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Cofounder @vidpresso. Dad, developer, dreamer of video. Ex CNET, ex Engadget, ex ESPN freelancer.
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I'd never heard of freeline skates before...they're like little skateboards, one for each foot. This video shows how they're used for tricks and such:
That looks hard, much more difficult than skateboarding or inline skates. But maybe not, once you get the hang of it? Can't beat the portability though...they'd slip right into a small bag when you're not using them. (via @matiasfrndz)
Tags: sports video
The 2014 numbers for the VC category are out and it was a huge year, almost $50bn in total VC funding.
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But look at the numbers for “deals” vs the numbers for “dollars”.
In 2014, there were 4,356 deals vs 4,193 deals in 2013, an increase of 3.8% year over year.
In 2014, VCs invested $48.3bn, compared to $29.9bn in 2014, an increase of 61.5%.
Basically, the average deal size went from $7mm in 2013 to $11mm in 2014. But averages don’t really tell the whole story.
What is going on is that the late stage market is going crazy. There was a $100mm+ deal on average every month in 2014 and the late stage market made up 1/3 of all deals.
VCs are all about what is happening now and are not focusing as much on what will happen in five to ten years (the seed/early stage markets).
None of this should be news to those who are paying close attention. Round sizes have gone up and burn rates have gone up, but so much of this is limited to a hundred or a couple hundred companies. The rest of the market is more or less where it has been for years. The rich are getting richer. The middle class is stagnant. And the people who can’t raise a round still can’t. Only the top end of the market has really changed over the past five years.
Kind of like the entire economy, isn’t it?
It’s mid-Shark Week, and our collective post-Sharknado hangover is starting to pass. But it’s still summer, so there’s time for yet another toothy fish-themed bit of news: A company in Australia has developed a new line of products that could keep sharks away from surfers.
Sharks don’t actually crave humans, of course. It’s just that sometimes they’ll mistake the silhouette of a surfer for a seal, or see a flash of jewelry and consider it the glimmer of a school of fish. The common sensory thread here--and the key to putting some distance between Jaws and people--is vision.
Shark Attack Mitigation Systems (SAMS) protects swimmers by breaking up the visual cues that sharks use when they slip into predator mode. SAMS was started in 2011 by two Australian entrepreneurs, Hamish Jolly and Craig Anderson, who partnered with professors from the University of Western Australia to develop the designs for wetsuits and surfboards.
Their research was based on relatively new insight into how sharks see. One discovery, that sharks are color blind, informs the SAMS “Cryptic Swimmer” pattern. The blocks of blue weave together to mimic the movement of water--rendering the person wearing the suit invisible to the shark. It’s basic camouflage, the offshore version of a hunter’s branch-and-leaf pattern.
But where the Cryptic design provides cover, “Warning Swimmer” uses the opposite visual effect to keep sharks at bay. Here, contrasting black-and-white stripes break up a shark’s ability to engage and focus on prey. This print does a couple things: It potentially confuses the shark, or tricks it into seeing water snakes, and sharks don’t eat snakes. This tactic is more like the dazzle camouflage or painting of World War I, when naval ships used the geometric patterns to alter the enemy’s depth perception.
So far SAMS has been tested in live waters near Perth, where the company is based. Skeptics have been quick to suggest that the contrasting stripes may serve to attract, rather than deter, the predators, but the true test will happen on the water. It’s safe to assume, for now, that the only surefire way to avoid a shark attack is to avoid the ocean itself--advice any diehard surfer is sure to pass on.
SAMS has partnered with wetsuit company Radiator to produce the entire line of suits and surfboards. The suits will cost $495, and can be seen here.
[h/t The Fox Is Black]
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