Emerging Technologies : Buzz

Maryland, Colorado and Virginia support innovation and their high-tech workforce, according to the fourth annual Enterprising States report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Entrepreneur magazine features the list of states, which also included Utah and Massachusetts in the top five. The U.S. Chamber took a look at the number of high-tech businesses, STEM job concentration and programs that support entrepreneurs. The report credited the Free State for its Activate program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List. 

Read the entire story here. 

Forbes recently interviewed the owner of a company that redesigned WellDoc's mobile app. Based in Baltimore, WellDoc has created the first FDA-approved app to manage diabetes.

In an article titled "6 Things You Should Do When Designing for Mobile," Forbes chats with Moment Design Inc. Principal John Payne about redesigning the WellDoc app so it can be commercialized.

Holding a design charette, or a collaborative approach to design, and gathering insights about the user experience, were among Payne's recommendations. Read the entire story here. 

Mobile TV service Dyle is expanding into Baltimore, USA Today reports. 

Launched in August, Dyle is growing rapidly and will be in 116 stations in 39 markets by the end of the year. It is currently in 91 stations in 36 markets.

"In using Dyle and MyDTV, TV stations send broadcast signals over the air to a smartphone or tablet (currently, limited to Apple devices)," USA Today writes. "Users must pay about $80 to $100 for an antenna dongle, inserted into their device, which receives the broadcast signals."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

The South Baltimore Recreation Center has officially reopened as a neigborhood technology center, thanks to the efforts of the Riverside community and Digital Harbor High School supporters.

Forbes takes a look at the new venue, where Balitmore City school students can learn about web design, mobile app development and digital media production. 

"The center’s grand opening was a packed house, where excited participants got to show equally excited visitors the fruits of some of their early work, providing a taste of what’s to come from the space," the magazine writes. "Shelly Blake-Plock, the executive co-director of the Digital Harbor Foundation, delivered such an impassioned welcome speech that you could almost see where all this excitement was coming from."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

America's new hotbeds of technology innovation are not in the major cities like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, but smaller ones, according to Forbes. And ranking No. 4 on Forbes' list is the Greater Baltimore region, where jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) grew nearly 18 percent between 2001 and 2012.

The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area got the top spot, followed by Riverside-San Bernadino, Calif., and San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas. 

New York, L.A. and Chicago, in contrast, all lost tech jobs in the past decade, according to the data crunched by Praxis Strategy Group. 

"As the social media industry matures and consolidates, employment is likely to continue shifting to less expensive, business-friendly areas," Forbes writes.

You can read the rest of the story here. 

IdeaMensch is a community that shows people how to bring their ideas to life and it is helping the fine folks in the Free State. 

"Whether your idea is an app, a nonprofit, a book, a website or an invention – what matters is how you bring it to life. Who matter are the people who bring those ideas to life," the IdeaMensch site says. The Los Angeles-based organization is going on a four-month road trip and is hitting every state. 

It makes its stop in Maryland Sept. 25 at the Loyola Columbia Graduate Campus, starting at 6 p.m. Speakers include Social Toaster CEO Brian Razzaque and PointClickSwitch CEO Phil Crowskey. Read more about the Baltimore event here. 

It was 2012's first snowfall, but that didn't stop 200 people from trekking to the University of Baltimore for the second annual Create Baltimore. 

"Ideas were spit-balled, the collaborators of tomorrow (perhaps) met each other and an assortment of topics were covered," writes the Baltimore Brew. "People discussed mapping and visualizing, journalism and various ways to shine a light on government data, creating an advocacy organization for city bicyclists, improving food access in urban neighborhoods and a host of other ripe topics."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

From the article: "Citybizlist took a look at the 10 finalists of TechNite's 10 Hottest Technologies in Town to see what their Facebook presence looked like. We figured that if these were the hot technologies in Baltimore, they would be on the forefront of how social media, Facebook in particular, could be harnessed to attract interest, promote dialogue, create connections, establish a strong brand, etc." Read the full post here.

Baltimore will soon be among the first nine markets to see the debut of a new live streaming TV service from EW Scripps.

From the source:

The E.W. Scripps Co. said Thursday that it will become the first TV station group in the nation to deliver live video programming to mobile devices.

The launch will occur in nine markets: Detroit, Phoenix, Tampa, Fla., Cleveland, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cincinnati, West Palm Beach, Fla., and Tulsa, Okla.

Users who download the mobile application for their local Scripps station will be prompted at certain times — such as during breaking news events or occurrences of severe weather — to view streaming content. Clicking on the prompt will open a media player that will show either a simulcast of the station's on-air content or special coverage tailored to small screens.

Read the full story here.

The Tribune Company -- owner of, among other properties, the Baltimore Sun -- is exploring the idea of creating its own tablet computing device as a way to distribute content.

From the source:

The Tribune Company could be getting into the tablet game. The Chicago-based media company, which owns papers like the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and the Los Angeles Times as well as 23 TV stations, is reportedly working on a tablet that it will market to subscribers, CNN reports.

Citing "people briefed on the plans," CNN says the tablet will run on a "modified version" of the Android platform, with software specific to the reader's paper of choice. CNN says it spoke with "more than half a dozen current and former Tribune employees" who said the Tribune company will offer the tablet for free or at a heavily reduced price to subscribers.


Read the full story.

Local startup 410Labs made big news last week by announcing a round of funding for Shortmail, a new too designed to alleviate the burden of overwhelming email conversations.

From the source:

But it's not just Twitter for email. There are other interesting elements of the service too. For example, you can set any Shortmail conversation to be private or public. The latter feature I tested out yesterday with 410 Labs (the company behind Shortmail) co-founder Dave Troy. Below, find my Q&A back and forth with him. (They don't currently have embeds, so I took screen shots of it to include in this post. But you can find the thread live on the web here.)

As Troy notes below, 410 Labs has secured a $750,000 Series A round of funding. True Ventures, 500 Startups, Fortify Ventures, and The Maryland Venture Fund drove the round. Individuals including Tim O'Shaughnessy (co-founder of LivingSocial), Jeff Ganek (founder of Neustar), Abdur Chowdhury (chief scientist at Twitter), among others, participated as well.

Read the full story at TechCrunch.

The groundbreaking ceremony has been held and now it's official: the GM plant in White Marsh will begin manufacturing electric motor components in 2013.

From the source:

"Chevy Volt fans with any lingering fears that the electric car might meet a similar fate to the GM EV1 should take comfort in General Motor's latest announcement: the automaker's plant in While Marsh, Maryland near Baltimore, is scheduled to build components for electric motors (for both plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles) starting in 2013. It will be the first of its kind for a U.S. automaker and should be a good indicator that vehicles like the Volt will be around for a long time.

GM broke ground yesterday for the planned addition to the White Marsh plant which currently builds transmissions for Heavy Duty and two-mode hybrid vehicles. GM reports a total investment of $269.5 million for the project."

Read more at Motor Trend.

Maryland Technology Development Corporation's new head, Robert A. Rosenbaum, took a little time out to talk with The Washington Post about his plans for the agency.

Here's an excerpt:

"Rosenbaum, a former managing director of Baltimore-based Nobska Ventures, also is pushing to close a gap in how the money is handed out. Too often, early-stage companies are left gasping for funds as they mature. If funding permits, he wants Tedco to fill that gap by following up on its seed investments with a second infusion of cash to help promising companies grow."

Read the entire article.

In case you missed it, here's Baltimore's own Mario Armstrong giving out his advice on which gadgets to buy now and which you should wait to buy.

Check out the video:

Washing your car. Everybody does, but few think about its impact on the environment. A local entrepreneur is on the cutting edge of the carwash industry with his green carwash in Canton.

Watch the video: