For over ten years I have been going to Japan frequently. I’m going again in 2 weeks. Their; technology, discipline and focus have always amazed me. This was sent to me by a friend and I thought is was worth sharing.
Don’t underestimated Japan’s capability and resolve. The below picture is a good example. The left is the state of a highway right after the earthquake. The right is the same highway four days later. Message? The Japanese economy and people will rebound from this crisis, and be stronger and better then ever.
Search engine behemoth Google has been working long and hard on a ‘secret’ project towards making cars that can drive themselves. At this week’s TED conference, Googlepresented extremely rare demos of its much-awaited self-driving cars and the videos of the demos have hit the internet.
“Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain,” Google had said in an earlier blog post.
The automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles, it added.
The internet gaint stressed safety has been the first priority in this project and the cars are never unmanned. The company has a trained software operator in the passenger seat to monitor the software. Any test begins by sending out a driver in a conventionally driven car to map the route and road conditions. By mapping features like lane markers and traffic signs, the software in the car becomes familiar with the environment and its characteristics in advance.
The company informed, citing the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.2 million lives are lost every year in road traffic accidents and technology of this kind has the potential to cut the accident rate by half.
Furthermore, this technology is expexted to reduce the time of commuting and make it time efficient. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates people spend an average 52 minutes everyday commuting to the office.
Search Engine Land has posted a video of one of Google’s self-driving cars racing around a closed course. Take a look at the video to catch a brief glimpse of the future:
Innovation is all about taking the common and regular, and changing it for the better. Here is a quick video about the reinvention of the shoe box by Puma. At yet2ventures, we are fascinated by breakthrough consumer packaging.
Starting in the fall last year I began spending at least a week a month in the Valley. I came across this great article by Steve Blank which describes a bunch of things to do in the Valley…. it almost a beginner guide to Silicon Valley. I highly recommend the read – Ben
If you’re a visiting dignitary whose country has a Gross National Product equal to or greater than the State of California, your visit to Silicon Valley consists of a lunch/dinner with some combination of the founders of Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter and several brand name venture capitalists. If you have time, the President of Stanford will throw in a tour, and then you can drive by Intel or some Clean Tech firm for a photo op standing in front of an impressive looking piece of equipment.
The “official dignitary” tour of Silicon Valley is like taking the jungle cruise at Disneyland and saying you’ve been to Africa. Because you and your entourage don’t know the difference between large innovative companies who once were startups (Google, Facebook, et al) and a real startup, you never really get to see what makes the valley tick.
If you didn’t come in your own 747, here’s a guide to what to see in the valley (which for the sake of this post, extends from Santa Clara to San Francisco.) This post offers things to see/do for two types of visitors: I’m just visiting and want a “tourist experience” (i.e. a drive by the Facebook / Google / Zynga / Apple building) or “I want to work in the valley” visitor who wants to understand what’s going on inside those buildings.
I’m leaving out all the traditional stops that you can get from the guidebooks.
Hackers’ Guide to Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is more of a state of mind than a physical location. It has no large monuments, magnificent buildings or ancient heritage. There are no tours of companies or venture capital firms. From Santa Clara to South San Francisco it’s 45 miles of one bedroom community after another. Yet what’s been occurring for the last 50 years within this tight cluster of suburban towns is nothing short of an “entrepreneurial explosion” on par with classic Athens, renaissance Florence or 1920’s Paris. Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve been buying and selling patents at yet2.com for over 11 years now. Over those years we have seen the areas of patent interest change quite substantially. Today we released our 2011 Patent Buying Areas of Interest report. This years’ report breaks patents sales into four areas; Consumer Electronics, Wireless, Healthcare and Lighting. Contact us for the full report, but below is a summary.
Most patent transactions are in industries where there are a high number of patents per product. Consumer electronics leads the pack. We are seeing an increase in interest in patents around the edges of consumer electronics, like hardware casing and metal bending. The patent market is coming back to a ‘new normal’, after the 2008 market disruption. While transaction activity has picked back up, it’s still at 50% of pre 2008.
Electro Petroleum is a yet2Ventures portfolio company, and it’s the key partner to Deloro – Ben
January 25, 2011 Deloro Resources Ltd. (TSX.V – DLL) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a Letter of Intent for the acquisition of a new heavy oil property adjoining the Wilkie project in Saskatchewan.
The proposed new acquisition includes 320 acres containing the rights to petroleum from surface to the top of the Precambrian, 120 acres containing the rights to petroleum and natural gas from the base of the Mannville to the top of the Precambrian and 840 acres containing the rights to petroleum and natural gas from surface to the top of the Precambrian. This property will be acquired from Canadian Natural Resources for the sum of $15,000.00 and the assumption of all environmental and reclamation obligations. Read the rest of this entry »
Culture – Changing the culture to be receptive to outside ideas and technology requires more than one speech or memo. Changing the culture requires changing work habits and changing incentives. 1) Every employee should be, looking for external ideas monthly. 2) Technology leaders should be; looking for and evaluating external ideas weekly. 3) Open innovation leaders should be; looking for, evaluating and championing external ideas daily.
Shopping Lists – Business units should have quarterly process for gathering the most critical and pressing needs, the shopping list should be aggregated across business units and the combined list should be widely available inside the firm. The process should be done bottom up annually, and it should include patents. Few companies manage this well.
People – The best scientists are not frequently the extroverts. Find the ones who are and name them the OI Champions. Find the person with friends in every business unit and name them head of OI. OI is about people. Most companies fail here too. The head of OI at a LargeCo, should greet you with a warm smile and a handshake – if they don’t – the wrong person is in the role. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s hard to believe the yet2 team; Tim, Phil and I have worked have worked with Emma (head of yet2Europe) and Fujii-san (head of yet2Asia) for 1o years. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t talk to either of them. The past 10 years has been quite a ride, through it all we have worked together as a team. Extraordinary.
yet2.com's Trends Discussion, in Needham in December 2010
As a team, we are in a unique vantage point to see some trends (more on this later), and make a few predictions. I thought I’d share some predictions for 2011.
Open Innovation is ubiquitous. There is no longer a debate on this. Almost every large technology company, and a growing number of small ones, have embraced OI as a key strategy. Some might not view this as much of a prediction, but when I look back to 1999, when we founded yet2.com – it is a cosmic collision – so I had to mention it. In 2011, OI will be more embraced by business units and not just staff functions.
Patents will be a key part of Open Innovation. The IP counsel, and the OI leads rarely talked in the past. In 2011, they will work together more closely, as patents become a key OI component.
Venture capital will start to embrace Open Innovation. This one prediction we have seen coming, which is why we raised a fund and now have yet2Ventures. Other funds will do the same. Well managed start-ups will have a OI strategy. Read the rest of this entry »
Mike Henson is likely to most successful medical device investor and entrepreneur in the US.
I had the pleasure of spending a day with Mike and meeting with a number of his portfolio companies at his MedFocus fund. To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. I thought I’d share some of my learnings.
First Some Background
Mike has founded or served as CEO and Chairman/Board Member for eighteen successful emerging healthcare (medical device or biotechnology) firms. Seven of these firms IPOed. Ten of the companies have been acquired.
An example? Micrus Endovascular, founded by Mike, was acquired by J&J for $500 million in September 2010.
Mike has built an impressive campus of startups focusing on minimally invasive and low cost treatments of vascular and orthopedic diseases. I had the pleaseure of spending a day with Mike and meeting the leadership teams of 5 of his current crop of portfolio companies – Ellipse Technologies, Interventional Spine, Onset Medical, MiCardia and Reverse Medical.
More than 71 Million individuals in the United States are admitted to hospitals each year, according to the latest survey from the American Hospital Association. Studies have concluded that in 2006 well over $30 billion was spent on unnecessary hospital admissions. How many of those hospital admissions could have been avoided if only we had real-time information as to which patients were at risk for future hospitalization? This is more than just an academic question: every unnecessary admission to the hospital places the patient at risk and uses scarce medical resources unwisely.
The Heritage Provider Network (HPN) launched the $3 million Heritage Health Prize with one goal in mind: to develop a breakthrough algorithm that uses available patient data, including health records and claims data, to predict and prevent unnecessary hospitalizations. Heritage believes that incentivized competition – one that includes the involvement of those with passionate minds that don’t know what can’t be done – is the best way to achieve the radical breakthroughs and innovations necessary to reform our health care system. Sponsoring this prize is simply one way that Heritage believes it can help solve a societal problem.
Posted by bendupont 
Japanese Economy after the Earthquake
March 18, 2011For over ten years I have been going to Japan frequently. I’m going again in 2 weeks. Their; technology, discipline and focus have always amazed me. This was sent to me by a friend and I thought is was worth sharing.
Don’t underestimated Japan’s capability and resolve. The below picture is a good example. The left is the state of a highway right after the earthquake. The right is the same highway four days later. Message? The Japanese economy and people will rebound from this crisis, and be stronger and better then ever.