VC investment in UK and Irish high-tech companies this year is rapidly outstripping last year’s investment volume, according to the technology-focussed investment group, Ascendant.

In the first half of 2011, £455m has been invested compared to £620m in the first half of 2010.

“In Q2 2011, £234m (up from £190m in Q2 2010) was invested in 48 UK/Irish companies (47) by 70 investors (84),” says Stuart McKnight, managing director of Ascendant, “when added to our figures for Q1 that makes £455m invested in 91 companies in the first half of 2011. It is worth noting that in the whole of 2010, just £620m was invested in 213 companies so while we are seeing good progress in terms of funds committed, the market is a bit behind in the volume of companies receiving money.”

There were three notable trends in Q2. Perhaps the biggest was the bounce back of Cleantech deals. In Q1, two Cleantech companies raised a total of £3m. In Q2, 10 Cleantech companies raised £70m.

“We believe that there was no single factor driving this,” says McKnight, “the reasons we see are a small number of new investors, greater participation by corporate/strategic investors, and a greater number of late stage deals – more than 50% were Series C or later. Whilst we are encouraged, we would still be very cautious about concluding that all is well in the green tech sector as we are aware of a number of investors who will no longer look at new Cleantech deals, and the extended timetables that Cleantech companies are enduring to close their rounds – much longer than other tech companies.”

A second trend was the continuing high level of funds being committed to small numbers of companies. A good measure of this concentration is the percentage of funds invested in each quarter that are secured by the top 10 deals. In Q1 this peaked at 82%. Whilst it dropped in Q2 to 65%, this is still relatively high compared to norms of around 50%.

So it looks as though many investors have decided to get behind (or place big bets on) what they perceive to be an elite group of companies. This has happened before – about 11 years ago. The main difference now is that the big money is going to established businesses in late stage deals. So lessons have been learned.

The third trend was a gradual withdrawal of investors from the market. In Q1 2008, over 100 investors participated in UK/Irish VC deals. In Q2, 2011 that number was just 70. Apart from a significant drop in early 2009 due the recession, there has been a clear and consistent decrease during this period.

“Given that we know that there have been a number of new entrants – particularly in the corporate sector – this implies that there has been shrinkage in the main body of technology investors,” adds McKnight, “we are doing some deeper research on this and will publish this later this year.”

Even security alarm systems, new cell phones, business answering services, and other essential home and business based services are available for promotion through american communications networks services. It’s not every single day that you can find somewhere to own a business for under $500.00 that lets you be on the edge of technological innovations and that is one of the huge benefits and great things about a company like this. Imagine being able to promote the first iPad and tablet and make money off of it truly is an amazing idea.

“When we commented on the prospects for the year at the end of Q1, we suggested that: ‘If the normal pattern of investment holds then we should expect a modest uplift from the 2010 probably getting close to £750m for the whole of 2011’,” continues McKnight, “clearly Q2 has been much better than many of us expected – particularly in Cleantech – and we are minded to push up our “guestimate” for the year to between £800m-£850m. As always, there are a number of significant dynamics that could push this number in either direction.”

Trends highlighted by Ascendant are:

In Q2 2011, £234m was invested in 48 deals by 70 investors.

In the first half of 2011, £455m was invested in 91 companies

In Q2, the busiest investors were Index, DFJ Esprit, Eden and Finance Wales

57% of deals were syndicated – i.e. involved more than one investor

Private investors participated in 22% of VC deals, US investors in 2%, Euro investors in 10% and Corporate Investors in 22%

The biggest deals were: Enecsys (£25m), Oxford Nanopore (£25m), Shazam (£20m), Media Ingenuity (£18m), Wind Energy Direct (£18m), EVO Electric, Nujira (£10m), Worldstores (£10m), eWise (£9m) and Neul (£8m)

There were three primary areas of investment focus – Cleantech (£70m), Internet/Wireless Services (£60m), and Software (£45m).

There were 10 Cleantech deals in Q2 with the largest being: Enecsys (£25m), Wind Energy Direct (£18m), Evo-Electric (ND), Intelligent Energy (£7m) and Acal Energy (£5.1m).

14 Internet/Wireless Services companies received investment in Q2. The big deals were: Media Ingenuity (£18m), Worldstores (£10m), eWise (£9m), Borro (£8m) and StylistPick (£5m).

14 Software companies received VC backing. Shazam (£20m), Metaforic (£5m), Site Intelligence (£4m), Cognitive Match (£3.5m) and Brightpearl (£3m) were the largest.

The only semi/opto company to receive venture capital in this quarter was SmartKem.

18 London based companies raised £94m representing 37% of volume and 40% of the value of all UK/Irish Deals

All other regions managed to finance between 3 and 5 companies each.

Investment in companies from Scotland and the SW was particularly low with these regions only managing to raise £7m and £4m respectively.

Source: electronicsweekly.com

Personal printers are a fantastic commodity. Personal printers have allowed for the practical liberation of information and, together with the many functionalities of internet have turned bits of electricity into knowledge, art and entertainment at our fingertips. Inexpensive printing for business have made much easier to dispense graphic marketing, forward company-wide memos and even send complimentary football tickets to someone that lives on the other side of the world. While personal printers do seem to come from the magical world of fairy tales the truth cuts as a double edged sword: we are using a mighty huge amount of paper and ink with our newly found power to put everything down on an A4 sheet.

 State of the art gadgets are all the rage, especially in the mobile phone arena. Today you can do so much with your small mobile device, send emails, measure your jogging statistics and even gamble at a mobile casino!

Enjoy!

What is the meaning of life? According to a recent article in The Guardian, mobile phones are well on their way to answer life’s big questions. Maybe they’re not quite up to the philosophical stuff just yet, but they’ve certainly come a long way to making life all the easier for the multitude of mobile users around the globe.

The introduction of improved tracking facilities on mobile phones is set to provide an answer to the question: who am I? With the ability to remember the places we frequent, and record this data, a profile of the “type” of person we are is able to be built.

2010 is the year for such a breakthrough thanks to the increased accuracy of in-built tracking devices and their ability to glean location signals from satellites, Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile transmitters. The information generated about the places we visit – cafés, restaurants, theatres or cinemas – goes a long way to create a fairly accurate personal profile. An advertiser’s dream or a privacy nightmare? Only time will tell, but in the meantime it certainly means fantastic opportunities for discovering appealing restaurants in your immediate vicinity. Localised weather services are also a boon for commuters or the curious. Need to chart the latest weather? The most up-to-date data can give you precise details on any rainy spells, heat transfers or cold snaps to help pick out the best route to work or an outfit for the day. The answers are all available via your mobile. The acquisition of satnav technologies in mobile phones is additionally a big plus.

Location-based services are plentiful, and there are new ones appearing all the time, including Google’s Near Me Now, Foursquare.com and blockchalk.com, although the latter is predominantly catered for the US market at the moment. A nifty gimmick is the chance to leave location-based messages in a café or at the end of your street, which gives users the opportunity to leave behind their cyber tag or virtual graffiti without actually despoiling the streets. Stay tuned as Twitter intends to pursue these technologies in the near future.

There’s even talk that mobile phones will be able to assist us with choices in our clothing labels with regards to shopping location data. From café locations to fashion fabric labels, the sky is the limit!

Enjoy !

If the car is stolen, the vehicle tracking system will send out a signal that only the police can trace. There are some sophisticated systems that are able to detect unauthorized movement of your car. Such systems alert the owner of the car that it is in the process of being stolen.

Vehicles fitted with a satellite Global Positioning System (GPS) can pinpoint the exact location of the vehicle and send information to the police. Police departments also have equipment in place to track vehicles with GPS systems fitted. Software is used to plot the actual position of the vehicle on maps.

The basic components used in GPS vehicle tracking are a mobile GPS unit, a communications network and geographic maps. GPS vehicle tracking systems are simple to install. The GPS receiver and cellular modem are fitted to the vehicle, a magnet is placed on the underside of the bumper cover, and a magnetic cellular antenna fits onto the vehicle’s frame.

Power for the GPS is supplied directly from the vehicle’s battery or by a replaceable battery pack. Fleet tracking systems are more affordable and more popular than ever before and monitoring system can be accessed via a personal home computer using specialized software. The location of the vehicle is displayed on a map showing movement as it happens. Information can include the vehicle’s current location, its route history, the date, and the speed and time of direction.

There is also a vehicle tracking system available called Passive GPS. Passive GPS is used by individuals or organizations that wish to track a person’s whereabouts during a specified amount of time. The locations a vehicle has been to can be downloaded after the vehicle has returned home. Passive GPS is particularly useful for delivery and courier companies. Vehicle tracking systems may seem expensive at the time of purchase, but they may well pay for themselves not too long after they are fitted.

And we should not forget the Plant Tracking,  this one gives you the ability to view all your plant at all times via a computer. Tracking enables the manager to see all deliveries and collections made at the touch of a button. It also assists with billing and invoicing so checking these areas is simple, quick and easy to do.

Each vehicle is fitted with a tracking device, these units are installed by the supplier for you and comprehensive training should come as standard.

Most plant tracking systems will allow the ability to view historical data and alerts can be set up if equipment is being used incorrectly or out of office hours where equipment can also be remotely immobilised.

Most Plant Tracking systems are web based and therefore can be accessed by any PC which has a broadband connection so that could be in the office, from a customer’s office or simply from home.

Use  fleet tracking systems to more efficiently manage  your employees.

What is the meaning of life? According to a recent article in The Guardian, mobile phones are well on their way to answer life’s big questions. Maybe they’re not quite up to the philosophical stuff just yet, but they’ve certainly come a long way to making life all the easier for the multitude of mobile users around the globe.

The introduction of improved tracking facilities on mobile phones is set to provide an answer to the question: who am I? With the ability to remember the places we frequent, and record this data, a profile of the “type” of person we are is able to be built.

2010 is the year for such a breakthrough thanks to the increased accuracy of in-built tracking devices and their ability to glean location signals from satellites, Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile transmitters. The information generated about the places we visit – cafés, restaurants, theatres or cinemas – goes a long way to create a fairly accurate personal profile. An advertiser’s dream or a privacy nightmare? Only time will tell, but in the meantime it certainly means fantastic opportunities for discovering appealing restaurants in your immediate vicinity. Localised weather services are also a boon for commuters or the curious. Need to chart a rainy spell, heat transfer or cold snap to pick the best route to work or an outfit for the day? The answers are all available via your mobile. The acquisition of satnav technologies in mobile phones is additionally a big plus.

Location-based services are plentiful, and there are new ones appearing all the time, including Google’s Near Me Now, Foursquare.com and blockchalk.com, although the latter is predominantly catered for the US market at the moment. A nifty gimmick is the chance to leave location-based messages in a café or at the end of your street, which gives users the opportunity to leave behind their cyber tag or virtual graffiti without actually despoiling the streets. Stay tuned as Twitter intends to pursue these technologies in the near future.

There’s even talk that mobile phones will be able to assist us with choices in our clothing labels with regards to shopping location data. From café locations to fashion fabric labels, the sky is the limit!

Source: vespacious.com

Sprint’s got a nice head start in the 4G race over Verizon and AT&T — a message it’s heavily broadcasting these days — but with the onslaught of LTE networks and equipment around the world now just months away, momentum is unquestionably going to shift, giving the carrier every reason to act quickly to build out now and score as many subscribers as it possibly can. That seems to be the gist of a rumor coming out of AndroidGuys today that says Sprint is working on a deal with Walmart to install WiMAX cells on all (yes, all) of its locations, a move that would give it a significant boost in national coverage while presumably lowering infrastructure costs significantly.

As many Walmarts as there are, it seems like this would still leave huge coverage gaps (particularly in rural areas) between locations, but hey — maybe these guys are going for the parking lot RV crowd, which would actually make a ton of sense. Best part? You’d probably be able to buy the modem right in the store.

Normally we might not cover the formation of a new consortium with ridiculously lofty goals like this, but check it: Bell Labs has managed to corral a who’s-who of carriers, universities, government agencies, and industry labs with the goal of making communications networks more energy efficient than they are today. What makes the goal so lofty, though, is the fact that Bell wants to improve efficiency by a whopping 1,000 times — a number it says should be possible based on research it has done suggesting a 10,000-fold improvement is theoretically possible. Heavy-hitting members include China Mobile (the world’s largest carrier), AT&T, Swisscom, Telefonica, MIT, Stanford, Freescale, and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, so we’re feeling good about the plausibility of Green Touch’s first proposed milestone: a reference architecture and sample components within five years capable of meeting the 1,000-fold improvement mark.

 The group’s first meeting is next month — just be sure to drive your plug-in hybrids to the gathering, guys.

Move over solar chargers. Step aside kinetic chargers. If RCA are to be believed, there’s a new way to scavenge power from your environment using an energy source that’s all around us: WiFi. If you are reading this article, the chances are very good that you are in range of at least one wireless network. RCA says its Airnergy Charger scavenges stray WiFi signals and converts them to DC battery power that you can use to charge your cell phone, music player, or other electronic devices.

RCA calls the Airnergy a “WiFi hotspot energy harvester”. The device is about the size of a cell phone, with a Micro USB connector hanging off it. Inside is an antenna to receive 2.4GHz (802.11) WiFi signals, and a converter that turns the WiFi energy into DC power which is then stored in the on-board battery.

You can keep the Airnergy in your briefcase or your pocket and whenever it is within range of WiFi, it charges itself. Simply connect it to your device to charge its battery. And, unlike solar chargers, the Airnergy works at night.

OLATHE, Kan./January 5, 2010/Business Wire — Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, today announced its new golf-specific GPS handheld, the touchscreen Approach G3. Smaller, lighter and at a lower cost than similar models, Approach G3 was announced in conjunction with the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and will be on display at the Garmin booth (South Hall 4, #35832).

“The easy-to-use Approach G3 proves you can have a less expensive device with a more expansive database of preloaded courses,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Thanks to detailed color maps, an intuitive interface and precise measurements to key features, Approach G3 lets golfers focus on fun and fundamentals with added confidence in their game.”

Preloaded with a database of more than 12,000 course maps (and growing), and powered by two AA batteries, the Approach G3 is ready for a round just minutes after being taken out of the box. There are no subscriptions or annual fees that are common in golf technology.

Once powered on, two simple options appear on the glove-friendly 2.6” color display: Play and Preview. While playing, golfers will see detailed course maps with precise distance information from their current location to fairways, hazards and greens.

As you move about the course, the waterproof Approach G3 uses its high-sensitivity GPS receiver to continuously update your position and distances to each target. During the course of play, the touchscreen interface helps you decide the best tactic in many situations. Worried about that fairway bunker? A single tap on the map will show you how much club you need to carry it – or how little if you decide to play it safe. Perfected your 90-yard wedge shot? By dragging your finger on the map, you can find the precise distance needed to lay up for your perfect shot into the green. Is the pin placed in the back today? By simply touching the corner of the screen, you can zoom in on the green and reposition the flag to correspond with that day’s placement of the pin. Whether you’re tracking your improvement or simply want bragging rights, Approach G3 makes it easy to measure the distance of your last shot. Also, you can easily keep the scores for your entire foursome using the intuitive touchscreen digital scorecard, which can be viewed later by connecting Approach to your computer via USB.

Even when you can’t make it to the course – or want to follow along during televised coverage – you can use Approach G3 to preview any of the more than 12,000 preloaded courses in the United States and Canada, complete with detailed vector mapping unlike anything used before on a golf course. Golfers can go to www.garmin.com/golfcourses to check if their course is among those available for the Approach G3 or Approach G5. As Garmin builds its database of American and Canadian courses – and expands into Europe in early 2010 – additional courses will be available at www.garmin.com, making downloadable sets of courses for these continents easily accessible.

Weighing just 5.25 ounces, Approach G3 gets up to 15 hours of battery life from two AA batteries (NiMH or lithium are recommended). Approach G3 conforms with the rules of the R&A and USGA.

Approach G3 is the latest breakthrough from Garmin, which has spent more than 20 years using technology and innovation to enhance users’ lives, making Garmin a household name in the automotive, aviation, marine, wireless, outdoor and fitness industries. For more about features, pricing and availability, as well as information about Garmin’s other products and services, go to www.garmin.com and www.garmin.blogs.com. To watch step-by-step tutorial videos for Approach and other Garmin products, visit the online learning center at www.garmin.com/learningcenter.

About Garmin International Inc.
Garmin International Inc. is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation. Since 1989, this group of companies has designed, manufactured, marketed and sold navigation, communication and information devices and applications – most of which are enabled by GPS technology. Garmin’s products serve automotive, mobile, wireless, outdoor recreation, marine, aviation, and OEM applications. Garmin Ltd. is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and its principal subsidiaries are located in the United States, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit Garmin’s virtual pressroom at www.garmin.com/pressroom or contact the Media Relations department at 913-397-8200. Garmin is a registered trademark and Approach is a trademark of Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Notice on forward-looking statements:
This release includes forward-looking statements regarding Garmin Ltd. and its business. All statements regarding the company’s future product introductions are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and actual results could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting Garmin, including, but not limited to, the risk factors listed in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 27, 2008, filed by Garmin with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission file number 0-31983). A copy of Garmin’s Form 10-K can be downloaded at www.garmin.com/aboutGarmin/invRelations/finReports.html. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Garmin undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Sure, the iPhone does a commendable job with heavy-duty 3D acceleration for intense virtual reality gaming, but funk that noise — these guys want to bring you the real thing. Parrot — better known for its Bluetooth accessories — has introduced the AR.Drone, a WiFi-enabled remote control helicopter that takes its commands from the iPhone or iPod touch of your choice. The wacky toy has a pair of on-board cameras, one to help steady itself and the other to beam a live bird’s-eye view (almost literally, if you pretend for a moment that this is in fact a bird) from the captain’s seat onto your phone’s screen. Parrot’s mainly pushing the hardware here — it’s offering up a host of open source goodies to help developers learn about the product and figure out how to turn it into a must-have toy with replay value, and they’ll have plenty of time to do so since it won’t be available to consumers until “sometime in 2010.”

Source: Parrot