Europe and VC

clipped from www.ieeconferences.org Europe’s womb: nurturing technology businesses The latest figures from the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) shows that Europe had more venture capital funding last year than the US, and, although there are more business angels in the US than the UK per capita, Europe is catching up fast. Between 2000 and 2004, a million jobs were created by new companies and, in 2005, venture capitalists invested $4.2bn in start-ups, three times the amount invested in the previous year. Europe is bursting with ideas, but while aid is available for fledgling firms, there is still much to be done. ....However, a major stumbling block at the moment is a European requirement that means as soon as financial aid is provided, companies need to stump up the same amount of money. Another key issue is that there is no conformity about intellectual property (IP). Félicitas Riedl, an investment manager at Fonds d’Investissement Européen, said that usually universities own the rights but in Italy and Sweden, professors own it, and, in other cases, IP is managed by people who have nothing to do with it.

McGraw-Hill and Silverchair launch online pharmacy education resource

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Silverchair Science+Communications, a leading developer of medical content technology for health care publishers, announced the launch of AccessPharmacy (http://www.accesspharmacy.com), the fifth in a series of content-rich medical web applications developed on behalf of publisher McGraw-Hill. Designed for students pursuing Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degrees, AccessPharmacy was built to complement current pharmacy curricula and hosts a deep library of reference and interactive resources. Driven by a double layer of Silverchair's semantic tagging technology, the application - organized by Curriculum Topics and Organ Systems - offers students a highly accurate semantic search engine for gathering information from 20 content-rich textbooks. The site also includes a drug index, calculators, an RSS pharmacy news feed, a comprehensive self-assessment module with more than 3,500 questions, and a fully interactive case study library where students can review cases and compose their own care plans to share with instructors. The editor-in-chief of AccessPharmacy is Terry L. Schwinghammer, Pharm.D., BCPS, Chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the West Virginia University School of Pharmacy. His Pharmacotherapy Casebook: A Patient- Focused Approach (6th edition) serves as the source text for the case studies feature called Cases & My Care Plans. "This section offers students online access to comprehensive patient cases covering almost 150 disease states," he said. "Students can also complete care plans online and submit case answers to their instructors electronically." Like all online resources developed by Silverchair, AccessPharmacy was built on the company's Silverchair Content Manager (SCM) platform.

Bibliothèque Nationale de France acquires Elsevier's journals

clipped from www.eurekalert.org The French National Library acquires Elsevier's journal collection Amsterdam, April 26, 2007 -- Elsevier, a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical (STM) information and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) have signed an agreement that enables BnF visitors to access Elsevier’s journal portfolio including the respective backfiles, some of which date back as far as 1823. The agreement also comprises content added to the collection until 2012. The BnF has full archiving rights for this content.

Should Monster.com be scared?

http://www.jibberjobber.com/login.php
http://www.emurse.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/secure/login
https://www.xing.com/

Business networking is here to stay.

Looking Perfect, pixel by pixel

clipped from www.nytimes.com Looking Perfect, One Pixel at a Time December may be more than seven months away, but that is barely enough time for purists to lose 20 pounds, grow out bad haircuts, clean up those blemishes, and get the photos to the printer in time to mail out holiday cards. Slackers, though, can relax because a burgeoning cottage industry in photo retouching is making it easier to clean up all of those problems with a few clicks of a mouse. Professional photographers have relied on clever hands and sophisticated software to turn a good picture into something that stands out. Now, Web sites are selling professional retouching services. For $20 to $200 or more, anyone can get a tighter stomach, smoother skin and brighter teeth — at least in an image. In addition, a wide variety of programs make it possible for the average computer user to fix basic problems.

Creating the Road to Tomorrow

Michelin Man
Fun site.....effective? Questionable. But fun - yes!

Thoughts on Agile

clipped from www.ambysoft.com To address the challenges faced by software developers an initial group of 17 methodologists formed the Agile Software Development Alliance (www.agilealliance.com) ,often referred to simply as the Agile Alliance, in February of 2001. An interesting thing about this group is that they all came from different backgrounds, yet were able to come to an agreement on issues that methodologists typically don’t agree upon. This group of people defined a manifesto for encouraging better ways of developing software, and then based on that manifesto formulated a collection of principles which defines the criteria for agile software development processes. The manifesto defines four values and twelve which form the foundation of the agile movement.

Quickflow from Highwater Prepress workflow solution

Highwater has just released Quickflow, a prepress workflow solution designed for small to medium sized commercial printers. With pilot systems installed in the UK, to manage prepress workflows for HighWater Python CTP, Quickflow will be launched on the Litho Supplies stand at Northprint 2007, which takes place 24 – 26 April in Harrogate.
Quickflow is the result of a co-operative project between Xitron and HighWater, both part of the Vanguard Graphics International Group of Companies. At the heart of Quickflow is HighWater's Torrent RIP, which for existing users of the Torrent RIP immediately gives them a performance upgrade. It optimises and automates the production process and ensures data integrity therefore reducing errors. With the addition of the PDF Tools option, Quickflow standardise and preflight incoming jobs to a digital master file which can then be imposed, trapped, soft or hard proofed and approved on for final plate output, all without the operator leaving the desk. Quickflows flexibility is demonstrated by the ability for users to repurpose/resubmit jobs via their desktop client without needing to go back to the design application to reprint the job.
David Griffin, product manager at HighWater Design commented, 'We are delighted that we can offer our customers an extremely cost-effective workflow solution. Being able to bring a high level of automation to prepress processes is a key element within our role as worldwide prepress product suppliers. Quickflow has the essential facilities required for today's busy printing business. It is a robust, modular, scalable solution that can quickly increase the productivity of the prepress department and with an entry level price of under £5,000 is very competitive.'

Some Truths about Online Advertising

An article about the flaws of online advertising and how as an industry it is not delivering to site publishers, advertisers and consumers.
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EMMA: Email Marketing

clipped from www.myemma.com Emma is email marketing in style. Emma is a Web-based service that includes everything you need to manage your email marketing and communications from start to finish. It's a unique platform that combines easy self-serve features, a custom-designed brand template, and personal assistance whenever you need it. You might say Emma's changing the face of self-serve email marketing. Seriously, try saying it out loud now. Then click here to take our quick self-guided tour. With Emma's campaign features, you'll easily create stylish campaigns and let Emma's engine and relationships help you get great results. With Emma's audience features, you'll easily organize and manage your audience members while you grow your audience the right way.

Adobe launches Creative Suite 3 in India

clipped from economictimes.indiatimes.com MUMBAI: Adobe India, the leading global creative software developer, today unveiled the Creative Suite 3 product line in India with all facets of print, web, mobile, interactive, film and video production. "This is the biggest launch in Adobe's 25 year history," company Senior Vice President Naresh Gupta told reporters here through video conferencing. There are six all-new configurations of Adobe Creative Suite 3 including Adobe CS 3 Design Premium and Standard editions, Adobe CS 3 Web Premium and Standard editions and Adobe CS 3 Production Premium. Rounding out the product line is Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection which combines 12 of Adobe's new design and development applications. "In a step to come closer to consumers, we are increasing out Adobe Authorised Resellers from the present 50 to 70 and we will take aggressive steps for anti-piracy while undertaking initiatives to educate people," Adobe Systems Country Sales Manager Sandeep Mehrotra said.

Overkill 2.0

Web 2.0 is a moneymaker. Sort of. That is, the slick, innovative start-ups that make up the Web-based tech trend aren't necessarily profitable. Many, in fact, aren't generating much revenue. But the conferences? Cash cows.

Tech book magnate Tim O'Reilly runs the biggest event, the annual Web 2.0 conference where start-ups come to strut their stuff, and techies, moneymen and bloggers come to rub laptops. He's now expanding the concept to the Web 2.0 Expo, which began here on Sunday.

Did the tech world really need another Web 2.0 event? O'Reilly seems to think so--he says he had to turn away willing paid attendees from his last conference in November. This one's supposed to be more practical and less theoretical. But there's plenty of overlap and a little bit of overkill. With 11,000 attendees cramming into keynote sessions, some are feeling Web 2.0 fatigue.

"I'm finding myself in a football stadium filled with developers, not the key executives I was looking for," said Lars Hinrichs, chief executive of Xing, a career-focused social networking company publicly traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. He doesn't plan to attend the next Web 2.0 conference. "But haven't you seen the smile on Tim O'Reilly's face?"

With such a big crowd of tiny-company executives, disappointment runs high when Web-successful headliners don't deliver much in the way of insight. Amazon (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) Chief Executive Jeff Bezos took the main stage Monday, but answered a slew of questions with "I can't really talk about that."

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TCS- One Indian company well on their way....

clipped from www.hindu.com CELEBRATION TIME: S. Ramadorai (centre), CEO and Managing Director, TCS, with (from left) P. Padmanabhan, Head, Global Human Resources, S. Mahalingam, CFO, N. Chandrasekaran, Head, Global Sales, and Phiroz Vandrevala, Head, Global Corporate Affairs, celebrating the company's record performance in Mumbai on Monday. Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has crossed the $4 billion milestone for 2006-07 by notching up revenues of Rs. 18,685 crore ($4.3 billion), a 41 per cent growth over the previous year's Rs. 13,523.12 crore. During 2006-07, TCS added 218 new customers and has been steadily increasing its overseas revenues. TCS North America revenues crossed $2 billion and TCS Europe $1 billion during the reference period. TCS Latin America revenues doubled to $159 million. The company has planned a new development centre at Morocco and is planning to ramp up its Mexico, Brazil and China global delivery centres.

EReaders

Business, not pleasure: Ebooks are only eking out a niche existence 2007/4/2 By Dirk Averesch MAINZ, Germany, As the last millennium came to a close, many experts were beside themselves with predictions of the golden future that lay ahead for ebooks. Yet most publishing houses were ultimately unable to bring themselves to sell the rights for electronic books, particularly for their best sellers and fine literature. In response, the first reading devices began disappearing from the market -- not a great loss, as they were generally bulky and heavy, with bad displays and poor battery lives. This led to the current situation, whereby most texts available in digital form are non- fiction or technical books. But now a new generation of displays designed to resemble paper -- known as electronic paper -- are hitting the market and could potentially encourage the broad masses to plonk themselves on the couch with an electronic page turner. Ebooks are often sold as protected PDF files for reading on a PC or laptop. Regulations on reproducing them vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In Germany, for example, six copies are generally permissible. Yet there are also dozens of other formats, including the widely distributed Mobipocket (PCR) and eReader (PDB). Unlike the rigid PDF format, they allow for flexible pagination and hence are better suited for palmtop computers and Smartphones with smaller displays.

The power of gmail

clipped from www.micropersuasion.com How to Use Gmail as a Business Diary and More Tips This post is the third in the Gmail PNC series. Most of it will work with other systems, including Outlook and Yahoo - with some tweaks. Like the others, this post has several parts... How to turn Gmail into a business diary (Gmail + Jott/Callwave + GCal or Yahoo/MSN calendar) How to annotate books with Gmail as you read them (Gmail + Amazon.com + Google Toolbar) How to get critical alerts in Gmail exactly at the right time (Gmail/GTalk + RSS + Feedcrier) How to use Gmail into a searchable river of news-style RSS reader (Gmail + GReader + RSSfwd)

What's Fon?

clipped from www.fon.com FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. Our members share their wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever they find another Fonero’s Access Point. We call members of the FON Community Foneros. It’s simple to become a Fonero. You just need to buy La Fonera, which enables you to securely and fairly share your home broadband connection with other Foneros. Then when you’re away from home and you need Internet access, just log on to a FON Access Point, and you can use the Internet for free. You don’t need to take your router with you – you just need to remember your Fonero login and password. As the world of WiFi is growing, you can do more and more for free. For example soon we will launch the Skype FON - a cool WiFi handset that lets you make free Internet calls from any FON Access Point. Join the FON Community today by ordering La Fonera – a FON Social Router.

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Tweako: A social news site for Tutorials

clipped from blog.wired.com Tweako is a new social news aimed at programmers that just launched a couple of hours ago. Tweako bears a certain similarity to Digg, but instead of news headlines the user submitted content is geared toward tutorials, guides, resources and services. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a Digg clone, but even if you did, a Digg clone for tutorials and the like is a good idea. Registering at Tweako is free and creating the account lets you set up a profile that can track your voting and submission history. There are also tools for sending private messages and initiating a chats with fellow users in you “buddy” list. In addition to a site-wide feed there are also topic and user based RSS feeds. In addition to submitting links, registered users can post tutorials and the like directly on Tweako. All the submitted content can be tagged, commented on and voted for by other users. The site is broken into fourteen broad categories ranging from tips for Mac or Windows users to Rails tutorials. And for something that just went public there’s a decent amount of content on the site