We got a chuckle this week out of a local entrepreneur’s IndieGoGo fundraiser to get the Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon to a wedding at his family’s farm in Hayfield, MN, especially the ‘pig angle’ to entice investors (and yes, go there and help them do it while thinking, “That pig with Jimmy is cute. Wonder how he’ll taste?“).
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: I’m Gonna Leave This Town by Les Gordons. Brought to us by the podsafe Music Alley.
The Podcast
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:19:00 — 46.1MB)
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Discussed During the Show
Minnesota’s Top Stories
- MinneDemo 17 Presenters: Hum; Docalytics; Pearson, Plc Acclaim project (Twitter); Purlew; VoiceIt; Cihop; Target’s In-A-Snap (iOS now, Android soon)
- Target taps Cornell of PepsiCo as CEO, chairman
- Best Buy CEO Says Tablet Sales Are “Crashing,” Hope for PCs
- Schafer: Minnesota loses when tech firms head west
- Open data policy heads to the Council
- Online learning venture for teachers lands big contract
- ‘Keurig machine for beer’ garners crowdfunding interest (Kickstarter project page is here)
Last Week’s Other Big Stories
- Apple
- Hilton Books Upgraded Technology (WSJ paywall)
Steve’s Security Tip of the Week
Encrypt your mobile phone calls with an app: Signal for iOS or Redphone for Android
Gang’s “One Cool Thing of the Week”
- Tim: InkCase Plus, “E-Ink screen for Android”
- Graeme: Automatic, “Your Smart Driving Assistant”
- Phil: Soulver, “Work with numbers the way you think them”
- Steve: Telzio, “Make Your Small Business Sound Big”
Upcoming Events
- INVESTyR’s Fundraising in the Digital Economy, 1st Tuesday of each month 3:30-4:30pm
- Bitcoin Bash, 6pm at CoCo Mpls (Grain Exchange), August 4th
- Mobile Twin Cities – Everything iOS8, CoCo Mpls (Grain Exchange), August 11th
- Minnesota Cup Life Science/ Health IT Division Finalists Reception, August 12th
- Minnesota Cup High Tech Division Finalists Reception, August 14th
- MinneDemo 18, September 11th
- MHTA Tekne Awards Finalist Announcements, Wed Sept 17th
- Cyber Security Summit 2014, Oct 21st
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Don’t panic! Comcast’s Xfinity is setting up home Wifi routers to let the public use your data connection but everything will be OK. In addition, NBC is scaring any-and-all Sochi Olympics attendees to think that, if they even turn on their smartphone or computer and connect to Wifi, they will be instantly hacked. Should you worry?
Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
You can rest easy now: 
A surprising number of hot stories this week for a December and the Gang covers it and more.
The news business continues to transform itself and news apps are proliferating. But are our mobile device notifications of “breaking news”, especially when that news is mundane and not ‘breaking’, causing us to divert our attention when we shouldn’t be bothered? We discuss this and many more developments in this week’s show.