If you are an ambitious entrepreneur with a promising product, you probably can’t wait to show it to potential customers. But before you go into “sales mode,” you might want to sit down at your desk, take a look at your value proposition and do some research.

The experimental cancer drug ibrutinib has wowed in clinical trials, beating deadly blood cancers without the painful side effects of currently approved therapies. And it has raced through development and regulatory hurdles, in part thanks to a US program to accelerate the development of particularly promising drugs, says its developer Pharmacyclics, based in Sunnyvale, California.

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When Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Intuitive Surgical hit the market in 1999 with its surgical robot, da Vinci, the company and many of its early adopters hailed the new technology as a revolution that would benefit patients, surgeons and the health care system as a whole. Da Vinci combines high-definition visual tools with robot-guided medical instruments that allow surgeons to do complicated procedures using a few tiny incisions. The da Vinci system, which is widely used in urologic surgeries such as the removal of prostate tumors, has been shown by Intuitive and outside researchers to reduce post-surgery complications and shorten hospital stays.

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SAP's venture capital arm has raised $1 billion over the past year as the company tries to land stakes in hot startup companies, both to generate profit down the road and to align itself with the industry's newest technologies.

In total, SAP now has $1.4 billion under management in its various venture funds, according to Wednesday's announcement. As part of SAP Ventures' expansion, the organization is also creating a new 10-member business development team, SAP said.

Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about the idea that we are witnessing “the end of personal computers,” the “post-PC era,” or, as Microsoft would have it, the “PC-plus era.” The difference in terminology is telling, revealing the intense commercial competition and staggering financial stakes that underlie this transition.

While many investors and entrepreneurs debate the effects of crowdfunding and general solicitation for startups, the Foundry Group is taking action.

Today, the Boulder-based venture firm announced plans to invest $2.5 million over the next 15 months in companies raising money on AngelList, the top website for young companies seeking early investment.

The Department of Health and Human Services isn’t the only federal agency interested in funding medical research.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense’s primary innovation engine that’s responsible for developing new technologies for use by the military, also frequently undertakes project in biology, medicine and neuroscience. It does that through Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBTT) grants.

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The song of songbirds is a learned, complex behavior and subject to strong selective forces.

However, it is difficult to tease apart the influence of the genetic background and the environment on the expression of individual variation in song. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen in collaboration with international researchers now compared song and brain structure of parents and offspring in zebra finches that have been raised either with their genetic or foster parents. They also varied the amount of food during breeding. Remarkably, both song and the underlying brain structure had a low heritability and were strongly influenced by environmental factors.

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Knocking on wood is the most common superstition in Western culture used to reverse bad fortune or undo a “jinx.”

Other cultures maintain similar practices, like spitting or throwing salt, after someone has tempted fate. Even people who aren’t particularly superstitious often participate in these practices.

A new study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business finds that these superstitions actually do “reverse” perceived bad fortune.

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Innovation is one of the hottest buzzwords in academe, and colleges and universities promote it in two basic ways. They infuse innovation ideals throughout the curriculum. And they support it directly by sponsoring "incubators" for budding entrepreneurs and "accelerator" programs to help inventors get their ideas into the marketplace.

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This was a totally awesome idea... that got the kibosh.  Michael Migliozzi and Brian Flatow loved beer so much that they thought a little crowdfunding could help them raise $300 million to buy the ailing Pabst Brewing Company. It worked... sort of. Within two years, the pair had solicited $280 million dollars from five million people who pledged an average of $40 each for a “share” of the company. But before they could reach their goal, the SEC stepped in, saying that the pair “failed to properly register what amounted to a security issuance” and made them shut down the site. (Since no money actually changed hands, the SEC settled with undisclosed terms.) What is still awesome about this venture is that it opened the door to H.R. 2930, new legislation which allows startups to use crowdfunding for investments instead of just donations.

Vanderbilt University has said its commercialisation earnings have quadrupiled over a three year period – reaching more than $24.5m for the fiscal year ending 30 June.

Several licensing agreements boosted profits at Vanderbilt’s tech transfer unit, the Vanderbilt Centre for Technology Transfer and Commercialisation (CTTC), over the past year. These include a licence with pharmaceutical firm Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for new drugs tackling Parkinson’s disease, one with BMS peer AstraZeneca for schizophrenic drugs, and a further agreement with motion and control tech firm Parker Hannifin for a lightweight mechanical exoskeleton.

For anyone not familiar with Lego-speak, in the Lego-verse the acronym MOC stands for "My Own Creation." And Lego has inspired countless creations, from high art to pop culture commentary, that have showcased one of the most universal, versatile creative platforms.

If successful companies and societies of this next century are defined by their ability to innovate--a trope repeated constantly in business seminars, surveys, and speeches--then the U.S. may be headed for a rough time: On average, Americans’ ability to think creatively has declined.

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What happens when you’re a Brooklyn-based illustration studio that releases an absurdly, ridiculously, profusely detailed chart of beer? Unable to top this perfect intersection of high-minded design and sudsy, sudsy illustration, do you just pop a cold one and close up shop? Or do you put a fresh coat of wax on that handlebar mustache, grab another cronut, and get back to work?

Becoming an entrepreneur in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s really wasn’t an attractive career choice for many young people. No one went to college to study entrepreneurship; no one started a business in their dorm room. Entrepreneurship for the young was delivering newspapers at dawn and cutting grass on Saturday mornings. Baby boomers doing such entrepreneurial work did so out of financial necessity, not with IPO intentions.

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In its second year, this study analyzes the top companies in the digitization ecosystem, describing which are prospering and which are not, and providing some guidance about why. Dividing them into four sectors—hardware, software, IT services, and telecom—we consider the factors that determine their influence: financial performance, portfolio strength, go-to-market footprint, and innovation and branding, as well as their strategic directions.

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Over the past five years, the world has witnessed an unprecedented explosion of digitized data, which is often referred to as “big data.” Its potential remains alluring—and largely untapped. The data opportunity is like a diamond mine, mostly littered with rocks and dirt, but with enough gems peeking out to attract those unafraid of the hard work needed to sift through it.

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Jon Oringer, founder and CEO of Shutterstock is pretty data crazy. Then again, he should be. His company currently stores around 1TB of data everyday. According to Oringer, data will win the internet and every single business is a data driven business even if it’s not the core product. Speaking at the The Next Web conference in New York City, Oringer outlined three ways that data is driving business today and how this will define the next generation of the net. He highlights that not only data driven technologies and but data driven behaviours will change this.

Every startup wants to be cool right? Well, how do you go about doing this and how can you benefit from improving your image? In an industry that builds so much hype, it’s a given that your startup’s brand is of utmost importance. But what’s probably more important than having an established likeable brand is the need to actually follow up on your promises.

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