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/

Chris Anderson, Rod Brooks, & More Stars of Robotics: The Video

If you missed Xconomy’s April 11 forum Robots Remake the Workplace—or if you were there and you want to see some of the talks again—we have a special treat for you. Our friends at SRI International, the host site for the event, recorded the proceedings and just posted the eight-part video on YouTube. For your … Continue reading “Chris Anderson, Rod Brooks, & More Stars of Robotics: The Video”

Industry Ventures Provides Little-Known Pressure Valve for LPs

In business lore, venture capitalists are revered as steely-eyed daredevils, directing millions of dollars to unproven, potentially brilliant ideas through sheer force of acumen. But it’s a largely undeserved reputation. Few VCs ever put their own money on the table. The real gamblers in the venture industry are the limited partners (LPs)— the individuals or … Continue reading “Industry Ventures Provides Little-Known Pressure Valve for LPs”

Pivotal Seeks Better Enterprise Cloud, with EMC Roots and GE Cash

Can you think of the last time you heard about a startup that had 1,250 employees and a valuation of over $1 billion on the day it launched? I can’t. But then, Pivotal isn’t your typical startup. Unveiled today at a San Francisco press event led by its CEO Paul Maritz, Pivotal is an independent … Continue reading “Pivotal Seeks Better Enterprise Cloud, with EMC Roots and GE Cash”

Dropcam’s Beef with Brogramming, Late Nights, and Free Dinners

Dropcam, a four-year-old startup in San Francisco, has never lost an employee. I’ll say that again so that you won’t think it’s a typo: no one who has taken a job at Dropcam has ever left. It’s not that they’re being monitored everywhere they go. (The company makes Wi-Fi-enabled cameras for home video surveillance.) Rather, … Continue reading “Dropcam’s Beef with Brogramming, Late Nights, and Free Dinners”

Coupa Gains on Competitors in Expense Management

Three decades into the PC revolution and nearly two decades after most businesses joined the Internet, you’d think that software makers would already have identified every conceivable inefficiency in the way companies work, and that they’d be running out of ideas for how businesses can use technology to save more money. Not even close. Take … Continue reading “Coupa Gains on Competitors in Expense Management”

When iMovie Isn’t Enough, Amateur Video Producers Can Go Pro

When you hear people in the tech world talking about “consumerization,” they’re usually referring to complex business software that’s been overhauled to look and feel more like personal technology. But consumerization is washing over other parts of the software market too. One of them is professional media creation and editing. Photoshop is a great example. … Continue reading “When iMovie Isn’t Enough, Amateur Video Producers Can Go Pro”

Venture Slowdown Squeezes Bay Area Startups

It turns out that Bay Area startups aren’t immune to the national slowdown in venture investing. In the first quarter of the year, total venture investments going to San Francisco Bay Area companies fell to their lowest level in the past year, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association … Continue reading “Venture Slowdown Squeezes Bay Area Startups”

Psilos Spells Out Hot Areas for Health Technology Investing

The water’s fine in the healthcare-and-technology market, and institutional investors should come on in. That’s the message from Psilos Group, a healthcare-focused venture firm based in New York City and Corte Madera, CA, in an outlook report on healthcare economics released today. It’s the fifth annual edition of the report, and it points to four … Continue reading “Psilos Spells Out Hot Areas for Health Technology Investing”

Welcome to Xperience, The New Consumer Section of Xconomy

It’s been a busy spring here at Xconomy. Last month we added a seventh city to our national network—Xconomy Boulder/Denver. And today we’re excited to announce Xperience, a new section designed to guide consumers to the best technologies for their lifestyles. You might have stumbled across Xperience already. We “soft-launched” the section on March 28 … Continue reading “Welcome to Xperience, The New Consumer Section of Xconomy”

Testing Kickstarter’s Appetite for a Digital Fork and “Positive Punishment”

Do you find yourself wolfing down your food and paying for it later in the form of heartburn and other health problems? Do you wish you could learn to pace yourself a little better between mouthfuls? There’s an app for that. Actually, there’s a whole utensil for that—the HAPIfork, from Hong Kong-based HAPIlabs. The battery-powered, … Continue reading “Testing Kickstarter’s Appetite for a Digital Fork and “Positive Punishment””

At BoostCTR, Crowdsourcing Brings a Human Touch to Search Ads

Say you’re a human-resources manager inside a big company and you’re looking for a way to say thanks to an outstanding employee. You go to Google or Bing and you type in the search term “employee recognition certificate.” On the right side of the search result page, there’s the usual column of text ads. The … Continue reading “At BoostCTR, Crowdsourcing Brings a Human Touch to Search Ads”

Robots Remake the Workplace: The Photo Gallery

Apparently, these were the droids they were looking for. A standing-room-only crowd convened at SRI International last Thursday to meet the robots and robot makers being highlighted at Xconomy’s second annual Silicon Valley robotics forum, Robots Remake the Workplace. The bots in attendance ranged from the fairly tall—namely RP-VITA, a human-sized hospital telepresence robot built … Continue reading “Robots Remake the Workplace: The Photo Gallery”

15 Appetizing Apps for People Who Love to Cook and Eat

Phones and food are a match cooked up in heaven. Sometimes it seems as if our mobile gadgets were specifically designed to mesh with our cooking and eating habits. After all, you don’t lug your desktop or laptop computer with you when you’re going out to a restaurant. When you want to find a great … Continue reading “15 Appetizing Apps for People Who Love to Cook and Eat”

Let Them Eat Code: Scenes from the Food Hackathon

On Monday we told you about the winners of last weekend’s first-ever Food Hackathon in San Francisco. Today we’ve got some photos of the event to share with you, courtesy of photographer Tony XQ Chen, a producer at Founderly. The Hackathon was a chance for some 170 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and food lovers to get together … Continue reading “Let Them Eat Code: Scenes from the Food Hackathon”

Last Chance to Sign Up for Silicon Valley’s Best Robotics Event

You love robots but you haven’t yet bought a ticket for Xconomy’s April 11 robotics event, Robots Remake the Workplace. Why the heck not? Actually, we know why—you’re busy, you like to keep your options open until the last minute, yadda yadda. Well, I’m posting this to let you know that you don’t have much … Continue reading “Last Chance to Sign Up for Silicon Valley’s Best Robotics Event”

Food Hackers Cook Up a Storm of Startup Ideas in San Francisco

File this under “more evidence that food-tech is one of the hottest areas for Bay Area entrepeneurs.” A weekend Food Hackathon contest at SOMACentral’s new 450 Townsend Street space attracted some 170 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and food lovers for 30 hours of brainstorming and frantic coding, culminating in a pitchfest late Sunday afternoon with $25,000 … Continue reading “Food Hackers Cook Up a Storm of Startup Ideas in San Francisco”

Pharma Market Access Pricing and Reimbursement Conference

From the event organizers: The conference will provide attendees with an opportunity to learn about the key developments impacting the future of pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement, including: The increasing importance of generating, collecting and analyzing reimbursement evidence early in product development and identifying points of differentiation of a product versus existing standards of care The … Continue reading “Pharma Market Access Pricing and Reimbursement Conference”

Eye on the Living Room: How Dropcam Makes Surveillance Feel Safe

Ten years ago this month, I edited a cover story for MIT’s Technology Review magazine called “Surveillance Nation.” Written by veteran science journalist Charles Mann and network security guru Dan Farmer, the story looked at the state of digital video circa 2003 and envisaged a near future where every home, business, and street would be … Continue reading “Eye on the Living Room: How Dropcam Makes Surveillance Feel Safe”

TV Apps Aim to Channel the Flood of Online Video

A telling moment for the future of 9×9.tv, a video discovery startup headquartered in Silicon Valley, came in January. That’s when chief operating officer Jack Chang bumped into a YouTube product manager inside the Samsung pavilion at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The employee was running a YouTube kiosk inside the Samsung booth, … Continue reading “TV Apps Aim to Channel the Flood of Online Video”

Harvard Common Press Has Something New Baking in San Francisco

Harvard Common Press, a Boston-based publisher of cookbooks and parenting guidebooks, said today that it has opened a second office in San Francisco. Why should startup entrepreneurs and other Xconomy readers care about that? Because the company also makes seed investments in food-tech startups—and it’s looking to make a lot more. The 37-year-old firm, owned … Continue reading “Harvard Common Press Has Something New Baking in San Francisco”

Bot & Dolly’s Robotic Cameramen Rewrite the Script in Hollywood

If we were running our April 11 robotics forum as an Oxford-style debate, the motion would be this: Over the next decade, robots are going to transform our workplaces just as radically as personal computers did in the 1980s and 1990s. And by “workplaces” we don’t just mean assembly-line floors, where robots have been common … Continue reading “Bot & Dolly’s Robotic Cameramen Rewrite the Script in Hollywood”

To Do Or Not To Do? That Is the Question

Do you really need a to-do list? In the age of personal optimization, when books like The 4-Hour Workweek peddle the idea that you could be superhumanly productive if you just had the right tools, the question is almost blasphemous. Of course you need a to-do list. How else are you supposed to know what … Continue reading “To Do Or Not To Do? That Is the Question”

Amazon’s Acquisition of Goodreads: The True Ventures Perspective

Amazon announced this afternoon that it has acquired San Francisco-based Goodreads, the online community where 16 million people find and share book recommendations. Born six years ago as the brainchild of Otis Chandler, a scion of the Chandler publishing family in Los Angeles, Goodreads is home to more than 23 million book reviews and 30,000 … Continue reading “Amazon’s Acquisition of Goodreads: The True Ventures Perspective”

Knowledge When You Need It: Lynda.com and the Rise of Online Ed

Did you think that graduating from high school or college meant your education was finished? Think again. Even assuming that you were paying attention in every class—and who among us really was?—you probably weren’t being taught the skills you need to succeed in a modern workplace, understand complex business issues, or excel at a high-tech … Continue reading “Knowledge When You Need It: Lynda.com and the Rise of Online Ed”

Boxbee: Cloud-Style Storage for Your Actual Stuff

Is minimalism practical? Can you really have a tidy, modern living space like the ones in the architecture magazines, where there are acres of bare tabletops and the sofas look like they’ve never been loafed on? Yes, you can, but there’s a dark secret behind all those magazine spreads. Before the photographers showed up, the … Continue reading “Boxbee: Cloud-Style Storage for Your Actual Stuff”

Y Combinator Unleashes 47 New Startups, From the Cloud to the Crowd

Y Combinator‘s slimmed-down class of 47 Winter 2013 startups told their stories at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View yesterday. It was the 16th semi-annual Demo Day for the world’s most prestigious and productive startup accelerator, the birthplace of companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, Heroku, Reddit, and Disqus. Some 14 of the companies opted to remain … Continue reading “Y Combinator Unleashes 47 New Startups, From the Cloud to the Crowd”

What Greenstart’s Reboot Means for Cleantech—And For Accelerators

When Greenstart set up shop in San Francisco in 2011, it was the nation’s first accelerator dedicated to nurturing cleantech startups. Co-founder and managing partner Mitch Lowe said at the time that the organization’s mission was to fill a big gap: He wanted to give alternative energy entrepreneurs access to the same type of training, … Continue reading “What Greenstart’s Reboot Means for Cleantech—And For Accelerators”

Rock Health Helps Medical-App Builders Navigate Nascent FDA Rules

[Updated, see below] With more than 60,000 health-related smartphone and tablet apps already available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play—the Android app marketplace—it’s clear that consumers are going to be getting more and more of their health information, and possibly even diagnosis and treatment, from their mobile gadgets. In Washington, DC, last week, … Continue reading “Rock Health Helps Medical-App Builders Navigate Nascent FDA Rules”

The Bots Are Back! Photos of the Robot Makers You’ll Meet April 11

We’re coming up fast on Xconomy’s second annual Silicon Valley robotics event, Robots Remake the Workplace, where we’ll bring together founders and CEOs of some of the country’s most innovative and interesting robotics companies. To give you a preview of the April 11 event, which is part of National Robotics Week, we’ve assembled photos above … Continue reading “The Bots Are Back! Photos of the Robot Makers You’ll Meet April 11”

Saying Farewell to World Wide Wade

They say it’s better to quit while you’re ahead, and I believe them. It’s easy to see what happens when you don’t. Remember season 7 of The West Wing? The second term of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency? All of the Star Wars prequels? With precedents like that in mind, I’m shutting down World Wide Wade. … Continue reading “Saying Farewell to World Wide Wade”

Welcome to Xperience

Xperience is the consumer section of Xconomy, where you’ll find news and reviews about the latest technologies and tools to help you accomplish your goals in areas like health, travel, shopping, entertainment, fashion, food and cooking, learning and education, and exercise and fitness. We publish several new articles every week at xconomy.com/xperience. Watch our video … Continue reading “Welcome to Xperience”

Ex-Googlers Design an Algorithm for Investing in Young Entrepreneurs

“Venture capitalists have long said, ‘We invest in people, not ideas or businesses.’ Well, not really. We are the first people really doing it.” So says Dave Girouard, the founder of Upstart, a new operation in Palo Alto that’s part loan agency, part investment fund, part mentoring network, and part dream factory. Made up mostly … Continue reading “Ex-Googlers Design an Algorithm for Investing in Young Entrepreneurs”

Where Have All the Gadgets Gone?

A remarkable shift is taking place right under our noses. The universe of electronic devices in our homes and offices has stopped expanding, and has in fact begun to shrink. At the same time, our productivity continues to rise and our information, entertainment, and learning options keep exploding. In other words, we’re getting more stuff … Continue reading “Where Have All the Gadgets Gone?”

In Post-CD Era, Gracenote Makes a Big Business of Content Recognition

For Gracenote, the media database company, Christmas used to be the busiest day of the year. They called it “iPod Day,” because that was when millions of people would be unwrapping their new iPods and then rushing to their computers to rip dozens of CDs so they’d have some music to play. For every ripped … Continue reading “In Post-CD Era, Gracenote Makes a Big Business of Content Recognition”

If You Like Jennifer Aniston, You Won’t Like This Article About Reverb

Erin McKean, the founder of the self-organizing online dictionary Wordnik, told me at the end of our first interview back in 2011 that she would like her company to become a verb, the way Google has. When you’re telling someone to look up a word, you’d say “Wordnik that.’” Well, McKean has gotten her wish, … Continue reading “If You Like Jennifer Aniston, You Won’t Like This Article About Reverb”

What Makes an App Awesome? A Case Study with Mokriya Craigslist

If you were starting a Mobile App Design Hall of Fame, how would you decide which apps to nominate? Personally, I think I’d vote for the apps that keep me engaged through creative, elegant use of touchscreen-specific design principles. I’d point to a handful of mobile apps that are so delightful to play with that … Continue reading “What Makes an App Awesome? A Case Study with Mokriya Craigslist”

HealthTap Positions Itself for Rush of Obamacare Patients in 2014

When you run into a Silicon Valley startup that’s been around for two or three years and has a popular, fast-growing product or service, but is earning little or no revenue, then you know that one of two things is going on. Either the startup has a clear business model in mind, but is waiting … Continue reading “HealthTap Positions Itself for Rush of Obamacare Patients in 2014”

Guy Kawasaki, Citing Apple Parallel, Is Now Advising Motorola

Guy Kawasaki, the former Apple evangelist, startup founder, venture investor, and author, is famous in Silicon Valley for his entrepreneurial enthusiasm and verve. When Kawasaki decides he likes something, he really likes it—and he goes to bat for it in a deep way. Obviously this happened for Apple when he was there in the 1980s, … Continue reading “Guy Kawasaki, Citing Apple Parallel, Is Now Advising Motorola”

The Bay Lights: Video from An Improbable Art Project’s Debut

Thousands of San Franciscans braved the blustery rain Tuesday night to witness the official debut of the Bay Lights, an art installation that—every night for the next two years—will transform the western span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge into a giant LED display. At 9:03 p.m., three minutes after the promised time, the 25,000 … Continue reading “The Bay Lights: Video from An Improbable Art Project’s Debut”

WePay Joins the Fray in Mobile Payments

There’s a bit of news from WePay, a Palo Alto payments startup we’ve been following for years, that shows just how quickly everyone, small business owners included, is shifting their online work from the desktop Web to their mobile devices. Last week WePay released its first mobile app (iOS only for now). It lets owners … Continue reading “WePay Joins the Fray in Mobile Payments”

In the Season of Ticketfly, Is It Ticketmaster’s Time to Die?

[Updated 3/7/13, further updated 3/20/13, see notes below] Ticketmaster has been called soul-crushingly evil and the most hated brand in America. If it had been included in this January poll, it probably would have ranked somewhere below root canals, head lice, cockroaches, and the U.S. Congress, although it might have beaten out North Korea and … Continue reading “In the Season of Ticketfly, Is It Ticketmaster’s Time to Die?”

Opponents of CA’s Retroactive Tax on Investors Win A Reprieve

[Updated 3/6/13, see below] In a bitter contest over tax changes that could hit California investors with bills for up to $120 million in unpaid taxes dating back to 2008, one side has stopped the clock. Under pressure from the office of California Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s Franchise Tax Board indicated today that it … Continue reading “Opponents of CA’s Retroactive Tax on Investors Win A Reprieve”

Byliner’s New Adventure in Publishing—A Talk with CEO John Tayman

In 1997, Outside magazine published a memorable non-fiction story by Peter Stark about what it feels like to freeze to death. The headline, awesomely, cribbed from Emily Dickinson: “As freezing persons recollect the snow—First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.” John Tayman was an editor at Outside at the time, and he remembers that … Continue reading “Byliner’s New Adventure in Publishing—A Talk with CEO John Tayman”

Menlo Ventures Steps into the Spotlight

Venky Ganesan, the newest managing director at Menlo Ventures, likes to tell a story about one of his business idols, Sidney Weinberg. When Weinberg was building Goldman Sachs into a financial giant in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, Ganesan recounts, he employed a full-time public relations officer whose sole job was to make sure the … Continue reading “Menlo Ventures Steps into the Spotlight”

Rainforest Architects Workshop

From the organizers: “The Rainforest Architects Program is the first-of-its kind interactive workshop incorporating design principles, novel innovation frameworks, and practical applications / tools for those committed to creating, building, and championing their ecosystems.   We accomplish this by driving (and accelerating) more innovative thought, novel technology development, talent, new products, and global human connectivity.   We … Continue reading “Rainforest Architects Workshop”

I Switched from Mint.com to Pageonce. Maybe You Should Too.

[Update: As of May 2013, Pageonce has officially changed the name of its app and service to Check.] For more than a decade, I was a faithful user of Quicken, Intuit’s desktop personal finance program. I stopped using it in 2008 after Mint.com came along, giving me the ability to monitor all my accounts from … Continue reading “I Switched from Mint.com to Pageonce. Maybe You Should Too.”

National Science Foundation Scales Up Entrepreneurship Program

The National Science Foundation said today that it will fund a major expansion of its Innovation Corps program, an effort to teach NSF-funded university researchers how to build profitable startups around their technologies. In its initial stages, the two-year-old “I-Corps” program has been flying researchers to Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and Georgia Tech … Continue reading “National Science Foundation Scales Up Entrepreneurship Program”

Meet the 14 New Rock Health Startups Innovating in Digital Health

San Francisco’s Rock Health startup accelerator held its fourth semi-annual Demo Day at UCSF’s Genentech Hall Wednesday afternoon. Investors and journalists heard pitches from 14 startups working to introduce new health-related services for consumers and new ways to improve the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system. On the consumer side, one intriguing presenter was Beam … Continue reading “Meet the 14 New Rock Health Startups Innovating in Digital Health”

Rod Brooks, Chris Anderson, Aldo Zini to Star at SRI Robotics Event

A couple of weeks ago we opened ticket sales for our second annual Silicon Valley robotics forum. It’s called Robots Remake the Workplace. But we could have just as easily called this April 11 event When Bad Things Happen to Good Robots. That’s because the national media is practically blowing a gasket over a freshly … Continue reading “Rod Brooks, Chris Anderson, Aldo Zini to Star at SRI Robotics Event”