Climate Change. Global Warming. Whatever title you give "it," we don't talk about "it" at dinner parties, not in the same way we discuss things which happen at our child's school, the latest movie or episode of Mad Men or where we're going on vacation this year. Barbara Kingsolver's latest book: Flight Behavior, attempts to convey the dangers of climate change through an All American story of a farming family whose lives are turned upside down because of it. As butterflies settle on their land because of weather shifts in Mexico the previous year, a mystery unravels as to why. A witty, melancholy and pure account of rural life in the American Appalachia belt, it is also a serious play-by-play of what could happen to a species when their normal "flight behavior" gets changed as a result of being forced to winter (and mate) somewhere new. While the narrative is driven by the not yet true extinction of the Monarch butterfly, she taps into expert sources for guidance in constructing a fictional story within a plausible biological framework. Flight Behavior is a suitable title since the phrase applies to butterflies as much as it does to humans, as evident through the unraveling of a dysfunctional marriage of main character Dellarobia Turnbow. Under the footprint of her in-laws since she lives with her husband on their land, she has no say in her confinement, a life which solely exists of tending to her two children and occasional trips to the town next door, which the community of Feathertown mistrusts largely because it has a college and some people actually attend it. Giving up on further education since she lost her parents and gave birth to a stillborn as a teenager, her life as a restless farm wife suddenly gets transformed as... Continue reading

As a co-curator of a TEDx event, you have a joyful honor of bringing important issues you want to see brought to the table...to the table, or in this case, a TEDx stage. Having been involved in the curation process at TEDxBerkeley for a few years now, there are speakers and writers I've met along the way who have haunted me -- positively and negatively -- the latter often provacative enough that regardless of whether it's a pretty story, you know the story must be told. Personal issues that keep me awake at night include the ugly embrace of processed food, climate change & the implications for wildlife and the world, the growing divide between the rich and the poor, our sad state of healthcare and education, and women's inequalities. There are countless others, but there's only so much that can absorb my already noisy back channel at any given time. At TEDxBerkeley this year, we were able to bring some of those conversations to attendees. I have always wanted Robert Neuwirth to speak at TEDxBerkeley ever since I first heard him speak at PopTech a few years ago. He is best known for his work with squatter communities and poverty. He wrote Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, a book describing his experiences living in squatter communities in Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul and Mumbai. He brings us on a journey to West Africa and how locals came up with a creative way to source their own energy when the government couldn't. Lagos residents use energy conservation. In his time in Lagos, he saw people get their water in large canisters not from fresh water sources or private wells. The Lagos government claims that it provides safe drinking water in sufficient quantities to its people, according... Continue reading

I'm lost as I navigate my way through the outskirts of Tallinn, but purposely so, as I know that magic lies in the unknown and what a better way to discover that unknown than to get lost. I flash back to my grandfather who would never hold my hand as we walked through the woods in the dense Adirondack mountains when we embarked on our summer hikes. I know now that I never left his vision although at the time, he made me believe I was on my own after he purposely disappeared out of sight and watched me from behind a tree as panic entered my small face, those youthful child-like eyes searching for his familiar red and blue flannel shirt. Bringing me out of my comfort zone again and again was something my grandfather sought and it was less of a 'thing' he did from time-to-time, and more the way he lived his life. It wasn't until I had long passed my twenties that I realized what a gift he had given me so many years ago despite the fact that to this day, anxiety still swallows me when I lose my way. That anxiety occasionally moves to a "fight or flight" place and yet there's an excitement in that kind of anxiety, for I know that in that unknown place, I'm bound to make some rare encounter or learn some bizarre lesson about some bizarre piece of life I never deemed important before. I reflect in that memory as I turn another corner, realizing that I left no trace of where I had been nor did I have a clue about where I was going. Having moved beyond the boundaries of the old town at least thirty minutes before, I stopped looking for landmarks I may have... Continue reading

I discovered (and used) an interesting new GPS app from a Lithuanian company when I was in Vilnius Lithuania recently. They call it GooGPS, and the model is data for travel and tourism for visitors. Imagine a Samsung like tablet PC that is loaded with all the best of a city - main attractions, festivals, events, museums, churches, restaurants and hotels, that is light enough to hang around your neck while you meander through a new city. Then, imagine along side of that data, you have access to all your social apps like Foursquare, Twitter and Instagram, a video camera for easy capturing and a browser to check email....all on a device that is connected 24/7 and limited for E10 a day. UAB is a global pioneer that is successfully developing a new business model – rent of tablet PCs for travelers. These guys have created a set of programs called “interactive travel guide” that works with a modified Android operational system. In the system which is within a portable 7-inch tablet, you have 3D navigational maps, connected to their controlled interactive guide with places of interest, routes and audio content. It is currently available for visitors to Lithuania and Latvia with plans to expand to other regions in the future. I tested it out for the day, which included site seeing in Vilnius, the main city and the outskirts. The only glitch I had was limited battery life, so the tablet died half way through my day but when it was up and running, it worked like a charm and was fun to use. Below is a video of me chatting to the product manager. Continue reading

It’s a funny thing in life in that quite often, the opposite paradigm of the same thing applies: when you ask for something, you usually get what you ask for and equally, when you least expect something to happen, it often does. I find that I’m much more aware of both paradigms when I’m on the road. The week I was due to fly to Eastern Europe, I found myself wondering why I was once again heading to a cold climate country when I had been dreaming of warm weather destinations for months. I often visualize myself listening to Chopin’s Concerto in D (any of the minors really), on a beach in Chile, breathing in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, or dining with a Mr. Handsome in some scrumptious steak restaurant with award-winning Mendoza wine in Buenos Aires, an evening which ends with a dance that equally embraces artful precision with unbridled passion. So Argentina I think. Grace and beauty at its best. As travelers, we all cherish such moments on our around the world adventures, as we check off magical moments and experiences we have on some bucket list. Many of these moments forever change who we are and ultimately who we become. These are the magical moments of travel: cultural faux pas’ that end in laughter, culinary experiences when our tongue is awoken to a new taste we never knew existed, or a hug from a child who doesn’t speak our language. It’s not just the tender moments which forever change us but the painful and unpleasant ones as well. We know this, but we try to avoid them at whatever cost. With little sleep from the previous week, my emotional energy was thin, worn down like a pencil which had been sharpened so many times it had lost... Continue reading

I've done so many launches in my life that I'm not even sure I could count them all and yet a launch in and around crowdfunding is a relatively new experience for most of us. Some launches alert the world that a product is shipping, that there's an IPO or a new partnership, that there are four new features than the previous version, that there's a new management hire, that the CEO is speaking on a panel, that product Z just won an award, or that an office is opening in Singapore...the list goes on. I've done them all. Kickstarter, while not a new concept for the early adopters and technologists within my circles, my sisters who live in an East Coast small town have never heard of it nor have my friends in Florida, Minnesota and Canada. In other words, it's still a relatively new way for consumers to order a product, especially one which in many cases hasn't been built yet and there's only a basic prototype to show when the campaign goes live. We're in day four of the HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign and plenty of press gave HAPIfork some love this week as part of the kick-off, the kind that is, that would cover this kind of announcement. The good news is that as a result of heightened media activity this week which comes on the heals of over 900+ media hits worldwide from its initial unveiling at CES in January, more and more mainstream press are intrigued and want to play with the fork. From Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, Good Housekeeping, Penthouse and Men's Health, we've had discussions and coverage; it's a no brainer for their audience since its the kind of device mainstream consumers would want to try out just as they did when... Continue reading

Being on the road and in back-to-back meetings for the last three days, I haven’t had time to digest and process the Boston Marathon incident until tonight. In fat I heard about it during a meeting with a media buddy who was late to the lunch since he was covering the story and had to file before leaving the office. His brow was strained as he said, “sorry I’m late, but I was buried deep in the Boston tragedy.” My heart raced…..he didn’t at first mention the Marathon, so after my mind darted from massive fire to another shooting along the lines of what happened in a Colorado theatre, he went on, seeing that I hadn’t had heard the news. I heard fragments: Bombs. Finish Line. Terrorism I asked? Chris didn’t know. Since Boston had been my home for many years and I have experienced Boylston Street’s chaotic crowds for many a’ Spring watching friends and even on one occasion, a boyfriend cross the finish line. I worked with the Massachusetts Association for the Blind when I was in my twenties, while living there, and even watched blind runners I was helping to raise money for equipment they needed, cross that very same finish line. Personally, I’ve never been a runner so have never quite understood the intense satisfaction and glorious reward a runner must feel after so much training, to then “high five” loved ones as he or she made it to the end, some not quite knowing they would. I’ve known many people participate over the years – some of them trying to improve their time from the previous year, some trying to prove that they had the endurance to make it at all, and others who flew in from other cities because they considered the Boston Marathon... Continue reading

I remember being in the offices of a well known mobile and software company ten or so years ago after having lunch with the CEO. They had just completed an IPO and as we walked into the main office space, increasingly becoming overcrowded with cubicles, he noticed how many employees were watching the stock price on their screens. With me trailing behind him, he abruptly stopped and addressed his teams with a sense of urgency that surprised me. He said in a bold voice: "I don't want to see you starring at numbers on your screen all day - spend your time doing whatever you can to make our existing customers happy." Hear hear. At the start of the HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign two days ago, I found myself obsessed with checking the screen constantly, even during meetings. The addictive nature of a campaign that has $$'s attached to it is impossible to ignore. After day two, I stopped and returned to a quick check every other hour, as a way to quickly check the progress but not be consumed by it. That said, a campaign of this nature takes on a life of its own. After four hours, the Kickstarter HAPIfork campaign was 10% towards reaching its $100K goal and on day three, we are at 42,544 at the time of writing this blog post. Here's a glimpse of my addictive screen grabs on Wednesday and Thursday. We're off to a great start and kudos to the HAPILABS team, which is operating across five time zones. Please support us on the Kickstarter HAPILABS page so we can make inventor Jacques Lepine's dream come true. Here's a sample of the fabulous media coverage since our campaign hit two days ago..... CNET - Donna Tam | 4/17 | HapiFork: Vibrating novelty or... Continue reading

For the last few months, as anyone in my circle can affirm, nothing has consumed more of my time than a magical little device called HAPIfork, referred to as the vibrating fork and also its claim to fame: the world's first connected fork. Since our initial unveiling at CES, the world has embraced HAPIfork, eager to try this unique device aimed at helping you slow down how fast you eat. Today, we're kicking a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the manufacturing and distribution of HAPIfork, so alas, people can finally pre-order the device which aims to transform people's relationship with food. In January, HAPIfork was the recipient of the CES Innovations Award, Health & Wellness category and soon thereafter, the word quickly spread to over 50 countries globally culminating in hundreds of articles, blog posts, tweets, television and radio appearances as well as a fun shout out from The Colbert Report and Jay Leno. Keeping in line with Kickstarter rewards at various funding levels, the HAPIfork will be offered as a perk for up to 2,500 people funding $89, and at the $99 level for anyone else who would like to be in the first commercial batch. In addition, the opportunity to be part of the beta testing program, receiving the HAPIfork at the earliest possible availability date, is offered at the $300 level perk. The campaign, which starts today and runs until May 31, 2013, has a fundraising target of $100,000. HAPIfork was designed by French entrepreneur and inventor Jacques Lépine whose idea was based on research which shows that by eating slower, people can improve the way they feel, improve their digestion and lose weight. Unlike other health related tools, the HAPIfork is inconspicuous and appropriate for out-of-home use. The smart fork also collects information for future... Continue reading

The fourth annual TEDx Berkeley Event (a 501c3) will kick off on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall with 13 thought provoking and renowned speakers and three performers, set to tackle this year’s theme: Catalyzing Change. This decade presents significant and global change that will impact how we use technology, how and where we work, communicate and use utilities and applications across industries, from education, mobile technology, biotech and biofuels to healthcare, government, sustainability and beyond. Learning and sharing ideas in a way that provokes change and making the world a better place is what TED events are about. Given that Berkeley is an epicenter of innovation, inspiration and talent, it’s the perfect location for speakers and attendees alike to participate in this important global conversation. Below is a list of the 2013 TEDxBerkeley speakers and performers: Chris Anderson: Chris is the co-founder and chairman of 3D Robotics, former editor of WIRED Magazine and author of The Long Tail, Free: The Future of a Radical Price and Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. Louann Brizendine, MD: Louann is a practicing neuropsychiatrist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor at UCSF, founder of Women’s Mood & Hormone Clinic, and a media commentator specializing in sex differences and The Male and Female Brain. Mallika Chopra: As a media entrepreneur, Mallika is the founder of Intent.com, The Chopra Well, author of 100 Promises To My Baby and 100 Questions From My Child, and a notable voice in the fields of parenting, meditation and intention. Alexei Filippenko: Alex is a UC Berkeley Professor of Astronomy and member of both teams that discovered the accelerating expansion of the Universe, who was honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Eden Full: Eden is the founder of Roseicollis Technologies and spearheaded the solar panel... Continue reading

I just finished yet another Milan Kundera novel: Immortality. He is, as always intense. I happen to be one of his fans, one who patiently understands the flow of his meandering style, knowing the poetic philosopher in him who needs us to read each and every line. It's as if I'm in his head when I really listen to his meanders, and can even sense where and how he is sitting as he writes a passage, can feel the women he has known and not known and all the intricate details which make up his life, or least the bit which give it meaning. The first meander centered around image and the premise was that a person is nothing but his image. "Philosophers can tell us that it doesn't matter what they world thinks of us, that nothing matters but what we really are. But philosophers don't understand anything. As long as we live with other people, we are only what other people consider us to be. Thinking about how others see us and trying to make our image as attractive as possible is considered a kind of dissembling or cheating." (I'd add, dying). But does there exist another kind of direct contact between my self and their selves except through the mediation of the eyes? Can we possibly imagine love without anxiously following our image in the mind of the beloved? When we are no longer interested in how we are seen by the person we love, it means we no longer love." I thought about a kind of love which isn't whole, one which leaves behind fragments...mere fragments, as if flashes in time like two ships passing in the night, a long weary night. Or the kind of love that leaves behind the violent yet exciting sound of... Continue reading

HAPIfork, which has taken on a mind of his own, decided to embark upon Austin during South by Southwest (SXSW) with Andrew Carton and I. He made a few interesting stops along the way and had quite a few encounters, starting with a little saloon action in the lobby of the Driskill Hotel. After all, we were in Texas after all. Then he headed to the Rackspace party where he met Travis. A little more Western cowboy and rope action along Fourth Street. When the bartender at Eddie V's Steakhouse remarked on his color, shape and design, he asked the chef to write Congratulations across the top of our dessert plate in delicious chocolate. It isn't quite HAPIfork's birthday yet, but he wasn't displeased to see the surprise. Nor were we. It's hard for HAPIfork to stay away from a dinner table, after all, it's one of his favorite places to hang out. The guys at the Connected Health booth on the SXSW Convention Center floor said hello to HAPIfork. There were even a few musicians who got into HAPIfork, after all, we don't need to tell you how fabulous great music is with fabulous food...and the slower you eat, the more present you can be with those tunes. What's not to like about him? He kept returning to the Hotel Driskill night after night since he loved nestling himself up against that incredibly historical statue in their lounge area as he listened to live music play till late. HAPIfork even went to support Jen Lim, CEO of Delivering Hapiness and others at a HAPPINESS panel, because after all, he believes like the rest of us do, that eating slower and taking time with your meal equates to a more fulfilled, healthier and happier life after all. He was thrilled... Continue reading

I've met Al Gore a few times now over the years and have heard him speak about a dozen times, maybe more, particularly since he became so entrenched with technology while he was in office and after the fact. It should be no surprise that he was in full form at South by Southwest (SXSW) this year on the main stage in Austin in a fireside chat with WSJ's Walt Mossberg. Those of us who know his agenda and his passion for climate change were waiting for him to dive full force into his 'green' agenda, which he did towards the end of his talk. They started with the digital revolution, appropriate given the "Southby audience." Print media are devastated he said, which is a very old discussion in the world of social media, where SXSW is the Queen Bee conference that takes such discussions to the next level...and this one started eight or so years ago. That said, mainstream consumers in small towns are still reading newspapers and while they all may have a cell phone, they don't necessarily all use it to get their news. He refers to the 'now' economy as a 'stalker one,' where kids are even wearing 'chips' and being tracked by governments. "I hope this stalker economy will create a gag reaction," he said. Gore suggests that we're seeing a shift in power that is bigger than what we've seen in 500 years. He also brought up Asia and how China will quickly surpass the U.S. as the largest economic power in the world.....because of that concentration and shift of power, 93% of extra income has gone to the 1% who are in power. He added, "that's an economic fact," and then went onto say, "while our country is in serious trouble, it doesn't... Continue reading

One of the great things about South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive is that you tend to get panels about topics you wouldn't find in other conferences of its ilk. Given that I've been spending a lot of time focusing on the topic of happiness -- in my personal life as well as my professional life -- I couldn't resist going to the HAPPINESS panel with Jenn Lim from Delivering Happiness, Brian Welle from Google and Voodoo founder Chris Shultz. Delivering Happiness started as a book by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, one which I've read personally three times, an integral focus of it is on their commitment to superior customer service and how that transformed their business. Since its launch, it has been translated into 20 languages and has moved into a movement. Jenn cites three areas: company, community and cities, such as what Tony and others are doing to transform downtown Las Vegas. Most of the discussion eventually led to higher purpose and the need for humans to serve a higher purpose beyond themselves. Brian says that at Google they ask not what makes employees happy today, but years from now, the more sustainable happiness? They conducted an experiment at Google where they provided their employees with food and then a choice of plate sizes. Initially, employees chose the larger plate but used research to show them why taking a smaller plate was better for them and for the company. Around money and savings, they learned that giving employees higher anchors as a savings goal resulted in them saving more over the long haul. There's a link between higher productivity and happiness said Brian. He added, "I love data and the more data you have, the better you can predict, measure and create things that will keep employees... Continue reading

Dan Pallotta's work brought the practice of four-figure philanthropy within the reach of the average citizen who had never raised money for charity before in their lives. 182,000 people of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds participated in these inspiring, often grueling, long-distance events that raised $582 million in nine years - more money raised more quickly for these causes than any private event operation in history. Three million people donated to the events. Then, he faced issues because of how things are currently structured for non-profits. Dan spoke on the TED 2013 stage this year and below are a mish mash of my notes from his talk. He notes that there are many discriminatory issues that the philanthropy industry faces today: 1. Salaries: the median compensation for a Stanford MBA is $400K, but for a medical charity, it is roughly $232K. For a hunger charity, it is about half of that. You can’t get people to do that year after year and take that kind of financial hit when in the for profit world, you can yield so much more. 2. Marketing and Advertising: He says, "we don’t like to see our donations spent on advertising and marketing." It has remained at 2% of GDP in the United States and hasn’t grown. How can it grow if you’re not allowed to market? 3. Taking Risk on New Revenue Ideas: If you don’t produce 75% return in the first year, then a non-profit's reputation goes through the mud. You kill innovation because of fear for failure. 4. Time: Amazon didn’t produce profits for years and yet we had patience, yet the rules are different for a non-profit. 5. Profits: You can’t pay profits in the non-profit sector. He says, "you don’t have a stock market to fund any of this like... Continue reading

As a long time TEDster, I had never been to its offshoot, an event that happens simultaneously every year called TedActive. It's essentially TED, but less expensive and less bells and whistles. Since it is held a couple of hours from the main event, the speakers are obviously not on-site, however you do experience them through a satellite feed, which includes views of the audience, the main stage and the impact the speakers have on that audience in real time. For years, TED has something called the 'simulcast' room, which is where you can view the talks in a separate room on a 'screen' not far from the main room. Why some people love hanging out in the 'simulcast room' rather than the main room is that it allows them to quietly chat in the back, or type away on their keyboard if they have work to get done. OR, if you're an A++ type who is simply too digitally connected to sit still with nothing but an old fashioned notebook among 1,000 of your "closest" friends, simulcast is the way to go. All of TEDActive is a bit like that, except that the main room resembles TED's main simulcast room and TEDActive's additional simulcast rooms, which are even more casual, feel like a cross between a silent and creative experiment at a progressive university and an adult's playground. In some of the rooms, there were tables with paper cut outs and magic markers if you wanted to jot down your ideas in "color" using "scraps". This year, they also had a 'banana' theme and while I still don't know what was behind it, it was oddly amusing to continuously bump into two guys who didn't know each other, yet both of their lives depended on bananas. Snakeoil Cocktail mixologist... Continue reading

What can an entrepreneur get out of TED or TEDActive, where today the lineup includes everyone from a yo-yo champion to a punk, burlesque singer to SpaceX and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk? I was interviewed by Upstart Business Journal's Teresa Novellino over lunch one day about my experience at TEDActive last week, my first 'Active' event after attending many TED's over the years and a growing number of TEDx events around the globe. Here's a link to her story. Below, I am hanging with TEDx Bordeaux organizer Emmanuelle Roques. Yes, Bordeaux France, the place where fabulous wine comes from and let's just say I'm a fan. BTW, I spoke to a number of French entrepreneurs, academics and geeks at the event, as well as people from nearly every continent. It's one of the things I really loved about the TEDActive experience: it was incredibly international with over 72 countries represented this year. Photo credit: Teresa Novellino. Continue reading

The Wall Street Journal has a great piece that suggests an alternative route to the traditional MBA. In other words, imagine that you have the option to go somewhere prestigious on paper, such as Harvard or Stanford for your MBA and can spend time with other go-getter types among ivy-covered buildings and high-powered faculty for a couple of years. Photo credit: Brian Stauffer Yet, after you're out the door, who would a progressive CEO rather hire? the candidate who built a profitable business in two years, or the candidate who sat in lectures? They suggest that a 'smart investor' would skip the MBA candidate. The piece suggests that what matters "exponentially more than that M.B.A. is the set of skills and accomplishments that got you into business school in the first place. What if those same students, instead of spending two years and $174,400 at Harvard Business School, took the same amount of money and invested it in themselves? How would they compare after two years? If you want a business education, the odds aren't with you, unfortunately, in business school. Professors are rewarded for publishing journal articles, not for being good teachers." Read the original article here. Continue reading

Techcrunch's Mike Butcher interviews Alex Hawkinson of Smart Things and Fabrice Boutain of HAPILABS in an interactive chat on the Web Summit stage in London last week. Below is a video of their conversation, which includes demos. Continue reading

Ever do an upgrade? Of course you have, probably more often than you care to because the market or the media put the pressure on and next thing you know, you're on a new version, a new platform, a new operating system all with new chargers, new software and new rules and behaviors and JUST when you thought you were actually becoming productive. My early write-up on the transition barely touches the iceberg. In my most recent laptop research, I learned that I would have to pay more to stay on Windows 7 in a new laptop environment than if I went for Windows 8, while tried and 'true' in some early reviewer's eyes, I didn't think I should be forced 'into' a new platform before I was ready and certainly not have to pay more for an older version than a newer one. Where does that apply elsewhere in life? Isn't that sending a reinforcing message to its users? (translation: force is used when love isn't already there to takes its place). What happened to let the product speak for itself and if the newer version shines which ultimately it should if they did their job right, people will pay more to upgrade? Bottom line: don't force customers to an environment they don't 'choose', particularly your loyal long-term users. The other culprets who don't get this: legacy-minded companies Verizon and Comcast. Can you imagine Zappos, Dell or Virgin forcing such atrocities on its users? Forward wind the clock six weeks. I was about to bite the bullet and go for the latest Lenovo, where frankly I've been happy 2x over when I got persuaded to go Mac by a friend who I wouldn't classify as a typical Apple fan boy. There are hundreds (okay thousands) who are so blindsighted... Continue reading

When I migrated to the MacBookPro recently, I was astounded at how few options there were for docking stations. As a mobile warrior and traveler who who is constantly on-the-go, I needed a solution that was similar to my Lenovo set up, where I could come home and quickly throw my laptop into a dock, one which connects to everything it needs to be via ports: external drives, printer, my camera reader, my monitor and more. I wrote about the Henge docks recently, the guys who make great vertical docks, a simple and inexpensive solution if you don't need a ton of ports and want something quick and easy for sub $75. They have options for all the MacBookPro's as do the BookEndz guys who have horizontal docking station options. The ports included on the BookEndz docking station is a FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet and USB Powered hub which allows for 5 USB 2.0 ports, Audio In, Microphone in, and MiniDisplay Port for an external monitor. Unlike the PC docking stations I've used, you have to use your MagSafe Power supply to power up your MacBook Pro since they don't have a master connector to the docking station itself. An AC/DC power adapter (5 Volts) is included for the USB hub however. So far, so good! It was dead easy to set up and I'm a fan at the simplicity and functionality of the unit. Simple-to-use, the additional USB ports are a huge added bonus I didn't expect. If you have a MacBookPro and leave the house with it more than once a week, what are you waiting for? Continue reading

DEMO Mobile just unveiled the opportunity for six startups to participate in the Angel Alley program at DEMO Mobile for no charge. This was made possible by generous support of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR), which is sponsoring all six displays at Angel Alley. There will also be a competition: if you are a bootstrapped start-up without any professional angel investment, apply by February 22nd using this form. A team of judges will select up to 20 companies from the broader applicant pool to pitch to a panel of VCs and start-up founders at the wsgr|SOMA offices at 139 Townsend Street on March 7th. The top six companies from the pitch competition will be invited to attend and display at DEMO Mobile April 17th in SF. As an added bonus, one of the start-ups in Angel Alley will be selected to present an Alpha-Pitch based on an audience vote. Continue reading

Most people I know either live in an enterprise world or a start-up world, so when you talk about contact management and databases, they're either on SalesForce or Oracle or they simply use Outlook or MacBook iContacts. Sure, there are plenty of CRM systems that cater to the smaller business owner but they're not as widely used as the larger, more expensive corporate tools and when most of what we need is built into our OS or Office for free, why bother? I've been a Filemaker fan for awhile now, so long ago I recall first using it in the nineties in a Mac environment, at a time when Macs only came as fat boxes, not notebooks. Filemaker has so much more functionality that meets the eye. The downside of more traditional databases is that there are all sorts of mapping rules that you need to abide by or your data gets lost or simply doesn't come over. The upside is the depth and breadth of what you can do. With FileMaker Pro, you can literally drag-and-drop Excel data into FileMaker Pro to get your data over and manipulate from there, or you can get a l'il more techy and build a custom database for your unique needs, including mobile templates. I created one for my iPhone 5 in about an hour with a little tech help; once you get going, you can change fields and colors on the fly within minutes for the desktop or mobile environment. BTW, they have basic "starter" custom templates if you choose not to build your own, but if you have fields that are personalized for your business, why not go the custom route and create something for your specific needs? remember, you only need to do it once. For the traveler on the... Continue reading

With the craziness of CES and launch of HAPIfork behind us, it's great to be reminded of the love consumers, industry illuminaries and press alike gave to HAPILABS during that long but exhilerating week in early January. We were excited to learn that PC Magazine awarded HAPIfork a Best of CES Award from the show. Writes Dan Costa in his post: "Given the nationwide obesity epidemic, it is a wonder no one thought of this before. We need smarter forks. The HAPIfork is a little bigger than you standard fork, but it does a lot more. Charge it up and it will monitor not just how many bites you take, but also the pace at which you eat. If you try to take more than one bite every 10 seconds, the fork will gently vibrate to tell you to slow down. Once you are done, you can upload all this data to an online service that will let you track it, and presumably, share this data with friends." We're thrilled about this great honor on the heals of an award from CNET as well, not to mention the Design and Engineering Showcase Honors Award. Below the HAPILABS team shows off the Design & Engineering award on-site in Las Vegas in our very HAPIbooth. Continue reading

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month was once again a flurry of new products and as always, I felt as if I was constantly surrounded by pitches of TV flat screens, new speaker designs, casing, docking stations, chargers, dancing robots, iPhone accessories, surround sound substitutes, and more. What stood out was the increasing number of vendors participating in the Digital Health pavilion this year. Clearly, the marriage of technology and health is increasing at alarming speeds, with products and solutions aimed at helping consumers take charge of their health by collecting and analyzing their own personal data, something that wasn't available to us even ten years ago. It was no surprise that Fitbit won a Best of CES award, a product which tracks your fitness and has been on the market for awhile now. It's inevitable that the health and wellness category is primed to explode in the coming year. As for other categories? Sure, I'm a geek, but I'm a female geek who loves great design and rich colors. I'm always a sucker for products in luscious colors - the problem with so many of these products is that they're created and designed by men, so often our choices are limited to neon green, bright girly blues and pinks, or red, black and white. If women designers were behind more products, I'd imagine we might actually see a high end stereo system in an eggplant purple, burgundy or an olive green, something that wouldn't clash with our sofas, curtains and painted walls. I spoke to four speaker companies about this conflict and guess what? Weaving a color design into a living room hadn't even occurred to them. As a traveler and writer, most of my top picks were focused on products that would be... Continue reading