Tag: innovation

Changing Health Care

In politics, every serious candidate for the White House has a health care plan. So too in business, where the 2 leading candidates for Web supremacy, Google and Microsoft, are working up their plans to improve the nation’s health care. By combining better Internet search tools, the vast resources of the Web and online personal health records, both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care.

industries that stop fighting the internet and embrace it offer vastly superior services. so it will be with these hidebound guys.

Virgin America

Much of the suck you’re familiar with on other domestic airlines is absent, and there are a lot of nice little details that add up to a pleasant, smart experience. For instance: no harsh lighting. Cabin interior feels like a big happy iPod. White round plastic edges, metal surfaces and black mesh stowaway dividers. Sleek without feeling cold.

is there hope for airlines? maybe

Collaborative Mapping business models

Let’s start by fast forwarding to a future where we have economically successful collaborative maps. Then from there we can look back and see how we might get there, what tipping points would be involved. it is possible to decouple the function of ‘ownership’ of a set of geospatial data from the functions that are needed for its upkeep. Indeed such a decoupling could easily lead to a more efficient market around the upkeep of the data. One thing we neglected to mention as well is that a collaborative map opens up the potential for non ‘expert’ contributors to do valuable work, as long as the structure is set up to minimize vandalism and the like.

Open Spectrum

We believe that the winning bidders should be required to adhere to enforceable rules that require the adoption of 4 types of “open” platforms:
Open applications: consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content, or services they desire;
Open devices: consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
Open services: third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and
Open networks: third parties (like internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at a technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee’s wireless network.

Parochial Innovation

One of the most ridiculous assertions to come from the (angels on the panel) was that the only place in the world where you could innovate and raise capital (for innovation) is Northern California. I’m not even going to bother wasting my breath deconstructing this idiotic and parochial worldview

There is a certain irony in the lack of innovation in the financing of innovation, don’t you think?