British health tech startups seek US foothold

Silicon Valley tech giants are ponying up some major cash to ensure that Super Bowl 50 will be played close to home.  The 50th anniversary of the football championship game will be held in 2016.

Some of Silicon Valley's most prominent billionaires are making a big push to guide the tech world's entrepreneurs into biotech.

The reception area at Stromer Realty in Yuba City, California, is decorated in a style that might be more appropriate for a taxidermist’s showroom.  Mounted ducks and geese are everywhere, striking a variety of poses: full flight, setting down, lifting off, feeding, dozing, perched on one leg or two.   But these stuffed fowl speak directly to Stromer’s mission, observes broker Pat Laughlin: Ducks—or more accurately, duck clubs — are the core of their business.  

Facebook's sprawling Menlo Park campus is surrounded by water on three sides. It's beautiful now, but in 50 years its location could be problematic. According to ClimateWire, Facebook and 256 other Silicon Valley tech companies sit in a dangerous flood zone.

By Dr. Duru: The San Francisco Bay Area is known for its micro-climates. Particularly in the spring and summer, temperatures and weather conditions can vary dramatically the further you move from the Pacific Ocean (or as I like to call it, the fog belt). In the middle of summer, San Francisco may be enshrouded in fog and 50-degree weather while 40 miles to the south, Silicon Valley is basking in soothing sunshine.

Jeff Paster, a developer of luxury homes in California’s Marin County, couldn’t find a buyer for the brand-new waterfront mansion he listed in January for $45 million. He’s expecting that one will turn up at an auction this weekend, with a starting bid set at $25 million.

For the first time ever, smartphones outnumber basic mobile phones. Apple‘s iPhone and Google’s Android devices — which are more powerful than the top consumer PCs of just a decade ago — are changing our habits. Consumers are using smartphones to compare prices at brick-and-mortar retailers. Innovative startups are using these devices to make entrenched markets more efficient. And the “social networking” phenomenon continues forward, as people everywhere join Facebook and Twitter to connect and share content with friends, relatives, and strangers.