Monday, August 21, 2017


Ross Levinsohn Named CEO, Publisher At Los Angeles Times
Southern California technology veteran Ross Levinsohn, best known for his efforts as Interim CEO at Yahoo! and his work at Fox Interactive Media, has been appointed CEO and Publisher of the Los Angeles Times, according to the LA Times' parent company, tronc. According to tronc Levinsohn will oversee the Los Angeles Times' operations, and look to expand its journalistic endeavors, product and content initiatives, global footprint and business and revenue opportunities. Levinsohn has been a signif (More info...)
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Hannah-Beth Jackson Targets Harassment In Venture Capital Industry With New Bill
A new bill is expected to be introduced this week by local Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), to target incidents of sexual harassment in the venture capital industry. Jackson--who represents Santa Barbara the 19th Senate District, which includes all of Santa Barbara County and western Ventura County--said that she will introduce legislation when the California Legislature returns from summer recess, today, to specifically prohibit sexual harassment in the venture capital industry. T (More info...)
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Rincon Backs LiftIgniter
Santa Barbara-based venture investor Rincon Venture Partners is one of the backers in a funding round for LiftIgniter, a developer of machine learning software used for personalization. The funding was led by Storm Ventures, and also included Rincon Venture Partners, Revel Partners, and NTT DOCOMO Ventures, along with angels Tom Chavez (Krux) and Bruce Falck (Twitter). LiftIgniter is based in San Francisco.
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017 (More)(Full story)

Report: Sonos Planning New Voice Enabled Speakers
Santa Barbara-based Sonos is getting set to roll out new voice enabled speakers, according to a report today, based on changes to the company's privacy policy. The Verge uncovered changes to the Sonos privacy policy which infers that new Sonos speakers will be voice-enabled, listening for specific "wake words" ala Amazon Echo, and according to a spokesperson will extend beyond the current Sonos integration with Echo.
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Elon Musk Joins AI Leaders In Protesting Killer Robots
Elon Musk, the CEO and founder of LA's SpaceX, is one of the signatories on a letter from an artificial intelligence group, urging the United Nations to address the development of killer robots. According to the Future of Life Institute, there is a "robot arms race" going on by countries, which ought to be addressed by the United Nations. One of the AI experts on the list, Stuart Russell, founder and Vice-President of Bayesian Logic, said the continued development of weaponized robots could resu (More info...)
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Ligand Lands $2M From Wuxi Biologics
San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals said on Friday that it will receive $2M in a payment from Wuxi Biologics, as a result of licensing of the exclusive rights to its anti-PD-1 antibody GLS-010 to Arcus Biosciences in North America, Europe, Japan and certain other territories. Ligand says it also is entitled to future milestones and royalties from this antibody.
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Inseego Names New CFO
San Diego-based Inseego, the developer of mobile broadband equipment and Internet-of-Things software, said this morning that it has named Stephen Smith as its new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Smith was previously interim CFO of TetraVue, and also was hief Financial Officer and Head of Operations for Micropower Technologies. Smith also was President of XiTron Tehnologies, and was SVP and Chief Finance and Accounting Officer for Applied Micro Circuits Corporation from 1999 (More info...)
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Numecent Names New Chairman
Irvine-based Numecent, the developer of cloud virtualization and application delivery software, said today that it has added Bernard Harguindeguy to its board as Chairman. Harguindeguy previously served as Chairman, President, and CEO of Atlantis Computing, and also served as Chairman of Green Border, WorldTalk, Booshaka, Norskale, and BorderWare, and was a board member at Sygate Technologies.
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)

Yardi Wins Cortland Capital Market Services
Santa Barbara-based property management software developer Yardi said Friday that it has signed up Cortland Capital Market Services LLC, as a new customer. Financial impact of the win was not announced. Cortland Capital Market Services, which is based in Chicago, provides investment servicing, and is using Yardi's Investment Management software.
posted on Monday, August 21, 2017(Full story)