Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella rebuffed a call from employees to terminate a contract making HoloLens augmented reality headsets for the US Army.
Source: Wired
It’s more watch than phone, really.
Source: CNET
There are a number of ways to share your iTunes library, but, in a broad sense, it can done in two ways: via Wi-Fi on your home network, or via Bluetooth to a person nearby. Looking to share your iTunes media with another device? You’ve come to the right place.
The post How to share your iTunes library appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Whether protected through copyright, trade secret, trademark, or patents, software technology companies depend on IP more so than perhaps any other business type in history.
It is surprising, then, just how little founders think about protecting their own IP. Sure, “product-market fit” is an all-engrossing search for truth that tolerates no distraction, but that is at best an explanation, not an excuse.
The real pros will find product-market fit while documenting and protecting IP along the way — it’s the only way to ensure you own your work, after all.
This article provides an overview to help you think about where your IP sits, how to protect it, and how to avoid certain pitfalls that plague far too many startups.
This is the second article in the Extra Crunch exclusive “Startup Law A to Z” series, following my article on corporate matters last week. I will avoid full repetition here, but briefly, the purpose of this series, alongside other Extra Crunch resources, is to provide you enough information to analyze your business circumstances and evaluate your legal risk exposure to common legal issues facing startups, such as corporate matters, IP, business transactions, compliance/regulatory, and HR. If you see legal risks in these or related areas, you can consult the Verified Expert list of best startup lawyers and reach out for help — it’s that simple.
Assigning IP
Protecting IP ownership
Strategic IP Portfolio
Patents
Trade Secrets
Trademarks
Copyright
Read on for our detailed breakdown of each of these items.
From a high level, IP rights provide their owners the ability to legally prevent others from using certain technology or other protected assets. IP is essentially a property right that can be sold and assigned to others in the same way that vehicles, houses or any other form of tangible property can be bought and sold. Startups should think about IP along the lines of a portfolio specifically created to protect their particular business goals and strategy, in light of competitive market forces.
Source: TechCrunch
Blossom Capital, the venture capital firm co-founded by ex-Index Ventures and LocalGlobe VC Ophelia Brown, is announcing that it has raised an $85 million fund to invest in European tech startups at Series A stage.
LPs in the new fund, which TechCrunch reported early details of twelve months ago, are said to span leading institutional investors, as well as high-profile tech entrepreneurs. The latter includes Robinhood co-founder Vladimir Tenev, and Zendesk founder Mikkel Svane.
Meanwhile, alongside Brown, Blossom’s other partners are Imran Ghory, who previously led data-driven deal sourcing at Index and was head of data insights at MarketInvoice; Mike Hudack, who until very recently was CTO at Deliveroo and prior to that a director of product at Facebook; and Louise Samet, a fairly active angel investor and who previously worked at Klarna as a digital product manager.
Also noteworthy, eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that the new VC firm appears to have a lost a founding partner already: former Uber China executive Candice Lo was previously listed on the Blossom Capital website as a Blossom co-founder and partner but TechCrunch understands has since departed.
“It’s been an honour being part of the team at Blossom, but I am leaving to spend more time with family,” said Lo in a statement issued to TechCrunch. “The fund has reached an incredible milestone and I will be cheering the team on as they continue to grow Blossom in Europe.”
In a call with Brown late last week, she said that Blossom aims to distinguish itself from other Series A investors in Europe by embracing a more “West Coast” approach with what she calls “high conviction” investing. The firm will write larger cheques than many Series A investors — in the region of $5m to $10m — and plans to do only 4-5 deals per year, which, again, is quite unusual.
The idea is to place fewer but bigger (and potentially riskier) bets and give the limited number of companies Blossom backs enough runway to get to a meaningful Series B. Arguably, it also means the Blossom team, which remains small, won’t be spreading the support offered to its portfolio too thin.
On that note, Blossom has already backed four companies. They are Duffel, Fat Llama, Frontify, and Sqreen. Co-investors have included Y Combinator, Greylock and Index Ventures -– some decent names for a new firm, to say the least.
Another aspect that Brown talked up is Blossom’s use of data to source and support deals. Both partners Ghory and Hudack have technical backgrounds — which should make them especially technical founder friendly — and I’m told the firm has developed technology that pulls in various data to look for signals of promising companies across Europe’s disparate and fragmented ecosystem.
The thinking, says Brown, is to ensure a small firm like Blossom can still source deals in some of Europe’s more hidden tech hubs, rather than just the major ecosystems. She declined to go into much detail on exactly what data is being used, obviously careful not to give away any of Blossom’s secret source.
More broadly, VCs are increasingly pinning more of their success on the use of data, whether that be throwing data scientists and analysts at the problem or building bespoke software. Two other European firms thought to be taking a similar approach to Blossom are London-based InReach Ventures and Berlin’s Fly VC.
“If you look at the big outcomes in Europe, around 70 percent of them today came from outside of the major hubs, in countries such as Romania, Finland and Portugal,” writes Brown in a blog post. “Data allows us to cover the entire continent, not just the major and overfished capitals like London, Paris, Berlin and Stockholm”.
Source: TechCrunch
Mind your rug: This heavyweight luxocrat boasts thrilling speed, ‘digital detox’ mode.
Source: CNET
Knockout British droptop makes big gains in performance and tech.
Source: CNET
A series of tweets that speculate on Tesla’s 2019 production numbers could be at the root of this move.
Source: CNET
Here’s everything you need to know about Microsoft’s next-generation mixed reality headsets.
Source: CNET
The company’s products pose a security threat to the nation’s critical energy infrastructure, senators say.
Source: CNET