This Friday, you may want to stop by the Emerging Technology Center in Canton to catch Mark Lavelle speaking about his company, Bill Me Later.

Bill Me Later last year was bought by eBay for nearly $1 billion. It was a huge win for Baltimore's tech startup community and for this company that got its start about nine years ago.

Lavelle is head of corporate development for Bill Me Later. Personally, I'd like to stop by and listen to their startup story because, frankly, we have not written enough about this company's history and track record. (For a taste, read VentureBeat's Q&A with the CEO last year.)

The event starts at noon and requires registration. For more details, see here.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

The beauty of TedxMidAtlantic wasn't just that it was a compelling, full-day event for the speakers and participants, with talks and presentations that were food for the mind.

The organizers and participants also did a great job of making the event resonate beyond the walls of MICA's theater where it was held. If you couldn't attend Tedx on Thursday, you could at least watch a live video stream of the event.

As each speaker finished, the organizers were able to instantly archive each talk, so that it was available on the Web site. Pretty impressive stuff.

A good, written play-by-play of the event can be found at the Inside Charm City blog, for those who want an indepth feel for how the event flowed through the day.

Over on Twitter, participants were posting their thoughts using the #tedx and #tedxmid hash tags.

The Flickr group for TedxMidAtlantic photos had 570 submissions as of this morning.

Several people blogged about the experience attending TedxMidAtlantic, including:

* Scott Paley

* Russell Heimlich

* Tyler Waldman

* Jim Doran

* Annmary Liu (handwritten notes!)

What other content is out there? Drop some links in the comments below! (Above, Flickr photo of Anna Vidovic by The Plan8 Podcast)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (Baltimore area)
        

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Bilski vs. Kappos -- a critical case that could decide the future of how patents are issued in the 21st century as the Internet plays a larger role in technology and innovation.

At the heart of the issue is whether a patent can be issued for software, and business methods and processes that are part of the software. Dozens of big companies have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case.

The Christian Science Monitor does a nice job of fleshing out the details of this story. Stay tuned.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

 Verizon’s new high-powered smartphone, the Motorola Droid, is a fun little device and a worthy opponent to Apple Inc.’s hit iPhone.

The Droid, which went on sale today for $199, is the first smartphone to incorporate the latest version of the Google Android operating system. Motorola did a fine job of integrating the operating system with the phone’s hardware, making phone-calling, emailing, Web-surfing and media playing all fairly intuitive -- though ultimately not quite as slick as what the iPhone offers.

For Verizon, the stakes are high as AT&T has posted a growing subscriber base, thanks to the new iPhone 3GS, which also sells for $199.

Verizon is widely considered to have a very good network, while Motorola has had strong-selling phones in the past. But both companies have struggled in recent years to come up with a response to the popular iPhone – that is, until this Droid.

I got a demo unit today and have played with it for several hours. Sure, the Droid is boxy and slightly thicker and heavier than the sleek, svelte iPhone. But it’s a solid device with an easy-on-the-thumbs touchscreen and user interface.

It has a five megapixel camera, with a flash and zoom function and which also shoots video. The iPhone’s camera, by comparison, is 3 megapixels and has auto-focus, but it doesn’t zoom. Yet the Droid’s camera moves too slow in taking a picture after you press the touch-screen button.

Moving through the screens and opening up the applications, the Droid feels almost as fast as the iPhone 3GS, Apple’s latest model. In a side-by-side comparisons of the Droid and the iPhone 3GS, the YouTube app actually opened a few seconds quicker on the Droid than the iPhone, and streamed a high-definition video in crystal clarity.

The Droid connects to Amazon.com’s digital music offering. The iPhone, however, tightly integrates with iTunes and, has the edge in user interface for media playback. Same with Web browsing: Apple’s Safari browser on the iPhone is a little more snappy than the Droid’s browser. But honestly, expect Web browsing on the Droid to get better as Google updates the platform.

Perhaps the killer app that defines the Droid right now is Google Maps and its new navigation offering. This free functionality turns the phone into a virtual GPS unit, giving the user turn-by-turn voice navigation. No longer do you have to take your eyes off the road to look at a small screen -- all you have to do is listen to the guiding voice.

An optional bracket allows you to mount the Droid in the horizontal position on your windshield, for easy use while driving.

It remains to be seen if Google will make the same navigation app available for free on the iPhone. If so, such a free app would undercut other, pricey paid apps that offer similar GPS functionality through Apple’s App Store.

Some more features that help it stand apart from the iPhone: The Droid offers a replaceable battery and a slot for removable memory card. So the phone comes with a 16 gigabyte SD memory card, but you can expand it to 32 gigabytes with a new card.

The iPhone 3GS comes in two models – a 16 gigabyte and a 32 gigabyte – and their memory is not removable.

The Droid has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, while the iPhone does not have a physical keyboard. The Droid’s keys however, are a little small and flat – for those of you with chubby, stubby thumbs and fingers, beware. It can get cramped when you’re typing. The iPhone's touch-screen keyboard has a better feel and responsiveness than the Droid's offering.

Perhaps the big difference between the two phones: their respective application offerings. Apple now offers around 100,000 applications through its App Store. Google’s Android Market, by comparison, has around 10,000. But you can expect more and more developers to fill in the Android Market with their app offerings.

For many consumers, 10,000 apps may be more than enough to convince them to buy a Droid.

(photo credit: AP)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Smartphones
        

On Monday, I had the chance to meet two very smart tech reporters who are plugged into (bad pun...sorry) the Washington tech-and-policy scene: Kim Hart and Cecilia Kang.

Hart, until a few months ago, was a tech reporter at the Washington Post who wrote a column (which I followed) called The Download. She is now at a congressional daily paper called The Hill, covering technology and writing a tech blog called Hillicon Valley (great name.)

Kang is a Post reporter who is covering tech policy and recently start her blog, PostTech. In a previous job, she wrote about the dot-com boom and bust for The San Jose Mercury News.

Congrats to both reporters for carving out this niche of the tech beat in our nation's capital and launching blogs to keep us all updated. It's absolutely necessary. They are playing to the strengths they have in their backyard, which is access and proximity to the politicians, lobbyists and tech-geeks who are instrumental in shaping technology policies across the country.

Good luck, Kim and Cecilia!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: East Coast, Media
        

You may have heard about the big TED conferences that are organized around the world every year around the slogan: "Ideas Worth Spreading." At these events, hyper-smart people give talks on cutting edge -- or sometimes obscure but interesting -- topics, and the audience members are given lots of time to talk and network amongs themselves. The talks are video recorded and made available for free on TED's Website.

That basic format is coming to Baltimore's Maryland Institute College of Art, and it's called TEDxMidAtlantic. I wrote a story today that talks about how more than 100 enthusiastic volunteers came together to organize the free all-day event. The photo depicts several organizers, including Dave Troy in the middle, whose idea it was to bring the event to Baltimore.

It's gonna be a packed house. Stop and say hi if you see me!

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Big Ideas, East Coast, Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, Events (Baltimore area), Events (DC/No. Va. area), Geeks, Social Media
        

The news that Connecticut-based Stanley Works is buying (er... merging with) Black & Decker, based in Towson, dropped like a big bomb yesterday afternoon. We covered it and so did just about everybody else with half an interest in business news.

One angle that we've pursued is the potential local impact that the move of the corporate headquarters from Baltimore County to Connecticut may mean. Black & Decker has been a prolific innovator in the realm of power tools and hardware, and such innovation typically means smart people and well-paying jobs for a region.

The companies said Monday that Black & Decker's Power Tools division will remain based in Towson. But it remains to be seen whether its Maryland location will continue to innovate at the same level after next year's merger.

I pulled some patent data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and discovered that Black & Decker ranks third in the state in terms of patents granted from 2004 to 2008. See the full state figures below.

Maryland Patent Grants, 2004 to 2008

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: East Coast, Research
        

I have a confession to make: I have a Gmail account and a Yahoo email account and, about a month ago, I just gave up. I gave up trying to obsessively keep my inboxes clear and free of unnecessary clutter.

I whacked away at emails: the spam and the bacon (i.e. newsletters I subscribe to but never read) and the back and forth strings of conversations that took up a few kilobytes here and there.

But no more. It was like trying to cut down bamboo, frankly. Considering that Yahoo appears to offer unlimited email storage, and Google's storage -- at least for me -- is over 7 gigabytes, I've all but given up deleting emails.

In fact, the only place I must obsessively delete email now is at work, where we have a few megabytes of storage for our accounts. If we have too much, our accounts freeze up and we have to delete old emails before we can new ones. Grrrrrr....

Anybody else out there just stopped deleting emails? I found that I was spending many minutes every day sifting through and deleting. No more.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Big Ideas
        

A big annual conference for the biosciences industry and its investors will be at the Washington DC Convention Center from Wednesday to Friday. Hundreds of companies, experts, investors, and policy wonks will be in attendance.

Anybody from the Baltimore-area biotech scene going? Drop a note in the comments below if you are.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Events (DC/No. Va. area)
        

Biotech, as a growth industry both here in Maryland and elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, is about to welcome a huge competitor: China.

FierceBiotech reports that China launched 20 new venture capital funds to invest in technology companies, with biotech as a focus.

China also launched a new tech stock market, similar to the Nasdaq, FierceBiotech reports.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

In case you're a startup entrepreneur or small business owner looking for capital, here's a good little article from the New York Times titled: "The New Rules of Angel Investing."

The article has a more national focus. I wrote a similar article a few weeks back with a focus on angel investing and startups in the the Mid-Atlantic and Baltimore region. You'll find that article here.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Startups
        

Interesting post from Robert Wray over at MP3car.com, pretty much saying that Xohm has shut down its WiMax broadband internet service in Baltimore to prepare for the relaunch of the service as Clear (a new company.)

Have people been disconnected from their Xohm service? Let me know what your experience has been like lately. I'm trying to reach some Sprint officials to get some clarity.

Update 1: A clarification Wray emailed me to say that Xohm is still up for current customers, but not ones who may have been intermittent users of the service. Also, Tweeter @tothepeople tells me his Xohm service still works.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

Could this be the beginning of a trend?

NPR reports that the City of Los Angeles has voted to overhaul its email system, converting it from a Microsoft-based software system, to a Google Gmail system where the data will be kept private on Google's servers across the U.S.

With so many municipal and state governments strapped for cash these days, you've gotta wonder if this is gonna catch on. If L.A. is serious about doing it, shouldn't others take a hard look at it, too? Politicians eager to bring home some tax savings to their constituents may not be able to resist the urge to review their local government's spending on I.T., and figure out what they could push into the Google cloud.

For those looking for some more detail on the possible rationale behind this deal, take a look at this InformationWeek column, which gives four possible reasons that L.A. chose Google over Microsoft.

Hey Mayor Sheila Dixon -- is somebody in your office gonna take a closer look at this?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Big Ideas, Government Tech, West Coast
        

Jimmy Gardner has a recap of last night's Bootstrap Maryland panel in DC over at TechCocktail. Check it out.

And if you want to follow the Twitter stream, here's the #bootstrapmd tag.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (DC/No. Va. area), Startups
        

At the University of Maryland Start-Up Boot Camp last week in College Park, Jim Chung, left, presented his list of common mistakes to avoid as a startup.

Chung is director of the MTech Venture Accelerator program at the university.

Here's his list (paraphrased):

Common Mistakes:

*) You have technology that's looking for a solution (as opposed to tech that immediately solves an existing problem).

*) You make too many assumptions about market share you stand to gain (you engage in top-down assumptions vs. bottom-up validation and lack customer understanding).

*) You have a "nice to have" vs. a "need to have" solution.

*) Thinking: "We have no competition."

*) You have no clear revenue model or path to profitability.

*) Your team is incomplete.

*) You don't have any metrics to measure your progress.

*) Lack of focus.

*) Failure to address the risks head-on.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Big Ideas, Events (Baltimore area), Startups, University Tech
        

Admittedly, I am late to the Wii party. For my fourth wedding anniversary this month, I bought my wife and I a Wii. In addition to Wii Sports, which comes with the console, I picked up Mario Kart.

Now, I've played with Play Stations and XBoxes before, and they are amazing machines. My younger brothers have a Play Station 3, which I can't help but spend hours playing whenever I visit them -- to my wife's chagrin.

But I noticed that she was never interested in picking up the controllers to play with the PlayStation.

Many months ago, however, I remember my wife saying she'd be interested in a Wii. I stowed that tidbit away in my tiny Neandearthal-ish brain -- until a recent trip to a Best Buy, where I was drawn to the Wii display.

Within minutes, another small fold in my Neanderthal brain was triggering the impulse to buy, buy, buy. I picked up a box of Wii. Soon after, I was approached by a man who said he worked for Sony, who happened to be in the store. He said, for a $100 more, I could own a PlayStation 3, with built-in Blu-Ray player and Netflix streaming, and tried to get to check it out.

Fair enough, but I told him I didn't really care for Blu Ray and I already had Netflix streaming through my Roku player.

Plus, I said, my wife would really only play video games with a Wii. For some reason, I instinctively thought I could get away with buying a Wii as an anniversary gift, but a Play Station 3 could land me sleeping on the couch alone for a couple nights.

Sure enough, later that night, I watched my wife play Wii bowl, Wii tennis, Wii golf, and Wii boxing. It was delightful.

This was surely a first. Aside from enjoying great literature and warm, heartfelt talks, my wife and I now had another cool thing in common: we game together.

So how about that, ladies? Do you prefer the Wii to other gaming systems, and if so, why?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Events (DC/No. Va. area), Gadgets, Gamers
        

I think this is a new, never-before-seen product that Apple seems to be working on: In a patent filing made public today, Apple calls it a wireless headset with integrated media player. What it looks like is a Bluetooth-enabled iPod that can connect to your iPhone, but also has integrated memory for playing back MP3s, and a microphone for allowing you to talk and make audio notes to yourself that you can then save to the device.

In one permutation of the device, it could be operated using voice commands, and with one or two earpieces. Some descriptive language from the filing:

"The media player may be an audio player, capable, e.g., of playing audio files such as MPEG-3 ("MP3") files. Optionally, the media player may include a recording function as well, so that a user can record voice notes. In addition, if the headset is being used with a telephone (mobile or landline), the availability of a recording function could make it possible for the user to record all or part of a conversation. Similarly, voicemail messages received on the user's telephone could be uploaded into the headset for later off-line playback."

Alternatively, given the presence of a microphone in the headset (primarily for use with a telephone), the media player could be configured to respond to voice commands, which could allow more complex commands, including commands to play particular content. In addition, the microphone could be used to detect the ambient noise level, and to adjust playback volume accordingly.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Gadgets
        

These guys must have a ton of free time and disposable income to create this masterpiece of a Halloween costume. Check out the video (via the Holy Kaw blog):

Anybody doing their own tech-themed costume this Halloween?

(BTW, thanks to Lauren Custer, Sun web guru, for pointing me to the post!)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

It's not too late to sign up for the latest installment of Bootstrap Maryland, an event that helps entrepreneurs navigate a startup business on a tight budget.

The event is tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 29) at the Pillsbury Law firm in Washington D.C. It will feature a panel discussion titled: "What You Need to Know About Money for Your Startup in 2009."

I won't be able to make it, but if people are Tweeting from the event -- or if someone wants to give their fellow BaltTechies a synopsis of some things they learned -- feel free to email me at gus(dot)sentementes(at)baltsun.com.

The speakers are pretty experienced folks.

They include:

* Jay Virdy, CEO of Summize, the Twitter search engine that was ultimately bought by Twitter itself.

* Paul Singh, founder of Philtro, a site that helps Twitter uses manage their Twitter stream.

* John Burke, a partner at True Ventures, which invests in early-stage startups.

* Matt Swartz, an attorney and partner at Pillsbury Law who focuses on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital investments, public and private securities offerings, and corporate governance.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Events (DC/No. Va. area)
        

And now we get word that the Facebook movie -- the movie that will be about the origins of the online social-networking juggernaut -- will be doing at least some of its filming in Baltimore.

Mind you, there's really no Baltimore connection with the founding of Facebook, as far as I know.

But the filmmakers, according to the Sun's movie critic Michael Sragow, decided that the Johns Hopkins University campus could fill in for Harvard, where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg attended when he and some buddies started the online site.

This, of course, is a nice win for the Maryland film industry.

I'm just waiting for a Maryland startup to make it big enough so that Hollywood makes a movie about it.

Come on, Hollywood.... Is the success of Advertising.com or Bill Me Later not sexy enough for moviegoers? :-)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)