Wednesday, 2 October 2013
British Film Institute to launch streaming video service on October 9th
Pocket redesigned on the web: overhauled article viewer, enhanced navigation and more
Amidst Obamacare's Marketplace Madness, The YEC Wants To Help Startups Take The Hassle Out Of Health Insurance
Amid partisan shenanigans, a government shutdown and much squabbling, The White House launched a new website today that will eventually allow Americans to compare the price of health insurance plans — which is now mandatory under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. While the exchange, or the Insurance Marketplace as it’s being called, did in fact go live this morning, it’s been having a rough day, thanks to technical issues and an onslaught of heavy traffic.
Today has been a showcase of how challenging it will be to bring coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, reiterating many of the concerns that entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses across the country have had in anticipation of Obamacare going into effect in January. In response, one organization is taking steps to help startups navigate these new premiums, exchanges, compliance issues — and the change health insurance landscape as a whole — with the launch of StartupInsurance, a portal where startups can go to buy health insurance and other policies.
The new resource is a product of The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only and non-profit organization of entrepreneurs that aims to provide small businesses with the resources, mentorship and tools they need to thrive — and counts executives or co-founders of startups like ReTargeter, Yodle, Disqus, Klout, Hipmunk, Rent The Runway, Hootsuite and Indiegogo, to name a few, as members.
The organization has been developing its new portal over the last year in the hopes of providing a resource and “insurance destination,” says YEC founder Scott Gerber, which will contain a curated collective of providers and affordable insurance plans from around the country. The goal, he explains, is to provide startups, business owners and all those likely to transition into self-employment as a result of being able to purchase health insurance, with direct access to affordable plans that are compliant with Obamacare. Minus the confusion and time sink, of course.
Thanks to the direct carrier partnerships the YEC has been able to strike, StartupInsurance will give entrepreneurs access to “one of the largest medical footprints in the U.S.,” with insurance options available in nearly every state.
“In speaking to thousands of entrepreneurs, freelancers and small business owners over the years, we have learned what is important to them, what’s working for them–and most importantly, what isn’t,” Gerber says. “And this direct feedback has guided our thinking in creating StartupInsurance — it’s meant to be a destination created by the people it aims to serve.”
The idea, according to Gerber, is that the YEC has done the homework for startups so that they don’t have to worry about spending the time, energy and resources it usually takes to assemble these packages and navigate the new exchanges.
When asked what the plans will cost when the portal officially goes live with Obamacare in January, what kind of coverage will be offered and so on, Gerber said that he isn’t able to discuss the details yet for legal reasons — in other words, because he is not a broker himself. However, we do know that, like Kayak and other metasearch engines have done for years in travel, The YEC will be paid referral fees every time it sends a customer to one of its insurance partners and, while other carriers will no doubt enter the fold over time, as of now, the portal’s chief insurance carrier is Assurant Health.
In conversation with the New York Times, however, a spokeswoman for Assurant said that the plans “were the same plans Assurant already offered,” which is certainly a good deal for the insurance carrier, but doesn’t necessarily seem like it will guarantee startups access to the most affordable plan.
Other questions remain as well, particularly around what will differentiate StartupInsurance.com from the two additional portals YEC is launching, SmallBusinessInsurance.com and FreelancerHealthcare.com, other than the fact that they will be serving their own particular verticals. However, the YEC founder did point out that the freelancer portal will not be offering group coverage and that differences between the three will be come clearer overtime, as the organization incorporates feedback from startups and entrepreneurs and preps for January.
While some of the plans that the portals will be offering will not, in fact, comply with Obamacare’s provisions for minimum value — meaning that they’d have to pay the penalty of the individual mandate — Gerber said that, after speaking to thousands of business owners, the YEC found that a portion of entrepreneurs would be willing to pay a tax penalty in order to receive more affordable coverage. The portal, he continues, will offer an array of Obamacare-compliant plans, but that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for startups. Instead, some will prefer to incur the tax penalty in exchange for accessing its lower premiums — as well as a destination that could be decidedly less noisy.
The YEC founder rightly points out that, today, many insurance providers are moving away from offering individual or small group coverage, because, put simply, the new regulations will make it difficult for brokers to make money off of these types of customers — and plans. It’s a fact that has led companies like Zenefits — which helps startups set up and manage group health coverage, payroll and other benefits by automating the process in the cloud — to believe that there’s opportunity in this space. Or, said another way, there’s a gulf that’s growing as insurance brokers move away from small group coverage, and someone has to meet the demand.
It’s likely that, rather than compete, the two will likely be able to help each other meet the growing demand among small businesses that are looking to comply with Obamacare and get their employees covered. The YEC’s portals still have some time before Obamacare goes into effect in January, and it will need to be able to distinguish its three portals from each other, and make clear the benefits of each.
Startups and entrepreneurs themselves will need to decide whether the inexpensive, affordable option is what they want, or whether costlier, fuller coverage is a better way to go in the long run. But, either way, for startups, the more options and the less headache they have to wade through, the better.
After all, as Gerber says, “we want to stay away from all this partisan nonsense … in the end, healthcare is a personal decision, and one startups and entrepreneurs need to make for themselves.”
Readers can find more of our coverage on the launch of the White House’s health insurance exchanges here or find StartupInsurance at home here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/kVTH_k69iqI/
Latest Raspbmc update brings speed boost, bug fixes and more (video)
WD announces My Cloud, an external drive that connects to your home network for $150 (video)
WD Asks: Why Are You Paying Dropbox for Cloud Storage?
How to Record Video Game Footage for YouTube
Samsung builds a social networking app around S Pen doodles
RCA's Internet Music System blends detachable Android tablet, boombox
Apple restores push email in Germany, nearly two years after Motorola shut it down
Un reloj atómico «de verdad» para llevar en la pulsera
Qué smartwatch, ni qué smartwatch,... según el fabricante de relojes Bathys Hawaii lo que aparece en el vÃdeo es el prototipo de un reloj mecánicamente convencional pero que, en lugar de utilizar cristal de cuarzo para producir impulsos regulares y medir el tiempo utiliza Cesio 133 (al parecer éste Chip Scale Atomic Clock de Symmetricom), lo que lo convierte en un reloj de pulsera atómico de verdad , con una precisión del orden de un segundo cada 1000 años.
Cómo reconoce el fabricante,
En esta era GPS y smartphones estamos seguros de que se discutirá mucho sobre la inutilidad de llevar un reloj atómico en la muñeca. Que discutan, a nosotros nos mola.
Al fin y al cabo relojes atómicos usamos todos aunque de forma indirecta: ordenadores, teléfonos móviles y muchos relojes indican la hora según la obtienen de sistemas (GPS, redes de datos, señales de radio,...) que a su vez la consultan con los relojes atómicos que determinan qué hora es «en realidad».
Los relojes atómicos normales son mucho más precisos que éste de pulsera, tanto como un 1 segundo cada 50 millones de años en tierra y hasta 1 segundo cada 300 millones de años, se prevé, será la precisión del reloj atómico «Pharao» (si, ¡un nombre muy adecuado!) cuando esté en órbita en 2016.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/tecnologia/reloj-atomico-de-verdad-llevar-pulsera.html
8 Japanese Mobile Games You Won't Put Down
Windows 8.1 is available to pre-order, not that you'll get any discount
Moon walker demo at CEATEC lets wannabe astronauts feel 0.6G (video)
Las astronautas no se parecen a Sandra Bullock y otros fallos de Gravity
Jeffrey Kluger de Time Magazine recopila fallos técnicos de la pelÃcula Gravity en Gravity Fact Check: What the Season’s Big Movie Gets Wrong .
Algunos son tan técnicos que es imposible que los detecte la mayorÃa del público. Otros como los sonidos de explosiones en el espacio [en el trailer] son más evidentes.
Si, hay unos cuantos errores en la pelÃcula Gravity. Pero, ¿sabes qué? La lanzadera, la estación espacial y los trajes espaciales están recreados con sumo cuidado; la fÃsica de los movimientos por el espacio —los impulsos necesitan contra impulsos, los giros requieren contra giros, la realidad espantosa de que si empiezas a girar en el vacÃo nunca, nunca, podrás parar— todo eso está maravillosamente bien logrado, de forma precisa y aterradora.
Según Kluger todos esos fallos técnicos se pueden perdonar en favor de un thriller sobrecogedor, lo cual es muy buena señal. Gravity se estrena en España este viernes 4 de octubre.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/peliculas-tv/astronautas-no-se-parecen-sandra-bullock-otros-fallos-gravity.html
Tikker: mucha gente no tendrÃa valor para llevar este reloj de pulsera en la muñeca
Este reloj no da la hora: marca cuánto tiempo te queda de vida. Sin paños calientes. Se llama Tikker y es un inquietante concepto de «cuenta atrás» que indica los años, meses, dÃas, horas, minutos y segundos que te quedan – y de paso la hora local.
Dado que calcular de qué y cuándo moriremos no es una ciencia exacta, el reloj confÃa de forma aproximada en los datos de un formulario personal como esos que hay en Internet. Con esos valores aproxima el tiempo total que te queda según tu sexo, edad, peso, costumbres y hábitos cotidianos.
Quizá ver en el reloj que además de ser las tres y cuarto te quedan 42 años, 4 meses, 5 dÃas, 23 horas, 16 minutos y 15 segundos de vida cambie la forma de ver las cosas algunos, quién sabe.
Tikker está en Kickstarter buscando financiación; se puede conseguir un elegante y minimalista modelo básico por 39 dólares + 10 de gastos de envÃo para fuera de Estados Unidos. Si todo va bien, se venderá en abril de 2014. Yo ya he encargado el mÃo. Tic, tac, tic, tac…
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/gadgets/tikker-reloj-vida-muerte.html
Estonian Startup Weekdone Takes The Pain Out Of Team Management And Those Pesky PPP Reports
The corporate world is almost entirely alien to me. I’ve never worked inside of a major company. It wasn’t, therefore, until I fleetingly tried my hand at startup life that I was introduced to the PPP system — Plans, Progress, Problems — for managing teams. In this instance, as CEO, I was the one being managed, tasked with filing PPP reports with my VC backers. I hated it, “why can’t I just pick up the phone?,” I’d say. But actually, those weekly emails worked pretty well.
In a much larger organisation, however, relying on a feed-back loop for teams that consists of emails, spreadsheets or more lengthy reports doesn’t scale very well from a manager’s point of view. Meanwhile, important and timely signals from team members can easily fall through the cracks.
Enter Weekdone, an Estonian startup backed by Ahti Heinla, founding engineer of Skype, and former investors and executives of leading Russian social network Odnoklassniki. The web and newly released iOS app taps into the PPP principle to enable managers to keep a pulse on their teams by streamlining the feedback loop and presenting the results in a highly visual and aggregated view.
Specifically, the problem Weekdone has set out to solve is that compared to the plethora of simple, visual apps that are available to help consumers get things done, the business world often still relies on lengthy documents, spreadsheets and emails to manage tasks and teams, or software that produces far too much unwieldily data that no one executive or manager can possibly hope to keep tabs on.
The Tallinn, Eastonia-based startup, and same team behind Talentag and Utopic, saw an opportunity to bring what it calls “actionable visual tools” to the area of team management. Thus, Weekdone was born with the aim of becoming the default tool for monitoring and managing teams by turning “big data into a thing of beauty”, says the company.
It’s certainly true the app looks the part — it recently won best Internet application at the Estonian Design Awards, for whatever that is worth — but it’s the simple (and, perhaps, realistic) work-flow that makes Weekdone appealing. Striking the balance between data input and the usefulness of what comes out at the other end is key to any type of productivity app, not least an app that is in part monitoring employee “happiness”.
At the start of each week, team members are asked to list their key plans and what they want to accomplish. “Usually these are the 5-7 big goals that have to be achieved whatever it takes,” says Weekdone co-founder Jüri Kaljundi. Then, as the week progresses, employees mark stuff done, automatically moving items from Plans to Progress.
In addition, Kaljundi says employees are required to rate their work happiness and answer any other questions posed by their manager, such as suggestions on how they can improve or what needs to get done.
“The progress can also be automatically imported from [task managers] Asana or Atlassian JIRA, and many other systems like Salesforce or Basecamp in the future, so there is no need for duplicate data entry,” he adds.
At the end of each week the app compiles an automatic visual dashboard and textual report of what’s been achieved since the last update, and what’s planned for the following week, which is sent to managers and team members via email, PDF or accessible on the web, mobile and tablet versions of Weekdone.
“The managers quickly see calculated indicators like team happiness, task completion ratio, overdue items count or problems, and can drill down into each section and person,” explains Kaljundi.
“They also quickly see which promises are not kept or are lagging behind for weeks, something that often gets lost in manual e-mails or task managers,” he says.
It’s from this overview of the app’s data that a manager can be prompted to give quick feedback to each team member or on specific items.
The ultimate goal, however, is to have Weekdone not only make the feed-back loop for teams and managers more efficient, thus improving productivity and employee happiness, but also to act as an early warning system when things go wrong.
To that end, Kaljundi says that Weekdone is putting a lot of its future development efforts into “automatic surfacing of potential problems and suggestions to save managers time and bring out what needs focus”.
At which point, of course, it may still be better to pick up the phone.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/wwLjkzbUMtM/
7-Eleven strikes deal with Hon Hai to sell tablets and notebooks in Taiwan
Google's Chromecast now supports Hulu Plus app streaming (video)
MediaPortal 1.5 released with CableCARD and Windows 8.1 support
HTC must alter chip in One smartphone in order to avoid Nokia patents
The Matrix: el trailer honesto
Una pelÃcula en la que el protagonista se llama Neo que es un anagrama de One (Uno) que es el número de expresiones faciales que puede interpretar Keanu Reeves en una saga de tres pelÃculas: una.
La gente de Screen Junkies se vio forzada por petición popular a preparar un trailer honesto de The Matrix, una de nuestras pelÃculas favoritas. Después de llamarla de todo, desde «copia de Dragon Ball» a «sucesión de copias de sà misma» y mofarse de todos y cada uno de los actores, la verdad es que se recuerda de otra forma.
Y sÃ, es cierto como dicen que es
… una pelÃcula en la que los nombres de todos los protagonistas (Apoc, Switch, Cypher, Tank, Dozer…) parecen sacados de los apodos del chat de AOL.
¡Larga vida a Matrix!
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/humor/the-matrix-trailer-honesto.html
Apple Working to Fix iMessage Issues in iOS 7
Facebook's new mobile ad format keeps users coming back to familiar apps
Lego calendar uses bricks to organize your office, makes productivity adorable
Insert Coin: Split, a diminutive, bite-controlled music player in earbud form
Bonito rifle láser
¿5 kW? Póngame tres o cuatro, con fundas a juego. Y un par de esos bonitos trajes ya de paso.
Esta pequeña bestia es un láser de 5 kilovatios acoplado en el cuerpo de un rible, que se utiliza para «cortar a mano». Actualmente lo utilizan en labores de destrucción controlada, por ejemplo desmontar una central nuclear abandonada o estructuras similares.
El respetable chisme dispara el láser con una longitud de onda de una micra de anchura y puede cortar acero de hasta 2 mm de grosor.
(VÃa Popular Science.)
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/ciencia/bonito-rifle-laser.html