500 Startups has invested an undiscosed amount in AQUSH, a peer to peer lending service, based in Japan. This is 500 Startups fourth investment in an Asian-based company.
Google Instant for mobile launched late Thursday, after first word of this service came out in September. The automatically populating search results are available on both iPhone and Android-based devices. It will work the same was as Google Instant on a standard web browsers.
RediLearning raised $1.75 million from angel investors. The company, which is a Florida startup, works on delivering continuing education coursework to nurses, therapists and other senior care health workers.
Wrightspeed raised $5 million, in its series A of funding. The money came from a private investor, who was not named at this time. The San Jose based company made the worlds fastest, street legal, electric car.
China has joined the Linux Foundation as a Gold Member. Their state run mobile service, known as China Mobile, is bringing 570 million subscribers to the Linux Foundation.
Netgear launched 13 new products. They are aimed at both consumers and small businesses. The products include are all designed to help users hook TVs up to the web. Others help users to store collections of TV shows and movies.
DeNA announced its earnings. It's quarterly revenue totaled $336 million. The represented an increase of 216%, when compared to the second quarter of last year. DeNA is a social game maker.
Lamebook is suing suing Facebook. Lamebook is a Facebook parody site, that allows users submit funny status updates and pictures from Facebook. The company is suing Facebook over trademark infringement, in search of a summary judgement, for legal protection under the first amendment, as a parody site.
It will complete and submit forms, and integrate with state benefit systems
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Steven Loeb
The bill would require a report on how these industries use AI to valuate homes and underwrite loans
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Steven Loeb
The artists wrote an open letter accusing OpenAI of misleading and using them
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Steven Loeb
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
At the dawn of the energy age, there is increasing interest in minimizing the amount of oil used for personal transportation. With recent and ongoing advances in battery technology, the electric car is making a comeback. With 3 times the energy efficiency of the best hybrids (4 times better than fuel-cell vehicles), and the ability to use energy from any source via the existing grid, electric cars probably are the long-term solution. But oil is still relatively cheap, and batteries are still expensive. When the rising curve of oil price crosses the falling curve of battery price, there will be a mass market for electric vehicles. In advance of that market, we at Wrightspeed are developing advanced electric drivesystem technology, and making use of an interesting property of electric drivesystems: there’s no tradeoff between performance and efficiency. Internal combustion engine (ICE) cars have an intrinsic conflict: if they are built for performance, they are thirsty; if they are built for efficiency, they are slow. This is not the case for electric cars. Our Wrightspeed X1 prototype is faster than anything available except the Bugatti Veyron, yet it returns 170mpg equivalent in city driving. If we reduced the power to one quarter of the current power, the car would be correspondingly slower – but it would be no more efficient. This means we can design and build and sell very interesting cars – extremely fast cars – without compromising energy efficiency. The drivesystem technology we develop can be applied to other vehicles in the future, as economics permit. If reduction in fuel consumption is the goal, it would be better to replace 10mpg cars with 20mpg cars, than to replace 50 mpg cars with 100mpg cars. 5 times better. Counter-intuitive? Here’s the arithmetic. The 10mpg car uses 10 gallons to go 100 miles. The 20 mpg car uses 5: a saving of 5 gallons. The 50 mpg car uses only 2 gallons for 100 miles, so replacing it with a 100mpg car only saves one gallon. The fuel consumption problem is not that the current hybrid cars only get 50 mpg. That’s not where the fuel is going. Look around you on the freeway, and count the 10-15mpg cars. That’s where the fuel is going. If we can replace a 10mpg car with an electric car, at roughly 100mpg well-wheels equivalent, we save 9 times as much fuel per mile than if we replace the 50mpg hybrid commuter car. At Wrightspeed, we will do exactly that, starting with extreme performance supercars. And the improvements we are making in electric drivesystems raise the performance driving experience to a new level. Faster, more fun, and safer. We expect that some of these enhancements will eventually find their way into all cars.
