L.A. is getting a star turn, with the most iconic of its local startups — Snap — on the cusp of going public. Locals expect much more than an endless string of headlines about its IPO performance, too. “The initial performance of the stock will be almost irrelevant,” says Paul Bricault, cofounder of the L.A.-based accelerator and seed-stage venture fund Amplify.… Read More
Health tech investments have been red hot the last few years, but Rob Coppedge, the CEO of Echo Health Ventures says while the industry isn’t going to pop, it is a slowly deflating bubble. Echo Health is the recent creation of Cambia Health and Mosaic Health, the investment arm of Blue Cross Blue Shield and has a long-term strategy in the health investment space. Coppedge has been in… Read More
One of the most popular shows on television 30 years ago was “The A-Team” — the story of five rogue military commandos who teamed together to form an elite fighting unit. Now, a generation later, DARPA and the U.S. military are in search of a new “A-Team” — only this team won’t be comprised of just humans, it will include a few machines, as well. Read More
After a spending while on a sort of technological ‘walkabout’, Australia is experiencing something of a mini-tech boom. For a long time the biggest thing you could name out of the country was Atlassian. Now other startups are joining the roster, and VC investment is ticking up. The latest sign of this is the news that local VC AirTree Ventures has added UK-based VC James… Read More
If we can find a way to automate listening itself, we would be able to more intelligently monitor our world and its machines day and night. We could predict the failure of engines, rail infrastructure, oil drills and power plants in real time — notifying humans the moment of an acoustical anomaly. This has the potential to save lives, but despite advances in machine learning, we… Read More
Reports coming out of Iran suggest that Apple has allegedly started removing iOS apps originating from the country’s startups and developers. Prior to this, Apple had, in a limited manner, opened up its App Store to Iranians in September 2016 and appeared to be gradually lifting some of the limitations, periodically, since then. According to credible tech news site Techrasa, the… Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Keith Teare, Frank Radice, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Saturday, January 28, 2017. As Frank Radice says: The word “media” comes from “mediate” which is something in between what this guy says and this guy hears. In this gulf lies the vast stew of fake news and wrist supercomputers; now what? @stevegillmor, @kevinmarks,… Read More
Ride hailing provider Lyft has taken a strong stance against Trump’s new immigration actions and ban on Muslim refugees (which Rudy Giuliani admitted is exactly what it was intended to be on Fox News on Sunday morning). In an email sent to users, Lyft noted that it is “firmly against these actions, and will not be silent to issues that threat the value of the community.” This… Read More
In the wake of President Trump’s ludicrous lies about illegal votes in November’s election — immediately after the lies about the size of the audience for his inauguration — it’s tempting to just point and laugh at his apparent insecurity and fears of illegitimacy. He does, though, inadvertently raise a point worth considering: how can we strengthen the integrity… Read More
In the July 1924 issue of Popular Science, “Ace of Aces” fighter pilot E.V. Rickenbacker told readers to expect “Flying Autos in 20 Years.” Rickenbacker’s flying car would have retractable 12.5-foot wings, a sea-worthy hull and wheels to cruise America’s growing network of highways. Ninety-three years later, personal cars remain land-bound. Read More
While Tim Cook has yet to publicly address the immigration ban that’s beginning to rile a restive tech industry into speaking out against newly elected President Donald J. Trump, he did send an email to staff explaining Apple’s position. Read More
Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick added his voice today to a growing chorus of tech executives troubled by President Donald Trump’s recent immigration order banning the entry of US residents from seven countries.
Echoing the sentiments of Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Kalanick wrote a letter to Uber staff, also posting to his Facebook wall. Read More
Like most consumers, I continue to be frustrated by what feels like the slow progress of innovation in the traditional healthcare system. And yet, I’m eternally optimistic about the early-stage innovation I’m seeing today in the digital health sector. Read More
Slowly but surely, the tech world is reacting to a sweeping executive order signed by Trump on Friday that closes the United States’ borders to refugees and citizens from a number of countries. Some have shared personal stories or reflected on the ways in which such policy will negatively impact the Silicon Valley, where so much of the work force has immigrated from around the… Read More
SpaceX may not be interested in actually designing and making a real Hyperloop — it’s hard to tell how serious anyone is about the idea — but it is happy to promote plucky young engineers who’d like to try their hand at this interesting engineering problem. This weekend, 30 teams from all over the world will test scale models of their pods in a mile-long test track… Read More
We love to Tweet. We love to share. It appears to be a strategy for change but it isn’t. And we have to accept that. These are strange times. We are able to reach millions with a single Medium post but each day a new post supplants the last. Today’s impassioned jeremiad – like this one – is tomorrow’s digital fish wrapper. A CEO can Tweet something noble today and… Read More
Sexual discrimination and harassment doesn’t seem to be going away, according to a recent survey by the Boardlist. Boardlist works by sourcing recommendations from its members, who are both male and female, to provide a platform for tech companies to discover and connect with board-ready women. The Boardlist asked its network of women, who are qualified to serve on boards, about… Read More
Curved screens and AR cameras are all well and good, but here’s a phone feature that extends beyond the flashy and gimmick to the potentially useful. I certainly think about running all of my gadgets under the faucet every time I travel on a plane or go a show like CES (finally getting over that cold). The Rafre is actually the second soap-and-waterproof phone from Kyocera, following… Read More
