Researchers use clones to make clones thanks to breakthrough technique

via theverge.com

A technique that makes cloning five times more successful than previous efforts has been developed by biologists in Japan at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology. According to LiveScience, the researchers built off of the same technique that was used to create Dolly the sheep, who in 1996 was the first cloned mammal. However the method used to create Dolly has a low success rate, and cloning an animal based off of another clone often fails. But this new technique begins cell growth in a solution that prohibits enzymes that alter DNA, thus preventing genetic abnormalities that might occur and make experiments fail.

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45 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

via mashable.com

This week has been one for the books. From the unveiling of Facebook's completely redesigned newsfeed to Paul Rand's 12-hour filibuster, it would be almost impossible to stay caught up with all of this week's news.

On top of that, the South by Southwest conference in Austin got underway on Friday. If you're interested in staying current with the trending topics, you can check out the Mashable SXSW Trendspotter powered by Topsy.

For the rest of your news, we at Mashable have got you covered in the tech and social media spaces with the details on some new apps and much more. There's no need to brave that cold snap outside, so sit back, relax and get caught up.

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Microsoft Research brings mid-air multitouch to Kinect (video)

via engadget.com

Shortly after the Kinect SDK first launched, it spawned a number of inspired efforts from researchers to make it do more than just track your body. Microsoft Research finally seems to be catching up to its own tech, as it just flaunted a recent project that allows fine-tuned gesture control, thanks to a newly developed talent for the motion sensing device to read whether your hand is open or closed. That let the team simulate multitouch-like capability on a PC as they air-painted basic images and manipulated Bing maps by varying their hand states.

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Using Twitter for Freelance Business Research

via freelanceswitch.com

Twitter is a is a treasure trove of knowledge with jewels spilling out at the seams. Even universities and colleges are getting in on the act.

The only problem is, mixed amid the genuine pearls are plenty of fakes. On top of that, one person’s rock is another’s diamond. What’s useful to me may be useless for you.

As a freelancer, you can use Twitter to discover the needs of potential clients, spark up new ideas for a dusty old project, see what others are saying about you and your work, and train yourself in new skills. (You can also use it to find clients and job opportunities. I explain how here).

But unless you know where to find what’s relevant to you, Twitter can seem like a big waste of time.

In this article, I show you how to use Twitter as a powerful research tool to give you the edge you need as a freelancer.

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Researchers use facial muscle tracking to predict how addictive games will be

via extremetech.com

Video games, like most other creative endeavors, require a large investment in time and money. To increase the odds of recouping costs and making a profit, game developers often use focus groups to see if the game is going in the right direction. Traditionally, that involves watching uninitiated people play the game with limited contextual information. Then, a series of questions are asked to gauge what the players liked and disliked. Now, Taiwanese researchers at the Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University are using electromyography (EMG) to track small muscle movements in the faces of the focus group members. From there, they can estimate how much fun, and how addictive, the gameplay is.

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What RIM Needs to Prove with BlackBerry 10

via gizmodo.com

RIM's day of reckoning is almost here. Tomorrow, the once-mighty Canadian company will officially unveil its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, along with new hardware. It's a chance at rebirth, reinvention, and getting out from under its walking corpse reputation. But for that to happen, RIM needs to prove it's back on the right track.

Here are a few of the things we'll be looking for. If they all fall into place, we might just have a comeback on our hands. If not? Lights out.

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RIM: A brief history from Budgie to BlackBerry 10

via engadget.com

Listen to much of the chatter about Research in Motion today and you'll hear the launch of BlackBerry 10 described in almost apocalyptic terms. All-or-nothing. Live-or-die. Make-or-break. There's some truth to the extreme language, but BlackBerry 10 is really just the latest in a series of transformational moments for a company that has frequently had to adapt to survive. In that sense, the appreciation for crises and opportunities is almost as natural as breathing for RIM. What's less certain is whether or not the company in 2013 is as capable of wholesale shifts in strategy as it was for much of its not quite 30-year history. Read on to see why reform is possible, but won't be quite so easy.

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RIM prepping Super Bowl ad to introduce BlackBerry 10 to the world

via engadget.com

Get yo' popcorn ready. When your company is announcing the latest and greatest mobile OS, why not seize the opportunity to scrape up a few million bucks to make sure the entire world gets a proper introduction? Research in Motion will be forking out for a Super Bowl spot (which averages $3.8 million this year), as part of an effort to get the word out about BlackBerry 10. Let's just hope it's not shown the exact moment 40 million people head to the fridge. A little presser can be found past the break.

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RIM's mobile payment solution gets thumbs up from Visa

via engadget.com

The final pieces of the puzzle are falling into place just ahead of the big reveal on January 30th. The carriers are on board, there's apps galore and now Visa has approved RIM's Secure Element Manager (SEM) for its mobile payment system. Being given the green light means that BlackBerry wont have to worry about being upstaged by the flood of Android devices coming down the pipeline with NFC payment solutions embedded in them. It's also a major boost to the SEM platform developed by the Canadian firm which has already won the backing of many carriers in its homeland, like Bell, Rogers and TELUS, but has struggled to gain a foothold in the US. For more, check out the PR after the break.

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RIM Is Tanking

via businessinsider.com

Research In Motion has been down as much as 17.9% this morning.
The stock recovered slightly, and now it's down 13% after last night's earnings report.

This is the biggest one-day drop since June 29. Which, it just so happens, was the day after it reported earnings and announced 5,000 jobs would be cut.

Last night's earnings report safely beat expectations on the top and bottom line.

But on the earnings call, CEO Thorsten Heins put a scare in the market by saying the company's services revenue could be at risk.

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BlackBerry 10 Gets Demo'd in New York

via www.gadgetell.com">technologytell.com

Last week at New York Times DealBook: Opportunities for Tomorrow Conference, BlackBerry provided an exclusive preview of their new BlackBerry 10 smart device. Frank Boulben, CMO for BlackBerry and Vivek Bhardwaj, Head of Software portfolio were present for a hands-on demo, presented to some of the industry’s financial and economic key players.

The demonstration focused on some of the newest and coolest features coming to BlackBerry. Spotlighting on the new BlackBerry Hub feature, an all-in-one app for all interactions made from your phone — text or picture messages, e-mails, BBM, phone calls and social network alerts. This is against the norm, where each outlet has its own dedicated app.

Also, the new BlackBerry keyboard version drew a lot of buzz, despite the device being full-touch. “It goes to show the effort we’ve taken to make sure the keyboard on BlackBerry 10 feels like a BlackBerry keyboard,” said Bhardwaj.

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BlackBerry 10: What We Know, What to Expect

via allthingsd.com

I gave up on my BlackBerry Bold a long time ago. As much as I loved the BlackBerry keyboard, dealing with software and hardware that felt five years behind the curve had me practically running to the iPhone, Android — even Windows Phone. I haven’t looked back since, but I’ll admit, BlackBerry 10 has me a bit curious.

Research In Motion is set to officially launch its latest mobile operating system on Jan. 30 in New York. Using the tagline, “Re-designed. Re-engineered. Re-invented,” BlackBerry 10 represents a major overhaul of RIM’s software — a much needed one for a company that’s losing customers to iOS and Android.

RIM previewed some of the new features of BlackBerry 10 at its BlackBerry Jam conference, so here’s what we know thus far...

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RIM will unveil BlackBerry 10 on January 30th in New York

via engadget.com

Just a few weeks until CES, and just under a month and half until we see BlackBerry 10 in its final, finished form. Invites to the US event have now been sent out, with calendars being circled for January 30th at a location in New York. Not only will we get the full details of RIM's new software, but those first devices that the new OS will arrive on. We'll be on hand ready to see exactly how the phone-maker plans to reverse its fortunes at the end of January.

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7 Pricing Strategies Based on Research Studies

via sixrevisions.com

For any freelancer, how much to charge clients is one of the hardest things to get right. If you set the price for your services too low, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table and get stuck working with clients that don’t see the true value of your work.

When it comes to pricing, most of us are either guessing or copying what others are doing.

Luckily, we can rely on some research studies to help us price our services better by applying the psychological principles derived from the studies that we’ll discuss below.

Here are seven pricing tips based on research studies.

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The future of RIM and its global business

via theglobeandmail.com

Globe technology reporter Iain Marlow and Kevin Restivo, a mobile devices analyst with global market research firm IDC, will take your questions in a live chat on the future of Research In Motion Ltd. and its increasingly global business. Join them Monday Nov. 12 at noon ET or post a comment to leave a question in advance.

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Digital Stress on Your Brain [Infographic]

via inspirationfeed.com

Stop reading this and check how many tabs are currently open, I’ll wait….. Are you multitasking? As technology becomes more and more part of out lives, most people are learning to do several things at once. Unfortunately, all of our “multitasking” may have some serious consequences. Enjoy!

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Researchers Are Trying to Hack Your Brain

via gizmodo.com

The thought of someone being able to read your mind is frightening. And according to some new research presented at the 21st USENIX Security Symposium, brain hacking might be more realistic than we would assume.

The research has nothing to do with psychics or supernatural stuff, but rather focuses its gaze on inexpensive products that you can buy now—like Emotiv's EPOC headset. Using a headset that lets you control your computer with your brainwaves, a hacker could hypothetically create a sort of "brain spyware" app that would trick you into revealing personal information.

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Technology Has Made The World Fat

via techcrunch.com

The world has paid for the luxury of Angry Birds with its health and looks: a new report finds a strong link between technological advancement and expanding waistlines. According to economic think tank, The Milken Institute, a country the size of America will add 4.2 million Spanx-wearing citizens for a 10% growth in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). “The main culprit is the knowledge-based society,” states the report, “more processed foods, a greater amount of ‘screen’ time (watching TV, using computers, playing video games, etc.), decreased energy expenditure, and/or higher consumption of snack foods have all played a role.”

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Understanding Your Customers Through Research

via openforum.com

Most business leaders know the value of customer input and feedback. But if some recent developments are any indication, the right way to get that customer insight is less well understood and practiced.

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Growth Strategies: How Keyword Research Can Help You Grow Your Business

via inc.com

In its latest analysis of U.S. adult user behavior, the Pew Research Center found that search, along with email, is "still top of the list of most popular online activities," with 92% of all users using search engines to find information and 60% doing so daily. In June 2012, there were 173 billion searches conducted worldwide, not counting those performed on mobile devices, according to ComScore.

With so much searching going on, you can imagine how much information there is to data mine. Take advantage of the relatively inexpensive but powerful insights and actionable information you can glean from keyword search analysis and implement it immediately. While social media may capture headlines, search is still the workhorse.

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