Starwood, one of the world’s largest hotel companies, is rolling out two robotic “Botlrs” inexplicably named A.L.O. in their Cupertino Aloft Hotel.
The robotic butlers, built by Savioke, are able to perform tasks in the front of the house and the back of the house, as well as navigate around guests and use elevators. For the most part, it seems that the Botlrs will be delivering amenities to guest rooms in lieu of actual humans, “freeing up existing talent’s time and allowing them to create a more personalized experience for guests.”
In the same research lab where the ethernet, laser printer, and graphical user interface were born, engineers are forging an entirely new way to assemble electronic devices—a technique that could be faster, cheaper, and more versatile.
Apart from using search technology, the platform also acts as an indexed, curated reference.
One Codex, which is currently in open beta, can search its growing database of 30,000 bacteria, viruses and fungi in real time and identify data sets in minutes (millions of DNA base pairs per second).
Currently, the most commonly used tool for genome searching is by using an algorithm called BLAST, Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, which compares primary biological sequence information.
“While there are a lot of “it depends” … the number we’re comfortable with is somewhere in the 1000 to 1500 [times faster] plus range,” he said.
The charity shot, aka the free throw in basketball, can and has made the difference between a world championship and an ugly bridesmaid standing at the altar. Free throws win games. Free throws win championships.
There’s a little company in Sunnyvale, Calif., called Vibrado Technologies. It’s designed a sleeve that goes around your arm to help you shoot the the ball correctly and more accurately. The sleeve runs from the back of the hand all the way up to the upper bicep. It can be used to rehabilitate free throw motion, or any other shot for that matter. And, yes, there’s an app to store and analyze shot performance.
Bessemer Venture Partners is perhaps the nation's oldest venture capital firm, carrying on an unbroken practice of venture capital investing that stretches back to 1911. This long and storied history has afforded our firm an unparalleled number of opportunities to completely screw up.
Over the past couple years, both Nokia Growth Partners and Intel Capital announced separate $100M Connected Car Funds. Is the promise of universally connected and intelligent vehicles closer to becoming a reality?
According to the data, investments to companies in and around the connected car space are indeed gaining traction among both venture capital and corporate investors. Firms tracked in the connected car market within the CB Insights database include a range of technologies, covering:
igital health companies are focusing on using new technologies to fix places in the health-care delivery system that are wasteful, inefficient, or slow.
Geneva Healthcare has found one of the slow spots: the emergency room. The San Diego-based company has raised a $1.83 million funding round from a group of angel investors. Geneva makes a software platform that imports data from the cardiac devices (like pacemakers or defibrillators) of lots of different manufacturers, and this can help speed up visits in the ER.
Chip giant Intel has found a way to demonstrate the value of big data analytics in the big health care industry. It’s partnering with Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and working on a study that will pull patterns from data coming from patients’ wearable devices.
Six hundred and fifty million dollars — all in cash.
That’s the amount Intel has agreed to pony up for Avago Technologies LSI’s Axxia Networking Business. Intel is paying cash for the assets.
The two are still cementing the deal, but it has been approved by the boards of both companies. Pending government regulatory approval, the two sides hope to have the deal in the can by the end of the fourth quarter.
Avago, which produces semiconductors, acquired LSI late last year for $6.6 billion in cash. This deal means Avago is divesting itself of LSI’s Networking Business, which generated over $110 million last year. LSI’s Networking Business employs more than 600.
