Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Steve Case: 'Third wave' of Internet will help Middle America business Jessica Guynn and Jon Swartz , USA TODAY Published 7:00 a.m. ET June 29, 2017 | Updated 15 hours ago More Silicon Valley engineers and entrepreneurs are headed to America's heartland for their tech startups. Travis McCleery and Nick Solaro, both working in Columbus, Ohio, explain why. USA TODAY SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Case, who helped foment the Internet age as AOL's co-founder, has crisscrossed the country the last few years championing a new revolution: the third wave of the Internet. Just as the technology boom lifted the economies of Silicon Valley, New York and other coastal cities, its latest iteration will benefit the Midwest and other pockets of the U.S. as health care, energy, agriculture, education and other industries become ripe for disruption. Such is the thesis of his 3-year-old initiative, Rise of the Rest. In an interview with USA TODAY, Case discussed the rise of t...

Anarchy on India's Roads Has Driverless Car in a Jam Poor signage, stray cattle among specific local conditions Tata, Mahindra conglomerates among those developing systems By Saritha Rai June 29, 2017, 2:00 PM PDT At a secret testing track outside Bangalore, an arm of the Tata conglomerate is recreating the jumble of Indian roads to develop an autonomous driving system. That means accounting for pedestrians darting through traffic at will, multiple lanes that merge without warning, poor signage and stray cattle lingering on the roadside. India’s push into the driverless race is being driven by conglomerates such as the Tata Group and Mahindra Group along with a slew of startups and engineering schools, which are taking on global giants in an industry that Intel projects will spur $7 trillion of spending by 2050. The country, forecast to soon be the world’s third-largest auto market, is loath to be left behind even as its chaotic roads and regulations create u...

Plan To Install 50,000 Cell Towers In California Faces Opposition June 28, 2017 7:48 PM By Phil Matier WALNUT CREEK (KPIX 5) – Up to 50,000 cell phone towers coming to cities across California. But will you get a say on where they pop up? California cities are now fighting back at a proposed law that is moving quickly through the legislature. They say it would allow phone companies to put up new antennas in your neighborhood, like it or not. State Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) says, “5G wireless has the potential to be a game changer.” But to pave the way for that game change, telecom companies need to put up between 30,000 and 50,000 of cell antennas — including in your town — over the next five years with only limited local say. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said, “Neighborhoods would be seeing something the size of refrigerators going up on street poles and could say nothing to stop it.” Solano County Supervisor Erin Hannigan said, “Could be on a li...

Networks look online to lure young viewers back to TV (DISCA, TWX, CBS, AMZN, NFLX, DIS) By Jessica Toonkel Jun. 29, 2017, 12:52 PM NEW YORK, June 29 (Reuters) - Discovery Communications Inc and Time Warner Inc's Turner are taking the unusual step of streaming full episodes of new shows online or on apps before they air on TV to lure younger viewers in the face of slipping ratings. Premium channels like CBS Corp's Showtime have done this for years to entice new subscribers, but cable networks have not, fearing they might cannibalize TV ratings. But today viewers have many more choices as streaming companies like Amazon.com Inc and Netflix Inc bring a year-round slate of new shows on top of broadcast television. As a result, networks need to do more to promote new shows, according to Dave Morgan, head of advertising technology company Simulmedia. Previously, networks focused all marketing around a show's premier, said Kevin Reilly, chief creative offic...

Vietnam blogger 'Mother Mushroom' jailed for 10 years June 29, 2017 Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh (L), also known as "Mother Mushroom", stands trial at a courthouse in the central city of Nha Trang on June 29 (AFP Photo/STR) A prominent Vietnamese blogger known as 'Mother Mushroom' was jailed for 10 years on Thursday, her lawyer said, during a brief trial rights groups decried as "outrageous". Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, whose pen name derives from her daughter's nickname "mushroom", was arrested in October 2016 and later charged with anti-state propaganda over critical Facebook posts about politics and the environment. Vietnam's one-party state keeps a tight clamp on dissent and routinely jails activists, bloggers and lawyers who speak out against the communist regime. The 37-year-old blogger faced a maximum of 12 years in prison, and her lawyer said the heavy sentence she received at the closed-doo...

Bionic bartenders deployed at Las Vegas Strip bar: But can you bend their ear? By Mick Akers Wednesday, June 28, 2017 | 2 a.m. Two robots walk into a bar. Well, OK, maybe they don’t walk, but they can pour you a perfect drink. Tipsy Robot, a 2,500-square-foot bar to open Friday at the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood, boasts two robotic bartenders ready to make your favorite concoction any way you like. Looking to gain a step on other major nightlife cities in the U.S., owner Rino Armeni decided to open the first permanent robotic bar in Las Vegas. “We have so much talent in this town. However, trends always come from New York,” said Armeni, the chairman of Robotic Innovations who's lived in Las Vegas for almost 30 years. “So my partners and I decided to do something to create a new trend so we can be ahead of time. So, this is a gift from us to the city of Las Vegas.” Customers place their order on one of the dozen tablet stations in the bar or throu...

These pizza-making robots can have a hot pie at your door in 4 minutes By Maura Judkis June 28 at 12:30 PM A great pizza dough flipper probably can’t turn out one perfectly shaped pizza dough every nine seconds, but one California company’s robotic pizza dough press can make a great pie at that whiplash-inducing rate. Silicon Valley start-up Zume Pizza has nearly fully automated the process of making fresh, made-to-order pizza — and it’s streamlined the delivery process, too. If you live in Mountain View, Calif., and you order a pizza, it could be at your door as quickly as four minutes later. While other pizzas — especially the bake-at-home kind you buy at the grocery store — are also made by machine, Zume is noteworthy because it makes fresh, customizable delivery pizza with high-quality ingredients, which it considers to be artisanal even though it is not made by hand. Zume co-founder Julia Collins already has Pepe and Giorgio, two robots, squirting pizza sauce onto the...

Google EU fine sends shockwaves across tech BY HARPER NEIDIG - 06/27/17 09:54 PM EDT  The massive fine that the European Union levied against Google on Tuesday is sending shockwaves across the tech industry, highlighting the intense regulatory scrutiny that companies face when doing business across the Atlantic. The EU’s executive body, the European Commission, imposed a record $2.7 billion penalty on Google after a seven-year investigation into whether the company was promoting its own comparison shopping tool over those of its competitors in search results. “What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” said EU competition policy chief Margrethe Vestager. “It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.” Google is also facing two other EU investigations into similar practices on its mobile and adverti...

NATO says cyber attacks a call to arms June 28, 2017 Brussels (AFP) - NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned the alliance must step up its defence against cyberattacks, saying they could potentially trigger their Article 5 mutual defence commitment. Computer users around the world were scrambling Wednesday to reboot systems after a tidal wave of ransomware cyberattacks spread from Ukraine and Russia across Europe to the United States and then on to Asia. It seemed to be very similar to the WannaCry ransomware which hit more than 200,000 users in more than 150 countries last month. Stoltenberg said the "attack in May and this week just underlines the importance of strengthening our cyber defences and that is what we are doing." "We exercise more, we share best practices and technology and we also work more and more closely with all allies," he told reporters ahead of a NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday at which cyber-security...

Driverless mini police cars to patrol Dubai New self-driving O-R3 uses biometrics to identify persons of police interest as it patrols streets Dubai Police said the new smart vehicle can patrol different areas and monitor any unusual activities as well Image Credit: Dubai Police Published: 17:23 June 27, 2017 Gulf News Ali Al Shouk, Staff Reporter Dubai: Months after Dubai unveiled the first flying taxis in the world, Dubai Police on Tuesday unveiled another believed world’s first — autonomous, self-driving miniature police cars that are expected to hit the streets by year-end. The robotic vehicles will be equipped with biometric software to scan for wanted criminals and undesirables who are suspected or are breaking laws, police said. Patrol vehicle About the size of a child’s electric toy car, the driverless vehicles will patrol different areas of the city to boost security and hunt for unusual activity, all the while scanning crowds for potential per...

Google Fined Record $2.7 Billion in E.U. Antitrust Ruling By MARK SCOTT JUNE 27, 2017 Google suffered a major blow on Tuesday after European antitrust officials fined the search giant a record $2.7 billion for unfairly favoring some of its own services over those of rivals. The penalty, of 2.4 billion euros, highlights the aggressive stance that European officials have taken in regulating many of the world’s largest technology companies, going significantly further than their American counterparts. By levying the fine against Google — more than double the previous largest penalty in this type of antitrust case — Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust chief, also laid claim to being the Western world’s most active regulator of digital services, an industry still dominated by Silicon Valley. “In Europe, companies must compete on the merits regardless if they are European or not,” she said on Tuesday. “What Google has done is illegal under E.U. antitrust r...

Caltech's 'lensless camera' could make our phones truly flat It uses math and optical sensors to simulate the effect of a lens. Richard Lawler, 06.22.17 in Cameras Even as our phones get thinner, there's one spot that keeps sticking out: the camera lens. Taking good pictures and being able to focus at multiple distances requires a layer of glass that's a certain size, but there's really no getting around it -- or is there? Researchers at Caltech have devised (PDF) an "optical phased array" chip that uses math as a substitute for a lens. By adding a time delay -- down to a quadrillionth of a second -- to the light received at different locations on the chip, it can change focus without a lens. According to Professor Ali Hajimiri, it "can switch from a fish-eye to a telephoto lens instantaneously—with just a simple adjustment in the way the array receives light." The principle is similar to the way phased communication arrays can...

In 10 Years, Your iPhone Won’t Be a Phone Anymore Siri will be the conductor of a suite of devices, all tracking your interactions and anticipating your next moves By Christopher Mims June 25, 2017 9:00 a.m. ET It’s 2027, and you’re walking down the street, confident you’ll arrive at your destination even though you don’t know where it is. You may not even remember why your device is telling you to go there. There’s a voice in your ear giving you turn-by-turn directions and, in between, prepping you for this meeting. Oh, right, you’re supposed to be interviewing a dog whisperer for your pet-psychiatry business. You arrive at the coffee shop, look around quizzically, and a woman you don’t recognize approaches. A display only you can see highlights her face and prints her name next to it in crisp block lettering, Terminator-style. Afterward, you’ll get an automatically generated transcript of everything the two of you said. As the iPhone this week marks the 10th anni...

A Better Cheddar Benchmark? A Daily Cheese Auction Is Going Electronic Cheese joins auctions for butter and nonfat dry milk in the new electronic format By Alexander Osipovich and  Benjamin Parkin Updated June 23, 2017 8:43 p.m. ET People wearing colored jackets in Chicago were shouting at each other about cheese for the final time on Friday. A daily 10-minute auction in Chicago that helps set the national price of cheese will go electronic on Monday, after being held in a traditional open-outcry format for decades. CME Group Inc., CME 0.05% the exchange operator that oversees the auction, ran it Friday in its old form for the last time. “We’re all going to miss the yelling and the screaming,” said Dean Kinnas, a dairy options trader at the CME-owned Chicago Board of Trade, or CBOT, exchange. The “spot call” cheese auction is among the smaller and more obscure markets in CME’s empire. Until Friday, it was held in a corner of the CBOT trading floor in do...

X-ray drones can see through walls By Amit Katwala 20 Jun 2017 A pair of drones can use Wi-Fi signals to see through walls. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara were able to create three-dimensional images of the objects behind a brick wall in a series of experiments with the drones. The two flying machines work in tandem. In the demonstration, they fly around a four-sided brick building. One drone transmits a continuous Wi-Fi signal, while the other, on the opposite side of the house, measures its power after it passes through. By circumnavigating the house several times, the drones can generate high-resolution, accurate 3D images of the objects inside. "Our proposed approach has enabled unmanned aerial vehicles to image details through walls in 3D with only Wi-Fi signals," said Yasamin Mostofi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCSB. "This approach utilises only Wi-Fi RSSI [received signal strength indicator] measurements, does n...

Leaked recording: Inside Apple’s global war on leakers Former NSA agents, secrecy members on product teams, and a screening apparatus bigger than the TSA. By William Turton JUN—20—2017 09:00AM EST   A recording of an internal briefing at Apple earlier this month obtained by The Outline sheds new light on how far the most valuable company in the world will go to prevent leaks about new products. The briefing, titled “Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple,” was led by Director of Global Security David Rice, Director of Worldwide Investigations Lee Freedman, and Jenny Hubbert, who works on the Global Security communications and training team. According to the hour-long presentation, Apple’s Global Security team employs an undisclosed number of investigators around the world to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the press, as well as hunt down the source when leaks do occur. Some of these investigators have previously work...