Cross Craigslist founder Craig Newmark with Web-networker-par-excellence Joi Ito, add blond hair and blue eyes, and plunk the result down in Boston—and you’d have Mark Doerschlag. The Mark behind the eponymous MarksGuide Boston, Doerschlag is the man to know if you want to get the word out about a local networking event in business, technology, … Continue reading “Boost Your Karma: Check Out MarksGuide”
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/
VMware’s Greene Backs Up Xconomy Readers—Says Customers Aren’t Balking at Premium Price for Company’s Virtualization Products
My, people have strong feelings about VMware (NYSE: [[ticker:VMW]]). In mid-November, when we last wrote about the virtualization company 90-percent-owned by Hopkinton-based EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]), its stock had dropped from a post-IPO high of $124 down into the $90 range. (Which is where it is again today, after diving as low as $71 on November … Continue reading “VMware’s Greene Backs Up Xconomy Readers—Says Customers Aren’t Balking at Premium Price for Company’s Virtualization Products”
ZoomInfo Charts New World of Ads Based on “Business Demographics”
In the world of Web advertising, targeted audiences are gold. If you publish a website that attracts the type of people who drink green tea, then click-through rates for green-tea ads are probably going to be higher than average, and companies like Snapple and AriZona Beverages will happily pay you a higher rate. Likewise, if … Continue reading “ZoomInfo Charts New World of Ads Based on “Business Demographics””
Talent Wars: How Boston-Area IT Companies Are Dealing With A Severe Staffing Crunch
The bad news in a jobs study released last week by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth is that Massachusetts lags every state in the nation save Michigan when it comes to creating new jobs. Manufacturing in the state has been in especially bad shape since the 2001 recession, leading to worries that, as … Continue reading “Talent Wars: How Boston-Area IT Companies Are Dealing With A Severe Staffing Crunch”
$8 Million for Mobile Streaming Video Startup
Buzzwire, based in Boston and Denver, will use an $8 million Series B funding round, announced today, to work with major cellular carriers to deploy its technology for streaming video, audio, and radio to mobile phones. New investor Sequel Partners of Boulder, CO, led the funding round, which also included existing investors Spark Capital and … Continue reading “$8 Million for Mobile Streaming Video Startup”
Seeding Your Web 2.0 Company
Find out how to get your piece of the seed grants of $15K to $250K being offered by many New England venture firms to budding Web 2.0 companies with products focused on user participation, social networking, blogging, or podcasting. Sponsored by K&L Gates and MITX; more information here.
NexTone + Reef Point = NextPoint
It’s not enough to be just a cellular company, just a fixed-line phone company, just a cable company, or just a voice-over-Internet company anymore. To survive in a world overturned by the Internet, you probably have to be all of the above—and for help, operators can now turn to NextPoint Networks, a new company formed … Continue reading “NexTone + Reef Point = NextPoint”
Nextcat Includes Game Developers
Nextcat, the Quincy, MA-based professional social networking site for musicians, filmmakers, writers, artists, and models that we profiled back in August, has added a section for video game developers. It’s good timing, as a report from the Entertainment Software Association last week revealed that Massachusetts is the nation’s fifth-leading center of videogame development, with close … Continue reading “Nextcat Includes Game Developers”
In-Q-Tel Opens Boston Office, Plans to In-q-bate New Technology for the Intelligence Community
If you’re a budding Boston entrepreneur working on a technology such as deeper data mining, longer-lasting batteries, or faster microfluidic DNA screening, you might get a surprise phone call one day soon from the U.S. intelligence community—or at least, from its strategic investing arm. That’s because In-Q-Tel, an Arlington, VA-based private, non-profit group that funds … Continue reading “In-Q-Tel Opens Boston Office, Plans to In-q-bate New Technology for the Intelligence Community”
Peru Orders 260,000 XO Laptops
The One Laptop Per Child Foundation—bedeviled by recent criticism from the Wall Street Journal over a dearth of solid orders for its XO Laptop, and defended by Bob in our pages recently—received a request last week for 260,000 laptops from the government of Peru, the Boston Globe reported on Saturday. OLPC founder and MIT professor … Continue reading “Peru Orders 260,000 XO Laptops”
Blackwave Raises $16 Million for Internet Video Delivery
Acton, MA-based Blackwave said today it has raised $16 million in Series B funding to continue development of servers that store video and stream it to consumers over the Internet. The company, formerly known as Acinion, raised $5 million last year in a funding round led by Globespan Capital Partners and IDG Ventures. Both firms … Continue reading “Blackwave Raises $16 Million for Internet Video Delivery”
Spark Capital’s Bijan Sabet Says Cross Out Those Non-Compete Clauses—An Xconomy Interview
The non-compete agreement. When people ponder the reasons for Silicon Valley’s surge as a startup haven—often leaving New England licking its wounds, as it did after student venture Facebook’s departure for Palo Alto, for example—they often point to the persistence of this little clause in many New England-area employment agreements as a major contributor. The … Continue reading “Spark Capital’s Bijan Sabet Says Cross Out Those Non-Compete Clauses—An Xconomy Interview”
Made in Canada: More Boston Tech Companies Poached from North of the Border
A few weeks ago I chronicled the tale of Xkoto, a database virtualization company founded in Toronto that has a brand-new headquarters in Boston and a brand-new American CEO, courtesy of GrandBanks Capital, which has made something of a specialty lately out of moving Canadian companies (or at least their administrative functions) to Massachussetts. Today … Continue reading “Made in Canada: More Boston Tech Companies Poached from North of the Border”
Renewable Energy Business Network Happy Hour
Rob Day sends word that @Ventures, the Boston cleantech venture firm where he’s a partner, will sponsor another REBN-East networking event at Flat Top Johnny’s in Cambridge on Thursday, December 6. These networking events, the East Coast versions of a Renewable Energy Business Network happy hours that Day and a colleague initiated in the Bay … Continue reading “Renewable Energy Business Network Happy Hour”
How to Launch a Googellite: Stephen Vinter Speaks
If you were creating a satellite office for Google 3,100 miles away from the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA, yet you wanted to make it authentically Google, what would you do? The short, superficial answer would be to buy a few lava lamps, paint the walls in bright primary colors, build a great cafeteria with … Continue reading “How to Launch a Googellite: Stephen Vinter Speaks”
Sirtris Touts Its Next Generation of Diabetes Drug Candidates, Massively More Powerful than its First
When I visited Cambridge-based Sirtris Pharmaceuticals a few weeks ago, CEO Christoph Westphal told me that the company would soon be publishing data on a new drug candidate that’s 1000 times as effective as the company’s lead compound—a diabetes drug—at activating a key gene called SIRT1. Those data are now out in this week’s issue … Continue reading “Sirtris Touts Its Next Generation of Diabetes Drug Candidates, Massively More Powerful than its First”
NSTAR, Energy Department Offer $200K Prize to Energy Entrepreneurs
The pot of prize money available to students and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas about commercializing clean-energy technologies just got a lot bigger. MIT, the U.S. Department of Energy, and local electric utility NSTAR announced today that they’re collaborating to offer a new $200,000 cash prize for the best idea for a business supporting a technology, … Continue reading “NSTAR, Energy Department Offer $200K Prize to Energy Entrepreneurs”
One Laptop Foundation Sued Over Keyboard Design
A Nigerian businessman says the keyboard of the XO Laptop, produced by the Cambridge-based One Laptop Per Child Foundation, is suspiciously similar to a multilingual keyboard patented by his company, technology writer Hiawatha Bray is reporting today in the Boston Globe. Ade Oyegbola, founder and CEO of Natick, MA-based Lagos Analysis Corp., also called Lancor, … Continue reading “One Laptop Foundation Sued Over Keyboard Design”
Boston Micromachines Wins $750K for Optical Transponder Project
The Defense Department’s Small Business Technology Transfer program has awarded $750,000 to Watertown-based Boston Micromachines to create portable optical communications devices from deformable micromirrors, according to an article today in Laser Focus World. The company, working with partners at Boston University, hopes to build small, low-power devices that soldiers can use in open air to … Continue reading “Boston Micromachines Wins $750K for Optical Transponder Project”
GuildCafe Conquers Uberguilds
GuildCafe, a Cambridge-based social networking site for players of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games such as World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online, has acquired Uberguilds, which hosts about 20 high-profile guild sites and fansites related to various MMORPGs, the company announced last week. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Uberguilds … Continue reading “GuildCafe Conquers Uberguilds”
Warning: Reading This Article May Contribute to Global Warming. But These Young Entrepreneurs Want to Do Something About It.
Simply by breathing while you’re sitting there at your computer, you’re releasing about 40 grams of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every hour. But because you’re at that computer—which is using electricity, which was likely produced by burning some fossil fuel—you’re indirectly responsible for emitting another 60 grams of CO2 per hour. Or are you? … Continue reading “Warning: Reading This Article May Contribute to Global Warming. But These Young Entrepreneurs Want to Do Something About It.”
Shopping Goes Virtual: Browsing Brookstone in 3-D
The “Cyber Monday” phenomenon is a baseless piece of marketing fluff crafted by the National Retail Federation—the biggest online shopping day of the holiday season actually falls somewhere between December 5 and 15 every year. But if virtual shopping floats your boat, today is a good day for it anyway: the novelty retailer Brookstone, based … Continue reading “Shopping Goes Virtual: Browsing Brookstone in 3-D”
Passport Systems Books $7.4 Million
Passport Systems, the Acton, MA-based maker of cargo screening systems profiled here in September, has closed on about $7.4 million of an anticipated $10 million funding round led by angel investors and two local venture funds, according to company COO Bill McLendon. PE Week Wire first reported the milestone this morning.
Covergence Collects $15 Million
PeHub has news of a regulatory filing showing that Maynard, MA-based Covergence, which makes network devices that help corporations manage voice-over-Internet traffic, has collected $15 million in a Series D funding round. Backers reportedly include Highland Capital Partners, Globespan Capital Partners, and North Bridge Venture Partners. Covergence had no immediate comment on the funding.
2007 New England Venture Summit
This one-day paid event connects technology entrepreneurs with venture capitalists and angel investors. Information here; online registration has closed but limited space is available for walk-ins.
Let Your Fingers Do the Crossing: “Direct Navigation” Companies Heat Up
The statistics are hard to believe, but hundreds of thousands of Internet users are apparently so intimidated by conventional search engines that they find things on the Web by typing random, imaginary domain names into their browsers’ adddress bars and hoping against hope that the made-up URLs will lead to something useful. And sometimes, they … Continue reading “Let Your Fingers Do the Crossing: “Direct Navigation” Companies Heat Up”
Amazon Kindle: One Very Small Step for E-Books
An “electronic paper” screen created by Cambridge’s E Ink is the heart of the new Amazon Kindle e-book reading device, introduced yesterday amidst grand pronouncements about the beginning of a new era of electronic book publishing and reading. “This is the future of reading. It will be everywhere,” said business writer Michael Lewis, who ought … Continue reading “Amazon Kindle: One Very Small Step for E-Books”
MyPunchbowl Turns Over a New Ladle
MyPunchbowl, a Natick, MA-based online party planning company profiled here in October, is preparing for the holidays by launching an overhauled version of its website, available today. CEO Matt Douglas, who was liberally spooning out the company’s trademark red punch at TechCrunch’s Boston bash Friday night, says the new features include the ability to build … Continue reading “MyPunchbowl Turns Over a New Ladle”
MIT, India Launch Health Sciences Institute
In New Delhi today, officials from the Indian government and MIT announced an agreement to create a new Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) in India, modeled after the interdisciplinary Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). HST director Martha Gray and M. K. Bhan, secretary of the Indian Ministry of Science & … Continue reading “MIT, India Launch Health Sciences Institute”
ULocate Names Contest Winners
ULocate, the Boston company we featured a few weeks ago for its work on a platform for location-based widgets on cell phones, announced the winners of its first developers contest today. The winning entries, whose developers will receive cash prizes and have their widgets made available on several cellular carriers via uLocate’s Where platform, are … Continue reading “ULocate Names Contest Winners”
Sir2 Roads Diverged: Elixir Co-founder Joins Rival Sirtris
The MIT biologist who co-founded Elixir Pharmaceuticals in 1999 in a bid to turn his research on a gene called Sir2 into drugs that might extend lifespans has defected to Elixir’s primary rival, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SIRT]]). Both companies are developing drugs against aging-related diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and both are based in … Continue reading “Sir2 Roads Diverged: Elixir Co-founder Joins Rival Sirtris”
Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala
The Society for New Communications Research is a global nonprofit think tank dedicated to the advanced study of new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society. The Society’s Fellows include futurists, scholars, business leaders, professional communicators, members of the media and technologists, … Continue reading “Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala”
Boston Startup Brings Back Interactive TV—By Marrying It to the Internet
Interactive television is the hottest technology that never was. Broadcasters and cable companies have been tinkering with the idea since at least 1977, when Warner Communications rolled out a two-way service called Qube that allowed subscribers in Columbus, OH, to participate in game shows and electronic town meetings through their set-top boxes. Though it was … Continue reading “Boston Startup Brings Back Interactive TV—By Marrying It to the Internet”
Recharge Your Cell Phone by Taking It For A Walk
Wilmington, MA-based @Ventures is one of the key players in an $8 million Series A funding round announced today by M2E Power, which is developing technology that could help energize mobile gadgets by transforming motion into electricity. @Ventures partner Rob Day says the Boise, ID, company is already testing portable micro-generators, the size of D-cell … Continue reading “Recharge Your Cell Phone by Taking It For A Walk”
Two New Sites to Ease Your Way Through Dating Hell
So it’s Friday night, you’re single, and you have no plans for the evening. You can clean out your refrigerator, catch the latest nail-biting episode of Deal or No Deal, or maybe, if you’re feeling courageous, go out on a crazy blind date. Time was, setting up a blind date required some matchmaking (or meddlesome) … Continue reading “Two New Sites to Ease Your Way Through Dating Hell”
Music and Technology in Boston, Round Two
Last month we brought you Boston: The Hidden Hub of Music and Technology, a look at the surprisingly large but previously under-reported cluster of local startups that are mixing up music, software, computing, and the Web in various innovative ways. Readers responded eagerly to our piece, and thanks to their comments and suggestions, we’ve come … Continue reading “Music and Technology in Boston, Round Two”
Web Innovators Group 16
The Web Innovators Group series is a fantastic opportunity to hear brief presentations from local Web 2.0 startups before they’ve reached the stage of acquiring venture funding. David Beisel at Venrock sends word that the first WebInno meeting of 2008 will be held at the usual place (the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge) at the … Continue reading “Web Innovators Group 16”
Berners-Lee Strikes A Blow for the Mobile Web
Browsing the Web on a mobile device such as a phone is a mixed experience at best. Some website designers provide stripped-down mobile version of their sites containing just the essential text and navigation elements; others make little or no effort to be mobile-friendly, meaning surfers have to download every annoying logo, photo, and advertisement … Continue reading “Berners-Lee Strikes A Blow for the Mobile Web”
VMware Feeling Pressure as Virtualization Becomes a Commodity
The supply of stock investors willing to pay premium prices for EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]) subsidiary VMware (NYSE: [[ticker:VMW]]) seemed to dry up around Halloween—perhaps, analysts are saying, because they’ve started to realize that the supply of companies willing to pay premium prices for VMware’s virtualization software isn’t infinite, either. The seemingly unstoppable stock, whose rise … Continue reading “VMware Feeling Pressure as Virtualization Becomes a Commodity”
Making the Web Mobile-Friendly
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in Cambridge, MA, today announced the release of “mobileOK checker,” software that automatically evaluates Web pages for compliance with the group’s guidelines for improving users’ browsing experiences on phones and other mobile devices. We’ll have more details about the mobileOK initiative tomorrow. Also tomorrow, W3C director Tim Berners-Lee will … Continue reading “Making the Web Mobile-Friendly”
Imprivata: Working Toward a One-Password World
If you think you’re drowning in computer passwords, consider the plight of some doctors today. Many medical offices have a separate computer in each exam room, with several databases and other programs running on each machine. Programs containing patient data must be password-protected, and one study found that to access this data, some doctors had … Continue reading “Imprivata: Working Toward a One-Password World”
Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop
The Cambridge, MA-based One Laptop Per Child Foundation kicked off its long-anticipated “Give One, Get One” program today. From November 12 through November 26, consumers in the United States and Canada can buy an XO laptop for a child in a developing nation for $399 and also receive one XO laptop to be “sent to … Continue reading “Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop”
Google Pledges $10 Million for Android Developers
Google today unveiled an early version of the software development kit for the Open Handset Alliance’s open-source Android mobile phone platform, one of the major projects among engineers at the company’s Cambridge, MA, research lab. At the same time, the company said it will spur innovation by giving away $10 million in cash prizes to … Continue reading “Google Pledges $10 Million for Android Developers”
Xconomy’s Gala Launch Party—The Photos
Xconomy is officially underway: we held our first party—the Xconomy Gala Launch Party—on November 1, a week ago Thursday, at the Broad Institute here in Cambridge. (Yes, we’ve been up since June 27, but this was our real coming out). It was a grand evening, attended by close to 250 people. Boston Scientific founder John … Continue reading “Xconomy’s Gala Launch Party—The Photos”
Website Innovation Recognized at MITX Awards
New England’s Web design and advertising community—a much larger and rowdier crowd than I had realized—piled into the grand ballroom at Boston’s Marriott Copley hotel last night for the MITX Awards, an annual ceremony recognizing the coolest examples of online design, marketing, and media. The high-tech event, sponsored by the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange, … Continue reading “Website Innovation Recognized at MITX Awards”
Cilk Arts Commercializes MIT’s Approach to Parallel Programming
If your computer only has a single processor, you’re at increasing risk for “core envy.” The Intel Core 2 Duo chip in the latest Apple iMac, for example, contains two processors or cores, while the HP Pavilion Media Center desktop has a four-core chip. Sun has been making an eight-core version of its UltraSPARC T1 … Continue reading “Cilk Arts Commercializes MIT’s Approach to Parallel Programming”
ExaGrid Pulls in $20 Million Series C Round in Bid to Replace Tape-Based Backup
Magnetic tape may seem so 20th-century in an era when a single iPod Classic can carry 160 gigabytes of data on its tiny hard drive, but tape is still a key technology in the world of corporate data management, where it’s a cheaper way to store large volumes of data over long periods than disk … Continue reading “ExaGrid Pulls in $20 Million Series C Round in Bid to Replace Tape-Based Backup”
$2 Million Round for Frame Media
Frame Media, a Wellesley, MA-based startup that uses the RSS standard to distribute photos, news, and other content to wireless digital picture frames, announced today that it has closed a $2 million Series A funding round co-led by CommonAngels and Longworth Venture Partners. “With the addition of Wi-Fi capabilities in digital picture frames, Frame Media … Continue reading “$2 Million Round for Frame Media”
First Mass-Produced XO Laptop Rolls Off Line
An assembly line dedicated to the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s XO Laptop went into operation yesterday at Quanta Computer’s new Changshu factory north of Shanghai yesterday, a few days ahead of the timeline One Laptop CTO Mary Lou Jepsen projected the last time Xconomy spoke with her. CNET and Top Tech News have good … Continue reading “First Mass-Produced XO Laptop Rolls Off Line”
Making Your Next Computer from Carbon Dioxide
Many industrial processes such as coal gasification create carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as waste products. Usually, these gases are vented straight into the atmosphere, where they contribute to pollution and global warming. But what if they could instead be diverted into a chemical process for making some useful material—say, the plastic case of your … Continue reading “Making Your Next Computer from Carbon Dioxide”