Category: Tech news

 This past year will be remembered as the year of the on-demand economy. For many people, especially those outside of Silicon Valley, it seemed to come out of nowhere. On the consumer side, this was almost universally a welcome surprise. The impact on workers was, of course, much more hotly debated. Read More

 Technology promises to transform healthcare. It’s redefining how we interact with, and act on, our health data, and reshaping how care is delivered and coordinated. But uptake so far has been limited — particularly among the elderly, those with chronic conditions and others who could benefit most from a better, smarter healthcare system. To understand why, we need to look at… Read More

 Today, as modern automobiles have evolved to moving machines bristling with sensors, software, processors and networks, future predictions are all about technology. Read More

 The most epochal financial transaction of this century, to date, occurred on May 22, 2010. It did not involve Wall Street, or the City of London; it took place in Jacksonville, Florida. It did not feature collateralized debt obligations, or credit default swaps. It was a purchase of two Papa John’s pizzas, in exchange for a payment whose present value currently exceeds US $4 million. Read More

 I have spent most of my life living and traveling in Southeast Asia; the last two years as the mentor to Asian startups. Southeast Asia — home to 620 million people across 11 countries? — has been skyrocketing with tremendous growth; case in point, the 16 percent increase in Aggregate Investment Deal Value, to US$1.05 billion in 2014. Read More

 Robots are starting to appear everywhere: driving cars, cooking dinners and even as robotic pets. But people don’t usually give machine intelligence much credence when it comes to judging beauty. That may change with the launch of the world’s first international beauty contest judged exclusively by a robot jury. Read More

 It took back-to-back acqui-hires for me to learn there’s a right way and a wrong way to do them. We had made it. Despite running low on money and having little traction, my company was acqui-hired by Yahoo in October of 2013. I was thrilled to have a large salary at a well-respected company. Seventeen months later, I was laid off. Read More

 I’ve been thinking about some of the cool things happening in the world and I wanted to note a few important trends I’m seeing. From Money to Hoverboards, things are changing quickly. Read More

 Neckties embedded with QR codes. Pants that make drum noises. “Uber for medical marijuana.” These are just a few of the goofy startup ideas that have cropped up in Silicon Valley in recent years. I can’t be the only one who’s disappointed with this. The Valley is the birthplace of game-changing innovations, like the microprocessor and the PC. It’s home to… Read More

 Venture fund Urban.us is gearing up to close a $10 million fund to continue investing in startups focused on impacting urban city living across mobility and logistics, environment, utilities and local government. Urban.us expects to close the fund later this year, but it has already committed some of that money to smart irrigation startup Rachio, FutureMotion, the maker of electric board… Read More

 Wearables had a varied year in 2015, with a lot of hype and a few big winners streaking ahead of the field, leaving plenty of also-rans struggling to stand out. It’s fair to say that the entire category is yet to prove whether it offers lasting utility or mere faddish novelty… Read More

 There’s a good chance that you’ve never heard of LittleThings, but apparently it’s seeing rapid growth, thanks to a focus on positive and inspirational stories. In fact, according to data from NewsWhip, LittleThings was responsible for the single most popular Facebook post of 2015. The story is basically just a write up of a two-year-old video of Ann and Nancy Wilson… Read More

 Cybercorns are companies that have surpassed the magical $1 billion valuation. Several of these extraordinary ventures are Okta, Sophos, Tanium, Palantir, FireEye, Splunk, Zscaler, Lookout, CloudFlare, Illumio and AVAST. But in a world where technology is changing rapidly, and in which attackers are agile and focused, which of these unicorns will survive? What is the half-life, perhaps measured… Read More

 New Year’s is a time where we turn off work for a little while. We meet friends and family, reflect on the prior year, and begin to imagine possibilities for the coming year. For many of us involved with startups, however, taking time to unplug can be difficult. Unplugging is challenging because startups are often very busy. Read More

 In a year not too distant, Loretta, a woman in her late 20s, hears a pleasant tone from her watch and checks to see a text. The message isn’t from a friend or work, it’s from the watch itself: “You’re pregnant.” Loretta is surprised; conception was merely days before. But pregnancy is one of the many tests constantly checked by her wearable and household technology. Read More