Author: golf Page 4 of 22

Fenwick & West LLP, a national law firm that
provides comprehensive legal services to technology and life sciences
clients of national and international prominence, recently put out
their Q2 2011 Bay Area Venture Deal Terms report.
VC Experts' coverage of that report can be found at Q2 2011 Bay Area Venture Deal Terms.
In light of this, we have provided an early look at some of the
analysis that we have compiled thus far covering areas outside of Silicon
Valley for Q2 2011. Specific company terms & valuations are available to subscribers of VC Experts Valuation & Deal Term database. In this report, you will see some
consistencies in terms with both areas, and also some differences.

via vcexperts.com

California Governor Jerry Brown, who has the rare distinction of having twice followed former actors into office, recently explained his job this way:

“A lot of this is theater. How do you communicate to 38 million people? … [I]t’s gesture, symbol, the narrative, the drama. Who’s the protagonist? Who’s the antagonist?"

What can the world of acting teach us about leadership? If you accept the fact that engaging and motivating people is a critical skill for leaders, then the performing arts is an excellent place to look for guidance.

After all, film is a $32 billion business worldwide. Television keeps the average American glued to the couch for 35 hours a week. And live theater draws legions of passionate fans. They must be doing something right.

Here are five rules from the stage and screen that will help you lead more effectively by communicating more persuasively.

via www.businessinsider.com

Gamification — the application of online game design techniques in non-game settings — has been quickly gaining the attention of leaders in business, education, policy and even terrorist communities. But gamification also has plenty of critics, and the debate over its future could become an epic battle in the same vein of many online game favorites. This special report includes coverage of a recent Wharton conference titled, "For the Win: Serious Gamification," in addition to interviews with conference participants who discuss the use of gamification in business, government and other arenas.

via knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

British defense company BAE Systems has developed an “invisibility cloak” that can effectively hide vehicles from view in the infra-red spectrum.

The patented system — called Adaptiv — uses a matrix of hexagonal “pixels” that can change their temperature very rapidly. On-board cameras sweep the area to pick up the background scenery and display that infra-red signature on the vehicle.

This allows even moving tanks to be effectively invisible in the infra-red spectrum, or mimic other objects. “The tank skin essentially becomes a big infra red TV,” BAE Head of External Communications Mike Sweeney told Wired.co.uk. “You can display anything you want on it — including a cow — while the rest of the vehicle blends into the background.”

via www.wired.com

if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget(‘2a15f512-dc7a-4063-b1bc-4f8efa0a3f25’);Get the Countdown Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

• FOXNews.com – States Plot to Block, Limit Health Care Reform Bill
  The proverbial ink had yet to dry on the nation's new health care reform law Tuesday before two states — Virginia and Florida — filed lawsuits and more scrambled to put up legislative barricades between themselves and the bill requiring Americans to purchase health insurance or face stiff penalties.
  The tactics, employed everywhere from Arizona to Virginia, are the strongest sign that the health care reform fight is far from over.
  Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced he dropped off his challenge at the court at 12:02 p.m. ET, minutes after President Obama's signing ceremony to usher in the massive overhaul. Virginia Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell walked the six blocks from the state attorney general's office in Richmond to the U.S. District Court to file his claim that the federal law conflicts with recently passed Virginia law saying no resident shall be required to "maintain or obtain" personal coverage.
  (tags: politics health taxes states courts)

• Google Says There Are Now 30,000 Apps In Android Market – washingtonpost.com
  At the most recent Mobile World Congress, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed that the company's partners are now selling over 60,000 Android handsets on a daily basis. With that kind of growth rate, it's no wonder that the size of the Android Market is increasing in its slipstream. While Google doesn't publicly show how many apps there are in Android Market, a Google rep this morning informed me that the store now serves approx. 30,000 apps in total.
  (tags: google android mobile apps)

• Congratulations to Don Rainey at Grotech for being named the 2009 VC Awards’ Friend of the Entrepreneur – Boston Business Journal:
  One clue to why Don Rainey is a friend to entrepreneurs comes from the way he talks about the executives running the companies in which he invests.
  There is pride in his words, a paternalism that reveals the Grotech Ventures general partner has more than just money in the game.
  “LivingSocial is a deal we added to in 2009. It is a company full of young energetic entrepreneurs,” he says. “It is really and exciting time for that company and I am certainly very proud of them.”
  It sounds like he is talking about one of his children, or one of his students.
  LivingSocial, which runs social networking Web sites, raised $5 million in venture capital from Vienna-based Grotech and from Steve and Jean Case.
  Rainey says the co-founders of LivingSocial — Tim O’Shaughnessy, Eddie Frederick, Aaron Batalion and Val Aleksenko — “are going from being an early success to being one of the leaders in social networking. They are helping define social commerce.”
  (tags: rainey grotech vc Entrepreneurship)
• Robert J. Samuelson – Obama’s illusions of cost-control – washingtonpost.com
  One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving “universal health coverage.” The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.
  There’s a parallel here: housing. Most Americans favor homeownership, but uncritical pro-homeownership policies (lax lending standards, puny down payments, hefty housing subsidies) helped cause the financial crisis. The same thing is happening with health care. The appeal of universal insurance — who, by the way, wants to be uninsured? — justifies half-truths and dubious policies. That the process is repeating itself suggests that our political leaders don’t learn even from proximate calamities.
  (tags: politics obama healthcare)

Read More

• Five Reasons to Pre-Order the iPad – InformationWeek.com
  The Apple iPad will be available to pre-order starting Friday, March 12. If you’re in the market for Apple’s “magical” device, here are five reasons why you should sign up early and buy on the very first day.
  (tags: apple ipad)
• iPhone OS 4.0 Reported To Feature Multitasking
  One of the chief complaints of iPhone users since the debut of iPhone OS 2.0 and the apps store is the iPhone’s inability to multitask (run two or more programs simultaneously). New information suggests that iPhone OS 4.0’s biggest upgrade will be multitasking. Also, purported images of iPhone 4G have been spotted.
  (tags: apple iphone multitasking apps)

Read More

• Technology Review: Drag-and-Drop into the Cloud
  It’s one thing to design and build software to live in the cloud from scratch. It’s something else to move existing applications over to cloud-computing platforms, which many companies need to do. This often means completely rewriting parts of the code to make it compatible with a particular provider’s infrastructure. CloudSwitch, a startup based in Burlington, MA, has designed software that could make the transition almost as simple as dragging and dropping a file from one folder to another.
  (tags: cloud transition)
• RightSide Capital Announces New Seed Fund; Will Make 100-200 Investments Per Year
  RightSide Capital Management is about to shatter the funding landscape. Led by David Lambert, Kevin Dick and John Lee, RightSide Capital believes that seed-stage capital needs a complete overhaul. RightSide will make 100-200 investments per year, and literally manufacture companies in a way that no firm has ever done. The fund, announced at TheFunded.com’s Future of Funding event last Thursday, will debut in the second half of 2010 and may give the angel funding market a much-deserved shakeup.
  Partner Kevin Dick went on stage during a panel on alternative funding methods and laid out what he believes to be the future of funding. Quantity, not quality, is king in the seed stage. Entrepreneurs looking for funding won’t have to go the traditional route of begging for a meeting and then having a second meeting and then waiting 3 months for traction until finally closing a deal. Instead, they will fill out an application – similar to applying to College – and receive a response in 2 weeks.
  (tags: vc Entrepreneurship angel fast seed)

Read More