Monday, April 14, 2014


Expose Takes Aim At Cool Planet's Mike Cheiky
A new expose from The Verge--published Monday--has taken aim at Mike Chieky, the founder of three of the Southern California clean technologies companies to gain the most venture capital in this region in recent years: Cool Planet, ZPower, and Transonic Combustion--and called him "too good to be true". According to the article, Chieky is an "egotistical genius" who convinced venture capitalists to invest in his "shoddy science". Chieky's companies have raised funding from such top tier investors (More info...)
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)

Maker Studios Disney Deal Approved
Los Angeles-based Maker Studios said Monday that its deal to be acquired by Disney has been approved by Maker's board of directors and majority of shareholders, and is expected to close next week. The announcement came on reports that Beverly Hills-based Relativity Media was seeking to buy Maker Studios for nearly $1.1 billion, split between $525M in cash and stock, plus up to $500M in performance bonuses and another $75M in retention. Disney is paying up to $950M in a combination of cash and ea (More info...)
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)

Boingo Wins Utah Jazz Venue
Los Angeles-based wireless provider Boingo Wireless reported a win today with EnergySolutions Arena, the home of the Utah Jazz, saying it will provide its wireless and distributed antenna system (DAS) services at the location. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. Boingo said it will upgrade and manage a neutral host network at the 20,000 seat location, which hosts more than 100 sports and entertainment events each year.
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)

Storefront Expands Popup Marketplace To LA
Storefront, which operates an online marketplace for pop-up storefronts--those ubiquitous, limited time retail stores--has opened up its service in Los Angeles, after raising $7.3M in funding. The San Francisco a startup said Los Angeles is the third market for the company, which allows property owners to offer up their retail space to people who want to put up a "popup" retail location, and also helps to smooth out things with liability insurance, marketing and promotion, education, and more on (More info...)
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Broadcom Gets Design Win With Robotic Sprinkler
In what looks to be a more unusual design win for Irvine-based Broadcom, the company reported a design win today for its low power applications processor: as part of a "robotic sprinkler system" from company Droplet. Broadcom said its low power, BCM2835 chip is being used as part of the Droplet Robotic Sprinkler, which uses weather stations, soil samples, and plant information to make decisions on how much and where to water. Droplet's product provides functions typically found in water timers, (More info...)
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)

Vitesse Gets Federal Security Cert
Camarillo-based chipmaker Vitesse said today that its 1 Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet PHY chips have receveived the federal FIPS security cirtification, allowing its chips to be used as part of secure IT products. Vitesse said its chips now meet Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 197 256-bit AES encryption certification requirements, which specifies approved cryptographic algorithms to protect data, required by the U.S. National Security Agency for highly sensitive data pr (More info...)
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)

Novatel Wireless Gets European Win
San Diego-based Novatel Wireless reported a win this morning in Europe for its wireless communications products, as part of a usage-based insurance product from Chipin B.V.. Novatel Wireless said it will supply its MT 3060 and N4A Device Manager products to help with mobile tracking systems from Chipin. Those devices plug into automobiles to help track driver behavior, speed, location, and more for usage-based insurance. Financial impact of the win was not announced.
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)

MaxLinear Scores Win In China
Carlsbad-based radio frequency chip developer MaxLinear said this morning that it has scored a design win in China, with Shenzhen Skyworth Digital Technology Co. Ltd.. MaxLinear said its digital cable front-end receivers are being used for a new DOCSIS 3.0 consumer premise equipment (CPE) product from Shenzhen. Expected shipping volumes were not announced. Skyworth's high speed, data cable modems are used for residential and small office applications. MaxLinear's ML261 is a low power, CMOS RF ch (More info...)
posted on Monday, April 14, 2014(Full story)