Right at the end of Apple's Q1 2014 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook was brought onto that topic; innovation. It's a word often thrown around, sometimes incorrectly, and we all know at Phil Schiller thinks about Apple's ability to innovate. While Wall Street might believe Apple has lost its ability to innovate, Cook, and everyone at Apple looks on it a different way:

Innovation is deeply embedded in everyone here. So much of the world is filled with complex products. We have zero issue coming up with things we want to do, disrupt in a major way. The challenge is always to focus on the very few that deserves all of our energy. Always done that, and we'll continue to do that. 

Image: http://www.imore.com

In 2013, for the first time ever, the number of smart phones shipped worldwide in a year topped 1 billion. That's about one smart phone for every seven human beings alive.

According to new research from International Data Corp., smart phone shipments grew by a massive 38.4 percent from the previous year, hitting a little more than 1.01 billion units in 2013.

Consumer sector investments, such as Spotify, proved most popular with venture capital firms last year The European venture capital industry is showing signs of improvement, as fundraising in the fourth quarter 2013 hit its highest quarterly level since the end of 2011, according to DJX VentureSource data, although full-year figures were down on a year earlier.

Image Courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) Jan. 28, 2014 – A Kauffman Foundation report being released today highlights the impact of education on rates of business startups and growth in metropolitan areas, while disputing the impact of certain factors that previously have been touted for their influence.

The paper, "Beyond Metropolitan Startup Rates: Regional Factors Associated with Startup Growth," reports on entrepreneurship activity in 356 U.S. metros as examined from three angles: the startup rate for all industries, the startup rate for high-tech sectors and the rate for high-growth firms.

A recent report by CB Insights surveyed startup casualties in the past few years and revealed that more than half (55 percent) of startups that failed last year had raised $1 million or less. It also calculated that they had an average life span of 20 months from the last funding round if they couldn’t secure additional funding or find a buyer. Not surprisingly, most were focused on Internet technology, though mobile startups were among the casualties.

Since most entrepreneurs can benefit from hindsight, CB Insights has aggregated  the musings of CEOs, CTOs and co-founders on some of the causes behind their failed startups. There are even a couple of accounts from investors reflecting on poor investment decisions. We highlighted one by Bruce Booth of Atlas Venture.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94805433@N00/45436000 

Nothing seems to grab headlines more than a company that raises, say, $50 million and is valued at $2 billion. No revenue? Doesn't  atter. Then there's the promising young company that actually has $20 million in sales but ekes out a valuation of $200 million. (Sounds like an episode of VCs Gone Wild, doesn't it?)

But when you look deeper, it's all about metrics. And that's why business owners have to know how venture capitalists think. Nothing is more important than coming up with an appropriate valuation for your company.

Image: http://www.inc.com 

When you start raising money for your startup, people will tell you, “If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.” You might dismiss this as generic, cookie-cutter advice, but there’s definitely some truth to it, particularly the second part.

If you want money, ask for advice.

Recently, I was in touch with three entrepreneurs (two via the phone, one via email), and in all three cases they wanted to give me an update and ask me some questions. All three are fundraising. None of them asked for money.

Image: http://www.instigatorblog.com 

From shortcuts and life hacks to proven productivity methods, we’re all looking to save time and get more done. If you want to be even more successful, it’s time to tap into your super powers: your habits.

A Duke University study found that 40% of the decisions we make each day are habits. While bad habits can derail you, good habits can put minutes back on the clock because they put you in a proactive mode and help eliminate wasted time.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com 

A recent study has highlighted how ineffectual it is for universities to patent their discoveries. The study shows that the patents do not show a sufficient return on investment to make the technology transfer office of a university worth funding. The Brookings research titled "University Start-Ups: Critical for Improving Technology Transfer" proposes that universities could launch their own start-ups in order to license their patents to these rather than licensing to outside companies for commercial use. 

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Most of us are familiar with the cycle. At work, the pressure to be “always on,” to meet deadlines, to serve the demands of colleagues or customers, or to deal with a difficult coworker can create stress that leaks into our personal lives. This stress can cause us to be impatient with romantic partners or kids or to neglect our duties at home, creating a vicious cycle of anxiety outside the office that makes work stresses even harder to face.

Image Courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On Thursday at 11 a.m., the Supreme store in Soho debuts a new sneaker design, and people wait around the block to be the first to purchase it. Roughly a mile away in Madison Square Park, a line snakes past manicured lawns as people wait an hour in line to buy a Shake Shack cheeseburger. Further downtown, Tyler, the Creator, the impresario leading man of the hip-hop collective Odd Future, hosts a pop-up shop on Orchard Street with a thousand kids waiting in line to meet the artist and buy his gear.

Image Courtesy of tiverylucky / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A billion dollar valuation is a huge milestone for a start-up, and not just because Justin Timberlake said so in The Social Network.  The billion dollar mark gets thrown around by venture capitalists as shorthand for the level of success they’re looking for when they invest, since the typical outcome for start-ups is failure and thus VC firms bank on a few mega-hits to generate returns.

Image Courtesy of dream designs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The University of Waterloo's Velocity startup incubator today revealed that companies in the program have raised more than $100 million in funding.

That number comes five years after the program was launched and includes includes funding from venture capitalists, angel investors, government programs, grants from the Velocity Fund, and crowdfunding platforms.

Graduates with notable raises included Kik, Pebble, and Thalmic Labs. Kik's last raise was a $19.5 million Series B round, while Pebble shattered crowdfunding records when it raised $10 million on Kickstarter. Meanwhile, Thalmic Labs had an incredible 2013, raising one of the most significant venture capital rounds of any Canadian startup that year and also winning 2013 Startup of the Year in the annual Canadian Startup Awards.

Image: http://www.techvibes.com 

The Austin Technology Incubator celebrates its 25 anniversary and plans to graduate its latest crop of 25 companies during an event Wednesday night at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. The ATI, part of IC2 Institute at the University of Texas, will also announce the winners of the Laura J. Kilcrease Civic Entrepreneurship Award and the new John S. Butler Distinguished Alumni Award. George Kozmetsky founded ATI in 1989 and Kilcrease served as its first director. The incubator has graduated 150 companies, which have created 5,500 jobs and have had nearly $1 billion economic impact on the central Texas economy. ATI’s latest class have raised more than $60 million in capital. The companies are (descriptions provided by ATI):

For all of us concerned about the future of the American economy and the creation of quality jobs in the United States, the President’s State of the Union hit on some important notes.  He continues to beat the drum for critical national issues like immigration reform, quality education and fairer international trade.  And there were important call’s to restore federal research funding and protect innovators and entrepreneurs from patent trolls.   Having served in the Obama Administration, I know that the initiatives launched last night by the President are all trying to create high quality jobs across the United tates and across industries.  But if these efforts are to succeed at the federal level, we need a narrative that connects the dots better between innovation, entrepreneurship, education and job creation.

MANCHESTER — Two nonprofit groups are joining forces to expand entrepreneurship in the Granite State, aiming to unite regional efforts to build companies that can grow to become major employers in New Hampshire.

The New Hampshire Innovation Commercialization Center, better known as the NH-ICC, with locations in Portsmouth and Durham; and the abi Innovation Hub, based in Manchester, announced their merger on Wednesday at the abi's headquarters on Elm Street.

Image: Kyle York of Dyn, right, Marc Sedam of UNH, left, and CEO Mark Kaplan gather at the merger between the abi Innovation Hub and the New Hampshire Innovation Commercialization Center. (DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER) 

A new startup accelerator dubbed Boomtown is launching in Boulder, Colorado in the hopes of identifying and supporting new internet, mobile and software firms that operate primarily in the media, marketing and ad tech industries.

The venture will foster selected startups -- an application process is required -- through a 12-week mentoring program. Atlanta-based venture capital firm Farmore Capital Group is the lead investor, but a familiar local face is also behind Boomtown, former CP&B exec Alex Bogusky.

Image: adage.com - Alex Bogusky 

When it comes to the world of social media, there are clear metrics for measuring popularity. On Twitter for example, the account with the largest following is @katyperry with 49,952,646 at the time of writing. That’s followed closely by @justinbieber on 49,167,914 and @BarackObama on 41,190,787. On Facebook, the most popular page (after Facebook itself) is Rihanna with 84,757,949 likes, followed by Eminem with 81,091,160 likes and Shakira with 80,501,539 likes.

It’s just as easy to measure the social media activity such as number of posts and so on and even to subdivide the searches by category such as cars, movie character or video game.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

I’m watching a jellyfish pump past me lazily, its movement interrupting the twinkling of underwater particles, when a sea turtle suddenly swims my way and starts munching on the jellyfish’s tentacles.

I know that I’m actually watching this scene unfold in 3-D on a prototype of an entertainment headset called the Glyph, which fits over my eyes like a giant, awkward pair of electronics-filled glasses and projects images directly onto my retinas, showing the equivalent to an 80-inch TV about eight feet away, but the image in front of my face feels real enough that I cry out, “Oh, no, don’t eat that! That’s not going to taste good!”

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

Like the atomic bomb in the waning days of World War II, the computer virus known as Stuxnet, discovered in 2010, seemed to usher in a new era of warfare. In the era of cyberwar, experts warned, silent, software-based attacks will take the place of explosive ordinance, tanks, and machine guns, or at least set the stage for them. 

Or maybe not. Almost four years after it was first publicly identified, Stuxnet is an anomaly: the first and only cyberweapon ever known to have been deployed. Now some experts in cybersecurity and critical infrastructure want to know why. Are there fewer realistic targets than suspected? Are such weapons more difficult to construct than realized? Or is the current generation of cyberweapons simply too well hid?