Another good start for a product via KickStarter…
07Jan
Mark Kvamme to Help Knock the Rust off Ohio
Filed in Finance | Management | Technology
It was 1996 and the head of CKS Group was impressed enough with a young, brash guy from Los Angeles to give him a bit of Angel Funding. Eric Greenberg took that money, grabbed a few folks to get going, and put together a plan that attracted capital from Bill Davidow, Vinod Khosla, and Venetia Kontagouris, VCs from Mohr Davidow, Kleiner Perkins, and Trident Capital, respectively.
3 and a half years later, Viant (without Greenberg) and Scient (Greenberg’s next startup) had created a new way of providing consulting in the Internet age and were carrying public market caps of over $1B. CKS’s investment of about $40,000 was cashed in during Viant’s follow-on offering for a bit over $1,000,000.
The leader of CKS at that time, Mark Kvamme, is now taking a leave from Sequoia Capital to help lead Ohio’s business development in a public service role. He’ll be receiving $1 in compensation. Can he find more straw to spin into gold?
03Dec
Odds of Life Beyond Earth Go Way Up
Filed in Biotechnology | Science | Technology
NASA and the journal Nature made announcements this week which increase the odds of life beyond Earth significantly.
NASA’s announcement is the bigger of the two. Scientist’s found life in California’s Mono Lake that is unlike all other known life on Earth. Until now, all life we knew about on Earth was made up of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. A few scientist has suggested there may be other combinations, but we had not found any that did.
Until now, that is. This week, Nasa Announced:
Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.
Phosphorus is a critical part of cellular structure. It is part of the chemical makeup or RNA and DNA. Phosphorus is required in the molecules for carrying energy in cells. And it is part of the material for cell membranes.
Arsenic is chemically similar to phosphorus. This causes major problems with most life on Earth since it is able to bind with other chemicals disrupting metabolic pathways. While scientist have found microbes which can breathe arsenic, this is the first microbe discovered which is building parts of itself using arsenic.
The search for life beyond Earth has largely focused on looking for the six essential components in an area where they can readily mix as they have here on Earth, in liquid water. Certainly, the search will now go beyond the primary six.
"If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven’t seen yet?"
- Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team’s lead scientist.
The announcement just published in Nature and reported in Gizmodo this way, “new observations on the red end of the optical spectrum at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii show an overwhelming population of red dwarfs in eight massive nearby elliptical galaxies. The team has discovered that these galaxies hold twenty times more red dwarfs than the Milky Way.”Van Dokkum says that "there are possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars" which are "typically more than 10 billion years old." According to him, that’s long enough for complex life to evolve, which is "one reason why people are interested in this type of star."
Carl Sagan explains why life and in particular intelligent life is more likely with the discovery of more stars similar to our Sun and more combinations for how life can form.
30Nov
New #Kindle 3 – Mixed Feelings
Filed in Books | Technology
I received my new Kindle three this week and have mixed feelings about it. I’m actually more disappointed in myself, than I am about the device. BI really like the form factor. The new E-ink is noticeably better, although I never had an issue with the Kindle 2. The navigation is much better and the buttons do not make the unknowing clicks. I haven’t fully tested out all the new capabilities but so far they seem to be something that I’m going to like.
What’s really got me miffed more than anything else is I can’t use my old cover with the new Kindle. For some inexplicable reason, Amazon decided to make the new Kindle incompatible with covers designed for the previous version. Even more confusing, is the fact that while this Kindle is smaller, the notches for the attachment hooks are farther apart. It seems to me that they went out of their way in order to sell more covers to existing Kindle owners. Yes, this only matters to folks who were early or relatively early users of the Kindle. You know the existing customers companies want to keep and make happy.
Of course, this should not be a big deal to me. I’ll spend far more for books than I spent on the Kindle and far more on the Kindle than I’ll spend on a new cover. But it IS a big deal to me. And I liked my old cover with Amazonkindle on it. I doubt I do that again.
So, I’m thinking there must be a reason for the change and the Kindle group at Amazon must have already answered this question. I’ll go online and find out why they did. Once I learn there’s a good reason, it’ll help me get over. If they do have this on their website, I can’t find it. In fact, I can even find any information about it searching on the web. Now I haven’t spent a lot of time on this nor am I going to, cause I’m miffed.
All in all, this was an excellent opportunity for Amazon to deliver an exceptional customer experience to a repeat customer. And they failed.
19Nov
Packing Books for the Airport
Filed in Books | Technology
Okay, so be it around the house without my Kindle has really not been a problem. Can’t say that I really miss it that much, except books are in numerous places and it takes me a little while to find the one I’m looking for from time to time. I actually like holding a book, a little bit better than the Kindle. Although it’s not a big issue.
However, I just finished packing for a trip tomorrow and I’m already disappointed about the weight of my backpack. I like reading magazines in the paper form. Much better than reading them on the Kindle so I usually take one or two with me. That hasn’t changed. However, normally I can take many books often half a dozen or so that I’m currently reading or at least convince myself that I’m currently reading. However, on this trip, I’m down to two and already I’m limited on space and I’m certainly not be happy about the extra weight.
We’ll see what I think when we get back.
10Nov
Paper Book vs. @amazonkindle test after #kindle crashes
Filed in Entertainment | Technology
I’ve been using a Kindle for over a year now and have really enjoyed it. However, at times, I like the feel of a book in my hands. Now that my Kindle broke (actually the second one that has broken. Amazon was good enough to replace the first.) and I’ve had it over a year, I have to buy a new one… or do without.
I’m going to see how well I do without. Not sure I’m gonna like the iPhone option chosen by Cnet’s Scott Stein in his “Old, real book vs. Kindle alternative: Which wins?” article, but I’ll give it a go. I have over 90 books in the Kindle format, a few of which I haven’t read and more than a few with quite a few annotations.
Anyway, I’m gonna try it for a month and see how it goes.
01Feb
Why Colorado Tax Bill HB-1192 is a Bad Idea…
Filed in Colorado | Energy | Politics | Technology
Seth Levine has posted Marion Jenkins’ detailed rebuttal to HB 1192. Mr. Jenkins suggests this tax legislation should be opposed due to a wide range of problems, including it being a new tax which should go before all voters to the complexity in determining when a lump of software code is deemed “standard” and subject to these new taxes versus custom code that is not to be taxed.
The bottom line is really about jobs in Colorado. And with this bill, the jobs which are easily moved to more business friendly states will start that migration. The Sixty-sixth General Assembly can choose to address the issues with the state budget directly and bring the issues to the people, or they can choose to tear down the reasons businesses choose to be in Colorado.
29Jan
Chad Evans Knocks it Out of the Park at the iPad Launch
Filed in Creativity | Technology | Web 2.0
Most of us like to name drop, at least a little. And so it is with great interest that we follow the careers of former colleagues. Here is Chad Evans, taking one deep at the iPad launch. Watch him here.
03Dec
Q3 VC Funding update from VentureDeal
Filed in Energy | Technology | Venture capital
During the third quarter of 2009, a total of 35 energy and environmental companies received $421 million in new venture capital financing, representing an 8% decrease in the number of companies being funded and an 8% decrease in the total amount funded to the four sectors of Alternative Energy, Clean Tech, Energy and Environmental.
Alternative Energy companies showed the only deal funding volume percentage increase of the four categories, with a 20 % increase quarter over quarter. The Clean Tech sector showed a sharp decrease in activity, with an 86% decrease in amounts funded. Energy funding amounts were also down, with an 18% funding decrease and the number of companies funded decreasing by 27%.
During the quarter, Software company fundings represented the second largest sector, raising $610 million between 97 companies. This activity represented an increase of 10% in total funding amount and a decrease of 22% in the number of companies funded.
The average financing round size reversed its previous decline and rose sharply, from $4.7 million in Q2 09 to $6.3 million in the current quarter.
04May
NREL Receives Wind Power and Infrastructure Funding
Filed in Economy | Energy | Environment | Politics | Technology
Department of Energy Secretary Chu announces $93 million from the Recover Act to support the development of additional wind energy in the United States. The money will support R&D and testing for wind turbine drivetrains, support university and industry consortia focusing on critical wind energy challenges, advanced technology development in the private sector and a National Wind Technology Center in Colorado.
Chu also announced the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will receive $100 million for infrastructure projects. The largest is the development of an energy efficient LEED Platinum certified office, constructed at the same cost as that of a low efficiency commercial office building. The others are to use solar and other green energy sources to reduce the labs carbon use and to upgrade the integrated bio-refinery research facility used to develop commercial scale cellulose to ethanol technologies.
During his visit to the Golden, CO facility Chu stated that $26 billion of the more than $100 billion in the Recover Act for renewable energy projects had already been authorized with the goal of 70% being authorized by early September. He also discussed streamlining the DOE loan approval process with the goal of reducing the time to getting a loan application approved to a few months. It has been known to take years under the current process.
It is great to see some of this huge spending bill is being directed to innovation and more importantly that this is being coordinated with private industry. There continues to be a gap in funding for the commercialization of proven technologies. Until this gap is filled, the great innovation from the labs and universities will be delayed in helping solve our energy issues.
30Mar
Metcalfe at Green:Net 09 – Squanderably Abundant Cheap Clean Energy
Filed in Economy | Energy | Environment | Technology
Bob Metcalfe, using the history of the Internet as a guide, provided his list of things to look for and look out for in the changing energy sector.
Metcalfe gave an optimistic view of the environmental challenge suggesting not only are we in a Global Warming Bubble but that cheap, clean energy will be so abundant, it will easily be squandered.
He suggested the best place for research is in the research universities and not in government labs which are “nothing more than local earmarks”. In this model, professors along with their graduate students, will commercialize innovation with the help of entrepreneurs and venture capital.
Metcalfe warned that energy and environment are two overlapping issues and they should be viewed as two things. Otherwise, we may solve energy without solving the environment or vice-versa. Oh, and he offered a new color for clean energy, blue.
13Jan
Google Searches and Boiling Tea Kettles…
Filed in Energy | Environment | Technology
So, how many Google searches produce the equivalent CO2 emissions as boiling a cup of water?
A confusing question unless you been following the stream of posts generated by the Sunday Times of London quoting (or misquoting) Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross‘ study on the energy used by view webpages. IN the story, the Times reporters stated “Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.” This seems to equate to about 7 grams of CO2.
Google immediately responded in a blog post stating “we have designed and built the most energy efficient data centers in the world, which means the energy used per Google search is minimal suggesting the number is closer to 0.02 grams per search.” And went on to state the energy used by the PC performing the search is greater than the search itself.
Meanwhile according to Tech News World, Wissner-Gross claims neither he nor the study mentioned Google or had anything to do with Google and certainly not with tea kettles. “They did that. I have no idea where they got those statistics,” Wissner-Gross said.
And in response to these back and forth discussions, more than a few bloggers have decided to weigh in:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5489134.ece
http://www.livescience.com/technology/090112-carbon-internet.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/seven-grams-per-google-search.php
So what do you think? How much water could you boil while searching for the amount of CO2 emitted from a Google Search? or something like that?
24Oct
General session audience
Filed in Technology
The inaugural Cloud Summit held in Mtn. View, CA, was well attended with attendees representing many of the California technology companies and their suppliers of money and advice.
30Jun
Get Tuned In
Filed in Management | Technology
The folks at Pragmatic Marketing have put together a great book describing their process for creating products and services that customers want and more importantly will buy.
Tuned In is a quick read and should prove to be a valuable reference guide as you turn to your potential customers to define the products and services someone is most likely to buy.
29May
Blogo – Macintosh blog writing tool
Filed in Technology
So the Apple world has yet to come up with a blogging tool to satisfy the desires of those familiar with Live Writer. I’m testing blogo, and it may work for some of you. Here is a screen shot from their site.
24May
Gmail under bot attack?
Filed in Technology
Websense announced in February that Google’s CAPTCHA busted in recent spammer tactic. This came right on the heels of bots breaking the Live Hotmail CATTCHA system. With my gmail account compromised a few weeks ago, I began looking into the likely ways this was done and and I believe there was a good chance it was via a bot attack. I have found no evidence of spyware on any of the machines I use. Change your passwords and check into your mail accounts often. You may also want to keep notes on when you opened the account and the email address you gave as a backup. These are things Google will use to return access to the account to you.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: technology
08May
My Gmail Got Hacked
Filed in Privacy | Technology
Today at 3:22 PM, I received the first phone call and would later discover that the first email also arrived then. Apparently, another form of Nigerian embezzlement was underway with a message from my hacked gmail account being sent to my contacts.
Subject: “Very Important, Please Read ASAP.”
I want you to read carefully and please kindly get back to you asap; it’s very urgent and important. I am currently out of states for a personal business trip in London. Unfortunately, I misplaced both my wallet & my ATM card, maybe at the hotel where i lodged or somewhere else I can’t really say exactly.
You can read the rest of their message below along with a few responses to me and the fake reply to email address.
I’ll write in a later post what I think the ramifications of this may be for both those whose contact data was stolen and me. I’ll include in that any additional lessons I discover regarding this. And if I discover it the gmail bot detection system has been tricked, I’ll let you know that too. But for now here is the rest of the message and my favorite response.
Right now I’m totally confused, as I don’t know what to do, I went to the US Embassy to report the issue and also seek for their financial assistance for me to get back home and also pay the hotel bills but unfortunately me nothing could be done to assist me financially at the Us Embassy, I didn’t have my phone here since my traveling was outside the country, I would have prefer discussing this with you over the phone, but since I have no access to phone I decided to contact you by email because its the only avenue I can use to send you this urgent notice..
I’m totally stranded and have no dime with me here, can you please do me a favor? I need a loan worth of $2000 from you so that I could pay the hotel bills and also book a return ticket back home. Will you be able to get me the loan and how soon, cos I will need it ASAP? I promise to pay you as soon as I get home. I need to pay up the hotel bills so that I could be free to pack my luggage and leave to board a flight back home without further delaying. The hotel management here is not taking it easy with me, just because I’ve not been able to pay their bills since I’ve lodged in. I have been restricted from using so many facilities of the hotel including the uses of the telephone services.
Write back to me ASAP and let me know how you could assist me with the loan, then I can give you further instruction on how to send it to me. Please keep this confidentially, as I wouldn’t want anyone to know about this since I never told anyone about the trip because all my plans was that its going to be a successful one and I will be back without any cause for alarm.
Thanks.
Here is my favorite response to the perpetrator:
I am very kindly getting back to you asap. I’m very so sorry for your urgent need of monies. How so sad that you may lost your wallet and your ATM card. You should be looking where you lodged and then may find it there.
I’m sure the embassy would not want to give you many monies like $2000 US dollars. Maybe you can be asking them for a loan on behalf of the tax rebate from our esteemed President Mr. Bush.
Good luck with your problem, I’m sure as you are so smart you will find many good ways to be making enough monies to come back. And GOOD NEWS! If you are earning British Pounds you will only need 1000 instead of 2000, this is being a good deal for you.
Here are some messages sent to me:
Hi Dwayne -
I got this email message today (text below). Either you’ve been hacked, or you’re having a very difficult trip…
Cheers, Andy
OK – what bogus web site have you been frequenting?
Check this out. I just received it. weird huh?
Looks like we are all getting strange emails from you.
Dwayne: Don’t you love the electronic age?
Looks like someone has got hold of your Gmail address…. That and his grammar is really bad.
03May
Apple making it easy? I’m not so sure.
Filed in Technology
I recently decided to purchase the January 2008 iPod Touch upgrade. I thinking about getting an iPhone and have decided I’m willing to part with the 20 bucks to test out the email app so there is no need for me to repeat what others have said about this already. Great products overcome bad decisions in other areas. A few bad decisions anyway.
Back to my attempt to purchase this upgrade. Two days ago I decided to get the upgrade and quickly found the place where current iPod touch owners were directed. Up pops a nice little advertisement within the iTunes store inside iTunes and confirming I have met the requirements for software versions and iTunes store account I try to click the Upgrade for $19.99 big bold blue letters. It’s not a link, ok, so I go to the bottom and click the OK button.
This takes me to the iTunes store home page filled with all sorts of music, movies, games, TV shows, podcast, audio books, all sort of content. But no upgrade, in fact no software. So I look and I look and I know I must just be missing it, so I look some more.
Now, two days later, I have emailed a support person 3 times, tried to chat with Wanda who disappeared once I asked my question and spoke on the phone with Benjamin. I’ve been given links to articles about verifying your upgrade installation and how to contact customer support. I’m currently waiting (15 minutes and counting) for an email which he claims has the correct link (the one on the Apple Store website has not worked for a few weeks, I was told.)
I still waiting for the highly praised Apple support, I’ve heard so much about. Oh, and I’m still waiting for that email.
21Apr
Lijit Network Office Tour
Filed in Colorado | Technology
Somewhat Frank TV tours the Boulder, CO offices of Lijit.
21Apr
Venture Capitalists Deals Increase In First Quarter
Filed in Economy | Technology | Venture capital
The New York Times reports that Venture Capitalist invest in 922 deals in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 861 in the same period last year. The total amount invested was down 5% causing the times to lead with the headline Venture Capitalists Invest Less In First Quarter – New York Times.
“We do not expect to see significant declines in investment levels in the coming year,” said NVCA President Mark Heesen.
Is this additional evidence that media outlets lean toward a doom and gloom outlook or are they just following the current sentiment of their readership? Just be sure to read past the headlines.
05Mar
Steven Spielberg’s Ghost Town
Filed in Colorado | Technology | Web 2.0
Steven Spielberg’s Ghost Town suggests the social networking theme will take, or at a minimum test, the boundaries of segmentation. In this case not market segmentation, but segmentation of social circles. The main question I raise is “Do I want a lot of distributed social network tools?” Of course, I am in a lot of different networks, many of which have zero or close to zero overlap. And I would like to control this overlap with social networking tools. Perhaps a product like SocialThing, which allows me to participate in a lot of different social networks through one site provides the necessary control.
27Feb
Free! Why it works better today.
Filed in Economy | Technology | Venture capital
Chris Anderson’s at Wired discusses where, why and how free products make sense today and will make make even more sense (and cents) in the future. Starting with the story of Gillette and bringing us to the plummeting cost of computing and networking, Anderson argues that the traditional cross-subsidy model is not required when incremental costs approach zero. This opens the way for numerous value creation models when a product is given away and allows companies to avoid the “penny gap” or the difference between cheap and free as coined by Josh Kopelman.
“People think demand is elastic and that volume falls in a straight line as price rises, but the truth is that zero is one market and any other price is another. In many cases, that’s the difference between a great market and none at all.
“The huge psychological gap between “almost zero” and “zero” is why micropayments failed. It’s why Google doesn’t show up on your credit card. It’s why modern Web companies don’t charge their users anything. And it’s why Yahoo gives away disk drive space. The question of infinite storage was not if but when. The winners made their stuff free first.”
22Feb
Playtime improves health and education for 10 million people
Filed in Education | Environment | Technology
PlayPumps International has a goal to help 10 million people in 4,000 African villages by 2010 by installing merry-go-rounds in the villages. What’s the catch?
Each turn pumps clean drinking water into a tank increasing the health of everyone in the village. The time and effort for water carrying, mostly done by young girls, is greatly reduced, allowing for more time in school. Talk about your good ideas…