August 07, 2006
Ex-Hedgie Sees Money In Tech For Disease Diagnostics
And Kessler has published The End of Medicine in which he makes the case that entrepreneurs and investors should speed up the transfer of technologies from the IT and computing world to medical sectors, particularly early detection of diseases.
Kessler's pitch goes like this:
...sometime in the next several years, as the silicon and software and algorithms developed for early detection begin to get cheap enough, these business models will emerge, and you will see venture capitalists step up to fund interesting companies and IPOs of the hot new early detection players. 3-D imaging, computer aided detection, biomarkers, molecular imaging probes, nanotech scan devices for antibody chips, these are all areas that we will see companies emerge.
He's not the first to say this kind of thing and some industry insiders over here are already working in this direction, including at least one hedge fund manager we know, as well as some famous founders and venture firms, but we like Andy Kessler's writing and his ability to translate the jargon-loaded language of present-day guilds.
He did it for hedge funds and tech investing in Running Money, and stock trading in Wall Street Meat and from the excerpts we've read he has done it in his latest book.
It will be interesting to see if popularizing the theme will draw more investors and smart tech founders to this area of activity. From our point of view, a theme like this has the potential to revitalize the VC market, as opposed to the current trend, for example, of investing in what VCs hope will be Yahoo's or Rupert Murdoch's next acquisition target.
Read
Interview with Andy Kessler (dealbreaker blog)
Andy Kessler Book Excerpts (Kessler's blog)
Posted at 06:14 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
August 04, 2006
Personalized Earbuds Enable Music To Get Buff By
It is not just T-shirts, jewellery, shoes, and watches that are creating new opportunities for firms that offer online personalizing services. The German company Accusta is now offering custom-fit earbuds on its website, which are particularly good if you want to listen to your own tunes when working out at the gym, training for marathons, or going for a long bike ride.
It looks like there are a lot of other people out there that can't listen to MP3 or CD players in sporting mode because the little earbuds keep falling out or they hurt after a while - and we thought we were the ony ones with non-standard acoustic organs.
Accusta sells a kit that lets customers make a mold of their ears, which it then uses to fabricate customized earbuds in one of several colours.
It then integrates the bud with either a Sennheuser (€149), an Eartec (€299) or a Creative (€169) earpiece.
All images from Accusta.de
Posted at 08:38 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
July 08, 2006
Globes For Global Players
With VC going global, we're wondering who will be first, Sequoia, Apax Partners, or 3i, to get themselves one of these futurific-looking globes. Prices start at €60K.
The technology was developed by a US firm, ARC Science, which has started to license the tech to value added resellers. One of them, Globocess in Germany, is pumping up its marketing efforts here.
It sells three different sized acrylic spheres, equipped with 2 DLP-projectors (with 12,000 Ansi Lumen intensity), the geo-data, and other related software to go with it.
Since the sphere works a lot like a computer display, the appearance is configurable. A VC, or a shipping magnate, or a multinational chipmaker can respectively pinpoint their portfolio firms, ships, or factories and have them displayed on their globe. Integration of weather data, location data from GPS systems, and WiFi are also supported.
Read - Die Welt zu Gast in der Kugel (n24 online news)
Posted at 05:21 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
June 23, 2006
Push OK With Thumb
Russian design firm Art Lebedev says it is a thrill to push the OK button with your thumb, not the cursor
We like to check in to Art Lebedev's website every once in a while to see what wierd and wonderful things they've come up. The Orbiculus line of thumbtacks are printed with “Cancel”, “Play”, “Save”, “Yes” and are available in Russian or English.
