing just which American communities are mailing back their census forms -- and which spots in the U.S. are lagging behind. (Go play with it, and then come back. We'll wait.)

The data is updated daily. (As things stand today, March 24th, the mail-in participation rate is at 16% nationwide.) In some places, you can drill down on the map to census return rates on the town level. In others, you'll have to settle for county-level numbers. In many ways, the Census Bureau's mail-in map is a shining example of government 2.0 -- a smart marriage of government data and open-source technology that might actually do some real good, right now.

It's all rather fun, frankly, to have hard, real-time data on which places in the U.S. are meeting their civic duty, and which places might need a little push. Where this gets actually civically useful is where mayors, governors, organizers, and advocates are able see how well, on a day-to-day basis, the people they represent are complying with the 2010 Census. "The collaborative partnership with Google allows communities the ability to track how their area is responding to the once-a-decade count," says the Census Bureau in a release. The head count is important stuff because, as you no doubt now, this census data will be used to determine everything from local hospital funding to the size of a state's congressional delegation...

read more

By: Frank McCoy

As the Great Recession's scythe slices through industries, states, cities and neighborhoods, African Americans have received the most devastating wound.

Blacks, and particularly African-American males, have suffered disproportionate rates of unemployment and underemployment historically, for reasons that include weaker educational attainment, lack of connections, less mobility, a high percentage of workers in blue-collar jobs and discrimination. Thus many have marginal links to the labor force, and after negative experiences when trying to finding work, others have stopped looking.

That African Americans have it worse is not new news, but a recent Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) report provides much-needed illumination on just how badly blacks have fared in the economic downturn. It details the previously unaddressed impact of long-term unemployment among black men and its corrosive effect on the black community.

The situation for African Americans is dire. In the first two months of 2010, the black male jobless rate was 19 percent, and just over 13 percent for black women. Before this recession, the overall black unemployment rate was 9 percent.

The future looks bleak. Roughly 6.1 million workers of all backgrounds have sought work for at least 27 weeks, the sign of long-term unemployment. But while blacks comprise just 11.5 percent of the labor force, they account for more than 20 percent of the long-term unemployed, and 22 percent of workers unemployed for more than a year.

Teens Need Jobs, Too

The job outlook for black youth between 16 and 24 is also clouded. The youngest and least educated teens fare badly when they compete with Generation Xers, Millennials, Baby Boomers, and retirees, of every background. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University (CLMS) reports that in late 2009, only 14 percent of black male teens, and 15.5 percent of black female teens had jobs. By contrast, 28 percent and about 31 percent of white male and female teens, respectively, were employed.

Margaret C. Simms, a fellow at the Urban Institute says that discrepancy bears examination. And some economists wonder if the black teens' inability to find meaningful work now will scar their lifetime employment history.

Black men are the recession's biggest losers. That's the researched opinion of Andrew M. Sum, the CLMS's director. He says that between November 2007 when the recession began and the end of January 2010, more than 10 percent of black men lost their jobs, and 5.1 percent of black women lost theirs. By contrast, 6 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively, of white men and women lost jobs.

The Urban Institute's Simms says the plight of single black mothers who have been laid off has also been overlooked. When the women lose their jobs, the difficulty of finding adequate child care inhibits their search and prospects.

Where Are the Blue-Collar Jobs?

Before the recession, 40 percent of black men held blue-collar jobs, which include manufacturing, transportation, construction and moving materials. Since then, one-fifth of those black workers were laid off. The crucial issue, says Sum, is that as the economy reconfigures itself, 6 in 10 unemployed black men report that their former permanent, or less-than-full-time jobs are gone forever. The average layoff period for these men was also 33 weeks, making it harder to reenter the labor market.

The auto industry possesses many well-paying jobs for skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers beyond those on the Big Three's auto assembly lines. But the recession has taken its toll. Take the case of the National Association of Black Automotive Suppliers (NABAS), which represents businesses that provide goods and services, mostly as subcontractors, to the auto makers.

The strength of NABAS is apparent. Four of its members were in the top 10 of the 2009 Black Enterprise 100 Industrial/Service list of companies, and nine were part of the overall ranking. Despite that, NABAS's ranks have been decimated over the past decade.

In 2000, NABAS comprised 48 companies, with 17,000 employees, and total annual sales of $3.2 billion. This year, the group has 23 companies, annual sales of $2.5 billion and 7,000 employees.

The company's response to harsh times is diversification. In an e-mail to The Root, Roderick Rickman, NABAS advocacy chairman, said that the recession, the plunge in auto sales and inadequate access to credit threaten the auto suppliers' existence. Member companies must therefore retool their workforce and technology to win contracts in aerospace/defense, health care, alternative energy, education and utilities.

If that strategy works out, NABAS members will need more employees.

Frank McCoy is a regular contributor to The Root. He covers business and technology.

Become a fan of The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

El Dorado Irrigation District officials announced that 14 employee positions have been eliminated as part of an effort to cut $1.3 million from the district's 2010 operating budget.

The district board in adopting sewer and water rate hikes in February directed General Manager Jim Abercrombie to cut at least $1 million from the current year's budget.

Abercrombie announced Monday that the savings has been achieved largely through reorganization of the natural resources department.

"As we told customers over the past few months, it is never easy to raise rates and particularly not in tough economic times," the general manager said in a news release. " It's also not easy to lay off hardworking employees who have the best interests of our customers and the district at heart."

The reorganization includes elimination of department head, water resources analyst and water efficiency technician positions; relocation of recreation services to the operations department; and shifting watershed, water efficiency and environmental review and compliance functions to the engineering department. Other layoffs include two engineers, an information technology program manager, utility worker, senior administrative analyst, construction inspector and part-time human resources technician. A manager position also was reclassified to the supervisor level and an administrative analyst position was reclassified as part-time, according to the news release.

These changes account for approximately $800,000 of the $1.3 million in savings.

The district also laid off the four-person staff at its state-certified laboratory, which tests for water quality and performs other functions required by regulations. Abercrombie said the district is contracting with a private firm, which will rent the lab facilities to perform testing for the district and seek other business in the area.

"The district achieves overall savings of $536,000 the first year and $322,000 per year thereafter through the reduced personnel costs at the lab and the rental income," he said.

Abercrombie said $1.3 million in savings announced Monday is separate from the $1 million in expense reductions called for when the board adopted the 2010 budget in November. That, he said, has been achieved through negotiations with the employees union. Abercrombie said he hopes to bring an employee-ratified contract to the board for consideration at a special meeting Monday.

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the district boardroom, 2890 Mosquito Road, Placerville.

It used to be, if you were serious about starting a tech company, you went to Silicon Valley. But emerging entrepreneurial hubs around the country are giving startup aspirants options. In this series, we talk to leading figures in those communities about what makes them tick. Here, part ten in our series.

It rains an average of 155 days of the year in Portland, Oregon, which sits near the coast between Silicon Valley and Seattle. That may be what drives some startups and engineers indoors to coffeehouses armed with laptops to hatch ideas such as MyOpenId, Voyager Capital-backed AboutUs, interactive TV company Ensequence, which raised $20 million last year, and ShopIgniter, which just closed a $3 million round from Seattle's Madrona. Quite a list. They make up part of what some call “Silicon Forest,” and the city clearly sees its future: In February Mayor Sam Adams announced a $500,000 seed fund aimed at startups and small businesses.

However, it's still early in the formation of a full-blown ecosystem, and the city lacks many second-generation entrepreneurs to provide mentorship and angel investing. Thanks to its affordable cost of living, however, there is a myriad of smaller-scale startups and the talent to go with it.

And Portland is also drawing startups from beyond its borders. In 2004, Jive Software, which makes social marketing tools, decided to move from pricier New York City to this laid back west coast city. Five years later, it posted annual revenue of $30 million.

David Hersh, chairman of the board of Jive, talked about what makes Portland a great place for startups and why he decided to move his own company there.

So what is it about Portland that makes it a good place to get a business going?

Portland certainly has an aggressively independent vibe. There's a very DIY culture here. It prides itself on being non-conformist so there's certainly a lot of that element of going out on your own and doing whatever it takes to start companies. In terms of the startup phase, I mean there's so much energy around that--around the ideas and going off on your own and there's so much support for doing that that I think it's one of the great things about the city. It's just the overall psyche of the city around its kind of aggressive independence that makes for a very vibrant startup culture.

I think the downside is getting beyond the startup into massive expansion mode. [That's] where it may be more difficult.

Why did you choose Portland when shopping for a new city for Jive?

Well, we moved from New York City to Portland in 2004 in order to grow the company. We were very successful at being able to pull together a large number of software engineers and build out a very talented team and build out a great product and the company continued to expand pretty aggressively. So much so that we kind of grew too big for a lot of the resources that Portland has and expanded beyond Portland's borders, but we still have our headquarters in Portland.

We looked at a number of places, I knew the Bay Area fairly well and we looked at Boulder, Colorado, and Seattle and Portland. Portland was just an interesting mix where I think it's a town that is very appealing to engineers and what I mean by that is it's a town that engineers seem to gravitate to because it's very easy to navigate, really easy to get around. You can have a nice house and a nice lifestyle, but still be in a downtown area. You've got nice access to tons of green areas but you can be skiing in an hour, you can be at the beach in an hour.

So it's like a small version of the Bay Area, a much more manageable version of the Bay area, and so it worked out really well for us because you've got access to talent in the form of these great engineers and they cost a lot less than in other markets. They're a lot more loyal. They have shorter commute times and, ultimately, it just seemed like a much more resource-rich area for us to scale in the way that we needed to scale at the time.

Couple that with the fact that we actually felt wanted. My first time visiting out there, I had a meeting with the mayor and the mayor was very curious about our situation because we represented the creative class. We are a company that was attracted to Portland and we were the creative class and that's how you build a vibrant community.

When you have a meeting with the mayor the first time you're out there, you realize you can actually get things done in the city and yet it's still a city of enough size and scale that there should be a lot of resources to pull from.

Are there particular types of startups that you think do better in Portland than in other places?

From an industry standpoint, Portland has some natural clusters that have developed. Certainly, one of the biggest has been athletic apparel with Nike being there and then Adidas and Columbia, they've had this epicenter of the athletic apparel industry and so that's been a cluster that developed and there's a lot of talent there. There's certainly been an upsurge in smart energy where I've seen a lot of companies either have their U.S. operations there or some startups that are doing very unique things in smart energy.

Software, of which we're a part, has been a relatively strong cluster. A lot of what I'm talking about is Portland-proper focused because we are downtown, and Portland is definitely one of those cities where there is Portland and then there is not Portland, right?

Once you get outside Portland you may see things like Boeing contracts and military things, CAD design and hardware companies. I'm not as familiar with them, I'm in the more kind of like, cool, hip, downtown. Like what's happening in the startup culture around that area.

How is Portland better or different for entrepreneurs than other cities?

I think because it's a smaller city there's a little bit of the aggressive cohesiveness that comes with being a smaller city and wanting to kind of prove yourself to the world and that translates into a very tight-knit entrepreneurial community. So your ability to navigate the waters of Portland to connect with other people who can help you is so easy. I mean you can get to anybody you want to in minutes. And they're all very supportive of other Portland companies and they all want to see Portland do well. I think the other thing is that there is a lot of great talent out there for the startup phase, so your ability to pull people in to help you out along the way is great.

What kind of talent are you referring to?

Engineers and inside sales people--people who have worked at other startups who've kind of seen how it works and what you need to do. People who are willing to live in a startup world, and also, this is the most affordable city on the West Coast, so this is a city where the artist can still afford to live in the downtown area and by extension, people that work for startups can afford to live in a downtown area, so your lifestyle isn't too impinged by working in a startup.

What's the drawback to being in Portland?

I think Portland is great for companies in startup phase, but it has a hard time operating at scale because there are fewer people out here who have been through it before. There's going to be plenty of executives out there, but for technology spaces that are more unique, they're just not there.

We have been very successful in Portland and we're still based and headquartered here. I talked to The Oregonian recently about it and described it as kind of like the four-minute mile. It took a long time for the first person to break the four-minute mile, but once you did, then a bunch of people did. There was a psychological barrier that you had to get across, so I think even in the five years that we've been based out there, I've seen the types of startups improve dramatically.

So the nature of the companies that are getting started out there and the promise that they have and how they're getting funded--I've seen that improve and I feel like eventually, there's going to be a company in technology that breaks the four-minute mile. When that's done, suddenly then you've got more talent, more money flowing in and more companies who can see how you get there.

For more from this series:

Laura Rich is a freelance writer and co-founder of Recessionwire.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuseeger/ / CC BY 2.0

Nintendo has announced the successor to the Nintendo DS line of handheld gaming devices. It’s called the Nintendo 3DS, and it will include 3D effects without the glasses you have to wear to watch Avatar or 3D TV.

Nintendo’s press release [PDF] wasn’t sent to news outlets, but it’s sitting undisturbed at Nintendo’s website. It says the handheld console will launch in the fiscal year that ends in March 2011 (so late 2010 or early 2011), and that it will be fully unveiled at the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles this June.

The 3DS will will add some motion sensing technology to its control scheme, and it will play your old DS and DSi games. Nintendo doesn’t say whether it will keep the two-screens-and-a-stylus layout that we’ve all become accustomed to on the existing handhelds.

Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles have turned the video game world upside down, using unique control schemes and affordable hardware to attract millions of people who were never before interested in video games. 3D is already a big deal, and Nintendo hopes that whatever 3D tech it’s using will attract even more people to the video game hobby.

Note that Sony’s PlayStation 3 will go 3D on supported TVs this year, though, so Nintendo’s neither alone nor first.

(The picture included here is not of the 3DS but the already-out DSi. No photos or renders of the 3DS have been released yet.)

For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

Tags: 3D, Nintendo, nintendo 3ds, nintendo ds, nintendo dsi, Nintendo DSi XL, video games