start-up

At Cleantech Open, less is more

This year's Cleantech Open 2010 Business Competition winner, announced last week, is Puralytics, a company developing photochemical water purification products.

Since 2006, the Cleantech Open has offered a venue for competition among green tech start-up companies looking for funding. Winning alumni of the contest include Cool Earth Solar, Green Volts, and Micromidas.

This year's winner, Puralytics, is an Oregon-based start-up that uses natural sunlight or LED lighting as the catalysts to remove pathogens, petrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals from waste water. Its processes under development have applications for both industrial manufacturing facilities and small rural communities. Puralytics will receive $250,… Read more

Facebook acquired start-up assets for mail overhaul

It wasn't revealed during Monday's announcement, but it turns out that Facebook's big "it's not e-mail" messaging overhaul involved one of the talent acquisitions that the company has become known for lately.

On Oct. 8, a start-up called Zenbe announced that it had shut down its Zenbe Mail e-mail product. CNET heard from a source last month that the reason was that Facebook had acquired part of Zenbe's intellectual property and brought some of the start-up's employees on board, but the deal was not clear at the time and neither Facebook nor … Read more

Ex-Yahoos, plus Jerry Yang, in new Morado Ventures fund

A new $10 million micro-venture fund led by former Yahoo top engineering exec Ash Patel--called Morado Ventures and funded by a group largely made up of ex-Yahoos--is about to launch, according to sources close to the situation.

Expected limited partners in Morado, which means "purple" in Spanish, include former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, former COO Dan Rosensweig, and former advertising sales head Greg Coleman. Ex-Yahoo President Sue Decker is also considering investing, said sources.

Purple, of course, is Yahoo's color.

Interestingly enough, the fund--which has not officially closed yet--is also likely to include Yahoo's two founders … Read more

A Path the world isn't meant to see

SAN FRANCISCO--The offices of Path float 40 stories above the city in one of the upper floors of a residential tower just a block away from the waterfront, where the hallmarks of a young start-up--fridges of Red Bull, whiteboards awash in colorful scribbles, the glow of massive Mac desktop monitors--colonize what would normally be coveted apartment space for one of San Francisco's most financially fortunate. There's a balcony with sweeping views of the Bay Bridge and the waters underneath, where on this sunny fall afternoon a lone kayaker in a bright-orange craft flits around uncomfortably close to industrial … Read more

Start-ups strut their stuff at Demo Fall 2010 (roundup)

A-list venture capitalists and journalists flock to the high-tech conference to see what's buzz-worthy from the confab's start-up companies.

LinkedIn CEO: 99 percent of profiles are active LinkedIn is competing in an increasingly crowded market of social profile sites, including basic social networks like Facebook, but are users keeping their professional profiles as updated as they do on their personal pages? The company says yes. (Posted in Web Crawler by Josh Lowensohn) September 15, 2010 5:02 p.m. PDT

Square producing 10,000 card readers a day The up and coming payment network Square, famously started by … Read more

Former Sun CEO tries anew with health start-up

Jonathan Schwartz, the chief executive who sold Sun Microsystems to Oracle, is once again in charge of a company, a start-up called Picture of Health for the time being.

Schwartz wasn't very forthcoming about the nature of the start-up, saying on his personal blog Thursday little specifically besides that "We're focusing on the intersection of innovation and public health."

Schwartz gradually ascended through Sun's ranks from its 1996 acquisition of his last start-up, Lighthouse Design, through replacing Sun co-founder Scott McNealy as CEO in 2006. However, He wasn't able to restore Sun's fortunes, … Read more

Amazon experts launch private-cloud start-up

Two men who led one element of Amazon.com's successful cloud-computing services have launched their own a start-up called Nimbula to focus on a private version of the technology.

Cloud computing takes several forms, but Amazon Web Services generally delivers building blocks available over the Internet that developers can use to construct their own higher-level services. Nimbula, in contrast, focuses more on a "private cloud" approach geared for companies building their own computing services based on a similar but in-house approach.… Read more

Former Google CIO back with book, start-up

Who better to show people how to handle information in the digital era than a former Google chief information officer?

Douglas Merrill, Google's CIO until leaving in 2008 to steer EMI Music's digital unit, is raising his profile again a year after leaving the record label. He's written a book that he says can help people improve their cognitive skills and he's also founded a new start-up.

Merrill is the co-author of "Getting Organized in the Google Era," a book that offers advice to people who wish to improve their memories and sharpen their … Read more

Inspired by bugs, start-up seeks night vision

LONDON--Every researcher from Isaac Newton on knows well the advantages of seeing farther by standing on the shoulders of giants. Some Swedish researchers, though, are seeing better by standing on the shoulders of tropical bees.

A Swedish start-up called NocturnalVision wants to help cameras see in the dark better. To do so, it took inspiration from Megalopta genalis, the bee, and other insects active at night, Henrik Malm, a professor at Sweden-based Lund University and co-founder of the start-up, said in a talk at the Image Sensors Europe conference here.

The researchers are working to address a common problem with … Read more