In his State of the Union speech, President Obama recognized the IBM-backed Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) in New York. Rashid Davis, P-TECH’s principal, chats with GigaOM about what makes his school work and how it could be replicated around the country. Read more »
Internet companies spend a lot of money lobbying governments to try and get what they want — and nowhere is the picture more complex than Europe. Here’s a quick look at who pulls the strings at federal and national levels. Read more »
Earlier this morning, Adobe Systems, the San Jose-based creative software giant announced that it was buying New York City-based design-oriented community, Behance. Since then, many have been wondering how much did Adobe shell out? Now we have the answer. Read more »
The British government’s constant adulation of the London startup scene reached its culmination this week with the news of a huge new redevelopment project. But the reality is that many of Britain’s smartest innovators are locked inside government and the rest look increasingly like poseurs. Read more »
The digital media sector is finally maturng. Dan Ramsden, founder of CoRise, predicts some of the forms that that maturation will take. Read more »
You can’t beat Silicon Valley by trying to be Silicon Valley — so why does Europe spend so much time trying? If the continent’s entrepreneurs want to become true leaders, they need to shake off the past and stop playing a game that’s stacked against them. Read more »
Wealthfront, a San Francisco startup that is an SEC-registered online financial advisor, has launched an interactive tool for the tech community that lets people research cash compensation and equity packages across a range of jobs. Read more »
Western technology companies have traditionally looked to developing economies as a place to find cheap, abundant talent. But thanks to the Eurozone’s problems and the sovereign debt crisis, things are changing rapidly: Just ask the Portuguese, who are finding themselves subordinate to fast-growing Brazil. Read more »
The Dutch technology company has spent the last few years building a web app that lets anyone run fast, deep searches on semantic data. Now it’s scored a seed round from NEA and Atomico to start turning its early work into a fully-featured product. Read more »
Apple fans seem to love Mountain Lion OS X which launched earlier today. And evidence of that love is found in the sharp spike in download traffic from iTunes and Mac App Store. Here is a snapshot of what the downloads look like on a network. Read more »
TechStars’ founder and CEO David Cohen talks about the booming tech community in Boulder, the changing landscape for startups and the future of man and machine. Read more »
Yes, mobile devices and social networks can produce a lot of distractions, and resisting that may be difficult — as critics like Joe Kraus point out. But is this really a disaster in the making, or just another social evolution we need to undergo? Read more »
In an interview, Terry Howerton, co-founder of Chicago-area incubator TechNexus, argues that rather than view big companies as innovation killers or community destroyers, it’s time for some segments of the startup and coworking communities to grow up and leverage corporate America. Read more »
Lending Club, the peer-to-peer financing platform, announced Wednesday that it was adding Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker to its board of directors. Read more »
The latest hires in the tech and media industry. Read more at paidContent »
Neil Rimer of Index Ventures thinks one of the big problems for European startups — the lack of local exit opportunities — is all of its own making. But who has the guts to take up his challenge and go public in London? Read more »
With deals like Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of the relatively tiny startup Instagram, some argue we are in another tech-stock bubble. But others in the venture industry say that while there is some froth in parts of the startup ecosystem, there are few signs of 1990s-style mania. Read more »
Another Russian company looks set to list on the London exchange — this time the country’s second-largest mobile operator, MegaFon. It follows Mail.ru, which used London to become a real force in the technology industry. What makes the British capital so alluring? Read more »
Although the idea of police officers video-recording their use of Tasers has some claiming a small victory in the quest for better transparency, the issue isn’t that simple. From providing biased evidence to possibly invading privacy, video is ultimately no different than any other data type. Read more »
Congress is eyeing the competitive implications of Verizon’s $4 billion deals to buy spectrum from the cable companies. Much like those of us at GigaOM, they are wondering if this is a cease-fire in terms of broadband competition in the air and on the ground. Read more »
The Wallee is an iPad accessory that’s almost as old as the iPad. The new headrest mount that works with existing Wallee cases is a good example of smart accessory design that can grow with the iPad, rather than be left behind by Apple’s regular redesigns. Read more »
Apple’s huge iPhone sales numbers from its latest quarterly results helped it grow its mobile phone business by 128.4 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a new report. That makes it the third-largest mobile phone maker by volume. Read more »
Path has updated its app for the iPhone with the debut Wednesday of version 2.0.5. The key new part of the update is the addition of a new effect called “Depth” that brings what’s known as tilt-shift capabilities to Path’s photo taking feature. Read more »
IOS development is not for the faint of heart, and a new blog post by developer Kent Nguyen does a good job of pointing out exactly why. Nguyen targets those who would be footing the bill for app development, in the hopes of lessening sticker shock. Read more »
Macworld | iWorld had some fantastic products. Ignoring anything that wasn’t actually shipping, since so many products never actually make it to market , here are my top picks from the show. They include most iDevice companions, but also one product any Mac user wil love. Read more »
For a company that manages to debut a new product line every few years that seizes the public’s attention worldwide, it is rather amazing to see how little Apple spends on research and development as a percentage of its sales compared to its peers. Read more »
Samsung suffered another reversal in its patent battle with Apple on Friday morning, as the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany dismissed the Korean company’s second patent complaint related to 3G/UMTS technology. Last week, the same court rejected another similar Samsung complaint about 3G tech. Read more »
From 1990s through 2011, DSL, a broadband technology, had a strong run at large phone companies in America. Now it is falling behind cable broadband and fiber. The latest data from Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable points to its declining fortunes. Read more »
Apple’s iPad sold 15.4 million units during the final calendar quarter of 2011, representing a 111-percent year-over-year increase in tablet sales. Android tablets may have gained market share during the same period, but it’s PC makers that should fear that growth. Read more »
Apple’s iPhone 4S has helped it regain ground lost to Android in consumer smartphone market share, but it’s also having a very positive effect on enterprise adoption, according to a new report. The iPad remains by far the top tablet in business. Read more »
Apple blew away observers and analysts on Tuesday with record earnings that included 37 million iPhone sold, which helps explain why research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said Wednesday that Apple’s U.S. smartphone market share now exceeds that of Android devices. Read more »
Just under two years since Apple introduced the original iPad, the company said Tuesday that it’s now sold a total of 55 million units. And in the last three months of 2010 alone, Apple sold 15.4 million, a company record. Read more »
In a note to investors today, Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu discussed his company’s expectations for Apple’s earnings call Tuesday afternoon, which were up once again from earlier predictions. Wu’s revised estimate joins a chorus of rosy outlooks about the Mac-maker’s performance. Read more »
Recently, I tried Antec’s new cleaning solutions on my MacBook Pro, iPad and my iPhone 4S. Initially I was a bit skeptical because, well, it’s just cleaning solution. Still, I’ve been a long-time user of iKlear, so I wanted to give the competition a shot. Read more »
Sony Corporation unveiled its next-generation back-illuminated CMOS digital image sensor on Monday, which boasts a stacked design that saves space, lowers power requirements and increases quality, all of which adds up to a veritable mating call for Sony component customer Apple. Read more »
Toronto-based Polar Mobile, which provides a digital media distribution platform powering the apps of some of the biggest media companies in the world, including Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated and The Wall Street Journal, announced a new $6 million funding round on Monday. Read more »
SOPA is too extreme to be a practical solution, according to Tom Gimbel of Austin City Limits, but he believes we need a policy that encourages online creativity and economic growth while also protecting intellectual property. It’s not as exciting to advocate for a compromise, but that’s what’s needed. Read more »
Apple’s new textbook offering and book-authoring software are attractive, and the idea of digital textbooks makes sense, but they are both locked to Apple’s walled-garden ecosystem. That may be fine for music and movies and games like Angry Birds, but is it appropriate for educational material? Read more »
Apple unveiled its new interactive textbooks Thursday at its media event in NYC. Here’s a look at how those textbooks work on the iPad. Early impressions? Wish I could go back to high school. Still, these textbooks definitely have room to grow. Read more »
Personal security app Guardly, which launched back in April 2011 on the iPhone and iPod touch, announced Thursday morning that it will now offer a special program for students at 67 universities and colleges across Canada, designed as an extension of on-campus security measures. Read more »
