There is always going to be a ton of innovation in the tech world but it seems that very few individuals have the means necessary to truly capitalize on the opportunities that new technology brings. Thats not always the case however with certain companies that present great opportunities such as ACN Inc offer their young business owners an amazing and profitable opportunity to be on the forefront of new technology that comes out and be on the forefront of the future technology that is coming out on the market.
For example acn was one of the first marketers to really push the visual telephone that allowed you to see who you were speaking with on the other end via a miniature television screen. This product was so popular that it even got the thumbs up and endorsement from Donald Trump. Every year however it seems that there is new technology coming out with everything from the iPad to the new Android phones from Google it’s hard to find profitable ways to make money off of these new inventions but fortunately companies like acn inc are creating a lot of excellent opportunities as a world leader in direct telecommunications and essential services for home based business
Even security alarm systems, new cell phones. and other essential home and business based services are available for promotion through american communications networks services. It’s not every single day that you can find somewhere to own a business for under $500.00 that lets you be on the edge of technological innovations and that is one of the huge benefits and great things about a company like this. Imagine being able to promote the first iPad and tablet and make money off of it truly is an amazing idea.

Enjoy !!!

VC investment in UK and Irish high-tech companies this year is rapidly outstripping last year’s investment volume, according to the technology-focussed investment group, Ascendant.

In the first half of 2011, £455m has been invested compared to £620m in the first half of 2010.

“In Q2 2011, £234m (up from £190m in Q2 2010) was invested in 48 UK/Irish companies (47) by 70 investors (84),” says Stuart McKnight, managing director of Ascendant, “when added to our figures for Q1 that makes £455m invested in 91 companies in the first half of 2011. It is worth noting that in the whole of 2010, just £620m was invested in 213 companies so while we are seeing good progress in terms of funds committed, the market is a bit behind in the volume of companies receiving money.”

There were three notable trends in Q2. Perhaps the biggest was the bounce back of Cleantech deals. In Q1, two Cleantech companies raised a total of £3m. In Q2, 10 Cleantech companies raised £70m.

“We believe that there was no single factor driving this,” says McKnight, “the reasons we see are a small number of new investors, greater participation by corporate/strategic investors, and a greater number of late stage deals – more than 50% were Series C or later. Whilst we are encouraged, we would still be very cautious about concluding that all is well in the green tech sector as we are aware of a number of investors who will no longer look at new Cleantech deals, and the extended timetables that Cleantech companies are enduring to close their rounds – much longer than other tech companies.”

A second trend was the continuing high level of funds being committed to small numbers of companies. A good measure of this concentration is the percentage of funds invested in each quarter that are secured by the top 10 deals. In Q1 this peaked at 82%. Whilst it dropped in Q2 to 65%, this is still relatively high compared to norms of around 50%.

So it looks as though many investors have decided to get behind (or place big bets on) what they perceive to be an elite group of companies. This has happened before – about 11 years ago. The main difference now is that the big money is going to established businesses in late stage deals. So lessons have been learned.

The third trend was a gradual withdrawal of investors from the market. In Q1 2008, over 100 investors participated in UK/Irish VC deals. In Q2, 2011 that number was just 70. Apart from a significant drop in early 2009 due the recession, there has been a clear and consistent decrease during this period.

“Given that we know that there have been a number of new entrants – particularly in the corporate sector – this implies that there has been shrinkage in the main body of technology investors,” adds McKnight, “we are doing some deeper research on this and will publish this later this year.”

Even security alarm systems, new cell phones, business answering services, and other essential home and business based services are available for promotion through american communications networks services. It’s not every single day that you can find somewhere to own a business for under $500.00 that lets you be on the edge of technological innovations and that is one of the huge benefits and great things about a company like this. Imagine being able to promote the first iPad and tablet and make money off of it truly is an amazing idea.

“When we commented on the prospects for the year at the end of Q1, we suggested that: ‘If the normal pattern of investment holds then we should expect a modest uplift from the 2010 probably getting close to £750m for the whole of 2011’,” continues McKnight, “clearly Q2 has been much better than many of us expected – particularly in Cleantech – and we are minded to push up our “guestimate” for the year to between £800m-£850m. As always, there are a number of significant dynamics that could push this number in either direction.”

Trends highlighted by Ascendant are:

In Q2 2011, £234m was invested in 48 deals by 70 investors.

In the first half of 2011, £455m was invested in 91 companies

In Q2, the busiest investors were Index, DFJ Esprit, Eden and Finance Wales

57% of deals were syndicated – i.e. involved more than one investor

Private investors participated in 22% of VC deals, US investors in 2%, Euro investors in 10% and Corporate Investors in 22%

The biggest deals were: Enecsys (£25m), Oxford Nanopore (£25m), Shazam (£20m), Media Ingenuity (£18m), Wind Energy Direct (£18m), EVO Electric, Nujira (£10m), Worldstores (£10m), eWise (£9m) and Neul (£8m)

There were three primary areas of investment focus – Cleantech (£70m), Internet/Wireless Services (£60m), and Software (£45m).

There were 10 Cleantech deals in Q2 with the largest being: Enecsys (£25m), Wind Energy Direct (£18m), Evo-Electric (ND), Intelligent Energy (£7m) and Acal Energy (£5.1m).

14 Internet/Wireless Services companies received investment in Q2. The big deals were: Media Ingenuity (£18m), Worldstores (£10m), eWise (£9m), Borro (£8m) and StylistPick (£5m).

14 Software companies received VC backing. Shazam (£20m), Metaforic (£5m), Site Intelligence (£4m), Cognitive Match (£3.5m) and Brightpearl (£3m) were the largest.

The only semi/opto company to receive venture capital in this quarter was SmartKem.

18 London based companies raised £94m representing 37% of volume and 40% of the value of all UK/Irish Deals

All other regions managed to finance between 3 and 5 companies each.

Investment in companies from Scotland and the SW was particularly low with these regions only managing to raise £7m and £4m respectively.

Source: electronicsweekly.com

Government officials have given a tentative thumbs up to a new technology for cars that would render the concept of driving while drunk a non-starter — literally.

On Friday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, were on hand when researchers publicly demonstrated a car-embeddable sensor system that cleverly locks down the engine if it detects that the driver’s blood alcohol level was above the legal limit.

Through the use of strategically placed sensors in places like the steering wheel and door locks, the North America Driver Alcohol Detection Systems for Safety, created by QinetiQ, a research facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, would analyze a driver’s skin or breath to determine a driver’s level of intoxication.

The system is being promoted as an alternative to alcohol ignition interlock systems that force drivers to blow into a breathalyzer type device before the car can be started. The cumbersome ignition systems are sometimes used by drivers as part of a DUI conviction.

After the demonstration, Strickland and LaHood gave a positive, yet cautious, assessment of the technology:

The technology is “another arrow in our automotive safety quiver,” said LaHood, who emphasized the system was envisioned as optional equipment in future cars and voluntary for auto manufacturers.

David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, also attended the demonstration and estimated the technology could prevent as many as 9,000 fatal alcohol-related crashes a year in the U.S., though he also acknowledged that it was still in its early testing stages and might not be commercially available for 8-10 years.

And since the system will likely fall under the optional category for automakers, the technology must prove itself to be reliable enough to not mistakenly prevent the more sober folks from starting their cars to have any hope of being adopted by the masses.

The systems would not be employed unless they are “seamless, unobtrusive and unfailingly accurate,” Strickland told the Associated Press.

A test showed that a 20-something year-old woman weighing 120 pounds had a blood alcohol content level of .06, just below the legal limit of .08, after drinking two 1 1/2 ounce glasses of vodka and orange juice about a half hour apart.

Even if the technology is perfected, it’ll still be a tough sell. Freedom and the means to move about freely are cherished American values. So my guess is that there are very few people who would readily embrace the technology because of the off-chance that a slight malfunction would cause them to be late or, at worst, stuck somewhere.

But with an increasingly greater awareness of the dangers of drunk driving, the promise of such a system shows that technological solutions are in place should the tide turn.

Personal printers are a fantastic commodity. Personal printers have allowed for the practical liberation of information and, together with the many functionalities of internet have turned bits of electricity into knowledge, art and entertainment at our fingertips. Inexpensive printing for business have made much easier to dispense graphic marketing, forward company-wide memos and even send complimentary football tickets to someone that lives on the other side of the world. While personal printers do seem to come from the magical world of fairy tales the truth cuts as a double edged sword: we are using a mighty huge amount of paper and ink with our newly found power to put everything down on an A4 sheet.

 State of the art gadgets are all the rage, especially in the mobile phone arena. Today you can do so much with your small mobile device, send emails, measure your jogging statistics and even gamble at a mobile casino!

Enjoy!

What is the meaning of life? According to a recent article in The Guardian, mobile phones are well on their way to answer life’s big questions. Maybe they’re not quite up to the philosophical stuff just yet, but they’ve certainly come a long way to making life all the easier for the multitude of mobile users around the globe.

The introduction of improved tracking facilities on mobile phones is set to provide an answer to the question: who am I? With the ability to remember the places we frequent, and record this data, a profile of the “type” of person we are is able to be built.

2010 is the year for such a breakthrough thanks to the increased accuracy of in-built tracking devices and their ability to glean location signals from satellites, Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile transmitters. The information generated about the places we visit – cafés, restaurants, theatres or cinemas – goes a long way to create a fairly accurate personal profile. An advertiser’s dream or a privacy nightmare? Only time will tell, but in the meantime it certainly means fantastic opportunities for discovering appealing restaurants in your immediate vicinity. Localised weather services are also a boon for commuters or the curious. Need to chart the latest weather? The most up-to-date data can give you precise details on any rainy spells, heat transfers or cold snaps to help pick out the best route to work or an outfit for the day. The answers are all available via your mobile. The acquisition of satnav technologies in mobile phones is additionally a big plus.

Location-based services are plentiful, and there are new ones appearing all the time, including Google’s Near Me Now, Foursquare.com and blockchalk.com, although the latter is predominantly catered for the US market at the moment. A nifty gimmick is the chance to leave location-based messages in a café or at the end of your street, which gives users the opportunity to leave behind their cyber tag or virtual graffiti without actually despoiling the streets. Stay tuned as Twitter intends to pursue these technologies in the near future.

There’s even talk that mobile phones will be able to assist us with choices in our clothing labels with regards to shopping location data. From café locations to fashion fabric labels, the sky is the limit!

Enjoy !

As the Linux Foundation tells it, the Linux-related job market is today 80 percent larger than it was five years ago. Whereas other industries have had to shed workers in the current recession, the Foundation is hopeful penny-pinching measures might actually encourage businesses to transition to Linux-based software and thereby further stimulate employment opportunities within the sector. We’re not told exactly what “Linux-related” means in this context, but the newly set up Linux.com Job Board indicates that the vast majority of new openings are for system admins. That’s right, the corporate world is crying out for more geeks — won’t you answer the call?

[Thanks to Overlord59 for the Tux images]

Google’s really sticking it to the man this week, first over the Chinese censorship issue and now with their battle over Gmail security, switching from “http” to the far-safer “https” as the default setting.

What does this mean for you? Not much admittedly, as they’ve been offering the option for using https since 2008. You can turn it off if you want to—at your own peril—but as Gmail Engineering Director Sam Schillace said:

“Using https helps protect data from being snooped by third parties, such as in public wifi hotspots. We initially left the choice of using it up to you because there’s a downside: https can make your mail slower since encrypted data doesn’t travel across the web as quickly as unencrypted data.

“Over the last few months, we’ve been researching the security/latency tradeoff and decided that turning https on for everyone was the right thing to do.”

What’ll it be next for the Mountain View crusaders? Will they side with Conan and help get his time slot back? [Gmail blog via TechRadar]

The current encryption algorithm for voice calls made over GSM networks has been cracked by a team of 24 hackers led by encryption specialist Karsten Nohl during the Chaos Communication Congress being held this week in Berlin.

The A5/1 algorithm is a 21 year old 64-bit algorithm used in the encryption of voice calls originating over GSM networks, with Nohl turning the raw binary output into a 2 terabyte “code book” that would allow for the decoding of a valid encryption key.

For its part, the GSM Association is not pleased with the recent development, claiming that cracking the algorithm is illegal in the US and Great Britain, where the trade group is based and has begun its own saber rattling and PR triage with assurances that the disclosure of an encryption key does not mean that calls are unprotected, further stating that carriers can modify the current algorithm to increase security.

The GSM Association has a newer, more robust encryption algorithm available in A5/3 for GSM networks with plans in place to transition away from A5/1 as carriers seek to increase network security.

Microsoft late has confirmed that an unpatched vulnerability exists in Windows 7, but is downplaying the problem, saying most users would be protected from attack by blocking two ports at the firewall.

In a security advisory, Microsoft acknowledged that a bug in SMB (Server Message Block), a Microsoft-made network file- and print-sharing protocol, could be used by attackers to cripple Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines.

The zero-day vulnerability was first reported by Canadian researcher Laurent Gaffie last Wednesday, when he revealed the bug and posted proof-of-concept attack code to the Full Disclosure security mailing list and his blog. According to Gaffie, exploiting the flaw crashes Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 systems so thoroughly that the only recourse is to manually power off the computers.

At the time, Microsoft only said it was investigating Gaffie’s reports.

Then on Friday, it took the next step and issued the advisory.

“Microsoft is aware of public, detailed exploit code that would cause a system to stop functioning or become unreliable,” Dave Forstrom, a spokesman for Microsoft security group, said in an email. “The company is not aware of attacks to exploit the reported vulnerability at this time.”

Forstrom echoed Gaffie’s comments earlier in the week that while an exploit could incapacitate a PC, the vulnerability could not be used by hackers to install malicious code on a Windows 7 system.

Both SMBv1 and its successor, SMBv2, contain the bug.

“Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 are not affected,” assured Forstrom.

Attacks could be aimed at any browser, not just Internet Explorer (IE), Microsoft warned. After tricking users into visiting a malicious site or a previously-compromised domain, hackers could feed them specially-crafted URIs (uniform resource identifier), and then crash their PCs with malformed SMB packets.

Microsoft said it may patch the problem, but didn’t spell out a timetable or commit to an out-of-cycle update before the next regularly-scheduled Patch Tuesday of December 8. Instead, the company suggested users block TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall. Doing so, however, would disable browsers as well as a host of critical services, including network file-sharing and IT group policies.

Gaffie’s vulnerability was the first zero-day reported and confirmed by Microsoft in Windows 7 since the new operating system went on sale October 22.

Microsoft on Friday said it is working on a fix for a vulnerability in the Server Message Block file-sharing protocol in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2 that could be used to remotely crash a computer.

The software giant had said on Wednesday that it was looking at the bug, discovered by researcher Laurent Gaffié, who published proof-of-concept code on a blog.

“Microsoft is aware of public, detailed exploit code that would cause a system to stop functioning or become unreliable. If exploited, this [denial-of-service] vulnerability would not allow an attacker to take control of, or install malware on, the customer’s system but could cause the affected system to stop responding until manually restarted,” Dave Forstrom, group manager for public relations at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said in a statement. “It is important to note that the default firewall settings on Windows 7 will help block attempts to exploit this issue.”

Microsoft is not aware of attacks to exploit the hole at this time, he said.

In an advisory, Microsoft criticized the way Gaffié handled the discovery.

“Microsoft is concerned that this new report of a vulnerability was not responsibly disclosed, potentially putting computer users at risk,” the advisory said. “We continue to encourage responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities.”

The advisory suggests that customers block Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP, ports 139 and 445 at the firewall, as a workaround until a patch is ready.