Technology

HubSpot, which offers online marketing software from its offices in Kendall Square, today launched a referral program: Refer a software developer to them, and if they hire him or her, you get $30,000.

GigaOm introduces us to the Makr Shakr, a joint venture between MIT, Coca Cola and Bacardi to put bartenders out of work let you customize drinks via your smartphone (with as few vowels as possible).

MIT boasts that Makr Shakr can not only mix drinks, but can also monitor alcohol consumption and blood alcohol levels. So while it may not wipe down glasses while listening to your troubles, the Makr Shakr has a lot going for it should anyone decide to turn it into a production robot.

Via Boston Eater.

The mayor's office announced today city government will be moving from its current legacy applications - such as Microsoft Exchange and Outlook - to Google Apps.

In addition to making legally required e-mail retention easier, the move will save money and free city MIS from the task of maintaining creaky legacy applications, by handing the thing over to Google:

"By bringing city government into the cloud, Boston continues to modernize our technology while saving taxpayer dollars and freeing up city workers to focus on the vital work of helping people. Our technology experts will now be able to focus on moving the city forward, rather than maintaining servers," Mayor Menino said. "I applaud the vision of our technology leadership and the efforts of all those involved in this process."

In addition to Gmail, the move, expected to happen this summer, will give city workers access to Google Hangout, Google Docs and Google Drive. The city has hired San Francisco-based Appirio to manage the transition and to oversee ongoing support and security for the new system.

The city claims 75,000 e-mail users, although roughly 57,000 of those are Boston public-school students who have addresses on city systems.

A tiny company called Lexington Luminance is suing both Amazon and Google over a patent it claims is violated by the LEDs used in the companies' tablets.

Boston University this week filed its own LED patent lawsuit against Amazon over the LEDs used in its Kindle tablets.

Yesterday, Formosa Epitaxy, the company that makes the LEDs that Google uses in its Nexus 7 tablets, filed a lawsuit against Lexington Luminance to try to forestall an anticipated Lexington Luminance lawsuit against it.

Lexington Luminance sued Amazon and Google last November, claiming the devices use violate a patent held by Tien Yang Wang for minimizing defects in the manufacture of LEDs. It seeks damages and interest and an order to stop the companies from selling the products with the LEDs.

The company has no Web site and lists Wang's Lexington home as its corporate address in its complaints.

Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have created what they're calling RoboBees - robots smaller than a penny that can fly.

Inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second, the tiny device not only represents the absolute cutting edge of micromanufacturing and control systems, but is an aspiration that has impelled innovation in these fields by dozens of researchers across Harvard for years.

Boston University yesterday sued Amazon.com, charging the LEDs used in its Kindle tablets violate a patent the university holds on making the lights.

BU, which has already sued several LED manufacturers, says the lights infringe on work by Theodore Moustakas, a BU professor of electrical engineering and computer science, on "growing" LED components out of gallium nitride.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Boston University recently reported a technique that links the minds of human volunteers and rat subjects, letting the humans make the rat tails move just by thinking about it.

The Herald reports a laptop burst into flames and did enough damage to a Framingham State dorm to displace 90 students.

Gamification explains why an upcoming upgrade to Citizens Connect will feature a Facebook-like "like" function.

Boston University yesterday sued Samsung for patent infringement, alleging it holds the rights to the way Samsung is making LEDs and similar electronic components.

In its lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, the university charges that Samsung's charmingly named SPHWWTHDD805WHT0GD violates a patent for creating "highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films."

The local ACLU today announced its Technology for Liberty and Justice for All program, funded initially by $2 million in donations and challenge grants from Vertex founder Joshua Boger and Akamai Vice Chairman Paul Sagan:

Kinvey puts together the map. And it's just startups actually within Boston city limits - none of that frou-frou Kendall Square or 495 stuff.

This video shows Boston Dynamics's Big Dog, which used to just be able to walk up hillsides, but which has now been outfitted to be the sort of robot you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Via MetaFilter.

The T's started soliciting bids from companies willing to bolster WiFi service on the Purple Line and ferries in exchange for advertising opportunities, starting with painting over the AT&T logos now on the sides of commuter-rail trains (unless, of course, AT&T bids and wins). According to a T press release:

The Daily Free Press reports the BU Rocket Propulsion Group hopes to launch its own rocket into space in 2015 - using a "hybrid" engine that uses laughing gas and tire rubber for fuel.

Wonder no more (and note the CueCat on the dash). Spotted around Camberville.

Via Boston Reddit.

The Framingham audio company yesterday filed a patent lawsuit against a company that makes an iPhone docking system that competes with its own SoundDock offering.

In its suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Bose charges SDI Technologies' iHome line, which lets users turn their Apple iDevices into boomboxes, violates a patent Bose was awarded on Jan. 29 for a system for turning computers into audio systems.

Bose says SDI knew it had applied for a patent for the system and that the continued existence of iHome unfairly harms sales of its SoundDock system. Bose is seeking the complete withdrawal of the iHome line from the market and, naturally, tons of money.

3 p.m. today at the Moakley Courthouse.

Der Spiegel interviews a Harvard professor who thinks we're nearing the point where we could implant Neanderthal DNA in a human egg. Of course, that would take a woman willing to carry a Neanderthal to term. Actually, several women, because what's the point of growing just one?

No, you would certainly have to create a cohort, so they would have some sense of identity. They could maybe even create a new neo-Neanderthal culture and become a political force.

Via Boston Business Journal.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday, AMD charged that a former vice president and three managers at its Boxborough plant left for jobs at rival NVidia only after copying more than 100,000 confidential documents to take with them to their new jobs.

The suit, filed in US District Court in Worcester against Robert Feldstein and three managers, seeks the return of the files and, naturally, large sums of money, under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a Massachusetts trade-secrets law. AMD says the files cover everything from details of upcoming AMD technology to contracts with large customers.

Starts at 2 p.m. opposite the Moakley Courthouse, where Swartz was scheduled to go on trial in a month for downloading documents from an online database.

Obscure MIT Web page about its cogeneration plant was replaced with Anonymous message.

UPDATE, Monday: MIT confirms it was a distributed denial-of-service attack, rather than a network misconfiguration:

On Sunday 1/13/2013 from approximately 7:00pm to 10:30pm MIT experienced a denial of service (DoS) attack. During this period external network connectivity to and from MIT was down for the large majority of the Internet. IS&T staff responded and service was restored by 10:30pm.

UPDATE, 11:20 p.m.: mit.edu is back up, although the co-gen page still shows the Anonymous message.

Revenge for Aaron Swartz's death? TechCrunch reports MIT's Web site is down, although some testing here (ping and traceroute) suggests the entire mit.edu domain is no longer listed in DNS.

The Tech tweets:

Needs 25,000 signatories to get a government response.

Statement by his family:

Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community's most cherished principles.

The Times marvels: Biotech Players Lead a Boom in Cambridge.

Xconomy seeks answers in the help wanteds for Amazon's local expansion.