Leading entrepreneurs and thought leaders provide a look at the future of education in a short documentary from Ericsson. It discusses how technology is changing the way students learn as well as what it means to learn and teach in a connected era. Read more »
Etsy, the marketplace for handmade goods, is rolling out a new mobile app in time for the holiday season. One in four visits to the site comes from a mobile app and mobile visits are twice as likely to convert to purchases, Etsy said. Read more »
Clever, a Y Combinator-backed education data startup, is announcing Monday that it has raised $3 million in seed funding from a big group of investors, including top Silicon Valley venture capitalists and education technology leaders. Read more »
In the past year, leading technology companies have made big strides in bringing tablet computers into classrooms across the country. But while the availability of new devices is certainly critical, the successful transition to digital textbooks relies on many interconnected factors. Read more »
As election season heats up, the Pew Internet & America Life Project looks at how democrats and republicans compare in their social behavior online. The study found that two-thirds of U.S. social media users have taken one of eight political or civic actions with social media. Read more »
This week, online education startup Coursera said that it would no longer be able to offer courses to residents of Minnesota because of a decades-old policy. Now, it’s raising questions among the states’s local tech community. Read more »
Now that it serves patients and doctors in 31 major metropolitan areas across the country, New York-based ZocDoc is opening its second flagship office in Phoenix. The new office will focus on sales and operations and help move ZocDoc to a 24/7 service model. Read more »
With the launch of Whispercast, a new service for purchasing and managing content across a fleet of devices, Amazon is ramping up its competition against Apple in the education market. Read more »
Damian Black, CEO of SQLstream, talks about why data flow computing is experiencing a rebirth and what it could mean for scaling in the cloud. Read more »
Startup Health, the New York-based academy for health and wellness entrepreneurship, has launched an online platform for connecting startups, investors and customers in health tech and tracking funding in the sector. Read more »
LocalVox, a New York-based startup that targets small- to medium-sized businesses with a comprehensive online marketing platform, has raised $7.4 million in Series A funding. The company currently operates in New York and Hartford but plans to scale to 20 markets nationwide. Read more »
In an article in the latest issue of Wired magazine, longtime Intel CEO Andy Grove argues “1950s-era thinking” still prevails in healthcare and that patients need more data about healthcare costs and medical histories. Read more »
Stephen Wolfram, the scientist and innovator behind Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica, has spent decades tracking his personal information. As the collection of personal data becomes more mainstream, he believes people could watch their health in a manner similar to how they manage their financial portfolios. Read more »
Healthrageous, a Boston-based startup, has raised $6.5 million in Series B funding to enhance its mobile and desktop platform that gives patients a personalized, data-driven way to track and improve their health. Read more »
Social data pulled from online health forums and the comments section of blogs is helping patients learn about side effects to various drugs and could ultimately help them figure out the medications that suit them best. Read more »
With twelve years, two companies and a total of $100 million in venture capital funds raised, Jeff Tangney knows his way around health tech. The Epocrates and Doximity co-founder said the health tech landscape is changing and offered entrepreneurs in the field a little guidance. Read more »
According to a report released Thursday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Internet ad revenue reached $17 billion in the first half of the year, but the rate of growth declined from 23 percent between 2010 to 2011 to 14 percent between 2011 and 2012. Read more »
Frank & Oak, a Montreal-based digital-only men’s fashion brand, has raised $5 million in a Series A round of funding led by Lightbank. Since launching in February, the company said it has attracted 200,000 members and is growing at a rapid clip. Read more »
Fab says it has “reimagined” its mobile apps, updating its app for the iPad and optimizing it for the iPhone 5. One-third of Fab’s sales come from mobile but it’s looking to when mobile shopping contributes half of its revenue. Read more »
The co-founders of two companies changing the face of connected retail, Warby Parker and Birchbox, will join us at our upcoming RoadMap conference next month. They’ll talk about the forces changing the retail landscape and how they expect to connect with the consumer of the future. Read more »
Ten forward-looking health tech startups pitched Wednesday at the DC to VC showcase in San Francisco, an annual event bridging Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. Take a look at three companies that won the judges’ and audiences’ endorsement. Read more »
New York-based fashion community Stylecaster has purchased beauty and virtual makeover site Daily Makeover and raised $2 million in new funding. With the acquisition, the company said it would double revenue and the size of its team, as well as triple its traffic. Read more »
A handful of leaders in health data suggest that data-driven personalized health approaches could achieve mainstream adoption in five years, with some saying valuable but intermittent work could happen even sooner. Read more »
Marrying the quality of cable TV quality with convenience and access of online education, Seattle-based CreativeLIVE has announced that it has raised $7.5 million from Greylock Ventures. The online learning platform offers higher quality video instruction to “creative entrepreneurs.” Read more »
Health-related tweets are on the rise and Twitter wants healthcare marketers to pay attention. This year, the company said, tweets about health are up 51 percent. But even as it makes inroads in health, Twitter offers a few caveats. Read more »
Pearl.com, a site that gives people access to one-on-one advice from doctors, lawyers and other professionals, has raised $25.7 million. The new funding comes not even four months after the company raised a $25 million Series A round and changed its name from JustAnswer.com. Read more »
In photojournalist Rick Smolan’s latest book, The Human Face of Big Data, he shares more than 100 stories revealing the concrete, mind-blowingly powerful ways big data is changing how we consume energy, receive healthcare, monitor the environment and more. Take a look at five examples. Read more »
New York-based Blueprint Health, an accelerator for health-related startups, on Thursday graduated its second class of companies. Take a look at five aiming to improve the patient experience. Read more »
Micro-blogging startup Tumblr announced Thursday that it’s partnered with Union Metrics to offer brands and advertisers a full-fidelity analytics platform. Read more »
As New York’s Birchbox looks to build a global presence with the recent purchase of Paris-based JolieBox, it is announcing a limited partnership with goop, the London-based lifestyle site launched by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Read more »
Social gifting startup Treater is moving to mobile with the Thursday launch of iPhone and Android apps. While it competes with Facebook Gifts and other startups, the company says it wants to encourage informal, impromptu giving, not necessarily gifts for formal occasions. Read more »
New York-based ZocDoc, which allows patients to discover nearby doctors and book appointments online, is releasing its first new product since launching in 2007. With ZocDoc Check-In, patients will be able to complete intake forms before appointments and save the information on the site. Read more »
A new report from health startup accelerator Rock Health shows that funders have invested $1.08 billion in digital health startups this year, which already eclipses the $956 million they spent in all of last year. Read more »
Rap Genius, a site that lets people crowdsource explanations to song lyrics and other kinds of text, has received $15 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz. Read more »
San Francisco-based thredUP, an online retailer of secondhand children’s clothing, has raised $14.5 million in Series C financing. The company plans to use the new funds to invest in infrastructure and expand into new verticals, including teens, maternity and adults. Read more »
In an interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, PBS journalist Charlie Rose asked about the state of tech IPOs, Facebook advertising and the keys to successful tech companies. Read more »
About a year after launching, social marketplace Copious is expanding to appeal to men. In addition to launching new men’s clothing categories, it is also adding new verticals for photography, home decor and design. Read more »
Six months after launching the first ad on Tumblr, the startup’s founder and CEO David Karp took the stage during New York’s Advertising Week to talk up his platform’s approach to marketing. Read more »
A new proposal calls for a Consumer Reports-like rating body to evaluate new digital learning tools. Ed tech innovators like the idea in theory but they worry that it won’t work in practice. Read more »
The Wall Street Journal, in releasing its third annual list of the top 50 startups, said that venture capital interest in healthcare is on the decline. But other data shows the contrary. Read more »
