5G Open Innovation Lab, backed by corporate giants, reveals 16 startups in second cohort

The 5G Open Innovation Lab (5G OI Lab), a startup program funded by T-Mobile, Intel, and NASA, today revealed its second cohort of companies.

The Bellevue, Wash.-based lab debuted in early May and wrapped up its first 12-week program in July. It aims to help entrepreneurs take advantage of 5G technology and build connections with a variety of partners from the public and private sphere.

Unlike many accelerators and incubators, the lab does not take equity stakes in the startups. But the sponsoring companies get early access for potential venture investments and are part of the cohort selection process. They also get a chance to work with early-stage startups that could end up being the next billion-dollar tech giant.

The lab is also a founding member of a Washington state “Innovation Partner Zone,” an alliance developed by the Department of Commerce to help spur collaboration between institutions, government organizations and companies. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, Snohomish County, Washington State University (WSU), the University of Washington, T-Mobile, and the City of Bellevue are part of the “5G Open Innovation Zone,” in addition to the lab.

5G is the next generation of wireless service that is expected to pave the way for smarter cities, faster downloads, self-driving cars, and countless other innovations that are hard to predict, just as tech stalwarts such as Uber and Snapchat couldn’t be anticipated until 4G and LTE made their business models possible.

Here are the 16 new companies, with descriptions from the lab:

Bluebox Labs: Bluebox uses Co-pilot to offer an affordable software ecosystem for any car, providing security, convenience, and savings to the user.FreedomFi: FreedomFi uses commodity hardware, open source software and CBRS shared spectrum to build cost efficient private LTE networks and future 5G IoT deployments.GenXComm: GenXComm has developed an advanced technology for 5G deployment which can operate in a variety of bands, including the unlicensed CBRS Band optimizing spectrum usage by allowing communication to transmit and receive simultaneously – on the same frequency.Innov8.ag: Innov8.ag combines on-farm and off-farm data with machine learning to inform grower decisions and maximize resource efficiency.Kubermatic Gmbh: Kubermatic’s platform automates the operations of Kubernetes clusters across multi-cloud, on-premises, and edge environments with a single management UI, addressing the operational challenge of running Kubernetes at scale.Latent AI: Latent AI’s modular software solution automates the resource-intensive tasks of training AI models for constrained devices anywhere on the edge continuum.Mangata Networks: Mangata Networks provides scalable global coverage, with satellite and terrestrial solutions for high capacity and affordable backhaul.MATRIX Labs: MATRIX Labs offers affordable FPGA-driven development boards with sensors, mics, and wireless communication protocols to facilitate IoT app creation.Megh Computing: Megh Computing provides a Real-Time Streaming Analytics Platform with AI+ acceleration using FPGAs for Edge-to-Cloud deployments.mimik Technology, Inc.: mimik provides a hybrid edgeCloud platform to enable any computing device with server capability, increasing data privacy and development speed while lowering the latency and cost of cloud hosting.MixComm: MixComm is the “Antenna to AlgorithmTM” company solving the challenges constraining 5G mmWave performance by extending the link range, reducing power consumption, and reducing system costs with their RFSOI Front End ICs and modules.Moeco IoT: Moeco combines a web platform with low-cost sensors to provide an end-to-end solution for data and sensor management as well as insight generation.Nodle: Nodle is a decentralized wireless network of millions of smartphones and Bluetooth devices connecting people and things privately and securely.PerVices: PerVices delivers a flexible, multi-channel transmit and receive solution using their high-performance software defined radio (SDR) platforms.QuayChain: QuayChain builds digital infrastructure through private LTE/5G for the Supply Chain, creating Smart Industrial Hubs to harvest & democratize data through IoT and AI-driven solutions in large multi-modal locations.Taubyte – Taubyte is The Smart Computing Platform that enables scaling software to the global infrastructure catalyzed by 5G and IoT; being fully automated (i.e. NoOps), it eliminates software development, deployment, and routing complexity at the Edge, allowing (I)IoT developers to focus on product features, while reducing costs and time to market.

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Testing Amazon Kitchen: Here’s our hot take on the tech giant’s first hot food bar at Amazon Go Grocery

Amazon does deliveries, cloud computing, voice technology, and e-readers pretty damn well.

The company’s hot food game, though, could use a little work.

That’s my verdict after taste testing a 3-cheese melt, a fajita burrito, chicken fingers, and Italian Wedding Soup from Amazon’s newest grocery store.

If you’re looking for a quick 7-Eleven-style bite — affordable, convenient, but not exactly gourmet — then Amazon Go Grocery fits the bill. But I probably won’t be seeking out “Amazon Kitchen” for my next meal.

The new Amazon Go Grocery in Redmond, Wash.

Amazon just opened its second Amazon Go Grocery location in Redmond, Wash., a stone’s throw away from Microsoft’s sprawling campus just east of downtown Seattle. The first store opened earlier this year in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood location.

Like Amazon’s other Go stores, customers scan a QR code from the Amazon Go app to enter, as overhead cameras track humans and items as part of a cashierless shopping experience.

The 7,350-square-foot store in Redmond is larger and offers something new: a hot food section. I dropped by a little after lunchtime this week and there were several options: burritos, sandwiches, chicken tenders, chicken wings, soup, rotisserie chicken, pizza, racks of ribs. Amazon offers breakfast items such as wraps and oatmeal in the morning.

I grabbed some items and just walked out. I’m still not used to the surveillance-style shopping, with Amazon’s cameras tracking my every move. It’s such a weird feeling not paying for items at a register, then seeing a receipt on my phone with exactly everything I bought. The technology is impressive.

But Amazon’s hot food prep? Not so much.

I started with the $4.99 soup, which was slightly warmer than lukewarm — not quite hot enough for me. The broth was flavorful and mild, without too much salt. The “Italian-style meatballs” were small, but added to the heartiness, along with onions, spinach, and pasta. This wasn’t much better than a canned soup, but I didn’t mind it. My rating: 3 out of 5. 

The soup doesn’t look appetizing, but it tastes decent.

Next up was the $6.99 fajita veggie and cojita burrito. It wasn’t wrapped tight enough, or perhaps could have used more filling, so the burrito was a little flimsy. But the tortilla was solid — not too soft, but not too soggy — and the beans-to-cheese-to-veggies ratio was proper. I could taste the seasoning on the rice. This was better than a microwavable burrito, but probably on the same level of Taco Bell, and not quite as bulky or satisfying as Chipotle. My rating: 3.5 out of 5. 

The burrito could have used more filling, but I liked the beans-to-cheese-to-veggies-to-rice ratio.

Third on the menu was the $4.99 3-cheese melt. It looked promising but the bread was way too chewy and hard to eat. The cheese also didn’t melt well. The sourdough bread did taste good, though. This one is tough to perfect as a hot food item — you need to eat immediately after cooking, or else it loses its luster. My rating: 2 out of 5.

The 3-Cheese Melt from Amazon Kitchen sells for $4.99. (GeekWire Photos / Taylor Soper)

I finished off my Amazon Kitchen experience with four chicken tenders, sold at $3.99. These are hard to mess up. I liked the balanced breading seasoning, and the white meat chicken was solid. I wish I had some BBQ or honey mustard sauce. This ain’t Popeyes or Chick-fil-A, but I would eat it again. My rating: 4 out of 5. 

The chicken tenders were my favorite, though it’s hard to mess up chicken tenders.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed with Amazon Kitchen’s hot food, nor was I disappointed. It’s on par with what you’d find at the hot food section inside your local supermarket. Not exactly healthy or the best ingredients, but satisfying comfort food that you can grab on the go, and won’t break the bank.

Amazon has offsite kitchens where it prepares food, and a majority of the hot items are heated in-store daily. The rotisserie chicken is cooked in the rotisserie oven in a back-of-house kitchen.

Amazon also sells cold food items, including ready-to-heat and ready-to-cook options, at both Amazon Go Grocery locations. Many of those come from local providers such as Beecher’s or Carso’s.

This is not Amazon’s first foray into breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The company started selling pre-packaged meal kits in 2017, similar to what Blue Apron and others offer. It also owns Whole Foods, which have impressive hot food bars around the country.

There is also a prepared foods section at the company’s first Amazon Fresh grocery store that just debuted in Woodland Hills, Calif. That location features high-tech shopping carts and is part of Amazon’s growing grocery footprint.

Groceries are an estimated $678 billion U.S. market, and as they go increasingly digital, Amazon continues to invest heavily in both physical and online options three years after acquiring Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion in 2017. The company saw online grocery sales triple year-over-year during the second quarter of this year as more customers get their groceries delivered versus going to a physical store amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The hot food is a nice addition to the Amazon Go Grocery concept, but the tech giant should bring on a few cooking experts if it wants to take its latest culinary endeavor to the next level.

But for now, it’s still Day One for Amazon Kitchen — and not in a good way.

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Newly-named Ford CEO worries about Amazon and other tech giants

Jim Farley (Photo via Ford)

Ford Motor Company is getting a new CEO. And rather than GM, he’s got tech giant in his sights.

“We know our competition today is Amazon, Baidu, Tesla, Apple, Toyota, and others,” said Jim Farley, who’ll take over from outgoing CEO Jim Hackett in October. “They’re well-financed and voracious companies.”

Farley’s comment speaks to how much the power structure in Detroit has changed in recent years as the one-time automotive innovators now face growing threats from tech giants.

On the surface, Amazon — whose $1.5 trillion market value dwarfs Ford’s $26 billion value — may not appear to be a direct rival to the car manufacturers.

But Amazon is encroaching on the turf, or shall we say the roadway. It is among the biggest backers of electric truck maker Rivian, which raised $1.3 billion late last year. Amazon also announced an order for 100,000 of Rivian’s electric vehicles, which CNBC reported was the largest order ever of electric vehicles. (Ford also is a backer of Rivian).

In June, Amazon purchased Silicon Valley electric robotaxi company Zoox for about $1 billion, signaling again its intentions in the automotive space.

Last year, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly expressed his enthusiasm for the auto industry at an all-hands meeting.

“It’s going to be something very interesting to watch and participate in, and I’m very excited about that whole industry,” Bezos reportedly said.

Farley has some geeky roots himself, and NBC News — in a compelling profile piece today — calls him a “classic gearhead.”

Born in 1962, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and computer science from Georgetown University. He’s risen through the ranks at Ford, and currently serves as chief operating officer. Prior to that role, he served as president of New Businesses, Technology and Strategy where he helped shape Ford’s expansion into connected vehicles. He also has experience leading the company’s smart mobility and autonomous vehicles teams. He was originally recruited to Ford from Toyata by Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford who previously led Boeing’s commercial airplanes group.

In an investor call today, Chairman Bill Ford said that Farley has “great instincts for the future and the new technologies that are changing our industry.”

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Big Tech’s big week: Historic antitrust hearing and record profits put industry giants in spotlight

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos answers questions via video during this week’s landmark antitrust hearing.

Big Tech spent back-to-back days in the national spotlight this week between a long-anticipated Congressional hearing and second-quarter earnings reports.

The juxtaposed events paint a revealing picture of the risks and opportunities companies like Amazon face as they field accusations that they’ve grown too powerful while raking in record profits from customers who rely on their services more than ever.

We discuss this inflection point for Big Tech, Amazon’s blockbuster profits, plus the NBA’s partnership with Microsoft Teams, on this week’s GeekWire podcast:

The House antitrust subcommittee interviewed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, along with Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg during a wide-ranging virtual hearing on the power of Big Tech.

Lawmakers grilled Bezos on Amazon’s treatment of third-party sellers, how it prioritized “essential items” during the coronavirus crisis, policing counterfeit goods, and more. They didn’t manage to get Bezos to admit anything particularly incriminating, but his inability to confidently deny their claims about Amazon using its might to compete with third parties spoke volumes. And while members of Congress don’t have the ability to enforce existing antitrust law, they can rewrite those laws if they find them inadequate for the digital age.

Meanwhile, customers are relying on Amazon more than ever — and it is showing up on the company’s bottom line. The Seattle tech giant blew past Wall Street expectations for its second quarter, reporting $88.9 billion in revenue and $5.2 billion in profits, despite spending $4 billion on COVID-19 initiatives. Amazon also confirmed it has grown to more than 1 million employees and seasonal workers around the world for the first time during Thursday’s earnings call.

During the hearing, Bezos claimed that Amazon has become a lifeline to customers during the pandemic because of its scale, which also allows the company to hire thousands while others are laying off workers across the country.

But critics want Amazon to invest more of its profits into wages and benefits for employees on the frontlines of the coronavirus crisis. Amazon declined to say if it will reinstate its previous hazard pay for its logistics workers or issue additional bonuses.

Listen above or subscribe to GeekWire in any podcast app.

Appearing this week are GeekWire’s Todd Bishop, Monica Nickelsburg and John Cook. Podcast produced by Curt Milton. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

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Big Tech’s big week: Historic antitrust hearing and record profits put industry giants in spotlight

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos answers questions via video during this week’s landmark antitrust hearing.

Big Tech spent back-to-back days in the national spotlight this week between a long-anticipated Congressional hearing and second-quarter earnings reports.

The juxtaposed events paint a revealing picture of the risks and opportunities companies like Amazon face as they field accusations that they’ve grown too powerful while raking in record profits from customers who rely on their services more than ever.

We discuss this inflection point for Big Tech, Amazon’s blockbuster profits, plus the NBA’s partnership with Microsoft Teams, on this week’s GeekWire podcast:

The House antitrust subcommittee interviewed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, along with Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg during a wide-ranging virtual hearing on the power of Big Tech.

Lawmakers grilled Bezos on Amazon’s treatment of third-party sellers, how it prioritized “essential items” during the coronavirus crisis, policing counterfeit goods, and more. They didn’t manage to get Bezos to admit anything particularly incriminating, but his inability to confidently deny their claims about Amazon using its might to compete with third parties spoke volumes. And while members of Congress don’t have the ability to enforce existing antitrust law, they can rewrite those laws if they find them inadequate for the digital age.

Meanwhile, customers are relying on Amazon more than ever — and it is showing up on the company’s bottom line. The Seattle tech giant blew past Wall Street expectations for its second quarter, reporting $88.9 billion in revenue and $5.2 billion in profits, despite spending $4 billion on COVID-19 initiatives. Amazon also confirmed it has grown to more than 1 million employees and seasonal workers around the world for the first time during Thursday’s earnings call.

During the hearing, Bezos claimed that Amazon has become a lifeline to customers during the pandemic because of its scale, which also allows the company to hire thousands while others are laying off workers across the country.

But critics want Amazon to invest more of its profits into wages and benefits for employees on the frontlines of the coronavirus crisis. Amazon declined to say if it will reinstate its previous hazard pay for its logistics workers or issue additional bonuses.

Listen above or subscribe to GeekWire in any podcast app.

Appearing this week are GeekWire’s Todd Bishop, Monica Nickelsburg and John Cook. Podcast produced by Curt Milton. Theme music by Daniel L.K. Caldwell.

View the original article here

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