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As an inventor and a long-time engineer for Boeing, George Huggins has spent the better part of six decades conceptualizing and building things. But for all his experience and ingenuity, Huggins has yet to figure out how to get Uncle Sam to speed up the often-ponderous patent process.
Since retiring from Boeing, the 81-year-old Huggins, who also raises cattle and pecans on his farm in Blanchard, Okla., has had several of his ideas patented by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), including the Tailgate-N-Tote-Um-Table, an integrated folding table and umbrella for sporting event tailgaters.
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Web start-up companies at this year's Tech Crunch conference face a financial climate that has dried up venture capital, forcing them to turn to friends, family and foundations.
Dan Olsen, a Stanford Business School grad, was one of the many entrepreneurs presenting his newly developed software at the tech conference held in a converted wooden warehouse on Monday and Tuesday.
Olsen said he could not secure any venture capital and had instead turned to his friends -- and their willingness to work for food -- to develop his "real time discovery engine" that scans Twitter, Facebook and many other places in a specialized search called Yourversion.
"My friends come over and code all day on Saturday and, at the end, we have a barbeque and beers," he said. "I give food equity."
Continue reading "links for 2009-09-22" »
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Its vivid colour is clearly designed to appeal to youngsters. But this watch is really aimed at their parents.
For its key selling point is a satellite positioning system that locates the wearer to within ten feet.
The makers claim the GPS tracking device will offer anxious parents peace of mind and allow children the independence to go out to play on their own.
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The founders of Internet phone service Skype have filed another lawsuit that may put a wrench in eBay Inc.'s plan to sell Skype for $2 billion to a private investor group.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in a Delaware state court, Joost N.V. and Joltid Ltd. sued former Joost CEO Mike Volpi, alleging he breached his legal duty to Joost by using confidential information to form a deal with eBay to buy the majority of Skype.
Volpi is a former Skype board member and partner at Index Ventures, part of a group of private investors buying Skype. He stepped down as Joost CEO in July, but remained its chairman until just after eBay announced in early September that it would sell Skype.
Continue reading "links for 2009-09-21" »
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Everyone knows that reputation matters when it comes to VC firms. But are limited partners making a mistake when they reflexively cast their lot with the industry’s bold-faced names?
“It amazes me to see certain funds raising money, and I look at their portfolio and wonder how they’re doing it,” said Rodney Altman, senior partner at CMEA Capital. “Sometimes there is great branding and great charisma and LPs are seduced by that.”
Altman spoke today at a panel on the state of the venture capital industry at the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference in New York, where three VCs and one LP discussed the state of venture capital in front of an audience that happened to include one of the venture industry’s most charismatic self-promoters, Timothy Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
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Many of us have readied for our physical death by doing such things as getting life insurance and wills in place. Now a number of websites want to prod us into prepping our virtual selves for the afterlife. They're offering digital safekeeping for documents, online passwords, and other data that could prove crucial or comforting to grieving relatives and friends.
Continue reading "links for 2009-09-18" »
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Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is preparing the next Android update, and the 1.6 version of the software will include a retooled Android Market which places a stronger emphasis on paid applications.
The Android Market has been relatively successful at attracting developers, and the over-the-air store now has more than 8,000 programs. But some developers have expressed concern about the difficulties of generating significant revenues from Google's mobile store, particularly compared to the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Developers also said it was too difficult for users to navigate the store to find paid apps.
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Founded in 2005 by Charlie Graham, Shop It To Me is a free e-mail service that notifies users when clothing they like goes on sale in their sizes. When users sign up, they select the clothing items, sizes and brands they’re interested in, as well as how often they’d like to receive Salemail alerts. Each personalized Salemail includes product images, pricing and links to purchase.
Shop It To Me maintains relationships with top retail sites, such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s, as well as boutique retailers.
Continue reading "links for 2009-09-09" »
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Here's why: Regulators may be hard-pressed to prove that other areas of concern by smaller wireless carriers, such as the exclusive iPhone deal between Apple and AT&T, impede competition. "I don't see how they can do it," says Harold Furchtgott-Roth, an economic consultant and former FCC commissioner. There are three to four carriers servicing any given market in the U.S., and small service providers such as MetroPCS (PCS) and Leap (LEAP) have grown quickly.
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Motorola’s RAZR V3 series handset was easily the most popular mobile phone in use in the U.S., as of Q3 2008.
In October, more than 15.2 million American mobile Internet users visited Yahoo! Mail, making it the most popular mobile Web destination that month. Google Search, which drew more than 10.5 million mobile Internet users in October, ranked second.
Among master ringtones — 20-30 second excerpts of recorded songs — “Lollipop,” by Lil Wayne, featuring Static Major, and “Low,” by Flo Rida, featuring T-Pain, were most popular.
Continue reading "links for 2009-09-07" »
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