It was a slow week for tech news in San Diego, perhaps due to a post-Uplinq lull following Qualcomm’s annual conference for wireless app developers. We did find a spurt of cleantech news, however, so plug in, turn on, and tune in. Your Xconomy briefing begins now.
—San Diego’s chumby industries, which has developed a touch-screen device and widgets to provide music, photos, games, and web sites, has expanded its software platform into the connected TV market through a collaboration with UK-based Pace, a global developer of digital TV technologies. Chumby said Pace showcased its applications for the connected TV market last week at the Cable Show in Chicago. Last month, chumby raised an additional $1.5 million from its venture investors.
—The jobless rate in San Diego County declined to 9.6 percent in May from 9.8 percent in April, marking the second straight month that unemployment has stayed under 10 percent. This dip is the first time unemployment has been under 10 percent locally in roughly two years, according to the California Economic Development Department (EDD). Statewide unemployment remained at 11.7 percent, a tick below the 11.8 percent rate in April. While the trend is encouraging, the U.S. unemployment rate increased in May to 9.1 percent.
—In an “Ode to Error,” Xconomy’s Wade Roush reviews the Kathryn Schulz book “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error,” and argues that it’s one of the best business books in recent years, even though it’s (wrongly?) classified as psychology. As Wade puts it, “There are so many opportunities for showstopper mistakes in a typical startup that, from the badge-of-honor point of view, it would be silly to penalize the founders too harshly when a venture runs aground. Most Silicon Valley investors do seem to realize this…”
—San Francisco-based Ecotality, which began installing its residential charging stations seven months ago, is now beginning to install its electric vehicle charging stations at public and commercial sites in San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix and 15 other EV Project communities. Ten public EV chargings stations that Ecotality installed at San Diego’s Balboa Park will be free until
