September 19, 2010 22 Comments
Both AT&T and Verizon are moving forward with their 4G/LTE networks in 30 US cities, with one launching by the end of the year and the other going commercial by mid-2011. And, with the approval of the first LTE phone by the FCC, the door is opening for flood of new LTE devices. Read more of this post
September 9, 2010 2 Comments
The American Institute for Economic Research, a non-profit, compiled the College Destination Index , which ranks the nation’s top cities for college students to live. After San Francisco and New York, our beloved Washington, D.C., is nominated the best city for college kids in the country.
The AIER selected the top 75 cities for the index from 222 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 15,000 students.
The rankings are based on 12 criteria, including student diversity, cost of living and unemployment rate. Read more of this post
August 27, 2010 1 Comment
Remember the movie, Minority Report back in 2002? It is about to become a reality in Washington, D.C. The Nation’s Capital will soon be using the software that is expected to reduce the murder rate as well as other crime rates. If it works, this is an amazing development. Read more of this post
August 9, 2010 Leave a comment
Next time you head to Baltimore for the weekend, you may want to check out Red Maple. Every Saturday, the local event promoter, HEIDNSEEK hosts an awesome lively Dance party there.
I used to go there during my college days, but haven’t been there since I moved to DC three years ago.
If you’re into an upbeat scene with good tapas type dishes, Red Maple is your spot.
The place is a trend setting hot spot, with deeply sexy California good looks and feel-happy music spun by cocksure DJs.
As far as the food goes, its decent. They have a lot of unique dishes and all of them are very well prepared. The atmosphere, like i said, is upbeat, even during earlier dinner they have loud music playing so if that isn’t your thing, steer clear. The late night scene is Euro-Club-esc. Big bass DJs playing trance and house own the night here. Give it a shot. Read more of this post
July 15, 2010 3 Comments
Comcast has launched its high-speed mobile Internet service in 10 East Coast markets, including DC, Baltimore and Richmond.
The company initially launched the service, known as High-Speed 2go, last year in its home base of Philadelphia. It comes to the DC-area nearly two years after the company initially invested in WiMax developer Clearwire. Read more of this post
July 14, 2010 2 Comments
Nearly doubling its market, Washington DC-based LivingSocial, launched its Deals service in 25 more cities, including Baltimore. The company, which has raised $49 million in funding since March, now operates the service in 51 or 52 cities, not quite sure. Read more of this post
July 8, 2010 Leave a comment
Zipcar, backed by Steve Case‘s DC-based Revolution investment firm, has launched its service throughout Baltimore, placing 22 of its cars at locations across the city.
Zipcar, which already had serviced several Baltimore-area universities, including Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College and Towson University, now has 45 cars in the metro area. Members reserve vehicles online or through mobile devices, use a smartcard to open the doors, then return the cars at the end of their reservations. An hourly or daily fee covers gas, insurance, maintenance, parking and emergency service. Read more of this post
June 7, 2010 1 Comment
Anamika Veeramani, a 14-year-old girl from Ohio, won the 83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee over the weekend at Washington’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.
The competition began with 273 spellers and ended with just one: Veeramani, who correctly spelled “stromuhr,” defined by Merriam-Webster as “a rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery.”
Veeramani, an eighth-grade student, hopes to become a “cardiovascular surgeon, an author and a screenwriter.” Read more of this post
May 10, 2010 Leave a comment
by Elias Shams
It was about ten years ago I presented my first Internet company, Telezoo at MAVA and received my first cool $3 mil funding. I didn’t even know how to carry that much money from MAVA to my bank 
Damn! It feels like it was just yesterday.
It’s that time of the year again.
MAVA (Mid-Atlantic Venture Association) on announced the 40 early- and expansion-stage technology companies that have been selected to present at the organization’s Capital Connection ’10 event, scheduled for May 19-20 in Baltimore.
They companies will join 14 later-stage companies to be showcased throughout the conference. Selections were made by a panel of nearly 30 investors and advisors, co-chaired by Tom Grossi of New Enterprise Associates, Steve Fredrick of Grotech Ventures, Tom Roberts of Harbert Venture Partners and Sever Totia of Edison Venture Fund. Read more of this post
March 15, 2010 2 Comments
by Elias Shams
In response to Google announcement last month about their plan to build and deliver high-speed broadband networks to every home in the nation, the city of Baltimore is putting the local technology entrepreneur Tom Loveland as its volunteer “Google Czar”. Tom, the CEO of IT strategy and application design firm Mind Over Machines will work with the office of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as the city applies to become one of a small number of test cities for Google’s new ultra high-speed Internet service.
Google has been seeking volunteer cities for their high-speed hookup tests since the announcement. Certainly, the competition between the cities will turn into bidding war soon. Funny thing is all the mayors across our nation have already started creating their Facebook fan pages for this including City of Rochester with the fan page called “Hey Google, Make Rochester Faster”, Kansas City and Google, Huntsville, Ala., with 5,729 fans, Ventura, Calif., with 1,320 fans.
Elias Shams
Kamran Abdi
Tatiana Sorabi
