For far too long, American health care has been out of reach for many. It certainly doesn’t help that the technology is dangerously out of date.

Most people know the government has been involved in addressing healthcare inequality: Obamacare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) works to fix that inequality by requiring insurance companies to play by a new set of rules to open access to healthcare — leading to over 10 million newly insured Americans.

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It’s been over 30 years since Chuck Hull invented the first 3D printer in 1983. Ever since then, the idea of machine-printing objects from scratch has gone from fiction to reality, opening up new opportunities for every field from science to art.

3D printing may not be quite there yet, but in three decades the technology has progressed leaps and bounds in terms of the scope and utility of 3D-printed objects. Surprise, surprise: It's not just gimmicks and toys.

There is an increasing recognition – at least outside the academy, planning organization and urban core developer groups – that the spatial expansion of cities or suburbanization represents the evolving urban form of not only the United States and virtually all of the high income world but also across the developing world, whether middle income or third world.

In recent years, Mexico has made substantial economic progress. Per capita income (purchasing power parity) in Mexico exceeds that of all the "BRIC" nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) except resource-rich Russia.

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Healthcare is in a crazy state of flux right now. Collaboration is still a foreign concept to those working in and around the establishment of hospitals, government, insurance and adjacent industries. Collaboration, however, is a keystone in building highly coherent innovation ecosystems.

As you probably know, health policies directly impact social conditions, both in the US and globally. Ineffective health policies can lead to poor health, which then leads to poor social conditions and ultimately worsening health for the population at large. This cyclical relationship can be seen all over the world.

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They've helped coaches perform CPR on breathless athletes. They remind pharmacists in sub-Saharan Africa to order more retroviral drugs for HIV patients, and their pocket-sized storage capacity dwarfs bulky filing cabinets. Smart phones have revolutionized the way we live and their capabilities appear restricted only by the limits of our imaginations.

Technology has changed the way Nebraskans and Mainers stay in touch, do business, and feed the world. The best ideas have always come from a couple of guys working out of a garage, or a young woman with a breakout business model. That's the genius of America.

Tom Perkins, the legendary venture capitalist who provoked a firestorm by comparing the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to the way rich people are treated in the United States, on Thursday offered a provocative idea about how to “change the world.” During an interview with a Fortune magazine jornalist, Perkins said that only U.S. taxpayers should be able to vote in elections.

But that’s not all. Perkins went on to say that wealthy people should get more votes than others because they pay more in taxes. The comments by Perkins, who made his fortune as one of the founders of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, provoked laughter at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, where he was being interviewed by Adam Lashinsky of Fortune. Perkins would later say that his comments were meant to be “provocative,” according to Reuters, and at least one reporter at the event said the 82-year-old later claimed he wasn’t being serious.

Image: Robert Galbraith / REUTERS - Venture capitalist Tom Perkins is interviewed in his office in San Francisco, California September 12, 2011. Perkins is a co-founder of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and the backer of companies ranging from Genentech to Google. Read more: Wealthy Venture Capitalist Tom Perkins: Rich Should Get More Votes | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2014/02/14/tom-perkins-taxes/#ixzz2tW61w8bU 

Gerard P. Norton was quoted in the Technology Transfer Tactics article "Working with 'Patent Trolls' Could Bring Income, but at What Cost?" While the full text can be found in the January 2014, issue of Technology Transfer Tactics, a synopsis is noted below.

While there is no hard consensus about whether monetizing patents through patent assertion entities (PAEs) is a good move for universities, those involved say the decision should be made carefully and with an eye toward unintended consequences that could negate any financial gain.

If you are one of the many people still searching for that job lost during or after the recent depression, or about to dump the loser of a job you have now, you should be working on starting your own business, in parallel with looking for that ideal job. Let me explain why this is a win-win deal, no matter what the outcome.

You have probably secretly always wanted to run your own show, but with an existing job, never took the time to consider a startup. Then there was always the risk of failure, which of course doesn’t apply once your real job is gone. Also, for most of us, not having done it before, we have no idea where or how to start.

Where’s the nation’s second largest concentration of academic, federal and private sector research spending? California? Massachusetts? According to the National Science Foundation, it’s Maryland, equating to billions of dollars in research investment in the Maryland economy. First place New Mexico has a relatively small rural population and presence of two major federal nuclear research labs.

Is digital technology destroying middle-class jobs? Does it exacerbate income inequality? Does it boost economic growth and productivity — without creating the jobs that ought to come with economic growth?

Last month I gave space to a book titled “Who Owns the Future?” by the computer scientist Jaron Lanier. His answer was an unequivocal yes. He tellingly compared the great photography company of the analog age, Kodak, with the hot photography company of the moment, Instagram. At its peak, Kodak employed 140,000 people; Instagram had only 13 employees when it was bought by Facebook (for $1 billion!) in 2012.

Innovators do not view their endeavors as a means to stock options, a promotion or retirement package. It is the vision, the big lightbulb, as well as a sense of integrity and self-respect, that entrepreneurs strive for each day.

While it should be obvious that human talent is the most important ingredient for true innovation, many organizations struggle with and cannot seem to shake a business outlook that views people as interchangeable parts or as mere job descriptions. As organizations dance around and debate the issue of how employees should be esteemed and treated, few innovative souls will suffer waiting for someone to appreciate their value. There are too many great opportunities out there. Besides, innovators do not necessarily want or need what organizations have to offer, and we can make ourselves available where we feel most capable of doing our best and most inspired work.

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angelMD, a private equity firm plus equity crowdfunding platform, has recently added to staff having announced the addition of 3 leading clinicians to its senior management team.

Based in San Francisco, California and Seattle, Washington, angelMD is a firm leveraging a crowdfunding platform that connects physician investors with innovative medical startups seeking capital investments, advisors, and users.

When Exogen Biotechnology needed to raise money, the startup turned not to venture capitalists but to crowdfunding site Indiegogo. In just 10 days this year, nearly 300 donors from all over the world chipped in $50,000.

"The advantage of doing it the way we have done it is we have better control of the whole process and the company right now," said Sylvain Costes, who co-founded Exogen with Jon Tang.

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Each January millions of people around the world make resolutions to help them live a better life throughout the year. Common resolutions include goals to improve health and wellness, financial status and even reconciling relationships. As a small business owner or nonprofit leader, it is likely that your New Year’s resolutions are not just for your personal well-being, but for the betterment of your organization. As recommended by Forbes Magazine this year, whether your company’s New Year’s resolution is to follow a content marketing plan, utilize apps that make life easier, improve customer appreciation, or to integrate Cloud technology to your infrastructure, here are our tips for achieving your goals this year.

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1. STATS For turning jocks into nerds. This data company's SportVU cameras track and quantify everything during a game and have quickly gone from a geeky extra to a necessity: As of this season, every NBA arena uses the $100,000-a-year system--up from half last year--allowing teams like the Toronto Raptors, for example, to rewatch games with "ghost" versions of themselves that know exactly how to react based on an opponent's stats. "It's not just about getting all 30 teams but exposing game data on NBA.com and NBA TV," says Brian Kopp, an SVP at STATS. That only creates more demand. Soccer's UEFA Champions League uses it, and Duke basketball became the first college adopter in October. Next up: ice hockey

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Venture investor Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz doesn’t have many media investments, apart from small stakes in sites like Pando Daily, Talking Points Memo and RapGenius — but that hasn’t stopped him from holding forth on Twitter about his views on the industry, a process that includes an often passionate back-and-forth with critics of his views. In the latest instalment of this manifesto, Andreessen looked at what he believes is holding the existing media industry back.

MIT researchers evaluate graphene’s potential for making desalination economically viable.

The challenge of dwindling fresh-water supplies looms ever larger as droughts become more common and population increases. To combat this challenge, MIT researchers evaluate the potential for cheaper, smaller, and faster desalination plants in a new study.

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A few years back, I was waiting for the light to change at 51st Street and Fifth Avenue in NYC.  As I stood there, an elderly south Asian man came up next to me with a cart loaded with breakfast food that he was delivering to a meeting. When the light changed we both moved forward.  As he pushed the cart, he did not see a small gap at the edge of the sidewalk. His cart wheels got stuck. He continued to push, the cart toppled over, and the food (still in its wrappers) spread all over the road.

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The prospect of an international assignment can be equal parts thrilling and alarming: Will it make or break your career? What will it do to your life at home and the people you love? When you’re thinking about relocating, you start viewing questions of work and family — difficult enough under ordinary circumstances — through a kind of high-contrast, maximum-drama filter.

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It comes as no surprise that entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch. Research has confirmed as much, suggesting that entrepreneurs suffer from an “optimism bias,” one that is linked to both advantages and disadvantages. Optimism can help entrepreneurs persist in the face of a challenge, but it can also lead them to take imprudent risks.

But what if entrepreneurial optimism isn’t a bias at all — what if entrepreneurs simply hold more accurate beliefs about the world, and it’s the rest of us who suffer from a pessimism bias? That’s the contention of a recent working paper from Lund University in Sweden, which sought to measure optimism not in the context of entrepreneurs’ own businesses, but of the economy in general.

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