Senate Seeks to Toughen JOBS Bill, Aimed at Easing Rules on Start-Ups

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Senate Seeks to Toughen JOBS Bill, Aimed at Easing Rules on Start-Ups

By EDWARD WYATT

WASHINGTON — A decade after the dot-com bubble popped and Enron became synonymous with spectacular fraud, Congress is on the verge of scrapping numerous safeguards against investment fraud and allowing some small companies to sell stock to the public with minimal disclosure or oversight.

The bill, which intends to make it easier for emerging companies to raise money and court investors, is scheduled for several procedural votes in the Senate on Tuesday and could come to a final vote as early as this week. A Senate amendment that differs substantially from a bipartisan version passed overwhelmingly by the House two weeks ago, faces a difficult hurdle.

The amendment must get 60 votes on Tuesday to revise the House bill, and it is unclear that Democrats will be able to attract enough Republican votes.

The JOBS Act, whose acronym stands for Jump-start Our Business Start-ups, has attracted widespread support on Capitol Hill and from the White House for its promise of attracting small-business investment and allowing businesses to hire workers. That it would give legislators something positive to take home to constituents during election season is a bonus.

But the bill faces stiff opposition from, among others, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, pension funds and lobbying groups like the American Association of Retired Persons, which fear that the bill will revive some of the worst practices of the dot-com era.

Ryan Stokes Budget Battle with New 'Blueprint'

Excerpt from an article in

The Hill.com

Ryan stokes budget battle with new ‘blueprint’ 
By Peter Schroeder

A fresh budget proposal this week from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will usher in another round of fighting over the federal pocketbook.

Ryan is expected to announce his “Blueprint for American Renewal” on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. His budget panel is expected to follow that up with a markup of the package Wednesday.

The Republican proposal will be met with a barrage of Democratic attacks if, as expected, it sets a lower spending cap than agreed to as part of the summer’s debt-limit deal. House GOP leaders are selling a $1.028 trillion spending cap to their members, down from the $1.047 trillion deal hammered out last summer. Some conservatives are pushing for even stricter limits.

In the Senate, lawmakers will continue work on a bill aimed at making it easier for startup companies to raise capital. But some Democrats have aired concerns that the bill does that by rolling back key investor protections, and are pushing to strengthen that aspect of the bill before advancing it.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the European debt crisis will be a hot topic, just days after the International Monetary Fund signed off on its $37 billion contribution to a broad bailout package for Greece. On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit the House Financial Services Committee to discuss the state of international finance, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is devoting a Wednesday morning hearing to Europe’s debt woes.

News Release from GE - Oblong

08 March 2012

FROM SCIENCE FICTION TO REAL SOLUTIONS, OBLONG RECEIVES INVESTMENTS FROM MORGAN STANLEY AIP, GE-NRG ENERGY-CONOCOPHILLIPS VENTURE AND FOUNDRY GROUP

LOS ANGELES, March 8, 2012 – Oblong Industries, the company that created the computing environments depicted in the film Minority Report, has announced that it is partnering with two new funders for its Series B capital raise: Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, and Energy Technology Ventures — a GE-NRG Energy-ConocoPhillips venture. The Foundry Group, already an Oblong investor, led the new funding round.

Oblong and its partners view this latest investment round as an opportunity to fuel growth, further extend the company’s technology leadership position, and deliver solutions to a broader market.

Oblong’s g-speak™ spatial operating system provides data visualization, analytics, and integration capabilities across multiple computers, screens, and applications. The g-speak environment supports many different kinds of computing and input devices, from desktops and laptops to mobile devices, from large-screen “mission control” centers to walk-up information kiosks. Oblong pioneered the development of gestural interfaces and continues to ship the world’s most scalable and accurate system for interactive hand and object tracking.

Oblong’s Mezzanine™ product, built on the g-speak platform, introduces next-generation, real-time collaboration with integrated telepresence. Mezzanine allows any user on an enterprise network to share content and applications with any colleague, any where in the world, dynamically and interactively.

Video of Oblong’s products is available at the company’s website:http://www.oblong.com/.

"We believe Oblong's spatial operating system is revolutionizing the way people interact with their computers," said Jamey Sperans, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners. "We are delighted to be partnering with Oblong's team of visionaries in pursuing the multiple market opportunities for this transformative technology."

Oblong’s technology research began over two decades ago at the MIT Media Lab. Today, the team is comprised of developers and engineers formerly with companies including Apple, Google, Pixar, Microsoft, Accenture and Walt Disney Imagineering.

Kwindla Hultman Kramer, Oblong’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We founded Oblong because we want to make computers better, smarter, and easier to use. We're proud of the multi-user, multi-screen, multi-device spatial operating environment we're supplying to partners like Boeing, SAP, and GE Digital Energy. And we look forward to taking that platform to broader markets in 2012.”

“We seek to invest in brilliant innovations that solve real problems with a talented team that can execute. We found that in Oblong. Their groundbreaking technology has the potential to fundamentally change how we interact with and act on data,” said Kevin Skillern, GE Energy Financial Services’ Managing Director of venture capital and representative of Energy Technology Ventures.

Oblong will use the new investment dollars to scale product commercialization and custom solutions development. Partners are critical to this scaling, and GE recently announced that Oblong’s technology has been licensed by GE Digital Energy for use in new Smart Grid analytics software. The product will enable utilities to use integrated digital tools and data sources designed to make decisions, both in infrastructure planning and real-time operations.

GE’s partnership with Oblong was conducted through GE’s ecomagination Accelerator program. The $20 million ecomagination Accelerator program, a spin-off from the $200 million ecomagination challenge, is designed to scale offerings of leading start-up companies through GE as a global growth platform. In addition to equity investments, GE funds commercial pilots through the Accelerator program in key growth markets like the smart grid.

Financial details on the Series B financing round in Oblong Industries were not disclosed.