TECH Update: The Little Man

I've decided to dedicate one part of this series specifically to the smaller tech companies that look like they have bright futures. There is plenty of news about Google's change in CEO, or Apple's Steve Jobs leaving his post as he deals with his cancer, and I'm not saying that those aren't "news" because they can greatly impact the futures of these massive corporations, but the fact is, that they all started as small tech companies working in bedrooms and garages. There are some places that aren't very friendly to tech start ups, namely, Washington D.C., see why here. The little man always innovates and this post is a tribute and spotlight to him:

 First I want to highlight small companies and initiatives that have helped make the world a better place from a humanitarian point of view. We have a man named Brandon Fisher, who became a "surprise State of the Union star" after being praised by President Obama. Brandon Fisher is the founder and company head of Center Rock, a company that manufactures air drilling tools. After seeing the news of the trapped Chilean Miners, Brandon designed a plan based on the location, rock type and tools to rescue the miners. His company shipped 50,000 pounds of tools down to South America and was on site to organize the drilling that eventually saved the 33 Chilean miners and giving the world a great story.

The other company is Barefoot College, a program meant to teach "old grandmothers" how to create technology to harness the solar power to provide electricity in poor areas of the world. The video will tell you more (I couldn't find the CNN video, so here is another older one:

Now let us switch to the most over used word in the past two years: Apps (short for applications). Recently there have been two new platforms for apps to come out on: Apple's new Mac App Store (applications for your Mac computers) and Google's upcoming Honeycomb tablets which will flood the market soon (I would say the iPad, but we all know about that already. So why am I talking about Apps for tech giants like Apple and Google? Because these applications are some of the most diverse and fastest ways to start your own business (and many have). These applications are also becoming ridiculously easy to create as companies like Google create tools to make them without having experience in the area, just your imagination. It is similar to this Blogging platform by Google: I never type in any 'coding' because Google has simplified the process so I (or anyone else) can start their own blog with a few steps. I'm hoping to get started on app development sometime soon! Don't think you can do it? Well a 14 year old has created "Bubble Ball" Itunes' most popular application. If he can do it, why can't you?

Sick of all that snow? A small group of engineers with a grant think they can change all that. They have an idea to redesign our roads; instead of using asphalt, we use a different material that can exert heat to melt away the ice and snow to save states and cities hundreds of millions in clean up costs. Check it out!

A new company named Meet up revamped its website. It's goal is to serve as a tool to organize "Meet ups" for different organizations, political, social, or religious ends or for whatever reason. Al Jazeera has now been using the program to organize parties around the world to meet up on Feb 10th to "Demand Al Jazeera English" to be viewed in the U.S.

On a more controversial note, rebels of the organization Wikileaks have left the organization to create their own: OpenLeaks. Both sites now serve to leak classified information but have different approaches. Wikileaks has a very centralized system in that, documents are sent to Wikileaks, they delete traces of the whistleblower, verify documentation, and publish it on the website. OpenLeaks takes a different approach. they get the information, verify it, then give it to Unions, news organizations, companies and any other outlets who are interested. These groups can choose to publish or not, and if they don't, "someone else will" as the group's introduction says. Different format, same purpose, this is going to be interesting.