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/

EMC Pays $84 Million for Conchango

Conchango, a UK-based consulting firm that specializes in custom implentations of Microsoft enterprise software, will become part of EMC’s European IT consulting practice, the Hopkinton, MA, company announced today. EMC is spending about 42 million pounds sterling or US $84 million on the acquisition.

Fox, NBC Tap JumpTap for Mobile Ads

Cambridge, MA mobile search and advertising provider JumpTap announced today that it will distribute mobile ads for NBC Universal‘s mobile websites, including sites for shows such as NBC’s “Heroes” and the Sci Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica, and for the Fox Mobile Entertainment network, whose FoxMobile.com site includes content from the FOX TV network, FX, SPEED, … Continue reading “Fox, NBC Tap JumpTap for Mobile Ads”

Tapping the Treasure Trove of Web Videos with Veveo’s vTap

When I last wrote about Andover, MA-based Veveo, the company was promoting its vTap “incremental search” software as a faster way to search for Web video clips from a mobile device. As you enter the letters of a search query on your phone keypad, the software shows a list of available videos with matching topics … Continue reading “Tapping the Treasure Trove of Web Videos with Veveo’s vTap”

The Bank of America Deal: MIT Media Lab Opens Doors to More Sponsor Involvement in Research Direction

The Center for Future Banking announced yesterday by the MIT Media Lab and Bank of America is the trailblazing computer lab’s biggest corporate funding win in years—perhaps its biggest ever. But it also represents a new type of industry-academic collaboration for the Media Lab, one in which the company footing the bill will have more … Continue reading “The Bank of America Deal: MIT Media Lab Opens Doors to More Sponsor Involvement in Research Direction”

Povo Lets Residents Say What’s Best and Worst About Boston, Block by Block

Mix one cup of Wikipedia with one cup of Google Maps, add a generous dollop of MIT-bred geekdom, and bake for about 14 months. Serves 600,000. The confection in question is Povo.com, a user-editable online community directory that debuted in Boston last week. A project of Boston-based Arts Alliance Labs, a combination venture capital firm … Continue reading “Povo Lets Residents Say What’s Best and Worst About Boston, Block by Block”

Brainy Blog from Supercomputing Firm

Proving that the blogosphere isn’t all about Paris Hilton or even Perez Hilton, Waltham, MA-based Interactive Supercomputing this week launched a new multi-author blog on high-performance computing called Parallel Lounge. With contributors including MIT computer scientist Alan Edelman and Cray Research veteran Steve Reinhardt, Interactive Supercomputing’s vice president of joint research, it’s the only Boston … Continue reading “Brainy Blog from Supercomputing Firm”

Constant Contact Stock Offering Planned

Waltham, MA-based e-mail marketing and survey firm Constant Contact yesterday filed an SEC registration statement saying it intends to sell more than 106,000 shares of common stock in a secondary offering. At the same time, Constant Contact stockholders—mostly venture firms looking for their exit—plan to sell some 4.3 million shares. At this morning’s stock price … Continue reading “Constant Contact Stock Offering Planned”

Web Innovators Guru: An Interview with Venrock’s David Beisel

If you’ve been to the bimonthly Web Innovators Group meetings at the Royal Sonesta ballroom in Cambridge, you know that the menu always consists of three or four “main dish” talks by local entrepreneurs launching new Web services, along with three to five “side dish” presentations by companies who set up tables around the room. … Continue reading “Web Innovators Guru: An Interview with Venrock’s David Beisel”

How Metatomix is Bringing the Semantic Web to Life in Law Enforcement

In 2005, nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was raped and murdered by a known sex offender who did not inform the police that he had moved to her neighborhood in Homosassa, FL, and who had been released earlier by a state court that did not have access to parts of his criminal record. Florida lawmakers responded to … Continue reading “How Metatomix is Bringing the Semantic Web to Life in Law Enforcement”

Jail-Breaking iPhones and Other Tales from the Apple Store

For Boston-area mobile software developers, the Apple Store at the Cambridgeside Galleria was the place to be last night. Apple loaned the space to Mobile Monday Boston for its monthly meeting, which focused this time on software applications for the iPhone—whether authorized by Apple or “open,” to use the euphemism for the growing universe of … Continue reading “Jail-Breaking iPhones and Other Tales from the Apple Store”

Capturing the Facebook Flag: Harvard, Yale Students Launch Rival “Social Online Sports” Companies

How to Build a Web Startup: Step 1: Get into a prestigious university like Yale, Harvard, or Stanford. Step 2: Organize some kind of Web-mediated event or service, and get a few thousand of your fellow students to participate. Step 3: Start answering the calls from venture capitalists and online advertisers. It worked for Facebook, … Continue reading “Capturing the Facebook Flag: Harvard, Yale Students Launch Rival “Social Online Sports” Companies”

PowerPoint to the People

A 2001 New Yorker essay entitled “Absolute PowerPoint” contained the stunning claim that over 30 million PowerPoint presentations were being given every day. The article attributed this statistic to Microsoft; it did not say how the company gathered the data. But whatever the actual prevalence of PowerPoint in 2001, it’s surely even greater now, given … Continue reading “PowerPoint to the People”

3Com Wants Penalty from Bain for Abandoned Takeover Deal

Last month Boston’s Bain Capital and Chinese investment partner Huawei Technologies withdrew their petition with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for permission to take over Marlborough, MA-based 3Com in the face of the committee’s security concerns over partial Chinese ownership of 3Com, whose TippingPoint subsidiary makes security software used by the … Continue reading “3Com Wants Penalty from Bain for Abandoned Takeover Deal”

Y Combinator Gears Up for Startup Summer

Time’s a wastin’ for East Coast technology entrepreneurs who want help from Y Combinator, investor Paul Graham’s startup camp, which returns to Cambridge for its fourth year this summer. Applications for summer 2008 funding are due April 2. Y Combinator winters in Mountain View, CA, where it just held its semi-annual Demo Day, its equivalent … Continue reading “Y Combinator Gears Up for Startup Summer”

Ex-Sony Workers’ Software Smooths Call Center Woes

As frustrating as it is to call a customer-support line, navigate the automated voice-response system, then wait on hold for 15 minutes to speak with an actual human, the call-center experience can be even harder for the people on the other end of the line. A number of trends are making life more harried for … Continue reading “Ex-Sony Workers’ Software Smooths Call Center Woes”

Accessing Cleantech R&D in Europe

The British Consulate General of Boston and U.K. Trade & Investment sponsor a half-day seminar with thought leaders from the cleantech industry in the U.S. and U.K. to discuss R&D market opportunities waiting to be explored. The seminar will focus on global investment trends, access to funding, research programs and institutions, IP security, and an … Continue reading “Accessing Cleantech R&D in Europe”

Aspect, Microsoft in Alliance

Chelmsford, MA-based Aspect Software will adapt its Internet-based call center software to operate with Microsoft’s Office Communications Server, the company announced today at the VoiceCon conference in Orlando, FL. Aspect says that its system, once integrated into Office Communications Server, will allow call-center agents to “seamlessly escalate customer interactions to different channels — phone, instant … Continue reading “Aspect, Microsoft in Alliance”

Sirtris Awarded Patent

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SIRT]]) of Cambridge, MA, said today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued to Sirtris the first patent ever granted for a class of compounds that activate SIRT1, a human enzyme that is the focus of much of the company’s research. In lab animals, Sirtris has found, activating SIRT1 lowers … Continue reading “Sirtris Awarded Patent”

Groove Mobile Acquired by NMS for 45 Cents on the Dollar; Company Never Found Its Groove

One of the Boston area’s oldest mobile content companies has unexpectedly exited the scene. After raising $6 million in new venture funding as recently as last August, Bedford, MA-based mobile music distributor Groove Mobile will be acquired by Framingham, MA-based NMS Communications (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NMSS]]) for a reported $14.5 million. That’s a yield of about 45 … Continue reading “Groove Mobile Acquired by NMS for 45 Cents on the Dollar; Company Never Found Its Groove”

DiMasi Proposes $50 Million Program to Jumpstart Clean Energy Startups in Massachusetts; Renewable Energy Fund Would Be Slashed

On Tuesday, Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi will announce a proposal for a five-year, $50 million spending program designed to boost the state’s clean energy sector, mainly by providing seed grants for early-stage technologies, retraining experienced entrepreneurs from other industries to navigate the energy business, and overhauling vocational-ed programs. Investors and executives are greeting the … Continue reading “DiMasi Proposes $50 Million Program to Jumpstart Clean Energy Startups in Massachusetts; Renewable Energy Fund Would Be Slashed”

Axcelis Again Spurns Sumitomo

The board of Axcelis Technologies, the Beverly, MA-based maker of specialized semiconductor manufacturing equipment, continued evasive maneuvers today in its struggle to avoid a takeover by Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Heavy Industries. The board unanimously rejected Sumitomo’s increased bid of $6.00 per share—up from $5.20 per share in its original, unsolicited bid in early February—as insufficient. … Continue reading “Axcelis Again Spurns Sumitomo”

IDG Ventures Boston is Now Flybridge Capital Partners; Clearing Up “Brand Confusion”

Update, 4/18/08: Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner spoke with Greeley and with IDG’s Pat McGovern and got more background information about the name change and Flybridge’s new direction. — Local early stage venture capital firm IDG Ventures Boston has a new name and twice as much money to put behind it. The company announced today … Continue reading “IDG Ventures Boston is Now Flybridge Capital Partners; Clearing Up “Brand Confusion””

Surrge Travels from Boston to Austin to Launch New Music Referral Service; Taste Makers Can Earn Serious Money

I must be the only Web journalist who did not go to Austin, TX, for South by Southwest, the music, film, and interactive-technology festival that dominated the Twittersphere this week. But as fate would have it, I got my SXSW story anyway. It’s about a Boston startup that’s renting out the Dirty Dog Bar in … Continue reading “Surrge Travels from Boston to Austin to Launch New Music Referral Service; Taste Makers Can Earn Serious Money”

Harvard Says Computers Were Breached

Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, announced this week that hackers infiltrated computers containing student admissions and housing data for the university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The extent of the data loss, which was discovered in mid-February, has not been determined, but the intruders may have gained access to names, Social Security numbers, dates … Continue reading “Harvard Says Computers Were Breached”

Bain Leads $8.6 Million Investment in Internet Radio Advertising System

Boston’s Bain Capital Ventures is the lead investor in n $8.6 million Series B funding round announced today for New York, NY-based TargetSpot, which helps advertisers create and place ads on streaming Internet radio stations. The company, launched less than a year ago, gives advertisers access to over 500 Internet radio channels, including many owned … Continue reading “Bain Leads $8.6 Million Investment in Internet Radio Advertising System”

WorldWinner Helps Keep Boston in the Game of Casual Games

Poor Flo. She’s the only hostess at the diner. So she has to seat the people coming in the door, serve them coffee, take their orders, seat more people, serve the first table’s order, pour more coffee, take more orders, seat more people before they get impatient, take dessert orders, clear tables…and, if she’s lucky, … Continue reading “WorldWinner Helps Keep Boston in the Game of Casual Games”

What Recession? Region’s IT Economy is Booming

The U.S. economy’s seeming slide toward recession hasn’t affected high-tech hiring in the Massachusetts region, the Boston Globe‘s Robert Weisman is reporting this morning. That parallels what we learned back in December, when we wrote about the out-and-out talent crunch many local high-tech firms are confronting, especially when it comes to hiring experienced software engineers. … Continue reading “What Recession? Region’s IT Economy is Booming”

How Much Buzz Do You Generate? Traackr Can Tell

What makes YouTube and other sites that aggregate user-generated content such a brilliant business proposition? It’s that users upload millions of videos, photos, and other content every week, creating mountains of inventory that the sites can sell to advertisers—and the sites don’t have to pay a rupee for any of it. But there’s a company … Continue reading “How Much Buzz Do You Generate? Traackr Can Tell”

Helium Marketplace Officially Afloat

Andover, MA-based citizen journalism site Helium officially launched a crowdsourcing service called Helium Marketplace today. Using the marketplace, publishers who need articles written can list subjects, deadlines, and prices, and writers can respond by uploading drafts. The user community rates the articles, and publishers select the ones they want from a rank-ordered list, with Helium … Continue reading “Helium Marketplace Officially Afloat”

Sirtris Returns to Its “Roots” in Crop Deal with Bayer

News arriving in my inbox from Cambridge, MA-based Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SIRT]]) this morning caused a double-take: the company known for researching drugs that may treat diabetes and cancer by mimicking the effects of calorie restriction is licensing a portion of its technology to Bayer CropScience AG, the German agricultural biotech giant. For a moment, … Continue reading “Sirtris Returns to Its “Roots” in Crop Deal with Bayer”

Skyhook’s MyLoki Bypasses GPS, Makes Location Part of Your Online Persona

For a long time, it looked like the real flowering of location-based services and geo-aware computing would have to wait until more people owned phones with Global Positioning System (GPS) chips inside. And frustratingly for fans of location technology, U.S. manufacturers and cellular carriers have been very slow to a) bring out such phones in … Continue reading “Skyhook’s MyLoki Bypasses GPS, Makes Location Part of Your Online Persona”

2K Boston Loses Bioshock Franchise

New York-based Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TTWO]]), in an analyst call following the release of its first-quarter results Monday, said that Bioshock 2, the sequel to its blockbuster 2007 video game Bioshock, will not be developed at Take-Two’s Boston outpost, 2K Boston, as the original was. That job will instead go to newly-created 2K Marin in … Continue reading “2K Boston Loses Bioshock Franchise”

BBN Wins $13 Million More for Translation Research

Back in December, Cambridge, MA-based BBN picked up $5.67 million from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop mobile-device software that will translate printed foreign-language documents into English. Now the company’s general R&D efforts on automated language translation are getting another boost from DARPA. BBN has won a $13 million grant through DARPA’s … Continue reading “BBN Wins $13 Million More for Translation Research”

Invoke Raises $7 Million to Expand Web-based Market Research Platform

When was the last time you had a spare 45 minutes to sit through a telephone survey or to take part in a focus group? Finding willing participants for traditional market research studies is getting increasingly difficult, but Invoke Solutions of Waltham, MA, gets around the problem by shifting market research to the platforms where … Continue reading “Invoke Raises $7 Million to Expand Web-based Market Research Platform”

Thermo Fisher Simplifies RNAi Delivery

Research into the use of RNA interference (RNAi) to “silence” gene activity is picking up steam (see our story two weeks ago about Alnylam’s RNAi-based treatment for RSV), but it’s still very difficult just to get RNAi agents inside cells, where they can actually do their jobs. Today Waltham, MA-based Thermo Fisher Scientific unveiled a … Continue reading “Thermo Fisher Simplifies RNAi Delivery”

Mobile Monday Boston—The iPhone SDK Party

Mobile Monday Boston is planning a bash at the Apple Store at the Cambridgeside Galleria celebrating the just-released software development kit for the iPhone. Jonathan Zdziarski, leading iPhone app developer and author of the in-progress O’Reilly Media volume iPhone Open Application Development, will give a keynote presentation, which will be followed by demos of iPhone … Continue reading “Mobile Monday Boston—The iPhone SDK Party”

Lightower Fiber Buying Up East Coast Fiber Networks

Just last week we told you that Lightower (the former National Grid Wireless) is splitting into two businesses, Lightower Wireless and Lightower Fiber. Turns out the fiber half of the company has been even busier than we thought. In an announcement late last week, Lightower Fiber said it’s acquiring Newburgh, NY-based DataNet Communications, which owns … Continue reading “Lightower Fiber Buying Up East Coast Fiber Networks”

PeopleCube Says Office Scheduling Software Can Slow Global Warming

Here’s a new excuse for staying at home on a workday: You may be helping to reduce your company’s carbon footprint. Framingham, MA-based PeopleCube makes scheduling software that’s used for everything from deploying tugboats in Seattle Harbor to sending Metropolitan Life insurance agents out to meet prospects. About five years ago, according to CEO John … Continue reading “PeopleCube Says Office Scheduling Software Can Slow Global Warming”

Challenge to Boston Mobile Developers: Show Us Your iPhone Apps

The iPhone is about to morph into something much more important than a phone or an iPod. And because the next chapter in the device’s history will be all about new software applications created by developers outside Apple, there’s no reason why Boston-area programmers and entrepreneurs shouldn’t be leading characters in the story. We at … Continue reading “Challenge to Boston Mobile Developers: Show Us Your iPhone Apps”

I-Therapeutix Sees $6 Million Series B Round

I-Therapeutix is a Waltham, MA-based startup commercializing a hydrogel, or water-based polymer, as a temporary sealant for eye wounds left by cataract surgery. CEO Amir Sawhney told Mass High Tech in January that the company expected to close a $6 million Series B funding round soon, led by Versant Ventures of California and SV Life … Continue reading “I-Therapeutix Sees $6 Million Series B Round”

Delays In Software Patch Pushed Security Firm to Disclose VMware Flaw

VMware’s five-month delay in issuing a fix for a security hole that could leave three of its workstation virtualization programs vulnerable to takeover by hackers—and its elusiveness about announcing a patch date—prompted a Boston-based security firm to break with its usual practice last week and publicly disclose the problem. Iván Arce, CTO of Core Security, … Continue reading “Delays In Software Patch Pushed Security Firm to Disclose VMware Flaw”

The Greater Boston Internet Video Cluster

Boston may take a back seat to Los Angeles and New York as a locus for TV, film, and video production, but it’s front and center when it comes to the array of technologies that go into publishing and monetizing video content on the Internet. Not so long ago, video lovers were pretty much limited … Continue reading “The Greater Boston Internet Video Cluster”

OurStage: A New Opening Act for AOL Music

At Boston-based music website OurStage, independent bands can upload music and videos and compete for a monthly grand prize of $5,000, with site members voting for the winners. But perhaps just as valuable as the monthly prize is the pure exposure bands can get through the judging process, as well as the site’s non-monetary prizes, … Continue reading “OurStage: A New Opening Act for AOL Music”

.406 Ventures Caps First Fund at $167 Million; Focused on Massachusetts IT Firms

Dan Primack of Private Equity Hub is reporting today that .406 Ventures, the Boston-based early stage venture capital firm founded in 2005 by local entrepreneurs Maria Cirino, Larry Begley, and Liam Donohue, has finished raising its first investment fund. The firm gathered $167 million altogether, mostly from institutional investors such as Parish Capital. Primack (one … Continue reading “.406 Ventures Caps First Fund at $167 Million; Focused on Massachusetts IT Firms”

Invention Machine and the Case of the Boxed-Up Box Spring

If you’ve ever tried to wrestle a box spring up a stairway or down a narrow hall into your bedroom, then you can imagine how comically awkward and expensive it would be to ship one via UPS or FedEx. Which explains why box springs (otherwise known as mattress foundations) aren’t exactly big sellers on e-commerce … Continue reading “Invention Machine and the Case of the Boxed-Up Box Spring”