More than 80 percent of the 347 VC’s surveyed for the 2011 Global Venture Capital Survey said current IPO activity levels in their home countries aren’t sufficient to support the health of the market. In the United States, an overwhelming 87 percent of U.S. venture capitalists surveyed believe that the current level of IPO activity is too low.

“That’s a huge consensus for venture capitalists, said Mark Jensen, national managing partner for venture capital services at Deloitte & Touche LLP, which co-sponsored the survey along with the National Venture Capital Association. “You can’t get these guys to agree on a turkey sandwich for lunch.”

The global survey is a snapshot of the perceptions and opinions of venture capitalists from nine countries, and reflects feelings more than actual figures. And the snapshot comes with one large caveat. The questions were distributed to VC’s back in the spring, before the recent spate of high-profile social media IPOs and media speculation about possible tech bubbles. Meanwhile, all indications point to 2011 being a decent year for going public. There have been 75 IPO’s in the U.S. this year— that’s a 27 percent increase over last June. And the technology sector has seen 29 companies go public this year. That’s more than any other sector, according to data from Renaissance Capital.

Not surprisingly, in the U.S., where there has been an active VC and entrepreneurial community for many years, 91 percent of venture capitalists deemed the domestic IPO market to be a critical element of the venture capital industry. Yet,  in contrast to the global trend, only 36 percent of domestic venture capitalists said that IPO markets in other countries were essential to the success of the U.S. industry.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of venture capitalists in all nine countries surveyed still look to the U.S. exchanges to provide a healthy and vibrant market. Globally, 87 percent of respondents selected NASDAQ as one of the three most promising stock exchanges for venture-backed IPOs; 39 percent selected the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and 33 percent cited the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Overall, VC’s in different parts of the world attributed the  slowdown in IPO activity to several key drivers, from the lack of a competitive investment banking community (50 percent in Germany) to a lack of freely available capital (43 percent in the UK). But 83 percent of all VC’s pegged the biggest culprit as the lack of  ”appetite for equity in public companies.”

Jensen attributes this belief to the investment preferences behind large pension funds and endowments.

“They don’t want to invest million in a 0 million company. They want to put 0 million in a billion company. Those are difficult investments to come by. It’s the smaller 0 million to 0 million IPO’s that are disappearing. And these are the concerns that are being reflected in the survey results,” he  said.

Meanwhile, a handful high-profile IPOs in social media could blur a larger problem, Jensen said.

“It’s equally important that these smaller companies are able to go. We start to run the risk of saying ‘gee we are starting to turn the corner’. But you have to take another look at it. There are whole bunch of companies in other industries that no one is paying attention to. These companies without an ability to go public are stranded and wind up being acquired. In then, technologies gets swallowed up and the founders move on. Those are the fears.”

Photo Courtesy of Flickr’s Rob Lee.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Players and Strategies for Real-Time In-Stream Advertising
• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• Finding the Value in Social Media Data

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Among the analysts who are now expressing doubt in Palm’s long-term prospects, Van Baker of Gartner blames Palm’s approach to marketing the Pre:

“First they announced so far in advance of actually shipping the product that they diluted the positive buss that they created at the Consumer Electronics Show in January of 2009,” Baker writes in an official Gartner weblog.

Launching with Sprint was also a mistake, Baker explains, as they are network in decline.

“Palm has tried to address this with the Verizon launch but Palm may have waited too long to do this.”

Seems like in today’s hyper-competitive market, even coming out with a “good product” isn’t a sure path to success:

“No matter how good the product, we believe that penetrating the channel will continue to be difficult for Palm and will only get tougher as more competitive touch handsets come to market through the year,” J.P Morgan analyst Rod Hall told clients.

Palm is also operating in a highly competitive environment, against giants like Apple and Nokia that have much larger brand-recognition and marketing budgets.

“Palm may not be able to quickly bounce bank,” Hall concluded.

Isn’t it funny how an industry based on perceptions (financial trading, stocks) is faulting a company for not managing expectations properly?

Hope Fades for Palm

Post from: The Gadget Blog

In the many-storied underground garages located on a site with high level of ground waters and treated to action of a considerable carrying power, in many cases it is impossible to avoid a frequent arrangement of columns for constructive reasons (increase of rigidity of a sole for: perceptions of pushing out forces); more favorable transfer of efforts takes place at filling of underground garage with a layer of ground, on which are provided green plantings, including trees.

Such constructive requirements should be considered in due time in the project. At small width it is necessary to place columns with a space from border of thoroughfare and places of parking on 0,5 0,7 m to facilitate entrance and departure from places of parking. To place columns on half of length of places of parking also it is inexpedient, as thus it is impossible or to open car doors inconveniently.

The closed land and underground garages should be equipped by a mechanical extract, and if necessary with fresh air ventilating installation by productivity 12,0 m3 air at one hour on 1 ?2 of a garage useful area. As modular ventilating channels in garages of the big area should have rather considerable cross-section cutset they are not located in a zone of places of storage, for example between overlapping beams: and a cowl of the engine of the car and consequently disturb normal operation of garage. Therefore at designing except the area of places of parking and thoroughfares it is necessary to provide the additional area for placing of channels that affects the sizes of a building and a step of columns.

Height of thoroughfares. According to Garage rules average and large garages for pass to the established zones, and also under beams, air lines and other building designs should have height not less than 2 m. Certainly, the same dimension should be maintained and in a zone of stages.

On floors of garage, which are combined with department stores, shops of the economic goods or shops on sale of building materials in which clients transport furniture, building materials and other goods on a car roof in a luggage grid, on occasion for driving maintenance the big height is required. The same concerns the first land or underground floor of garage when they are intended for supply being over or under them office buildings.

If you need help with finding best portable garage – this site will help. Lots of samples of car garage products and direct access to the car garage sellers. All contact info on the site.

P.S. And don’t let laziness to stop you from finding the best deal about car garages. Don’t forget that we live in the world where info quickly enhances the quality of our life.

That is why if you are properly armed with the info in your sphere of interest you can be sure that you will always find the way out from any bad situation. So, please make sure to visit this site on a regular basis or – the easiest way to take care of it – sign up to its RSS. Thus you will have your hand on the pulse of the latest info updates here. Blogs can be helpful, you just need to understand how to use them.

After thinking it over for a bit, a few questions came to mind.

If we are all connected then why do people feel lonely at times? One would presume that if we were all connected that it would be impossible to feel isolated or lonely.

Another thought is that if we are all connected why do we have so much trouble understanding each other?

Why do people miscommunicate so often? This doesn’t require much explanation because frankly, everyone has experienced the effect of misunderstandings in even the most basic of human communication.

Why do people fear telling others about bad breath, when it is easily solved with a product like therabreath? It is an act of kindness to tell someone.

Why are their wars? If we were so wonderfully connected there shouldn’t be any warfare. Any issues that come up would be rapidly solved by the innated understanding that should come from being connected.

Why is there so much diversity in our various belief systems and backgrounds. Let us face it, many cultures are almost diametrically opposed. One cultures ‘normal’ idea is another’s radical thought. This is similar to freedom fighters and terrorism. What one man calls a terrorist, another man will call a freedom fighter. This is living proof that our perceptions and beliefs are radically different from each other.

Why can such a powerful tool for oral health, such as the Hydro Floss oral irrigator – be a big uknown for so many people?  

One some people call evil, others call good. How can this be? If something is bad or evil, it just is so. Why would someone else call it good?

With so many different ways of thinking, so many different believes, so many different value systems and all the variations of human thinking – how could we be all ‘connected’.

How come more people don’t find out about a good thing, such as Oramd, more quickly, if we are all, ‘connected’? 

I’m not sure there is a good answer to this. All I can say is that if *I* were in charge – all of these problems would go away! Ok- Just kidding. I’m not such an egoist.

I am not sure how to answer these questions, but feel free to comment if you believe you have the answers!

The best meditation practice is Falun Dafa which can be found at FalunDafa.org

A fantastic show called Shen Yun is coming to a city near you. Read more about this show and look at the fabulous picturs at ShenYunPerformingArts.org

copyrighted 2009, do not copy.

Wired summarizes the study, found in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Lead author and research Sapna Cheryan had an interesting question – if people can base their perceptions of another person on the items found in their bedroom, would the same type of reasoning apply in a classroom setting? Cheryan and her team quickly set up an experiment:

Cheryan and colleagues tested this idea by alternately decorating a computer science classroom with objects that earlier surveys pegged as stereotypically geeky-Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books – or with objects that the surveys found to be neutral- coffee mugs, plants and art posters. Thirty-nine college students spent a few minutes in the room, then filled out a questionnaire on their attitudes toward computer science.

Women who spent time in the geeky room reported less interest in computer science than women who saw the neutral room. For male students, however, the room’s décor made no difference.

In follow-up tests, a total of 215 students were asked to imagine they were joining either a geekily decorated or a neutrally decorated company after graduation. For every possible scenario, women preferred the non-geeky space.

“It’s a consistent effect,” Cheryan says. “The environment can communicate a sense of belonging, but it also communicates a sense of exclusion, or a sense that this is not a place where I would fit in.”

Cheryan and co-researchers believe that by creating more neutral appearing spaces will help combat stereotypes and improve diversity in the computer science field.

Cheryan is correct in thinking perception matters in how people place themselves in different roles. But as a geeky girl gamer, I think that focusing on the internal motivations for why women avoid stereotypical or gendered areas (i.e., “I just don’t think I belong”) obscures the nature of societal norms to influence women away from engaging in the maths and sciences, especially as they are considered male dominated spaces.

Some of the most fascinating explorations of this dynamic are found in Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming. The collection of research findings and games theory, published in 2008, reveal a lot more than barriers to entry for women who want to play games or work in the industry – it reveals how gender norms often influence how “permitted” women are to access certain spaces, and how those limitations function to maintain the low numbers of women entering fields like computer science or game design.

Some of the research upholds Cheryan’s ideas. In “Becoming a Player,” T.L. Taylor uses the marketing strategies and environments of gaming stores to illustrate the belonging dynamic:

Part of the work of any leisure activity is coming to understand – practically and symbolically – that this is something you can do, that it is not at odds with your sense of self or your social world. The game industry (and, I would argue, the larger game community) knows this at some level and is constantly working to give players information about new games, where to get them, why they are fun, and how to play them. Just as powerfully, it is always mirroring back to boys and men that “this is your and your friends’ play space” and “you belong here. Rarely are women gamers given this kind of attention. (p. 55)

Two other studies explain how the idea that some people “belong” and some do not take shape and manifest themselves in physical space. “Getting Girls into the Game,” a joint study by Tracy Fullerton, Janine Fron, Celia Pearce, and Jacki Morie, explored a variety of reasons why more women don’t pursue careers in gaming. After concluding that early experiences with video games impact how girls perceive the space, they note:

These early experiences pave the way to an interest in game development, but male-dominated environments can limit girls’ involvement. In fact, computer labs in schools or clubhouses are often dominated by boys, who tend to elbow out the girls and take control of the equipment. (p. 168)

In “Gender Identity, Play Style, and the Design of Games for Classroom Learning,” researchers Carrie Heeter and Brian Winn also talk about some of the gendered norms that come into play when there are limitations on availability of equipment:

When boys play games (or use computers), when there are fewer machines than people, girls step aside. It is difficult to determine whether it is the girls’ “stepping aside” from their opportunity… or the boys “crowding out” the girls…. Nonetheless, this chemistry seems to exist between males and females pervasively when it comes to using gaming machines. (p.282)

The most comprehensive (and damning) research comes from Holin Lin, who invested countless hours into her research in Taiwan. Seeking answers to women’s exclusion from the larger gaming world, Lin decides to look into home life, societal messaging, school and peer groups in her groundbreaking study “Body, Space, and Gendered Gaming Experiences: A Cultural Geography of Homes, Cybercafés and Dormitories.” I devoted a substantial portion of my review of Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat to Lin’s research, because the connections drawn are mindblowing:

Deftly weaving connections between the threat of violence, gendered socialization, and the internalized expectations of the women themselves, Lin paints a scenario familiar to any woman who moves into a heavily gendered space. Taiwanese youth frequent cybercafés to increase their skills, use upgraded machines, and hang out with their friends. However, women gamers looking to participate in the fun have to contend with real-world harassment:

The layouts of some cybercafés serve as gender barriers: girls must pass through a room full of pool tables to access the back spaces that are reserved for computers. Most girls are not willing to subject themselves to the scrutiny of and comments made by the pool players, and therefore only enter when accompanied by male friends.

This parallels one of Lin’s observations of cybercafés in Taiwan… most girls are unwilling to enter a cybercafé unless accompanied by a male friend. Together, these stories imply that physical and social barriers to entry for women become misinterpreted as a lack of desire to play video games.

Despite the limits of online, virtual communities, however, they are often more appealing to female gamers than actual, physical cybercafés, as Lin points out:

Women’s fear and perceptions of risk are deeply rooted in their bodies, and avoiding dangerous places is a common practice for managing the fear of male violence. In contrast, no threat of physical harm exists for players wearing either female or male avatar bodies.

Outside of the dynamics of the cybercafe scene, Lin also looks at women at home, from growing up with their parents to their play dynamics in college dormitories. Lin notes that college-aged male gamers tend to see gaming as a way to bond, while female gamers are often ostracized and made into a minority. In addition, family pressures tend to place pressure on girls to do more help with household tasks, as well as to work on social relationships. Males, however, were often left to their own devices when it came to interacting with technology. This functions to increase discomfort with technologies as women are socialized to spend less time understanding and getting familiar with these types of systems. Over time, this casual discouragement on so many fronts presents girls with a disincentive to continue working with or playing with game systems – and this dynamic is also evident with most other technologies, including computers.

Lin concludes that “[c]ultural constructions of gender are ubiquitous and therefore hard to remove from any analytical interpretation of gender issues in computer gaming.” And indeed, while Cheryan has the right idea with looking at how spaces can be perceived as hospitable and inhospitable, solving the issue of gender gaps in technology will require looking at encouragement to get into the maths and sciences plays strongly into societal idea of what girls are “supposed” to do and where they “belong.” And I’m afraid it will be a bit more complex than redesigning classrooms.

Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists [Wired]
Beyond Barbie® and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming (Hardcover) [Amazon]

Related: Gamer Girls Rising [Women's Review of Books]

This will be very tiring for the eyes thus you can’t watch it too much because the brain and the eyes cannot be in concordance with the information that it gets. Once the receptor will be active it will inhibit any other receptors and this will create the contrast, highlighting any other edges and in the optical illusion of Hermann the gray spots will appear at the intersection because of the response of the inhibitory.

The cognitive illusions lead to the unconscious interferences and are assumed to arise by the interactions between the stimuli. This category of optical illusions is subdivided in three main divisions : the ambiguous illusions that will be pictures or many objects that will switch  in the interpretations that will be alternative. An example of this kind of illusions is the Necker cube that everybody knows and another good example is the Rubin vase, the distorting illusions that will be characterized by many distortions or curvature, length or size. A very good example of such a cool optical illusions is the Café wall illusion or the Muller-Lyer illusion.

The best term for these ones is the one of hallucinations.To organize sensations that are incoming will help to make sense of the world and it is quite necessary to organize the information that will be meaningful for the interpretation of the brain. So, you will know what you are seeing, touching or feeling.

Another example on how the brain will perceive motion is the Phi phenomenon which is created for instance by blinking lights on a very close succession. Sources of optical illusions are the perceptual constancies. The brightness and the color constancy will be responsible for the fact that any familiar object will always appear with the same color without taking into count

The illusion of color will be created by the luminosity or the colors of the surroundings on any familiar object that will be changed from the environment. The contrast will appear much darker then it actual is but the brightness level will appear the same and this is an extraordinary event that will trick the mind in seeing shadows. The eyes will try to compensate for the lack of color contrast and this will only depend on the surroundings and its contrast and color.Shape and sizes are also very important because the brain will understand familiar shapes and sizes like in the case of the colors.

An ordinary door will be perceived as a rectangle regardless the color or other ornaments that will be on it. For the unfamiliar objects the rule of shape constancy is not applied because the perspective has been changed and thus memory and perceive will not be applied. For instance the cool optical illusion of the Shepard of the on going changing table is based solely on the distortion theory with the shape constancy.

For the example there is a very cool optical illusion named Hering illusion that will look like a bike spoke that will be around a central point, but it will not be actual moving and the figure will be static and we will misperceive the lines that will be straight as to the curved lines.There are many cool optical illusions out there and trying to understand them will make you understand better on how your eye sight and your brain work.

So you understand the basis of the Forex market. You know that currencies are traded one for another. You know that rate fluctuation between those currencies is what creates the opportunity for money to be made. But what causes currency rates to fluctuate?

A great deal of it has to do with trust.  Just as stock value can go up or down based more on people’s perceptions of the company than actual company earnings, currencies can change value due to the confidence that the world market puts into a country’s economy and the continued strength of its currency. This perception is based on many factors, some definable and some less so. Some of these factors include the strength and stability of the government, the productivity of a country as a whole, and inflation within the country.

The government of a country has a great deal of direct control in the value of currency. By changing interest rates within the country, they can affect the value of currency. Currency value also is based on supply and demand. As more people seek to purchase a currency, the value of the currency increases.  The reverse is also true.  If everyone is trying to sell, the value will take a dive.

These factors relate to each other is a very complicated way.   It is impossible to create an algorithm to consider all these factors and determine what a currency will be worth. This is one of the reasons why Forex trading courses can be so valuable.  A good Forex trader learns to take into account the less measurable factors (stability, world market confidence) as well as more tangible factors (chartable trends in currency value) when making his decisions.

what you just learned about trading courses is just the begining. To get the full story and all the details, check us out at forextrainingvideosforbeginners.com

Labour may have lost serious face but it’s been a night to remember for the Pirate Party in the EU elections. The Swedish based political group will have won two seats with a 7.1% share of their national vote when the Lisbon Treaty passes increasing the Scandinavian county’s number of MEPs from 18 to 20. Leader of the party, Rick Falkvinge said:

“This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it’s time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples’ lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept that the authorities’ mass-surveillance.”

The Pirate Party polled a total of 200,000 votes, a huge increase on the 2006 national elections when they amassed 34,918 of the Swedish electorate, and a lot of this can be linked to the high profile Pirate Bay court case during which membership of the party tripled. There was some success of the German branch of the party who managed 1% of the national vote; a good start but not enough for a seat just yet. Looking forward to seeing their name on my ballot paper next time around. Hard to know exactly what policies the Pirates have beyond the obvious stance against copyright infringement but, regardless, I think it’s an excellent step in EU politics to have a member voicing the kinds of opinions that would otherwise never be heard. Even if the Pirate MEPs are unable to swing any major decisions, they’ll be able to change a few perceptions on the protection of the antiquated business models of the cinema and recording industries. (via Torrent Freak)

On-ear headphones are making a comeback. Okay maybe I just made that up. But the 80s are big again aren’t they? And no one had in-ear headphones in the 80s, they had on-ears, and they were right. On-ears are comfier and safer than in-ears, less obtrusive than cans and they can sound freaking awesome. As proved by Jay’s V-Jays. The Short Version Name – V-Jays Type – On-ear open headphones How much – £59.99 How much should they cost - £60.00 Should you buy them – If you’re self conscious I’d avoid them, if not, they’re well worth the money. The Long Version Sound Quality On-ear headphones don’t look cool – but isn’t cool all about perceptions – prevailing social norms? Isn’t cool transient? For the sake of these super-wicked headphones I hope so. I’ll admit the first time I stepped out in the V-Jays I felt like a prize numpty. I might as well have had Mr Motivator on my head, that’s how ’93 I looked. But as soon as I hit play, I forgot about my headgear, so ensconced was I in the precise and amazing sound they yielded: Deep and rangy bass with taut, precise treble and a hefty enough mid to handle anything I through at it. Never has listening to Godspeed! stomping down Commercial Road felt quite so epic, though they weren’t amazing at drowning out the loftier decibels on the rickety District Line.

Build Quality The V-Jays are light on design features, which suits me – they look serious, understated and stylish. The square phones are about as flash as it gets. The extendable headband can sometimes be a tad fiddly, adjusting each side to get a vaguely symmetrical shape, but it fits very comfortably. The cable is about a girthy as you’d expect on a pair of high-end headphones with an interesting 15mm headphone jack-split in the middle, though what purpose it is supposed to serve has, as yet, alluded me.

They feel eminently sturdy, like a Sherpa. You trust them. The phones fold under the headband to add a modicum of portability but it is one glaring concession of the on-ear genus of headphone: they aren’t easily stuffed in a pocket. Phones Swathed in familiar black sponge, it seems things haven’t moved on since about 1979 in-terms of ear-phone casing technology. But the fact is they were comfy in 1979, and they’re still comfy now, and you get a pair of spares, once the others are too encrusted with your aural discharge for you to hear through. Packaging V-Jays come in a rather snazzy box wedged into some good thick foam, but they’re light on accessories. If Jays really wanted to give V-Jays the professional veneer a hard-case might have done the trick. Conclusion These headphones are so good I don’t mind looking a bit lame (okay pretty lame) in order to enjoy their full and glorious goodness. The first time I donned the V-Jays, it was 5.45pm, I was on a packed Northern Line train, and a large and unremmitingly odious man behind me was breathing in my ear, I put them on as much as to block his heinous violation of my ear-canal as to listen to some tunes. But hearing them was like a epiphany: “Oh remember this,” I thought, “Music! As it should be. Loud and bassy and ace.” If you care more about your hair than your music then maybe V-Jays aren’t for you. But they’re certainly for me.