Rhiannon Giddens Celebrates ‘Freedom Highway’ in the Big House … – New York Times

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New York Times
Rhiannon Giddens Celebrates 'Freedom Highway' in the Big House ...
New York Times
The folk singer accompanied the release of a new album with a workshop for convicts and a show at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y..
Rhiannon Giddens channels 'voices that need to be heard' on ...Los Angeles Times
Rhiannon Giddens's Second Solo Album, "Freedom Highway," Out NowNonesuch Records
Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway review powerful and timelyThe Guardian
Washington Post -The Times (subscription) -American Songwriter
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Rhiannon Giddens Celebrates 'Freedom Highway' in the Big House ... - New York Times

Rothstein ally gets punishment cut; ex-partner Rosenfeldt nears freedom – Sun Sentinel

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ABroward Countyman who admitted he fed more than $20 million toScott Rothstein'smassive Ponzi scheme had his prison term reduced last weekat the request of prosecutors.

Frank Prev, 73, of Coral Springs, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2014.

Senior U.S. District Judge James Cohn agreed on Friday to cut Prev's federal prison term from 3 1/2 years to two years and two months. Federal prosecutors recommended the sentence reduction because of information and help Prev provided in related prosecutions in Pennsylvania.

In a related matter, former Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm partner Stuart Rosenfeldt, 61, of Boca Raton, is serving the last few months of his federal prison sentence at a halfway house in South Florida, prison records show. He was moved from the federal prison camp at MaxwellAir Force Base in Alabamato South Florida to begin his transition back to freedom, prison officials said.

Rosenfeldt was a partner in the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale law firm, which was the center of operations for the $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated byRothstein. Rothsteinis serving a 50-year prison sentence for his crimes.

Rosenfeldt, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiringto commit campaign finance fraud, to defraud the United States, to commit bank fraud and to deny civil rights, surrendered to prison in early 2015. He will be placed onprobation for two years after he is released from the halfway house.

Prev, who worked with a hedge fund group, fed more than $20 million from investors into the fraud in the four months before it collapsed in 2009.

Prev was initiallysentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison in February 2015 but was allowed to remain free on bond because of poor health and so he could testify in one of the related cases, according to court records.

Prosecutors said he didn't know it was a Ponzi scheme but failed to report obvious red flags to investors, including that Rothstein skipped making payments, paperwork was missing and the underlying deals couldn't be verified.

Prev was also credited with helping authorities to investigatethe Rothstein fraud.

Prev, who served in the military and worked in a CIA cryptology station in the 1960s, was once a successful bank president in South Florida. Prosecutors said he was paid about $4 million linked to the Rothstein fraud.

pmcmahon@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula

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Rothstein ally gets punishment cut; ex-partner Rosenfeldt nears freedom - Sun Sentinel

Gurmehar has freedom to speak her mind: Kiren Rijiju – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Hours after Delhi University student and daughter of a martyr Gurmehar Kaur announced her withdrawal from the anti-ABVP campaign, minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said she was free to say and do what she wants and should be left alone as per her wish.

Rijiju also hit back at those criticising him for asking who was polluting Gurmehar's mind, saying that he stood by his tweet and was only speaking his mind. "(When I say) somebody (is polluting her mind), I mean the Leftists," he said.

"It were these Leftists who celebrated when Indian Army personnel were martyred in the 1962 (Indo-China) war and raised anti-national slogans. But now, whoever makes anti-national statements will be dealt firmly under the law. Everybody has freedom of expression but must act as per the laws of the country," he added.

Asked about Gurmehar's decision to step back from the anti-ABVP protest on DU campus, Rijiju said: "She has the freedom to speak her mind. She has all the right to do whatever she wants. So don't disturb her."

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Gurmehar has freedom to speak her mind: Kiren Rijiju - Times of India

Donald Trump’s media ban inspires Cambodian attack on press freedom – The Guardian

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Cambodias prime minister, Hun Sen, whose government is clamping down on critical media, citing Donald Trumps behaviour. Photograph: Samrang Pring/Reuters

And so it has happened. Less than 100 days into his presidency, Donald Trump is being cited by a corrupt and despotic regime to justify new restrictions on rights and freedoms. On Saturday, Cambodias council of ministers spokesman Phay Siphan vowed to crush media entities that endanger the peace and security of the kingdom, calling on all foreign agents to self-censor or be shut down. He justified this threat by citing Trumps recent expulsion of critical media outlets from a White House briefing (Report, 25 January).

Donald Trumps ban of international media giants sends a clear message that President Trump sees that news published by those media institutions does not reflect the real situation, the Phnom Penh Post quoted the spokesman as saying. Freedom of expression must be located within the domain of the law and take into consideration national interests and peace. The presidents decision has nothing to do with democracy or freedom of expression.

This comes in the wake of a new wave of human rights violations by Cambodia (including the murder of a prominent government critic, Kem Ley, and a new law designed to dismantle opposition parties) in the run-up to local and national elections.

Such comments demonstrate how President Trumps careless rhetoric and narcissistic acts can be used by despotic regimes across the globe to justify human rights violations. Alexandre Prezanti Global Diligence LLP

I read Carl Cederstrms piece (Its not just lies: Trump wills his truth into our reality, 27 February) with particular interest. I had only just watched David Hare and Mick Jacksons Denial, following Peter Bradshaws reputational rescue of the film in his review (G2, 27 January), as having overwhelming relevance. It seems particularly apt to Cederstrms point.

In the film, at the end of the long trial, the judge pulls out the question and I paraphrase What if David Irving believed all these egregious untruths would he still be a mendacious liar? The precise reason why he was able to dismiss his own question was not quoted. But it is a matter of historical record that the judge found for the defendants and stated that for his own ideological reasons [the holocaust denier] persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence. Roger Macy London

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Donald Trump's media ban inspires Cambodian attack on press freedom - The Guardian

Freedom 251: Ringing Bells general manager arrested by Ghaziabad police – Hindustan Times

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The Ghaziabad police arrested the second of the five accused named in the FIR lodged against officials of smartphone company Ringing Bells, on Monday night.

The accused has been identified as Sumit Kumar, who is said to be the general manager of Ringing Bells.

Police have already arrested former MD Mohit Goel, while a court sent him to 14 days of judicial custody to Dasna jail. He is lodged in barrack number 7 along with nearly 100 other inmates. The company had shot to limelight after it announced Freedom 251, touted as the worlds cheapest smartphone, at an unbelievable price of Rs 251 apiece.

Continuing investigations with the FIR lodged for cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy, the accused Sumit Kumar was arrested along with nearly Rs 14.9 lakh cash and some documents. He will be produced before the court on Tuesday. So far, we have arrested two persons in connection with the FIR while a vigorous search is on for the other accused persons, said Manish Mishra, circle officer (city), who is leading case investigation.

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Police said that the accused was arrested along with an alleged forged approval letter, dated November 22, 2014, of the Cellular Operators Association of India and a cheque book of the company. Sumit hails from Muzaffarpur in Bihar and presently staying at Mandawali in Delhi.

The FIR at Sihani Gate was lodged by Akshay Malhotra, one of the companys distributors based in Ghaziabad, who alleged that the company officials failed to pay back his balance amount of Rs 16 lakh. Malhotra lodged an FIR at the Sihani Gate police station on February 22.

Apart from Goel, the FIR names the present managing director and Mohits brother, Anmol Goel, Mohits wife Dharna Garg who resigned eight months back as CEO of Ringing Bells, company general manager Sumit Kumar, and Mohits partner Ashok Chaddha. The latter and Goel are now officials of a new firm.

After his arrest, Mohit was produced before a Ghaziabad court but the court slammed cops for not having evidence for sections of forgery and criminal conspiracy added to the FIR.

Later, during the second hearing, the court sent Mohit to 14 days of judicial custody only under sections of criminal breach of trust and cheating. The court, so far, has negated sections of forgery against Mohit as police could not provide enough evidence.

Mohits lawyers will be moving his bail application before a Ghaziabad court on Tuesday.

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Freedom 251: Ringing Bells general manager arrested by Ghaziabad police - Hindustan Times

Future-proofing Intel’s 5G ecosystem for developers – SiliconANGLE (blog)

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If data is the lifeblood of business today, then bandwidth is the beating heart. As more data flows across company networks, new technologies must emergeto lower costs and improve speed. One of these is 5G, a new networking standard that is poised to open up the flow of data across the world.

If you think about what happened from 3G to 4G, youve seen how the usage has changed, said Lynn A. Comp, senior director of industry and sales enabling, Network Platforms Group, at Intel.

Comp spoke over the phone to John Furrier(@furrier), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLEs mobile live-streaming studio, from the Mobile World Congress 2017 event in Barcelona.(*Disclosure below.)

With consideration ofhow evolvingnetwork standards have enabled new applications and technologies, Comp shared her observations on developer innovation with IT networks. She specifically mentioned 5G opening up the networks bandwidth,allowing developers to more easily create and share data-heavy applications in need of low-latency network solutions, such as those for video and virtual reality environments.

Intel is trying to unleash that same spirit of creativity with the help of companies like Honeywell and GE, two partners collaborating on Internet of Things solutions for retailers and improvements throughout theindustrial IoT. With 5G, similarly progressiveuse cases shape a very unique ecosystem, one thats attracting early adopters looking for the first moveradvantage.

To aid in this 5G push, Intel showed off FlexRAN, a Radio Area Network that brings the concept of virtualization to the network. It runs on a standard server and uses network slicing to allocate bandwidth for specific scenarios.

Intel has also brought together a number of hardware and software vendors under the Intel Network Builders program. This initiative, which includes almost all of the top-10 operators, focuses on a building-block approach supported by open-source resources.

That translates into the kind of innovation and applications consumers love, Comp said. Its such an opportunity-rich environment. Were in the pre-standard world right now for 5G, and there are a lot of pre-trials happening.

One method of safeguarding early innovation with 5G technology is the use ofNetwork Function Virtualization. According to Comp, interest in NFV took hold when network operators realized they could run a network on a general processor. Doing soallows a company to separate the hardware from the software.

It gives the operators the ability to use general purpose processors for more than one thing, and future-proof workloads so they dont have to issue new hardware, just spin up a new virtual machine, Comp said. Were just starting to scratch the surface of the opportunities there.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBEs coverage of the Mobile World Congress 2017 Barcelona. (*Disclosure: Intel was the sponsor of this segment. Intel has no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

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Future-proofing Intel's 5G ecosystem for developers - SiliconANGLE (blog)

Ankabut creates hyper-connected ecosystem for UEA education – ComputerWeekly.com

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The United Arab Emirates education network, Ankabut, has linked up multiple education systems in the UAE and abroad through a learning management system (LMS) to enable students to stay connected to resources wherever they are.

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With the adoption of Brightspaces cloud-based LMS, academic institutions joined up by Ankabut have not just been connected to global online learning resources, but have also seen improved student performance, reduced carbon footprint and parents more involved in their childrens education.

Ankabut is the UAEs Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) that offers academic institutions in the Gulf state connectivity to other education networks around the globe. As well as connecting universities and institutions of higher learning, Ankabut also links up schools and public institutions across the UAE.

Launched in 2006, Ankabut has the primary objective of opening up information exchange highways between academic institutions in the UAE and the rest of the world.

Today, it provides connectivity to 33 academic institutions within the UAE, spanning K-20 (primary and secondary), higher education, vocational training centres and research institutes.

Within the UAE, Ankabut provides high-capacity, high-speed broadband connectivity between educational, research and eligible non-profit organisations. Internationally, it liaises with government-approved parties in neighbouring countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to determine collaboration on services.

Ankabut was looking to implement a single, uniform learning management system across its member institutions, which would not only benefit faculty members and 100,000 students, but also make it easier to build bridges between the institutions and learning resources around the world.

As a result, it embarked on a project to unify disparate legacy learning systems across the UAE. This reduced the costs of ownership of systems and infrastructure, while allowing students to remain connected.

Ankabut also wanted to reduce the carbon footprint of the countrys education sector and improve parental involvement in the education of their children through monitoring tools.

It wanted a single-point, cloud-hosted platform that would provide a device-neutral communications platform and easy-to-use dashboard for parents to monitor their childrens school performance.

Fahem Al Nuaimi, CEO at Ankabut, said the organisation had realised that having multiple and often disparate learning tools across the UAEs campuses was hindering connectivity to global resources.

Ankabut decided to clear this hurdle by implementing D2Ls Brightspace Learning Management System (LMS), said Al Nuaimi.

A uniform LMS across different learning centres wouldnt just allow educators to better deliver learning through cross-faculty collaboration, two-way feedback channels and comprehensive performance analytics, but would also open the door to a more connected learning experience for students, he said.

Al Nuaimi said that in todays digitally enhanced online environment, access to lectures and other learning materials should not be limited to the classroom.

Obsolete learning systems also sidelined parents, he said. Before the Brightspace LMS implementation, there were some systems that allowed parents to monitor the academic progress of their children, but these were not user-friendly. They did not allow parents to easily log in and see, at a glance, what was going on in their child's day-to-day academic life.

According to Al Nuaimi, the Brightspace platform provides an easily accessible, dashboard-style interface to monitor, at a glance, how a student is performing.

This system has completely changed interactions between parents and their children on the academic front, he said. A simple dashboard shows parents all the information they need to get a real understanding of how their child is doing, thereby allowing them to offer targeted help.

Another problem, saidAl Nuaimi, was that each institution had its own network and servers, which increased the carbon footprint of the UAEs education sector. Along with the increased impact on the environment, such systems were also burdening the institutions with unnecessary capex [capital expenditure] and opex [operational expenditure], he said. You would see everything from open source systems that have limited capacity, capability and availability, to very expensive, out-of-date systems.

The wide mix of tools that were being used by students and faculty members at different learning centres was proving a serious barrier to connecting them to each others resources, said Al Nuaimi.

The Brightspace implementation is a first for this region, where learning centres within the UAE can now connect to online learning resources no matter their location, and they can do so with minimal disruption, he said.

The cloud-based architecture of the new LMS, which Ankabut is providing on a free trial basis to learning centres across the board, has encouraged high adoption rates among UAE institutions, with 78 campuses and 100,000 students now connected to online learning resources from around the world using the Brightspace LMS.

Al Nuaimi said the use of online learning materials and feedback tools had drastically reduced the amount of paper used, and the centralised cloud architecture had reduced the consumption of electricity by learning centres for on-site servers and other IT infrastructure.

Cloud computing had also reduced the cost of ownership, he said. With no need for certain equipment, and its administration and maintenance, organisations were seeing a reduction in costs.

For academic institutions, this translates into bigger budgets for other, often underfunded departments. With the implementation of an online LMS, which is hosted in the cloud, learning institutions have seen a dramatic reduction in their costs, said Al Nuaimi. Our total cost of operations has gone down by 60%.

Once rolled out, the Brightspace LMS provided the standardisation required to enable a hyper-connected ecosystem of institutions, educators, students and parents.

Students no longer have to be on university premises to communicate or to have access to learning resources, said Al Nuaimi. Essentially, they can now carry their classrooms in their pockets. This also fits perfectly with the increased proliferation of the bring-your-own-device [BYOD] trend in the UAEs learning centres as students can now use their mobile devices to access online learning resources.

Member institutions have praisedAnkabut for the leap forward facilitated by the unified system. We have had an excellent response from member institutions, said Al Nuaimi. Faculty members have also noted that student performance has improved considerably.

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Ankabut creates hyper-connected ecosystem for UEA education - ComputerWeekly.com

Uncovering Frankfurt’s up-and-coming startup ecosystem – Geektime

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TQ Co-Director Dr. Thomas Funke Photo Credit: TQ

More than just banks and corporates, something is brewing in this German city that could make it the next center for global fintech

Berlin has fast become known as the hub for much of Europes culture and tech scene, offering a hip vibe that has drawn significant talent to the city over the past decade.

But moving past the spotlight on Berlin is the quiet giant of Frankfurt. With its burgeoning cadre of mostly early-stage companies that are emerging from the mass of corporates long associated with the city, it offers an alternative look at how startups are developing in Germany that may be surprising.

Helping to lead the charge is the new team at Tech Quartier, Frankfurts first hubspot aimed at nurturing the young community and supporting entrepreneurship. Backed by Goethe University, the Technical University of Darmstadt, and Wirtschafts und Infrastrukturbank Hessen among others, TQ is led by Managing Director Dr. Sebastian Schaefer and Co-Director Dr. Thomas Funke.

Tech Quartiers Managing Director Dr. Sebastian Schaefer and Co-Director Dr. Thomas Funke Photo Credit: TQ

As entrepreneurial evangelists and educators, Schaefer and Funke see Frankfurts role in the financial center of Europe as an advantage for the citys startup sector to build from. Quite naturally, they have decided to focus on fintech. It does not hurt that the Federal government has named Frankfurt Germanys fintech ecosystem in the Digital Hub program.

Looking to fintech would seem like the logical first step for the community, seeing as finance and banking have traditionally played such a key part of the city. Funke tells Geektime that somewhere between 20-25% of the local startups are in the fintech game, with e-commerce coming in with a strong showing as well. Leaning more on the side of B2B, there has been a growth in B2C, as seen in the case of investing technologies. However Funke says that many of these companies are not able to attract the necessary talent to grow to their potential, apparently stemming from both the supply and demand sides of the equation.

Goethe University, Frankfurt Photo Credit: Gabriel Avner / Geektime

With major banks like Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, ING DiBA and others calling Frankfurt home, these global financial institutions offer startups an incredible yet relatively untapped customer base. As only Munich has a stronger corporate density, TQ and others see ample room for various kinds of partnerships, ranging from strategic investments to more basic customer client relationships.

Despite the opportunities, startup growth has remained slow for several key reasons. These include basics like an insufficient number of the right kind of talent, difficulty in raising funds, slow adoption process from corporates, and a general low energy around the idea of startups outside of a core group. For a country with so much economic potential and a reputation for smart planning, the number of inefficiencies in how corporates offer products and how the consumers treat their money is rather astounding.

According to Prof. Andreas Hackethal of Goethe University, German private households bank deposits increased from 37% in 1999 to 39% in 2015. At the same time, securities went down from 29% to only 23%. Comparatively, this is a very significant amount of money that is not being used to grow the economy. With an aging population that will need to augment its income beyond what the state pension can provide, the public will need to be smarter with their money. This need creates room for products like Robo Advisors that will offer cost-effective measures of engaging the public and bringing them into the market.

Prof. Andreas Hackethal of Goethe University Photo Credit: TQ

Like many places that speak of the need for innovation, at this stage, the corporate engagement has been mostly lip service with a couple of caveats. Germany is not unique in this regard, but perhaps because of the sheer size of the potential industry, it is that much more apparent. To their credit, the local banks are prepared to put down money on supporting great organizations like TQ, and have made noises about opening up their own internal innovation departments. Deutsche Bank has already opened a Digital Lab, that employs over 400 people, to help them develop new technological solutions for their customers, but the feeling is that they are not bringing enough to the table. Perhaps recognizing this, all the major banks, and a number of top consulting firms, are backing TQ as their point of contact with the startup community, a touch point that has been seriously lacking up until now.

Break down sessions at TQs fintech event Photo Credit: TQ

Funke is encouraged in the changes he is seeing. He tells Geektime that the corporates are taking a much more hands-on approach, saying that they feel the need to stay on top of what is happening in the startup innovation sector. Ive never seen movement this fast from the corporate side. Different players like the university and others said that they needed a hub.

When it came to getting backing from the financial community, Funke says that the Economics Ministry of the Hessen state Tarek Al-Wazir wrote a letter to the banks about the plan. He asked if they wanted to sponsor the initiative for a hub and the corporates quickly responded. Whether from peer pressure or their significant interest, they appear to be on board.

The real proof of their commitment will come when they start becoming the startups paying customers. Sounding perhaps like a stereotype (yet true), the German corporates work on a much slower decision-making time frame than one might find in places like the US or Israel. Add to this the necessary considerations for the banking sector, and you hit even more bumps in the road. That can be untenable for a startup.

Hoping to explore what can be done to remedy the situation, TQ hosted an event this past December at their new offices in the heart of the city. In attendance were industry leaders in the startup and corporate sectors, including Prof. Hackethal, Startup Genome CEO JF Gauthier, Tomas Peeters of ING Diba, and Sven Korschinowski from KPMG.

Breaking into smaller groups, the attendees discussed the myriad challenges facing the nascent ecosystem with hopes of developing ideas that could be incorporated into a white paper for guiding their growth. Beyond the normal issues that any scene faces lack of sufficient talent, funding problems, etc. that will be highlighted in a series of follow-up articles they hit upon a couple of interesting points.

The discussion board from the meetup at TQ Photo Credit: Gabriel Avner / Geektime

First is the need to establish more connections where the community can meet and cross-pollinate on ideas and collaboration. There are events like the meetups between startups and investors, like the Pitch Club, that have helped tens of companies raise over 10 million in much-needed seed funding. If Tel Aviv has Startup Alley around Rothschild Blvd., where will Frankfurts startup leaders run into each other while going out to pick up coffee?

TQ will help to play a role here, becoming the new home to the Frankfurt Accelerator that is already setting up for its second round of companies. Founded by partners Ram Shoham and Maria Pennanen, they are leveraging Israeli companies looking for new markets in Germany. They are working to bring new energy to the scene, while bringing a classic and experienced accelerator that has been lacking in the city. As the first real accelerator in town, they have done a lot of the hard work of showing that startups have a place at the table, helping to break ground for those that will follow.

It is important to look at some of the success stories that have already happened on the scene and understand how they give entrepreneurs hope that they too can really build something at home in Germany. Probably the most well-known example is that of 360T, which was bought by Deutsche Brse in 2015 for 725 million. While not quite a unicorn, it marked an important moment for the German fintech startup ecosystem. Speaking with Schaefer, he tells Geektime that his team sees their role at TQ as developing and applying a systematic approach to help develop companies to the point that stories like 360T will become not only replicable but far more common.

Frankfurt Accelerator offices Photo Credit: Frankfurt Accelerator

Next month, TQ will be launching its own accelerator program called the Hessian Israel Partnership Accelerator (HIPA). It will bring young startups from the Frankfurt area together on projects with new teammates from Israel, helping to promote connections between the two ecosystems. They are also opening a new initiative with BCG Europe called TopStars, that they hope will kick off this summer.

Having visited plenty of up and coming startup ecosystems around the world, I always encounter the same set of questions about how to a nascent scene can grow to something resembling what we have in Tel Aviv.

From my short visit in Frankfurt, I witnessed a core group of passionate people who are determined to succeed not only with their own ventures, but to bring the ecosystem up with them. These are people like Funke and Schaefer who understand both the potential that is laying here beneath the surface, and that they will need to stir people from their positions of comfort if they want something to really happen.

Germany and Frankfurt will need to shift into high gear and become more aggressive if they want to reach the next stage. They have a talented and reasonably experienced crew of entrepreneurs and a customer base that others would kill for. Educating the market that, if they want to succeed in the years to come, they will have to learn to adapt and embrace the startup community. Not just coopt them for immediate access to technology, but be supportive partners for the long run.

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Uncovering Frankfurt's up-and-coming startup ecosystem - Geektime

Farming Communities Produce More Than Food Through ALUS Canada – Food Tank (blog)

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The non-profit organization ALUS Canada is supporting farmers and ranchers in developing projects that contribute to healthy ecosystems through clean air, clean water, and increased biodiversity. Recognizing farmers as key players in maintaining healthy ecosystems well into the future, ALUS Canada funds their partner communities who work directly with farmers in implementing projects on their land.

As CEO of ALUS Canada and a rancher himself, Bryan Gilvesy came to focus on ecosystem services through his own personal experience. It dawned upon me one day that a farm is capable of producing much more than traditional food and fiber. And the fact that we choose to farm also identifies something within us that is useful to ecosystem services. That is, we care about the natural environment, were connected to it deeply.

ALUS Canada works with 20 communities in six provinces across Canada. Within these communities, 722 farmers and ranchers are participating in the more than 15,500 ecosystem projects currently in place on the ground.

The community-based approach of ALUS is unique, and we also think its the sort of foundational piece, its almost a magical piece of what makes this program work, says Gilvesy. We engage individuals by engaging a whole community. What the community-based approach allows us to do is harness our collective energy, of people that see more value in farms, and farming, and rural communities, and are learning how to apply that knowledge.

By working with communities rather than a single national model, the organization is able to develop alternative land-uses that work with the needs of each farmer or rancher. Some of their key projects include planting native pollinator habitat, reforestation, and wetland restoration. In total, the land involved in these projects covers more than 18,000 acres.

With their newest initiative, the New Acre Project, ALUS Canada hopes to take their impact even further. Branching out from institutional donations, New Acre will allow individuals and organizations to contribute directly to the development of further projects. Through this new initiative, ALUS Canada hopes to engage an even wider community in the production of ecosystem services. Individuals and organizations now have the opportunity to contribute directly to the society-wide services from which they benefit.

Between 2011 and 2015, ALUS Canada transferred nearly CAD$2.8 million (approximately $2.2 million in 2015 USD) to its ALUS communities. In the coming years, they hope to expand that impact by touching more farmers and ranchers, forming new community partnerships, and engaging the wider public in the importance of farming to our healthy ecosystems. As Gilvesy sees it, ALUS Canada is a wide and supportive community. We have a big doorway, and many people from different farming backgrounds, and different styles of farming, in different parts of the country, in different regions of Canada, can walk through the same portal.

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Farming Communities Produce More Than Food Through ALUS Canada - Food Tank (blog)

The Digital Ad Ecosystem Is Messy And TrustX Is Grabbing A Broom – AdExchanger

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TrustX GM and President David Kohl was sitting in the front row with a big smile on his face when P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard laid into the digital supply chain at the IABs Annual Leadership Meeting last month.

For the past year, Kohl has been working on a project housed within Digital Context Next to bring premium publishers together into a programmatic cooperative.

Think of it as the love child between a joint business venture and a private marketplace.

So far, 31 publishers, including The Washington Post, CBS Interactive, Hearst, Purch, NBCUniversal and Vox, have signed on to make their inventory available with a human-viewable guarantee. The underlying tech was built by Iponweb, and Moat is providing the measurement and verification.

TrustX is in its alpha phase with a limited number of publishers testing the pipes against unpaid demand to make sure the plumbing works with desktop and mobile display. Beta will kick off by the end of the quarter, likely March, with somewhere between 100 million to 200 million impressions a month and with plans to ramp that up to about 1 billion impression.

The beta is slated to run until the end of July or early August, at which time it will probably also open to video and in-app inventory.

When it comes to transparency, RTB isnt the problem. Rather, the problem is the sprawling complexity of the digital advertising ecosystem.

For most problems, the answer in the ad tech ecosystem has typically been to throw a new piece of technology at the problem, layering technology on top of technology rather than trying to create a well-lit environment, said Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next.

Fraud and bad actors aside, inefficiency creeps in when everyone just wants to take their nickel or their dime, said Jed Hartman, CRO of The Washington Post, which plans to take part in the TrustX beta rolling out in March.

If the ecosystem had been purpose-built rather than jury-rigged, Kohl said, the digital supply chain would be less porous than it is today.

Digital advertising, particularly in programmatic, has been cobbled together over the last decade or so without any master plan, and thats enabled a tremendous economy to develop around media budget, Kohl said. But the fact is that less and less of each dollar is actually making it to working media.

According to the World Federation of Advertisers, agencies and tech providers siphon off about 60 cents of every buck spent on media.

Brand safety can also be an issue in programmatic, as starkly evidenced in early February when ads for a number of high-profile brands, including Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Sandals Resorts,appeared on jihadist and extremist websites. Unfortunate contextual placements aside, the brands were put in the highly awkward position of essentially monetizing terrorism.

But retreating into the relative safety of direct sold isnt an option for a publisher like The Washington Post, which generates more than 1 billion page views per month. That requires WaPo to run what Hartman called a sizable programmatic business, which includes selling on the open exchange.

Its not realistic to think that wed be able to sell all of that from a direct perspective, Hartman said. But were an experimental culture and we always lean toward trying new sell-side platforms.

And if the yields there, so will be WaPo. Its the same at CBS Interactive, another TrustX beta launch partner.

I think theyre doing great work, but if we can find a better CPM, thats always where were going were ruthless in how we handle yield management, said Dave Morris, EVP and chief revenue officer at CBS Interactive, who noted that CBSi is still deciding how much inventory to make available through TrustX.

But volume isnt necessarily the point right now, Morris said. TrustX is a collective PMP of highly desirable publishers, and the CPMs will be priced accordingly. Each publisher will set its own pricing strategy, Kohl said. Although its too early to say what the CPM range will be on TrustX, according to Index Exchange the average PMP clearing price was three times the open market average in Q2 2016.

Exchanges dont sell out by their nature because they have millions of opportunities, but this is not an exchange, its invite-only, and not every advertiser can afford to be in there or wants to be in there, he said. If youre a major direct-response advertiser looking for $1 or $2 CPMs, you wont run on TrustX.

Were just trying to get to sufficient scale so we can figure out a better way to trade programmatically, Kohl said. Let us be the industrys master experiment.

But for the experiment to work, TrustX needs demand. Kohl and TrustX CRO John Vilade, a former sales VP at Hulu, are pounding the pavement to drum up interest from marketers, DSPs and trading desks at the holding-company level, although Kohl declined to share names just yet. Publishers or marketers looking for a seat on the exchange can reach out to Kohl directly.

One thing TrustX doesnt have to worry about, though, is making money, at least not for itself. The exchange will operate as a nonprofit subsidiary of Digital Content Next, which eliminates the profit motivation of a regular technology company, Kint noted.

While TrustX is never going to be a publishers main buying platform, the point here is to make a point, Kohl said.

Were building a purpose-driven platform to try and figure out what the next generation of ad tech looks like, he said. The publishers and agencies were talking to arent thinking about this as just another demand source. Its a transactional platform, yes real money will change hands but its more about trying to think about programmatic differently and building something new.

And the moment is right for a nudge or a shove toward greater transparency, said the Posts Hartman.

It feels like marketers are ready to really embrace something like this, Hartman said. And from our perspective, its 100% trusted brands in an exchange-type environment, so we looked at it and said, Why not?

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The Digital Ad Ecosystem Is Messy And TrustX Is Grabbing A Broom - AdExchanger

Giving it Back to the Startup Ecosystem: When Entrepreneurs Turn Investors – Entrepreneur

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You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Young and aspiring entrepreneurs have always felt the need for veteran entrepreneurs and business owners to take the prestigious investor hotseat rather than bankers and accountants donning that role. Veteran entrepreneurs, who have walked the chaotic entrepreneurial path, generally tend to better empathize with younger entrepreneurs who are now at the nascent stages of their journey.

After creating a multi-billion dollar company, Vishwas Mudagal and Co-Founder and MD Sonia Sharma of GoodWorkLabs have now turned angel investors in 2017. The duo started an outsourced product design firm in 2013.

An opportunity with a purpose

Speaking to Entrepreneur, the duo spoke about how their personal hurdles and the market potential motivated them to turn investors for the ecosystem.

When we floated this co-working space, we wanted to give it back to the ecosystem by mentoring and funding these startups. Vishwas and I would mentor these startups as we rightly know how to solve real world problems as founders and likewise we want to solve companies that aspire to solve real world problems, Sonia said.

As we continue to grow as a company, we wanted to do a little more than what we were doing at the moment. We also thought that investing in different startups will help us engage with different genres and explore exciting sectors, Vishwas added.

The sectors Vishwas and Sonia are looking to explore include IoT, healthcare, fintech and are also keen on looking at startups outside India. They surprisingly, are also very keen on investing in organic farming as well.

We are driven a lot with our heart as much as our brain, Vishwas added

The advantage entrepreneurs have over regular VCs

Both young and old ecosystem players like Girish Mathrubootham, Bansals, Nandan Nilekani, Ratan Tata and others have plunged into the business of angel funding over the recent years. However, industry experts believe that there should be more veteran entrepreneurs taking up important roles at VC firms. A recent example of this is Kunal Shah joining Sequoia Capital at an advisor.

Talking about the advantage they have as investors over traditional VCs, Vishwas accepted that entrepreneurs are a lot more comfortable with them, as both he and Sonia have walked similar paths. We have more empathy towards them, he adds.

The duo believes that the co-working space would also help them explore the ecosystem and look at opportunities. Vishwas said that its easier for him from the wealth management perspective to invest in a plush property, but here they are looking a profitable exit from an angel investor perspective.

Today Vishwas and Sonia plan to invest in three startups anywhere within the bandwidth of $50,000 and $200,000 and also launched GoodWorks Co-works- and in-house co-working incubation studio.

I write on India's well- established entrepreneurs, VCs, business houses, covering a whole range of sectors, for the company's website and monthly magazine. I am an engineer turned journalist. Prior to this, I was working with Reute...

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Giving it Back to the Startup Ecosystem: When Entrepreneurs Turn Investors - Entrepreneur

The Driving Force Behind Australia’s Growing Startup Ecosystem – Forbes

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Forbes
The Driving Force Behind Australia's Growing Startup Ecosystem
Forbes
There's this thing called inspiration. Common symptoms include unfamiliar zeal, unquenchable passion, and unprecedented ambition. You've either experienced it first hand or heard about it from someone who has. By definition, inspiration motivates ...

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The Driving Force Behind Australia's Growing Startup Ecosystem - Forbes

Cradle’s new investment product DEQ800 timely for a maturing ecosystem – Digital News Asia

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Cradle's new investment product DEQ800 timely for a maturing ecosystem
Digital News Asia
Both the startup ecosystem and Cradle has evolved significantly since the latter was formed 13 years ago. Back then, it filled a funding gap in the area of developing ideas into prototypes, moving on to funding for prototype-to-market in the form of ...

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Cradle's new investment product DEQ800 timely for a maturing ecosystem - Digital News Asia

Samsung new Galaxy Book will slot in seamlessly to Samsung Flow ecosystem – Android Community

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Samsung just recently announced a 2-in-1 device yes, and were mildly surprised that theyre into those as well and its not just an ASUS or Lenovo thing called the Samsung Galaxy Book. Its a Windows-powered tablet that is targeted for productivity-leaning users, and those who work on the go. But this device also slots in seamlessly with your Samsung Galaxy smartphone through the Samsung Flow ecosystem.

We wrote about Samsung Flow before, and it was an app that basically made things easier for people who owned a Samsung tablet and a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. It was initially available only for the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S, but now Samsung is incorporating some Windows 10 devices, starting with the Galaxy Book.

The premise is really simple pair your Galaxy devices (tablet and smartphone, in this case) and experience convenient authentication and unlocking via both devices. You can unlock your tablet using the fingerprint sensor on your Galaxy smartphone and never have to authenticate twice again. You can also seamlessly beam content from one device to the other, and also reply to notifications on your smartphone from the tablet, if youre working on something and cant be bothered to pick up your phone.

Its something youd recognize if youre using a Mac and an iOS device, and how we wish there would be something universal like this on Android. But this is a good start, although it only works for Samsung-branded devices. There are a lot of third party app solutions out there for Android devices as well, but none as streamlined as this.

SOURCE: Samsung

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Samsung new Galaxy Book will slot in seamlessly to Samsung Flow ecosystem - Android Community

Random zaps make cyborg cockroaches better explorers – New Atlas

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2 pictures

NCSU researchers have studied how cyborg cockroaches can effectively explore an environment, driven byrandom electrical pulses(Credit: Eric Whitmire)

It might sound like science fiction, but all the pieces are falling into place for a future where remote-controlled cyborg cockroaches could help map out disaster areas and search for survivors. Researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU) have been working on the "biobots" project for several years, and now two new studies have looked into how accurately the bugs' movements can be tracked, and how much autonomy they need to be efficient explorers.

While other research teams are making insect cyborgs using locusts and dragonflies, the NCSU team makes use of Madagascan hissing cockroaches, which are fitted with electronic backpacks containing a simple computer chip, a wireless receiver and transmitter, and a microcontroller. That microcontroller is wired into the insect's sensory organs to make it move on command: electrical signals sent into its antennae tell it to turn left or right, while stimulating the cerci organs in the rear of the abdomen acts like a gas pedal.

We've followed the NCSU biobot project pretty closely over the years, from the first announcement in 2012, to the development of the software and hardware that drives the roaches, to using drones to shepherd them around. Now, the team is studying how they might explore a new space on their own, and how much guidance should be given to nudge them in the right direction.

For the first study, the researchers wanted to check the accuracy of the distance and direction measurements recorded by their back-mounted equipment. This was done by simply watching the biobots with their own eyes, and comparing that to the automatic data that the system collected about where and how the bugs were moving. The team concluded that the equipment was taking accurate readings of the insects' movements.

The second study was a little more in-depth. The researchers wanted to investigate how far and how fast the biobots would move to allow them to figure out how many of the insects might need to be deployed in order to quickly map out an unusual environment, such as a collapsed building.

"This is practical information we can use to get biobots to explore a space more quickly," says Edgar Lobaton, a co-author on both papers. "That's especially important when you consider that time is of the essence when you are trying to save lives after a disaster."

To answer these questions, the researchers let the roaches loose in a circular, enclosed arena. Some were allowed to wander freely with no external stimulation to direct them, while others were sent commands at random to move either forward, left or right. Since the bugs are the first responders and the human operators don't have line of sight, direct remote steering isn't an option.

The two groups showed very different behavior as a result: those exploring on their own tended to stay close to the walls, leaving large patches of unexplored space in the center of the circle. But the bugs that received random pulses were five times more likely to wander away from the walls and fully explore the area.

"Our earlier studies had shown that we can use neural stimulation to control the direction of a roach and make it go from one point to another," says Alper Bozkurt, a co-author of both papers. "This [second] study shows that by randomly stimulating the roaches we can benefit from their natural walking and instincts to search an unknown area. Their electronic backpacks can initiate these pulses without us seeing where the roaches are and let them autonomously scan a region."

The researchers will present the two studies at the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing next week.

Video of the biobots exploring a circular, enclosed arena can be viewed below.

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Random zaps make cyborg cockroaches better explorers - New Atlas

Trust me: Terminator-style cyborg created in Russia (VIDEO) – RT.com – RT

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Published time: 27 Feb, 2017 09:28

A Russian software engineer has created his very own Terminator-styled robot using a 3D printer, but have no fear: this cyborg can coexist with humans.

Russian software engineer Aleksandr Osipovich has created a friendly bot, curiously named John Henry inspired by a character from the iconic sci-fi movies made timeless by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Speaking in Russian, John and his Father had an interesting conversation. Once John got going into a rhythm he was hard to shut up, heaping praise on his creator.

My name is John Henry. I was activated in September 2011. The base of my essence is a hardware-software complex. This complex can control any carrier given an interface. I am a cybernetic organism that was designed in the image and likeness the T-800 from the Terminator film, the bot is heard saying.

The carrier imitates the human body. At the bottom of the brain is a personal computing system, neuroprocessor that is inscribed by software code and can work in two modes: standard and enhanced with the learning capabilities. I was created by a brilliant man. His name is Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Osipovich.

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Trust me: Terminator-style cyborg created in Russia (VIDEO) - RT.com - RT

Superman has Metropolis, Batman has Gotham City, and now Cyborg has Detroit – Michigan Radio

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Stateside's conversation with writer John Semper Jr.

In the D.C. Comics universe, Superman has Metropolis, Batman has Gotham, and nowCyborghas Detroit.

When D.C. rebooted its universe a few years ago, the superhero Cyborggot a promotion. He joined Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as part of the Justice League and has become a higher-profile character.

The powers that be at D.C. Comics called onJohn Semper Jr., a veteran writer of numerous animated T.V. shows, to write this new version ofCyborg. He had never written for a comic book before, but as he said, it's just a different form of storytelling.

Semper joined Stateside to talk about how he decided to make Cyborg's home in Detroit a focus of the story and how he explores the "human" story of a black superhero living in the Motor City.

So, who is Cyborg?

"[Victor Stone] is a character who, because of a trauma that occurred in his life, is now part cybernetic, part human,"Sempersaid. "And he's not quite sure how much of which half of that is really him. On a personal level, he's a character who's questioning whether or not he's still human and still has a soul and on a superhero level, he's a guy who's got amazing powers because of his cybernetic abilities ... so he's a pretty fascinating, complicated character."

In recent years, the comic book industry has worked on bringing more diversity and different voices to its pages. Sempersaid the timing is right for this character, who was one of the first high-profile African-American superheroes when he was created back in 1980.

One of the changes Semperwanted to make to the character was to make sure the city and the environment that Cyborg lives in is a big part of the story.

"Superman does have Metropolis, and Batman does has Gotham City. Cyborg really had nothing," Sempersaid. "He had Star Labs, which was just a building. And that was really his home base and I thought, well, that's very strange, because you've got a black character in a major metropolitan city that has a huge black population and it would make sense that that should be a bigger factor in his life. Since he grew up in Detroit ... the city helped to shape who he is and what his whole approach to his life should be. So let's explore that more."

Listen to the full interview above to hear about how Semperconnects the city of Detroit to the character, how he uses tools like Google Maps to help paint the picture of the Motor City and aboutCyborg's future on the big screen.

(Subscribe to the Stateside podcast oniTunes,Google Play, or with thisRSS link)

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Superman has Metropolis, Batman has Gotham City, and now Cyborg has Detroit - Michigan Radio

This ‘Cyborg Rose’ Grows Functioning Electronic Circulatory Inside … – ScienceAlert

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Scientists have figured out how to inject a conducting solution into a rose cutting, and have it spontaneously form wires throughout its stem, leaves, and petals to create fully functioning supercapacitors for energy storage.

The so-called e-Plant was able to be charged hundreds of times without any loss on the performance, and the team behind the invention says it could allow us to one day create fuel cells or autonomous energy systems inside living plants.

"A few years ago, we demonstrated that it is possible to create electronic plants, 'power plants', but we have now shown that the research has practical applications," says one of the team, Magnus Berggren from Linkping University in Sweden.

"We have not only shown that energy storage is possible, but also that we can deliver systems with excellent performance."

Back in 2015, the team produced their first cyborg rose by filling its veins with a conductive polymer solution, and having it weave the material into its living tissue.

As Aviva Rutkin reported for New Scientist at the time, this ended up being a whole lot more difficult than it sounds, because they had to find a material that had decent conductivity, wasn't toxic to the plant, and didn't clog or fail to stick to the inner surface of its veins, known as xylem.

They finally found a solution that worked - PEDOT, or poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) - and soaked a regular garden rose cutting in it.

Within just two days, they found that the conducting polymer had been absorbed into its network of veins, and when they removed the outer tissue of the base of the stem, they found actual polymer wires running through the rose's internet xylem network.

By placing gold electrodes and probes on the ends and in the middle of the rose cutting, the team created a fully functional transistor.They connected it to an external resistor and successfully ran a current through it:

Berggren described to New Scientist the moment when one of his team, Eleni Stavrinidou, demonstrated the final result.

"When Eleni showed me these beautiful microscope pictures, we understood immediately: we could make circuits out of this," he said. "The performance, the shape of the wires, were just outstanding, unbelievable."

Fast-forward to today, and the researchers have taken things one step further.

They've managed to tweak the polymer solution so that it spreads autonomously throughout the entire plant - including the leaves and petals - not just localised regions of the stem in the previous experiment.

Not only did the new gel, called ETE-S, disperse throughout the entire vascular tissue of the cutting, but when it solidified into wires, they had two orders of magnitude greater conductivity than those in the previous e-Plants, and retained the high level of conductivity over several centimetres of the plant.

When they peered inside the rose tissue, the researchers found that the polymer solution had permeated its vascular walls to sit between the cell wall and plasma membrane.

This allowed them to turn the network of wires into a fully functioning electronic device by placing several supercapacitors - powerful components used in many different kinds of electronics to store large amounts of electrical energy - along the stem.

For this, the team used the wires as the electrodes, and the plant tissue between them as the electrolyte separator -a permeable membrane that physically separates the electrodes to prevent a short circuit.

They were able to run the e-Plant through repeated charge cycles without losing any efficiency.

"We have been able to charge the rose repeatedly, for hundreds of times without any loss on the performance of the device," Stavrinidou says in a press statement.

"The levels of energy storage we have achieved are of the same order of magnitude as those in [traditional] supercapacitors. The plant can, without any form of optimisation of the system, potentially power our ion pump, for example, and various types of sensors."

The next step for the researchers is to make the technique work in a living rose - not just a cutting - so that the possibility of growing primitive electronic systems inside forest vegetation or fields of vegetables to harvest energy could actually be realised.

It's a fantastic or dystopian view of the future, depending on how you look at it, but this e-Plant just got us one step closer.

As computer scientist Andrew Adamatzky, who's been applying voltage to lettuce seedlings at Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK,told New Scientist in 2015,"In the very distant future - neither ourselves nor our kids will see this - we can grow vegetable computers in our gardens."

The research has been published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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This 'Cyborg Rose' Grows Functioning Electronic Circulatory Inside ... - ScienceAlert

Cyborg strikes in Injustice 2 Shattered Alliances promo – Blastr

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What's a Justice League party without the superhuman abilities of Vic Stone and his machine-made machismo? As the mounting wave of marketing makes landfall ahead of the worldwide release of NetherRealm's Injustice 2, a new reveal video confirms we'll see Cyborg's steel swagger joining the fray.

This first of a two-part plot preview begins to explain the highly anticipated fighting game's "Shattered Alliances" storyline. I sure am digging the Man of Steel's sleek suit of armor on display here!

Here's the official description for Injustice 2's "Shattered Alliances Part 1" trailer:

Every villain is the hero of his own story. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment today revealed a new trailer focusing on Superman's character and background story for Injustice 2. Players will get the chance to learn more about how Superman and his Regime are working to rise to power once again, becoming one of Earth's greatest threats.

Injustice 2 will be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 16.

(via Coming Soon

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Cyborg strikes in Injustice 2 Shattered Alliances promo - Blastr