Category: Austin (Page 248 of 318)

In a move that further focuses Dell on data centers, the company announced it has opened its Evergreen Innovation Center.
The center will work on developing new technologies for data centers. Dell makes a modular data center for eBay that has been named one of the most energy efficient in the country.
Dell and eBay created the Project Mercury data center that looks like a shipping container that sits on the roof of eBay’s building in Phoenix, Arizona.
“At Project Mercury alone, we have been able to achieve unprecedented results. For example, at this site, in one of the hottest states in the US, we have been able to realize a minimum of 76% of the power being used going directly toward computers doing their work. In some cases we have even been able to get that number to more than 95%,” according to eBay.
That’s phenomenal in an industry where data centers gobble up energy just to keep the computer servers and other equipment cool. The industry average is 57 percent of the energy in a data center actually going toward computing power, according to eBay.
Both Dell and eBay are looking at ways to further increase the efficiency of data centers and that will be a main focus on the new innovations center.
“The innovation center will enable Dell and eBay to investigate every aspect of the data center – from the CPU to cooling methodologies – in order to solve efficiency challenges and uncover new opportunities for optimization,” according to Dell.

By LAURA LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News

Without patent reform, Living Direct might have to file for bankruptcy, said Mark Baker, its general counsel.
The online retailer, founded in 2000 now has 60 employees, and faces multiple “patent troll” lawsuits which threaten to drain it of all of its cash, Baker told a seven-person panel Thursday morning meeting on patent reform at HomeAway’s headquarters in downtown Austin.
“As soon as we were listed as one of the fastest growing retailers in the country, we became the target of eight trolls,” he said.
And it’s not just Living Direct, the problem is endemic to online retailers, software companies and others in the technology industry.
Julie Huls, president of the Austin Technology Council, moderated the panel with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Johnathan Greenberg, general counsel of Freescale, Ross Buhrdorf, chief technology officer of HomeAway, Josh Baer, chief innovation officer of Return Path and co-founder of Capital Factory, Alan Schoenbaum, general counsel of Rackspace Hosting and Derek Willis, general counsel of Volusion.
Sen. Cornyn listened to stories of Texas technology companies struggling to deal with patent trolls, which are businesses that largely exist simply to extort payments from companies for meaningless patents.
“This is a threat not only to the innovation these businesses create but also to our prosperity and our economy,” Cornyn said.
One of the sectors of the economy that offers the most opportunities for growth is the technology industry and patent trolls threaten those companies ability to innovate, he said.
Patent trolls don’t create businesses, they destroy them by extorting money from companies that are creating innovative products and services and employing people.
Nothing is easy to pass in Congress these days, but if there’s something that would garner bi-partisan support, Cornyn said, he hopes it’s patent reform. He requested that the technology companies send their stories to his office to help with illustrating the need for patent reform.
Right now, the Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013 is currently pending. It seeks to reduce abuse in patent litigation while still protecting legitimate businesses that have patents on innovations they seek to protect.
“I’m very optimistic it’s going to pass,” said Schoenbaum, general counsel with Rackspace Hosting in San Antonio.
Patent trolls can go after just about anyone with a frivolous lawsuit, Schoenbaum said.
“Everyone in this room is probably infringing on a patent right now and they don’t know it,” he said.
Recently, Rackspace got hit with a patent infringement lawsuit from a patent troll seeking to enforce a patent on the ability to flip a smartphone, such as an iPhone or Android device, from horizontal to vertical. The company was called “Rotatable” and had just one asset, the patent.
“Ninety percent of our litigation costs is spent on patent trolls,” Schoenbaum said.
When he called the company to inquire about the lawsuit, they offered to settle the patent infringement case for $75,000, Schoenbaum said. The whole goal of patent trolls is to extract a little bit of money from a lot of people, he said.
Abusive patent litigation results, in part, from the threat of the cost of discovery in a lawsuit. That’s why companies often settle the frivolous claims to avoid the cost of litigation. But the Patent Abuse Reduction Act would make those bringing the lawsuit bear more of the cost of litigation.
The reform legislation would also adopt a “loser-pays” scheme in which parties that bring unjustified and unreasonable claims face the possibility, if they lose, of having to pay for the other side’s litigation costs.
Willis, general counsel of Volusion, said the company has 400 employees in Austin and 40,000 customers.
“With that growth, we’ve become a bigger target,” he said.
Patent trolls have sued Volusion three times in the last year, he said.
“It’s an incredible drain on our cash,” he said. “It’s an incredible distraction for our management team.”
Baer, chief innovation officer for Return Path and co-founder of Capital Factory, said that in dealing with small startup companies, they tend not to think about politics and lawsuits.
With a technology startup, Capital Factory gives them $20,000 in startup funding and they’ve got to decide whether to spend $10,000 on filing a patent.
“None of it makes any sense,” Baer said. “Really it’s just shutting everything down.”
Patents were started to spur innovation but with software stuff, it just doesn’t make any sense, Baer said.
In his role at Return Path, with 400 employees, Baer said the company has been hit with three patent troll lawsuits.
“We spend millions of dollars a year defending them,” he said.
During the panel discussion, Greenberg, senior vice president and general counsel of Freescale, recommended that startups and small businesses be exempt from patent lawsuits.
In remarks following the panel meeting, Sen. Cornyn said that’s currently not part of the patent reform legislation, but it’s something that should be considered.
Patent trolls are a threat because they “hurt consumers ultimately by denying them access to products and services that will make their lives easier,” Sen. Cornyn said.
The patent trolls don’t have a business other than going after litigation with businesses, said Buhrdorf, chief technology officer with HomeAway.
Patent trolls stifle innovation, he said.
“It’s stifling jobs,” he said.
HomeAway spends millions of dollars every year paying ransom to trolls or on defending baseless lawsuits, Buhrdorf said.
Freescale does derive a lot of revenue from licensing its patents and innovations to others, said Greenberg. So he cautioned Sen. Cornyn not to make true innovators pay for the sins of the patent trolls.
“The voice of the true innovators need to be heard,” he said.
“Just making it harder for anyone to enforce a patent, makes it harder for true innovators like Freescale and IBM,” Greenberg said.

In response to Mark Baker’s comments, this note was sent from Living Direct: “During a recent panel discussing the significant problem of patent trolling, our general counsel made comments that were not accurate and were overstated to make a point about the severity of this issue. Our business is strong and our finances are healthy. We strongly support Senator Cornyn’s efforts and look forward to working with him and Congress on this critical issue for American innovation.”

Wisegate, an IT research service, announced Wednesday that is has raised $3 million in funding.
The Austin-based company also appointed Jamie Lewis, former Burton Group CEO, to its board of directors.
“We are seeing tremendous momentum on all fronts of the company,” Sara Gates, Founder and CEO of Wisegate, said in a news release. “Wisegate is extending its leadership position in IT research innovation because we offer something unique in the market. This was strongly validated by a group of investors who see that Wisegate is addressing critical issues that are of great concern to today’s technology leaders.”
The Central Texas Angel Network along with investors from the Atlanta Technology Angels and Cowtown Angel Network invested the $3 million into Wisegate, which officially launched in December of 2011. The company plans to use the money to hire more IT professionals and further develop its products.

Bloomfire has raised $2 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing.
The Austin-based company closed on $8 million in funding in March from founding partners Austin Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.
The latest funding comes from Silver Creek Ventures, according to TechCrunch.
Since its founding in 2010, Bloomfire, which makes content sharing software for companies, has raised $20 million.

By Ian Panchèvre
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
With more than 91 percent of smartphone owners taking a mobile photo at least once a month, it’s no secret that as the Internet continues to shift towards mobile, so does consumer photography.
One San Antonio entrepreneur, Jim Drought III, recognized this trend and spotted an opportunity. However, rather than jumping into a noisy market with the next “revolutionary” photo-sharing app, Drought wanted to cater to a growing population of casual, mobile photographers with a printing service.
It was a natural connection for Drought, the owner of Signs of San Antonio, a local print shop, to make.
“We live in an increasingly mobile world and I started to think that we could ship prints anywhere. Instead of being geographically limited to San Antonio, an app could give us a broader reach,” noted Drought.
Moreover, advances in mobile cameras have allowed for higher photo and print quality. For example, the iPhone 4 carries a 5-megapixel rear camera, whereas the iPhone 5 boasts an 8-megapixel rear camera. Looking towards the future, many iPhone speculators predict a 12-megapixel camera on the device’s next generation.
Accordingly, “the resolution is getting larger and larger which translates to larger and larger prints,” explains Drought.
Excited about the prospects of an app that would allow users to order large prints of their mobile photos, Drought was less eager to fork out tens of thousands of dollars for development, or even worse, work with an unreliable contractor.
“I was less inclined to hire someone and more inclined to form a partnership,” continues Drought.

And that’s where sixteen-year-old Canzhi Ye comes in.
Ye is a junior at Reagan High School. He’s on the swim team, plays piano in the orchestra, competes in academic trivia contests… Oh, and he also makes iPhone apps.
Ye became interested in mobile development at the age of thirteen, when his mother bought an iPod Touch. Ye was fascinated by the apps and, with the help of books and online resources, challenged himself to build a few of them.
Ye’s first app, A+ FlashCards, allows users to create flashcard quizzes for studying. His second app, Easy Typing, offers a larger keyboard to help those that struggle with the size of the iPhone’s native keyboard.
Then tragedy struck.
When Ye was fourteen a major earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown rocked Japan, where Ye lived when he was younger.
“I decided I could help by donating some of the money from my app proceeds to the relief effort,” explains Ye.
After raising nearly $500 for the Red Cross, Ye was dubbed a “software whiz kid” when his generosity caught the attention of the San Antonio Express-News.
A year later, Ye received an unexpected email from Drought.
Drought found the Express-News article and wanted to pitch his concept to Ye, in hopes that the two could form a partnership. Ye was interested and he agreed to a meeting at Signs of San Antonio.
Comically, Ye’s father had to drop his son off at his first business meeting. Ye had just turned sixteen and had not yet received his drivers license.
Shortly thereafter, the two founded Rectangle LLC, which owns Rectangle App and in turn contracts Signs of San Antonio for its printing services.
After months of development, Rectangle for iPhone soft-launched on April 2, 2013.
Rectangle allows users to upload photos from either their iPhone’s camera reel or Instagram. A simple and friendly interface makes it easy for users to then order large prints – ranging from 9”x12” to 24”x32” – or Pictoblocks – acrylic blocks with a photo mounted on the back.
The end result? Your mobile photos are printed on premium, glossy photographic paper and then delivered straight to your home. Unlike other printing-oriented applications, Rectangle specializes in large prints. Moreover, “the entire process for placing an order is done through the app,” notes Ye.
To build Rectangle, Ye had to overcome unfamiliar technical challenges such as file uploading and payment processing.
Ye also baked some nifty intelligence into the app. Rectangle automatically checks the photo’s resolution to guarantee that the prints will be high quality. If your photos were taken on an older iPhone or have been cropped down, the app will restrict the available sizes to print at a sufficient resolution.
Since its initial release, Rectangle has processed more than 100 print orders.
Ye explains that the soft-launch period has allowed Rectangle to test the entire process for “receiving the order, processing, printing and shipping it out.” And with the recent release of version 1.0.2, Rectangle is now ready to actively market the application.
Moving forward, Rectangle plans on releasing a series of updates that will introduce Facebook integration, panoramic prints, and other print options such as decals.
Rectangle is also considering developing an Android app and is exploring potential uses of the technology in corporate settings.
Rectangle is available for free download in the iPhone App store.

Monday marks the 10th anniversary of WordPress, the website hosting software, which has become a popular publishing platform.
WordPress now powers one in seven websites, and 58 percent of all content management systems.
In fact, 66 million websites worldwide use WordPress including Silicon Hills News, TechCrunch, TED and CNN.
Austin and San Antonio WordPress Meetup Groups both plan to host parties on Monday to celebrate the anniversary. ZippyKid in San Antonio and WPEngine in Austin are both dedicated WordPress Hosting startups.
And last weekend, a record crowd of 450 people turned out Saturday to the Austin Baptist Church Campus to attend WordCamp Austin 2013, a fitting location for devotees of the WordPress publishing platform.
Harrison Funk, a professional photographer, volunteered to shoot pictures at WordCamp Austin. Funk served the late Michael Jackson’s personal photographer and has photographed top celebrities and leaders like President Obama and Nelson Mandela.
“This is my first opportunity to connect with Austin and I love it,” Funk said.
He plans to switch his photo site HarrisonFunk.com to the WordPress platform soon.
“I’m learning a lot here,” he said. “I have met the most amazing people here. Brilliant techies and wonderful business people.”
The conference, geared to all levels of WordPress users, has grown from 100 attendees three years ago to 250 last year and 450 this year, said Sandi Chevalier-Batik, one of its organizers. They also held a developers-only conference on Sunday at Capital Factory.
The Austin WordPress Meetup Group, with more than 1,500 members, the seventh largest in the world, organized the WordCamp Austin event, which was run by volunteers. Chevalier-Batik doesn’t think the sold-out Wordcamp Austin event will get much bigger because she doesn’t want it to lose the one on one interaction between the experts and those who need help.
“I think we are so blessed to have so many top level developers who still want to spend time with the newbies,” Chevalier-Batik said. The WordPress Austin community involves people, who have developed top-level skills, giving back to others who are still learning, she said.

Joshua Baer, co-founder of Capital Factory in Austin, is joining 500 Startups’ Geeks on a Plane Tour, which departs June 1st for Asia.
Geeks On a Plane, organized by 500 Startups, puts a whole bunch of powerful tech entrepreneurs on a plane to travel to different countries to learn about their culture and explore new business opportunities.
The trip is an invite-only tour aimed at startups, investors and executives.
“We travel by planes, trains, and automobiles to the most exciting international startup scenes with the sole mission of uniting geeks and exploring cross-border opportunities,” according to Geeks On a Plane. “The result: a lifelong bond with fellow travelers, a wealth of new friends and business contacts in exploding technology markets, and a stronger appreciation for the cultural and economic ties that bind us globally.”
Bear will be travelling with a group to Southeast Asia and will visit Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Thailand.
The program’s goals are to introduce the travelers to other startups, geeks and investors in cities around the world and for everyone to learn about new technology trends and new markets, meet cool people and have fun.

Datical has raised $1 million in financing, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Datical, which was founded in 2012, develops database management software. It was launched by local entrepreneurs Robert Reeves, Daniel Nelson and Pete Pickerill. The trio’s previous business, Phurnace Software Inc., was acquired in 2009 by Houston-based BMC Software Inc.” according to the San Antonio Business Journal, which broke the news.
Last July, Datical raised $700,000 according to a story that Lori Hawkins wrote in the Austin American Statesman.
At that time, investors included “Austin Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures of Silicon Valley, DFJ Mercury, based in Houston and Austin investor John Hime,” according to the Statesman story.

Will astronauts be eating 3-D printed pizza on Mars?
That might not be as far fetched as it sounds.
NASA has contacted with Systems & Materials Research Corp. to explore using a 3D printer to create diner on space missions.
NASA has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract worth $125,000 to the Austin-based company.
“This food printing technology may result in a phase II study, which still will be several years from being tested on an actual space flight,” according to NASA.
NASA needs a better food supply to attempt a mission to mars, which would require food with a five-year shelf life.
“Additionally, the current space food is selected before astronauts ever leave the ground and crew members don’t have the ability to personalize recipes or really prepare foods themselves,” according to NASA. “Over long duration missions, a variety of acceptable food is critical to ensure crew members continue to eat adequate amounts of food, and consequently, get the nutrients they need to maintain their health and performance.”
The 3-D Printing movement has just begun to take hold in the U.S. as the printers have become cheaper and the technology more precise.
“The 3D printing component will deliver macronutrients (starch, protein, and fat), structure, and texture while the ink jet will deliver micronutrients, flavor, and smell,” according to Systems & Materials Research’s proposal.