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 Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/

Rocket Fuel Adds $10M

Redwood Shores, CA-based Rocket Fuel,which manages a targeted display-ad network for Web publishers, said today it has raised $10 million in Series B financing. The new round, which doubles the startup’s venture pot, comes from new investors Nokia Growth Partners and Northgate Capital, with existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and Labrador Ventures pitching in. Using the new … Continue reading “Rocket Fuel Adds $10M”

Report: BrightSource Planning IPO

BrightSource Energy, the Oakland, CA-based developer of large-scale solar energy plants, is preparing for an initial public offering in 2011, according to a report today in Dow Jones VentureWire. The company has hired investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to manage the offering, the report said. BrightSource has raised at least $330 million … Continue reading “Report: BrightSource Planning IPO”

Sungevity, Founded by Greenpeace Activist, Tackles Climate Change as “The Amazon of Solar Electricity”

Yesterday we told you all about Recurve, a San Francisco home energy auditing and retrofitting startup whose founder argues that before energy-conscious homeowners put solar panels on the roof, they should focus on fixing what’s under it—poor insulation, leaky ducts and windows, inefficient HVAC systems, and the like. But let’s assume you’ve done all that. … Continue reading “Sungevity, Founded by Greenpeace Activist, Tackles Climate Change as “The Amazon of Solar Electricity””

Recurve Nails the Science of Selling Home Energy Retrofits

For Californians who want to make their houses greener and more energy-efficient, installing solar panels is often the first strategy that comes to mind. And there are many innovative Bay Area companies ready to help people do that, as I’ll describe in a story coming later this week. But Recurve president Matt Golden argues that … Continue reading “Recurve Nails the Science of Selling Home Energy Retrofits”

Google Sued by Skyhook, Big Funding Rounds for Crowdsourcers Get Satisfaction and uTest, & More Bay Area BizTech News

And I thought August was busy. As September entered its third week (where did the summer go, exactly?), the news on acquisitions, fundings, product launches, and lawsuits accelerated to a manic pace. —Google was on the receiving end of a pair of lawsuits filed by Boston-based Skyhook Wireless on Wednesday. A pioneer in location-finding software … Continue reading “Google Sued by Skyhook, Big Funding Rounds for Crowdsourcers Get Satisfaction and uTest, & More Bay Area BizTech News”

SumTotal Buys Softscape

Mountain View, CA-based human resources software maker SumTotal Systems announced today that it has acquired rival Softscape of Wayland, MA. Softscape had a “head start in the HR software industry” and had developed “many advanced features” that made it an attractive merger target, according to the SumTotal announcement. “With the acquisition of Softscape, SumTotal has created … Continue reading “SumTotal Buys Softscape”

Motorola Buys Aloqa

Aloqa GmbH, the Palo Alto, CA- and Munich, Germany-based maker of a cross-platform mobile app that automatically notifies users about interesting nearby events and services, has been acquired by Schaumburg, IL-based Motorola for an undisclosed sum, according to a Motorola press release today. It’s part of a general expansion for Motorola into mobile services; as … Continue reading “Motorola Buys Aloqa”

Cirtas Decloaks, Collects $10M

San Jose, CA-based Cirtas Systems, which makes storage appliances that seamlessly link on-site enterprise storage servers to cloud storage services, emerged from stealth mode today and said it has collected $10 million in Series A venture financing. New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Amazon provided the funding. The company’s $70,000 BlueJet Cloud Storage Controller … Continue reading “Cirtas Decloaks, Collects $10M”

Do You Know Where Your Child (or Husband or Girlfriend) Is? Whereoscope Can Tell You

This is the eighth in a series of profiles of companies funded this summer by Paul Graham’s Mountain View, CA-based startup incubator, Y Combinator. Every day millions of people check in or submit geotagged updates using mobile-friendly services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, SCVNGR, Google Latitude, and Facebook Places, sharing their locations with the whole social-networking … Continue reading “Do You Know Where Your Child (or Husband or Girlfriend) Is? Whereoscope Can Tell You”

$6M for Branchout

In a September 15 regulatory filing, San Francisco-based Branchout says it has raised $6 million in new equity financing from undisclosed investors. The startup, mostly made up of former developers from Tickle (acquired by Monster.com in 2004 for $100 million), makes a Facebook app that helps users with professional networking and job-seeking by showing LinkedIn-like … Continue reading “$6M for Branchout”

Sezmi Opens $17.3M

Belmont, CA-based Sezmi, which last week introduced a $150 hybrid DVR and Internet video access device, has raised $17.32 million in a fourth round of equity-based financing, according to a September 16 regulatory filing. The company has previous raised about $76 million in venture financing from Morgenthaler Ventures, Index Group, Omni Capital Group, Advanced Equities … Continue reading “Sezmi Opens $17.3M”

Can #NewTwitter Swim Faster Than a Fail Whale?

The Coast Guard reported Thursday that a ship entering San Francisco Bay struck a 25-foot whale and dragged it all the way to Berth 57 at the Port of Oakland, where it was pronounced DOA. (I’m not joking.) If you worked at San Francisco-based Twitter and you were looking for bad omens, this might be … Continue reading “Can #NewTwitter Swim Faster Than a Fail Whale?”

OpenTable Buys UK’s TopTable

San Francisco-based OpenTable (NASDAQ: [[ticker:OPEN]]) said Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire London-based toptable.com, the leading online restaurant reservation startup in the United Kingdom, for $55 million in cash. “This acquisition of toptable.com is designed to accelerate the growth of our business in the United Kingdom in a meaningful way,” OpenTable president and CEO … Continue reading “OpenTable Buys UK’s TopTable”

Conviva Streams $15M

San Mateo, CA-based Conviva, which makes “dynamic bit rate adjustment” software that smooths Interview video viewing experiences by adapting the resolution of video stream to the available bandwidth, said yesterday that it has collected $15 million in Series C financing. GGV Capital led the round, with existing investors Foundation Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and Pelion Venture … Continue reading “Conviva Streams $15M”

Skyhook, Fighting for Its Life in Suit Against Google, Cries Foul: “Call in the Referees and Review the Tape”

Boston-based Skyhook Wireless, in what could be a fight for its life, is taking a double-barreled legal shot at Google. In a pair of lawsuits filed against the search and advertising giant yesterday, the seven-year-old, 32-employee startup says Google illegally copied its location-finding technology and then leaned on business partners to use Google’s version instead … Continue reading “Skyhook, Fighting for Its Life in Suit Against Google, Cries Foul: “Call in the Referees and Review the Tape””

Google Buys Quiksee

According to reports in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and elsewhere, Mountain View, CA-based Google has acquired Tel Aviv startup MentorWave Technologies. The company is known for its Quiksee service, which allows users to upload interactive photo and video tours of real-world locations and pin them to online maps. A report in TechCrunch puts the purchase … Continue reading “Google Buys Quiksee”

SandForce Raises $25M

Saratoga, CA-based SandForce, which makes Flash-based “solid state drives” for enterprise data storage, said Tuesday that it has raised $25 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Canaan Partners, wit existing investors DCM, Storm Ventures, Translink Capital, LSI Corporation, and UMC Capital joining. SandForce president and CEO Michael Raam said the new … Continue reading “SandForce Raises $25M”

The Fridge: Private Mini-Facebooks that Put Social Networking in Context

This is the seventh in a series of profiles of companies funded this summer by Mountain View, CA-based startup incubator Y Combinator. Facebook is so dominant in the social-networking sphere that it’s easy to forget that there is any other model for socializing online. The reigning ethos in Facebook’s one-size-fits-all environment is that everyone should … Continue reading “The Fridge: Private Mini-Facebooks that Put Social Networking in Context”

GM Updates OnStar Brand for the Era of Mobile, Social Media

Since 1997, owners of selected General Motors vehicles have had the option of subscribing to OnStar, a cellular service that lets drivers make hands-free phone calls, hear turn-by-turn navigational cues, receive remote diagnostic reports, and get emergency support in accidents. In the car business, 13 years is a long time—but in the world of mobile … Continue reading “GM Updates OnStar Brand for the Era of Mobile, Social Media”

ShopWell Names Kim as CEO, Launches Beta Site

Palo Alto, CA-based ShopWell Solutions, which offers consumers personalized nutrition advice, said today that former Yahoo executive L. Jasmine Kim has been appointed chief executive officer. Kim is a veteran of consumer-facing businesses such as BabyCenter.com, LVMH Moet Hennessey Luis Vuitton, and Procter & Gamble. ShopWell, which was spun out of Palo Alto-based product design … Continue reading “ShopWell Names Kim as CEO, Launches Beta Site”

Get Satisfaction Snags $6M to Crowdsource Customer Support—To Other Customers

You may have heard of Valleywag, the tech gossip site owned by Gawker Media. But you’ve probably never heard of Valleyschwag—a short-lived startup where subscribers could sign up to receive monthly grab-bags full of surplus promotional goodies. Late one night in 2006, the Valleyschwag team updated its website with a new feature, sent out an … Continue reading “Get Satisfaction Snags $6M to Crowdsource Customer Support—To Other Customers”

UTest Raises its Largest Round Yet, $13 Million, to Scale Up Crowdsourced Software Testing Community

UTest, which helps big companies crowdsource their software quality assurance (QA) testing to a community of 30,000 freelance testers, said today that it has raised $13 million in Series C financing. It’s one of the largest venture funding rounds ever collected by a crowdsourcing company, and from the size of the round, “you should take … Continue reading “UTest Raises its Largest Round Yet, $13 Million, to Scale Up Crowdsourced Software Testing Community”

HP to Pay $1.5B for ArcSight

Palo Alto, CA-based Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: [[ticker:HPQ]]) said today that it has agreed to purchase Cupertino, CA-based ArcSight (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ARST]]) for $43.50 per share or about $1.5 billion. ArcSight makes software that helps large companies guard against online theft, fraud, espionage, and other cyberattacks. “The combination of HP and ArcSight will improve security, reduce risk and … Continue reading “HP to Pay $1.5B for ArcSight”

How the B-School Dropouts at Bump Are Filling a Big Gap in Mobile Communications

During his first week at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in 2008, David Lieb found himself meeting dozens of new classmates and typing their names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses into his phone’s address book, one by one. “There is this little loop running in my mind that’s always going, ‘Why are … Continue reading “How the B-School Dropouts at Bump Are Filling a Big Gap in Mobile Communications”

Google Gets Instant Results, Investors Write Livescribe a Big Check, Willow Garage Unleashes a $400,000 Robot, & More Bay Area Biztech News

Last week was a short but eventful one, with Google’s announcement about a revamped search interface dominating the news. Here were the highlights. —Google introduced “Google Instant,” a new version of its core search engine that guesses what you’re searching for and flashes pages of search results before you’ve finished entering your query. The company … Continue reading “Google Gets Instant Results, Investors Write Livescribe a Big Check, Willow Garage Unleashes a $400,000 Robot, & More Bay Area Biztech News”

Zynga Gets Zinged, Evernote Gets A Memory Button, Google TV Gets Accelerated, & Other Web News You Might Have Missed

While I was preoccupied this short week covering stuff like open source robots, smart pens, custom e-mail signatures, and Google Instant, quite a few interesting tech stories were popping up elsewhere on the Web. A few quick pointers: —I’ve only been in San Francisco since July, and I’ve already heard plenty of whispers about Zynga … Continue reading “Zynga Gets Zinged, Evernote Gets A Memory Button, Google TV Gets Accelerated, & Other Web News You Might Have Missed”

Ooyala Tunes Into $22M

Mountain View, CA-based Ooyala, the three-year-old maker of an Internet video platform that enables large media companies to share their video content online, said yesterday that it has raised $22 million in a Series D funding round led by new investors The CID Group and Itochu Technology Ventures. Existing investors Rembrandt Venture Partners and Sierra … Continue reading “Ooyala Tunes Into $22M”

Google Instant Is Anything But a Time-Saver

At a press event in San Francisco this week, Google introduced Google Instant, an overhaul of its core search engine that brings up location- and history-sensitive search results even before you’ve finished typing your query. If you live in San Francisco and you type “s-a-u,” for example, Google Instant will make an educated guess that … Continue reading “Google Instant Is Anything But a Time-Saver”

Expensify Reimbursed for $5.7M

San Francisco-based Expensify, which has developed a Web-based system for submitting business expense reports, said yesterday that it has raised $5.7 million in a Series A venture round. The round was led by new investor Redpoint Ventures, and included returning seed-stage investors Hillsven Capital, Baseline Capital, and Travis Kalanick. The company also announced that it … Continue reading “Expensify Reimbursed for $5.7M”

WiseStamp Puts a More Personal Signature on E-mail

In ancient times, before the dawn of e-mail, there were people who would grab any old blank sheet of paper to write or type on, and there were people who would only use fancy letterhead paper embossed with their names or logos. People in the first group probably cared more about getting their message across … Continue reading “WiseStamp Puts a More Personal Signature on E-mail”

Livescribe Gets $39 Million to Prove the Power of the Smart Pen

Smart pens, which can record handwritten notes and drawings and transfer them to a computer for storage, searching, and sharing, have never exactly written their own ticket. The technology behind the devices was first developed in the late 1990s by Swedish firm Anoto Group, and has since been licensed to more than 250 companies around … Continue reading “Livescribe Gets $39 Million to Prove the Power of the Smart Pen”

Red Bend Buys VirtualLogix

Red Bend Software, a Waltham, MA-based company that makes systems for over-the-air management and updating of software on mobile devices, said Tuesday that it has acquired Santa Clara, CA-based VirtualLogix for an undisclosed sum. VirtualLogix makes virtualization software that allows mobile handsets to run multiple operating systems. “Today marks the beginning of a new era … Continue reading “Red Bend Buys VirtualLogix”

Oodle Aggregates $1.5M

San Mateo, CA-based Oodle, which aggregates online classified ads in categories such as cars, homes, apartments, and pets, has raised $1.5 million in an equity financing round that could total as much as $3 million, according to a regulatory filing. A group of nine unnamed investors contributed to the round.

$46M for Kno’s Digital Textbooks

Santa Clara, CA-based Kno, which is developing a two-panel tablet computer specialized for education, said today that it has raised $46 million in debt and equity financing from Andreesen Horowitz, Silicon Valley Bank, and TriplePoint Capital. “Kno is gearing up to launch the first digital device that we believe will fundamentally improve the way students … Continue reading “$46M for Kno’s Digital Textbooks”

Take Home an Open Source Robot from Willow Garage for $400,000

Menlo Park, CA-based Willow Garage is one of a growing number of companies producing robots meant to navigate everyday human environments rather than factory floors or the surfaces of distant planets. As the New York Times described in an article last week, for example, early testers at the Mozilla Corporation are using the company’s Texai robot, which … Continue reading “Take Home an Open Source Robot from Willow Garage for $400,000”

HP Sues Hurd

In documents filed Tuesday in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara County, Palo Alto, CA-based Hewlett-Packard says former HP (NYSE: [[ticker:HPQ]]) CEO Mark Hurd’s decision to take a job with rival Oracle (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ORCL]]) places HP’s trade secrets “in peril” and asks the court to enjoin Hurd from working there. Non-compete agreements are … Continue reading “HP Sues Hurd”

Hurd Joins Oracle

Mark Hurd, who presided over five years of remarkable growth at Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: [[ticker:HPQ]]) before stepping down amidst an investigation into expense reports that were allegedly altered to cover up a personal relationship with a contractor, is the newest president and board member at Oracle (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ORCL]]) in Redwood Shores, CA, reporting directly to CEO … Continue reading “Hurd Joins Oracle”

Google Goes for Games with SocialDeck, Apple Goes Social with iTunes, 3Par Goes to the Highest Bidder, & More Bay Area BizTech News

Three Silicon Valley standbys—HP, Apple, and Google—captured most of the tech news headlines last week. But VMware and Intel were busy too. —Hewlett-Packard won its bidding war with Dell for Fremont, CA-based 3Par. The final price: $33 per share, or about $2.35 billion, more than twice Dell’s original offer. —SocialDeck, a Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of … Continue reading “Google Goes for Games with SocialDeck, Apple Goes Social with iTunes, 3Par Goes to the Highest Bidder, & More Bay Area BizTech News”

The Leaning Tower of Ping: How iTunes Could Be Apple’s Undoing

With each new product that Apple announces, including the revamped Apple TV and the new Ping social network, Steve Jobs reveals a little bit more of his plan to dominate the media universe. But I can summarize that plan’s fatal flaw in one word: iTunes. Don’t get me wrong. I think Apple’s hardware is unbeatable, … Continue reading “The Leaning Tower of Ping: How iTunes Could Be Apple’s Undoing”

HP Wins Bidding War for 3Par

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: [[ticker:HPQ]]) announced today that it will acquire Fremont, CA-based storage virtualization company 3Par (NYSE: [[ticker:PAR]]) for for about $2.35 billion. That’s more than twice the price originally offered by Dell in mid-August; the two computer industry giants have spent the last two weeks locked in a bidding war for 3Par, with HP’s $33 … Continue reading “HP Wins Bidding War for 3Par”

Inflection Gets $30M, Launches PeopleSmart

Palo Alto, CA-based Inflection has launched a new consumer-oriented people search engine called PeopleSmart with features designed to protect privacy, according to an announcement today. Also the creator of the Archives.com geneaology site, Inflection raised a Series A venture round in July from Matrix Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures. The round totaled $30 million, according … Continue reading “Inflection Gets $30M, Launches PeopleSmart”

Spinout Doctors: How New Venture Partners Saved Freescale’s Magnetic Memory and Other Stranded Technologies

Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory, or MRAM, promises to change everything about how our computing devices work. It’s as fast as classical static RAM at the core of today’s microprocessors, but it doesn’t wear out, and it also holds data permanently, even when the power is off, like today’s flash memory. It could enable true “instant-on” … Continue reading “Spinout Doctors: How New Venture Partners Saved Freescale’s Magnetic Memory and Other Stranded Technologies”

Innovators in Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Northwest Top World Economic Forum’s List of Technology Pioneers

The World Economic Forum—the body behind the exclusive annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland—today released its “Technology Pioneers” list for 2011. An unusually large number of the companies on the list (11 out of 31) are located in or near Xconomy’s home cities—see the rundown below. For the Pioneers list, the WEF singles out companies that … Continue reading “Innovators in Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Northwest Top World Economic Forum’s List of Technology Pioneers”

Saving Stranded Technologies: Talking with Spinout Expert David Tennenhouse at New Venture Partners

The “two guys in a garage” story of how technology companies get started is a powerful one in Silicon Valley. And it does happen: there really was a garage at Hewlett-Packard in the 1930s, Apple in the 1970s, and Google in the 1990s. The Mountain View, CA-based Y Combinator startup incubator, where most companies consist … Continue reading “Saving Stranded Technologies: Talking with Spinout Expert David Tennenhouse at New Venture Partners”

SocialDeck is Latest Ingredient in Google’s Recipe For A Social Platform to Rival Facebook; Reviewing the List, From Aardvark to Zynga

The latest addition to the budding Google social-and-gaming empire is SocialDeck, the maker of cross-platform social games such as Color Connect, Pet Hero MD, and Shake & Spell. The Waterloo, Ontario-based startup—which has also built a platform called Spark that lets game developers connect players on iPhones, BlackBerry devices, and Facebook—announced that it’s joining the … Continue reading “SocialDeck is Latest Ingredient in Google’s Recipe For A Social Platform to Rival Facebook; Reviewing the List, From Aardvark to Zynga”

Citrix Buys VMLogix

Palo Alto, CA-based VMLogix, which makes systems that virtualize large software lifecycle management and quality assurance programs, will be acquired by Fort Lauderdale, FL-based Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CTXS]]), the larger company announced last night. Terms of the purchase, which is expected to close in the third quarter, were not disclosed. Citrix said that the acquisition … Continue reading “Citrix Buys VMLogix”