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By Bruce Katz – With presidential politics in high gear, the United States appears to be heading for a frustrating year of partisan conflict and policy gridlock. In previous decades, individual states have acted as “laboratories of democracy”. This moment finds U.S. metropolitan areas providing the sort of innovation and leadership sadly missing in Washington, and, in doing so, forming what might be called the “United Metros of America.” Three particular trends are of note.
- First, metros are pursuing strategies that build on their distinctive strengths in the global economy
- Second, metros are looking abroad for new growth possibilities
- Finally, metro innovations are inspiring states to catalyse and reward bottom-up economic growth strategies
The most significant political event of 2012 may not be the presidential election but the emergence of the United Metros of America and the potential for national renewal from the ground up. more> http://is.gd/rIUF5m
By R. Colin Johnson – As touch-mania swipes across all markets, many applications look to upgrade to multitouch but can’t afford the high price of capacitive touchscreens. Now automobiles, appliances, medical devices, and low-end smartphones can retrofit multitouch gestures to resistive-touchscreen designs, or create inexpensive alternatives to capacitive touchscreen products, by merely upgrading their controller-chips to Freescale Semiconductor Inc.’s new Ready-Play solution. 
By Michael Patterson, Whitney Kisling and Inyoung Hwang – 
