Links: Penn graduate wins Nobel Prize, LTL Prints goes for Top 40 and More

• The Inquirer reports that a University of Pennsylvania graduate and pioneer in the technology that made digital cameras first possible will share a Nobel Prize for Physics.
• The Inqy also has a story on how the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia is trying to save beaucoup bucks by implementing more energy-efficient lighting.
• Philly Tech News reports that any mention of Google using a barcode image on its search engine to celebrate an anniversary for the technology can’t go without talking about its roots with Drexel University.

After the jump, someone from Camden posts on Tech Crunch, a catchy jingle from Old City and other tech stories of the week, included our best read piece of the week.

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Comcast Roundup: Sea of rumors of NBC Universal purchase and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription to our Comcast news updates.

Every few weeks, a single story dominates Comcast news. But few compare to the media hovering over the rumors that Comcast was in talks with General Electric about the wild mega-purchase of NBC Universal — something to the tune of $20 to $35 billion for a 51 percent stake.

So, while a stiff denial came first and all that has since been verified is that Comcast executives — among other suitors — were in the very beginning stages of talks with General Electric about NBCU and that deals like this often fail because of the complexity surrounding them, we can’t possibly ignore the buzz around this.

Thusly, after the jump, we bring you the best of the oh-my-God-could-a-Philadelphia-company-actually-own-one-of-the-most-storied-entertainment-brands-in-the-world hysteria below.

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Was the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit worth it?

There has been a lot of buzz, both positive and negative, around Innovation Philadelphia’s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit.

But now that the last keynote has ended and the folks at the convention center have begun cleaning up, a few questions remain. Was the GCECS event worth the ticket price? Did it attract needed attention to Philadelphia? Could the city have been better served by Innovation Philadelphia in other ways?

Lucky for you, dear reader, Technically Philly was invited to speak at the event’s “Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurial Journalism” session giving us the chance to roam the convention center and speak to attendees and ask: Was it worth it?

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Shop Talk: Notehall, an ABC spot behind them and 65-college growth ahead

Notehall Chief Marketing Officer DJ Stephan and CEO Sean Conway on ABC's "Shark Tank" last night

The dining room is gone in this Manayunk rowhouse.

The living room, too, will soon be taken over by what will serve as desks and workstations for an expanding Web 2.0 startup that relocated from Arizona to the neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia that has attracted a steady stream of 20-something professionals for a decade or more now.

Sean Conway

“This is home,” says Sean Conway, the 25-year-old co-founder and CEO of Notehall, an online marketplace for study exams, class notes and other supplemental academic material that is already at 15 colleges nationwide and is due to expand to as many as 65 more by the end of the academic year — 20 to 25 this semester and 30 to 40 in the spring.

Students upload their own documents and take a 40 percent commission when sold to their peers, who are allowed to peek at a third of the document before purchase.

Notehall now has seven employees, including five in Manayunk and two executive staff in Arizona, and is looking for more — including a PHP developer — most of whom are being financed by their own revenue, though some investment capital remains. Last month, they debuted their Penn State marketplace and, they’re already generating positive revenue there, “it’s just soaring,” Conway says, though he declined to disclose just how high.

But now they go to work, fighting to get attention among the growing crowd of Web-based startups calling for college-aged attention. They’ve had a good start.

Last night, Conway and his chief marketing officer DJ Stephan appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, which puts entrepreneurs in front of five investors on national, prime time TV to field offers. In fitting reality TV, there was drama, but Notehall came away with another investor.

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Clear 4G WiMAX mobile broadband network launches; AT&T completes subway network

A map illustrating Clear's WiMAX network coverage in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia mobile users have options and plenty of them.

Last week, Philadelphia saw the launch of fourth generation WiMAX mobile broadband network Clear and the completion of AT&T‘s cellular network on two SEPTA subway lines.

Clearwire’s wireless 4G network launched quietly on Oct. 1, promising download speeds of up to 4Mbps and uploads of up to 500Kbps throughout the Philadelphia region.

The network’s in-home and mobile packages are priced competitively and could raise alarm for other networks in the area.

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Technically Not Tech: NxtUp Philly celebrates region’s creatives

It’s a time to celebrate Philadelphia’s creative economy. Two weeks of time, to be precise.

That’s the premise of NxtUp Philly, an open calendar of events surrounding technology, design, multimedia, architecture and others, in this early part of October.

NxtUp kicks off today, with the opening of Innovation Philadelphia’s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, ending on October 16th with a conversation with University of the Arts designer and AIGA Fellow Hans Allemann.

Many of the organizations involved have graced this site and our events calendar before, like IgnitePhilly, DesignPhiladelphia, ChefAMe, Philly Startup Leaders and others.

“Great cities are built on collaboration not individual effort,” NxtUp organizer Ian Cross, who is CEO of I-SITE, an Old City-based Web marketing firm.

“Everyone is encouraged to put events in the calendar. NxtUp is not an organization, it’s ideally a marriage of top down experience and bottom up innovation and independence,” Cross wrote Technically Philly in an email.

After the jump, highlights of the technology-related events included in NxtUp Philly.

Monday, October 5th: Refresh Philly reaches out to new members with a happy hour at Jose Pistolas. Grab ‘em up, Refresh. 6:00 p.m. Center City.

Tuesday, October 6th: GCECS hosts a Unconference “Gab-fest,” a free offering at the conference where the public can network with presenters, speakers and conference-goers. 12:00 p.m. Chinatown.

Wednesday, October 7th: Successful innovators will share advice at the Baiada Center at Drexel University, including Theodore Goldman of Goldman Development Group. 5:00 p.m. University City.

Thursday, October 8th: Becky Clawson of Recording Academy Philadelphia Chapter will lead the Recording Academy 101 discussion on using the Web to advance a stronger music community in the region and beyond. 7:00 p.m. Center City.

Friday, October 9th: Stanev Potts Architects and Educated Guesswork will show off their iRUS canopy prototype, a lighting system that responds to its environment, built for urban situations. Damn cool premise. 6:00 p.m. Gayborhood.

Saturday, October 10th: Chiptunes dance party 8Static will celebrate its one-year anniversary with a free workshop and a cheap, good time. 7:00 p.m. West Philadelphia.

Tuesday, October 13th: IgnitePhilly 4 will debut at Johnny Brenda’s. Drew Olanoff of Blame Drew’s Cancer will present along with Brian McTear of Weathervane Music, Alex Mulcahy of Grid Magazine and Anna Goldfarb of Shmitten Kitten and others. 7:00 p.m. Fishtown.

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Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

Event Highlights for October 5-11, 2009

Our events calendar is still free, free free. But you know this, oh Philadelphia tech events wayfarer. You’ve never had to pay for the events that we list, and we like it that way.

The downfall of this philosophy is that when an interesting event pops up that costs cash, we can’t give as much attention to it as we’d like.

Take Innovation Philadelphia‘s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit or some of the happenings in the two-week NXTUP Philly calendar (Look for our extended preview of NXTUP Philly later today).

But this ain’t the venue for it. Nope. Not our Monday morning highlights. This is here for you, readers. After the jump, dig into free events from Philadelphia Standards Organization, Philly Startup Leaders, PhillyCHI and Tyler School of Art.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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Friday Q & A: Mark Loschiavo, Executive Director of the Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship at Drexel University

Mark Loschiavo, Executive Director of the Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship at Drexel University, believes the region’s universities are key to heightening the city’s profile when it comes to entrepreneurship.

“Part of our mission is to not only drive entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurial thinking,” he says.

Since 2001, The Baida Center has been a business incubator in Drexel’s Lebow School of Business that houses eight to ten companies on average, mostly winners of the school’s incubator competition. The center is also a big reason the school was named one of the top three entrepreneurship programs for graduate students in the country (three spots ahead of, ahem, Temple University).

Technically Philly sat down with the man behind the scenes: Executive Director and Senior Executive in Residence Mark P. Loschiavo and asked him how the incubator works and why, like the rest of us, Loschiavo has trouble pronouncing “Baiada.”

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Links: Alex Hillman and Kelly Lee spar, the Baltimore tech scene and More

DEFINITE READS

• The Inquirer jumps into the fray of criticism lobbed at Innovation Philadelphia and their Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit by Independents Hall co-working co-founder Alex Hillman, most notably through a lengthy post on his personal blog. Community response was less than enthused. Read our Q&A with Innovation Philadelphia head Kelly Lee.
• The Baltimore Sun’s tech blog has a guest post calling for advancements in their tech scene. Now, Philadelphia is bigger, more historic, cooler and totally owns Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy, but we’re way down with Charm City and totally dig that both of our towns get the short stick even though we’re the realest two in this urbanized eastern corridor we have here, so cheers to them. We hope to see their community grow just like ours has and continues to do. It ain’t Baltimore, my friends, it’s Balti-most.
• The Inquirer reports that Gov. Rendell announced an electric car manufacturer is looking at property along the Delaware River — get this — within city limits. But business columnist Joey DiStefano reports that state legislation that would make street legal the low-speed electric vehicles in question has stalled.

After the jump, a Ben Franklin expansion, Thrillist cats called coolest and eight more tech stories, including our best read piece of the week.

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Would First Round Capital move to New York City?

West Conshohocken and San Fransisco-based First Round Capital has announced it will be opening a new office in the 67th Ward.

Managing Director Josh Kopelman has made no secret about the firm’s affinity for the Big Apple, citing the success of First Round’s “Office Hours” events held in the city’s Silicon Alley. First Round has funded more than 10 NYC startups, launched a NYC mentoring program and are often seen attending meetups throughout the city.

So, does this new office mean the West Conshohocken office’s days are numbered?

“No, not at all,” said Kopelman, “the West Conshohocken office has more partners than any of the other offices.”

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