20 Tech Ideas VCs Want to Fund 170
An anonymous reader writes "CNNMoney reports on the top 20 technology ideas that our beloved VCs want to throw money at. Are these the brilliant ideas that will change the world (and make you rich in the process)?" From the article: "Delivery of new types of Web search to mobile phones. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are all taking a swipe at this, but Rimer believes they're betting on a losing strategy by simply shrinking their existing desktop features into a handheld package. He says he's willing to invest in new search applications that, for example, depend as much on voice recognition as on text input and would offer up everything from shopping and news headlines to driving directions and restaurant reviews with a few voice commands and keystrokes ... What he'll invest: $2 million for a working demo application."
Limited in scope and vision... (Score:5, Interesting)
This of course is a major problem as the US has historically relied upon federal funding to help develop the real cutting edge stuff, yet federal funding for basic science research is being cut dramatically in favor of applied research. So, we now run the risk of losing out on our technological advantage from both traditional government funding and now private funding. (notable exceptions for a number of philanthropists such as Paul Allen, Bill Gates, John Moran and others).
It's harder for VCs to find basic science research projects that have a significant payoff, but the projects are out there. We're banking on our technology and approaches to an area of bioscience and metabolomics to pay off in a variety of spaces from agronomics to medicine, drug development, defense and nutrition among many other applications, but I've found most VCs to be remarkably limited in their approach preferring to focus only on the short term, 1-3 years, rather than the 5-6 necessary for many projects. Its an old story, but focusing on the short term is a good business model where you invest 50% of the capital (or less) for 70-80% of the profits only after 80% of the work has been done. Unfortunately, you miss out on prospects for real impact by focusing on the next marketing tool rather than the next disease cure.
Re:Limited in scope and vision... (Score:5, Insightful)
Think how much Linux is benefiting from things like desktop interface improvements - it's not cutting edge amazing ideas, but it does have value. The same thing applies in business.
Really the right place for basic research is in the public domain where the stakes are high and the rewards few and far between. It makes the search for groundbreaking ideas more efficient because people can trade information with no fear or losing out on millions.
This also means that the basic research is then available to businesses who can add *their* value in turning it into something usable for the rest of us... along with another bunch of businesses ensuring that competition brings it's benefits to bear. To look back at the Linux analogy, this is essentially how we are seeing the Open Source model turn out high quality at low cost - the research is all public, and the refinements to make it accessable are driven by people who want to sell it.
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Which is exactly what we are doing, by taking technology from a variety of sources (computer science, remote sensing, immunology, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, optics and mechanics) and making something of it that tells us more about biology and biological processes.
Really the right place for basic research is in the public domain where the stakes are high and the rewards few and far between. It makes the s
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And so he should. The reward is probably limited and the risk is enourmous, plus if fundamental changes are discovered then it's better for everyone if it's in the public domain.
This kind of thing should be done via university/academic funding or pu
Re:Limited in scope and vision... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are 100% correct. Just a nit to pick: it's not just the US - it's everyone. Profit-driven business are - generally - too constrained by the need to increase shareholder value RIGHT NOW to take on large, speculative research projects, so it falls to governments to spur advances in this sector.
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> And venture capitalists are supposed to be the people filling the niche between the two [...]
They fill -a- niche, but it's not necessarily between the gov't and corporate funding. I'd venture (ha!) a guess that large corporate interests pay for lots more basic research than VCs.
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That's a good point.
As for Goddard, well
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If they were betting on a sure (or nearly sure) thing, they'd be ordinary investors instead of VCs.
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Sure, and I am all for this. The only problem is that since so many of them are focused on the very short term, they miss the larger picture (and larger profits). For example, I recently met with a VC group and the first thing they started doing was trying to figure out how to profit *immediately* by breaking the technology up into little bits that they could then se
The reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Like in number t
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The (non-software) engineering world has been fragmented by differing, non-interchangeable data formats over the past 30 years. This hurts not only the end owners of the files but also those who wish to learn or obtain employment in the field (eg, "good designer but no knowledge of program X that *we* use? Sorry")
That's retarded! (Score:4, Insightful)
So drivers can read email while driving.
That's just fucking retarded. People have trouble driving while "reading" the road and traffic conditions. Why split their concentration any more?
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As opposed as I am to any... (Score:1)
Re:As opposed as I am to any... (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but a heads-up display is the wrong answer to the wrong question. What we need is a transparent backlight with an LCD windshield (or an OLED windshield). I'll explain.
With an LCD windshield, coupled with a sufficiently advanced computer and external cameras, the car could use overlay boxes to alert the driver to potential hazards. For example, it could alert the driver to pedestrians standing beside the road, large animals beside the road, police motorcycles sitting in the bushes, etc. All of these things represent potential traffic hazards, as any of these things could suddenly go from being beside the road to being on it very quickly. (I know that law enforcement would hate this because of the reduced ability to set up speed traps, but the improvement in overall safety is hard to dismiss, and might even make speed limits less critical except in inclement weather.)
Even better. by combining it with cameras in the car to measure the position of the driver's head, since the entire windshield (and, ideally, the side windows) would be LCD panels, you could do other things like darkening a small portion of the panel so that the sun is reduced in brightness to a more manageable level on a bright, sunny day. Ditto for overly bright car headlights, the light bridges on police cars when they park next to road construction (yeah, like being distracted by bright, flashing lights is going to make me drive BETTER!?!), and so on.
Finally, this would be one step towards having fully automated driving. As the reliability of external threat detection improves, it will eventually evolve to the point that people don't actually have to touch the wheel except in the event of a computer failure. That's many years down the road, but you have to crawl before you can run.
Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that a heads-up display isn't a good idea for reducing driver distraction. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But any such technology should be combined with what I'm describing here to maximize driver safety FIRST, then reduce distraction as a side effect.
BSOD (Score:2, Insightful)
>With an LCD windshield, coupled with a sufficiently advanced computer and external cameras
Hmmmm... One crash (computer) could lead to another (car) and a new definition of Blue Screen Of Death.Re: (Score:2)
Have you seen some OLED demo videos? The substrate is clear with the used portions emitting light. Similar effect to the standard mirrored HUD.
I doubt the OP is suggesting we just mount a 24 inch standard LCD monitor to the dash to obstruct our view.
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What we really need is to stop making cars more and more high tech and intelligent and surrogates to the driver's abilities and start pushing forward with Personal Rapid Transit. There's no reason for passengers to have to steer just to keep on the "rail". There isn't any reason to pump AI into the vehicle to keep it on the track. Highways are *not* scaleable because of the 2.5 meter footprint of each lane. Cars cause more problems than they solve an
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Also very true. I've been advocating such a thing for years. However, short of a massive federal government project to build out a network of interconnecting rail lines, I don't see that changing any time soon. Also, roads are very efficient at a local level, as a rail-based system cannot climb steep grades. The fundamental flaw in rail-based schemes is that it ignores the fact that long distance travel doesn't lend itself to a few centralized stops. You'll have to drive somewhere to get on, and for th
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My "spherical chickens in a vacuum", i.e., ideal, hypothesis is that this thing should be shopped out to the companies it invalidates: gas stations, auto s
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I'm sorry Dave (Score:2)
I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you drive down that gravel road. I might get chipped, and not in a good way.
I, for one, welcome our cracked $10,000 LCD windshield overlords...
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It's a really dumb idea right off the bat. Some VCs clearly have more money than sense.
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You may just [slashdot.org] get what [slashdot.org] you want [slashdot.org].
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Of course if we get a winner at DARPA Urban Grand Challenge 2007, this might be a moot point by 2015 when most new cars have their own automated driving systems.
Of course this would make the inboard dash device a pointless thing because if you don't need to pay attention to driving then you could just use a regular laptop on the road.
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It may have one advantage though. Maybe people would stop bringing their cellphones with them to places like the movies.
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You can't split their concentration -- it's already split. They're going to do this stupid shit whether you think it's a good idea or not. They already do.
The question is: do you want their concentration to be split between the road and something superimposed on the road, or between the road and a little screen in their hand? It's going to happen, so you might as well minimize the suckage.
Dont uhh you need internet..? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Dont uhh you need internet..? (Says who?) (Score:4, Informative)
Who says you need internet access on your phone for this? Those are the types of assumptions that hinder innovation. Couldn't you do some kind of query/response to a server somewhere? One of the things that always seems kind of obvious AFTER some kind of innovation is what assumptions were thought about in a different way. Think of the problem, and how it could be solved, without getting caught up in what already exists. That is just one way to do it, obviously another is to try and use what already exists. But all ways should be looked at to solve problems.
It's like looking back on the comments around flying before airplanes where they thought it was impossible because things were too heavy, so they tried to make things really light in order to fly. That is why I love the "50,100, 150 years ago" section in Scientific American magazine. It is really interesting to read the thoughts on science from those time periods. Sometimes it is amazing at how forward-thinking they were, and sometimes it is funny to see how far off they were.
Always look at your assumptions, and consider how to eliminate them if they are hindering your solution. Like Google's recent comments on PC power supplies (a href=http://informationweek.com/hardware/showArti
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I realize most major carriers offer broadband, which is overpriced junk.
Once mobile carriers are giving 512kbit+ lines for low prices w/ out restrictions (ie. ethernet or some other port on the phone where you can plug any web capable device into it for an instant connection) and no bandwidth limits will mobile internet finally pick up.
Eventually it needs
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$20 a month? Are you kidding me? Don't you have free WiFi most anywhere you go?
T-Mobile's SDA and MDA smartphones both have WiFi connectivity (as well as EDGE, if you choose to pay $30/month for it).
Incomplete List (Score:2, Funny)
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paperless office
three-day work week
house under water (although I have come close to this)
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You know that little drain plug in the back of your boat? You're supposed to put that in before you put the boat in the water. Just a tip, don't bother to thank me.
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A new database? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hot tip to VC... if you really want to do something with a database, pick one of the existing "flyweight" OS databases and put together a sales and support organization... don't reinvent the wheel.
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Investing cash to recreate the same product with a different name is asking for trouble unless the designer(s) involved have a proven track record (like multi-millions worth of track record)...which is pointless if said designer(s) are already successful because they don't ne
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My basic problems with SQL:
Poor aliasing rules: I frequently have to repeat a bunch of code from the SELECT clause in the WHERE, GROUP BY, and/or ORDER BY clauses because aliases declared in the SELECT aren't visible in the others. A single ALIAS clause (or maybe one for table names and one for fields) that all the rest used would be much better.
No support for multi-stage
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I do always give the column name. However, it's still tricky if you're inserting a lot of expressions (rather than simple fields) or the source table has markedly different field names from the destination table.
Insert Into MyTable (Field1, Field2, Field3, Field4, Field5, Field6, Field7)
Select Field1, 'Dave''s credit card', AccountNumber, Minutes / 60, Field5, 23, '
No, not A new database? RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
It specifically said:
Just because you the poster failed to read that last word does not mean you get to then say what he wants as if it was your idea,and slam him for not thinking it. Mods, please take appropriate action regarding parent post.
That said, your idea is a paltry imitation of his. He wants more than a sales organization. He wants a company that can take on the big boys on their own turf: big database work. That means application support that goes beyond the little stuff done by most (all?) current DB smaller companies.
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Seriously, it would be good to have a professional sales and support organization for one of these databases... although you could argue that MySQL and Postgre (and ? others) DO have good support organizations.
Real question is: (Score:1)
Dash.net is already doing the in car computer ... (Score:1)
With real-time traffic updates, navigation, and information feeds ...
http://www.dash.net/ [dash.net]
Rocket
Vulture Capital (Score:4, Interesting)
They may change the world and the certainly will make somebody rich if they do succeed, but that person will probably NOT be the poor developer or inventor who came up with the idea in the first place. They don't call it "vulture capital" for nothing you know. If the idea or invention is a spectacular success then the inventor may receive some millions after the financiers have received their billions. Remember what happened to the inventor of the blue LED...there is a lesson to be learned there.
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What a dile
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What's a VC? (Score:2)
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New here, then?
This should entertain you: Slashdot mod problems, and suggested solutions [slashdot.org].
There are no dumb questions... (Score:2)
Anyway, "VC" can be:
"Venture Captialist" - someone who fronts money to startup companies or other risky ventures in the hope that their idea will hit big and the VC will reap a huge reward; or
"Victoria Cross" - the highest Commonwealth award for valour in the face of the enemy; or
"Viet Cong" - the insergent wing of the North Vietnamese Army, active in South Vietnam during the Vietnam war.
DG
Yet Another Database? Arglefarkle!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Draper thinks there's an opening for a startup that can deliver most of the benefits of standard Big Blue products without millions of lines of code or an army of consultants and IT managers. "I'm not sure yet what this company would look like," Draper says, "but it would not have the technology baggage of the entrenched monopolists. If it can penetrate the market cleverly like we did with Hotmail and Skype, it might not take that much funding."
What he'll invest: $3 million for a working application
And if the folks at Postgres are smart, they've just found a way to add $3MM to their foundation funds with a simple email...
Kidding aside, one thing that _would_ be interesting to see--high-quality, moderate cost OLAP analytics engines, preferably running ROLAP on top of an engine such as PostgreSQL. Maybe they're out there, but I don't see much of them (other than Mondrian). As the commercial OLAP market is structured now, it's hard for midsize companies to justify the outflow for decent analytics. No lack of demand though, just need something at the right price point...
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Not the smallest, but not millions of lines either.
Interestingly enough, mysql 4.1.21 is a lot larger, with 875,095 lines.
SQLite is 74,317 lines, although it's a rather crappy datab
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Very interesting. The question is, from the point of view of the VC, what does "light" mean.
For instance, I had a need for some database functionality in our image processing product. Handling EXIF fields and general (and unpredictable) other records for a thumbnail database that could be any size based on filesystem limits. I wrote a database system that supports the subset of SQL that I needed (create, insert, delete, undelete, pack, update, select) in about 20k (bytes, not lines. 860 lines.) No exter
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My own experience along similar lines involved a software package that made SQL queries for a read-only database (on a CD-ROM no less), and I end
Oh, dear (Score:2)
Am I really the only person who feels like an idiot when I have to talk to a computer?
Let's set so double the killer delete select all. (Score:2)
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"Here I am, brain the size of a planet..."
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That's just because voice recognition technology sucks right now.
A hundred years ago, you'd look like an idiot for talking to a small lump of plastic attached to the wall by a curly cord. Once the technology matures, everyone will get used to it, and you'll use it without even thinking about it.
Moo (Score:1)
Maybe he'll support my idea of dragging Arctic ice to the Sahara desert.
Spam Crashes (Score:2)
This fool wants to pay people to put email in the hands of people driving down the road. These are people who can't drive their giant SUVs already, read signs, use their signals. He thinks putting their Blackberries in a virtual page on the rear end of the car in front will be safe, not just make them tailgate even more.
Combining the
Travel 2.0 - being done (Score:2)
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In terms of offering "a greater variety of services" - that's our long-term goal. We have a SOA platform that allows us to easily integrate
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Hey big spenders! (Score:4, Insightful)
What they'll invest: $5 million for a deeply qualified 20-person team to deliver a prototype and a plan for pitching a commercial version to automakers within three years
Gee, a whole $5 million for a DEEPLY QUALIFIED 20 PERSON TEAM FOR 3 YEARS. LOL.
Apparently, on-shore development teams need not apply.
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Assume 30% employment overhead for each staffer, plus 10% risk of doing business (short-term work), plus costs for a development environment (location and equipment).
What I think they're essentially looking for is a university development environment, not a strictly commercial organization.
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No, dude, you don't get it (Score:2)
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A Brave New World...of advertising (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a lot of technology-gone-horribly-wrong scenarios; the one that leaves me in a cold sweat is inescapable advertising.
Souls Wanted (Score:2)
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It doesn't have to be that bad. These people want a product; make sure that's all they get. No one says you have to sell your soul — at least, not yet. If the terms aren't acceptable, walk.
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My experience is that most people who don't directly understand the costs of software development underestimate the actual cost of development by only willing to pay about 5%-10% of the real world cost, especially if you are talking a full l
Wanted: Long lasting lithium battery (Score:2)
Text Spam (Score:2)
>Text-messaging software that allows local merchants to send offers to mobile phones. Some companies already do this in basic form; Moldow's idea would give merchants more control.
Just Fucking Great... text message spam. It's hard to think of a suitable response to this that isn't a felony.Some thoughts (Score:2)
The web-based spreadsheet thing sounds downright easy. What is the catch? Someone's willing to spend $5 million on a project that a typical student could probably implement (at least in a rough form) in a week? I don't get it.
The HUDs on autos is a good idea. Complain about safety all you want, but the fact is, mitigating distractions is the best you can do. The People have already spoken and demanded that the distractions exist -- look around for drivers talking on their phones if you don't believe m
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I did although honestly it wasn't really that far out from Ultima Online so really it was already on it's way. I had friends who played MUDs and were simply addicted to them. I played too but I just couldn't get around reading all that text. I got my characters to level cap but didn't quit because it was how I kept in contact with my high-school friends during
(free internet, 28kbps WOOT! - man, I'm old). (Score:2)
But of course, we know you're not *really* old until you used the original nam shub sneakernet with Sumerian clay tablets...man, Slashdot is the best
Thoughts (Score:2)
That should be easy enough. Rip the GUI off openoffice and build a web-based front-end.
The eBay of Product Placement
The only trick to this one is building a tech-driven company when everything except the hollywood exec insider contacts are a commodity. Put a hollywood exec in charge and he'll foul it up the same way the airline execs fouled up their spare parts auction company. I don't want to say they're stupid, so let me instead say that they're "not the right kind of smart."
Number 20 (Score:2, Interesting)
$5 million for a working game or site that shows MMO growth potential. "It's so hard to predict what will take off," Gurley says, "that it's easier to pay more for something that's further along."
I've thought about this type of thing for a long time. There are several open source gaming engines out there, including fully functioning, community driven, MMORPGs. He mentions that it is easier to start with something further along. A few million spent on some full time developers for bug fixes and a few mill
Anemic ideas (Score:2, Insightful)
Is is just me, or are most of these ideas pretty anemic? Pathogen detection sounds pretty far out, but much of the rest is questionable. They either want an incremental software upgrade or a monumental leap in the energy field.
Of course you want a li-ion battery with 5 times the power, we all do. R&D labs have been working on it for years, remember li-poly? And your investment? 2M, that's 66k / person for 2 years! And I need PhDs for this kind of work! 2M won't even cover salary and ops expenses f
Amanda Reed's web based spreadsheets (Score:2)
some are not very informed (Score:2)
What he wants now:
What he'll invest: $5 million to create a working prototype within two years
I know of several free tools that will tap into pretty much anyone's database.
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What's wrong with venture capitalists flushing their money down a virtual toilet? Most of the ventures they fund will crap out anyway.