News

The Lean Lab partners with 4.0 Schools to innovate KC education

By Tommy Felts / April 11, 2016

More than 100 years ago, our education system was designed and built to prepare an early-1900s workforce for the industrial age. Today, children are learning with iPads and Youtube, but the bones of the traditional liberal arts structure remain similar to what our great-grandparents experienced. Local education innovation incubator The Lean Lab hopes to change…

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Google Fiber nixes free Internet offering in Kansas City

By Tommy Felts / April 11, 2016

It’s often said there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And in Google’s case, there’s no such thing a free fiber connection — at least anymore. The tech titan last week nixed its free Internet offering, which dished out download speeds of 5 megabits-per-second and upload speeds of 1 mbps. Google has offered the…

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Regional Roundup

When your tech becomes an expensive paperweight

By Tommy Felts / April 8, 2016

Here’s this week’s dish on expensive paperweights, company culture and bootstrapping. Check out more in this series here.   The Verge: Nest is permanently disabling the Revolv smart home hub In a shot across the bows of any early-adopter interested in startup tech, Nest announced that it’s shutting down Revolv’s IoT smart home hub. Google-owned…

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QM Power snags $9M round for high-tech electric motor

By Tommy Felts / April 8, 2016

Kansas City-based QM Power recently raised significant capital to accelerate development of its electric motor that the company says will transform its industry.   The tech firm raised $9.06 million from undisclosed investors to boost development of the “Q-Sync Smart Synchronous Motor.” QM Power says the motor is as much as 80 percent more efficient…

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After ‘largest product launch ever,’ Tesla attracts KC futurists

By Tommy Felts / April 7, 2016

In a week, electric car maker Tesla has spurred an automotive ardor whose fervor may only be rivaled by the replacement of horses with the Ford Model T. Tesla’s new Model 3 has received more than 325,000 pre-orders in seven days, which corresponds to about $14 billion in implied future sales. The sales represent the…

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