Austin-based HomeAway, the world’s largest online marketplace for vacation rentals, filed a lawsuit Monday against the city and county of San Francisco seeking to stop the city from enforcing a new short term rental law. HomeAway claims the law discriminates against second home owners and non-resident individuals advertising short-term rentals, and gives Airbnb, based in […]
HomeAway Sues San Francisco to Stop the Enforcement of a Short-Term Rental Law
RideScout Expands to San Francisco
RideScout, an app that helps people find transportation, announced it is expanding to the San Francisco area. The Austin-based company has also recently expanded its coverage to include “Sidecar, Silvercar, Muni, BART, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, AC Transit, Blue & Gold Fleet, Baylink Ferry and SamTrans — along with Flywheel, City CarShare, Bay Area Bike […]
FBI Busts $1.2 Billion Silk Road Illegal Online Marketplace with Ties to Austin
By LAURA LOREK Founder of Silicon Hills News The crazy tale of Ross William Ulbricht, also known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” after a masked fictional character in the movie “The Princess Bride,” sounds like a HBO series on a renegade Internet entrepreneur gone wrong. Ulbricht, 29, allegedly operated the Silk Road, a sprawling $1.2 billion […]
Austin Ranks #5 on Richard Florida’s List of Top High Tech U.S. Cities
In 2006, Richard Florida visited San Antonio and spoke at the Texas Lyceum Conference. I covered the conference for the local newspaper. Florida made quite an impression on me. I thought he understood the high-tech workforce better than anyone. And at a time when everyone focused on globalization and a mobile workforce, Florida’s message was […]
SceneTap sparks controversy in San Francisco
SceneTap launched in several Austin bars last January and no one seemed to care all that much. But at that time, Cole Harper, SceneTap’s CEO, wanted to make sure that we reported correctly on his company’s facial detection technology. He wanted people to know that it does not record identities and merely reports on how […]
Rackspace opens its San Francisco office today
Rackspace Hosting, which started out as a small venture in San Antonio in 1998 has since developed into a global corporation with nearly 4,000 employees. I’ve covered the company since its early days. So it’s really thrilling to watch it launch a San Francisco office near the heart of Silicon Valley. Graham Weston, chairman of […]