Bucks County robotics company gets DOD grant for minesweeper

Congressman Patrick J. Murphy (left) listens to Joshua Koplin (center) and Samuel Reeves, co-founders of Humanistic Robotics Inc., as they explain a minesweeper for which they have received a $2 million Department of Defense grant. (Photo by Michael S. Wirtz for the Inquirer)

There are millions of landmines in the ground around the world and someone in Bucks County is going to do something about it.

Bristol-based start-up Humanistic Robotics recently received $2 million in Department of Defense grants to make their minesweeper prototype a commercially viable product, according to the Inquirer. One of the leaders is a 20-something entrepreneur and has something to say about it. See what after the jump.

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Get your pinball tilt on with Make:Philly this Sunday

Over the past month, the crew at Make:Philly has been hacking together three pinball machine carcasses into a single playable arcade monstrosity. This weekend, it hopes to finish the project.

Unlike normal Make:Philly meetings, the entire duration of Sunday’s meet-up is devoted to making that pinball machine sing. The crew spent Valentine’s Day building parts (Ed. note: We apologize on behalf of M:P to significant others everywhere), so bring your polish and your quarters.

All skill levels are welcome at this event, whether you’re a wizard or you’ve got Xbox thumbs. We have our fingers crossed for a hacked skee-ball alley, next. We’ll skip the Jersey shore this summer if it happens. Staycation with Make:Philly and the Hacktory!

Make:Philly @ The Hacktory
1524 Brandywine St., Philadelphia
Sunday, Feb. 22, 2 p.m.
Please note that location and time has changed from regularly scheduled meetings.

Photo Credit: Aaron Weber

Comcast beats Wall Street expectations, shares fall anyway

Comcast, the country’s largest cable company and owners of the world’s tallest Flash-drive announced their fourth-quarter earnings this morning, and reactions are mixed.

The company beat Wall Street’s expectations by 5 cents per share when it posted a net income of $790 million, or 27 cents per share. Despite meeting or beating predictions for revenue and profit, the company’s shares are trading down this morning because of a decline in subscriber growth and the postponement of a share buyback program. Comcast lost 233,000 basic video subscribers last quarter alone, mostly due to competition from companies such as Verizon who offer competitive broadcast services.

The full fourth-quarter earnings report is available here.

Codima goes all Danish on us, opens offices in Copenhagen

Codima, the international IT software manufacturer with North American headquarters in Denver, Pa. in Lancaster County, has gone and opened up facilities in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Codima acknowledges the importance of acting locally, and our Danish operations enable us to further expand into the Danish market, where we have strong relationships,” CEO Christer Mattsson supposedly said in a press release.

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Philadelphia seeing benefit of value investing

Inquirer business columnist Joseph N. DiStefano made note of a host of multinational corporations that have found a small foothold in the region of late, including most recently Texas Instruments bunking in Bethlehem with a purchase of semiconductor-firm Ciclon.

That’s a case of value investing, which some say is deserving of a boon.

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Some in Pennsylvania losing TV despite stall in digital switch

Remember that whole switch from analog to digital for TV signals? Course ya do.

Well, the mid-February deadline was stalled to give consumers a better chance to prepare for the catastrophic chance at losing TV, but that doesn’t mean no one is losing out already.

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Abraham Lincoln loves technology and Philadelphia

Today is President’s Day, so why not tip your hat to perhaps the most technology-loving president in our nation’s history.

No, not iPod-tripping, Zune-dismissing, social media-loving Barack Obama, but Abraham Lincoln, who was born 200 years ago and has a particular affinity to Philadelphia, which has more monuments to Honest Abe than anywhere else.

Despite his image as a backward country bumpkin, turns out Lincoln was incredibly interested in technology, particularly for his time, access and education.

Find out how after the jump.

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Chew on Philly’s tech proposals in bailout package

Unemployment rate increases by county are shown in yellow and circles represent jobs created by the stimulus package. Credit: Off the Map

President Obama is expected to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this week after Congress passed the historic bill on Friday. Previously, Obama has promised to cut pork from the bill and only fund necessary and promising projects by appropriating money to encompassing federal grant programs.

StimulusWatch.org has been keeping an eye on the bill, allowing citizens to vote on the projects that they think will best impact their cities. Have a look at Philadelphia’s proposals.

There are a number of projects that show a heightened desire to improve technology and green energy initiatives in Philadelphia.
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Banister: the next Junto topic should be Art

That is, if Punk’d P’unk Avenue‘s Rick Banister gets his way.

On the company’s Window blog, Banister expresses his dismay with the current state of art exhibition and requests some straight talk from the art community. He also lays down some interesting ideas pertaining to the stodginess of art museums. RIFD led audio tours? Yes, please.

If you just felt your inner art-school dropout shiver, drop a comment over at Window and you may help influence the direction of next month’s Junto.

For those unfamiliar, Junto is a “club of mutual improvement” inspired by Benjamin Franklin that meets once a month at P’unk Ave. Experts are invited from a certian industry to lead a discussion on how to improve and change that industry for the better. In the past, the topics have ranged from health care to urban planning.

Small business love, optimism growing

Small business owners across the country are more optimistic now than they were even just in November, according to a survey by the parent company of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

That optimism also comes with a great deal of insecurity about expansion, showing small businesses are battening down for a continued, battering economic climate.

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