Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Aaron Hernandez charged with murder

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder and five other gun-related charges on Wednesday, as the prosecutor in court said Hernandezorchestrated Odin Lloyd's "execution."

Hernandez had been questioned in the killing of Lloyd, an associate of Hernandez who was found dead near Hernandez's house. Much of the case was laid out in court as the prosecutor asked the judge that Hernandez be held without bail – a request that was granted.

Hernandez was transported by police to his arraignment at Attleboro District Court and arrived at the courthouse just before 2 p.m. Eastern. He was mostly expressionless as he heard the charges read in the courtroom, and didn't change expression as he heard the prosecutor outline the case against him. That included the prosecutor saying there was surveillance video of Hernandez with a gun the night Lloyd was shot. The prosecutor asked that Hernandez be held without bail, and despite Hernandez's lawyer Michael Fee's argument that Hernandez is not a risk to flee, the judge ordered Hernandez be held without bail.

Multiple reports said Lloyd's family was in the courtroom for Hernandez's arraignment.

Lloyd's body was found on June 17 near Hernandez's house. Police have investigated in and around Hernandez's house since then.

The prosecutor offered many details of the case against Hernandez. Hernandez was seen with Lloyd at 2:30 a.m. the morning he was found dead, according to the Boston Globe's Wesley Lowery, one of the reporters in the courtroom. Hernandez's phone included texts to Lloyd and two friends the night of the murder. According to Lowery, the prosecutor said police have Hernandez on tape with a firearm saying "you can't trust anyone anymore" before picking up Lloyd.

The Next Mark Zuckerberg

You know Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, but there's a changing guard of entrepreneurs focused on big ideas and the next big thing. Here's a batch to look out for

Adam Neumann — WeWork

Courtesy: Miguel McKelvey and Adam Neumann

Adam Neumann wants working to be more fun, more collaborative, and he's willing to put a keg on your floor to make it happen.

In 2010, Neumann and business partner Miguel McKelvey launched WeWork, a space where small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creative types could rent office spaces. The aim: foster collaboration and empower people to build their own companies.

For $600 a month, people can rent space in one of the company's 13 locations. Just about everything at WeWork offices is made of glass, enabling everyone to see one another. Offices feature common areas where people can chat, and kegs on every floor to encourage people to interact with one another. WeWork members also have access to an internal social network where members can post anything from a request for help to an interesting article.

"I want to work for myself, I care about doing what I love, and that's a neat type of person we call the 'we generation,'" Neumann told CNNMoney.

With more than 100 employees and offices in New York and San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the company is growing quickly, with plans to expand to Boston, Chicago, and Seattle. EVC Scottsdale

Patrick Collision — Stripe

Courtesy: Patrick Collision

Patrick and John Collision are brothers from Ireland with a lofty goal: transform online transactions.

Patrick, 24, and John, 22, are building technology that allows small businesses to process credit card payments without the hassle of setting up a merchant account. They're young entrepreneurs taking on giants like PayPal, Google, and Amazon. Launched in 2011, the company is now processing millions of payments every day.

Both brothers dropped out of college to focus on the mission -- one that has been rapidly catching on now that that the technology has become easier to integrate. The iPad, for instance, allows merchants to control the checkout experience without the need to install a third party's infrastructure.

When you're young and running a small company, the traditional rules of business don't always apply. Stripe has 50 employees and unique structure: Patrick hasn't hired product managers and steers away from running the company in a hierarchical structure. Most of the company's emails are public internally, which means transparency for employees.

With no product managers, Stripe lets engineers figure out new concepts on their own and implement them.

"We're building for people like us...our job is to get out of the way," Collision says. EVC Scottsdale

Alex Hawkinson — SmartThings

Courtesy: SmartThings

When Alex Hawkinson posted his wireless hub and sensors on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, he struck a chord. He quickly sold more than $1.2 million worth of the devices that let users connect items in their home to their smartphones.

The SmartThings Internet-connected hub, and array of wireless sensors and plugs allow people to control everything from their air conditioning to their doorlocks with their smartphones . Using the SmartThings app with those connected sensors, people can shut of their lights and monitor whether a window or door is open or closed.

The idea stemmed from a power outage at Hawkinson's vacation home. The outage caused the basement pipes to explode, and the founder didn't find out until he visited the house a month later.

He wished he'd had a notification service -- something as basic as an SMS alert. A lightbulb went off, and Hawkinson decided to create his own. EVC Scottsdale

Aaron Levie — Box

Courtesy: Aaron Levie

As investors have scaled back their funding of consumer apps and are focusing more on enterprise software, Box founder Aaron Levie is quickly becoming a star.

The 28-year old started Box, a secure file sharing service for businesses, eight years ago in college with a friend.

"We were, you know, quite frankly bored with school and we were trying to find all these different things to do," Levie told CNNMoney. "We kind of landed on the idea that it should be way easier to share your information from anywhere."

The duo dropped out of college to focus on the service full time. Today, the company has more than 700 employees and a billion dollar valuation. The company now serves 150,000 businesses and has just announced plans to expand overseas.

Needless to say, Levie doesn't sleep much. When asked how he felt about tech giant Google, launching a competing service, Google Drive, Levie responded "Have you ever been chased by an elephant?" EVC Scottsdale

Paul Berry — RebelMouse

CNN

Paul Berry helped build the Huffington Post from scratch in 2007, and six years later, he's helping people create their own websites.

RebelMouse allows people to connect their Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social sites and create what Berry calls a "social front page for anything and everyone." Berry says the service can be used to help find and discover content and to enable users to create a visual presence on the Web with social media.

Berry started RebelMouse while hearing complaints from HuffPo users. People were having trouble curating their content and creating a landing platform in a time when having a website can be a necessity.

"People are starting to realize their websites do matter, and that they can be good," Berry told CNNMoney. "They were giving up hope on that, and that's part of why I started."

RebelMouse is beginning to attract some big names: Yahoo and Mashable have tested out the service. EVC Scottsdale

Karl Jacob — Hangtime

CNN

To Karl Jacob, there's not much value in knowing what your friends are doing right now.

"What's happening right now is only of little use because the amount of time you have to do something about that is very limited," Jacob says.

That's the thinking behind his new app, Hangtime. It searches through the open graph on Facebook and other online sources looking for what your friends are planning to do in the future, and then Hangtime creates a calendar for you.

Hangtime ranks the events by how popular they are among your friends, so you can change your plans accordingly. It brings new meaning to the phrase "social engineering."

Click here for the full list.

EVC Scottsdale

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Killer whale steals halibut from angler’s hook

Rare close encounter videotaped off Alaska; orca may have been lured to boat with the hooked fish

Alaska is famous for its halibut fishing, and for its killer whale sightings. But rarely are halibut and killer whales videotaped simultaneously, and very few people, if any, have captured such vivid footage of a killer whale, or orca, attacking a halibut at the end of an angler’s line. (Viewers should note that there is brief profanity at the beginning of this clip.)

EVC Scottsdale

However, researchers have heard of orcas stealing hooked fish in Alaska.

The Alaska Life posted the “Catching ‘Big Fish’ in Alaska” clip, via Laurie Jones, to its Facebook page on Saturday. As of early Monday afternoon it had been “liked” by nearly 4,000 people and shared more than 17,000 times.

There were no details about where in Alaska this was videotaped, or whether the fishermen, who seemed to be aware of the orca’s presence, were purposely trying to entice the orca with the hooked fish, as fishermen sometimes do with sharks.