Blogs
Drupal Camps and Cons are just awesome. There are so many things to do: attend sessions, listen to keynotes, meet new people while having fun.
But there is also another thing happening which is not really seen by most of the attendees: Drupal Core Development.
The core contributors use these opportunities to meet in person and decide about things which are hard to discuss via IRC or the Drupal.org Issue Queues. These meetings not only happen before or after the actual conference, also during the conference. Usually there is a Coder Lounge where people are working on Drupal's Core and drive it forward.
Especially here at BADCamp, it is the last real possibility to define things before the Drupal 8 Feature Freeze. This means everybody gives more than 100% to make the next Drupal version the best it can be.
As an active contributor to the Drupal 8 Multilingual Initiative it is essential to attend these meetings in order to know at first hand what was decided. And of course to get a lot of coding done.
See all pictures from BADCamp 2012 here.
This week we take a look at the effects that Sandy had on to the Internet in NY, appreciate a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference and see what's possible with CSS. Enjoy.
Social Media
Marketing magazine: Goodbye, Facebook, and thanks for all the fish…
Simon Dell argues that Facebook might have lost its must-have status for businesses.
Food for thought
The Economist: How to lie about wine
If you're not a wine buff, the world of fermented grapes might seem a daunting place. The essence of this article might get you out of your pickle.
Technology
Mashable: What Will It Take to Get the Internet Running, After Sandy?
A little insight in to the less obvious damages made by Sandy.
Internet Archive Blogs: 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes archived!
The often so useful digital library Archive.org announced that it had surpassed the 10 petabyte threshold. An impressive figure which in a few years might loose some of its glamour.
Tweet that cut through the noise.
A great illustration of CSS' powers.
A true masterpiece, Mona Lisa in 7587 lines of CSS. At least it's not handcrafted: j.mp/RllqAP /via @destraynor
— The Standardistas (@standardistas) October 30, 2012

Drum roll, please, for the launch of our latest client project: Hofrat Suess! If you are looking for a digital marketing and communication agency in the Greater Area Zurich and have a sweet tooth, you should to add Hofrat Suess to your shortlist. The two, self-proclaimed, Digital Brothers decided to offer their services directly to customers and hence started their own agency in Winterthur.
As a web designer it's easy to find yourself staring at a screen all day, spending countless hours typing, clicking, dragging, and dropping. While mastering this part of the job is undoubtedly essential, the repetitive nature of keyboard, to mouse, to keyboard is dulling at least part of your right brain.

And just last night I carved another gourd, this time a pumpkin for All Hallows' Eve.




From all of us here at Amazee Labs, Happy Halloween everyone!

Dear reader, here are the five items that impressed us most. Enjoy!
Business
How do our favorite tech companies make money?
Ever wondered how web services monetize and if they manage to be profitable? SEER Interactive's website sheds some light.
Social Media
The one million tweet map
This website does what it says on the tin. It creates a real-time map of the last one million geolocalized tweets.
Food for thought
TEDxZurich
Last Thursday the third installment of TEDxZurich took place at TV Studios of SRF / tpc. If you missed the live stream and can't wait until the videos are released you might want to read our four-part blog post series which was written on the day.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
UI / UX
Co.DESIGN: AOL May Have Invented Email’s Next UI Paradigm
The way that email inboxes look hasn't really changed in last few years. AOL (remember them?) introduced a new product which could challenge the status quo.
SEO
Search Engine Roundtable: Fake Google+ Local Reviews By SEO Company Backfires
The opportunities to improve one's position in a search engine, in the short term, left one company look rather suspect.
José del R. Millan: Mind controlled Machines
Machines, again! José Millan brought us closer to the brain-controlled ones. How do they work? - People deliver mental commands. The machine decodes it. However, both sides are learning agents. They need to get couple in order to cooperate. In a live demo his colleague remote-controlled a robot in their EPFL offices wearing an electrode hoodie. And tang, it worked!

Jacques Neirynck: The Swiss confederate model applied to Europe
We have to stop asking what Europe can do for Switzerland, but ask what we can do for Europe. The most valuable contribution would be the Swiss federal model: A sound amount of basic democracy (a popular vote can be right or wrong, but people identify themselves with the decision), local autonomy and a federal council, not a government. Furthermore we should become what California is to the United States - THE breeding ground for European invention and innovation. Switzerland is at the top of immigration countries. Every second baby born in Switzerland holds two passports. We are a multi-nation already.

Eleanor Tabi Haller-Jorden: Gender Biases
Women earn less for the same degree. One 10 men in a board of directors come 1.5 women only. What's the reason? Very often perceptions and stereotypes. We hear "leader", we think men. We hear "diversity", we think women. Eleanor tackles these stereotypes that are propagated day by day and hamper the career opportunities of women. What is a very practical intervention? Leverage the differences, ignore the gender.

Enrique Steiger: Swisscross, protecting health care in war times
Enrique Steiger is a plastic surgeon by day, by mission he operates in war zones. Staff casualties in areas of conflict have doubled over the last 2.5 years. The point he makes is simple: War surgeons have to be protected by force of weapon. The project that could enable the lightly weaponed shield for hospitals and medical supplies is Swisscross. A strong cause that still needs a mandate.


Charles Eugster: Combatting Ageing Problems
This man is 93 years old and he is amazing. He held a firework of a speech and earned a hurricane of an applause. Eugster, a dentist by background, rowed and bodybuilded internationally at ages of 80 years and more. The English gentleman's mission is to prevent the world from obesity and a phlegmatic old age. Obesity has doubled since 1980. 12% of the world's population is obese. In other words a world pandemic. By 2030 a forecasted 50% of the US population will be obese. Regarding the continuous ageing of human population there will soon be more people over sixty than children under 15. 92.2% of the 65+ have one or more chronic diseases. Three factors contribute to successful ageing: Work, Diet and Exercise. "Retirement is voluntary or unvoluntary unemployment for up to 30 years!". Inactivity kills. If somebody can kill the Grim Reaper it's Charles Eugster.






Davide Scaramuzza: Flying robots
From swimming robots to flying robots! Davide was the man for us boys in the audience. Unlike our toystore helicopters, Davide's robots can fly without motion capture system or remote control. In order to navigate autonomously they need to know where they are, however, GPS is not used since it's not a reliable system. While it flies the helicopter constructs its own map of the environment. Several helicopters can fuse their maps. Besides all play, what's the real interest in autonomous flying robots? -They can be taken to environments where human beings cannot fly or flights would not be economic, e.g. search for survivors after an earth quake or do environmental monitoring using helicopter swarms. The great presentation was crowned by a live show (behind safety net).





TEDx Zurich, the intellectual antidote to the daily grind is back in town! Here is what we got to see in an amazing first two hours.











FIDES Business Partner is online
0It is our pleasure to announce the release of FIDES Business Partner.
The Zurich-based company is the result of the three-party merger between KMU Businesspartner, agino Management Consulting and FIDES Equity Partners. FIDES Business Partner provides investment advisory services as well as capital and management capacities for SMEs.
Due to our development of KMU Businesspartner's website, one of the merging partners, we were mandated to do the same for the new company's web presence.