GM Goal: Build 500,000 EVs Per Year Starting 2017

General Motors has a goal to start selling 500,000 electric vehicles per year starting in 2017.  The focus will be mostly on plug-in cars rather than conventional hybrids.  Even though hybrids are important for GM, the company’s product chief Mary Barra said ”…we think plug-in technology will play an increasingly important role over the years to come.”  Next year, General Motors will be launching the Chevrolet Spark EV and the Cadillac ELR as part of the company’s push to hit 500,000 EVs per year.  This would account for around 6% of the company’s 9 million vehicles sold by GM each year.

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Spotify Raises $100 Million At A $3 Billion Valuation

Music streaming website Spotify has raised $100 million in funding at a $3 billion valuation.  As part of the investment Coca-Cola will become a minor investor in the company.  Of the $100 million round of funding, half of it is from Goldman Sachs and 10% of it is from Coca-Cola.  Fidelity Investments put in about 15% of this investment round and the other investors are from the company’s existing investors.  Coca-Cola and Spotify also have some kind of marketing partnership in place.

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Groupon Names Kal Raman As COO

Groupon said yesterday that Kal Raman has been named as the chief operating officer.  Mr. Raman was previously the senior vice president of global sales and operations.  Mr. Raman joined Groupon this past April and will fill in an executive role that has been vacant since September 2011.  Groupon had hired Margo Georgiadis from Google as COO last year.  She resigned from that position five months later and re-joined Google as the president of the Americas.

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Big Data Application Company Continuuity Raises $10 Million

Continuuity is a big data platform company that has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures and Ignition Partners.   Andreessen Horowitz, Data Collective and Amplify Partners also participated in this round of funding.  Continuuity now has a total of $12.5 million in total funding.  Continuuity was co-founded by former engineers at Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Facebook.  The company recently came out of stealth mode to launch their big data app hosting platform called AppFabric.  AppFabric uses Hadoop to enable developers to deploy and scale big data apps.

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Skype Offering 1 Free Month Of Calling To Cellphones and Landlines Worldwide

Although Skype-to-Skype calls are free, the company charges you to make calls to other landlines or mobile phones overseas.  Skype’s phone calls are much cheaper than what the traditional landline companies charge you though.  The good news is that Skype is giving away a full month of unlimited calling to mobile devices and landline locations for free.

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President Obama Signs A Directive For The Military To Act Aggressively Against Cyber Attacks

President Obama has signed a directive which gives the military to act aggressively against cyber attacks targeted at the United States.  The Policy Directive 20 outlines broad and strict standards, which will guide federal agencies when dealing with online attacks.

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28 Useful UI Design Resources

User interface design is the design of software applications, computers, applications, mobile devices, etc. that has a specific focus on simplicity and efficiency.  User interface can be very challenging because visual elements and system creation can make or break a product.  This is why it is essential to build prototypes ahead of time and conduct user analysis.  Below is a gallery of UI design resources:

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