Paul Angott is an idea man. He holds 40 patents on products such as a clock thermostat, a wireless doorbell, and a laser-guided, unmanned mower for football fields and golf courses. Throughout his career, he’s launched five companies and raised more than $10 million for his various entrepreneurial endeavors, sold more than $100 million worth [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
OK, listening to Morphine’s “Cure for Pain” on Julie Kramer’s very last Leftover Lunch show on WFNX pushed me over the edge. In case you missed the news amid all the Facebook hoopla, Boston alternative music station WFNX is being bought by Clear Channel, and most of the staff is being laid off. The old [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
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 opening bell [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Waiting for the biotech industry to advance new treatments for male pattern baldness (as well as female hair loss) might seem about as exciting as watching hair grow. But some people have a lot of skin in the game, if you know what I mean. More than just a few people, actually. San Diego’s Histogen [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
CardioKinetix has spent 10 years and $80 million in venture capital working on an implantable device for people with heart failure. Now it’s got some evidence that suggests it could be on track with a real product. The Menlo Park, CA-based company is announcing today it has passed a study of 31 patients who got [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Drugs, devices, and nonprofits showed up in this week’s New England life sciences news. —Promedior, a maker of treatments for tissue damage known as fibrosis, is moving its headquarters from Pennsylvania to Boston and has hired Suzanne Bruhn, a veteran of the Irish drug giant Shire’s Human Genetic Therapies division, as its new CEO. —Camb
| Xconomy | Technology |
So here is my obligatory post on Facebook…which will be the most spectacular IPO of a venture-backed company in the history of mankind…and it just priced tonight. The shares priced at $38 giving the company a market cap of $104 billion fully diluted, raising $16 billion in proceeds. Of the 421 million shares being sold, [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Yesterday, we published an article about why VC guru Jason Mendelson is feeling bullish about Michigan as a hub for entrepreneurship. He pointed out that the state’s tendency toward collaboration is an important asset that should continue to be championed. Vijay Mehra, CEO of Think Tech Labs, wholeheartedly agrees. It’s exactly the reason that,
| Xconomy | Technology |
Buried in the news of the past month, which was admittedly a busy one, was a press release headlined: “Geomagic Acquires Sensable 3D Design and Haptics Businesses.” As far as I can tell, no media outlets besides Xconomy picked up on this deal or its historical—and now, political—significance. Woe is them. That’s because “Sensable” woul
| Xconomy | Technology |
We’re anticipating a lot of news out of a big cancer conference that begins next week in Chicago. Here is your head start. —Cancer researchers have talked for decades about finding the silver bullet that could kill cancer cells without harming the healthy cells nearby. These days, the industry is focusing on the development of [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
A few years back, molecular geneticist Tom Maniatis was approached by a Harvard Business School student with a heart-wrenching story. The student, Avichai Kremer, then 29, had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kremer had an unusual idea: He wanted to advance ALS research by offering m
| Xconomy | Technology |
At a time when companies such as Pandora and Songza are trying to change the way listeners discover music, some hurdles continue to stand in the way of the industry’s evolution. In a relatively short timespan, music has graduated from digital downloads to live streams curated for listeners’ individual tastes. The pace of change may [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
From the moment Dendreon started in business 20 years ago, most scientists have said that if its immune-booster for prostate cancer was going to work, it would probably work best at an early stage of disease, before tumors had gotten too powerful for the immune system to contain. Today, Dendreon is offering the latest slice [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Aveo Pharmaceuticals is entering a competitive world for the treatment of kidney cancer, and it made a bold bet that its drug would prevail in the first head-to-head comparison of its kind against an active drug. Now the company is preparing to enter that competition with data that says its drug has a slight advantage [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
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 [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
It’s been an eventful 24 hours for MIT. The university held the finale of its $100K Entrepreneurship Competition last night, naming CloudTop the grand prize winner. The company comes from the Web/IT track of the competition and is developing an application allowing users to access of all their online content and applications through a Web [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Ever get the feeling that social media services didn’t really think through the privacy and legal problems they might run into? Turns out, you’re probably right. Del Harvey saw it firsthand. When she joined the fledgling company in late 2008, Harvey quizzed co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams about how they might handle spam. “And [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
If the turnout at yesterday’s Michigan Growth Capital Symposium is any indication, our fair state is on the upswing. The conference, in its 31st year, had roughly 450 venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, academics, and government officials in attendance. Jason Mendelson, called “the Elvis of innovation” by this very publication, gave the keynot
| Xconomy | Technology |
Doctors often ask themselves, after a leukemia or lymphoma patient gets high-dose chemotherapy, whether they really wiped out every last rugged cancer cell in the patient. That’s always been a difficult question, but now a team of Seattle researchers is showing they might have found a powerful new technology to consistently deliver that answer. Sc
| Xconomy | Technology |
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
| Xconomy | Technology |
Chris Lynch, the tech exec who said venture capital was not for him, is the newest member of the technology team at Atlas Venture, the Cambridge, MA-based firm announced today. In March, Lynch left his role as CEO of Vertica Systems, a year after the data analytics company was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $300 million. [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
What began as an effort by a couple of San Diego engineers to bring computer vision to the iPhone has resulted instead in “Skqueak,” a mobile app that enables users to sketch over photos and videos on their iPhones. The Skqueak app is now available in Apple’s iTunes App Store. Sanjay Nichani, who moved to [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
One of the big dreams in biotech over the past 35 years has been to make drugs that work like “smart bombs” by destroying tumors while minimizing collateral damage. Scientists have learned this is no easy thing, but now that a couple of these types of drugs have been shown to work, a new wave [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
With each new generation of television, broadcasters and marketers look for fresh ways to keep the audience invested in what they are watching. These days it is not unheard of for TV viewers to see discreet messages appear in the margins of their screens during broadcasts. If they click on these messages, marketing material or [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
We saw deals this week for companies working on database, business intelligence, credit card processing, and security technology. —Hopkinton, MA-based data storage giant EMC (NYSE: EMC) confirmed its acquisition of Israeli flash-storage startup XtremIO. Other media outlets peg the purchase price at $430 million, though EMC has not officially reve
| Xconomy | Technology |
In today’s tech industry, builders rule. But there’s a real tension between creators—who want to use every tool at their disposal—and everyday users, who freak out when too much of their personal information gets vacuumed up and sprayed out into the world. The privacy leaders at Facebook and Google+ say their companies are starting to [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Seattle startup Medify unveiled its medical-research service last year, aiming to give patients a window into the latest and best knowledge as they navigate the medical system. The 10-person team will continue that work, but as part of a larger company following an acquisition by Alliance Health Networks, a Salt Lake City-based operator of health-f
| Xconomy | Technology |
Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) plans to use its well-established model in technology licensing as it advances innovations in wireless charging of electric vehicles (EVs), smartphones, and other devices, according to Qualcomm’s top European executive, Andrew Gilbert. The San Diego wireless giant, which announced the formation of a wireless charging standa
| Xconomy | Technology |
Biotech firm Promedior announced today that it will be moving its headquarters from Malvern, PA, to Boston, and that it has hired a new CEO, Suzanne Bruhn,who was previously senior vice president for planning and program management for Shire’s Human Genetic Therapies division. Promedior is working on several drugs to treat fibrosis—a type of tis
| Xconomy | Technology |
New York-based Lenddo, which uses social media to help middle-class folks in emerging countries secure loans, announced today that it has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round. Investors include Accel Partners, Blumberg Capital, Omidyar Network, iNovia Capital, and Metamorphic Ventures. The one-year-old firm also counts among its supporters
| Xconomy | Technology |
Theraclone Sciences has taken its first step ahead toward showing it might have an antibody drug that could work in humans. The Seattle-based biotech company is announcing today that it passed its first clinical trial with an antibody drug designed to fight a wide variety of flu strains. The study randomly assigned 40 healthy volunteers [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Startup accelerators like Y Combinator and TechStars are known for producing the latest and greatest in Web startups. But there’s a set of established and accomplished companies—like ZipCar (NASDAQ: ZIP), Xenogen, and Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT)—that also received startup coaching, mentoring, and connections to investors back in their day.
| Xconomy | Technology |
In March, global consulting firm Ernst & Young released an annual report for its life sciences clients called “The Third Place: Healthcare Everywhere.” It discusses a range of topics, from apps designed to improve patient adherence to medical treatments, to games that encourage healthy habits. Today Ernst & Young is holding a summit in P
| Xconomy | Technology |
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 [...
| Xconomy | Technology |
JumpStart Inc., a Cleveland-based nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship and economic development, will team with the New Economy Initiative (NEI) to open a new high-tech accelerator in Detroit, says NEI executive director David Egner. Egner (an Xconomist) says a variety of state and regional investors will fund the accelerator and he expects it to h
| Xconomy | Technology |
Anyone in business journalism knows full well the power of the Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. Loeb was a founding partner of E.F. Hutton and a noted author and columnist, and the awards he created in 1957 to promote and recognize great writing and reporting for individual investors have become something [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
[This is the third in a series of posts about A New Kind of Science. Previous posts have covered the original reaction to the book and what’s happened since it was published. This post first appeared on Wolfram's blog---Eds.] Today ten years have passed since A New Kind of Science (”the NKS book”) was published. But in many [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Prior to the mid 1700s (and long before the advent of GPS receivers in every smartphone), mariners at sea calculated their position by Dead Reckoning, a process in which you simply assume that whatever course and speed you are on can be straight-lined ahead with a ruler and pencil, day after day, regardless of wind, [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Finally, a tech company that’s not all about big data. In fact, this one is about lots of little bits of “idiosyncratic, messy data,” says its founder. And it puts those bits together to help small businesses make better decisions and, ultimately, more money. InsightSquared, based in Cambridge, MA, has been fairly quiet in the [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
The pistons of the biggest publicity engine in cancer R&D will start firing this week. It’s time to behold the annual rite of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, the biggest event for showing off what’s new and interesting in the treatment of cancer. This event, officially held June 1-5 at McCormick Place [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |