Leslie Ignacio
Leslie Ignacio is dot.LA's editorial intern. She is a recent California State University, Northridge graduate and previously worked for El Nuevo Sol, Telemundo and NBC and was named a Chips Quinn Scholar in 2019. As a bilingual journalist, she focuses on covering diversity in news. She's a Los Angeles native who enjoys trips to Disneyland in her free time.
Startup Studio Alive Ventures raised $12 million to fund entrepreneurs designing products for a graying population and it's enlisting the help of people like famed Apple designer Don Norman to rethink the golden years.
Seniors have often been an afterthought for designers, who often focus their products on youth. But the growing spending power of Baby Boomers, along with their more active lifestyles and longer lives have altered how entrepreneurs are viewing those in their retirement years.
<p>"Most startups and corporations purporting to serve older people are really solving for someone else's ideas of what seniors want — what doctors think older adults ought to use or what caregivers wish older people would do," said Alive Ventures founder John Zapolski. "We created Alive Ventures to invent the kinds of products and services older adults told us they want for themselves."</p><p>Long Beach-based The Scan Foundation, a charity that seeks to improve services and healthcare for the elderly, funded the startup studio, which worked in its incubation program for 18 months. </p><p>Norman, an octogenarian who helped coin the term "user experience," is featured on Alive's YouTube series "Old People Are Cool, Design for Them Sucks." </p><p>"Why do we have such ugly stuff, that doesn't really completely fit the need for the elderly — and we have such beautiful stuff for people who are younger?," Norman asks. "I think the answer is that the market perceives, the businesses perceive the elderly as a niche market."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9aff058ce60ec3f3743145f23a49bb1e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cTHcJPVpGiw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Old People are Cool, Design for Them Sucks - with Don Norman, John Zapolski and Ayse Birsel.</small>
</p><p>Norman points to the importance of diminishing stigmas behind designing products only for the elderly and creating products that work for people of all ages. He argues the change has to come from those in management positions, by showing them the profit that can result from it.<br/></p><p>There are 55 million Americans over the age of 65. By 2030, Baby Boomers — who will all be over that age — are projected to outnumber children, according to the Census Bureau. </p><p>Alive Ventures hosts a series of workshops across the U.S. where it recruits older people to help figure out what design works for different products and play a role in their development.</p><p>And it wants companies to pay attention. </p><p>"Part of the reason why I'm an entrepreneur is because I think it's really hard to change big existing companies from the inside. It's actually easier to create a whole new model and put pressure on those existing models from the outside," Zapolski said in the YouTube series. </p>
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LA Tech Updates: Disney Earnings Include Big Mulan News; Microsoft Backs Irvine Chipmaker
Aug 04 2020
Here are the latest updates on news affecting Los Angeles' startup and tech communities. Sign up for our newsletter and follow dot.LA on Twitter for more.
Today:
- Disney Plus Surpasses 60 Million Subscribers
- Rocket Lab Boosts Payload Capacity
- Microsoft Backs Maker of Voice-Activated Chip, Syntiant, in $35M Round
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Disney Plus Surpasses 60 Million Subscribers
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNDk4NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTY1OTM2NX0.fjV1GsNR7y3nIaXWAixTIZYF_e7Y1BAC4bed1V7yx5I/image.jpg?width=980" id="9e659" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a41ec51e660a63473c0880ce0330e028" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />black smartphonePhoto by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash<p>Disney's earnings report Tuesday quantified the damage wrought by COVID-19 in the company's third quarter — which was entirely enveloped by the pandemic. </p><p>Each of Disney's four business segments suffered losses except for its direct-to-consumer and international operations, which includes the company's streaming app, Disney Plus.</p><p>The company also released new details about its release plans for the blockbuster live-action film, <em>Mulan</em>. </p><p>First, the revenue figures by segment, compared to 2019's corresponding quarter: </p><ul><li>Media Networks fell 2% to $6.6 billion</li><li>Parks, Experiences and Products tumbled 85% to $2 billion</li><li>Studio Entertainment dropped 55% to $1.7 billion</li><li>Direct-to-Consumer and International climbed 2% to $4 billion </li></ul><p>Disney Plus now has over 60 million subscribers, the company reported, a milestone Disney had previously announced it hoped to surpass by 2024. Add in ESPN+ and Hulu, and the company's total subscriber count now tops 100 million. Disney chief executive Bob Chapek said these numbers give the company confidence to "pursue even more innovative and bold initiatives as we grow our business." </p><p>The day's headline-grabber: Disney will release <em>Mulan </em>on Disney Plus in most markets where the service is available, including the U.S., rather than premiere it on the big screen. That's a big shock to the movie industry, where the theatrical release window usually gives movie theaters an exclusive several-months period to show films before they reach home viewers. <em>Mulan</em>, which was originally meant to hit theaters in March, is perhaps the highest-profile and biggest-budget film to be released direct-to-consumer. It will be available on September 4th for a price of $29.99. </p><p>Chapek called the decision a "one-off event" rather than a new way of doing business. It was the first call of Chapek's without his predecessor Bob Iger on the line.</p>Rocket Lab Improves Payload Capacity
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNTAyNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTExMDM4OH0.5gN7XgjFLgccp7fG4uFzjYQiVSJ-tDBrN5hFR5bK9Y8/image.jpg?width=980" id="96c13" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b2a0f707d2f85b15f0c5628e76db2aeb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Rocket Lab increased the payload capacity for its Electron launch vehicle to 600 pounds, far above the 225 kg it could support when the Electron launch vehicle first appeared in 2017.</p><p>"When we created Electron, we set out to develop a launch vehicle that small satellite operators would turn to when they needed a dedicated ride to a unique orbit on their schedule," founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement.</p><p>"We're proud to be delivering that capability and continuing to evolve our launch and satellite services to meet the market's ever-changing needs."</p><p>The company attributes the improvement to advanced battery technology.</p><p>The Long Beach-based lab is known for its 3-D printed and electric pump engines, known as Rutherford Engines, which company says are 90% more efficient than traditional gas pump engines. Their printing time: 24 hours.</p><p>Rocket Lab is set to launch again later this month.</p>Microsoft Backs Maker of Voice-Activated Chip, Syntiant, in $35M Round
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNDk2MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MjgyODk5N30.77xs4oSGU23C9wndb7xm6Hd4S-WFd4wL8aBuA9Q9-8c/image.jpg?width=2000&coordinates=0%2C38%2C0%2C33&height=1500" id="28093" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cb00d72a37e756fb95f60912f2272c1a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Microsoft's venture fund M12 led a $35 million investment round in Irvine-based <a href="http://www.syntiant.com/" target="_blank">Syntiant</a>, a semiconductor-making company that's produced tiny voice recognition chips — smaller than a flea — that are faster than many others on the market.</p><p>The company, which is also backed by Amazon's Alexa Fund, makes an "always-on voice interface" that reacts to speech. It has already shipped out a million of the units which are put into cellphones, smart speakers, earbuds and laptops. </p><p>The venture capital arm of chip maker Applied Materials, Inc. also joined in the lead for the Series C round, along with Atlantic Bridge Capital, Alpha Edison and Miramar Digital Ventures also joined the round. The company has raised a total of $65 million since it was founded by four veterans of the chip industry. </p><p>"It is a tremendous honor to know that some of the world's leading tech investors are supporting our growth stage, as we deliver our deep learning voice solution to customers across the globe," said Kurt Busch, co-founder and CEO of Syntiant. "We are especially thrilled that production volumes of applications using our neural decision processors are increasing and expect orders to ramp even higher throughout the remainder of 2020.<br></p><p>It's estimated that the speech and voice recognition market is expected to reach $26.8 billion by 2025, according to report by Meticulous Research.</p>From Your Site Articles
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ABL Space Systems, a startup building low-cost launch vehicles for small satellites, announced that it raised over $90 million and plans to launch its first orbital mission by the first quarter of next year.
The El Segundo-based company secured $44.5 million in Air Force contracts and another $49 million in private funds led by Ethan Batraski at Venrock with participation from New Science Ventures, Lynett Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures.
<p>Their launch vehicle, the RS1 aims to carry up to 1,350 kg into low Earth orbit — around 200 kilometer above the Earth. Early testing has been successful with the vehicle's performance hitting all its targets, the company said. </p><p>"We've completed hundreds of engine, stage, and ground system tests across multiple deployments to unimproved sites. All were performed on generator power with fully self-sufficient systems," said Dan Piemont, ABL founder and CFO. </p><p>The company's GSO system, which it uses to launch the RS1, is marketed as an easy way to launch satellites on-demand. That system employs shipping containers and a concrete pad to set up a launch. The simple infrastructure cuts down on the need for the large teams employed by traditional satellite companies. </p><p>ABL is among a number of U.S. rocket builders like Long Beach-based Rocket Lab and Hawthorne-based SpaceX that are competing in the growing small satellite market.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzMTQ2My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODk3NjYxM30.71rwtDiSzk6bu4Y0g4BH5Hj7PEn0BxYLZVrT7-MS_kU/image.jpg?width=980" id="a7ade" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f61a5264ebc27ea1d9f1a2cc56c1d145" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
</p><p>As the company ramps up toward their launch, it has expanded its footprint leasing additional propulsion test facilities at Mojave Air and Space Port and moved its operations into a 60,000 square foot production facility in El Segundo.<br/></p><p>The RS1 satellite launch vehicle team, now made up of 80 engineers, designers and production experts. </p><p>The price tag for a launch is $12 million. </p><p>ABL founder and Chief Financial Officer Dan Piemont said these "large capacity, fit-for-purpose resilient launch system" offer commercial and government customers "value." </p><p>The company shut down during the first month of the pandemic slowing down production and testing, but it resumed operations shortly after.</p>
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