You may have noticed there’s a growing amount of alternative, tech-focused, ways to get around San Francisco these days. Car sharing groups Zipcar and City CarShare have big communities here, there’s the new car sharing 2.0 groups like RelayRides and Getaround, and the next-gen taxi services of Uber. Then there’s some even newer experiments like the electric scooter sharing network Scoot Networks, ride sharing service Zimride and its new real time mobile app, and company-focused Wi-Fi-friendly transportation service Ridepal. Alt-transportation overload! Why is San Francisco so chock-full of these services? I’ve been thinking about it for awhile and I’ve got a pretty good idea. Here’s why I think it is: Tech, startup cluster: One of the more obvious reasons is just the vibrant startup and ... Continue reading →
California regulators on Thursday decided to expand a popular program that allows owners of solar panels to sell electricity they don’t use back to the utilities at retail rates. While the program, called net metering, is popular with solar panel owners, it’s a source of conflict for utilities. In addition, regulators left a contentious issue unresolved over whether people who don’t own solar panels will be subsidizing those who do. The California Public Utilities Commission voted 5-0 in favor of expanding the current “cap” on net metering, which requires utilities to allow for net metering for just 5 percent of the total electricity demand from its customers. The previous cap was determined by taking the highest peak demand ever recorded in the utility territory. But ... Continue reading →
By Yuliya ChernovaEven as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers focuses its attention on a new early-stage fund and pursues more consumer and enterprise technologies, the firm’s vast clean-technology portfolio continues to need money. Lots of it. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm has more than 60 clean-technology companies, several of which are raising capital at a difficult time. They can’t access the IPO market, and private capital is growing thinner for this sector. That sets the stage for write-downs. One of Kleiner Perkins’s best-known clean-tech portfolio companies, Fisker Automotive, maker of a luxury plug-in hybrid, retained bankers months ago to explore an IPO, but instead had to turn to private investors for more capital. Luca Technologies, which converts coal into natural gas, pulled its IPO recently. ... Continue reading →
For years buildings — from large commercial office space to factories to homes — have delivered loads of real time data on everything from energy use, to internal temperature, to water use. But in the past there haven’t been that many tools to capture, and crunch all that data into useful information. All that’s starting to change with better big data tools and connectivity and the researchers at Pike Research predict that the market for building energy management systems, and the associated software, hardware and services, will grow from $1.9 billion in 2011 to $6 billion in 2020. Pike Research predicts that there will be 10 trends that shape this growing market over the next decade, like that they think building automation systems will shift ... Continue reading →
Corporate remote employees, we recently reported, are increasingly joining the mix of freelancers and entrepreneurs at coworking spaces. But apparently that’s not the only new group making increasing use of the movement. Spaces have long been home to fledgling ventures with just a few employees, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting, that more larger startups are sticking with coworking even as they grow beyond the traditional small size associated with shared space. Emily Maltby reports on a new style of jumbo spaces being set up to accommodate these larger startups, including the Cambridge Innovation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and RocketSpace Inc. in San Francisco: In recent years, though, some new ventures have bucked the traditional model by creating pay-as-you-go setups for sizable start-ups. Some ... Continue reading →
Gaston Gorali, Director General Creativo, Catmandu studios Behind the doors of Catmandu studios, on a quiet street in the Capital Federal district of Buenos Aires, Argentina, dozens of young animators stare intently at their computer screens in a couple of low lit rooms, obsessing over the way a grass of blade bends or a character’s hair swishes as he moves. Some of the team, which hail from all over the world, have spent days, and weeks, animating a few seconds where bird crap falls on the face of a statue. This is the crew, which has now blossomed into 120 people after five years in production, who will be responsible for whether Argentina will be able to produce a smash success out of its first ... Continue reading →
