Cambridge

Making Sure the Next Zuckerberg or Gates Stays Put at Harvard

Kara Swisher in News on January 27 at 3:40 pm PT

Earlier today, Harvard University and New Enterprise Associates announced the Experiment Fund, aimed at making sure that future entrepreneurs can stay on campus and innovate without having to head West.

Voices

The Really Smart Phone

Robert Lee Hotz, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 25, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

Apple and Google may be intensifying privacy concerns by tracking where and when people use their mobile phones–but the true future of consumer surveillance is taking shape inside the cellphones at a weather-stained apartment complex in Cambridge, Mass.

Plastic Logic Nabs New Funding, Plans Plant in Russia

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 17, 2011 at 5:00 pm PT

Plastic Logic, a start-up known for showing off (but not necessarily shipping) advanced e-book readers, said that it has finalized an investment deal to build a factory in Russia.

Google Buys Phonetic Arts to Make Machines Sound Human

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on December 3, 2010 at 2:06 pm PT

Google is beefing up its voice services with today’s acquisition of Cambridge, England-based Phonetic Arts. Google’s view is that voice will be critical going forward to making mobile devices with small screens and keyboards more useful.

General Catalyst Heads West, to Find Some Young Men and Women to Fund

Liz Gannes in Social on November 24, 2010 at 12:01 am PT

Go West, East Coast VC? In fact, the 10-year-old venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners is moving out two of its partners from Cambridge, Mass., to Palo Alto, Calif.–just in time to avoid the Boston winter.

SCVNGR Goes Global (Sort Of!)

Kara Swisher in News on November 2, 2010 at 1:00 am PT

BoomTown likes the sassiness of SCVNGR, the location-based service that’s not Foursquare, to do whatever it takes to stand out in the competitive space. Today, it is by “leveraging the most comprehensive places database in the world–the Google Places API,” which will essentially take the start-up global. It’s part of a lot of moves by the Cambridge, Mass.-based SCVNGR, which tries to go beyond simple check-ins by emphasizing the game aspect and posing real-world challenges for users to complete.

SCVNGR's Seth Priebatsch Talks About Geolocation Wars, Facebook Places and More!

Kara Swisher in News on August 30, 2010 at 9:00 am PT

Last week, SCVNGR integrated its third-party social geolocation game service into the Facebook Places mega-location offering. As it turned out, BoomTown was in Beantown–as in Boston–for a lovely wedding, so I took some prenuptial time to visit SCVNGR’s HQ in Cambridge, Mass., to talk to its founder, Seth Priebatsch.

Zynga Makes Another Acquisition: Conduit Labs

Kara Swisher in News on August 17, 2010 at 9:45 am PT

It looks like the San Francisco-based gaming company is going to suck up social gaming start-ups, one city at a time. Today, it announced the acquisition of Boston-based Conduit Labs, which specializes in social music games. It will now become Zynga Boston. In what feels like a modified roll-up strategy, Zynga has done this recently in other cities, to expand its studio operations geographically.