Was Steve Jobs correct that file sharing and synchronization is “a feature, not a product”? That’s what the Apple co-founder told Drew Houston in a now-famous 2009 meeting where he proposed buying Houston’s startup, Dropbox, for nine figures. Houston turned down the offer, Apple went on to introduce iCloud, and Dropbox went on to raise … Continue reading “Huddle, With a Fresh $24M, Puts a Predictive Spin on File Sharing”
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/
Medigram Offers a Safe, Legal Alternative to Texting While Doctoring
Three years of medical school and hospital rotations at Stanford was enough to convince Michael Chiu that the methods doctors and nurses use to exchange updates about patients are archaic, inefficient, and sometimes illegal. Most hospitals, he explains, still depend on old-fashioned pagers to send doctors urgent alerts and other messages. But these systems can … Continue reading “Medigram Offers a Safe, Legal Alternative to Texting While Doctoring”
From Career Ladder to Jungle Gym: Reid Hoffman Speaks at Babson
Seniors graduating last weekend from Babson College, the entrepreneurship-focused campus just outside Boston, were treated to a commencement speech from someone who’s got to be one of their biggest heroes: Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder, executive chairman, and former CEO of LinkedIn. (He’s also an author, a venture investor with Greylock Partners, a member of numerous … Continue reading “From Career Ladder to Jungle Gym: Reid Hoffman Speaks at Babson”
Can Pocket (née Read It Later) Become the TiVo of the Web?
On the iPhone, the first page of the home screen—the one you see when you wake up the device—has room for only 20 apps, counting those in the dock. The iPad home screen holds 26. For me, that means the home screen is prime real estate, reserved only for the apps I use most often. … Continue reading “Can Pocket (née Read It Later) Become the TiVo of the Web?”
Silicon Valley Meets San Quentin At The Last Mile Demo Day
[Updated 7/27/12 with a new video—see page 2] The next time you feel like complaining about your startup job, take a second to imagine would how much harder it would be if you were behind bars at San Quentin. Lest you think I’m pulling this comparison out of thin air, read on. Last week, in … Continue reading “Silicon Valley Meets San Quentin At The Last Mile Demo Day”
Bay Lights Project Turns to Tech Leaders to Bridge Funding Gap
“What if we thought of it as a canvas, rather than a bridge?” That’s the question that occurred to Ben Davis as he was sitting outside the San Francisco Ferry Building one Saturday morning in September 2010, gazing at the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Not long after, he got a chance … Continue reading “Bay Lights Project Turns to Tech Leaders to Bridge Funding Gap”
DIYer’s Delight: Video from Maker Faire 2012
If you’ve ever wondered how quickly an alien army like the one in Independence Day could subdue humanity, worry no more. From the ingenuity on display at Maker Faire, it’s pretty clear that we’d be saved by the large and growing corps of civilian tinkerers, who could probably take down a space cruiser using nothing … Continue reading “DIYer’s Delight: Video from Maker Faire 2012”
Can Facebook’s New Millionaires Save the World?
From everyone to whom much is given, much shall be required. Regular readers know that I’m not in the habit of quoting scripture. But this line found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke has a bit of new relevance this morning, as Facebook’s initial public offering—valuing the company at $106 billion at the … Continue reading “Can Facebook’s New Millionaires Save the World?”
Quirks & Perqs: YC Startups Woo Employees with Unusual Benefits
It’s old news that tech startups in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are locked in a fierce competition for the most talented engineers, product managers, and business development staff. But you might be surprised how far some companies are going these days to portray their workplaces as virtual Disneylands for employees. At a Tuesday night … Continue reading “Quirks & Perqs: YC Startups Woo Employees with Unusual Benefits”
Mining “Happiness Moments” at Mobile-Rewards Startup Kiip
Whatever you do, don’t tell Kiip CEO Brian Wong that he’s in the advertising business. Yes, if you’re playing a mobile game that uses Kiip’s service, you’ll see pop-up screens offering rewards from big brands like Pepsi, Disney, and Best Buy. But these aren’t ads, Wong insists. They’re moments of reciprocity prompted by an achievement … Continue reading “Mining “Happiness Moments” at Mobile-Rewards Startup Kiip”
N Reduce Opens Up As Alternative to Ultra-Elite Startup Incubators
Maybe getting rejected by Y Combinator isn’t such a bad thing. For Jacques Crocker, Ash Bhoopathy, and Rich Lengsavath it turned into the beginning of a new adventure: alongside their own startup, called Lizi, they’re introducing a new, more open startup accelerator called N Reduce. Announced on May 10 and known for less than a week as N … Continue reading “N Reduce Opens Up As Alternative to Ultra-Elite Startup Incubators”
SmartPlanet Features Xconomy’s Future of Robotics Event [Video]
“The tiniest bit of bot news will attract a swarm of journos,” comments SmartPlanet chief correspondent Sumi Das. And she’s right: our May 3 forum on the Future of Robotics in Silicon Valley and Beyond brought in one of the biggest contingents of reporters ever to attend an Xconomy event. Das herself came away with … Continue reading “SmartPlanet Features Xconomy’s Future of Robotics Event [Video]”
Touch Press, the iPad, and the New Golden Age of Multimedia
Back in 2008 (exactly 180 columns ago, in fact) I wrote an elegy for the CD-ROM. If you’re under the age of 30, you probably won’t know what I’m talking about, but there was a brief span of time in the mid-1990s—after the emergence of personal computers powerful enough to handle multimedia content, but before … Continue reading “Touch Press, the iPad, and the New Golden Age of Multimedia”
Xconomist of the Week: Len Schlesinger on Learning by Doing
Are successful entrepreneurs born with an innate sense that tells them which risky business bets will pay off? Or is this a skill that that can be learned over time? To Babson College President and Xconomist Leonard “Len” Schlesinger, the answer to both questions is yes. There are occasional business prodigies like Steve Jobs who … Continue reading “Xconomist of the Week: Len Schlesinger on Learning by Doing”
Willow Garage Spins Off Open Source Robotics Foundation
It’s a rite of passage in the software world: Once the community around an open-source application, operating system, or language grows large enough, the creators often set up an independent, non-profit organization to oversee future growth. It happened with basic Web tools like the Apache Web server back in the 1990s, and now it’s starting … Continue reading “Willow Garage Spins Off Open Source Robotics Foundation”
Greenstart’s Second Batch of Startups Has “Digital Cleantech” Focus
Startups with ideas for improving energy efficiency in the transportation, construction, and utility industries got their first big chance to promote their businesses at last week’s semi-annual demo day at Greenstart, San Francisco’s cleantech startup accelerator. It was the second such event at Greenstart, which was established last summer and hatched its first batch of … Continue reading “Greenstart’s Second Batch of Startups Has “Digital Cleantech” Focus”
Xconomy’s Future of Robotics Event: The Slide Show
If you missed our May 3 forum on “The Future of Robotics in Silicon Valley,” fear not. Today we’re pleased to bring you a flurry of photos from the gathering, captured in pixels by photographer Scott Bramwell at SRI International, which hosted the half-day event. The sold-out event featured top roboticists from both coasts, including … Continue reading “Xconomy’s Future of Robotics Event: The Slide Show”
Redwood Robotics Aims to Build Next Generation of Robot Arms
After a year in the planning stages, a new Bay Area startup called Redwood Robotics has revealed its plans to build inexpensive arms for personal service robots. The startup is a joint venture between San Francisco-based Meka Robotics, Menlo Park, CA-based Willow Garage, and the famed R&D institute SRI International. Meka Robotics co-founder Aaron Edsinger, who will lead the new … Continue reading “Redwood Robotics Aims to Build Next Generation of Robot Arms”
Xconomist of the Week: Rebecca Lynn on the Financial Services Boom
Morgenthaler Ventures partner Rebecca Lynn shows up at just about every Health 2.0 event in Silicon Valley—heck, she organizes some of them, like Morgenthaler’s annual DC to VC health IT showcase. So if you only went to those events, you might think that was Lynn’s whole investing focus. But in fact, the Xconomist’s portfolio at Morgenthaler … Continue reading “Xconomist of the Week: Rebecca Lynn on the Financial Services Boom”
See You at “The Future of Robotics” at SRI Today
The robots are coming—to SRI International in Menlo Park, that is, where the crew of Xconomy San Francisco is looking forward to welcoming a big crowd at The Future of Robotics in Silicon Valley and Beyond. This is our first attempt at organizing a half-day conference on robots, how they’re changing our lives, and how … Continue reading “See You at “The Future of Robotics” at SRI Today”
Wantful’s Customized Catalogs Aim to Bring Back Thoughtful Gift Giving
I’m not the kind of person who loves to flip through retail catalogs. I’m very goal-directed when it comes to shopping, and to me, a typical catalog is just a confusing mish-mash of miscellaneous merchandise that takes too much time and effort to sift through. But if somebody gave me a catalog where every item … Continue reading “Wantful’s Customized Catalogs Aim to Bring Back Thoughtful Gift Giving”
How Startups Will Disrupt the Food Business: A New Video Feast
Here in the Bay Area, we love startups, and we love food. So it stands to reason that we’d love startups working to transform the way the food industry works. And indeed, just as you’d expect, the region is home to one of the largest clusters of food-related startups anywhere, as I documented in my … Continue reading “How Startups Will Disrupt the Food Business: A New Video Feast”
Hey, Silicon Valley: Wake Up and Smell the Robots
Investors and entrepreneurs in the Bay Area pride themselves on being the first to identify and exploit new technologies with huge commercial potential. And they’ve earned the right to be a little cocky. Since 1960, Silicon Valley companies have been the pacesetters in four consecutive infotech revolutions (semiconductors, personal computers, the Internet, and mobile). It’s … Continue reading “Hey, Silicon Valley: Wake Up and Smell the Robots”
The Robots Are Coming! A Pre-Event Photo and Video Gallery
Part of the reason people like to stare at babies is that they’re edge cases. It’s hard to believe something so small could actually be human. Robots are sort of the same way. They’re obviously mechanical, but sometimes they can also seem so…well, human. That’s certainly the case with several of the robots made by … Continue reading “The Robots Are Coming! A Pre-Event Photo and Video Gallery”
Xconomist of the Week: Michael Greeley Dissects the VC Data
Michael Greeley is no pessimist. Eeyores don’t get picked to run the New England Venture Capital Association, as Greeley did from 2005 to 2008, and they don’t win gubernatorial appointments to state entrepreneurship boards. But he’s more willing than most VCs to talk about troubling trends in the innovation economy. So we paid attention earlier … Continue reading “Xconomist of the Week: Michael Greeley Dissects the VC Data”
Robots and You: See the Connections on May 3
Maybe you’re under the impression that robots are still sci-fi technology, decades away from the point where they might affect your everyday life. Well, tell that to Jeff Bezos, who just spent $775 million of Amazon’s cash to acquire Kiva Systems. If you’ve ordered a handbag or a pair of shoes from Amazon subsidiary Zappos … Continue reading “Robots and You: See the Connections on May 3”
CoffeeTable Aims to Reinvent Catalog Shopping for the iPad Era
When e-commerce startup CoffeeTable was brand new, the company occupied a table at San Francisco’s Dogpatch Labs, right across from another startup called Burbn. The week Burbn launched its iPhone app, CoffeeTable’s lead engineer “started to see that it was going to take off, and decided to switch over and join them,” says Ben Choi, … Continue reading “CoffeeTable Aims to Reinvent Catalog Shopping for the iPad Era”
At Altius’s Online College, Students Will Learn Through Stories
Altius Education, the San Francisco startup that launched the two-year online junior college called Ivy Bridge, now hopes to blossom into a full-fledged, four-year institution called Altius University. And to prepare the way, it’s rolling out a new software platform designed to improve education through “the power of stories.” Paul Freedman, Altius’ founder and CEO, … Continue reading “At Altius’s Online College, Students Will Learn Through Stories”
In Google’s Moon Race, Teams Face a Reckoning
The future is way behind schedule. That’s the feeling you pick up on when you talk to people in the civilian space business. Forty years after the Apollo missions, there are still no lunar bases like the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are no Pan Am space planes ferrying bureaucrats to meetings on … Continue reading “In Google’s Moon Race, Teams Face a Reckoning”
Kullect Reinvents Blogging for the Smartphone Era
Blogs are coming up on their 15th birthday—the term “weblog” was coined in December 1997, according to Wired (though it wasn’t shortened to “blog” until 1999). What’s interesting is how little the form has changed in that time. A typical blog is still just a collection of text-based essays or articles and comments written on … Continue reading “Kullect Reinvents Blogging for the Smartphone Era”
The Future of Robotics on May 3: Here’s the Agenda
Faster than anyone expected, it’s going to be May 3—the day we’re gathering an amazing group of roboticists and entrepreneurs for our first forum on The Future of Robotics in Silicon Valley and Beyond. The event takes place from 1:00 to 5:30 pm at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA, and features representatives from 10 … Continue reading “The Future of Robotics on May 3: Here’s the Agenda”
The Billion-Dollar App: How Apple Propelled Instagram to Success
Yesterday’s news that Facebook is buying Instagram and its photo-sharing app was eye-popping for about five reasons at once. But the most interesting reason, to me, has also been the most overlooked so far. Here are the points that jumped out in yesterday’s news, starting with the least important (and most discussed) and building up … Continue reading “The Billion-Dollar App: How Apple Propelled Instagram to Success”
Notepaper App Showdown: Bamboo, FiftyThree, and Noteshelf
Most geeks like me suffer from a condition called Amazing New Tech Syndrome. The chief symptom of ANTS is a happy delirium over the latest gadget you’ve acquired, followed by resentful disillusionment toward that same gadget as soon as a newer one comes out. You can only assuage the resentment by buying the new gadget, … Continue reading “Notepaper App Showdown: Bamboo, FiftyThree, and Noteshelf”
The Internet Election of 2012? Votizen, Politix, Politify Work to Wake Up Voters
The Tea Party and the Occupy movement have each had their shot at disrupting the U.S. political process. Now Silicon Valley wants a turn. It was bound to happen eventually. As industries from consumer goods to travel to healthcare have begun to yield to the power of Valley-birthed Internet technologies like social media, targeted advertising, … Continue reading “The Internet Election of 2012? Votizen, Politix, Politify Work to Wake Up Voters”
Steve Blank Hands A New Owner’s Manual to Startup Founders
If you look closely at the cover of Steve Blank’s new book, The Startup Owner’s Manual, you’ll see that it shows an exploded view of the transmission from an automobile engine. Leonardo da Vinci invented the exploded view more than 500 years ago, and it has stayed with us as a visualization tool, because it’s … Continue reading “Steve Blank Hands A New Owner’s Manual to Startup Founders”
Can Willow Garage’s “Linux for Robots” Spur Internet-Scale Growth?
Robot builders have a lot to learn from Internet entrepreneurs. That’s one of the main arguments you’ll hear from the engineers at Willow Garage, a unique startup in Menlo Park, CA, that’s developing hardware and software for a new generation of personal robots. You can’t name a single Internet company, they say, that would have … Continue reading “Can Willow Garage’s “Linux for Robots” Spur Internet-Scale Growth?”
The Most Interesting Y Combinator Winter 2012 Startups
The signs that Y Combinator‘s winter 2012 demo day yesterday was going to be packed began with the traffic jam on the Highway 101 offramp in Mountain View. Simply turning left to cross the Shoreline Avenue overpass to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View took me about 25 minutes. By the time I arrived … Continue reading “The Most Interesting Y Combinator Winter 2012 Startups”
Just In Time for Tax Day, Task.fm Offers Instant Expertise
Turn back the clock to mid-April, 2011. The IRS deadline is approaching fast, and the founders of a Mountain View, CA-based startup called Task.fm are scrambling to finish their personal tax returns. “In true startup fashion, we did it at the last minute, and we had a couple of questions we couldn’t answer,” says co-founder … Continue reading “Just In Time for Tax Day, Task.fm Offers Instant Expertise”
An Evangelist Makes the Case for Google+
Guy Kawasaki, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor who first rose to notoriety as chief evangelist for Apple back in the early days of the Macintosh, has found something new to evangelize. He’s just published an e-book about Google+ called What the Plus: Google+ for the Rest of Us. At a trim 180 pages, including … Continue reading “An Evangelist Makes the Case for Google+”
12 Investing and Business Gems from Avalon’s Kevin Kinsella
Current and former MIT students gathered at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, Tuesday night to hear one of San Diego’s most renowned venture investors, Avalon Ventures founder Kevin Kinsella, share insights from a long and adventurous career. Fresh off Avalon’s huge Zynga payout—the firm invested $5.3 million and saw the value of … Continue reading “12 Investing and Business Gems from Avalon’s Kevin Kinsella”
Bikes and Business: Can Cities Cycle Their Way To Prosperity?
I’ve been in Boston this week, attending Xconomy’s big Mobile Madness conference and hanging out with my colleagues in our Cambridge, MA, headquarters. For all the debate among startup entrepreneurs about whether Boston or Silicon Valley is a better place to start a company, I’ve been reminded during my visit that Boston has a huge … Continue reading “Bikes and Business: Can Cities Cycle Their Way To Prosperity?”
Google Beefs Up Its Measures Against Counterfeit Advertisers
Google’s AdWords and AdSense platforms are the Web’s largest and most profitable network for keyword-based advertising, which means Google deals with a constant onslaught of hucksters trying to rope consumers into scams and questionable deals. The company has long worked to exclude ads for get-rich-quick schemes, harmful products like cigarettes and guns, and counterfeit goods … Continue reading “Google Beefs Up Its Measures Against Counterfeit Advertisers”
Join Us May 3 For a Tour of the Future of Robotics
Robotics, like AI, is a field plagued by the chronic gap between science fiction and reality. Today’s robots don’t look or act anything like C-3PO, so most consumers lump them in with flying cars as one of 20th-century pop culture’s broken promises. Well, they’re wrong. (About flying cars, too.) Working quietly behind the scenes, academic … Continue reading “Join Us May 3 For a Tour of the Future of Robotics”
The Lytro Camera Is Revolutionary, But It’s No iPhone
The inventors and investors behind the Lytro, the hot new “light field” camera that creates refocusable digital photos, are trying to have it both ways. They’re arguing that their new camera, which sells for $399-$499, will revolutionize consumer photography in the near term by freeing people from shutter delays and the need to focus their … Continue reading “The Lytro Camera Is Revolutionary, But It’s No iPhone”
Sramana Mitra Combats Infant Entrepreneur Mortality
Investor Stewart Alsop has called San Francisco Xconomist Sramana Mitra “a symbol of everything that is great about America: a geek, an entrepreneur, an immigrant, a leader.” He could have added “prolific writer”: Mitra is the author of a blog and five books, as well as three years’ worth of Forbes columns. Throughout these writings, … Continue reading “Sramana Mitra Combats Infant Entrepreneur Mortality”
Let the Madness Begin: Four New Questions About Mobile’s Future
San Francisco is a heavenly place to live and work, but there are two times a year when I would rather be in Boston. One is Xconomy’s annual XSITE conference in June, and the other is our Mobile Madness conference, which is coming up on March 14. It just so happens that there’s a cross-country … Continue reading “Let the Madness Begin: Four New Questions About Mobile’s Future”
Google’s Rules of Acquisition: How to Be an Android, Not an Aardvark
In the technology world, acquisitions so often go awry that it’s a wonder big corporations keep shelling out to buy smaller ones at all. Just look at disasters like News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace, eBay’s acquisition of Skype, or more recently, AOL’s acquisition of TechCrunch. Acquirers are so likely to overpay for their purchases, misjudge … Continue reading “Google’s Rules of Acquisition: How to Be an Android, Not an Aardvark”
How Zite’s News App Altered the Zeitgeist in Personalized Publishing
It’s just past noon on March 30, 2011. The entire executive team from Zite is at the Sharon Heights Starbucks in Menlo Park—the usual hangout for entrepreneurs making the venture circuit. They’re killing time between VC meetings on Sand Hill Road, and they’re a little nervous. But it’s not because of the meetings, or the … Continue reading “How Zite’s News App Altered the Zeitgeist in Personalized Publishing”
What If Your Next TV Is a Tablet?
It is a dark time for the TV rebellion. Although legions of cord-cutters have abandoned their cable subscriptions, Hollywood troops have driven the early TV-technology startups from their hidden Silicon Valley bases and pursued them across the Internet. Evading the dreaded cable and satellite companies, a group of freedom fighters led by Boxee, Netflix, and … Continue reading “What If Your Next TV Is a Tablet?”
Google Transit: A Search Giant Remaps Public Transportation
You can’t talk to a Googler for very long without hearing them recite the company’s mission statement: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Not only does it sound noble, but it’s an all-purpose answer for the sorts of nosey questions tech journalists pose, like why Google would want to … Continue reading “Google Transit: A Search Giant Remaps Public Transportation”