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/

Apple Eases Controls on iPhone App Development: One Local Developer’s Experiences

Downloading free or paid third-party applications has become such a key part of the Apple iPhone experience—with more than 100,000 apps now available through the iTunes App Store—that it’s easy to forget that outside apps weren’t even allowed on the device until summer 2008. But while Apple’s strategy has revolutionized consumers’ expectations about smartphones, and … Continue reading “Apple Eases Controls on iPhone App Development: One Local Developer’s Experiences”

Dynadec, Harvest, and Konarka: A Trio of Friday Fundings

Three New England firms rounded out the first week of the New Year with new financing rounds. —Konarka Technologies of Lowell, MA, which is famous for its flexible “Power Plastic” photovoltaic material, raised $23.8 million in Series G funding through an offering combining equity and warrants. All of the money came from a single source, … Continue reading “Dynadec, Harvest, and Konarka: A Trio of Friday Fundings”

Subscription Model Turns Rent the Runway into a Real “Dressflix”

“Netflix for designer dresses” is the elevator pitch that everyone uses to describe Rent the Runway, the New York City startup that launched in November with Series A funding from Boston-based Bain Capital Ventures. The company buys dresses from top fashion designers, then lets customers reserve them online for a four- or eight-day rental period. … Continue reading “Subscription Model Turns Rent the Runway into a Real “Dressflix””

Tablet Fever: How Apple Could Go Where No Computer Maker Has Gone Before

After a steady crescendo over the last several years, the talk in the mediasphere about a new tablet computer from Apple has reached deafening proportions. With an actual product announcement now expected on January 27 (at least, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites “sources in a position to know”), Apple may finally be … Continue reading “Tablet Fever: How Apple Could Go Where No Computer Maker Has Gone Before”

$15M for Salient Surgical

Salient Surgical Technologies of Portsmouth, NH, has raised $15 million in equity-based financing from a group of 10 unnamed investors, according to a regulatory filing published online yesterday. Established in 1999 and formerly known as Tissuelink Medical, Salient makes devices that stop bleeding and seal wounds by allowing surgeons to apply focused radio-frequency energy and … Continue reading “$15M for Salient Surgical”

Dyn Inc. Buys EveryDNS

Manchester, NH-based Dyn Inc., which provides DNS services to leading companies like Twitter, Meetup, 37Signals, and Stylefeeder, said today that it has acquired San Francisco-based rival EveryDNS. DNS services resolve customers’ URLs into Internet protocol addresses that are readable by Web servers and Internet routers. EveryDNS is 12-year-old Dyn’s first acquisition; the terms of the … Continue reading “Dyn Inc. Buys EveryDNS”

A New CEO at Mascoma

Lebanon, NH-based Mascoma, which is developing technology for making biofuels from cellulosic ethanol, said today that chemical industry veteran William Brady has been appointed chief executive officer. Brady steps into a post vacated last August by Bruce Jamerson, who became chairman of venture-backed Mascoma and its subsidiary Frontier Renewable Resources. Brady previously spent 23 years … Continue reading “A New CEO at Mascoma”

MicroCHIPS Adds $16.5 Million to Pursue Wireless Medical Implants

MicroCHIPS, the Bedford, MA-based startup developing wireless medical implants containing chemical sensors or drug reservoirs, has raised $16.5 million in Series C venture funding, according to a company announcement today. Existing investors Polaris Venture Partners, Novartis Venture Fund, Flybridge Capital Partners, Medtronic, Saints Capital, Intersouth Partners, Care Capital, and CSK Venture Capital were all on … Continue reading “MicroCHIPS Adds $16.5 Million to Pursue Wireless Medical Implants”

ZeeVee Recasts Zinc Video Browser for the Cloud—and for a New Generation of Internet-Connected TVs

By the end of the new decade—and probably a lot sooner—television will be just another application of the Internet, the way e-mail and the Web and Twitter are today. All TV sets will connect directly to the Internet, and they’ll have built-in user interfaces that help viewers navigate the universe of digital video content (which … Continue reading “ZeeVee Recasts Zinc Video Browser for the Cloud—and for a New Generation of Internet-Connected TVs”

Immerz Offers KOR-fx for Pre-order

Immerz, the Cambridge, MA-based startup building a wearable “acousto-haptic” device called KOR-fx that translates movie and video game sound into chest-thumping vibrations, announced today that the device is available for pre-order on its website. Priced at $189.99, the KOR-fx accessory will ship in May, according to the company. Immerz founder and CEO Shahriar Afshar is … Continue reading “Immerz Offers KOR-fx for Pre-order”

PeopleClick Merges with Authoria

Bedford Funding, a White Plains, NY-based private equity fund, has purchased PeopleClick, a Raleigh, NC-based maker of software for employee recruitment and human resources management, for $100 million, and, according to a press announcement released yesterday, and plans to merge it with Waltham, MA-based rival Authoria, which it purchased last year for $63 million. The … Continue reading “PeopleClick Merges with Authoria”

Incoming Viximo CEO Sees a Burgeoning Economy of Virtual Goods

Online publishers who want to let their users exchange virtual gifts—think singing Santa e-cards at Christmas or animated hearts for Valentine’s Day—can turn to Viximo, a two-year-old startup in Cambridge, MA, for both the virtual goods themselves and the microtransactions system needed to distribute them. And now Viximo is turning to a new leader to … Continue reading “Incoming Viximo CEO Sees a Burgeoning Economy of Virtual Goods”

$2M for NoblePeak Vision

NoblePeak Vision of Wakefield, MA, has collected $2 million out of an intended $6.8 million round of equity funding, according to a December 30 regulatory filing. Founded in 2002 by Bell Labs veterans and formerly known as Noble Device Technologies, the company makes shortwave infrared imaging sensors used in night-vision security cameras for surveillance at … Continue reading “$2M for NoblePeak Vision”

Echo Nest Raises $1.3M

The Echo Nest, a Somerville, MA-based music search and recommendation startup, has raised $1.3 million in new equity financing, according to a regulatory filing today. The investors weren’t disclosed in the filing, but the company’s directors include Eliott Katzmann of Commonwealth Capital Ventures (which led a previous funding round in September 2008). Xconomy profiled The … Continue reading “Echo Nest Raises $1.3M”

Report: Apple Snaps Up Quattro Wireless, Joins the Mobile Advertising Business

After Google acquired mobile advertising network AdMob in November for $750 million, the chief marketing officer at Waltham, MA-based Quattro Wireless, an AdMob rival, told me Quattro wasn’t worried about having Google as a competitor. “We actually think [the Google-AdMob deal is] great for the industry, because it really shows the importance of the mobile … Continue reading “Report: Apple Snaps Up Quattro Wireless, Joins the Mobile Advertising Business”

EMC Makes Bold Move into ‘GRC’ Market With Archer Acquisition…But Is It the Last?

It turns out regulation and government mandates aren’t always bad for business. A generation of new software companies is emerging to serve businesses who need to comply with a skein of regulations put in place over the last decade to fight financial and accounting fraud, prevent database breaches, and generally make businesses more transparent and … Continue reading “EMC Makes Bold Move into ‘GRC’ Market With Archer Acquisition…But Is It the Last?”

M&A Liquidity Up, IPO Market Still Anemic: Fourth-Quarter Data on Venture Exits Is a Mixed Bag

It’s too early to say whether it’s the beginning of the end of the liquidity drought, or just the end of the beginning. But after seven straight quarters of declining IPO and M&A earnings for venture-backed U.S. companies, there was a ray of hope in the fourth quarter of 2009. Venture-backed firms raised $7.5 billion … Continue reading “M&A Liquidity Up, IPO Market Still Anemic: Fourth-Quarter Data on Venture Exits Is a Mixed Bag”

$5M for Digital Lumens

Boston-based stealth-mode startup Digital Lumens has raised $5 million in new equity financing, according to a regulatory filing published December 31. The company, whose board members include Jon Karlen of Boston’s Flybridge Capital Partners and Lee Barbieri of Dover, MA-based Stata Venture Partners in Dover, MA, specializes in high-efficiency lighting technology. Digital Lumens previously raised … Continue reading “$5M for Digital Lumens”

Report: Security Breach Behind Twitter Outage Did Not Originate with New Hampshire DNS Provider

A hacker attack on the domain name system (DNS) servers that enable access to Twitter’s website disrupted service for many users late Thursday, directing them instead to a web page declaring “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.” In the wake of the attack, which was fended off within hours, many fingers are … Continue reading “Report: Security Breach Behind Twitter Outage Did Not Originate with New Hampshire DNS Provider”

Airvana Goes Private in $530M Deal

Chelmsford, MA-based Airvana (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AIRV]]), which makes femtocell equipment and other infrastructure for wireless operators, announced today that it’s departing the public markets and going private in a $530 million deal with a group of private-equity investors. Airvana will become a subsidiary of 72 Mobile Holdings, a new company owned by affiliates of S.A.C. Private … Continue reading “Airvana Goes Private in $530M Deal”

Digital Magazines Emerge—But Glossy Paper Publishers Haven’t Turned the Page on the Past

With all the drama this year around newspapers, including the Boston Globe‘s near-death experience and the actual demise of several other papers such as the Seattle P-I and the Rocky Mountain News, there’s been slightly less hoopla over the fate of magazines. They’re dealing with many of the same problems as newspapers, including a falloff … Continue reading “Digital Magazines Emerge—But Glossy Paper Publishers Haven’t Turned the Page on the Past”

Crispy Gamer Absorbs Cambridge’s GamerDNA

New York-based Crispy Gamer, an online video game review site, has acquired GamerDNA of Cambridge, MA, which attempted to build a community website that used real-time game play information to generate video game recommendations for community members. Jon Radoff, the founder of GamerDNA, announced the merger in a blog post today. The transition isn’t a … Continue reading “Crispy Gamer Absorbs Cambridge’s GamerDNA”

SeeWhy Brings in $2M

Andover, MA-based SeeWhy, which makes analytics software that helps website owners determine why visitors abandon shopping carts and online forms, said yesterday that it has raised $2 milion in new equity financing from its current investors, including UK-based Delta Partners. The startup said the funds would help it boost sales, marketing and SaaS support for … Continue reading “SeeWhy Brings in $2M”

Invent a Cool Clothing Site, Now Leave the Country—Fan Bi, Blank Label, and The Case for the “Founders Visa”

Twenty-two-year-old Fan Bi is the mastermind behind Blank Label, an online clothier where fashion-conscious young men can use sophisticated “configurator” software to design their own dress shirts from a variety of fabrics and collar, cuff, and pocket styles. Tailors in Shanghai assemble shirts from the designs and ship the finished articles back to the U.S., … Continue reading “Invent a Cool Clothing Site, Now Leave the Country—Fan Bi, Blank Label, and The Case for the “Founders Visa””

CyPhy Works Wins UAV Grant

DroidWorks, the stealth-mode robotics company launched early in 2009 by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, has changed its name to CyPhy Works and has won a $2.4 million research award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to study ways of using unmanned aerial vehicles to inspect civil infrastructure such as highways, bridges and dams, … Continue reading “CyPhy Works Wins UAV Grant”

GlassHouse Raises $2M

Framingham, MA-based GlassHouse Technologies, which provides data center management and backup services, has raised $2 million in new equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. The company declined to comment on the funding. GlassHouse’s previous financing round was a $9.8 million Series F investment one year ago led by Cisco Systems. The company nixed plans … Continue reading “GlassHouse Raises $2M”

ULocate’s Where Is That Rare Beast: A Location-Based Mobile Platform Earning Real Money

As the news cycle slows down with the approach of the holidays, I’ve had a bit of time to attend to my towering backlog of unpublished interviews, including the one below, from a visit to Boston-based uLocate. CEO Walt Doyle and vice president of marketing Dan Gilmartin had me over on November 9 for the … Continue reading “ULocate’s Where Is That Rare Beast: A Location-Based Mobile Platform Earning Real Money”

Cloud3 Speakers Share Their Presentations

At Xconomy’s Cloud3 Forum on December 10, several attendees asked me whether we would be putting the speakers’ presentations online. It seemed like a great idea—in fact I wished I’d thought of it myself! So I asked all of our speakers for permission to post their decks, and voila, here are seven of them. You … Continue reading “Cloud3 Speakers Share Their Presentations”

The Cloud3 Crowd: Photos from Xconomy’s Cloud Computing Forum

Xconomy’s Cloud3 Forum on December 10 attracted a capacity crowd of more than 200 people—and now we’ve got the photos to prove it! We used the morning event, which was hosted by Microsoft, to hash out some of the stickiest issues around cloud computing, such as cost and security, and to bring the audience up … Continue reading “The Cloud3 Crowd: Photos from Xconomy’s Cloud Computing Forum”

$16 Million More for Exagrid

[Corrected 12/15/09, see below] Exagrid, a provider of disk-based backup storage equipment and deduplication software in Westborough, MA, has raised an additional $16 million in equity-based financing, according to regulatory documents filed December 14. This venture round, the company’s fifth, follows a $20 million Series C round in November 2007 and a $12 million Series … Continue reading “$16 Million More for Exagrid”

In Online Advertising Auctions, DataXu’s Rocket Science Turns the Tables in Buyers’ Favor

The introduction of pay-per-click advertising in the early 2000s by Overture, Google, Yahoo, and others made the Web a lot more appealing to advertisers, since it meant they only had to pay for ads when Web surfers actually clicked through to their sites. A more recent innovation—real-time bidding for individual display-ad impressions—also helps advertisers, by … Continue reading “In Online Advertising Auctions, DataXu’s Rocket Science Turns the Tables in Buyers’ Favor”

CoreStreet Sold to ActivIdentity for $20M

Fremont, CA-based ActivIdentity, which makes software and devices used to authenticate individuals entering secure facilities or logging on to private networks, said today that it is acquiring Cambridge, MA-based competitor CoreStreet for $20 million in cash, stock, and warrants. ActivIdentity said CoreStreet’s physical access control products and its distributed credential validation system—in which the information … Continue reading “CoreStreet Sold to ActivIdentity for $20M”

Emo Labs Raises $1.5 Million

Jason Carlson, CEO of Waltham, MA-based Emo Labs, confirmed today that the audio technology company has collected $1.5 million in the first tranche of a planned $2.7 million venture funding round, as indicated by regulatory documents filed December 11. Emo is developing transparent loudspeakers that attach to the front of large displays, greatly improving the … Continue reading “Emo Labs Raises $1.5 Million”

IDC Picks Up 7ticks

Interactive Data Corporation (NYSE: [[ticker:IDC]]), the Bedford, MA-based market data provider, announced today that it will acquire 7ticks, a 42-employee firm in Chicago that provides customers with high-speed access to derivatives, options, and commodities exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and EuroNext. Interactive Data said in a statement that the acquisition “represents an important … Continue reading “IDC Picks Up 7ticks”

Avenue100 Acquires GetTheJob.com

Avenue100 Media Solutions, a Woburn, MA-based online marketing subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, said today that it has acquired job search site GetTheJob.com. The sites Avenue 100 already oversees include CourseAdvisor.com and EducationGrant.com; the acquisition represents “a natural step in our corporate evolution given our successful Web properties in the education realm,” Avenue 100 … Continue reading “Avenue100 Acquires GetTheJob.com”

On-Q-ity Ups Venture Round by $5M

Waltham, MA-based cancer diagnostics firm On-Q-ity has added a new investor and an additional $5 million to the $21 million Series A venture round it announced in early November, according to a press release summarized in the Boston Globe today. The new investor, Atlas Venture, joins Bessemer Venture Partners, MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, Northgate Capital, and … Continue reading “On-Q-ity Ups Venture Round by $5M”

Monotype Buys Planetweb

Woburn, MA-based Monotype Imaging (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TYPE]]) has paid $1.9 million in cash to acquire the assets of Planetweb, a dot-com-era holdover based in Redwood Shores, CA, according to a Monotype announcement today. Founded in 1996, Planetweb had raised nearly $60 million in venture backing to develop Internet browsers for televisions and other devices; its current … Continue reading “Monotype Buys Planetweb”

Novomer Uses Kodak’s Idle Film Plants to Scale Up Its Green Process for Making Plastic

There’s news out of Boston-based Novomer today offering a measure of encouragement to environmentalists fixated on this month’s climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen. The material science startup, which has venture backing from Kirkland, WA-based OVP Venture Partners and other firms, says it has embarked on a partnership with Kodak to use the 117-year-old company’s chemical manufacturing … Continue reading “Novomer Uses Kodak’s Idle Film Plants to Scale Up Its Green Process for Making Plastic”

Sugar Gets Sweeter: Former OLPC Exec Walter Bender on Netbooks, E-books, Blueberry, and Cloudberry

Every so often, we like to check in with Walter Bender, the former president of software and content for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation. He’s always busy with something interesting—and lately, it’s been Sugar, the classroom-oriented software environment that he and a team of software engineers originally developed for the OLPC’s $200 XO … Continue reading “Sugar Gets Sweeter: Former OLPC Exec Walter Bender on Netbooks, E-books, Blueberry, and Cloudberry”

The Cloud3 Crowd: Photos from Xconomy’s Cloud Computing Forum

NEXT IMAGE >> Akamai Guy—Tom Leighton, co-founder and chief scientist at Cambridge, MA-based Akamai, argued that the performance a company gets out of cloud services is only as good as the network connecting the company to its cloud providers’ data centers. He described Akamai’s ability to optimize network routing paths between cloud-computing users and cloud … Continue reading “The Cloud3 Crowd: Photos from Xconomy’s Cloud Computing Forum”

Thank You to Our Cloud3 Speakers, Seeders, Sponsors, and Underwriters–And an Update on Speaker Slides

Here at Xconomy, the stories we cover give us great ideas for networking events, and at our events we meet great people who give us ideas for more articles. Our Cloud3 Forum on Thursday was a perfect example. Every company on yesterday’s agenda is working on technologies we’ve chronicled—and will keep chronicling—in these pages, including … Continue reading “Thank You to Our Cloud3 Speakers, Seeders, Sponsors, and Underwriters–And an Update on Speaker Slides”

Introducing the X Lists: The Region’s Best Resource for Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Longtime readers of Xconomy may have noticed, to our embarrassment, that our Boston Resources page has been “coming soon” for months. Many months. But good things come to those who wait, as they say, and now we’re ready to introduce a resources section that we’re really proud of, the X Lists. We believe that the … Continue reading “Introducing the X Lists: The Region’s Best Resource for Innovators and Entrepreneurs”

Windows on the Cloud: Windows Azure Basics from Microsoft’s Yousef Khalidi

Xconomy’s Cloud3 Forum gets underway this morning at Microsoft’s New England R&D Center in Cambridge, MA, so I thought it would be a great time to write up my recent Q&A with Yousef Khalidi, a distinguished engineer in Microsoft’s Windows Azure team in Redmond, WA. Azure is Microsoft’s public cloud platform. Announced as a free … Continue reading “Windows on the Cloud: Windows Azure Basics from Microsoft’s Yousef Khalidi”

Change Comes to the Arctic: A Photographic Journey

The Copenhagen climate conference is in full swing, and if you wonder why it matters, we’ve got evidence of a changing world to share with you. On the following pages is a series of arresting photographs and captions contributed by Alun Anderson, an Xconomy board member and former editor-in-chief and publishing director at New Scientist. … Continue reading “Change Comes to the Arctic: A Photographic Journey”

Meetcha: A New Dating Site for the 40-Plus Set, from Monster/Eons Founder Jeff Taylor

[Updated 12/8/09 2:30 p.m. with comments from Taylor, see below] Jeff Taylor, the founder of Monster Worldwide and the founder/CEO of the boomer-focused online community Eons, is up to something new. Xconomy has learned that Taylor is about to launch a dating site, Meetcha.com, designed for people 40 and over. In an e-mail obtained by … Continue reading “Meetcha: A New Dating Site for the 40-Plus Set, from Monster/Eons Founder Jeff Taylor”

Sugar on a Stick Sweetened

Sugar Labs, the Brookline, MA-based non-profit organization developing the Sugar educational operating environment originally designed for the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s XO Laptop, has released a new version of Sugar on a Stick, an edition of the software that allows PC, netbook, or Mac users to boot directly into Sugar. The new version, called … Continue reading “Sugar on a Stick Sweetened”