Electronics

After the successful Curiosity landing on Mars, here a great article on energy harvesting designs. In advanced micro-electronics, news on DARPA THz Electronics program are worth mentioning as well as TSMC investment in ASML. In that last article I found the following quote that will resonate with many here:

“The IT industry loves to natter on about the benefits of innovation,
and consumers tend to fixate on whatever shiny new thing comes to
market,” King wrote in a July 11 report. “But getting from the here
and now to that glistening, magical innovative future requires a hell
of a lot of hard, practical work in materials science, design,
manufacturing and production. In essence, successful vendors are a bit
like ballet stars—displaying a level of grace on stage which, when
successful, never hints at the months and years of effort required
to appear effortless.”

While fortylines focuses on front-end chip design, there is also a lot of change coming up in foundries business models as well.

Thoughts

Open source democracy and democratic open source are two articles on the H this week that have potential to start interesting debates.

Business

Cash as oxygen is great analogy between businesses and humans. When there is no more, your business dies. When there is too much cash you run the risk divers call Nitrogen Narcosis, or in plain English, feeling drunk underwater; deadly. In both cases, checking metrics regularly will help you stay healthy. In that respect, a clear post on business metrics can be found on redpoint blog.

Good tips in Secrets of a Master Negotiator.

In the business section this week, there was also an insightful article on acqui-hire and a thought provoking article on job creation.

Start-up outside the social scene

The New York Times article on FarmLogs deserves a special mention this week.