The global manufacturing sector has undergone a tumultuous decade: large developing economies leaped into the first tier of manufacturing nations, a severe recession choked off demand, and manufacturing employment fell at an accelerated rate in advanced economies. Still, manufacturing remains critically important to both the developing and the advanced world. In the former, it continues to provide a pathway from subsistence agriculture to rising incomes and living standards. In the latter, it remains a vital source of innovation and competitiveness, making outsized contributions to research and development, exports, and productivity growth.
If you’re staring 2013 in the eyes, trying to figure out whether or not your new venture is likely to attract VC investment in the new year, you might be interested in the findings presented in the 2012 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey.
A día de hoy contamos ya con 13 proyectos dispuestos a ser presentados en el marco de feria que se desarrollará el día 24 de enero de 2013 en las instalaciones del H-ENEA / Linving Lab.
Adicionalmente, 18 entidades han confirmado su participación en la Brocante Tecnológica, bien como proveedor de activos o de socio potencial en el lanzamiento de iniciativas empresariales.
Dropbox broadly hinted at its future plans yesterday, with the acquisition of Audiogalaxy, a startup allowing users to store their music files and playlists in the cloud then stream them to any device. The announcement was made via a short post on the Audiogalaxy blog, signed by company founders Michael Merhej, Tom Kleinpeter and Viraj Mody.
A medida que el mercado de las tablets va creciendo, parece cada vez más evidente que esconde un tipo de usuario sutilmente distinto al resto de consumidores de tecnología, con un montón de nuevos casos y perfiles a tener en cuenta. Ofrece un sinfín de oportunidades que no deben de pasar desapercibidas. Ya hay varias startups que están sabiendo aprovechar esta tecnología, como por ejemplo infantium y marfeel, dos startups de Barcelona.
Basque Culinary Centerrek atzo, osteguna, Miramongo Parke Teknologikoan lehen urtearen balantzea egin zuen eta bide batez, etorkizun hurbilenaz hausnartu ere bai: horretarako, patronatuko kideak, hau da Espainian bakarra den unibertsitate-proiektu hau bultzatzen duten zazpi sukaldariak (Eneko Atxa, Pedro Subijana, Juan Mari Arzak, Martin Berasategui, Karlos Arguiñano, Andoni Luis Aduriz eta Hilario Arbelaitz); Mondragon Unibertsitateko errektore Iosu Zabala; AZTI-Tecnaliako zuzendaria; eta erakunde publikoetako eta beren jarduera-eremuan liderrak diren sektore gastronomikoko enpresetako ordezkariak (Fagor Electrodomésticos, Eroski, Martiko, Heineken eta COVAP enpresetakoak) elkartu ziren.
Caja Laboral Ipar Kutxak Bankaseguruen eredu berritzailea jarriko du abian, datorren urtarrilaren 2tik aurrera, eta aseguruetan espezializaturiko zerbitzua eskainiko du. Horrek bere sukurtsal-eredu berria aberastuko du. Banku- eta aseguru-gaietan bezeroei kalitatezko aholkularitza pertsonalizatua eskaintzea da kooperatibaren helburua, kalitate horrek merkatuan bereizteko aukera emango baitio.
GE hopes to make wind turbines far cheaper, and open up new ways to design them, by ditching the stiff fiberglass blades it uses now in favor of turbine blades made out of fabric. GE says the project, which recently received nearly $4 million from the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, could lower wind turbine blade costs by 40 percent.
One way to reduce the cost of wind power is to make larger turbines. But as the blades have been getting larger, the costs of making them have been rising as well, says Wendy Lin, a principal engineer at GE. That’s offsetting some of the advantages of bigger turbines. “We know we really need to make a drastic change in the way we make these blades to bring the cost of the system down,” she says.
Healthtech is an ever-growing sector, but from the $1 billion pool VCs poured into startups over the last year, health companies only received about 3 percent of that total. Not many healthtech startups have been able to secure those big venture rounds; however, last week, I highlighted one healthtech company that seems to be doing it right: Zocdoc, which raised a $50 million round from DST earlier this month, and offered a few takeaways for startups looking to learn from Zocdoc’s experience. (Check out the post here.
The research community likes to imply that all innovation can be traced back to a scientific breakthrough and therefore that science drives all innovation. But the evidence is not there to support this case says EARTO in a report published earlier this month. Innovations do occasionally arise from new science, but mostly they don’t, EARTO claims.
The proof for this comes from a review of the scientific literature on the links between research and innovation, carried out by the science policy research consultancy Technopolis, on behalf of EARTO. Amongst the conclusions in its report:
