There's no Moore's law for batteries. There is no Moore’s law for batteries.
That is, while the computing power of microchips doubles every 18 months, the capacity of the batteries on which ever more of our gadgets depend exhibits no such exponential growth. In a good year, the capacity of the best batteries in our mobile phones, tablets and notebook computers—and increasingly, in our cars and household gadgets—increases just a few per cent. It turns out that storing energy safely and reliably is hard in a way that miniaturising circuits is not. A pound of gasoline contains more than 20 times as much energy as a pound of lithium-ion batteries. And then there’s the expense: The battery pack in a Tesla Model S costs approximately $US30,000. These problems are driving an enormous variety of research projects aimed at achieving a breakthrough in battery technology. But here’s a safe bet: Breakthroughs in energy storage technology aren’t coming. It’s all about compromise But let’s not despair. The ‘Drone Delivery’ hype. Telstra's VC arm makes maiden Australian investment in restaurant booking site.
The venture capital arm of telco giant Telstra has made its first investment in an Australian company, entering into a deal with three-year-old online restaurant reservations start-up Dimmi.
Launched in September 2009 by Stevan Premutico, Dimmi is Australia’s largest restaurant booking network, designed to bring diners and restaurants together. Since its launch, Dimmi claims to have seated more than two million diners at restaurants ranging from “hatted fine-dining establishments to casual suburban eateries”. Dimmi works off a performance-based revenue model – restaurants pay between $1 and $3 per customer, or $6.60 a table, in exchange for using the Dimmi platform.
Earlier this month, Dimmi launched the dimmi.com.au website along with an iPhone app, which informs would-be diners which restaurants are nearby and whether any tables are available. The Sydney-based business employs 30 staff around Australia. Telstra signed off on the investment in Dimmi earlier this month. Charlotte Yarkoni: How to Pivot Away $34m: Israel's Xeround Shuts it Doors with a Lesson.
Xeround's Yarkoni talks about the cloud, databases and more. John Cook Xeround moved its headquarters from Israel to Bellevue 15 months ago after Charlotte Yarkoni joined the software company.
Now, the former Amdocs and Cingular executive is transitioning the company from an R&D shop to one focused on sales and business development. Xeround's software helps mobile phone companies -- including T-Mobile and Pelephone -- unify subscriber information across various databases. We caught up with 39-year-old native of Greenville, South Carolina to chat about everything from cloud computing to being a woman in tech to the fortunate timing of the company's last venture round. What is Xeround? "We are an infrastructure, meaning a back-end piece of software that people purchase and implement in their shops to enable services or applications.... And what does the software do? How long does it take to implement Xeround? "Our average lead time is about 60 days to start using our product and start gaining the value....
Telstra Corporation Limited : Telstra announces new Global Applications and Platforms business. Telstra HomeAbout TelstraMedia CentreAnnouncements Telstra announces new Global Applications and Platforms business Telstra has announced plans to take advantage of the considerable growth in software-driven business opportunities with the creation of a new Global Applications and Platforms line of business.
The new group, which will be part of the Innovation, Products and Marketing business unit led by Group Managing Director, Kate McKenzie will play a key role in Telstra's strategy to build new growth businesses. Ms McKenzie said the group would help set the company up for future success in what was a highly competitive segment with many new agile participants. "Our industry is changing rapidly," Ms McKenzie said. "The future is in the software layer and there is an application for absolutely everything.
"With successful over the top players growing exponentially, we need to continue to find ways to take challenger positions in this space. Tapping M2M: The Internet of Things.