From the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music“, comes the first of many “songs around the world” being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World “Stand By Me” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Jonathan Abrams
Founder of Socializr and Friendster; San Francisco, CA

“In five to ten years, we will all have chips in our brains. When you look at someone’s face on the street, your Google Brain software will automatically call up every embarrassing photo of them from ancient websites such as Flickr, Facebook, and MySpace; list all mutual friends; and remind you of the person’s annotated bio. As a response to the perceived slowness and verbosity of antiquated services like Twitter, people will send everyone they know nanobursts of information about anything they might do or think before they actually do or think it. Every website, blog, and social-networking profile will include an aggregated feed from every other website, blog, and social-networking service, resulting in an exponential and infinite length of repeated content on every possible site, overloading our brain chips and causing frequent nosebleeds and occasional cerebral hemorrhage.”

Source: The Future of The Web, Technology Review 7/2008

Mr. Tobias: a big thanks for the link to my write up on Mint/Covestor. Apparently, AT is friends w/ one of the Mint.com founder’s which allowed him to share:

• The monetization strategy of this relatively new online finance management service:
  • AT: Their game plan is ad revenue and “sponsored links.” My friend who’s one of the founders says: “Some of the offers we present are sponsored, meaning we earn a referral fee if you sign up for them. However, Mint will always show you an un-sponsored offer ahead of a sponsored one if it will save you more money. We sort offers in order of their value to users, regardless of sponsorship.”
• A response to the concerns about how your login credentials are used/stored:
  • AT: My friend responds: “Mint does not store your credentials, we use them once to create a linkage with your account(s). Consider the benefits of being able to see all your account activity in one place – makes it easy to spot any suspicious activity (remember 90% of fraud occurs off line). Mint offers alerts (via email, or text message) to bring unusual spending to your attention.”
• Click here for the full article…

Mass production of these “XO” laptops is slated to begin this month to prepare for launch on November 12th. You can track the progress and major developments of Nicholas’ program by visiting: http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/progress/index.shtml.

1. Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit association.
2. He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology.
3. A graduate of MIT, Negroponte was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966.
4. Conceived in 1980, the Media Laboratory opened its doors in 1985. He is also author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages.
5. In the private sector, Nicholas Negroponte serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment.
6. He has provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies, including Wired magazine.
   Source: Laptop.org

Click the thumbnail below to see a preview of this laptop that can be donated AND delivered for a mere $200…

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

“Terje HÃ¥konsen (born October 11, 1974 in Vinje, Norway) is a Norwegian snowboarder. HÃ¥konsen is widely considered one of the most influential snowboarders of all time and was one of the sport’s early icons.

HÃ¥konsen dominated freestyle snowboarding in the 1990s winning the ISF World Championships in half-pipe three times in a row, in 1993, 1995 and 1997. He has also won 5 European championships in half-pipe (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997), the U.S. Open in half-pipe 3 times (1992, 1993, 1995), and the Mt. Baker Banked Slalom 6 times (1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004). He also won the Innsbruck Air & Style Contest in 1995. HÃ¥konsen set the world record for highest ‘air’ during the finals of the Arctic Challenge in Oslo 2007 when he reached 9.8 meters out of the top of the quarterpipe with a backside 360.

He is the creator of an aerial snowboard maneuver named The Haakon Flip.

HÃ¥konsen is also credited to have developed the T6, the world’s first snowboard to be made out of a material named “Alumafly,” an aluminum honeycomb construction and as a co-creator of the Burton Fish (a powder-specific board) and the Burton Malolo, a cross-breed between a freestyle and powder board.” – Image: norskdesign.no Bio: Wikipedia

About Y Combinator:

“Y Combinator does seed funding for startups. We fund startups in two batches a year, one in winter in Silicon Valley, and one in summer in Cambridge. We’re the right choice for a group of two or three young hackers who have an idea, and want some money and advice to get it launched.”
source: ycombinator.com

About Graham:

“…In 2005, after giving a talk at the Harvard Computer Society later published as How to Start a Startup, Graham along with Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston and Robert Morris started Y Combinator to provide seed funding to startups, particularly those started by younger, more technically-oriented founders. Y Combinator has now invested in 38 startups, including reddit, Justin.tv and loopt.

Graham has an B.A. in philosophy from Cornell. He also earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences, (specializing in computer science) from Harvard in 1988 and 1990 respectively, and studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.”
(Source: wikipedia)

Related:
http://www.paulgraham.com (which got 9.7 million page views in 2006)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-graham-of-ycombinator/
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail188.html

Jerome Lemelson (1923-1997) was one of the most prolific American inventors of all time. He amassed more than 500 patents, including patents used in the VCR, camcorder, Walkman®, cordless phone, fax machine, data and word processing systems, and industrial robots. Lemelson made a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars through licensing deals.

Links:
Wikipedia Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_H._Lemelson
Lemelson Foundation: http://www.lemelson.org

Nathan Sawaya came to national attention as a talented artist when he won a nationwide search for a professional LEGO® Master Model Builder. Since then, he has been garnering accolades, as well as fans, with his colorful and whimsical artwork made entirely of the popular children’s toy.

source: www.brickartist.com
more: CNN Interview w/ Sawaya

“Theo Jansen, artist, studied science at the University of Delft Holland. The first seven years being a artist he just made paintings. Then he starts a project with a big flying saucer, which could really fly. It flew over the town of Delft in 1980 and brought the people in the street and the police in commotion. Since about ten years he is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.”
source: http://www.strandbeest.com

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]