Jim Hornthal just gave an awesome speech at Ted today on deconstructing complexities through genome pattern recognition across fields. Genomics 2.0? We think so. More on this topic soon – but here’s a peek into his presentation for those who were unable to make it out to Long Beach.
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Mar
03
Pattern Recognition: Lessons from Pandora’s Box at TED 2011
Jan
18
The Like-ification of 2011
I wrote a guest post for VentureBeat this morning called The Like-ification of 2011. Start-up opportunities abound for entrepreneurs that can figure out how to leverage what we “like”.
Please let me know if you heart it. 
Jan
18
Top 10 Themes at CES 2011
I spent a few days at CES last week and here are my top 10 observations:
1) Confidence: There were over 140k attendees this year vs. about 115k in 2010. Companies were spending big marketing bucks. Every major company had big celebration events with expensive musical headliners. Broadly speaking, the expectation is for a strong 2011 with very healthy consumer spending on technology.
2) Connected TV: I would argue this was the highlight of the show. The connected TV is finally here and I believe is ready for adoption over the coming few years. LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic will all be shipping a bulk of their TVs ready to go with internet content. In addition, there are dozens of manufacturers promoting their add-on connected TV box. The content is quite good and finally being adapted correctly for television consumption. Yahoo launched the surprisingly good Yahoo TV. Combine all of this activity with what we already know about Google TV, Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, etc. and all of the hardware coming and it’s easy to see that connected TV’s time has come. (A related note is Skypes TV based video conference from their new connected TV app)
3) Android: The android momentum is strong. There are several companies who have and are launching android apps before iPhone, which is quite a shift. There’s a flurry of new, compelling devices from every major manufacturer – all running android. Android will be one of the top trends to watch.
4) Tablets: This was what all of the pre-conference buzz was about. There are a lot of nice looking devices being launched. The majority are running android (blackberry’s device being the exception.) Tablets sales are expected to grow significantly faster than PCs and comprise more than 25% of total PC sales in a few years. Apple will have their (large) piece of the pie and everyone else will be sharing the rest. Each device had its own little unique twist or feature, but there was nothing that was substantially better than the iPad. It will be all about distribution, pricing and marketing.
5) Mobile Central Device: There’s been a theme around for a while regarding the mobile device being the center of one’s digital world, but it seems like it is finally becoming possible. We carry computers in our pocks (handsets) and the promise has been that this would be THE computer. It hasn’t happen yet, but it will soon. Phones have been introduced with dual core processors and substantial amounts of RAM and flash storage, enough for most computing applications. Motorola introduced a slick device called the Atrix, which is a 4G android handset that comes with a laptop “dock.” It is essentially a keyboard, LCD screen and a battery. The phone drops in and you’re now running your browser, email and applications using what looks like a laptop, but is just your phone with a larger screen and keyboard. The nice thing is that there is never anything to synch, “email to yourself,” etc. and there is just one context and one UI to know. Similarly, they also have a dock to plug into your TV. So now that same phone provides your connected TV experience and also holds your key audio and video content. There were other similar types of devices, all revolving around the same theme.
Sep
22
Google Instant Proves we all want to be Rappers (and taught me how to Dougie)
Google Instant Search must be crack for sociologists. Now, I’m no sociologist (though I suspect VCs would be a good study in group-think) but I generally like to know what my neighbors are up to, their likes and dislikes. And as it turns out, one of the benefits of Google’s recently released Instant Search is that it gives you a window into what’s on their mind (based on the most popular queries in your area).
Apparently all of my neighbors are closet rappers.
Take the following query: type in “i l” and Google’s updated predictive algorithms prepopulate the query to “i love the way you lie” and instantly surfaces rapper Eminem’s lyrics to the aforementioned song and video. You would think two characters into a query, there would still be an infinite array of possibilities: sonnets with those three special little words, Valentine’s Day proclamations, etc. You would, of course, be wrong.
Or say you’re looking for the number to the voice based information service that Microsoft bought. What was their name again? TellMe Networks? Be careful, throw in an extra space and “tell me ” instantly whisks you to the lyrics for ghetto fabulous Bay Area rapper E40’s “Tell Me When to Go” (who’s van I sighted several months back at a Berkeley gas station).
What’s that, you want to learn a new skill? Try “teach m” and Cali Swag District will teach you how to Dougie. Seeking parenting advice? “Parents j” will confirm its hopeless because Parents Just Don’t Understand. Entrepreneurs — you want to be billionaires (and on the cover of Forbes magazine)? “I wa” may help.
Even benign query strings like “in we” lead to Will Smith’s lyric “In West Philadelphia born and raised.” Futile attempts at punctuation like “hyph” lead me straight to Wikipedia entries about the Hyphy movement. Most any query construction that fits the grammar ‘I ’ + a letter of the English alphabet is on the verge of transporting me to a key refrain in someone’s anthem (apparently musicians are self-centered people). Everywhere I go I’m surrounded by Tupac’s battle cries (“hit e”) or Cyndi Lauper’s cheesy songs from the 80s (“girls j”).
Which is just another way of saying that Google’s most recent effort to engineer our collective experience from the long tail back towards the fat head is reinforcing our shared humanity. And apparently what’s holding mankind together are SEO gods Eminem and Rihanna.
I’m just glad they turned off expletive search.
Aug
11
What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Necessarily Stay in Vegas
What happened in Las Vegas in late July does not appear to be staying in Las Vegas.
Sohail Ahmad, senior wireless security researcher at CMEA portfolio company AirTight Networks , recently discovered a large black hole in wireless security protocol that makes any wireless network susceptible to hacking. Ahmad demonstrated this vulnerability at Black Hat Arsenal and DEF CON 18 in late July.
The vulnerability has been dubbed “Hole196” and is named for the page of the IEEE 802.11 Standard (Revision, 2007) where Ahmad found the original reference. Hole196 involves a man-in-the-middle style attack, whereby a hacker inserts himself between a WiFi user and the network to capture all traffic to and from the user in order to compromise private data. After reading a six word sentence on page 196 of the 1200-plus page of the industry’s wireless security protocol specifications, Ahmad realized the common group key used in wireless networks was not immune to spoofing. He was able to send a broadcast packet using the group key over the air to all the wireless devices in his vicinity and redirect their traffic through his own computer. Because the network is being used against itself, there is little detectable evidence. And because the other WiFi client devices (laptops, POS systems, VOIP phones, etc.) assume the hacker’s computer is now the network gateway, the devices redirect all of their secure traffic to that computer and the network access points re-encrypt the traffic with the hacker’s own private key allowing the hacker to read the once private data without cracking the encryption. (more…)
Jul
21
Introducing…Mint
Coming soon to a television station near you, the Mint Automatic Floor Cleaner. It is an exciting time at CMEA portfolio company Evolution Robotics as they have recently launched the first Mint commercials in the Bakersfield and Oakland television markets. But maybe you’ve already seen the Mint on The Martha Stewart Show or The Rachael Ray Show or in SkyMall. Mint is designed to clean hard surfaces and uses the advanced NorthStar Navigation system to map floors so it doesn’t miss any spots and knows where it’s been. It works with popular cleaning cloths such as Swiffer and Pledge.
Did I mention that the Mint just won the International Design Excellence Award or the Popular Mechanics’ Editor’s Choice Award at CES 2010? I know it’s just July, but the holidays will be here before we know it. Click here to reserve your Mint.
Jul
21
Blekko IPO, Day 1
For many months now dozens of people have asked me about what’s cooking at Blekko. And for many months all I’ve been able to say is “Blekko is a big, bold, bet in search. It’s in stealth. Stay tuned.”
Well, today I can finally give them an answer.
And here it is, in video form (thanks Mike Arrington):
Here’s what Blekko’s founders Rich Skrenta and Mike Markson had to say about it:
You can also see what Rich and Mike had to say about Blekko on their respective blogs, here and here.
Finally, here is the original TechCrunch post on Blekko (I’ve included snippets and screenshots below):
“What Makes Blekko Different?
Blekko is a full web search engine, with regular crawls of billions of web pages. But they know that they can’t beat Google at size of index, relevancy and speed right out of the gate. So they’re differentiating themselves in another way – by giving users tools to do new types of searches that they can’t do elsewhere. And by providing an unprecedented level of access to the algorithms and data that Blekko uses to determine relevancy.
That doesn’t mean Blekko’s relevancy isn’t great. The company says they’re on par with Google and Bing for most queries. But the differentiating feature are the query refinement tools they call Slashtags. These tools, like /news or /date or /amazon or /blogs, or any combination, make it very simple to quickly filter results to what you are looking for.
Users can create their own slashtags based on a group of URLs. I’ve created one that lists all TechCrunch sites to do easy site search. Others have created slashtags for conservative or liberal blogs, top tech sites, etc. If they make those slashtags public, others can use them, too.
The company also lets users search via a variety of APIs. Add /amazon to search on Amazon. Or /twitter to search via the Twitter API. Or just type /whatever.com to search just that domain.”
(more…)
Jun
02
Calling AT&T — WAKE UP!
AT&T’s announcement today that they are eliminating unlimited data plans for future iPhone and iPad customers is like a re-run of a bad movie. Remember AOL’s original pricing model? $19.95 per month PLUS $2.95 per hour? That’s when AOL thought of themselves as a utility, where connect time was an overhead cost to control.
The online renaissance began when AOL looked at connect time as consumer engagement, an asset that could be expanded, enhanced and exploited by monetizing the underlying media value this connectivity created. When AOL changed their pricing plan to $29.95 for “all you can eat”, the floodgates literally opened.
Sure, AOL had capacity issues in the early days, but that shift in strategy and pricing marked the beginning of broad consumption of data, and all the good that goes with it. AT&T needs to rethink alternative business models, and craft a way that they can share in the connectivity that their network provides, and continue to promote “good behavior” — always on, always connected … the “ever-net”.
This shift in pricing threatens to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs just as things are getting interesting. All because someone wants to eat a fried goose? Get it right folks, and the market will expand. Get it wrong, and someone else will get it right instead of you!
Apr
20
Why Entrepreneurs Don’t Need VCs
I wrote a guest post for Forbes last week called Why Entrepreneurs Don’t Need VCs. In it I talk a little about how the economics of launching an internet business today has the potential to make venture capital irrelevant for internet entrepreneurs, unless we fundamentally rethink our role in the venture industry. I also outline some thoughts on how our roles need to evolve to stay pertinent.
The bottom line is entrepreneurs have a lot more options today on how they choose to build their business than ever before. Would love to hear your thoughts on how you think these dynamics will play out for entrepreneurs and investors alike, and welcome any experiences that you’re willing to share about your choices with regards to taking on (or ignoring) institutional capital.
Apr
02
Confession from a (former) iPad Skeptic
Sumeet Jain
When the iPad was announced back in January, I admit to being a bit skeptical. Much had been written about its lack of features – no camera, no GPS, no Flash support, no USB. Notable critics included Henry Blodget, who called it a “yawn.”
The “Doritos tablet” video was both incredibly funny and also a poignant satire of the iPad as just a big iPhone. It wasn’t the lack of features that I wasn’t sure about; it was that I wasn’t sure how it would fit in my life. It won’t replace my phone or my laptop… do I want a third device?
nibbling on a Blackberry
Then, overnight, my 15-month-old daughter convinced me that the iPad will be game changing. My wife, an iPhone user, and I, a Blackberry user, both have games and educational apps on our devices to keep her entertained when we’re in the car or have exhausted all other toy options. She liked the applications and the devices equally until about a month ago. That’s when she started touching on the screen of my Blackberry and expected things to happen and expected to be able to manipulate things on the screen like she does on the iPhone. She now has no interest in the Blackberry and will only use the iPhone… my Blackberry has been relegated to a teething toy.
