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/

Downturn is Perfect Time for Startups, Paul Graham Says

Paul Graham may be the founder of famed Mountain View, CA- and Cambridge, MA-based startup academy Y Combinator, but he’s almost as well known for his monthly essays about the technology business. His latest edition, out today, argues that it’s no harder to get a technology startup off the ground during bad economic times than … Continue reading “Downturn is Perfect Time for Startups, Paul Graham Says”

New York Times Rates McCain, Obama on Innovation

The New York Times published an extensive look today at the presidential candidates’ platforms and records on high-tech innovation in the United States, with a focus on what the two men would do as president to protect and restore the country’s competitive edge. It’s interesting reading. Despite their parties’ conflicting ideologies, Senators McCain and Obama … Continue reading “New York Times Rates McCain, Obama on Innovation”

$4M for V.i. Labs

Waltham, MA-based security software company V.i. Labs, which closed an $8 million Series B financing round in November 2007, announced today that it has gathered an additional $4 million in venture funding from existing investors Core Capital and Ascent Ventures. V.i. Labs’ leading products are Code Armor Protection, which encrypts Windows and .NET applications so … Continue reading “$4M for V.i. Labs”

Is Brown the New Green? Why Boston’s Ugly, Expensive Macallen Condos Shouldn’t Be a Model For Green Buildings

Along West 4th Street in Boston, just past I-93 and the MBTA train yard, there’s a big brown apartment building with an odd sloping roof. I live about a mile away, and I’ve gone past this building several times on walks and bike rides without thinking much about it, except that it’s unattractive in an … Continue reading “Is Brown the New Green? Why Boston’s Ugly, Expensive Macallen Condos Shouldn’t Be a Model For Green Buildings”

1366 Opens Plant in Lexington

1366 Technologies, a solar-cell manufacturing startup commercializing research by MIT mechanical engineering professor Emanuel Sachs, is holding a grand-opening reception today at its Lexington, MA, pilot plant. Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles is expected to deliver a keynote speech at the event, which will also include tours of the facility. 1366, … Continue reading “1366 Opens Plant in Lexington”

Brightcove Aims at the Mainstream: Talking with CEO Jeremy Allaire

Tuesday brought two big pieces of news in the Internet video industry: The relaunch of New York-based Joost as a Hulu clone and the official launch of the newest video hosting platform from Cambridge, MA-based Brightcove. The former development was probably of more interest to consumers, who get an increasing portion of their video entertainment … Continue reading “Brightcove Aims at the Mainstream: Talking with CEO Jeremy Allaire”

Novell Buys Managed Objects

Waltham, MA-based Novell said today that it will acquire McLean, VA-based Managed Objects for an undisclosed cash sum. Managed Objects makes “business service management” software that monitors the performance of corporate IT systems. Novell said in a statement that the acquisition would “complement and extend Novell’s existing workload management and virtualization solutions by adding flexible … Continue reading “Novell Buys Managed Objects”

Harvard Spins Off Brand Monitoring Startup Crimson Hexagon

Harvard’s Office of Technology Development has been grabbing headlines this week. On Sunday, it went public with news about a Beverly, MA-based spinoff called SiOnyx that hopes to commercialize “black silicon,” a highly light-absorbant form of the material discovered in a Harvard physics lab. And today it took the lid off Crimson Hexagon, which plans … Continue reading “Harvard Spins Off Brand Monitoring Startup Crimson Hexagon”

Charles River Funds Webaroo

Charles River Ventures of Waltham, MA, is one of the lead participants in an $11 million Series A funding round for Mumbai, India-based Webaroo, according to several reports this week. The mobile software company sells SMS-based systems for group messaging. Charles River was joined in the round by Helion Venture Partners.

Brightcove Makes Web Video Publishing Easier, Cheaper

Brightcove, the Cambridge, MA-based Internet video publisher founded in 2004 by Boston-area serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, today introduced a thoroughly overhauled version of its video hosting platform. The company says the new service, called Brightcove 3, is designed to help big media companies get more creative about the way they deploy video on their websites, … Continue reading “Brightcove Makes Web Video Publishing Easier, Cheaper”

Turbine Powers Up West Coast Office

Westwood, MA-based video game developer Turbine announced Monday that it will open a new studio in Redwood City, CA. The company, best known for creating the massively multiplayer online game The Lord of the Rings Online, said opening a Bay Area office would allow it to tap into the large pool of game development talent … Continue reading “Turbine Powers Up West Coast Office”

SiOnyx Brings “Black Silicon” into the Light; Material Could Upend Solar, Imaging Industries

Silicon is a wonderfully cooperative element. It takes relatively little energy to promote the electrons in a silicon crystal from their usual, docile orbits around the atomic nuclei into wild, free circulation. That’s what makes silicon a semiconductor—valuable for electronic switching devices such as transistors, sensing devices such as the CCDs in cameras and X-ray … Continue reading “SiOnyx Brings “Black Silicon” into the Light; Material Could Upend Solar, Imaging Industries”

Playful vs. Preachy: Sizing Up TV’s New Science Dramas

Crime shows generally turn me off, but for years I’ve enjoyed CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, because (as I’ve written before) the heroes are scientists. They catch crooks not by outgunning them, but by observing, hypothesizing, and testing. Of course, the dramatic license that CSI and other series sometimes take with real-world science can be disturbing: … Continue reading “Playful vs. Preachy: Sizing Up TV’s New Science Dramas”

Challenging Microsoft, Startup AutoVirt Fixes Windows Data Migration Nightmares

If you’ve ever had to replace your home computer, you know what a hassle it can be to copy your most important software and data from the old computer’s hard drive to the new one. The IT-industry term for this process is “data migration”—and it’s even more of a headache for system administrators at big … Continue reading “Challenging Microsoft, Startup AutoVirt Fixes Windows Data Migration Nightmares”

Sprint’s WiMax Network Operative in Boston, Mobile Computing Site Confirms

On Monday I blogged about a report that the XOHM WiMax network, Sprint Nextel’s venture into broadband wireless service, is up and running in Boston and several other cities, even though the company has officially launched the service only in Baltimore. Today, the source of that report, Robert Wray of in-car-computing site MP3Car.com, wrote to … Continue reading “Sprint’s WiMax Network Operative in Boston, Mobile Computing Site Confirms”

Nuance, Nokia in Partnership

Nuance Communications, the Burlington, MA-based maker of speech recognition software, said today it has struck a multi-year agreement with Finnish mobile giant Nokia to provide speech and predictive-text technologies for Nokia mobile devices. The two companies also agreed to work together on advanced input technologies, including open programming interfaces that outside developers could use to … Continue reading “Nuance, Nokia in Partnership”

Mozilla Adapts Skyhook’s Loki Location-Finding System for Firefox

When you open the Google Maps application on the Apple iPhone and click the “target” button, the device pulls up a local map and shows your current position as a blue dot. You could easily do the same thing on your laptop—if, that is, your Web browser could communicate with a location-sensing device in your … Continue reading “Mozilla Adapts Skyhook’s Loki Location-Finding System for Firefox”

At Pixily, Cloud Computing Quenches the Downpour of Paper

I am not a David Allen disciple, but the one practice I did adopt after reading his time-management bible Getting Things Done many years ago was to start a filing system for the stacks of papers that used to cause a distracting mess around my home and office. As a result, I’ve got about six … Continue reading “At Pixily, Cloud Computing Quenches the Downpour of Paper”

MyPunchbowl Reinvents Online Party Invitations

Everyone has a neighbor or a relative who loves to throw parties—you know, the people who make their Halloween or Christmas extravaganza bigger every year, with more lights, lawn ornaments, costumes, and food. The folks at Punchbowl Software are a lot like that: they keep overhauling their Web 2.0 party-planning website MyPunchbowl, making it fancier … Continue reading “MyPunchbowl Reinvents Online Party Invitations”

CollegeWikis Funded by Two New England Groups

The eCoast Angel Network of Portsmouth, NH, and Boston Harbor Angels of Boston are among the participants in a $2 million funding round announced today for CollegeWikis. The New York-based startup, which provides e-mail lists and group-editable wikis for student-based organizations (and bears a passing resemblance to Cambridge, MA-based Wiggio), also attracted investments from HighBAR … Continue reading “CollegeWikis Funded by Two New England Groups”

BSX Appeal Denied by U.S. Supreme Court

It appears that Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific (NYSE: [[ticker:BSX]]) will be forced to pay medical products giant Johnson & Johnson the full $703 million patent-infringement award finalized last week by the U.S. District Court of Delaware, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined yesterday to hear the company’s appeal of the case. Johnson & Johnson claimed … Continue reading “BSX Appeal Denied by U.S. Supreme Court”

Mozy Launches Business Version of Mac Backup Service

Back in May I wrote about the release of MozyHome for Mac, an Apple-compatible version of the Mozy online backup service that Berkeley Data Systems launched for Windows users in 2006. Between them, Mozy (which became part of Hopkinton, MA-based EMC last fall) and Boston-based Carbonite dominate the market for online backup—but for the moment, … Continue reading “Mozy Launches Business Version of Mac Backup Service”

The Uncertain Internet: Core Net Values for the [TBD] Administration

This just in from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society: “Now is a critical moment for defining and reinforcing the best features of our communications platforms. What do we value about the internet and what should be the focus of the next administration? This event will be a discussion exploring the Net’s benefits and … Continue reading “The Uncertain Internet: Core Net Values for the [TBD] Administration”

Novell Launches Mono 2.0

Waltham, MA-based Novell said today that Mono 2.0, an updated version of the company’s open-source platform for building and running applications based on the Microsoft .NET framework, is now available to developers. Using the new version of Mono, companies can make .NET applications run on Linux, Solaris, Unix, and even Macintosh operating systems as well … Continue reading “Novell Launches Mono 2.0”

Sprint’s XOHM WiMax Network Working in Boston?

Sprint Nextel, which is spending billions to blanket major U.S. cities with super-high-speed wireless networks based on the new WiMax standard, turned on its first city—Baltimore—last week. Now there’s a report from the blogosphere that Sprint’s so-called XOHM network is up and running—though not officially launched or supported—in six additional locales, including Boston. The automotive … Continue reading “Sprint’s XOHM WiMax Network Working in Boston?”

Atlas Leads €10M Round for Inspirational Stores

Atlas Venture of Waltham, MA, has taken the lead in a €10 million venture round for Inspirational Stores, the Paris-based online marketing firm said today. Inspirational Stores creates and manages e-commerce sites for luxury European consumer brands such as Laduree, Delvaux and Caviar Kaspia. Existing investor OTC Asset Management also participated in the round.

Y Combinator Recombined: Talking with Philadelphia Startup Incubator DreamIt Ventures

Everything is moving faster in the Internet age, it seems—including startup incubators. At incubators that follow the traditional model, like Idealab or Biogen Idec’s Innovation Incubator, young companies get to spend a leisurely year or two getting their first product out the door, while benefiting from the financial and administrative support of a larger parent … Continue reading “Y Combinator Recombined: Talking with Philadelphia Startup Incubator DreamIt Ventures”

Polaris Re-ups with BlackArrow

Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners has joined a $20 million Series B financing round for BlackArrow, a San Mateo, CA, startup that specializes in advertising placement and management for Internet-delivered video, the company said today. Polaris’s other first-round co-investors Cisco Systems, Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital, and Mayfield Fund also came back for this round, … Continue reading “Polaris Re-ups with BlackArrow”

Four Ways Amazon Could Make Kindle 2.0 a Best Seller

[Addendum, 10/4/08: Boy Genius Report has published pictures from a reader who obtained a Kindle 2. It’s unclear so far which, if any, of the features described in my article below, published 10/3, are included.] I wanted to love the Amazon Kindle. I’ve been a believer in the future of e-books ever since the late … Continue reading “Four Ways Amazon Could Make Kindle 2.0 a Best Seller”

iRobot Wins $3.75M Army Contract to Develop Warrior Robot

Bedford, MA-based iRobot (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRBT]]) said today that the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) will pay the company $3.75 million to build and deliver two “Warrior 700” robots (pictured here.) The Warrior, which has been under development for more than two years, is designed to serve as the big brother of … Continue reading “iRobot Wins $3.75M Army Contract to Develop Warrior Robot”

Locale App for Android Phones “Wouldn’t Even Be Possible on the iPhone,” Says Winner of $275K Developer Challenge

Last week’s unveiling of the first phone running the Android operating system—the T-Mobile G1, which will be available to consumers on October 22—suddenly made Google’s vision of an open source smart-phone platform to compete with Apple’s iPhone seem much more real. But developers writing applications for Android phones have been immersed in the new operating … Continue reading “Locale App for Android Phones “Wouldn’t Even Be Possible on the iPhone,” Says Winner of $275K Developer Challenge”

Intersil Buys Kenet

Kenet, a six-year-old semiconductor design company based in Woburn, MA, will be acquired by Milpitas, CA-based semiconductor manufacturer Intersil (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ISIL]]), the larger company announced today. Kenet designs dies for low-power analog-to-digital data conversion for devices such as software-defined radios. Intersil, which did not disclose the amount it’s paying for Kenet, said the acquisition would … Continue reading “Intersil Buys Kenet”

Stallman Blasts Cloud Computing

In an article Monday in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Richard Stallman, president of Boston’s Free Software Foundation, criticized the trend toward utility-style “cloud computing” as a marketing strategy designed to lock users into proprietary computing platforms. Stallman included Web-based services such as Google’s Gmail in his critique. “One reason you should not use Web applications … Continue reading “Stallman Blasts Cloud Computing”

Princeton Undergrad Brings Scavenger-Hunt Startup to Boston

At 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 18, 500 couples will fan out across Philadelphia in search of a $25,000 diamond ring hidden by a local jeweler. Equipped only with cell phones, the couples will receive text-message instructions directing them to an array of local landmarks, where they’ll have to complete puzzles and other challenges to … Continue reading “Princeton Undergrad Brings Scavenger-Hunt Startup to Boston”

Link Medicine Raises $40 Million to Counter Neurodegenerative Disease

Link Medicine, a secretive Cambridge, MA, startup that’s spent the last three years investigating new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), said today that it has completed a $40 million Series C venture round. The investment comes from Clarus Ventures, a Cambridge- and San Francisco-based fund focused on … Continue reading “Link Medicine Raises $40 Million to Counter Neurodegenerative Disease”

$5M for Tungle from Commonwealth Capital

Waltham, MA-based Commonwealth Capital Partners is the lead investor in a $5 million Series A venture round for Tungle, a maker of free Web-based calendar groupware, the Montreal-based startup announced today. Existing investors JLA Ventures and Desjardins Venture Capital also contributed to the round, which will be used to—you guessed it—“accelerate the company’s marketing and … Continue reading “$5M for Tungle from Commonwealth Capital”

Globespan Part of $100M Solar Power Financing

Boston-based Globespan Capital Partners is among a group of investors and lenders contributing to a $100 million financing round for Solar Power Partners (SPP) of Mill Valley, CA, the company announced today. SPP develops and operates small solar-power installations and sells the electricity to facilities such as data centers, retail stores, hospitals, universities, and municipalities. … Continue reading “Globespan Part of $100M Solar Power Financing”

LuckyCal, Winner of Facebook Grant, Makes Your Calendar into a Connector

You get home from a big business trip to San Francisco, you’re talking with a friend from out of town, and you find out that he was just there too. If you’d known, you could have met up! It’s a common scenario—and it shouldn’t happen as often anymore. After all, you probably keep an electronic … Continue reading “LuckyCal, Winner of Facebook Grant, Makes Your Calendar into a Connector”

MetaCarta Rolls Out Geo-Search Platform

MetaCarta, a Cambridge, MA-based MIT spinoff funded in part by the CIA’s venture wing, In-Q-Tel, said today that a new software product called the MetaCarta Geographic Search and Referencing Platform (GSRP) is ready for sale. The software takes text content that contains place names in English, French, Spanish, Russian, or Arabic and tags it so … Continue reading “MetaCarta Rolls Out Geo-Search Platform”

NextWave Stops Go

NextWave Wireless (NASDAQ: [[ticker:WAVE]]), a San Diego company that makes embedded multimedia software for mobile devices, said this week that it’s shutting down Israeli Wi-Fi equipment subsidiary Go Networks as part of a global cost-cutting effort. Earlier in the month, NextWave arranged $100 million in new debt financing and announced a series of cash-conservation moves, … Continue reading “NextWave Stops Go”

Boston Unblurred: Debunking the Google Maps Censorship Myth

Having written an appreciative column a few weeks ago about the endangered Pacific Northwest tree octopus, a tongue-in-cheek hoax site, I am not about to denounce the Internet as a cesspool of misinformation. But I’m still puzzled by the way certain salacious memes persist on the Internet, even though they’re easily disproved—for example, the myth … Continue reading “Boston Unblurred: Debunking the Google Maps Censorship Myth”

HealthPort Acquires ChartOne

Burlington, MA-based ChartOne, which makes software used by hospitals to manage the distribution of confidential paper and electronic medical records, was acquired by Alpharetta, GA-based HealthPort in a deal that closed on Monday, HealthPort said in an announcement. ChartOne was HealthPort’s closest competitor, according to the statement, which did not reveal the terms of the … Continue reading “HealthPort Acquires ChartOne”