CrunchGear

CrunchGear

Link to CrunchGear

Tech Tour: Cambridge Innovation Center

Posted: 06 Mar 2010 05:00 AM PST

Located at the MIT-owned One Broadway Street building in Kendall Square, Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) houses more than 175 companies in over 100,000 square feet of office space and prices everything per person, so smaller companies can add more space as they grow. There are no long-term leases, either–it's all month to month.

I had a chance to take a tour with Cambridge Innovation Center CEO Tim Rowe. The CIC website says that pricing varies and "a good rule of thumb is that the price range is between $790 and $1000 per month per person." I soon found out that there are more affordable options available, and that there are plenty of nice extras included in the price.

There's a Google-like abundance of free food, coffee, and tea, and CIC even retains one of Google's massage therapists (massages aren't free, but CIC doesn't mark up the prices). Internet access is also free, backed by an "enterprise-class Wi-Fi solution" (dual-band, 802.11n) from Ruckus Wireless.

"The kitchens are for everybody," said Rowe. "Everything's included, it's free. There's Dove bars in the freezer, the produce is all organic, there's sparkling water, espresso, whatever. You're gonna work, you should be comfortable, you should be happy. You should just chill and enjoy yourself. The hope is that if you're enjoying yourself you'll be more productive."

True to the startup spirit, there are showering rooms. So bike to work, shower, pull an all-nighter, shower, and repeat. There's also a nursing room for mothers with newborns.

"We have people on eight floors and we just had a groundbreaking the other day with the governor and the president of MIT for another 57,000 square feet of space, so there's going to be a lot more startups here," said Rowe.

"We've got shower rooms, a massage therapy room, we're putting in a ping pong room in the new space. Basically just like you would have in your own office, except you don't actually need the ping pong room all the time if you're one startup and you don't really want to pay for that space, so if you could share that cost with a lot of other people that's better. That's the model here."

"We have spaces for little companies. These are basically one-person companies," said Rowe, motioning to a bank of smaller offices. "So you get one desk, locked file cabinet, and a phone. This is a lot cheaper, like $500 a month, and when you get bigger you might move into a bigger office at around $750 per desk per month."

I asked Rowe if they take anyone or if there's some sort of vetting process. He replied, "We take essentially anyone. If there was an integrity issue or something like that, then that would be a problem but we don't have a 'we have to like your startup' kind of thing."

"We also have this little section called Flex Space," Rowe continued, "It's $375 a month and you have a phone here and a mailing address here, but you can only work here one day a week. So it's for someone who might be in a lab at MIT and they're starting a business while they're at the university. You can't legally have your company in a lab at MIT. It has to have its own outside address, and if you're not careful with that then MIT can assert that it owns everything that your company has. You definitely want to have someplace where you can say, 'Oh, I actually have an office here. That's where I made that." So that's what the Flex Space is for."

Some tiny company called Linden Lab has a huge office here. They're working on something called Second Life. I don't think it'll take off, but that's just me. Ha!

Rowe explained, "One of the things they do in this office is, literally, the weather—the rippling of the waves, the clouds in the sky, stuff like that. It's very high tech. And they're usually having a ball in there."

Other current and former companies include Ambient Devices, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Atlantic Ventures, Carbonite, Conduit Labs, Hubspot, GreatPoint Energy, and plenty more. CIC-affiliated companies have raised over a billion dollars in the past ten years.

Plenty of venture capital companies rent office space in the CIC, so startups are always in pretty close proximity to the types of people they're trying to woo.

"We have venture funds here," said Rowe. "This is the conference room for New Atlantic Ventures—full disclosure, I have a part time venture partner with this fund. You can check them out on The Funded, it's the number one ranked venture fund in the country."

"How much funding has gone into the companies here?" I asked.

"We've tracked about $1.1 billion worth of venture funds going into the companies here so far," replied Rowe.

"And how much of that funding comes from venture funds working in this building?" I asked.

"It's surprisingly small," answered Rowe. "I would say, like, five percent of that. The venture funds that are based here invest everywhere, not just here. And lots of venture funds elsewhere invest here. That's the way we like it. If you're a startup, you want to go to anybody for funding. And if you're a VC, you're going to invest in whatever the things are that you particularly like, not just things that happen to be down the hall."

"There are multiple competing VCs here. In fact, we have office hours here for various VC funds. Over the next 12 weeks we're going to have 12 different funds—one each week—doing their office hours here. So it's what you'd expect. It's a very open platform. Anybody can talk to anybody. We're opening the office hours to the public during the window of time when those are happening, which is Thursdays 2PM to 5PM. We're not making it really public, we're not advertising it or anything, but we're tweeting it so people who are in the venture community and want to run into other entrepreneurs know that this is where it's happening."

For those who aren't quite to the we-need-an-office stage yet but are tired of working from home and coffee shops, CIC just opened the Cambridge Coworking Center. For $250 per month, you have access to just about everything the CIC has to offer except a private desk, landline, and physical mailbox.

Said Rowe, "This is C3, the Cambridge Coworking Center. It's part of us. It's a different model. As you can see here, you have your little cubby. It's $250 a month, so it's half the price of what you saw upstairs. It's kind of like a library/reading room feel. There's no phone on the desks, so you're going to use your cell phone which most of us do anyway. There's no mailing address. It's not about pretending to be here when you're not, this is actually 'I want to go somewhere to work,' and by stripping some of those pieces out it makes it cheaper for us, and we're able to offer it for a price that's unbelievably low compared to what people would normally expect."

"I would say that the reason people come here is mostly for community," continued Rowe. "If you're working out of your house, it's an isolating experience. Starbucks is an interesting alternative, but it's a different group of people every time—what they call a third place. It's not home, it's not work, it's a place which is intentionally to be around random people. But the second place—the work place—what it's distinguished by is a consistent group of other people. So you get there in the morning you're like, 'Hey, how are you doing? How are the kids? I heard you went skiing last weekend,' that kind of stuff. You don't get that at Starbucks because it's not a consistent group of people.

"And it's very loud," I said.

"It's loud and you feel like you're taking up a table and you're not really supposed to be working there all the time. You're supposed to be working here and it comes with the free coffee. If you do the math on what it costs you to work consistently out of cafes over the course of a month, it's probably about the same cost as it is here."

Cambridge Innovation Center [cictr.com]

The Road Train: taking drafting to a whole new level

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 08:31 PM PST

So we all know that drafting increases fuel efficiency. Heck, I even saw an episode of MythBusters where they proved that following a semi suicidally close will increase your mileage dramatically. Of course, drafting is dangerous, stupid, and the risk vs. reward just isn’t there. Well, what if it was? Scientists in Europe are working on a system that would make drafting safe. Get ready to ride the road train.

The concept is this: have one vehicle leading (the engine if you will) and the other cars following behind electronically tethered together. When a vehicle wants to leave, the driver disengages the system, pulls out of the line, and the car behind pulls forward and fills the empty spot. If someone new wants to join the line, they simple pull up behind the last vehicle and engage the system. They are currently testing a system to Europe to make this a reality, using sensors and professional drivers to drive the leader cars. Once you engage the system, automated controls would take over and you relinquish control completely until you reach your destination.

[via Treehugger]

Ballmer hints that new Xbox styles may be coming

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 07:30 PM PST

And lo, from the Ballmer came the words, and the words were about the Xbox, and they did ponder the words as to what they meant. And then the idle speculation started, and people started posting stuff on the internet, and it just got silly. But judging from (and speculating from) some comments that Ballmer said at a recent UW speech, there’s a pretty good chance that there may be some new kinds of Xboxen coming to your television.

Again, this is speculation drawn from an off the cuff comment from a crazy man, but the basic idea is Microsoft hasn’t completely bailed on the idea of creating an Xbox designed strictly for media, ala’ AppleTV. Here’s what was actually said:

“In the case of the TV we’ve got both strategies. We actually have a TV implementation in some senses built into Windows,” Ballmer said. “It works really well for small screen TVs that you might call a PC, but for that big screen device here’s a piece of hardware that we build, there’s no diversity. You get exactly the Xboxes that we build for you. We may have more form factors in the future that are designed for various price points and options, but we think it’s going to [be] important.”

Of course, does this mean anything? Probably not, but it’s Friday afternoon on a slow news day, and we all need something to talk about right?

[Via Gearlog

It’s Spring rebate season for Canon

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 07:00 PM PST


If you’re thinking of putting down some bread for a new Canon lens, be sure to avail yourself of the various rebates in effect. Not that you’ll save more than $50 on a purchase of like a grand, but hey, that’s a couple filters or a lens bag right there. That 85mm 1.2L II is calling out my name — too bad I’m shaking change out of my old pants for ramen money right now. I guess it’ll have to wait until my ship comes in, or until I can flip these 20 MacBooks I… bought at a discount over in Jersey. Yes.

Here are the full ads:

These go into effect on Sunday. If you’re a Nikon guy, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered too.

[via Canon Rumors]

Review: Bubble Talk

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 06:00 PM PST


At the Toy Fair this year I picked up a game from TechnoSource called Bubble Talk. I rarely write about many board games mostly because I always equate them with a story my buddy Lou told us about his ex-girlfriend. Regardless, a good boardgame like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne are always fun to play of an evening.

So what is Bubble Talk? Well, it’s sort of like the first LOLCat game in the whole universe. Each player (minimum of three players) takes a set of cards containing funny captions (“This is going to leave a mark,” “I need your W-2s and 1099s if you have them,” etc.). You draw a picture card – usually stock photos of animals and people in potentially funny situations – and one person acts as a judge. The rest of the players slap down the caption cards, trying to pick the funniest caption or bubble. The judge chooses one and the winner collects the photo. The one with five photos wins.

It sounds kind of dumb but if you have enough people – and the right kind of sense of humor – it’s great. We made a drinking game of it last weekend (we mostly just drank and played) and had a blast.

The game will be available in a few months from TechnoSource and is really worth picking up. It’s a great party game (provided the party is fairly small) and, as dopey as it sounds, it’s actually quite fun.

Photo grabbed from BoardGameGeek

Where are all the PS3s?

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 04:30 PM PST

So this is odd. In reading up on Final Fantasy XIII, I decided to see how much it would cost to buy a PS3 and the game. The system is all but sold out all over the Internet! It’s backordered on Newegg, GameStop, and Best Buy (partially), and can be found on Amazon for quite the mark-up—there’s no way I’m paying $370 for the 120GB SKU. Did the Sony factory lose power or something, or is Final Fantasy XIII that big of a system-seller?


Let’s talk about Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 04:00 PM PST

Most of your friendly neighborhood CrunchGear writers have played Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for at least a little bit. We have different opinions about the game, but I think we all like it to a degree. I bought it for two reason: the Eurogamer review was glowing, and I wanted to support Modern Warfare 2’s most direct competitor. Genres grow stale when one game/publisher so utterly dominates it, so $50 EA’s way hopefully will go toward keeping the FPS genre as fresh as it can be. I mean, there’s but so many ways you can make “put-cursor-over-man’s-face-and-left-click” before you’re like, “Man, I’m bored, let’s go bowling.”

Like I said, I bought the game primarily to support Modern Warfare 2’s most direct competitor; I don’t want to live in a world where the only successful FPS in one that includes laughably over-the-top dialogue and such grasping at straws as No Russian. It was a protest purchase if nothing else. Yes, I’m that crazy. Long-time readers know this by now.

As it turns out, though, whoa! The game isn’t half-bad at all. I’ve only played about an hour or so of the single-player campaign—the PC multi-player servers were all messed up last night, so I couldn’t jump in—but I already like it more than Modern Warfare 2’s. The weird thing is, the single-player mode is, well, not an afterthought, but certainly not the game’s main draw. So if I’m this satisfied with the single-player, imagine how I’ll feel when I actually jump into multi-player! The game also looks better than Activision’s, almost as good as Crysis, I’d say. (Note: Edge magazine has a big preview of Crysis 2 in this month’s issue, and I do believe we’ll get to play that game in a month or so, so hooray for us!)

Matt Burns, on the other hand, is still a Modern Warfare 2 mark. “Blah blah, this and that, yada yada, nonsense.” He actually said that! He also said, “So far Modern Warfare 2’s single-player is better than Battlefield’s.” Matt also likes the Detroit Lions, so I wouldn’t trust what he says.

Greg Kumparak, of MobileCrunch fame, said he’s “not hooked, but also really tired of single player FPS.” This is true. After this game, I cannot see myself purchasing another FPS for a long while, unless Valve surprises us with Half-Life 2: Episode Three. I wouldn’t hold my breathe over that one, though.

There wasn’t really a point to this post, no. Just a sorta, “hey, we all like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to a degree, maybe you will, too.” If you have the big bucks, the game also works with Nvidia’s 3D vision.

The game I’m about to sink the next big amount of time into? Napoleon: Total War. He’s easily the greatest person in the history of history.


A video preview MW2’s upcoming map pack leaks out way early

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 03:30 PM PST

There’s a new Modern Warfare 2 map pack coming this Spring, kids. The map pack, possible dubbed Stimulus Package, comes with five maps, with two of them being classic COD4 maps. Curious what they’re going to look like? You better hurry up and click through for the video preview hosted be Vimeo. Activision already pulled the YouTube version.

Dost thou love tires? Then do not squander tires, for that is the stuff homemade shoes are made of

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 03:00 PM PST


Craft has instructions for making your own retro shoes from an old tire and a pair of jeans. While I don’t think these will hold up to the heavy duty running I do (at least two miles a year), they might be a fun weekend project for those so inclined.

The question, however is whether you can find unburnt tires in your corner of the apocalyptic hellscape that you would need to live in in order to decide to make your own shoes.

A few years ago a friend of mine brought me to a little town in Mexico to see the Tarahumara race. The Tarahumara are an indigenous people who live in a massive canyon and run incredible distances in sandals, called huaraches, made from old car tires. When I tried to wear a pair of these homemade huaraches, the straps chaffed the top of my feet and pulled at my leg hairs as I walked. It was terrible. But I still wanted to wear shoes made from old car tires and other upcycled materials. So I decided to make a homemade running shoe, similar to the type of shoes Bill Bowerman made for Steve Prefontaine — the original Nikes.

Facebook campaign demands Portugal soccer team rock mustaches for the World Cup

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 02:30 PM PST

Most social media campaigns stink on ice. I think the one exception to that ironclad fact was the recent I’m With Coco meme, which I’m not even sure you could call a social media campaign. This one, though, this one totally is. It’s called “Queremos
a Selecção de Bigode no Mundial!” It’s a growing movement to get the entire Portuguese national soccer team to grow mustaches for the World Cup. I’ve taken to calling the movement the Portuguese Mustache Federation, which, conveniently enough, doubles as a fantastic indie rock band name.

The movement began on Facebook with the founding of the group. Right now (as of 2:30pm EST), the group has 1,788 members. Portugal’s population is only around 10 million, so this group represents a huge portion of the Portuguese people.

The goal is simple: every single player on the team, from captain Cristiano Ronaldo right down to old man Nuno Gomes, is requested to grow a mustache, or bigode in Portuguese, for good luck during the big tournament. Let’s face it: the Portuguese team only barely qualified for the World Cup, and I can’t think of the last Portuguese player to rock a ’stache. Not even the manager, Carlos Queiroz, is man enough to let the whiskers fly.

Soccer is more known for people with dodgy haircuts rather than dodgy facial hair. Off the top of my head, crazy hair includes Carlos Valderrama, David Luiz, Florent Malouda, and Ronaldo. Why, Ronaldo, why?

All these people need now is a fun Twitter hash-tag (QSBM? PortStache?) and they’re golden.


Video: Latest Gran Turismo 5 trailer shows off something called Nascar

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 02:00 PM PST

Hmm, Nascar… it’s a bit too Southern for my latte-drinking, North-eastern tendencies, but if Yamauchi deems it worthy of Gran Turismo! So behold, the latest trailer of the game.

Gran Turismo 5 is currently scheduled to come out in the year 2027 sometime this year.


Oh look, a video review of Final Fantasy XIII from GameSpot

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 01:30 PM PST

GameSpot just published a video review of Final Fantasy XIII. It’s the first review of the localized version of the game (at least I think it is!), so I’m putting it up here. Let’s watch it.

I mean, I’ll get the game regardless of the review. Square Enix could a complete piece of junk and I’d still buy it at this point.

I will say: did the reviewer have a charisma removal surgery? Put some personality in your voice, for Pete’s sake.


Patriot shows off a monster 40 SSD-equipped computer

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 01:00 PM PST

Say what you will, but $60k seems like a fair price for such a beast. Patroit recorded 155,000 IOPS/s on the computer. I ran the same test on my 5400 RPM notebook drive and got 401. Just think, you wouldn’t have to wait for file transfers anymore, game levels would load nearly instantly, and Windows would boot faster than Chrome OS. (maybe) But then again it costs more than most a convertible Corvette and you might not like the type of ladies the computer attracts. [TechPowerUp via PCLaunches]

The Thomas Prescher floating tourbillon

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 12:30 PM PST


What can you do to make the tourbillon even more precious? How about you skeletonize it until it is completely hidden in the bezel? This amazing one-off piece was made by Thomas Prescher and that little wheel in the middle there is the tourbillon mounted balance wheel. It is wound by the spinning of that flat plate on the bottom and the dials display the date. The time appears on the cylinders on the top and the ball is a three dimensional moon-phase register.

Seriously. Don’t even ask how much this costs. It’s probably not for sale and it would probably explode on your first trip to Costco. This is truly an art watch.

The Courier rides again! New shots of Microsoft’s “digital journal”

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 12:15 PM PST


Ever since we saw those first leaked shots and videos of Microsoft’s Courier, we’ve all been itching for more. I personally thought it was particularly wonderful, and was dismayed when they decided to show off a lackluster Windows 7 tablet at CES. I’ve asked about the Courier at very nearly every Microsoft event I’ve gone to, and asked all my contacts to keep their ears to the ground… but Engadget, damn their eyes, got to them first! Well, I’m just happy to see my baby again.

The real surprise here is the size; I’m not sure exactly what size I thought it was from the previous demos, but the sizes quoted are that each half is about 5×7″, making the whole thing about 10×7″… or almost exactly the size of the iPad. Now, I can’t be the only one that thinks it would be nice to be able to fold my iPad in half and put it in my pocket. Oh, and it weighs just over a pound. Want?

It was in vain for us to speculate on what the little thing ran before, since it was a totally custom interface, but I think Microsoft has decided that it’s better to make it a “big small device” rather than a “small big device.” You understand? They’re not shrinking a Windows 7 tablet, they’re making something new driven by a Tegra 2, which actually puts it ahead of the iPad in terms of processing power. The dual input (touch/stylus) I think is also a bonus, though of course Apple seems to have the market cornered on really nice touchscreens, so we’ll have to wait and see how it actually responds. Depending on the resolution, handwriting might be weird, too. Again, until we have a hands-on, it’s hard to say.

They’re saying a late-2010 release. I’m liking the form factor for an e-book reader, but it might get in the way of the creative aspirations of next-generation bookmakers. Either way I’m sold on this thing right now. More shots and video (most of which you’ve seen, but still) over at Engadget.

Sony files patent for degradable video game demo

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 12:00 PM PST

Sonyhas filed a patent for a new type of video game demo that’s worth mentioning here. Rather than your typical demo, where they give you level to mess around with, they essentially give you the whole game. As you play the demo, the game “disappears.”

So, let’s say you’re playing a racing game demo—you have all the cars and tracks available to your. After one race, now you only have half the number of cars and tracks to select from. After the next race, half that number, and so on.

Neat, right? One thing that could be an issue, today’s demos are typically fairly small in size, so if these new demos are to includes much more content, that would increase the size of the download. That might be an issue if you have a smaller hard drive, or slower Internet connection, but otherwise, yeah, let’s beat the beat up.

Sir, we who are about to enter sixth grade salute you

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 11:49 AM PST


Yesss. [via Reddit]

Germany’s 1st 3D broadcast happens next week. It’s a soccer match, as it should be.

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 11:30 AM PST

I need to move to Europe for several reasons, but the one that’s relevant right now? 3D broadcasts of top-tier football (“soccer”) leagues. Sky Deutschland has announced that it will broadcast the March 14 match between Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburg (that’s the second place team versus the fourth place team). Lucky devils.

To view the broadcast in 3D glory—I use the term “glory” lightly since 3D TV is still sorta “meh,” based on what I saw at CES in January—you’ll obviosuly need a 3D-capable TV, and those things cost an arm and a leg.

Sky is also putting together some sort of invite-only viewing party in Munich. In attendence will be Franz Beckenbauer, a former German soccer player. He was so good he was nicknamed Der Kaiser.

Don’t forget that ESPN will also broadcast at least one World Cup game in 3D this year. Since I’m not made of money, there’s zero chance I’ll be able to view it, but if any of you are investment bankers I will more than happily invite myself to your house to watch the game in 3D.


The Samsung 650TS is a gigantic e-board

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 11:00 AM PST


As part of a “digital classroom” roadshow currently underway in Germany, Samsung is showing off it’s new “e-board”. This e-board, in 65″ and 82″ sizes, is a really interesting convergence of e-book reader, smartboard, and classroom display solution. In addition to typical smartboard functionality, it can also display the desktop of a connected PC or laptop, as well as display contents from Samsung ebook readers using their new “emoLink” technology.

There’s a write-up in German for those who can read that fine language (or who can suffer through a Google translation). A video introduction, again in German, is presented here for your edification.



Expect pricing to be around 9,000 euro. That’s more than $12K USD, which is far from cheap, but the new functionality should open some interesting new possibilities in classrooms.

Thanks Johannes for the tip!

HTC: Don’t put the Nexus One in your hipster jeans

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:47 AM PST

The wording in the headline may not be, you know, exactly what HTC said – but it might as well be.

After the folks over at Crave UK woke up to a broken screen — which they swear isn’t their fault, as the device had just been sitting on a desk charging — full of inky purple rage on their Nexus One , they shot a call over to HTC support. After investigating the device, HTC sent back a response: they were stumped.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)