LAS VEGAS — Along with all the incremental improvements of existing tech-related staples (audio equipment, cars, etc.) as well as cutting-edge tech (wearables and drones) showcased at CES, we witnessed a major shift: Virtual reality matured into a serious category.

It's not that the show floor was laden with VR technology, but the ones that did show up were no longer promising a far off future of virtual worlds — instead, they displayed technology that is just about ready to hit the market. There was even a special augmented reality pavilion at the conference, where a number of AR startups showed off their wares to attendees.

As an entrepreneur mentor and startup investor, I see with sadness the 50 to 90 percent that fail. If you ask them for a reason, most will insist that they couldn’t get funding, or they ran out of money too early. But I’m not convinced that it’s as simple as that. Many are just not facing the reality that their passion had a critical business flaw.

An €85 million venture capital fund managed by Fountain Healthcare Partners has become the first new fund to be created under the Seed and Venture Capital Scheme.

Image: Richard Bruton

One day I woke up and realized it had been years since I'd thought about my old Dell Axim X30 personal digital assistant (PDA), let alone touched one. The device quickly became extinct, replaced by other technology forging ahead. PDAs are the ancestors of our modern mobile phones, in the same way a lot of the items we're currently carrying around today will be looked back on in a few years the same way—in laughable disbelief that they lasted for so long.

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Update: Frog Design has just unveiled their complete list of Tech Trends for 2015. Make sure to check it out for 11 other trends Frog thinks will hit big this year!

Around this time every year, global innovation and design firm Frog predicts what the biggest trends in tech will be in the coming year. In 2014, Frog predicted that drones, augmented reality, and self-driving cars would all be big trends (and they were mostly right). For 2015, Frog sees 3-D printers and hydroponic gardens in every kitchen, and smart T-shirts and wearable fitness AIs as some of the major tech trends of the year. Here's how four of Frog's designers see 2015 in tech playing out.

BANGALORE: India's second largest software services firm Infosys will expand its 'Innovation Fund' five times to $ 500 million to provide financing to start-ups and new technologies like artificial intelligence.

"I am very excited that our board has approved expanding our start-up funding firm from 100 million dollars to 500 million dollars and we will dedicate a part of that investing in India," Infosys CEO and Managing Director Vishal Sikka said.

Image: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com

Teams searching for innovation increase their odds of driving the evolution of a  field when they reach out to colleagues—or to research findings—outside their field's area of expertise, a new study from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business suggests.

“If all of the innovators come from the same backgrounds and know the same things, they might be efficient in coming up with solutions,” Smith Professor Rafael Corredoira said. “The problem is that at some point, they will hit a wall. They will not be able to move beyond to find another solution.”

Until recently, China’s Internet economy was consumer driven. The country leads the world in the number of Internet users, and Chinese enterprises deploy sophisticated e-commerce strategies. The same companies, though, have lagged behind the United States and other developed nations in using the Internet to run key aspects of their businesses (Exhibit 1).

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Okay, so I have to start by admitting that when I first heard the term ‘brand yourself’ I thought of baby cows. As in, baby cows receiving the very painful and permanent imprint of someone’s logo on their butts.

That image went away when I started hanging out with real branding experts. Corporate branding, I mean, where no animals are harmed in the making of the marks.

These people are really interesting, because you can dish about the stuff you buy, and they can tell you why you’re buying it. (Sometimes, of course, an incredibly soft pair of black leather riding boots are just for keeping your legs warm and your feet dry in winter…while looking sensational with the bag you scored in an online sale, and the fact that both are from Cole Haan is just a coincidence. But I digress.)

A great University is defined by great academics, great researchers, great thinkers, and great teachers, not by great administrators, great technology transferors, or even great leaders, although those of us in list two can help recruit and retain the really important people in list one.

I would like to suggest that the principle products of a great university are university teaching and curiosity-led research. There are few alternative sources of either of these. A valuable by-product of university research is a range of commercial opportunities

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The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Gine Roll Skjaervoe at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Department of Biology has studied church records from the period 1750-1900 and looked at life history variables: how old were women when they had their first child, and their last? How many years passed between the birth of each child, and how many of these children survived? How many of these children were in turn married and had children?

Loyalty to institutions is not necessarily a hallmark of the modern workforce.

Many studies show that especially young workers expect to work for several companies over their careers. But loyalty itself isn’t dead. As people move between employers and in and out of self-employment, many find themselves working with the same people again and again. These relationships endure even as the situations change. Handled right, this new loyalty can be a source of real stability in a career, and make work a lot more meaningful too. Here’s how to cultivate work relationships that last beyond any given job:

Not getting enough done at work? Maybe you should start your workday later in the morning.

A recent study from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine found that people who get to the office early often sacrifice sleep for work, and chronic sleep loss can contribute to a drop in productivity.

I distinctly remember one question that my biggest-internship-turned-first-job-out-of-college boss asked me as I sat across from her in a gray wool suit in my initial interview. It went something like:

How can you manage to be the executive director of a nonprofit as a college student?

I don’t remember how I answered, but I will never forget what that question taught me—that words are powerful.

The Michigan Investment in New Technology Startups initiative has invested $6.9 million in 11 different University-based startup companies, according to the University’s Investment Office.

MINTS is a $25-million venture fund managed by the University’s Investment Office, established by President Emerita Mary Sue Coleman in 2011. The initiative invests in startup companies that produce technology developed at and licensed by the University.

My dad always used to tell me that the difference between the “you” now and the “you” 20 years from now will be the places you visit and the people you meet. I would also add baldness and gray hair to that, but they don’t sound as cool.

He was right. Whether you meet someone in person or read a book he or she authors, people are pivot points that enable learning and foster personal growth for others.

France produces fewer start-ups than the average developed nation, and has historically had a higher rate of unemployment. Critics are quick to blame both on its generous welfare state. But in 2001, the nation’s policymakers were able to boost entrepreneurship, according to a recent paper. And they did it by making welfare policies even more generous.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been criticized for implementing the practice of stack ranking, most notably in an excerpt from Nicholas Carlson’s upcoming book, Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! that was published in the New York Times. Most of the criticisms of stack ranking center on the seeming arbitrary nature of the practice, which requires managers to grade their people on a bell curve, with a mandatory proportion of both 5s (excellent employees) and 1s (underperformers), regardless of the actual distribution of performance. According to critics, stack ranking produces excessive and unproductive internal competition, and discourages employees from helping their peers.

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This may sound as though we’ve got our facts backward, but your company can significantly increase its knowledge output by cutting R&D spending.

It’s all a matter of when you cut your spending, and why.

Take Cisco, for example. The company’s R&D expenditures dropped by about $1.5 billion from 2002 through 2004. Drawing on data from the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, we found that during this period, the company’s patented knowledge output increased significantly.

Image: https://hbr.org