#Boeing Patents Futuristic Force field Aerospace and defence firm Boeing BA-1. 59%has just been granted a patent for
what looks like the forerunner to the kind of force-fields you typically see in sci-fi movies. The ethod and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arcisn quite the all-purpose energy shield you see around spaceships in movies like Star wars,
but it definitely in that ball park. The system won protect people, vehicles or buildings from direct hits by bombs, guns or shrapnel,
but it will protect its user from the shockwaves of nearby impacts. As described in the typically dense language of a patent
the system would include a sensor to detect the explosion or other shockwave-producing event
and determine the direction and distance of the shockwave relative to the rotected asset The system would then calculate a firing plan for an arc generator that capable of dispersing the energy density of the shockwave.
The system may include a sensor for detecting a source of the shockwave and generating a detection signal,
an arc generator in communication with the sensor and configured to receive the detection signal therefrom,
and in response thereto create an electromagnetic arc to heat a selected region of the first fluid medium rapidly to create the second,
but Boeing has submitted a few ideas, including using at least one of the following igh intensity laser pulses,
It also doesn cover an entire vehicle or area like an overturned cereal bowl, it just gets pointed in one direction.
the sensor has to detect that a shockwave is on its way and then turn on in time to help save its protected asset.
So we won be heading into battle hields upanytime soon but it does sound like a baby step in that direction
if Boeing gets it working, that is
#App Discovery Nightmare And How Reliance Entertainment Is Tackling It As app discovery of games becomes an ever more insurmountable challenge,
when only one game has made it to American iphone Top 20 download chart. This is a radical,
On March 1, 2011,17 out of Top 20 most popular iphone apps in America were games. It was not unusual to have half a dozen new games enter the Top 20 each week each at least getting fair sampling by the public.
As the price for developing a new game climbs steadily due to improving graphics and added complexity,
the mobile game industry is facing a huge challenge in building massive enough user bases.
many of the rare recent download winners on the US app chart are relatively low-budget, indie titles like Mr. Jump.
The runner games are notoriously hard to monetize they do not yield much revenue even from tens of millions of players.
The app revenue chart continues to be dominated by more than 2 year old titles by Supercell
Both are now pouring massive amounts of money into lavish ad campaigns around the world to cement their position.
In the challenging environment, brand and IP partnerships may be the best bet for many vendors.
Glu got its biggest recent winner from a celebrity app that many scoffed at before Kardashian game fever swept America.
The biggest mobile money makers of Electronic arts right now are the ancient Simpsons and Simcity franchises
Reliance Games has developed several games based on well-known IP like Hunger Games and Real Steel. The robot battle game eal Steel World Robot Boxingis likely the best known Reliance Games app it has 7. 5 Million downloads,
while the cluster of three Real Steel tie-in apps has garnered 47 Million downloads. The Real Steel franchise has shown broad global appeal
with country tallies standing at US (10m+),Russia (4. 8m+),Thailand (2. 7m+),Mexico (2m+),Brazil (1. 9m+),S. Korea (1. 6m
+),China (1. 2m+.+This is one reason why many game developers are now pursuing IP licenses a reasonably successful movie
or TV series can generate downloads across the globe, even years later. Real Steel is a 2011 movie that grossed $300 Million.
Earlier this March, eal Steel Champions a new spin-off app by Reliance Games, hit Top 5 of US ipad download chart.
Licensed app franchises can have surprisingly long life spans, aiding app discovery years after the popularity of the original IP has peaked.
Manish Agarwal, the CEO of Reliance Games, Digital, had some interesting comments about using licensed IP for developing mobile games. he biggest challenge is identifying play mechanics that fit both the license
On other platforms, such as console, designers have a wide array of popular play mechanics to choose from.
For example many movie inspired console games use third-person character action where the player can directly control the star of the film
and navigate them through a complex 3d movie inspired environment. Unfortunately character action games do not work well as free to play mobile games due to the form factor and mobile player behaviors.
In the case of Real Steel, we focused on the robot combat and not the journey of the Hugh Jackman Character.
Robot combat can be consumed in bite-sized gameplay session on the go and require little narrative to drive engagement.
which has become something of a gatekeeper in South korean mobile game market. Koreans increasingly use Kakaotalk as an app discovery mechanism,
Instead of depending on Kakao and accepting its high revenue cut, Reliance has decided to use Facebook as the social media network for its apps.
Few Western app vendors apart from Supercell and King have attacked seriously Korea notoriously insular market It is impressive that Reliance is tackling Korea seriously from the start.
and leading entrepreneurs including Monica Musonda, CEO, Java Solutions; Ory Okolloh, Director of Investments, Omidyar Network Government;
Professor Reid Whitlock, the new CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation. Parminder Vir OBE, Director of Entrepreneurship at the Tony Elumelu Foundation, said,
he high quantity and quality of applicants we have received is testament to the brilliant ideas
Accenture Development Partnerships was appointed as an independent consultant to thoroughly evaluate each application based upon criteria approved by the committee;
According to the TEEP selection committee, the winning business plans represented a multitude of value adding sectors ranging from agriculture to Information and Communications technology (ICT), education and fashion.
This cycle includes an intensive online training curriculum, mentoring, and participation in a two-day entrepreneurship boot-camp and the Elumelu Entrepreneurship Forum.
the ripple effects of the long-term investments in a new generation of Africapitalists will be felt throughout the continent,
with a target of creating one million new jobs and $10 billion in additional revenues in the process.
and to radically intensify job creation in Africa. Though I have met never or spoken to any of the winners,
#Ready To Get Your Drugs By Drone? Amazon Plan Could Be Game-Changer Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos knew skeptics would pan his drone-delivery plan. know this looks like science fiction.
It not, Bezos told 60 minutes more than a year ago, showing off Amazon test-model octocopters.
And he acknowledged that Amazon proposal to use robot drones faced major regulatory and technical hurdles.
But the visionary CEO was confident that mazon Prime Airwould fly. t will work, and it will happen,
The Federal aviation administration on Thursday awarded an xperimental airworthiness certificateto Amazon AMZN-0. 33%that would clear the way for the company to begin testing its drone program.
such as having a pilot on hand to fly the drone at all times. That important, because Amazon wants its Prime Air drones to be autonomous.)
And many, many technical and regulatory hurdles still loom. But the FAA certificate represents a necessary step for Amazon,
For example, Amazon already been hiring drone software developers, drone regulatory experts, and even drone pilots, too.
So. Let say drone delivery actually happens, with Amazon taking the lead. The new model could dramatically reshape the retail industry,
and affect Amazon fortunes. It could cut down on delivery trucks, for instance, and change our expectations and interactions with companies.
But the most exciting and important application of drone delivery would be in health care. There no comparison.
How Amazon Prime Air Could Affect Health care In fact for all of the major new players eying the health care market with Apple AAPL-0. 46%pushing to collect health data through the Apple Watch,
or Walmart beginning to deliver care at its stores Amazon innovative plan is positioned arguably best to fill an existing gap.
Consider: Americans are medicated heavily: Collectively, the nation spends more than $300 billion per year on prescription drugs. And the sheer demand for medication therapy is only going to rise,
as chronic health conditions worsen: More than 150 million Americans may require regular medication by the year 2020,
This hurts our health, and our health care system: Poor medication adherence leads to more illnesses, more deaths,
and more unnecessary spending on health care. Some studies suggest that failing to take the right prescriptions adds up to as much as $290 billion in added costs per year.
Amazon somewhat familiar with the health care market and may be eying a bigger push. The company already playing a major role in drug delivery,
physician Ford Vox last year noted that Amazon customers could easily order illegal steroids, stimulants,
and get its technology to work, the potential of Amazon Prime Air is obvious. Think about the patients who fail to get a prescription filled because of the time commitment,
For these patients, autonomous drones could go the last mile or the last couple miles in helping improve medical adherence and patient outcomes.
Especially as more doctor visits and care end up shifted to telehealth, as my Advisory board Company colleagues have projected.
For example, this Marketing and Planning Leadership Council research brief explores the rise in programs designed to remotely monitor patients.
In this new world, health care really would be centered patient. Imagine sitting in your kitchen, finishing a virtual consult with your doctor,
and then getting a package 20 minutes later with your prescription. There a bit of irony here.
Drugs are already being delivered by drone illegal drugs, that is. Various cartels are using drones to send methamphetamine and other narcotics over the heads of authorities.
One drug-toting drone infamously crashed in a parking lot in January. And legal drugs are being delivered in other countries,
which have been more permissive. German packaging company DHL last year spent a month testing drug delivery-by-drone to a remote island off the country coast.
But the test was plagued with problems; two of the first ten drone flights were scrapped because of bad weather.
Would-be drone delivery services in the United states face complications, too. Last month, Amazon complained that the FAA proposed regulations on drones would be too harsh.
And a San francisco startup called Quiqui got considerable attention for its plans to use drones to deliver drugs last year,
although the company ultimately wasn able to get off the ground. That said, investors remain bullish on the U s. drone sector.
In the third quarter of 2014 alone, investors poured a record $65 million into drone tech startups.
Backers included major VC players like Adreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Google Ventures hope what youl see is the regulations get cleared very soon
and youl see a whole bunch more activity, a16z Chris Dixon said last year. y hope is that 2015 will be the year of the drone
#Terralux Battles Commoditization By Integrating Smarts With LEDS For Commercial Lighting Refits LED lighting technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in the last few years.
Less than a decade ago, LEDS were both ineffective and expensive. Not only did they have low output,
but they were expensive to boot. This is why, at least historically, most of the market for refitting of existing lights went to Compact Fluorescent lamps (CFLS.
Fast forward to today and LEDS have improved greatly in efficacy, now demonstrating some of the highest light outputs,
measured in lumens per watt, of any lighting type available. At the same time, the economics of LEDS are now comparable with other light sources.
These changes have resulted in LEDS displacing CFLS as the choice for organizations looking to save money
and deliver an environmentally friendly lighting alternative. But while these huge benefits for LED consumers have come to fruition,
the economics for LED lighting providers have been more problematic. As prices have lowered, LED TECHNOLOGY rapidly becomes commoditized meaning that LED vendors,
once selling into a top-level market, now need to compete with other vendors based on price.
So it was interesting to talk recently with Terralux, a company that focuses on offering solutions for the retrofitting of lights in existing buildings.
Terralux focused primarily on public areas in large commercial buildings hallways, utility areas and the like. The company,
which has announced just an $11 million growth investment from Enertech capital, has announced also just its LEDSENSE product.
LEDSENSE is a platform which integrates a LED light unit alongside sensor, communication and control technology.
The company is pushing an Internet of things (Iot) slant on LED LIGHTS. LEDSENSE units include sensors that can determine building temperature
sense motion from a person in the vicinity as well as sensing odors and potentially toxic chemicals in the air.
This data is communicated then back to the building owner, via the cloud. Terralux wants to articulate the value it offers beyond simply providing light.
Says CEO Steve Hane; A light is no longer simply a device that allows you to see in the dark.
We are deploying a LED platform that goes beyond basic illumination. Technology available in buildings today will pale in comparison to the capabilities we are building in the emerging cloud lighting space.
That a lofty claim but one that has some validity. The sort of added value that Terralux offers is pretty cool utilities can issue emand Responsealerts,
and LEDSENSE will automatically adjust light levels in a building to balance grid demand. If a light sees people enter a room it will raise the lighting to a brighter level.
When people depart a room leaving it empty the lights will be lowered, providing additional energy savings. If a dangerous gas is detected in the air,
or if a person using a restroom leaves it odorous, the light can switch on an exhaust fan or trigger an alarm system.
Advanced sensors provide safety and security information and alerts all through the LED LIGHTS. LEDSENSE is primarily an energy efficiency tool LEDSENSE can,
in some applications, reduce energy costs in a building by up to 90%.%But these gains are created not simply through the power reduction that LEDS bring,
but rather through combining this benefit alongside smart lighting control. Terralux is doing some really interesting stuff
while their initial value proposition, that of retrofitting a more economically friendly light bulb into commercial settings, is of real benefit on its own,
by adding in yet further functionality, Terralux goes beyond its competitors products t
#Will Payments On Facebook Be Successful? Facebook: The Social Graph Of Payments Today March 17th, 2015 Facebook has entered into payments in a very big way 1. This is perhaps the biggest news in this sector since its inception.
Much like Wechat a sort of Facebook of China along with Alipay with their hundreds of millions of users to send money via instant message.
To become a person to person payment system in the US the company must apply for
and be granted a money transmitter license in every state. Facebook has been approved money transmitter licenses in every US state and territory along with many European and Asian countries.
My good friend Faisal Khan has been researching this for a number of years. In the US
there has not yet been a person to person payment system centered around a communication platform. One could argue that Google system was a communication platform centered around Gmail,
but it was linked not fully to the chat system. The elements of the social graph, essentially your network of friends tied to payments is pure brilliance.
The network effect takes hold and there is a tipping point where one can be certain that the recipient can be found on Facebook.
The social graph also maps closely to the likely possibilities of who would be a recipient of funds.
It turns out a vast majority of Facebook 500 million monthly users are logged on to Facebook Messenger with about 80 million payment cards on file.
With Facebook Payments, the entire system is built currently around the Messenger platform. Fundamentally person to person payments are a form of deep communication
and Facebook Messenger is a logical jumping off point. A vast majority of person to person payments begin with a conversation, perhaps already within messenger.
Thus with the press of the new $ icon and the entry of an amount, you can send money that will arrive to the recipient listed debit card within seconds.
How Does Facebook Payments Work? To use the system, the sender will need to associate a US based debit card with a Visa or Mastercard logo to their Facebook account.
If the user already has a debit card on file with Facebook from gaming, advertising, or donations, this can be the default card.
The system will allow for the user to image the card via a camera or to manually enter the card into the setup form.
Users will be prompted to set a passcode or use Apple Touchid on compatible ios devices to confirm transfers,
though one can opt out of this authentication in the settings panel. Once an account is confirmed
it will ready for use. Specimen of Facebook Payments payment sending sequence. To send money press the button in the Messenger message composer,
you have an option to send a photo or sticker along with a text message and the money, enter in an amount that is currently less than $250 and tap the aybutton.
Specimen of Facebook Payments payment receipt screen. The money is removed instantly from the sender debit account
and delivered to the recipient Facebook associated debit card. Facebook uses the debit card network and the recipient bank
and can take about 24 hours to become usable. Both sender and recipient will see a confirmation message detailing the transfer status and time.
If the recipient has associated not a debit card, they will be prompted to register going through the same process and choices as the sender.
If for some reason the money is claimed not by the recipient in 30 days, it will revert back to the sender.
Along the way, Facebook will send the recipient notices to claim the money. As an added security feature, Facebook may ask users some extra security questions before a transfer can be authorized.
This may take the form of id you ever own a red caror n what city did you live in during the period of 1984 1986 etc.
Banking On Debit cards Facebook is currently a debit card based system and is using a similar system that Square adopted for Square Cash 2,
but there are a number of changes and optimizations made by Facebook to make the system more fault tolerant and redundant.
Facebook is also using more recognized APIS that will have the ability in the future to also allow payments from credit cards using the full extent of systems like Visa VPP API 2. The system will also be able to easily scale to countries outside the US
and localize from a technical standpoint and a regulatory stand point. I am rather certain that Facebook has negotiated with a number of regional debit card networks to lower effective rates that Facebook will pay for each transaction.
This will actually be a win/win for both camps. The debit card networks will see a huge growth of aggregate transactions allowing the networks to continue to be relevant and vital in this new space.
And Facebook will of course see lower costs than most companies in this space. I see this pattern perhaps playing out through the world and thus
I can be certain that we will see this platform on Instagram and Whatsapp soon.
First Instagram and then Whatsapp as they grow the international business. I am rather certain we will see merchant payments using this platform as the primary, ultimate source of revenues for this system.
By the next Facebook developer conference we may see this presented along with very unique useless for the APIS Facebook most certainly will produce.
Now The Person To Person Payments Party Is Ready To Begin Facebook is entering into a market that has many existing solutions,
including: Google Paypal Venmo Square Banks And others It is very clear that a sort of shakeout will commence that will define competing products and perhaps remove a few products from the market.
There is little doubt that the landscape will be changed far one year from now. Square Square Cash seems to be in a very vulnerable position before Facebook Payments 3 and
I tried to present the case days after the product was announced that this will prove to be a huge waste of time, talent,
and money that will result in abstractions and distractions for Square. It is clear that Square is the current payment platform for Snapcash
and currently this element of Square Cash is growing, just not to the level that has been expected.
The question is how will this part play out in the future and will Snapcash use cases be enough to sustain Squarecash as a product.
Paypal+Venmo Paypal and Venmo will see a challenge from Facebook Payments. There is no doubt about it.
The new IPO and the new DNA at the company may help drive the fleet-footed innovation
and marketing needed to respond to Facebook. There are many ways that Paypal and Venmo can stay vital and relevant because of the scale they have achieved already.
But the next year is critical. Banks Banks have been doing person to person payments via inter-accounts and intra-accounts for over two decades.
Banks have finally began to catch up to payment startups with useful and intuitive apps. There is also good reason to believe that banks are currently working on a system that is outside the ACH system
and will allow for instant person to person payments in the next 12 months. However, as it stands today, banks that have whole families
and friends on the same platform in the US may very well continue to hold their own for some time to come,
even if they fail to continue to innovate because they have a ome fieldadvantage. Google Google has been sending person to person money via Gmail for over two years
and although it is not breaking any records, it continues to grow and become a platform for many users.
The simplicity of attaching payments like a document or a picture is quite genius. Google will need to lower costs
and continue to innovate. The other person to person payment products that are centered not around out of country remittances will face huge adoption issues and attrition.
Some may be able to survive by redesigning and specializing. Many will not. Apple Will Enter Soon Finally Apple will become a huge part of Person to Person payments
and will choose partners and a system that will surprise even Facebook. The plans have been in process for quite some time and unlike Facebook
Paypal, Google, and Square, Apple will not handle any payments themselves. High Likelihood Of Success There is little doubt that Facebook will be successful In person to Person payments.
If not just by the size of the user base and the utility this new feature will offer.
One can surmise that at some point, even though currently there is no revenue model from Facebook pavements,
there is a path where the cards on file will become a source for payments for products and services from merchants.
Thus, I predict revenues from payments to soar over time once the merchant payment system is activated.
Specimen of revenue sources at Facebook. The Payment isruptionera Is Now Officially Over In less then 12 months
the entire payments landscape has changed forever. Back in March 2012, I wrote Brian Roemmele answer to Who will enter the retail Payments market next?
and listed Apple, Facebook, and retailers themselves. Today, Apple Pay, Facebook Payments, and MCX/Currentc are here.
It was fun times as my thesis and postulations were controversial and constrain. This was the height of the ayments disruptionmania
and frankly few wanted to hear about the practical and pragmatic merchants and consumers. Today, we are just beginning to see the sweeping changes in payments,
I am postulating far more changes. For example and entire banking system can be built around this platform very much like Brett King has postulated for quite some time.
This new banking future is far closer today than it has ever been. As always you and I along the way
will vote with our wallets w
#Emerging Market Medical Education Goes Digital A shortage of skilled health workers is an acute and ongoing problem in many emerging markets.
Weak medical education systems bear a major part of the blame. But a big opportunity for rapid progress has emerged as online medical education becomes increasingly common.
Doctors and nurses in even the poorest countries can now get much better training. Medical education in emerging markets typically suffers from two problems.
First, medical universities and residency programs rarely have qualified enough instructors, and sometimes lack access to modern curricula and equipment.
Second, weak or nonexistent continuing medical education (CME) programs prevent health workers from later keeping their skills sharp.
The global healthcare talent gap is particularly acute in the world poorest countries. The World health organization estimates that the world needs more than 7 million additional skilled health professionals, with shortages at crisis proportions in many parts of South Asia, Southeast asia, and Africa.
THE WHO predicts the crisis will only worsen in coming years, but that may underestimate the potential impact of new e-learning technologies to enable low-cost medical training at scale.
Many universities, government health agencies, NGOS, private companies, and doctors around the world are embracing such technologies, sometimes with promising results.
Medical education typically begins with university coursework, and many medical schools now use e-learning tools like webcasts
and online study aids to broaden enrollment and improve educational outcomes. Some are working to adopt
and apply these tools in emerging markets, though often-onerous data charges, patchy connections, lack of technological competency,
and other challenges can limit their efficacy. The University of Washington Department of Global Health is a leader in the use of distance learning technologies for low-resource settings.
Through an initiative called edgh, it runs e-learning programs in more than 30 countries. Since 2007,
when it opened two small program sites in Kenya and Haiti, it delivered classes to students in many of the world poorest places.
Its flagship course on Clinical Management of HIV now reaches over 1, 000 students globally each year. raining qualified health workers requires a lot more than just slapping some course materials online
and calling it a day, says Michael Chung, edgh co-director. In a typical program, students watch lectures
and submit homework virtually, but still attend regular local classes for discussions with peers and professors.
This approach, often called lended learning, helps reduce program costs without compromising quality standards. E-learning technologies can also streamline
and scale up residency programs. In radiology, for instance, a growing number of hospitals around the world now use software by Lifetrack Medical Systems,
a digital healthcare startup that Techonomy profiled in November 2014. The software enables radiology residents to receive virtual training from qualified practitioners anywhere in the world boon for places like Indonesia and Myanmar with acute radiologist shortages.
Even surgery can now be taught remotely with technologies that combine virtual reality with AI techniques to train both real time decision-making and psychomotor skills.
Dr. Peter Haddawy, a Bangkok-based computer scientist who developing these technologies, says theye actively being used for surgery students in Thailand.
He believes they will be particularly valuable in emerging markets facing shortages of expert surgeons. Irrespective of specialty, medical education must be a lifelong pursuit for all healthcare professionals,
and in developed countries, regulators and professional associations typically require health workers to periodically participate in ongoing programs to keep their skills sharp.
Many emerging countries lack such requirements, but online platforms are starting to fill this critical gap.
Some such platforms help by promoting professional mentoring. In Vietnam for instance, a Harvard Medical school-affiliated NGO called HAIVN runs a video conferencing platform that connects HIV specialists in top Vietnamese hospitals with frontline community health workers.
Inspired by Project ECHO, a University of New mexico program that pioneered the use of video conferencing for remote training in healthcare,
HAIVN now operates in more than 20 provinces in Vietnam. FHI360 is another NGO using innovative online platforms to provide continuing medical education in emerging markets.
Its USAID-funded Control and Prevention of Tuberculosis Project, which Techonomy highlighted in January, does this for health workers in Thailand and China with Qstream,
a web and mobile application that supports workforce skill building. The app delivers informational content to distributed teams,
drawing on principles from neuroscience and game mechanics to maximize uptake and retention. In many places, health workers are taking CME into their own hands simply by going online to improve their knowledge and skills.
In the Philippines, for example, a group of doctors founded an online community called Healthxph that uses social media to mobilize discussion about healthcare topics.
In neighboring Indonesia, more than three-quarters of doctors in major cities reported using the Internet regularly to build their knowledge and skills
according to a 2013 survey by Edelman Indonesia. E-learning and Global Public health To be sure, improving healthcare in emerging markets is about much more than just expanding the health workforce.
Countries need tools to ensure that health workers, once trained, end up where they are needed most.
Interventions for behavior change at the community level, such as campaigns to promote hand washing and basic hygiene, will also be indispensable.
So will massive investments in public health infrastructure, stronger regulatory regimes, and R&d for new and improved treatments.
Yet health workers remain the frontline stewards of public health and healthcare systems cannot function without them.
New e-learning tools will increase the number of health workers globally and train them to provide high-quality care in places that desperately need it.
Most likely, these same health workers will also advocate for many other necessary improvements in global health.
Will Greene runs Tigermine Ventures, an advisory firm that helps companies and organizations in Southeast asia.
Original article published at Techonomy. com T
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