New community-driven group fuels education, engagement on web3 Tech takeaway Web 3.0, or web3, is a high-level concept that describes the next iteration of the internet in which ownership of the internet is distributed among its users. In September 2022, a group of local volunteer organizers in Des Moines started web3dsm,…
Ironside Systems, an Iowa-based company founded by public safety professionals Curtis Walsner and Shawn Wagner, has developed a public safety asset management tool to provide first responders that consolidates the tracking of critical resources into one database. According to a news release, the tool can track multiple assets, including radios,…
Verified Data Analytics, an Urbandale-based software company, has announced it is making its property assessment applications available to contractors nationwide. Its offerings include VDA Pro, a field inspection, data collection and reporting app to digitize building inspections, and VDA Drone, an automated drone inspection app for building inspections and data…
Clayton Farms, formerly Nebullam, is hosting a hackathon Nov. 11-12 at its office and coworking space in Ames. A hackathon is an event where teams engage in collaborative engineering to develop functioning hardware or software in a short time span. Computer programmers and others involved with software development typically participate…
Tech takeaway: This week’s story is the first of two profiles on the Iowa-based startups participating in the 2022 cohort of Techstars Iowa. Emigrait is a Cedar Falls-based startup creating machine learning models that can identify likely homebuyers and sellers. Ehrich Pakala and Stephen Bowser likely couldn’t have predicted their chance encounter…
Meta executive says metaverse will provide for more engaged, present workforce interactions The metaverse is not designed to replace in-person interaction, but instead is intended to give people a “feeling of presence, feeling like you are right there and with other people,” a Meta executive told an audience recently during a…
Jonathan Kelly, an Iowa State University professor of psychology and human-computer interaction, is leading a research study into “cybersickness,” a set of symptoms similar to motion sickness that more than half of people experience when first exposed to virtual reality. He said helping people adapt to VR and overcome symptoms would…
How Fairfield, a rural southeast Iowa community, has spurred innovation Fairfield, Iowa’s history is one that other Iowans may not know well. Among its interesting facts: The Fairfield Public Library is the first prototype of the Carnegie library, of which there are now 2,700 around the world; the company that…
An Iowa State duo adapts a 1990s ISU invention for the future of electronics manufacturing SAFI-Tech was founded from a partnership between Ian Tevis, a then postdoctoral student at Iowa State University, and the researcher he came to study under, Martin Thuo, assistant professor of materials science and engineering. Thuo…
First statewide tracking system created to better Iowa’s sexual assault kit testing capabilities 4,275. That was the number of unsubmitted, untested sexual assault kits in Iowa in March 2017. Before then, no one in Iowa knew that number. Not hospital staffs, not the state’s crime lab, not law enforcement agencies….