its small solid-state lasers can be used by aircraft to blind and confuse heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.
—Cleantech automaker Aptera Motors, now based in Carlsbad, CA, has raised more than $2.2 million in recent funding. Aptera is laying plans to begin manufacturing of its teardrop-shaped three-wheel electric vehicle.
—From its North American headquarters in San Diego, Japan’s Sony announced a $200,000 app challenge with San Jose, CA-based Adobe Systems. The Adobe AIR App Challenge is intended to drive the creation of Android-based applications for two tablets that Sony has under development.
—More that 15,000 people interested in geographic information systems (GIS) technology attended the 2011 Esri International User Conference hosted by Redlands, CA-based Esri. The theme of this year’s conference, “GIS—understanding our world,” emphasized the need for new approaches to such complex problems as a climate change and loss of biodiversity.
—A couple of noteworthy personnel moves were announced in San Diego last week. Wireless giant Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) named Matt Grob as executive vice president and chief technology officer (CTO). The former Cox Communications chief in San Diego, Bill Geppert, stepped in to fill the breach at the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. that was opened when Phoenix business leader Barry Broome pulled out of the top job shortly after he was hired.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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