Minnov8 Minnov8 Gang

Yep…you read that headline right. After nearly NINE YEARS this week’s show is our last podcast as the Minnov8 Gang.

It’s been a great ride. We’ve had an incredible amount of fun, talked to literally dozens of guests, interviewed Minnesota technology leaders, attended hundreds of events, and covered Minnesota technology innovation in all its forms. It is time, however, for us to ride off in to the sunset as we head toward new opportunities and adventures.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson

Music: Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US

 About Our Last Show & Acknowledgements



* After nearly NINE YEARS, this show marks our 400th, and last, podcast. Here are Minnov8’s first post and podcast links:



* First post: February 17, 2008

* First podcast: June 22, 2008









* Special “Thank You!” mentions go to:



* Our listeners for your unwavering support, and listening, all of these years.

* Graeme Thickins, our Minnov8 co-founder and “Gang” member on the website and podcast for over eight years, “We couldn’t have done it without you pal and thanks for being our friend too! Also appreciate you never being mad about your face being stuck on some Photoshop image.”

*  Julio Ojeda-Zapata for your frequent co-hosting and, of course, for your support. You will always be our friend and someone we are lucky to know and as a fellow geek, you have never been judgmental about our lust for all things techie, no matter how strange or obscure. Also appreciate that you, too, have never been mad about your face being stuck on some Photoshop image.

* Garrick Van Buren, another co-founder of Minnov8 back in 2008 and early “Gang” member on the podcast.

* Our contributors: Paul DeBettignies; Sam Glover; Mitch Hislop; Meg Gerritsen Knodl; Lief Larson; Jeff Pesek; Don Smith.









The Podcast



Past Week’s Top Minnesota Stories



* Minnesota technology industry ranked 17th in nation

* Twin Cities tech executives form new company, buy Cypress chip plant in Bloomington

This week’s show was recorded at Minnebar, an enormous gathering of techies in Minnesota. Our guest is Adrienne Peirce (LinkedIn), Product Owner at Leadpages and President of Minne*, the organization responsible for Minnebar and Minnedemo.

Hosts: Steve Borsch and Phil Wilson (Tim Elliott is off)

Music: Woke Up With The Blues by Deep Sea Gypsies under a CC by 4.0 License



The Podcast



Past Week’s Top Minnesota Stories



* Minnesota Cup Applications now open. $450,000 in seed money up for grabs.

* MN Story: Ex-Target CMO Jeff Jones bails out of Uber



Other Top Tech Stories



* US Senate votes 50-48 to do away with broadband privacy rules; let ISPs and telecoms to sell your internet history



* How ISPs can sell your Web history—and how to stop them





* Tech community “dumbfounded” by Mnuchin’s dismissal of AI impact on jobs

* 71 percent of Android phones on major US carriers have out of date security patches



* Android plans to improve security update speed this year





* Akamai Intros Media Acceleration for OTT (over-the-top content), Video Game Publishers





Cool Thing of the Week



* Phil and Steve talk about the new mobile network unlimited data plans they chose this past week:



* Sprint

* AT&T









Upcoming Events



* The Complete List of 280+ Tech, IT, and DevOps Conferences in 2017



* The list as a Google spreadsheet





* Beta.mn, March 30th, Machine Shop, Minneapolis

* Enterprise Rising Conference, March 30th



* Use the code Minnov82017 for 21% off your admission





* IoTFuse Conference 2017, April 21st, Mpls Conv Ctr

* Overnight Website Challenge,

This past week a Minnesota judge signed a search warrant for anyone who did a Google search for someone who defrauded an Edina bank. Besides being outrageously broad as a warrant—anybody who searched on this guy’s name for legitimate reasons would be under suspicion and could be brought in for questioning—is likely violating our Constitution’s 4th amendment against unreasonable searches. Even Forbes magazine picked up the story but few other outlets have…yet.

Of course, if this would be allowed we could go through Tim Elliott’s underwear drawer and who knows what we’d find?  😉

We talk about this judge’s warrant, and mostly technology of course, on this week’s podcast.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson

Music: Rock The Blues Away by Dennis Salli under a CC by 4.0 License



The Podcast



Past Week’s Top Minnesota Stories



* Virtual-reality startup targeting real estate raises $1.3M



* Realvision VR





* Video-streaming startup Seeka TV gives online indie series a home of their own



* SeekaTV





* One of the top iPhone medical devices just got funding from Mayo Clinic (AliveCor & Kardia Band)

* Big Tech Companies Are on the Verge of Killing Right to Repair Legislation in Minnesota

* Chuck & Don’s Breaks Into E-Commerce Market With Acquisition Of Fetch



* Chuck & Don’s and Fetch





* Two top Best Buy executives are leaving as roles are realigned

* The Minnesotan left-wing economic miracle continues, while neighboring Republican states slowly collapse



* Tim mentioned Shadow Stats







Other Top Tech Stories



* Justice Department: Russia’s security services ‘protected, directed, facilitated, and paid’ hackers behind the massive breach of Yahoo

* Google



* Google launches new effort to flag upsetting or offensive content in search 

* Google Home is playing audio ads for Beauty and the Beast

* a href="https://www.engadget.

Minnesota’s own big box tech retailer, Best Buy, sees its Geek Squad in the news since the FBI Used Best Buy’s Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance. Are Geek Squad people really being used as spies? Unfortunately it certainly seems so.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson

Music: Rock and Roll – Led Zeppelin Cover by Fabio (The Guitarist Saturday) under a CC by 4.0 License



The Podcast



Past Week’s Top Minnesota Stories



* Kidizen lands $3.2M in VC, ramps up hiring

* Stratasys Shrinks Losses In Q4 But Misses Wall Street’s Expectations

* Food-delivery startup targeting office workers raises $6M to expand

* NASA Using Digi International Device To Create “Wireless-In-Space” Network



* Press Release “Digi International Enabling IoT in Space”





* Target names new CISO to replace Brad Maiorino



* What is a CISO?







Other Top Tech Stories



* Wikileaks ‘Vault 7’ Part 1:



* WikiLeaks releases massive CIA hacking document archive

* WikiLeaks: We’ll Work With Software Makers on Zero-Days

* With C.I.A. Hacking Revelations, How to Protect Your Devices

* PSA: Signal, WhatsApp and other secure IM apps not compromised by CIA hacking tools





* Google goes after Slack and splits Hangouts into Chat and Meet





Cool Thing of the Week



* Phil: BuzzFeed brings Video Producers to Minneapolis Office.

* Tim: The Yoerg Brewing Company

* Steve: Steve Martin Teaches Comedy





Upcoming Events







* The Complete List of 280+ Tech, IT, and DevOps Conferences in 2017



* The list as a Google spreadsheet





* Mobile Twin Cities,

We cover the Minnesota tech stories of the week including disappointing earnings from both Target and Best Buy over the holiday period. Can they compete with Amazon and other online sources? We have a few ideas. Later we discuss the Amazon S3 outage, Uber’s use of tech to evade law enforcement and Google’s rapid rise in the education market at the expense of Apple.

Hosts: Tim Elliott, Phil Wilson and Julio Ojeda-Zapata (Steve Borsch is off this week)

Music: Ring of Fire by Window Shop for Love under a CC by 4.0 License



The Podcast



Past Week’s Top Minnesota Stories



* Product Recalls, Shortages Hurt Best Buy During The Holiday Period

* Best Buy grew web sales faster than Amazon and Wal-Mart last year

* Target Unveils $7B Makeover Plan After Weak Q4

* Fledgling Minneapolis tech VC stops making investments

* Macchina: The Ultimate Tool for Taking Control of Your Car!

* Code 42 moves to 100 Washington



Other Top Tech Stories



* Amazon AWS goes down; the internet freaks out:



* AWS is investigating S3 issues, affecting Quora, Slack, Trello (updated)

* Amazon explains big AWS outage, says employee error took servers offline, promises changes





* How Uber Used Secret Greyball Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

* Nokia is back from the dead with a trio of pure Android phones

* Google Assistant, its AI-based personal helper, rolls out to Nougat and Marshmallow handsets

* YouTube, the world’s biggest video site, wants to sell you TV for $35 a month

* IDC: Wearables grew 16.9% in Q4 2016, Fitbit still first but Xiaomi is gaining





Gang Mentality: Can Apple compete with Google’s rise in the education market?



* Apple’s Devices Lose Luster in American Classrooms



Cool Thing of the Week



* Phil: How to breach a classified network not connected to the internet.

* Tim: a href="https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/28/raspberry-pi-zero-w-is-a-10-computer-with-wifi-and-bluetooth...

Several good tech stories this week but, once again, we dust-off our “Gang Mentality” segment to ponder a question after the president of the United States inaccurately calls out major news organizations as “fake”. That question is: Will technology provide the answer to real vs. fake news, or will it take human intervention?

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Phil Wilson

Music: Slow Day Blues by A to Z Guitars under a CC by 4.0 License



The Podcast



Past Week’s Top Minnesota Stories



* Virtual nurse app Sense.ly raises $8 million from investors including the Mayo Clinic

* St. Paul aims to attract more innovation and technology jobs

* 100 Technology Job Openings In Saint Paul Area

* Comcast debuts Tech ETA feature to narrow down when cable guy will arrive





Gang Mentality: Will technology provide the answer to real vs. fake news, or will it take human intervention?



* BuzzFeed Tries to Break Readers Out of Their Social-Media Bubbles

* Expanding Fact Checking at Google

* Check Out Alphabet’s New Tool to Weed Out the ‘Toxic’ Abuse of Online Comments

* Trump is a media troll – so stop feeding him





Other Top Tech Stories



* Google



* Google Just Discovered A Massive Web Leak… And You Might Want To Change All Your Passwords

* Google just cracked one of the building blocks of web encryption (but don’t worry)





* J. Walter Thompson Intelligence’s Weekly Tech Roundup



* Who is J. Walter Thompson?





* The Era of Thinking Computers is Here, says Ginni Rometty, Leader of IBM

* No, Robots Aren’t Killing the American Dream



Cool Thing of the Week



* Phil: ZeTime smartwatch hybrid

* Tim: Worona – WordPress to mobile app solution

* Steve: a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560181280/trump-troll-doll-sculpture-by-chuck-williams/"...