If you have a startup idea kicking around in your head, you don't necessarily need to head for California, New York or Massachusetts to find venture capital. In today's video, Timothy Lord visits a venture capital firm called Detroit Venture Partners. (Yes, it's in Detroit.) This not an intimidating company, even though it has some big bucks and big names (including Magic Johnson) behind it. But this doesn't mean you need to rush to Detroit to fund your million-dollar idea. There are lots of local venture capital companies in the U.S. -- and chances are, wherever you are, there's one near you that's panting to invest in your can't-miss business opportunity.

redletterdave writes "If you were expecting a radically different-looking tablet from the iPad 2, prepare for a minor letdown. In the same way Apple upgraded the iPhone 4 into the iPhone 4S, the exterior of the iPad 3 mirrors that of the iPad 2, despite completely renovated and upgraded innards. iLab Factory reportedly provided Sharp with the necessary parts to build the high-resolution iPad 3 display, and in a company blog post, various iPad 3 components are displayed alongside those of the iPad 2 for quick comparison. In addition to a new camera mount that will reportedly match or improve upon the 8-megapixel camera system in the iPhone 4S, the post also revealed that the iPad 3 will be approximately 1 mm thicker than its predecessor to house Apple's upgraded components, including a bigger battery, an improved camera, and a dual-LED lit system to make the 2048 x 1536 display even brighter."

Knowing that ideas are a dime a dozen and eager to think outside the box, Hungary's central bank is burning old currency to help the needy. The bank has found that the 40-50 tons of currency that needs to be burned every year is a blessing in disguise for people caught between a rock and a hard place due to the extreme cold sweeping across Europe.

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government will introduce new Internet surveillance legislation tomorrow that will mandate a massive new surveillance infrastructure at all Canadian ISPs and remove the need for court oversight of the disclosure of customer information. Michael Geist has a detailed FAQ on the history of the bill, the likely contents, the lack of government evidence supporting the need for the invasive legislation, and what Canadians can do about it."

angry tapir writes "Crowd-funding website Crowdtilt officially launched last week, expanding upon the collective fundraising model pioneered by Kickstarter to enable raising money for any project — even a beer blitz. Like Kickstarter, Crowdtilt allows users to create a fundraising campaign with a tipping point. If the effort falls short of the set amount, would-be donors are not charged. However, unlike Kickstarter, the platform allows users to "group fund anything." Users can initiate campaigns without first getting the approval of service administrators, which they must do on Kickstarter."

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Wesch has been on the lecture circuit for years touting new models of active teaching with technology. The associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University has given TED talks. Wired magazine gave him a Rave Award. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching once named him a national professor of the year. But now Mr. Wesch finds himself rethinking the fundamentals of teaching after hearing that other professors can't get his experiments with Twitter and YouTube to work in their classes. Is the lecture best after all?"

New submitter cosmicaug writes with an update to yesterday's report that journalist Hamza Kashgari had been arrested by Malaysian police acting on a request conveyed from the Saudi government via Interpol. Now, says the BBC, "Police confirmed to the BBC that Hamza Kashgari was sent back to Saudi Arabia on Sunday despite protests from human rights groups. Mr Kashgari's controversial tweet last week sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. Insulting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam and is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. Mr Kashgari, 23, fled Saudi Arabia last week and was detained upon his arrival in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on Thursday." Writes cosmicaug: "Sadly, the most likely outcome is that they are going to execute this man for three tweets."

retroworks writes "Today's Science Daily reports on 5 new UN studies of used computer and electronics management in Africa. The studies find that about 85% of surplus electronics imports are reused, not discarded. Most of the goods pictured in 'primitive e-waste' articles were domestically generated and have been in use, or reused, for years. Africa's technology lifecycle for displays is 2-3 times the productive use cycle in OECD nations. Still, EU bans the trade of used technology to Africa, Interpol has describes 'most' African computer importers as 'criminals,' and U.S. bill HR2284 would do the same. Can Africa 'leapfrog' to newer and better tech? Or are geeks and fixers the appropriate technology for 83% of the world (non-OECD's population)? "

Hugh Pickens writes "Daniel Berniger writes that one of the unexpected consequences of AT&T's transition to HD voice and all-IP networks is that the footprint of required network equipment will shrink by as much as 90 percent, translating into a $100 billion windfall as the global telecom giant starts emptying buildings and selling off the resulting real estate surplus. Since IP connections utilize logical address assignments, a single fiber can support an almost arbitrary number of end-user connections — so half a rack of VoIP network equipment replaces a room full of Class 4 and Class 5 circuit switching equipment, and equipment sheds replace the contents of entire buildings. AT&T's portfolio goes back more than 100 years, even as commercial real estate appreciated five fold since the 1970s, so growth of telephone service during the 20th century leaves the company with 250 million sq ft of floor space real estate in prime locations across America. 'The scale of the real estate divestiture challenge may justify creating a separate business unit to deal with the all-IP network transition,' writes Berniger, who adds that ATT isn't the only one who will benefit. 'The transition to all-IP networks allows carriers to sell-off a vast majority of the 100,000 or so central offices (PDF) currently occupying prime real estate around the globe.'"

aarondubrow writes "Researchers used the Ranger supercomputer to test a new, high-resolution hurricane forecasting system that incorporates Doppler radar data from planes flying into the storm. The forecasts were shown to improve intensity predictions by an average of 20 to 40 percent over the official forecasts of the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The prediction system is being hailed as a breakthrough and is one of a handful being assessed by the NHC to become part of the operational forecasting system used in emergency situations."

Shipud writes "A recent article in Journal of Biomolecular structure and Dynamics proposes to define life by semantic voting [Note: open-access article]: 'The definitions of life are more than often in conflict with one another. Undeniably, however, most of them do have a point, one or another or several, and common sense suggests that, probably, one could arrive to a consensus, if only the authors, some two centuries apart from one another, could be brought together. One thing, however, can be done – short of voting in absentia – asking which terms in the definitions are the most frequent and, thus, perhaps, reflecting the most important points shared by many.' The author arrives at a six-word definition, as explained here."

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook has detailed the pay of 27-year-old Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as four other executives. These are people who are set to be billionaires at least on paper when the company goes public as part of its $5 billion initial public offering (IPO). All five individuals are in line for annual target bonuses of 45 percent of their salary plus other base wages. For Zuckerberg, the bonus could amount to roughly $225,000 this year, based on his annual salary of $500,000."

silentbrad writes "Upholding a 2010 decision from the Federal Court of Appeal, the country's highest court said ISPs cannot be subject to the Broadcasting Act of 1991 because they have no control over the content they distribute. The ruling ends a years-old dispute over whether ISPs that deliver movies and television shows over their networks should be regulated as conventional broadcasters as well as telecommunications providers. A cultural coalition made up of several Canadian media industry groups — including the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) and others — argued ISPs should be required to help pay for the production of made-in-Canada music, films and television. Conventional broadcasters, of which Bell and Rogers already qualify, have long been required to do so by law."

First time accepted submitter colinneagle writes "Open source has been so successful in giving us software like Linux, Apache, Hadoop, etc., why wouldn't the open source method work with other types of software? Probably no one expected that the criminals behind vast malware trojans would adopt open source methods to make their malware more dangerous, but they have. According to this report from Seculert Research, the makers of Citadel, a variant of the Zeus Trojan are using open source models to hone their code and make the Trojan more dangerous."

An anonymous reader writes "German researchers have developed a battery that can remove sodium and chloride ions from seawater. In theory, their invention could be far more energy efficient than thermal desalination or reverse osmosis. This would cut the cost of using salt water for drinking or irrigation. It could also be used to make compact desalination systems for boats and life rafts, or crops. Each battery is made with manganese oxide nanorod electrodes, which absorb sodium when an electrical current passes through them. When the current is reversed, they dump the sodium ions out into waste water."

DesScorp writes "Faced with budget cuts, and forced to choose between deep space observation or a mission to Mars, CBS reports that NASA will kill most of its Mars exploration programs. Sources in NASA say that of the $300 million being cut from the space agency's budget, two-thirds were for a joint US-EU program for Martian exploration. NASA spokesman David Weaver said that, just like the rest of the federal government, the space agency has to make 'tough choices and live within our means.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Alan Jacobs writes in the Atlantic about Every Tribe Every Nation, an organization whose mission is to produce and disseminate Bibles in readable mobile-ready texts for hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin as the old missionary impulse is being turned towards some extremely difficult technical challenges. The Bible is a large, complicated text containing three quarters of a million words and the typesetting is quite complex because of the wide range of literature types found in scripture and the need for several types of note. 'For all the issues that are still to be solved, ETEN is trying to do things that the world's biggest tech companies haven't cracked yet, such as rendering minority languages correctly on mobile devices,' says Mark Howe. 'There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry.' But once these technical challenges are met, it won't be only Bibles only that people can get on their mobile devices, but whole new textual worlds."

First time accepted submitter superfast-scooter writes "I wanted to let the community know of a research project I've been fortunate to be part of — it's a rural electrification project called SharedSolar at the Modi Research Group at Columbia University. The project has 17 pilot sites in sub-Saharan Africa to-date, providing prepaid energy services to over 3000 people who did not have access to electricity — a fraction of the over 1.3 Billion worldwide. The lab has been developing custom software applications to integrate off-the-shelf hardware components, and also provide the operational and management mechanisms needed. Communications with the sites are over the mobile networks. Consumers can recharge their accounts using either cellphones, or visit a designated local vendor who can do it at the site using an Android app. Software residing locally makes each site autonomous, and the online platform allows for remote visibility, localized consumer interactions and integration with payment solutions. And we're planning on deploying soon in Haiti and Kenya."

netbuzz writes "The fact that a month and a half has gone by and Wikipedia still hasn't followed through on Jimmy Wales public threat to remove its domain name registrations from GoDaddy over the latter's early support of SOPA has some concerned that the online encyclopedia may have had a change of heart. After all, GoDaddy did withdraw its backing of the controversial antipiracy legislation, at least publicly. But fear not, SOPA foes, as Wikipedia says its days with GoDaddy are indeed numbered and that number is getting very small."

ananyo writes "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released its long-anticipated draft guidance for drug makers interested in making generic forms of biological drugs such as enzymes and antibodies. The move could open the door for cheaper versions of some of medicine's most expensive drugs, but it is still unclear how many companies will be willing to tackle the challenges and uncertainties of making 'biosimilar' drugs. Copying biological molecules is a stickier proposition than making ordinary generic medicines because proteins are typically much larger and more complex than small molecule drugs. They are also often produced in cell cultures, and even small variations in how the cells are grown can change the properties of the protein produced."