New Batman Video Game Gets “Mature” Rating
In the latest installment in the Arkham series – “Arkham Knight” – Batman is getting an “M” rating for being a little more gritty than what has preceeded him in the game world. The graphics look almost lifelike and the superhero’s physique daunting and dark.
“We want to deliver a true end with no compromises,” said developer Sefton Hill, “And it takes us to some dark places.” Places most Batman and gamer fans are only all too eager to see. Let’s hope Affleck looks like that in 2016.
Alibaba Tops Amazon’s Drone Stunt
The Asian ecommerce giant, Alibaba, is delivering 450 packets of ginger tea to inhabitants of Shanghai, Bejing, and Guangzhou during a three day limited test of its drone delivery system in order to create “unique and innovative shopping experiences.” Drones will ship within an hour of customers ordering online.
While legislation and the public fear of tiny delivery flying machines possibly accidentally causing deaths remain in the way of a general adoption of this system, one can imagine a world before airplanes compared to the present day – the world’s interpersonal ecosystem simply would not work correctly according to modern standards without them in the sky. It is imagined that in a few years’ time, the same will be said of delivery drones.
Pizza anyone?
New Local Entrepreneur Event: 1MillionCupsSyr
Launching this Wednesday, February 25, the Syracuse CoWorks are now hosting a weekly entrepreneur event entitled 1MillionCups, meeting every Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the new Syracuse CoWorks space to bring entrepreneurs, business people, and innovators together to assist each other in creating successful businesses and overcoming problems. The organization is part of a national model that exists in many major cities “caffeinated by Kauffman Labs.”
“It’s not a sales pitch, it’s a group therapy session where entrepreneurs can get candid advice from other business owners,” John Talarico, Cofounder of Avenue 80, Inc. and Chair of Syracuse CoWorks. Different from Shark Tank or a TED Talk, 1MC is a group support session: a time-limited 6-minute description of what a business person is doing now, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A where the audience gives ideas for business solutions or innovations.
The first presenter was Alyssa Blazina, Foudner and CEO of BizHubCNY who explained her developing company to help local businesses in the procurement process. (For the full New Times article on BizHub, click here.)
David Reed, Blazina’s attorney and local business lawyer, commented that 1 Million Cups alluded to the book “Three Cups of Tea” in which the author gets to know another over several hot beverages. 1MC in turn, as a continuous event brings innovators together.
Amy Wyant, CEO of Tech Geekery and Vice Chair of the Board at Syracuse Coworks commented on the exciting new series: “The reason that we chose to do 1 Million Cups here at the Syracuse CoWorks in Syracuse is because we believe in the mission of 1MC: to bring entrepreneurs into the same head space. Bringing 1MC into our location only adds to our mission and gets entrepreneurs to collaborate and work together.”
“This is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to think critically about their business and seek input from like-minded individuals,” said Talarico, “We have people lined up to present for the next six weeks and are always looking for people to sign up and go through the program. All of us involved are available to help them through the process.”
The group meets weekly at 9am. Visit their site or follow them on Facebook or Twitter for more information and how to get involved.
Social Media and Film
The Social Media Breakfast Syracuse’s next event will not be a breakfast but an evening bash at the Palace Theater on James Street hosting a panel discussion with some of the area’s leading filmmakers: Owen Shapiro, James Domroe, and Jeff Meyer; with discussion moderated by New Times writer and actor Christopher Malone. Free popcorn and admission. RSVP here: http://smbsyracuse25.splashthat.com/
New Times Tech Podcast Launch!
As alluded to in the title – “[i]t’s the end of the world as we know it!” in a good way.
Starting next Thursday, March 5, the long-awaited Syracuse New Times technology podcast launches on this platform, taking the place of Thursday’s “Tech RoundUp” whose information can – for the most part – be garnered from any other tech news source. The purpose of the upcoming podcast is to interview interesting persons in the world of startups and technology to enlighten and inspire readers as we have done through our Tuesday stories covering the same for the past year. Initiating the podcast will only broaden our effect, since the medium is taking on new legs in terms of wide-spread listeners as explained in a previous article in this column.
A big thank you to all our readers for the amazing support and excitement you have shown for the good news we put out each week about the startup and tech community. We believe reporting on the good news in business creates real, contagious positive energy and we only want more of that.
The podcast is re-titled The Next Best Thing: Stories About Innovation. We hope you will enjoy it as much as you have this column so far and more.
The Tuesday stories will continue but will tie-in to the Thursday podcast stories, the podcast providing deeper, firsthand insight into the interesting persons on the show.
Tune in next week at this column for an audio recording as well as instructions on how to subscribe to the show via iTunes/Google Play.
The Next Best Thing will be the first known podcast from a media group in Central New York and hopefully one of many from the New Times. Many thanks to Matt Masur and Morgan Jenkins of Venturetechnica for producing the show for us, and to Ty Marshal and Bill Brod for their support in getting this off the ground.
The show will also end with a “Tech Pulse” update chronicling tech events in the local area (to preserve what we have been doing likewise in these “RoundUps”), hosted by Tony Kershaw, the Innovation Specialist at the Tech Garden and Sarah Roche, Cofounder of Platypus TV.
Anyone interested in appearing on the show or with a lead for a story should contact Joe Cunningham at [email protected]. We are also recruiting advertisers as we speak and would be more than happy for any referrals or interested parties in that regard.
See you here again with The Next Best Thing next week.
