I am currently in the process of introducing a friend to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy amongst other geek classics. Last night when she came over for the evening I sat her down to watch the first episode of the BBC adaptation from 1981 and she really enjoyed it. I however found myself wondering something as we watched: will the Guide itself ever be as amazing for her as it was for me and for all the generations prior to mine who watched, listened or read about it?
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Google’s daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
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Investors weren’t running away even as Microsoft reported its first unprofitable quarter in its 26-year history as a public company.
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Apple is building a smaller, ultra-high-security data center alongside the massive computing facility in western North Carolina where it serves up its iCloud services and other online tools, according to a local report.
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You’ll find it inside the top-secret data centers that run Google. It provides extra speed at Apple, Facebook, Dropbox, and countless other operations across the web. And now, Amazon is offering it up to the rest of the world via its massively popular cloud service, letting you slip it under your own online applications — without actually installing it in your own data center. What is it? It’s flash — the super-fast storage hardware that’s gradually replacing traditional hard disks across the web and beyond.
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Follow The Daily Ticker on Facebook! Despite falling retails sales and a decline in consumer confidence, the National Federation of Retailers expects Americans to spend more on back-to-school shopping this year versus last. The industry advocacy group predicts the average shopper will spend $688 on items this fall, up from $603 in 2011, which would [...]
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We’ve been noting for months that the data flow from the housing market has been generally positive. Prices, as measured by the Case-Schiller indices, continue to fall or stagnate. But housing starts, and sales of existing and new homes have been rising persistently so far in 2012. On Thursday, the National Association of Realtors reported [...]
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You’ll find it inside the top secret data centers that run Google. It provides extra speed at Apple, Facebook, Dropbox, and countless other operations across the web And now, Amazon is offering it up to the rest of the world via its massively popular cloud service, letting you slip it under your own online applications — without actually installing it in your own data center. What is it? It’s flash — the super-fast storage hardware that’s gradually replacing traditional hard disks across the wed and beyond.
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Amazon.com (AMZN) has forever transformed consumers’ shopping habits and helped to hasten the growth in online retail. But there was always one area that thwarted Amazon’s reach: immediate gratification. Same-day shipping has been the bane of Amazon’s existence and the single leverage brick-and-mortar retailers held over its online challenger. But Amazon may start offering same-day [...]
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Follow The Daily Ticker on Facebook! On Wednesday President Barack Obama announced a new $1 billion teacher program, the Master Teacher Corps, to aid and promote education in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). “If America is going to compete for the jobs and industries of tomorrow, we need to make sure [...]
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Both entrepreneurs and government staffers would benefit from learning more about the other, and developing a more meaningful, working relationship. Government can help startups by adopting policies designed to spur innovation and make data transparent ?? while startups can help government solve some of its most vexing administrative and policy problems.
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There has been a bit of buzz recently about the Q2 increase in VC activity in the US, and following discussion a discussion at a dinner last night where we fumbled for stats on the state of the venture market I decided to do a little research this morning and find out the latest trends.
As you can see from the charts below, it turns out that the level of venture activity in Europe is increasing slightly, particularly on the side of funds raised by VCs to invest into startups. The US is growing more strongly, and activity over here is still only a fraction of what it is over there, even though our economy is bigger. Deal volume in China has continued to decline.
Thanks to global recruitment firm Calibre One for pulling together these charts showing investment by VCs into startups:
And to DowJones for these stats on funds raised by VCs:
There is a seasonal pattern to fundraising by VCs with more activity usually occurring in the second half of the year, so the thing to look at in these last two charts is comparison between 2Q12 and 2Q11. That is where you see the growth.
And, for those that were wondering, tthe dinner was organised by Mike Butcher and Alena Dundas and kindly hosted by Propel.
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Have you ever flipped through an interactive storybook on your tablet and thought you would love to be able to tell a story like that, but you don’t have the faintest idea how to begin programming something like an animated e-book? An upcoming piece of software from Podotree has you covered.
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