February 9, 2010

Zinwave secures backing to expand manufacturing

Cambridge startup Zinwave has raised an additional round of funding for its wideband in-building antenna system.

The investment, from Catapult Venture Managers, joins a syndicate of SEB Venture Capital, Atlas Venture and Scottish Equity Partners, and will be used to boost manufacturing throughput following the successful expansion into the US and Asia during 2009 with a rapid growth rate and uptake in these regions.

Zinwave will continue to expand sales in these regions, as well as gaining market penetration in the key area of Middle East.

Continue reading "Zinwave secures backing to expand manufacturing" »

Tags:

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on February 9, 2010 12:00 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 26, 2010

Nanotech startup signs $1.4m 3D touchscreen deal

qtc_particle_image 175.jpgNanotech material developer Peratech has signed a $1.4m licensing deal with one of the world's largest manufacturers of touch screen technology.

The licensing agreement gives Nissha of Japan exclusive worldwide rights to use Peratech's Quantum Tunnelling Composites (QTC) for touch screens with 3D input on mobile phones and portable electronic devices for an initial period of 1 year.

Continue reading "Nanotech startup signs $1.4m 3D touchscreen deal " »

Tags:

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on January 26, 2010 9:42 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 20, 2010

FlatFrog raises €12.5m to commercialise its optics-based multi-touch technology

FlatFrog Laboratories, a startup in Lund, Sweden, developing optics-based multi-touch kits and subsystems, has raised $18m to commercialise its technology with the backing of a UK company.

This investment round was co-led by Blackburn-based Promethean, a specialist in the rapidly growing global market for interactive learning technologies, and Invus, an international equity investor. They join existing Copenhagen-based venture capital investor Sunstone Capital.

Continue reading "FlatFrog raises €12.5m to commercialise its optics-based multi-touch technology" »

Tags:

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on January 20, 2010 11:31 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 19, 2010

Foreign firms overtake US in patent battle

Foreign companies are filing more patents in the US than home-grown companies, according to the latest figures from IFI Patent Intelligence. This is only the second time that this has happened, with 51% of applications in 2009 coming form outside the US.

Semiconductors and communications hardware remain the driving force in US patents, with 15,000 applications last year out of a total up 6% to 167,350. Bio drugs and biotechnology are relatively small, with 2,700 patents issued, up 17 percent and 1 percent respectively over the previous year.

Continue reading "Foreign firms overtake US in patent battle" »

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on January 19, 2010 1:59 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 11, 2010

The return of Plessey

The stalwart of the UK chip industry, Plessey Semiconductors, has been resurrected as a startup by a team of engineers from Swindon and Plymouth on the back of the existing fab plant, acquired from German company X-Fab.

The semiconductor manufacturing facility in Roborough currently produces eight-inch wafers for external customers in a foundry business model on 0.35-micron CMOS process technologies.

Continue reading "The return of Plessey" »

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on January 11, 2010 11:15 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 8, 2010

UK startups shine at CES

CES shot.jpgThis year's Consumer Electronics show has seen the emergence of the first products from some of the UK's longest running startups. Plastic Logic and Light Blue Optics (LBO), both in Cambridge, have raised substantial sums of money to get to this point of launching, if not shipping, products.  

Plastic Logic was founded in 2000 out of the Cavendish labs at Cambridge, and has raised over $200m over the last decade to develop plastic screen technology and build the factory for it in Dresden. The QUE proReader, one of the many e-readers launched at CES this year will ship in April, at a relatively high cost of $649 to $799, but should be lighter and more robust than other readers.

Continue reading "UK startups shine at CES " »

Tags:

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on January 8, 2010 1:08 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 6, 2009

London Technology Fund Competition 2009 winners announced

ltfc.jpg
The winners of this year's London Technology Fund Competition have been announced.

The competition is an opportunity for "young London-based technology companies" to win a share of up to £1m of investment and over £100,000 worth of training and advice, and have the opportunity to meet major technology corporates.

Headlines are that Trojantec won the Grand Prix, Juice Technology and BView for won sector awards, and Novacem won the Environment Award.

Continue reading "London Technology Fund Competition 2009 winners announced" »

Tags:

Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on November 6, 2009 1:11 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 11, 2009

GPS Applications #6: SkyMap for Android

  starmap.pngWhen I first saw the headline on this blog posting: "SkyMap for Android", my immediate reaction was that Google had created the computer that took over the World in the Terminator movies. However, it turns out that that was Skynet, so I guess we're safe for now. (Google will do it one day! Just wait and see!)

 

SkyMap on Android measures the location of the phone using GPS and also senses its orientation in 3-dimensions using a magnetometer and accelerometer. Based on the direction the phone is pointing it then shows a map of the sky, showing the stars that you are looking at. This is pretty cool, but will it inspire a new generation of budding astronomers? Probably not ... it's another cool toy for us to play with for a while until we get bored and move on to the next one. 

Continue reading "GPS Applications #6: SkyMap for Android" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on June 11, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 4, 2009

GPS Applications #5 (again): Geotagging

After my story last week about cycling through Fairfax, Virginia (here) somebody commented that they thought it particularly sad that I carry around scans of photos from 19 years ago on my laptop.

 

Well, the truth is actually a lot worse than that! I am building a complete digital database of photos from the day I was born. Most of my photos from 1998 onwards have been taken on a digital camera (I'm an early-adopter); the preceding 29 years, however, are something of a larger project, involving scanning photos in different formats from multiple different sources. I gave up doing the actual scanning myself pretty quickly - discovering that there are perfectly reasonable services available that do it for you - but simply collecting the photos is proving a bigger task than I'd anticipated.

Continue reading "GPS Applications #5 (again): Geotagging" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on June 4, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 28, 2009

GPS Applications #5: Geotagging

Fairfax fire department.jpg Last week I stayed in a hotel in Fairfax, Virginia, about 15 miles out of Washington DC.

 

It's an innocuous town, but wandering about the place I had a strange sense of deja-vu. It took me a little while to realize, but I had been there before, almost 20 years previously.

 

In 1990 I set off on a bicycle from Capitol Hill with a group of my fellow students, and just over six weeks later arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge, (unrecognisably fitter and more tanned than I will ever be again. I can't believe the photo's are really me!) Fairfax was our first stop out of DC, and the local fire department had laid-on refreshments in anticipation of our arrival.

Continue reading "GPS Applications #5: Geotagging" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on May 28, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 21, 2009

GPS Applications #4: Location-enhanced high-scores

flight control.png

There are already some pretty sophisticated location-based gaming concepts, and this is an area that will undoubtedly get a lot more sophisticated, so I expect I'll be posting more about this in future. In the meantime, here is a really simple example.

 

Last night I downloaded "Flight Control" from the App Store on my iPod Touch. This is a very simple, but oddly compelling game. (Even so, I can't say I'd recommend it for whiling away the hours on a long-haul flight ... every game inevitably ends with a plane crash!)

Continue reading "GPS Applications #4: Location-enhanced high-scores" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on May 21, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 17, 2009

Air On Air

BBC Radio 4's "In Business" programme with Peter Day spot-lit the industry emerging around location technologies this week. In 30 minutes the programme could not hope to cover every angle, but it's a pretty good cross-section and worth a listen if you're interested in Location. It should be available here for many weeks.

 

Needless to say, Air gets a mention! Listen-out for my contribution starting about 12 minutes into the broadcast. Apart from some description of the business, I'm glad they also edited-in my comments about the role of marketing in innovation, which is a theme I first picked-up on this blog, here.

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on May 17, 2009 7:07 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 4, 2009

Location privacy issues

I am often asked if I am concerned that the rise in location based services threatens the privacy of users. I wrote a short article on this subject a few months ago which you can read in the November edition of Geoconnexion International.

 

GPS is increasingly appearing in cellphones and services using the location of the phone are become progressively more sophisticated. This raises the concern that users may lose control of their location information. Just as the internet massively accelerated the spread and malevolence of computer viruses; and e-commerce gave rise to new and efficient methods of identity theft; so the transmission of location information may stimulate a new generation of cyber-crimes.

Continue reading "Location privacy issues" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on May 4, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 30, 2009

Starting-Up #5.5: Location, location, location - part 3

marvin_the_paranoid_android.jpg When we powered-on our FPGA-based GPS prototype for the first time a year or so ago, the cooling fans spun-up and a gentle hum was heard from the power supply. The tension in the room was palpable as it crunched through it's first ever location calculation and spat-out coordinates into Google Earth. The globe rotated on the PC screen and zoomed-in ... to the western Atlantic, somewhere close to Barbados.

 

We had developed the World's first machine capable of wishful-thinking.

Continue reading "Starting-Up #5.5: Location, location, location - part 3" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on April 30, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 28, 2009

Starting-Up #5: Location, location, location - part 2

I am convinced that the UK is the best place in Europe for a technology start-up. Even in a credit crunch we have better access to capital; less restrictive employment legislation; a large pool of world-class technology talent; and a more entrepreneurial and innovative spirit than anywhere else in Europe.

 

However, when Freescale's East Kilbride plant finally closes it will mark the end of an era in the UK as pretty much the last major fab is decommissioned.

Continue reading "Starting-Up #5: Location, location, location - part 2" »

Tags:

Posted by Stephen Graham on April 28, 2009 9:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Go back to ElectronicsWeekly.com

Subscribe

RSS Subscribe to this blog's feed

About the author

Nick Flaherty has been covering technology and startups since 1990 and is based in Bristol, where he co-founded the SiliconSouthWest network. During that time he has worked for most of the electronics magazines and newspapers in the UK and several in Europe and the US, covering all areas of the industry. He blogs at The Embedded blog and Portable Multimedia and at www.flaherty.co.uk.

Search


Tag cloud

Archives

Latest News from EW.com

Blog Roll

 

Electronics Weekly Blogs