San Mateo, CA-based Hara Software, which offers Web-based software to help businesses monitor energy use, has raised $25 million in Series C funding, according to a report today in Dow Jones VentureWire. Focus Ventures led the round, with a range of other investor joining, including Itochu Technology Ventures, Jafco Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, … Continue reading “$25M for Hara Software”
Author: Wade Roush
Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco.
Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.)
I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia.
I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats.
My personal site: waderoush.com
My social media coordinates:
Twitter: @wroush
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YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967
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Hunting HiPPOs: Optimizely’s Testing Tools Bring Data-Driven Web Design to the Masses
Optimizely doesn’t put its most effective sales pitch on its website; it doesn’t have to. It boils down to this: If it was good enough for Barack Obama, it’s good enough for you. “It,” in this case, is online A/B testing: the practice of altering live websites in small, controlled ways to see whether the … Continue reading “Hunting HiPPOs: Optimizely’s Testing Tools Bring Data-Driven Web Design to the Masses”
Sign Up for Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021, Before Time Runs Out
We’ve got 10 years to debate what computers will look like, and how they’ll work, in the year 2021. But you’ve only got one day left to sign up for Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021, Xconomy San Francisco’s big spring infotech event at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA. I hope you won’t think I’m … Continue reading “Sign Up for Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021, Before Time Runs Out”
VMware To Buy Shavlik Technologies
Palo Alto, CA-based VMware (NYSE: [[ticker:VMW]]), the virtualization subsidiary of Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]), announced today that it has agreed to acquire Shavlik Technologies of New Brighton, MN, a Minneapolis suburb. The company makes software that helps small and medium sized businesses track, manage, and install software security updates and other patches. Shavlik has … Continue reading “VMware To Buy Shavlik Technologies”
SwipeGood, Lanyrd, Samsung, and PARC—The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
I spent a couple of days at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco last week, but unfortunately the news didn’t slow down to accommodate my absence from the office. —Our marquee infotech event of the spring, Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021, is coming up tomorrow at SRI International in Menlo Park; you can … Continue reading “SwipeGood, Lanyrd, Samsung, and PARC—The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
StackMob Stacks Up $7.5M
San Francisco-based StackMob, which provides programming tools, analytics, and other services to mobile developers, said today that it has raised $7.5 million in new funding. New investor Trinity Ventures led the round, which was joined by existing investors Harrison Metal and Baseline Ventures. Trinity general partner Dan Scholnick has joined StackMob’s board. The company says … Continue reading “StackMob Stacks Up $7.5M”
PARC Fires Back at New Yorker, Claiming Old Apple Legend Misses Point of How Innovation Works Today
Three staff members at PARC, aka Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, have published a feisty response to Malcolm Gladwell’s May 16 New Yorker article, “Creation Myth: Xerox PARC, Apple, and the Truth about Innovation.” In short, the post acknowledges that the legend of Xerox PARC—the oft, oft, oft-repeated story (repeated once again by Gladwell) that … Continue reading “PARC Fires Back at New Yorker, Claiming Old Apple Legend Misses Point of How Innovation Works Today”
Cell Biosciences Boosts F Round, Buys Brightwell
Santa Clara, CA-based Cell Biosciences, the life sciences instrument maker that raised $20 million in Series F funding last fall, said yesterday that it has added a $13 million second tranche to the round and used some of the money to acquire Brightwell Technologies, an Ottawa, Ontari0-based maker of protein analysis tools. Essex Woodlands Health … Continue reading “Cell Biosciences Boosts F Round, Buys Brightwell”
$7M for ThredUp
ThredUp, the San Francisco-based startup with an online platform where parents can swap kids’ toys, clothes, and books, said today that it has raised $7 million in new venture funding. Redpoint Ventures led the round, and Redpoint partner Tim Haley will join the company’s board. Trinity Ventures and former eBay CEO Brian Swette also participated … Continue reading “$7M for ThredUp”
The iPad Finally Has a Worthy Rival: Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1
Apple may be the world’s largest electronics company as measured by market capitalization, but Samsung is the largest by sales. So it makes sense that the Seoul, Korea-based giant—not Microsoft, not HP, not Motorola, not Dell—would the first to compete seriously in the market that Apple invented last year with the introduction of the iPad. … Continue reading “The iPad Finally Has a Worthy Rival: Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1”
BranchOut Collects $18M
San Francisco-based BranchOut, which is building a LinkedIn-like professional networking service within Facebook, has secured $18 million in Series B funding, according to numerous press reports. Redpoint Ventures took the lead in the round, which was joined by Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Floodgate Fund. The company also debuted a “Jobs Tab” feature that … Continue reading “BranchOut Collects $18M”
$10M for Demandbase
Demandbase, a San Francisco-based business-to-business marketing technology startup that helps it clients gather data on the other companies visiting their websites, said today that it has raised $10 million in new venture financing. New investor Sutter Hill Ventures led the round, which was joined by existing investors Sigma Partners, Altos Ventures, and Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: … Continue reading “$10M for Demandbase”
Lanyrd: Twitter Meets LinkedIn Meets IMDB for the Conference Circuit
Sixth in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 startups. I’m always on the lookout for technologies that have the potential to help us be better journalists and storytellers, and I find new ones pretty regularly—touchscreen video editing being my favorite recent example. But Xconomy is both a media company and an events … Continue reading “Lanyrd: Twitter Meets LinkedIn Meets IMDB for the Conference Circuit”
Pageonce Adds $15M
Palo Alto, CA-based Pageonce, formerly known as Netgate, said today that it has raised $15 million to further develop its personal financial tracking apps for the Web and mobile devices. New investor Morgenthaler Ventures led the round, which was joined by existing backer Pitango Ventures and individual investor Liron Petrushka, who chairs Pageonce’s board. The … Continue reading “Pageonce Adds $15M”
Video Advertising for the Long Tail: Behind Blinkx’s Acquisition of Burst Media
How did Burst Media, a Burlington, MA, company that helped to invent the idea of the online advertising server at the dawn of the dot-com era, end up as part of a San Francisco-based video search company called Blinkx? And how will owning Burst’s network of niche publishing sites change the way Blinkx does business? … Continue reading “Video Advertising for the Long Tail: Behind Blinkx’s Acquisition of Burst Media”
Funzio Wins $20M
San Francisco-based Funzio, developer of the popular Facebook game Crime City, said today it has raised $20 million in Series A financing. US-based IDG Ventures and China-based IDG Capital Partners led the round, which was joined by Playdom co-founder Rick Thompson. Thompson chairs the company’s board, which IDG Ventures managing director Phil Sanderson has now … Continue reading “Funzio Wins $20M”
Dan Reed, Microsoft’s Resident Futurist, Thinks Past Windows to the Fusion of Mobile and Cloud Computing; Meet Him Next Week at Beyond Mobile
Dan Reed heads a crew within Microsoft that may have the coolest name of any division in the company: the eXtreme Computing Group, or XCG. Formed a little less than two years ago, the group is part of Microsoft Research, but its mandate goes beyond R&D: it’s to help the company as a whole look … Continue reading “Dan Reed, Microsoft’s Resident Futurist, Thinks Past Windows to the Fusion of Mobile and Cloud Computing; Meet Him Next Week at Beyond Mobile”
LevelUp Joins the Deals Bandwagon with a Boost from Levi’s and American Express
Boston-based SCVNGR started out in 2008 doing exactly what its name suggests—organizing mobile-based scavenger hunts. Since then, the startup has been downright Protean, morphing into a Foursquare-like system of location-based checkins and rewards and then introducing a Groupon-like spinoff called LevelUp. But while it still isn’t clear whether 22-year-old CEO Seth Priebatsch wants to be the … Continue reading “LevelUp Joins the Deals Bandwagon with a Boost from Levi’s and American Express”
Get Out Your Crystal Ball & Win a Pair of Free Tickets to Beyond Mobile
There’s a remarkable fact in today’s New York Times: if you stepped into a time machine with your iPad 2 and went back just 17 years to 1994, the Apple gadget would rank among the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers. And that’s just measuring processing speed—when it comes to ease of use, the iPad obviously leaves … Continue reading “Get Out Your Crystal Ball & Win a Pair of Free Tickets to Beyond Mobile”
Kilimanjaro, RPX, and Embargoes: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
I was pretty busy last week getting ready for Beyond Mobile: Computing in 2021, Xconomy’s next big Bay Area event at SRI International on May 17. So I didn’t have time to write as many features as usual—but I got a lot of help filling up our pages from my colleagues. —Luke profiled Kilimanjaro Energy, … Continue reading “Kilimanjaro, RPX, and Embargoes: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Palantir Sees $50M
[Corrected 8/1/11] Palo Alto, CA-based Palantir Technologies has raised $50 million in a sale of equity, option, and warrants, according to a May 5 regulatory filing. The company, which makes software platforms for visualizing and analyzing intelligence, defense, law enforement, and financial data, raised $90 million in Series D funding in 2010. Its investors include … Continue reading “Palantir Sees $50M”
SwipeGood Works to Make Giving So Easy, It’s a Rounding Error
This is the fifth in a series of profiles of Y Combinator Winter 2011 (YC W11) startups. “Keep the change.” You might say that to a taxi driver who’d delivered you speedily and safely to your destination, but it’s unlikely you’d ever say it to a grocery checkout clerk or a Nieman Marcus salesperson. Yet … Continue reading “SwipeGood Works to Make Giving So Easy, It’s a Rounding Error”
JiWire Raises $20M
San Francisco-based JiWire, which operates an online advertising network targeting public Wi-Fi networks in places such as airports, said today that it has raised $20 million in new funding. New investor Trident Capital led the Series C round, which was joined by existing investors Comcast Interactive Capital, DFJ Frontier, Norwest Venture Partners, and Panorama Capital. The … Continue reading “JiWire Raises $20M”
The News Embargo Is Dead. TechCrunch Killed It. Let’s Move On.
My passion is for storytelling, and the stories that fascinate me most are about new technologies, how they’re brought into being, and how they’re changing everyday life. But there’s a wrinkle that’s been distracting me from doing my best work and getting it out to the readers who will appreciate it most. It’s called the … Continue reading “The News Embargo Is Dead. TechCrunch Killed It. Let’s Move On.”
The Y Combinator Class of Winter 2011
This spring we’re featuring profiles of selected companies that participated in the Winter 2011 session at Mountain View, CA-based venture incubator Y Combinator. March 21: Taskforce—the Y Combinator Startup With a Solution for E-mail Overload March 22: Noteleaf Seeks to Sync Up Online Calendars, Contacts, For Meeting Prep On-The-Go March 30: HelloFax Lets You Ditch … Continue reading “The Y Combinator Class of Winter 2011”
Disqus Talks Up $10M Round
Daniel Ha, CEO and co-founder of Disqus, the San Francisco startup whose commenting system is used by the publishers of 750,000 websites, said in a blog post today that his company has secured $10 million in Series B venture financing from new investors North Bridge Venture Partners and existing investor Union Square Ventures. North Bridge partner … Continue reading “Disqus Talks Up $10M Round”
TripIt Travels to iPad
San Francisco-based TripIt, which recently became part of Redmond, WA-based Concur (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CNQR]]), announced today that its mobile trip organizer system is now available in the form of a free app for the Apple iPad. “Now, travelers can access all their trip reservations in one place on the top-ranking tablet—including air, hotel, entertainment and more,” … Continue reading “TripIt Travels to iPad”
EA Buys Firemint
Electronic Arts, the Redwood City, CA-based video game giant, said today it has acquired Melbourne, Australia-based Firemint for an undisclosed sum. Firemint’s games Real Racing and Flight Control have been runaway hits on the Apple iPhone and iPad platforms. The startup will become part of EA’s interactive division. “The Firemint team is remarkable for its … Continue reading “EA Buys Firemint”
Anybots, DrChrono, TRUSTe Join Lineup for Beyond Mobile on May 17; How to Win Free Tickets on Twitter
The big IT event we’re running this spring, Beyond Mobile, is now just two weeks away. We’ve got a trio of big thinkers from big organizations coming in to help us grapple with our big question—namely, what comes after the current wave of smartphones and tablets? What will our computers look like, and how will … Continue reading “Anybots, DrChrono, TRUSTe Join Lineup for Beyond Mobile on May 17; How to Win Free Tickets on Twitter”
Skyhook to Power Mapquest’s Android App
San Francisco-based MapQuest, the mapping division of AOL (NYSE: [[ticker:AOL]]), will use hybrid GPS/Wi-Fi location-finding technology from Boston’s Skyhook Wireless in a forthcoming turn-by-turn navigation app for Android phones, according to an announcement today. The partnership helps to bolster Skyhook’s longstanding assertion that its location finding system is more accurate and reliable than the system … Continue reading “Skyhook to Power Mapquest’s Android App”
Peel Ripens by $16.7M
Santa Clara, CA-based Peel, which has developed a personalized TV recommendation system that uses the Apple iPhone and a device it calls the Fruit to substitute for traditional remote controls, said May 2 that it has raised $16.7 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to about $25 million. New investor Lightspeed Venture … Continue reading “Peel Ripens by $16.7M”
Life360, IndieGoGo, and KQED’s Bold Experiment: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
The local technology news last week was all over the map, ranging from mobile devices to crowdfunding to public broadcasting. There was also an interesting little flurry of acquisitions, with two San Francisco firms getting scooped up by outsiders and one merger going the other way. —As a preview of Xconomy San Francisco’s May 17 … Continue reading “Life360, IndieGoGo, and KQED’s Bold Experiment: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
$7M for XLumena
Mountain View, CA-based medical device maker Xlumena has raised $7 million in equity-based financing in a round set to total $8 million, according to a regulatory filing and press release. The company develops ultrasound-guided interventional endoscopic devices. The round included new investors Aperture Venture Partners and Western Technology Investment as well as existing investors Ascent Biomedical Ventures, … Continue reading “$7M for XLumena”
From Smartphones to Smart Spaces: SRI’s Vision of Computer Evolution
If the future is here but unevenly distributed, as William Gibson said, then where is it concentrated? One place, certainly, is the contract research giant SRI International. Created by Stanford University in 1946, it’s the organization we have to thank for inventions like automated check processing, the computer mouse, hypertext, the ARPANET (which evolved into … Continue reading “From Smartphones to Smart Spaces: SRI’s Vision of Computer Evolution”
Eons Bought by Crew Media
When is an eon only half a decade? When you’re talking about Eons, the social networking site for baby boomers launched in 2006 by Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor. San Francisco-based media services company Crew Media, which operates a boomer-focused advertising agency called Continuum Crew, said today that it has acquired Eons and its associated advertising … Continue reading “Eons Bought by Crew Media”
Life360’s Family Safety App Rides the Wave of Smartphone Adoption—and Parental Fear
Contrary to popular belief, the world is not a more dangerous place for kids today than it was in the mid-20th century. Rates of violent crime and kidnapping involving children are no higher today than they were in the 1960s, and physical and sexual abuse against children have declined dramatically since 1990. For some reason, … Continue reading “Life360’s Family Safety App Rides the Wave of Smartphone Adoption—and Parental Fear”
Halogen Merges with YouCast
San Francisco-based Halogen Media, a startup that places ads and content across a network of independent publishers, said on its blog today that it has merged with YouCast, a New York company offering similar services. “Together with the YouCast team and technology, the new Halogen will strive to deliver the ideal blend of paid media (custom … Continue reading “Halogen Merges with YouCast”
See You Tonight at “The Maker Revolution: From Workbench to Business”
When people talk about the barriers to entrepreneurship coming down, it doesn’t just apply to Internet startups anymore. These days, it’s getting easier and cheaper for any creative person to get access to the design software, machine tools, and other technology they need to turn their ideas for physical products into real businesses. Just look … Continue reading “See You Tonight at “The Maker Revolution: From Workbench to Business””
KQED Takes a Technological Step Toward Killing the On-Air Pledge Drive
If you’re a loyal public radio listener like me, you understand the special torture of pledge drive season. You grumble as your favorite shows get interrupted several times per hour by announcers pleading for your cash (the difficulty being that they may actually need it more than ever, if GOP efforts to strip NPR’s federal … Continue reading “KQED Takes a Technological Step Toward Killing the On-Air Pledge Drive”
From Crowdfunding to Jobs? IndieGoGo Seeks to Boost Startup America By Corraling Small Investments
The Startup America Partnership wants to make sure the little guy doesn’t get forgotten. That’s why San Francisco-based IndieGoGo turned up on a new list of companies contributing to the high-profile national job creation initiative last week. One of the first “crowdfunding” platforms, IndieGoGo helps individuals and organizations raise non-equity funding for their projects online. … Continue reading “From Crowdfunding to Jobs? IndieGoGo Seeks to Boost Startup America By Corraling Small Investments”
Joi Ito Will Put MIT Media Lab Back on World Stage, Says Maes-Watch for Hiring Binge
The overnight consensus from the twittersphere is that Joichi Ito—a globetrotting Internet entrepreneur, investor, activist, and blogger with few academic credentials—was a daring and unconventional choice to lead the 26-year-old MIT Media Lab. And that, says search committee leader Pattie Maes, is exactly the effect the lab wanted to achieve. The Media Lab “has always … Continue reading “Joi Ito Will Put MIT Media Lab Back on World Stage, Says Maes-Watch for Hiring Binge”
Joi Ito Named to Take Over MIT Media Lab
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology news office has confirmed a New York Times scoop today revealing that ubiquitous technology entrepreneur Joichi “Joi” Ito has been named the next director of the MIT Media Lab—an institution famed for giving its industry sponsors, and the outside world, a perpetual window into the future of computing and communications. … Continue reading “Joi Ito Named to Take Over MIT Media Lab”
HealthTap, Qwiki, Bo.lt: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
Last week saw an unusual number of acquisitions and several interesting company launches in the San Francisco / Silicon Valley corridor. —San Francisco-based HealthTap opened its health information site to the public. Focused initially on pregnant women and new moms, the site is designed to provide users with personalized health tips and background information on … Continue reading “HealthTap, Qwiki, Bo.lt: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
Twitter Will Move to Market Street
Thanks to a vote by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors earlier this month that capped Twitter’s payroll taxes at current levels, the company won’t have to relocate to Brisbane or any other city. In fact, Twitter said in its blog today that it has signed a lease to move its headquarters to Market Square, … Continue reading “Twitter Will Move to Market Street”
Buysight Gets $4M
Palo Alto, CA-based Buysight, formerly known as Permuto, has raised $4 million in a round of equity-based financing that could eventually reach $6 million, according to a regulatory filing. Buysight, founded in 2008 by former Rhythm NewMedia chief technology officer Shaukat Shamim, is a pay-for-performance Web display advertising network that tailors its clients’ ads according … Continue reading “Buysight Gets $4M”
Could a Game Be the Answer to Your E-mail Woes?
E-mail is the great savior and scourge of our time. We couldn’t get much done without it. Yet as regular readers know, I have an ongoing feud with my inbox. I’ve declared e-mail bankruptcy (twice), I’ve adopted tools like Taskforce that help turn e-mails into to-do list items, and I’ve tried filtering options like Gmail’s … Continue reading “Could a Game Be the Answer to Your E-mail Woes?”
GREE Buys OpenFeint for $104M
GREE, the Japanese mobile social gaming company, said today (PDF) that it has purchased all shares in OpenFeint, the Burlingame, CA-based maker social games for iOS and Android devices such as Tiny Wings, Pocket God, and Mega Jump. GREE said it spent $104 million on the acquisition, which will make it the world’s largest social applications … Continue reading “GREE Buys OpenFeint for $104M”
Bo.lt Lets Anyone Clone and Rewrite Web Pages; The Elephant in the Room is Copyright
From its beginning, the World Wide Web has been a deliberately transparent, copyable medium. I’m not just talking about the fact that it’s easy to copy and paste text or images from a website; in almost every browser since Mosaic, users have also had the ability to click the “view source” menu item to see … Continue reading “Bo.lt Lets Anyone Clone and Rewrite Web Pages; The Elephant in the Room is Copyright”
Join Xconomy and TechShop on April 27 for “The Maker Revolution: From Workbench to Business”
There’s something amazing happening in garages, basement workshops, and hackerspaces across the country. Generations raised on mass consumption, the local mall, and ordering products online from Amazon are rediscovering the joy of making stuff—and sometimes selling it. In fact, the twisty path from being a “maker” to being a full-blown entrepreneur is being traced by … Continue reading “Join Xconomy and TechShop on April 27 for “The Maker Revolution: From Workbench to Business””
CrowdOptic Sees $1M
[Corrected 4/26/11] John Fisher, CEO of San Francisco-based CrowdOptic, has led a $1 million Series A funding round for the company, according to a report today from Dow Jones VentureWire. CrowdOptic is developing software for smartphones that shows users information about moving objects tracked with the phones’ cameras. CrowdOptic also said yesterday that it will … Continue reading “CrowdOptic Sees $1M”