Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
It’s a common question. How much data is necessary to get value out of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence…? Well, Portland startup Synaptiq posed that question at a recent event. And Dr. Tim Oates provided a response.
Sometimes founders are ahead of the curve. And sometimes, they’re right inline with timing. Such is the case with Fritz Brumder, one of the founders of Brandlive, a Portland startup that was early to the game of video collaboration between consumer brands and their customers. Back then, Brandlive was way ahead of the curve — which always brings with it an educational hurdle as you help the market understand the vision. This time around with his new startup — Bend based Zipcan — however, the timing seems impeccable.
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I’m a big fan of Dave McClure. He’s got a dynamic personality, credible personal success, and insights that rival some of the most seasoned investors. And he puts his (PayPal) money where his mouth is. Dave’s accelerator, 500 Startups, is just the latest example of his innate understanding of the startup and investing environment.
Dave recently sat down with the folks at Bloomberg to discuss valuations, the startup evironment, and investing. If you’re in a startup—Web based or otherwise—it’s well worth your time to listen to what Dave has to say. Read More
If you’ve been anywhere near a movie theater or a television in the past year, you’ve no doubt discovered the renaissance that media is having with the concept of three dimensional video. Good ol’ 3D. Everything old is new again. Only now, it’s less about making things jump out at you and more about giving video a depth of field.
But for all the advances in movies and television, streaming video has remained rather, well, flat. That is, until now. You see, Portland’s Elemental Technology is currently demoing streaming 3D 1080p HD at the IBC. Read More
That’s right. Tonight is Broadercasting, an event hosted in part by local video encoding startup and former Portland Lunch 2.0 host Elemental Technologies.
So maybe CivicApps and award ceremonies aren’t your speed. That doesn’t mean you have to sit and be bored tonight. Oh no, my friend. In the Portland tech scene, there are always at least a dozen things to do on any given night. And I thought this one might pique your video curious interest.
That’s right. Tonight is Broadercasting, an event hosted in part by local video encoding startup and former Portland Lunch 2.0 host Elemental Technologies. Read More
[HTML2]It’s Thursday and that means it’s time to unveil a new version of memePDX, Portland tech news for those short on time and attention. And you’ll be happy to hear that we took your feedback to heart. We tried to keep it shorter and we tried to keep it more local.
Now there’s still some national stuff going on this week. But for the most part Cami Kaos and I are talking about Portland stuff like WordCamp Portland, Second Porch, LinuxCon, Linux Plumbers Conference, Google teaching computers to read, and I made $384 or $484 yesterday thanks to Twitter.
So without further ado, let’s get to it. Read More
Admittedly, we’re still getting the kinks worked out on memePDX, the new podcast featuring Cami Kaos and me that covers all the tech news that we can wedge into 20 minutes. This week, we introduce a whole new feature: tricaster green screen magic. So even if Cami and I are boring, Dr. Normal will find something with which to entertain you.
This week on memePDX we talk about PhoneGap, Urban Airship, Portland on Fire, Apple Snow Leopard, the rumored Apple Cougar OS, and the equally rumored Apple Tablet. And then we throw in a little Skype and Marvel + Disney for good measure. Read More
[HTML3]As you probably realize, we’re smack dab in the middle of the Internet Strategy Forum Summit. And one of the keynote speakers here in town is Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Forrester Research.
But before Jeremiah was on the ISF Summit stage, he took some time to hang out with Social Media Club PDX. As far as recaps go, Amber Case did an amazing job of capturing the event, but this video they captured will help fill in any gaps.
So, there are you are. Sitting there banging away on some code. Or working out your strategy for how you’re going to move that side project along just a little bit more. Or just trying to tweak that one blog post a little more.
And everyone’s bitching about the economy. Or how this is a bad time to do anything “risky.” Or about the time you’re wasting. Or how you should be doing something else.
But you know this is the right thing to do. And you know what? You’re right. And you will get there. Read More
Now, I don’t usually write about traditional software companies. But it seemed like this one definitely deserved it.
Portland-based Elemental Technologies has secured more than $7 million in its first round of funding.
Okay. So what’s being funded and why am I writing about it?
Utilizing general purpose, programmable “off-the-shelf” graphics processing units (GPUs), ETI software performs video encoding, transcoding, and filtering at unprecedented speeds while maintaining the highest video quality.
Who’s a-what-uh hunh? Okay. Maybe this will help:
[This technology] allows consumers to format their media up to 10 times faster than existing solutions.
Ah ha! Now you’re talking.
With the growing popularity of services like Seesmic, Vimeo (Portland connection), and Viddler—oh and that little site called YouTube—it’s obvious that video is very much a part of our future existence in the Web world. And while any number of companies have come up with ways to deliver that video content on the Web, there always seems to be one major sticking point to widespread adoption: Encoding video content for posting is excruciatingly slow.
To be successful, we’re going to have to be able to encode and upload video as quickly as we can download it. And Elemental may just be able to deliver.
The first product out from Elemental is consumer oriented, will arrive sometime before September and is expected to cost between $30 and $100, depending on the features. The software will allow consumers to take HD inputs such as a Blu-ray disc or homemade HD video and rip it to a computer, iPod or other device five to 10 times faster than existing technologies using the CPU.
No doubt, the infusion of cash will go a long way in promoting this offering—and ensuring that development continues.
Industry-leaders General Catalyst Partners of Boston, Massachusetts and Voyager Capital of Seattle, Washington co-led this $7.1M investment. Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian and the Silicon Forest blog notes:
In Oregon’s venture capital community, [Elemental]’s new investment represents the second big funding round this month. Last week, NexPlanar Corp., a small semiconductor company that recently moved to Hillsboro, announced it had raised $14.5 million in venture capital.
And let’s hope that greases the skids for other Silicon Forest startups looking for some backing.
For more information on the funding, see the Elemental press release on the investment. For more on the company and its technology, visit Elemental Technologies.