oxford nanopore technologies limited is a u.k.-based company which is developing and selling nanopore sequencing products ( including the portable dna sequencer , minion ) for the direct , electronic analysis of single molecules .

oxford nanopore technologies

oxford nanopore’s minion™ usb - attached miniature sensing device . photo : oxford nanopore technologies
press release : oxford nanopore technologies : new study : oxford nanopore technologies ltd . - strategic swot analysis review
press release : oxford nanopore technologies : new report available : oxford nanopore technologies ltd . - medical equipment - deals and alliances profile
the minion™ dna sequencer from oxford nanopore technologies fits in the palm of a hand . ( photo credit : oxford nanopore technologies )
( pr - inside . com ) oxford nanopore technologies ltd . ( oxford nanopore ) , formerly oxford nanolabs ltd . , i . . .
james brayer , oxford nanopore technologies inc . , cambridge , ma , united states
oxford nanopore : oxford nanopore ' s valuation hits £1 . 5bn after asia - pac funding round
oxford nanopore technologies develops nanopore - based electronic systems for analyzing single molecules , including dna , rna and proteins .
oxford nanopore technologies a uk company that offers several portable realtime dnarna sequencers com . . .
37 . © copyright 2016 oxford nanopore technologies ⎪ 37 concurrent reads migration to monogodb3 . 0
oxford nanopore technologies , an affordable dna sequencing devices supplier seeking to break the stra . . .
oxford nanopore technologies wants to get your dna online , and that future is closer than you think .
oxford nanopore technologies has tapped a global syndicate of investors for $ 140 million to fuel its . . .
real - time dna sequencer firm oxford nanopore technologies has raised £100m to support its next phase . . .
technology focus from clive g brown , cto of oxford nanopore technologies . the minion is for research use only .
a tiny new device called the minion , developed by oxford nanopore technologies , promises to help sci . . .
oxford nanopore technologies ltd is developing a new generation of nanopore - based electronic systems for analysis of single molecules , including dna , rna and proteins .
oxford nanopore technologies , facing a lawsuit from illumina , revealed that this microscopic pore , csgg , underlies its new devices .
oxford nanopore ' s ceo , gordon sanghera , currently has an approval rating of 100 % . oxford nanopore ' s primary competitors are
oxford nanopore develops and commercializes nanopore - based dna , rna and protein molecule sensing system . oxford nanopore ' s headquarters is located in oxford science park , england . for every employee , oxford nanopore generates $ 36 . 7k in revenue . oxford nanopore ' s latest funding round was a equity for $ 140m on mar 2018 . oxford nanopore ' s top competitor is pacbio , led by michael hunkapiller , who is their chairman & ceo . oxford nanopore has 205 followers on owler .
oxford nanopore develops and commercializes nanopore - based dna , rna and protein molecule sensing system . oxford nanopore was founded in 2005 . oxford nanopore ' s headquarters is located in oxford science park , england , gb ox4 4dq . it has raised 658 . 4m i . . .
oxford nanopore technologies . pcr - based , pcr - free , and rapid barcoding for minion and promethion libraries . available at : urltoken .
oxford nanopore technologies . voltrax : a rapid , programmable , portable , disposable device for sample and library preparation . available at : urltoken .
owler has collected 12 screenshots of oxford nanopore ' s website since aug 2014 . the latest oxford nanopore website design screenshot was captured in oct 2017 .
oxford nanopore technologies ltd . develops technologies for molecular detection and analysis in the united kingdom . the company offers base technology , a system for dna sequencing that employs nanopores to process , identify , and record dna bases in sequence . its technologies are used in dna sequencing , diagnostics , drug development , biomolecular interaction , ion channel screening , and defense applications . the company was formerly known as oxford nanolabs , ltd . and changed its name to oxford nanopore technologies ltd . in may 2008 . oxford nanopore technologies ltd . was founded in 2005 and is based in kidlington , the united kingdom .
oxford nanopore technologies ltd is a private company headquartered at the oxford science park outside oxford , uk , with satellite offices in cambridge ( uk ) , new york and boston , and personnel also based in japan and france .
oxford , england - - ( business wire ) - - oxford nanopore announces £70 million fundraising to support develo . . .
oxford nanopore technologies was spun out from the university of oxford in 2005 . until may 2008 , the company was named oxford nanolabs ltd . oxford nanopore employs a team of more than 300 people including scientists , engineers , informaticians , manufacturing and commercial specialists . headquartered in oxford , uk , the company also has employees in cambridge ( uk ) , new york and boston .
are we heading for a minion movement in healthcare ? clive brown , cto of oxford nanopore technologies , talks to pharmatimes about the internet of living things .
oxford nanopore currently has 1 , 779 fans on facebook . as of august 2014 oxford nanopore had 155 fans . that ' s a 1047 percent increase in 4 years
© 2008 - 2018 oxford nanopore technologies . all rights reserved . registered office : gosling building , edmund halley road , oxford science park , ox4 4dq , uk | registered no . 05386273 | vat no 874 642494 | privacy policy | cookie policy | terms & conditions . oxford nanopore technologies , the wheel icon , gridion , metrichor , flongle , minion , minknow , promethion and voltrax are registered trademarks of oxford nanopore technologies limited in various countries . flongle , minion and promethion are currently for research use only .
since oxford nanopore was founded in 2005 , it has participated in 11 rounds of funding . in total oxford nanopore has raised $ 658 . 4m . oxford nanopore ' s last funding round was on mar 2018 for a total of $ 140 . 0m
oxford nanopore is organising its first conference , a two day event ) on all things nanopore in london , aptly named as london calling . among the many interesting talks , the most anticipated talks is from oxford nanopore cto clive brown’s talk announcing the future things to expect from oxford nanopore .
supported by a broad patent portfolio , the university - of - oxford nanopore pipeline includes multiple generations of nanopore - based sensing technologies , including those based on both biological and solid - state nanopores .
sara goodwin of coldspring harbour laboratory talks to the oxford nanopore community at london calling .
oxford nanopore ' s minion sequencer can read dna fragments up to 10 kilobases long .
oxford nanopore currently has 18 , 771 followers on twitter . as of august 2014 oxford nanopore had 6 , 609 followers . that ' s a 184 percent increase in 3 years
the minion ( aka biomolecule sequencer ) , a miniaturized dna sequencer , by oxford nanopore technologies is 3 ¼ × 1 ¼ × 5 / 8 inches and has a mass of 120 grams . the sequencer is powered via usb connection to a laptop or tablet and does not require a battery . image courtesy of oxford nanopore technologies .
nanopore devices can be adapted for direct sequencing of dna or rna . supported by a broad patent portfolio , the oxford nanopore pipeline includes multiple generations of nanopore - based sensing technologies , including those based on both biological and solid - state nanopores .
results from oxford nanopore ' s minion are promising , but fall short of high expectations .
oxford nanopore offers a range of options for converting your original biological sample to a form ready for application into a nanopore sensing device .
in october 2013 oxford nanopore raised £40m from new and existing investors in the us and europe .
in august 2014 oxford nanopore raised £35m from new and existing investors in the us and europe .
in july 2015 oxford nanopore raised £70m from new and existing investors in the us and europe .
this study aimed to assess the feasibility of using the oxford nanopore technologies ( ont ) minion long - read sequencer in reconstructing fully closed plasmid sequences from eight enterobacteriaceae i . . .
a sample being loaded into a flow cell attached to the minion . the minion is powered through a usb cable connected to a laptop or tablet . image courtesy of oxford nanopore technologies .
in september 2016 , oxford nanopore held a technical update , announcing new product upgrades to the minion .
new york ( genomeweb ) – oxford nanopore technologies yesterday provided several updates on its technology development and commercialization plans , including a new minion flow cell , called flongle , for clinical diagnostic applications .
a tiny new device called the minion , developed by oxford nanopore technologies , promises to help scientists sequence dna in space . nasa ' s biomolecule sequencer investigation is a technology demonstration of the device .
the oxford nanopore technologies ( ont ) minion is a new sequencing technology that potentially offers read lengths of tens of kilobases ( kb ) limited only by the length of dna molecules presented to it .
biotech firm oxford nanopore has raised £100m from its latest private funding round , valuing the rapi . . .
to assess the performance of the oxford nanopore technologies minion sequencing platform , cdnas from the external rna controls consortium ( ercc ) rna spike - in mix were sequenced . this mix mimics mamm . . .
in february 2010 oxford nanopore raised £17 . 4m from existing investors and new , undisclosed us - based investors .
motivation : the highly portable oxford nanopore minion sequencer has enabled new applications of genome sequencing directly in the field .
nabsys is oxford nanopore ' s # 2 rival . nabsys was founded in 2004 in providence , rhode island . nabsys operates in the health care services industry . nabsys generates $ 849 . 8k more revenue than oxford nanopore .
pacbio is one of oxford nanopore ' s top competitors . pacbio was founded in 2000 , and its headquarters is in menlo park , california . pacbio competes in the biotechnology field . pacbio has 343 more employees than oxford nanopore .
background the minion™ is a new , portable single - molecule sequencer developed by oxford nanopore technologies . it measures four inches in length and is powered from the usb 3 . 0 port of a laptop comp . . .
genia is a top competitor of oxford nanopore . genia is a private company that was founded in santa clara , california in 2009 . genia is in the health care services industry . genia has 83 more employees vs . oxford nanopore .
the minion is a portable single - molecule dna sequencing instrument that was released by oxford nanopore technologies in 2014 , producing long sequencing reads by measuring changes in ionic flow when single - stranded dna molecules translocate through the pores .
does oxford nanopore even use mspa in its sequencers ? very few people are in a position to know ; oxford nanopore does not disclose the makeup of its nanopores . the company was founded on the work of hagan bayley , a biochemist at the university of oxford , whose published research has mostly concerned a different nanopore - forming protein , α - hemolysin . but many different proteins have been suggested as promising nanopore materials , and oxford could easily have changed course during the minion’s development .
the oxford nanopore technologies minion sequencer enables the selection of specific dna molecules for sequencing by reversing the driving voltage across individual nanopores . to directly select molecules for sequencing , we used dynamic time warping to match reads to reference sequences .
oxford nanopore has raised â100m ( $ 140m ) to expand its product range including a device for food and . . .
san diego - - ( business wire ) - - feb . 23 , 2016 - - illumina , inc . ( nasdaq : ilmn ) today announced that the company filed lawsuits against oxford nanopore technologies ltd . and oxford nanopore technologies , inc . ( ont ) . the lawsuits were filed concurrently with the u . s . international trade commission and in the u . s . district court for the southern district of california . illumina is seeking all available remedies .
oxford nanopore has employees and is the third highest among it ' s top 10 competitors . the top 10 competitors average 116 .
a clever combination of technologies makes it faster and more secure to buy things with a wave of your phone .
genome assemblies obtained from short read sequencing technologies are often fragmented into many contigs because of the abundance of repetitive sequences .
deamer first came up with the idea for nanopore sequencing in 1989 when he was at uc davis . at uc santa cruz , he and akeson established the nanopore research group in 1996 , making important advances in nanopore sequencing technology in the subsequent decades . they both serve on oxford nanopore ' s technology advisory board .
36 . © copyright 2016 oxford nanopore technologies ⎪ 36 current work testing automated ansible scripts to deploy server and mongodb instances . locust to throw lots of data to deployed webserver nodes month of data in five minutes migration to 3 . 0 ( with wiredtiger )
13 . © copyright 2016 oxford nanopore technologies ⎪ 13 usb powers device , link to laptop or computer to operate consumable flowcell contains nanopore sensing chemistry and custom electronics sample added to flowcell here . currently this is prepared dna , designed to work with blood / tissue sensor chip works with custom asic for control and data processing
asic each nanopore channel is controlled and measured individually by the bespoke asic . this allows for multiple nanopore experiments to be performed in parallel . more than one asic may be included in a device and oxford nanopore is building asics of different sizes for different purposes .
in october 2018 , oxford nanopore announced its entry into the chinese market , having appointed a distributor and established its first sales to customers .
the existing sequencing technologies , and whole genome sequencing ( wgs ) performed mainly at centralised facilities , will become a niche .
oxford nanopore ' s revenue is the third highest among it ' s top 10 competitors . the top 10 competitors average $ 1 . 4m .
as one of the first research institutes to take part in the minion access programme ( map ) for portable dna sequencing , introduced by oxford nanopore technologies , the genome analysis centre ( tgac ) ' s task force share their experience of the ground breaking trial so far .
we report a rapid , inexpensive , and portable strategy to re - identify human dna using the minion , a miniature sequencing sensor by oxford nanopore technologies . our strategy requires only 10 - 30 minutes of minion sequencing , works with low input dna , and enables familial searches .
in june 2017 , oxford nanopore launched its rna sequencing solutions . this provides the only direct , real time rna sequencing technology and additional cdna analysis .
oxford nanopore delivers continual improvement where all parts of the technology are shipped , improved and developed . the format of the hardware , software and chemistry changes on a regular basis ( often over weeks rather than months ) . this iterative improvement process will continue throughout the lifetime of all oxford nanopore products .
glad to see oxford nanopore pushing the pace in our fair state ( california ) . at least five promethions in the san francisco bay area alone .
a nanopore is a nano - scale hole . in its devices , oxford nanopore passes an ionic current through nanopores and measures the changes in current as biological molecules pass through the nanopore or near it . the information about the change in current can be used to identify that molecule .
a good first shot , but not a game - changer — yet . that seems to be the consensus among scientists after today ' s first public release of data produced by the minion , an advanced and highly anticipated dna - sequencing device developed by uk company oxford nanopore technologies .
the talk did not seem to disappoint and clive brown announced a flurry of things to expect from oxford nanopore , minion asic , voltrax , and promethion .
* update , 11 march , 12 : 35 p . m . : oxford nanopore ' s response to illumina’s patent suite was added to the story .
oxford nanopore devices are fully scalable , based around a core sensing unit of a nanopore set in an arrayed sensor chip and used with a bespoke application - specific integrated circuit ( asic ) which controls and measures the experiments .
a nanopore is a nano - scale hole . in its devices , oxford nanopore passes an ionic current through nanopores and measures the changes in current as biological molecules pass through the nanopore or near it . the information about the change in current can be used to identify that molecule .
translating the oxford nanopore minion sequencing technology into medical microbiology requires on - going analysis that keeps pace with technological improvements to the instrument and release of associated analysis software .
in this talk i will cover the highs and lows of being part of the oxford nanopore minion access programme . our laboratory joined the map programme in may 2014 .
oxford nanopore was founded on the science of professor hagan bayley of the university of oxford . in 2008 the company created a series of collaborations with world - leading nanopore researchers at other institutions including harvard , university of california santa cruz and boston university . further collaborations have since been added ; these , in combination with in - house expertise and intellectual property give the company a leading position in nanopore technology .
oxford nanopore technologies aims to disrupt the paradigm of biological analysis . our technology and commercial model has already opened up dna analysis to researchers who previously had no direct access to sequencing technologies , freeing them up to perform analyses in their own labs or in the field , and in real time . we continually improve the technology performance , make it easier to use and expand the ways in which users can access nanopore sequencing . this technology pathway is designed to enable the analysis of any living thing , by any person , in any environment .
loman is a member of the minion access programme ( map ) and has received free - of - charge reagents for nanopore sequencing presented in this study . he has ongoing research collaborations with oxford nanopore but does not receive financial compensation for this .
in october 2016 , oxford nanopore announced that the early queue for the promethion early access programme was now full and announced transition to a more mature phase of the programme .
at this stage , oxford nanopore is not seeking additional investment . however , if you are interested in receiving information at the next opportunity then please use our contact form .
“it is gratifying , ” he said , “to have the commercial relevance of oxford nanopore products so publicly acknowledged by the market monopolist for [ next generation sequencing ] . ”
like many of oxford’s ideas , promethion is a work in progress . and it’s already well behind schedule . oxford now plans to start selling it later this year . “just sit tight , ” brown told scientists at oxford’s meeting . “the raw horsepower is enough to put you ahead . ”
clive g brown , cto of oxford nanopore , gave a technical update on 29 th september . if you missed it , you can watch it by registering your details here .
for his part , oxford nanopore ceo gordon sanghera , in a brief statement released today , said that illumina’s lawsuit is without merit and will not affect his company’s commercial prospects .
this work was funded in part by the wellcome trust , rosetrees trust , the biotechnology and biological sciences research council ( bbsrc ) , the canadian institutes of health research , the us national science foundation , the national institutes of health and the national human genome research institute ( nhgri ) . reagents were supplied by oxford nanopore technologies ltd .
nanopore systems will be developed that can also write dna , driving synthetic biology .
what is abundantly clear from looking through oxford’s intellectual property is that nanopore sequencing took a truly distributed effort to get off the ground . scientists from numerous universities in the us and the uk have played significant roles in bringing the world a working nanopore sequencer . so has the us government , through grants from the national human genome research institute and direct contributions from members of the national institute of standards and technologies . what oxford has done―and what illumina will have done , if it ever invents a nanopore sequencer of its own―is run the last , steepest mile , to engineer an instrument reliable enough for use in the real world .
biomolecular engineer mark akeson describes the development of nanopore sequencing technology at uc santa cruz .
oxford nanopore takes a different approach by using direct electronic sensing made possible by biological pores rather than sequencing chemistry , and could be a game changer in the field . the company was founded by
second and third generation sequencing technologies have revolutionised bacterial genomics . short - read illumina reads result in cheap but fragmented assemblies , whereas longer reads are more expensi . . .
enzyme motor : e7 to e8 . dna can be passed through the nanopore more rapidly , going from 250 bases per second per nanopore ( bps ) to 450 without losing accuracy
on 8th feb 2018 , clive brown , cto of oxford nanopore , gave an update on oxford nanopore technology . in this update he described the pathway to a sub $ 1000 genome using the promethion device , introduced ' flongle ' - a smaller flow cell for smaller experiments and tests , outlined the pathway to very high consensus accuracy , and some other goodies . . watch for more . show less
in may 2017 , r9 . 5 was shipped , to be compatible with the new 1d squared method of sequencing . oxford nanopore is at this stage producing more than 20gb from a single flow cell .
npreader ( jsa . np . f5reader ) is a program that extracts oxford nanopore sequencing data from fast5 files , performs an initial analysis of the date and streams them to real - time analysis pipelines .
a revolution is occurring in genomic epidemiology . recently , real - time portable genome sequencing using the oxford nanopore minion device was successfully used to characterize the genetic diversity of the ebola virus outbreak in guinea .
in november 2015 , minion users gathered at the first nanopore community meeting in new york .
motivation : the oxford nanopore minion sequencer , currently in pre - release testing through the minion access programme ( map ) , promises long reads in real - time from a cheap , compact , usb device .
it is time to shake up public health surveillance . new technologies for sequencing , aided by friction - free approaches to data sharing , could have an impact on public health efforts .
the minion device by oxford nanopore is the first portable sequencing device . minion is able to produce very long reads ( reads over 100 ~ kbp were reported ) , however it suffers from high sequencing error rate .
40 . © copyright 2016 oxford nanopore technologies ⎪ 40 zika virus research urltoken • how and when zikv was introduced to brazil • pattern and determinants of spread • extent of genetic diversity ( of importance to vaccine and diagnostic design ) , • associations between changes in the virus genome and • likelihood of zikv complications such as microcephaly . • provide a surveillance framework for tracking further spread into other geographic regions
metrichor was founded to offer fully integrated , bespoke , real - time analysis solutions based on scalable , real time nanopore sensing technologies . those complete solutions may include bespoke devices to extract a sample of interest , perform dna / rna sequencing or integrated software to provide analysis and actions .
the company now has more than 350 employees from multiple disciplines including nanopore science , molecular biology and applications , informatics , engineering , electronics , manufacturing and commercialisation . the management team , led by ceo dr gordon sanghera , has a track record of delivering disruptive technologies to the market .
illumina reserves the right to make nanopore sequencers in which dna passes through mspa or its derivatives .
motivation : the minion device by oxford nanopore is the first portable sequencing device . minion is able to produce very long reads ( reads over 100 ~ kbp were reported ) , however it suffers from high sequencing error rate .
metrichor ltd is a company formed by oxford nanopore . it offers end - to - end analysis solutions coupled with nanopore sensing devices , with the goal of making analyses accessible to people without bioinformatics skills or even biology qualifications . this may include ' applied markets ' such as food / environmental testing , or future consumer genetics applications .
illumina has plenty of competitors besides oxford nanopore . but while companies like pacific biosciences , thermo fisher , and qiagen all make machines that fill useful niches , they’re just nibbling at the edges of the genomics market . oxford―despite lingering problems with accuracy , and a history of delivering spectacularly behind schedule―is the only firm that looks like it might be an existential threat .
the band of aquanauts — including members of nasa and the european space agency ( esa ) — participated in a 16 - day underwater expedition known as the nasa extreme environment mission operations ( neemo ) 21 . the aquanauts first tested the palm - size minion dna sequencer , built by oxford nanopore technologies , underwater to
minimize unknowns and see how the device worked in various extreme environments ,
nasa officials said in a statement .
david deamer ( left ) and mark akeson ( right ) established the ucsc nanopore research group in 1996 .
the basic idea behind nanopore sequencing has been floating around academia since the late 1980s . scientists including david deamer and mark akeson of the university of california , santa cruz , and george church of harvard , filed a series of patents related to nanopore sequencing as early as 1995 . oxford nanopore , which licenses these patents , was formed a decade later , as early prototypes in university labs began to show progress in turning the idea into a workable instrument .
24 . © copyright 2016 oxford nanopore technologies ⎪ 24 sepsis 1 / 3 patients in intensive care never leave hospital deaths per year in us > 200k ( more than prostate , breast cancer and aids combined ) . cost to us > $ 20 billion early diagnosis and evidence based treatment could è 92k fewer deaths ( us ) diagnosis window for septic shock : 6 hours minion being explored for early identification of infection ( uti / sepsis ) by uk group
brown joined oxford nanopore in june 2008 , having formerly worked at the uk ' s largest genomic laboratory , the wellcome trust sanger institute . he contributed to the development of more traditional dna sequencers , huge machines that cost a great deal to run , require special equipment and are centrally located in labs . nanopore sequencing , bypasses many of those problems .
this is a wondrous technical achievement by oxford nanopore and nasa . i am proud of ucsc ' s key role in helping build the foundation that made it possible ,
said mark akeson , professor of biomolecular engineering at uc santa cruz .
compare : illumina has 7 , 500 sequencers installed . oxford has placed 3 , 000 minion ( # in use currently not given ) urltoken
clive brown , the company ' s chief technology officer , presented the updates last night at the firm ' s user meeting in london . while his talk was not public , oxford nanopore disseminated much of the information through a series of twitter messages .
in addition to studying metagenomics , the tgac map team are also interested in understanding new technologies such as the minion and providing the scientific community with tools to help them get the most out of these technologies . the research group will continue to be part of the map and will be developing this work further by looking at other research areas for the minion , with a view to paper publication , tools releases , collaborations and grant applications .
two weeks ago i mentioned on twitter that i pushed a large series of changes to support r9 oxford nanopore data in nanopolish . i promised a blog post describing the changes then went off on my summer vacation - here it is , a little late .
in february 2012 at the agbt conference , oxford nanopore presented a variety of nanopore dna ' strand sequencing ' and protein - analysis data , and an overview of the hardware and software behind the gridion and minion systems . these data included small genomes that had been sequenced using the company ' s technology over the sense and antisense strands , showing tens of kilobases in single reads . this was the first nanopore sequence data to be shown worldwide since the technique was first theoretically proposed in 1996 .
the recently introduced oxford nanopore minion platform generates dna sequence data in real - time . this opens immense potential to shorten the sample - to - results time and is likely to lead to enormous benefits in rapid diagnosis of bacterial infection and identification of drug resistance .
“this reminds me of the early days of illumina , when all we could get were 36 - base - pair reads , and we were all very excited about that , ” says erlich . “i think we should give [ oxford nanopore ] more time . ”
nanopore reader : r9 to r9 . 4 . 1200 r9 mutants have been screened ; this is faster and more accurate
hi fabricio , the minion is made by oxford nanopore – urltoken in this study , researchers in several labs around the world tested out the performance of the device . embl - ebi coordinated the study , but we do not distribute the device . kind regards , mary
oxford nanopore provides signal processing and base - calling tools , but file formats are documented and participants can write their own data analysis tools or modify the scripts provided in the github repository . sources for any software are provided on an ‘as - is’ and ‘without warranties’ basis
the top 10 competitors in oxford nanopore ' s competitive set are pacbio , nabsys , genia , illumina , quantumdx , discoverx , diagenode , editas medicine , integenx and applied biosystems . together they have raised over 1 . 0b between their estimated 7 . 2k employees .
more recently , in 2013 illumina licensed patents from jens gundlach of the university of washington and michael niederweis of the university of alabama , birmingham , to pursue an in - house nanopore program . it is these patents that are now the object of illumina’s lawsuit against oxford .
bywaters kf , mckay cp , davila af , quinn rc . in situ life and biosignature detection at mars analog sites using the oxford nanopore minion sequencer . biosignature preservation and detection in mars analog environments conference . may 16–18 , 2016 ; no . 1912 , id 2014 .
in july 2009 , the company relocated to the oxford science park . our premises at edmund cartwright house were inaugurated by the uk science and innovation minister , lord drayson . in 2011 , an additional 7 , 000 square feet on the oxford science park was opened and a new cambridge office was also opened .
the convergence of automation technologies , intelligent algorithms and cloud computing is progressively making genomics available to less skilled actors . while this does not necessarily ensure democratization , it does enable us to imagine it . and so , what if it actually happens ?
array of microscaffolds each microscaffold supports a membrane and embedded nanopore . the array keeps the multiple nanopores stable during shipping and usage .
dr andrew kilianski presents a talk for the minion community on real - time genomic characterization of viral threat agents using nanopore sequencing .
the suit came as distressing news to some researchers , who feared they might lose access to the firm’s nanopore products , or that the battle would stifle the development of new platforms . “i would love it if illumina had released a platform . instead what they’re doing is releasing a lawsuit , ” says winston timp , a biomedical engineer at johns hopkins university in baltimore , maryland , whose lab has also licensed patents to oxford nanopore .
oxford nanopore has developed voltrax – a small device designed to perform library preparation automatically , so that a user can get a biological sample ready for analysis , hands - free . voltrax is designed as an alternative to a range of lab equipment , to allow consistent and varied , automated library prep options .
if the ambition is to promote more distributed use of genomic sequencing , users also need a ready - made platform for interpreting genetic data . oxford nanopore has designed an intelligent cloud lab , metrichor , to be used for genomics data storage in conjunction with smartphone apps that interpret the meaning of dna sequences .
nanopore devices perform dna / rna sequencing directly and in real time . the technology is scalable from miniature devices to high - throughput installations .
people will develop and commercialise their own assays on the nanopore platform , for their own applications , rather like programming a new iphone app .
other researchers will soon have a chance to form their own opinions about the device , as oxford nanopore today launched its early - access programme . researchers who pay a us $ 1 , 000 deposit , plus $ 250 for shipping costs , can receive their own minions to begin testing the machines in their labs .
even if oxford does have mspa - based nanopores inside the minion and promethion , illumina’s lawsuit is far from a slam dunk . oxford holds or licenses a wide array of intellectual property―some from its co - founder bayley , but also from deamer , akeson , church , and many others . these patents cover the foundational concept of nanopore sequencing ; the engineering of protein nanopores ; and other aspects of the technology not at stake here , like the enzymes that help guide dna through the system .
antonio regalado on twitter :
compare : illumina has 7 , 500 sequencers installed . oxford has placed 3 , 000 minion ( # in use currently not given ) …
in nanopore sensing , just as water flows through a drain , an ionic current flows through a nanopore . when molecules pass through the hole the current is disrupted in characteristic ways , similar to the way the water flow would change if you placed objects in the drain credits : urltoken
nanopore sequencing is an ideal example of how academic scientists can collaborate with businesses to develop new instruments with unprecedented capabilities ,
deamer said .
clive brown , who led the development of the minion at oxford , suggested that it will make possible an internet of living things . that sounds right to me .
average read length almost 7kb . 330mb events and 46k reads in 3 . 5 hours and still going well . excellent work @ nanopore ! !
yes expected , main reason is error in nanopore data , other is this is a clinical isolate and we don ' t have a reference .
these “nanopore” techniques , originally proposed by hagan bayley , a professor of chemistry at oxford , in 1992 , are simple , at least in principle . they do not need fluorescent labels and will probably not require amplification , either . they can “read” dna directly and rapidly , and are cheap enough to replicate in vast numbers .
thanks to matei david , jonathan dursi , nick loman , josh quick and phil zuzarte for helping develop the r9 support and generating data . the scientists at oxford nanopore helped us better understand r9 data and the discussions we had with them were key to implementing the improved hmm - thanks in particular to clive and chris wright .
a review of the nanopore technology platform , which is designed to enable the analysis of any living thing , by any person , in any environment .
the minion , a handheld dna - sequencing device developed by oxford nanopore , has been tested and evaluated by an independent , international consortium coordinated by embl - ebi . the innovative device opens up new possibilities for using sequencing technology in the field , for example in tracking disease outbreaks , testing packaged food or the trafficking of protected species .
metrichor ltd offers end to end analysis solutions , using real - time , miniaturisable and scalable dna / rna sequencing technology from oxford nanopore . designed for real time surveillance of complex systems such as food supply chains , environments or outbreaks , to single locations such as industrial or medical diagnostics , metrichor can design bespoke solutions for rapid insights .
in may 2015 , the first nanopore sensing conference was convened ( london calling ) where users of minion technology gathered to hear from 20 speakers and additional abstracts from numerous other map participants across a range of applications . minion became commercially available at this time and the minion access programme became the nanopore community .
the dna sample ( metagenomics gdna from lake hillier xmp project ) was sheared to 10 kb size using a covaris g - tube ( figure 2d , supplementary figure 4 ) . dna was then prepared using the oxford nanopore r9 protocol ( version nsk - 007 ) , including ffpe repair , end repair and da - tailing , adapter ligation and tethering , and streptavidin recovery . the prepared library was run on an r9 minion flowcell using minknow version 0 . 51 . 1 . 66 with the “nc _ 48hr _ sequencing _ run _ flo _ min104 . py” protocol . the raw data were called with metrichor using “2d basecalling rnn for sqk - nsk007” version 1 . 99 ( oxford science park , oxford , uk ) .
minion™ is a memory stick - sized , nanopore - based sequencer primarily designed for single - molecule sequencing of long dna fragments ( > 6 kb ) .
a webcast presentation today for customers of the company will likely put many of those fears to rest . oxford nanopore’s chief technology officer clive brown announced an upgrade to its devices—a new pore the company has been describing in presentations as r9 . brown revealed that r9 is csgg , a membrane protein derived from escherichia coli , but present in many bacterial species .
and it’s not all about dna . bayley says oxford nanopore was founded as a company interested in developing single molecule sensing technology for metabolites , sugars and other compounds of biochemical interest .
we saw it as a platform technology . but quite soon it became obvious that its application in third - generation dna sequencing was an area with enormous potential .
whether illumina is narrowing in on its own nanopore sequencer is a mystery . the company did receive a 2014 grant from the national human genome research institute related to a nanopore project ; this seems to be the most recent public evidence that the program is active . it is suggestive that illumina has recently been touting a
“nanopore sequencing will open the door for the development of novel tools and applications to analyse the influx of new data , ” says rebecca lawrence , managing director of f1000research . “the nanopore analysis channel on f1000research will be a central , open platform on which scientists can publish and discuss new applications and analyse workflows for nanopore sequencing data . people can access and contribute data easily , so that the wider life - science community can realise the full potential of this new technology quickly . ”
we provide the latest information on how to use the products via the nanopore community website , which also serves as a forum for minion users to share information .
eleonore pauwels is a writer and international science policy expert , who specializes in the governance of converging technologies , including artificial intelligence , genomics , digital bio - engineering , participatory health design , and citizen science . at the wilson center , she is the director of the ai lab within the science and technology innovation program .
in may 2016 , the minion mk 1b was introduced . preparing for future iterations of nanopore chemistry it included improvements such as greater temperature control of the flow cell .
minion was launched into the minion access programme in spring 2014 and made commercially available in may 2015 . the nanopore community has grown around the two phases of minion availability .
a strand of dna is passed through a nanopore . the current is changed as the bases g , a , t and c pass through the pore in different combinations .
in the case of oxford nanopore ' s technology , the dna molecule is fed through the hole one base at a time by a second protein , an enzyme called an exonuclease . this can clearly distinguish the four dna letters , a , c , g and t . it may also be able to detect whether a letter is methylated , though this has not yet been independently verified .
jaqueline goes de jesus of the oswaldo cruz foundation and nuno faria of the university of oxford use the minion sequencer in joão pessoa , brazil , as part of a mobile study on the origins of the zika virus .
the desk in gordon sanghera ' s office at oxford nanopore proudly displays a piece of knobbly plastic . it has a hole running through it and looks rather like a cruller doughnut , though with grey icing . in fact , it is a model of a protein molecule called alpha - hemolysin . dr sanghera , the firm ' s boss , believes this molecule will revolutionise the sequencing of dna .
nanopolish for @ nanopore r9 data has been released . consensus accuracy is up to 99 . 9 % ( deep e . coli data ) . details in a upcoming blog post
nanopore dna strand sequencing has emerged as a competitive , portable technology . reads exceeding 150 kilobases have been achieved , as have in - field detection and analysis of clinical pathogens .
but isaac ro , an analyst at us investment bank goldman sachs — which advised illumina in 2012 when it fought off a takeover bid by the swiss drug giant roche — called jaffe ' s presentation “underwhelming” . “oxford nanopore still appears to be in development mode and , in our view , is unlikely to threaten [ illumina’s ] competitive position at this time , ” ro said in a research note .
in december 2016 , the second nanopore community meeting was held . during this meeting , three groups presented or released t he first human genomes to be sequenced on the handheld minion .
. . . and now for something completely different . new tools for diet analyses : nanopore sequencing of metagenomic dna from stomach contents to quantify diet in an invasive population of rats with
the fundamental research and patents underlying the technology of nanopore sequencing were carried out here at ucsc ,
said david deamer , research professor of biomolecular engineering at uc santa cruz .
i have received an honorarium to speak at an oxford nanopore meeting , and travel and accommodation to attend london calling 2015 and 2016 . i have ongoing research collaborations with ont although i am not financially compensated for this and hold no stocks , shares or options . ont have supplied free - of - charge reagents as part of the minion access programme and also generously supported our infectious disease surveillance projects with reagents .
we are sending up samples that we are preparing on the ground , and the crew will thaw the samples and load them for sequencing . the samples will contain lambda bacteriophage , which is oxford nanopore technology ' s characterization standard for sequencer performance . the samples will also contain e . coli and mouse genomic dna to demonstrate that you could sequence dna from any organism . the samples will not contain human dna .
in february 2017 , the gridion x5 was announced ; a desktop system integrating five minion flow cells with integrated compute function , that can be used to offer nanopore sequencing as a service .
a protein nanopore is set in an electrically resistant polymer membrane . an ionic current is passed through the nanopore by setting a voltage across this membrane . if an analyte passes through the pore or near its aperture , this event creates a characteristic disruption in current ( as shown in the diagram below ) . measurement of that current makes it possible to identify the molecule in question .
nanopore sequencing introduces true real - time sequencing for the first time . full exploitation of real - time sequencing requires a novel approach to data analysis for which we have developed the minotour platform .
the average length of the sequences generated on the minion is 5 . 4 kilobases , with some as long as 10 kilobases . that is longer than the average read out delivered by the current dominant sequencing technology , sold by illumina of san diego , california , which delivers fragments of dna that are hundreds of base pairs long . but the median length of the minion’s reads is shorter than the target that oxford nanopore announced in 2012 .
all those activities might one day be run instead using nanopore sequencing — or at least oxford hopes so . right now , the minion is a good way to identify and study bacteria and viruses . but last year , the first human genomes were sequenced on a minion as well . ( it’s still a cumbersome process and not as inexpensive , however — taking close to $ 20 , 000 worth of disposable cartridges at $ 500 each . )
30hrs , ~ 14gb and 450 in strand with 1263 active pores still . loving these new revd flowcells . home it came today so i can nurture it along over the weekend . @ nanopore urltoken
the minion is not yet for sale . but david jaffe , a computational biologist at the broad institute in cambridge , massachusetts , used data produced by the device and provided by oxford nanopore to aid in the assembly of two bacterial genomes — those of escherichia coli and a bacterium from the genus scardovia that is found in the human mouth . he presented his results today at the advances in genome biology and technology meeting in marco island , florida .
illumina is improving human health by unlocking the power of the genome . our focus on innovation has established us as the global leader in dna sequencing and array - based technologies , serving customers in the research , clinical and applied markets . our products are used for applications in the life sciences , oncology , reproductive health , agriculture and other emerging segments . to learn more , visit urltoken and follow @ illumina .
last month , josh quick , a bioinformatician and phd student working in my group at the institute of microbiology and infection , travelled to the epicentre of the outbreak in guinea . he took with him a portable genomic surveillance system carried in his hold luggage . the system contained several minions : portable “usb stick” sequencers , developed by the british company oxford nanopore , as well as all the chemicals and pipettes and plastic tubes that are needed to generate sequences of the ebola virus .
even closer to home , genome sequencing is becoming mainstream with the 100 , 000 genomes project . and armed with new technologies , it may soon be possible for individuals to sequence their own genomes and for infectious pathogens to be sequenced at home or in a gp surgery . when it comes to ebola , we hope the ability to provide portable , real - time sequencing will improve our ability to respond in future .
so that we can open up the use of nanopore analysis by any person and in any environment , we are developing a low cost consumable device for combined sample and library preparation . project zumbador is progressing well .
in my talk , i will discuss my collaboration with nick loman’s lab to develop de novo assembly methods for minion data . we have built a pipeline to error correct nanopore reads using partial order gr . . .
jared simpson on twitter :
nanopolish for @ nanopore r9 data has been released . consensus accuracy is up to 99 . 9 % ( deep e . coli data ) . details in a upcoming blog post
but he sounded optimistic about the minion ' s future . oxford nanopore has said that higher - quality dna or different preparation methods should increase the average read length . jaffe says that the company can work to eliminate errors , perhaps by using a variety of pores with different properties . but even now , he says , most long minion reads had lengthy stretches without any mistakes . the systematic errors are “a temporary feature that we hope they ' ll figure out how to solve” .


playground global is a venture fund and design studio that provides resources , mentorship and funding for startups making hardware devices .

the company was founded in 2015 by andy rubin , peter barrett , matt hershenson and bruce leak .

playground offers startups support with engineering , distribution , manufacturing and financing in exchange for equity .

in 2015 , the company ’s first investment fund raised $ 300 million from its limited partners including google , hp , foxconn , redpoint ventures , seagate technology and tencent , among others .

in 2016 , a regulatory filing revealed that the company was raising a second $ 500 million fund .

playground global

glassdoor gives you an inside look at what it ' s like to work at playground global , including salaries , reviews , office photos , and more . this is the playground global company profile . all content is posted anonymously by employees working at playground global .
© 2016 global playground . all rights reserved . legal statement | website design by colour outside
global playground is now accepting applications for teaching fellow positions at our project sites in thailand and vietnam . global playground’s fellows have done amazing things in the past ; read their blogs to see what it’s like .
playground global is a vc firm backing entrepreneurs working at the intersection of bits , atoms , and ai .
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global playground’s mission is to raise awareness and share resources with people of the developing world to create educational opportunities where they do not exist .
we partner with global contract manufacturers as well as odm service providers , to help you get things made .
earlier this week it came out that he ' d raised $ 48 million for another fund called playground global , which will focus on providing support to young companies creating hardware devices .
playground global is a venture firm and product studio created to support the entrepreneurs navigating the next frontier of technology and building the companies and industries of tomorrow . robotics is a core part of the firm’s portfolio .
one of those companies , an after - market car tech startup called nauto , announced today that it had closed a $ 12 million series a round led by playground global with participation from draper nexus and index ventures .
and what would a company called playground be without a , well , playground ? a big silver slide and wooden swingset structure are located right near the entrance .
construction on the library and media center at siana girls’ high school is complete and global playground’s community partners are working on connecting the school to the electric grid and furnishing the center . the building will open in january 2018 .
data collective led the new round in nervana . allen & co . , ame cloud ventures , andy rubin’s playground global , the cme group , draper fisher jurvetson , fuel capital , lux capital , and omidyar network also participated .
the four co - founded playground global , a startup
accelerator ,
in 2015 . that ' s techspeak for a company that helps nurture young startups by providing support like mentorship , office space , and - - in the case of playground , which works mostly with hardware startups - - machinery for prototyping .
global playground currently has two ongoing projects : a library and media center at a girls’ secondary school in narok county , kenya and six classrooms , a library , and two offices at bandajuma primary school in bo district , sierra leone .
specifically , this latest funding is for “playground ventures affiliates ii” . two previous playground ventures filings at the sec include playground ventures , which is from 2015 and covers the $ 242 million raise ; and playground ventures ii , which dates from november 2016 and is the filing to raise $ 500 million . we’ll update this as we learn more .
up to now , playground has served as a vehicle for backing some big ideas .
in some cases , the companies have been incubated and have playground’s support and network access in exchange for equity , but no investment . in other cases , playground has invested .
“they’re the only company i found to be simplifying the utility and application of augmented and virtual reality technology into a fun , accessible , and portable system that will wow kids and adults alike . ” - andy rubin , managing director at playground global
mark says that playground is uniquely positioned to help overcome the challenges that today’s entrepreneurs face .
rubin created playground global , a new venture - capital fund and hardware incubator that closed a $ 300 million round on monday . part of its mission is betting on the next big thing ,
the thing beyond the mobile or the tablet ,
rubin said .
at the same time , rubin will be returning to redpoint ventures , where he incubated android , as a venture partner and will spend at least one day at the firm to research potential investments in tech companies . redpoint was one of the first investors in playground global .
during mark’s time at playground , he has noticed that hardware entrepreneurs have a different mettle about them .
the following roles are open on the playground team and some of the startups we host at our facility .
relatively speaking , $ 15 million a modest figure : since 2015 , it looks like the playground group , which includes the playground global incubator and playground ventures , has disclosed about $ 242 million in funding as part of a projected $ 300 million fundraise , and what appears to be a bigger plan to raise $ 500 million . we have contacted the company to ask if it can elaborate more on whether this $ 15 million is one more segment in that wider effort , or if it is for another , different purpose .
subpac is based in los angeles , with pilot offices in toronto and london , in addition to offices in palo alto on the playground global campus . in the coming years , subpac seeks to establish offices in other key cultural centers around the globe .
this is a cultural revolution , ” claims alexiou .
the team’s robot , a 5 - foot - tall biped named schaft , now stands sentry in playground’s lobby .
a few months later , rubin launched playground global—not just a new company but , he says , a new kind of company . part of what makes playground unusual is the way it’s structured . it has some qualities of an incubator and some qualities of a consulting firm , but it’s neither , really . playground invests in hardware startups , yes . but instead of just providing funding and advice , rubin offers them a centralized , all - star engineering department , staffed by seasoned technologists he’s worked with at google , general magic , apple , and elsewhere . this team works side by side with playground’s startups , building the hardware and software that will power their intelligent machines .
he started playground to help other entrepreneurs build the next hit products so that they can have that experience , too .
describing his management style as “super casual , ” andy says playground is designed to empower everyone to contribute new ideas .
justin miller , connectedyard ' s ceo , says one of the biggest benefits to joining playground is recruiting and attracting talent .
playground global is the third firm mark has had a hand in launching . in 2009 , mark started in venture capital at andreessen horowitz , joining as the first employee . after a hiatus at stanford’s business school , he rejoined andreessen horowitz as marc andreessen’s chief of staff . later , mark co - founded early - stage vc firm a capital .
cables hang from the ceiling at regular intervals all across the office , so anyone can jack into playground’s network from any location .
connectedyard , one of playground ' s portfolio companies , used the lab to build prototypes for phin , its smart pool care product .
you guys remember andy rubin , right ? he was one of our favorites personalities , and he happened to also play a major role in the making of android . it’s sad to no longer see him at google , but you can be sure he is very active in the industry . rubin launched an investing hardware incubator named playground global , and he is overlooking new companies from there .
playground , whose backers include google and redpoint ventures , wants to be part of the next wave of hardware companies . right now , playground has more than two dozen investments , including castar , working on augmented reality glasses , and connectedyard , which has a smart pool care product .
eager to move beyond smartphones , rubin starts playground , a company that aims to create a manufacturing and development platform for ai - equipped devices .
in august , meanwhile , intel snapped up nervana systems , a playground - funded deep - learning startup in a deal valued at around $ 408 million .
with titanium 3d printers , electrostatic charge tables , and a giant slide , playground global lives up to it’s a name . here we take you on a tour of android operating system inventor andy rubin’s hardware startup incubator that’s backed by a $ 300 million fund . check out how the whimsical space lets scrappy hackers compete with facebook and google to recruit top talent . if techies are all peter pans , this is the lost boys’ clubhouse .
at playground , andy is also reunited with bruce leak and peter barrett , who he worked with at webtv , the world’s first television - based internet service .
since leaving google in 2014 , android co - founder andy rubin has been working on a mysterious new company named playground global . at code mobile in august last year , rubin described the firm as a way to
amplify ideas
— which sounds cool but is frustratingly vague . information about the company has been leaking out drip by drip , but now , with the help of a blog post from rubin , we ' re finally getting a clearer picture of just how ambitious its goals are .
with this in mind , playground wants to help create the gadgets of the future by offering companies a library of ready - made hardware and software allowing anyone to build the next big thing .
cloud services are a great way to reduce initial capital costs and get to market faster . our partners in this category will offer their cloud services at a reduced cost to playground portfolio companies .
“that’s exactly the sweet spot , ” playground global partner bruce leak told re / code . “we all realize autonomous driving is the future , but how do we get there ? working with oems is a good strategy ; it’s just a long , hard path to revenue . but it’s a nice insight nauto has — the automotive industry wants to work with proven leaders in the field . [ so ] the company just said we have to get millions of miles of experience . the only way to do that is to have people behind the wheel . ”
prior to co - founding playground , andy led google’s robotics and automation division , where , among other things , he oversaw the team that earned the highest score in the first darpa robotics challenge trial .
venture partner mark valdez is responsible for driving playground’s investment activities . he seeks out startups that will change what we think is possible and that will create new experiences and capabilities in a converged physical and digital world .
notably , en route to raising $ 300 million to date , playground has picked up a number of strategic backers like google , hp and foxconn , which together with others put in $ 48 million towards the running total .
on thursday , playground opened its doors to press for one of the first public tours of its headquarters . the location is fitting : fry ' s has long been an iconic destination for silicon valley ' s tinkerers and engineers .
playground ventures — the vc fund co - founded by android inventor and former google exec andy rubin that sits alongside an eponymous incubator / startup studio and is making some big bets in areas like artificial intelligence and new generations of hardware– is raising more money . a form d filed with the sec notes that playground ventures is in the process of adding another $ 15 million into its coffers . the filing notes that none of the sum has yet to be raised .
playground’s ambitions extend far beyond building individual gadgets or even individual companies . rubin wants playground to become the factory that creates the standard building blocks—the basic quartermaster’s inventory of components—for the ai - infused future . and he wants to open up this platform of hardware and software tools so that anyone , not just the companies he works with directly , can create an intelligent device . if he’s successful , playground stands to have the same kind of impact on smart machines that android had on smartphones , providing the technological infrastructure for thousands of products and giving a generation of entrepreneurs the ability to build a smart drone . or a house’s worth of intelligent appliances . or , hell , a full - fledged robot .
if that happens , rubin’s company stands to benefit in two ways : first , when those entrepreneurs are ready to launch their companies , they’re likely to want to work with playground , giving the incubator an early opportunity to invest . but even more crucially , it will implant playground’s technology at the heart of a new generation of products . this is the grandest ambition of playground : to create a common infrastructure for thousands of devices , much as windows did for pcs and android did for smartphones . “some kind of standardized framework could unlock the next generation of interesting things , ” says jeff brody of redpoint ventures , who has known rubin for more than a decade . “that’s the big , big idea behind all this . ”
andy rubin is looking for another big round of funding for his hardware incubator , playground ventures . according to an sec filing that popped up yesterday ( via dan primack ) , the android founder is looking to raise up to $ 500 million — rubin’s name is listed alongside fellow playground founders peter barrett , matt hershenson and bruce leak . this follows a $ 300 million funding round that closed just about this time last year , with rubin stating that the money would go toward investments in startups .
playground ' s office has the typical tech startup vibe : a row of old motorcycles are on display inside the building
to inspire great design ,
says leak . there are several old arcade and pinball games , including pac man and star wars .
founded by alexiou and longtime partner todd chernecki , the privately held company has announced the close of $ 6 million in series a financing . receiving the bulk of its funding from rubin’s playground global and azure capital , subpac has also attracted a slate of industry leaders who have united to engineer this innovative sound movement . additional investors in the tech startup include nba superstar carmelo anthony ’s m7 tech partners , renowned dj richie hawtin , and dada life . the $ 6 million series is earmarked for further development as the brand aims to significantly disrupt the music and tech landscape . “subpac opened my eyes to the power of physical sound and it will absolutely change the way people experience music , vr and cinema , ” stated rubin .
at the same time , the company is announcing it has nabbed new funding from three prominent investors : shasta ventures , redpoint ventures and andy rubin’s playground . with the new cash , eero has now raised more than $ 40 million despite having yet to ship its first product .
rubin has been focused on playground since exiting google in 2014 . the firm , in rubin’s words , is focused on the tech “after smartphones and tablets , ” which is in keeping with the largely mysterious tone he’s thus far taken with the project built to “amplify ideas . ”
with playground , rubin is clearly more interested in everything all at once , and looking to play an integral role in the next step in consumer technologies . and now , with the filing from yesterday , the company is looking to take the next major step toward funding it .
“they knowingly take on product development and distribution challenges that you never encounter when building software - only companies . we built playground not just to be a capital provider but also to provide entrepreneurs the resources , team , and community that can help them tackle these challenges head on . ”
playground ' s headquarters is large enough to hold 30 startups and is fully equipped with all the tools and equipment a company might need to create .
we have thermoplastic and multimaterial printers , laser cutters , cnc machines , metal sintering 3d printers , spectrum analyzers , network test equipment , rf test chambers , [ and ] optic labs ,
writes rubin . in addition to the dozen startups it ' s already working with , playground will also build its own products — rubin mentions a dashboard camera that will be given away for free in exchange for users ' data .
playground , though , will go one step further , also offering its own hardware : sensors and components that companies can simply click into their product , created by a division in the company named the studio . a report from wired on playground gives the example of a drone startup that needs a new microphone array : instead of having to do the research themselves and find the best mics , they just ask the studio .
it’s modular hardware ,
rubin tells wired .
a couple of years from now , you could roll in here with an idea , and we could just rearrange these modules .
rubin ' s description sound a little fantastical , bringing to mind the ai computers that control homes or even whole planets in sci - fi books and movies . however , as the verge ' s own dan seifert pointed out recently , our smartphones have already powered a quiet revolution , enabling a network of products and devices that are woven into our lives — everything from spotify to apple pay . and as one of the pioneers of android , an os with roughly 85 percent of the global smartphone market , rubin perhaps has better reason than most to be confident in his ability to create the future .
the co - founders have impressive resumes . in 2005 , rubin , who is now playground ' s ceo , sold a small startup called android to google for around $ 50 million . now , that operating system powers almost nine out of every 10 smartphones on the planet . rubin also ran google ' s robotics division , until leaving in 2014 .
for the near future , that platform will be available only to the companies that playground invests in—after all , rubin says , the whole point is to help his in - house startups build products more quickly and successfully than their competitors . but eventually , he plans to start opening up the platform to anyone , much as he gave away android to any manufacturer who wanted to use it . “i’m a strong believer in incubating an idea , developing it to a certain point , and then freeing it , ” he says . “after it’s freed , anybody can do whatever they want with it . ” he foresees a time when any kid with a kickstarter can use playground’s tools , creating a new generation of smart - hardware entrepreneurs .
taken together , the assembled companies resemble something like an ocean’s eleven –style team of specialists , each contributing their unique talents to a grand caper . along with startups specializing in ai and drones , playground has optics covered ( thanks to an investment in castar , which makes an augmented reality headset similar to microsoft’s hololens ) as well as the internet of things ( with an investment in connectedyard , which makes a wi - fi - and bluetooth - equipped pool monitor ) . and these are just the startups that rubin will discuss publicly—there are a dozen total . while all these companies hustle to bring their own products to market , they’re enabling playground to begin developing its library of hardware components , software , and shared knowledge along the way .
and that’s just the kind of platform rubin hopes to build with playground—providing all the basic hardware and software components so entrepreneurs can concentrate on generating interesting devices . those components come courtesy of the studio , which plays a role for playground’s startups similar to the one the q department plays for james bond . if you’re building a drone and need the best available microphone array , the seasoned technologists in the studio will simply give it to you . ( and they’ll know what next year’s microphone arrays will look like , so you can be sure your design is future - proof . ) “it’s modular hardware , ” rubin says . “a couple of years from now , you could roll in here with an idea , and we could just rearrange these modules . ”
another co - founder is bruce leak , who came from apple , where he created the quicktime software for movies and music . he also co - founded webtv . there ' s also matt hershenson , who helped rubin co - found his old company danger , and peter barrett , who serves as playground ' s cto and pioneered video compression software and cd - rom games .
then there ' s the thing rubin is working on . he ' s not only the ceo of playground , he ' s also a client . one of the portfolio companies is a still - secretive consumer electronics startup called essential . rubin is the ceo , and in march , he teased that the company is working on a smartphone that runs on , what else , android .
a vision of the future , he says , waiting for it to arrive is like being stuck in traffic . “when i have an intuition about how something should be , i try to figure out why it can’t be that way today , ” he says . that’s why he designed playground to remove any barrier to the creative impulses of his portfolio startups . several of the firms are housed in playground’s headquarters . bruce leak , a cofounder who worked with rubin at apple , general magic , and webtv , says the underlying theme is : you never have to ask permission . each company is given desks and a conference room , but if they ever want to relocate , they’re free to do so . cables hang from the ceiling at regular intervals , so anyone can jack into playground’s network from any location . if they need a new lens or a 3 - d - printed part , they can head to one of two fabrication labs run by a former apple laptop designer and a former spacex engineer . for more complex needs , the startups can file a request with the studio , which inhabits a patchwork of desks near the front of the open floor .
rubin is typically tight - lipped about his plans—he refused to comment , for instance , on a recent report in the information that he’s building a new android phone . when pressed , he says he is in fact working on a dashcam , which he plans to give away in exchange for its data—potentially allowing playground to build a real - time visual map of the world . and he has other ideas , he says , “that i’m not willing to talk about . ” those who’ve spoken with him about his plans walk away enraptured . “when you see the ideas they’re working on—they’re all high - quality , and many of them can be revolutionary , ” says david wallerstein , tencent’s chief exploration officer . “within three to five years , it’s impossible that playground won’t release something that’ll just blow our minds . ”
however , the end goal of playground is more ambitious than just a supercharged startup incubator . ultimately , the company wants to create a whole new infrastructure connecting the world ' s gadgets . from its description , this sounds like an operating system for the internet of things ( something that companies including google and huawei are already working on ) , but connected to a cloud computer that has
mature deep - learning capabilities
and adjusts to users ' needs on the fly .
why ? everyone likes to back a winning team , and by virtue of rubin’s experience with android and google , and the impressive backgrounds of others on the team ( including the creator of quicktime , the co - creator of danger , the creator of the first big video codec and many others ) , playground has one of the best track records around . and getting involved at the lp level gives these companies a chance to work early on with startups that have the potential to become big .
triumphantly as he walks into playground’s conference room . he has a reputation for coming off as remote , but now—lanky and balding , dressed in an aggressively unassuming sweatshirt and jeans—he radiates gee - whiz enthusiasm . “i made you pancakes ! with the push of a button ! ” he announces , brandishing a plate of three doughy disks . rubin collects gadgets of all kinds , and today he has brought in his latest acquisition—a shiny metal rectangle , about the size of a subwoofer , that cranks out flapjacks . rubin rolls two of them into cylinders and gobbles them down . not bad .
playground itself is a combination of a venture fund , startup incubator , and a hardware and software company , with $ 300 million to invest , and a dozen companies already on its books . in a blog post , rubin describes how his first company , danger , spent $ 240 million in 2001 to create a smartphone , and how that same project today would cost just $ 3 million . this , he says , is why
the pendulum of innovation is shifting from software back to hardware , or , more specifically , hardware that uses software to do interesting things .
take artificial intelligence , for example . neural networks are everywhere in the tech world at the moment , and the industry ' s biggest companies — including facebook , google , and microsoft — have beefed up their ai teams to create new products and improve existing services . so how does a startup compete with that sort of deep knowledge ? the answer is to have a catalog of pre - made ai tools that companies can pick and choose from . playground wants to offer these tools , using them to take the pressure off startups in the same way that android enabled smartphone manufacturers to build new phones without worrying about software .
for rubin and co . , with their formidable pedigrees , playground is a test to see if lightning can strike again . silicon valley used to be a hardware town , but as the internet began to take over our lives , the focus moved over to bits . social networks and apps became the rage . but in the last few years , there ' s been a shift back to atoms . google and amazon have hits with the google home and echo , smart home hubs that serve as digital assistants for your house . and now there ' s internet - connected everything - - refrigerators , cars , coffee makers , and , um , condom rings .
the result , i imagine , is what rubin’s brain would look like if it were somehow transformed into real estate—a hive of ideas , all scrambling to get out into the world and make the largest possible impact . during my two - day visit in december , the entire office , a hangarlike space next to a fry’s electronics superstore , was suffused with giddy impatience . nervana , which builds semiconductors for neural networks , was on the cusp of launching a new cloud service that would let anyone access on - demand ai—for instance , to comb through reams of financial data to discover fraud , or millions of anonymized health records to track the spread of a disease . paul beard , founder of another playground startup called µavionix , was meeting with leak to discuss how to turn a lightweight transponder he’d developed into a system that could track every drone in the world in real time . ( “the faa would never approve that , ” leak says , “but we think that’s where this is going to go , so we should add that capability but leave it turned off . ” )
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# wall street journal ( new york , n . y . : 1889 )
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most people don’t understand that sound is a physical medium — knowing the physicality already exists within music , subpac just allows you to feel it . ”
from unforgettable classics to contemporary hits , there is a perfect record for every feeling , occasion or moment in our lives . playlists present a collection of songs that reflect a diversity of emotions , naturally drawing reference to memorable experiences that shaped the way we see and understand the world around us . what defines timeless music is that special feeling it ignites each time you hear it . as an expressive artistry tied so deeply to the spirit , its impact is often indescribable .
now , there is a new technology that allows both fans and creators to enjoy the physical components of music that add even greater depth to its meaning . grammy award - winning producer timbaland and google android co - creator andy rubin have teamed up with a decorated roster of investors to reimagine the way musicians and fans feel music . subpac is immersive physical - sound technology that expands the audio concept of music into a fully - immersive experience .
unveiling two unique product offerings , the subpac m2 , a wearable vest , and the subpac s2 , a mobile seat - back device , subpac is set to pioneer a new physical - sound category that transcends the listening experience of headphones and second - screen devices .
the wearable technology interprets the way your body perceives sound , adjusting audio frequencies to optimize the feeling .
space . merging the mechanics of crafting dynamic productions with the physical element of subpac technology , the multiplatinum hit - maker believes this venture simply marks the beginning of a necessary shift within the industry .
i ' m always looking for deeper ways to connect with my fans and artists ; subpac gives that deeper connection , ” timbaland told forbes .
subpac allows my music to touch people in a whole new way , and people need to feel music .
spent years inside countless studios , studying and researching some of the best sound engineers in the world . today , subpac is currently used by thousands of studios in the u . s . with plans to expand into studios worldwide . “we understand that the impact of music and sound is massive , and the way people are experiencing it is just a fraction of what’s possible , ” stated alexiou .
we see this as a new way for artists and musicians to express themselves and translate their creativity . ”
we hope that when you see the subpac logo , you understand you’re going to experience music a lot deeper than you would ever imagine . ”
subpac is currently available online with the subpac m2 retailing for $ 349 and subpac s2 for $ 299 . “timbaland and andy rubin have both moved culture in significant ways , ” stated alexiou . “they , along with our other partners , will play leading roles in subpac ' s mission to bring the feeling of music and sound to the world . ”
andy rubin unleashed android on the world . now watch him do the same with ai | wired
andy rubin unleashed android on the world . now watch him do the same with ai
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a couple of years ago , andy rubin—the celebrated creator of android and until recently the head of google’s mobile internet efforts—helped his wife , rie , build a bakery in a decommissioned train station in los altos , california . they called it voyageur du temps , french for time traveler . as the name suggests , the bakery conveys visitors to an earlier era—by painstakingly re - creating the flavors and textures of classic european pastry . to pull this off , the rubins went so far as to hire chefs from japan , where traditional baking techniques are rigorously studied , and to purchase a rare bongard cervap oven , one of only two on the west coast .
the project was typical rubin , in that it involved throwing an almost comical amount of money , energy , and engineering talent at a hobby , just for the fun of it . but it was also atypical rubin , in that he usually marshals such resources to build artifacts from the future—like the robotic arm and the retinal scanner he’s installed in his house . even at his backward - looking bakery , rubin couldn’t resist adding some forward - leaning touches . he hand - coded the point - of - sale system . he began writing software for a “closed cash” device that could receive payment , dole out change , and log transactions without a cashier’s intervention . and he built a private meeting room in the back , complete with a homemade magnetized lock system .
now that rubin had shepherded smartphones from concept to phenomenon , they no longer held much interest . as an engineering problem , they had been solved . sure , entrepreneurs kept launching new apps , but for someone who considered engineering an art , that was like adding a few brushstrokes atop layers of dried paint . rubin wanted to touch canvas again—and he could see a fresh one unfurling in front of him .
rubin has a theory that humanity is on the cusp of a new computing age . just as ms - dos gave way to macintosh and windows , which gave way to the web , which gave way to smartphones , he thinks the forces are in place to begin a decades - long transition to the next great platform : artificial intelligence .
google , facebook , and microsoft have collectively spent billions to fund the development of neural networks that can understand human speech or recognize faces in photos . and over the next decade ai is bound to grow more powerful , capable of tasks we can’t imagine today . soon , rubin figures , it will be available as a cloud service , powering thousands of gadgets and machines . just as practically every device today contains software of some kind , it could soon be nearly impossible to buy a device without some kind of ai inside . it’s hard to imagine precisely what that future will look like , but for a rough idea , think about the difference between your car and a self - driving car ; now apply that difference to every object you own . a tv set that translates shows into any language in real time . a security system that can distinguish between your spouse and a burglar . ovens that know when your food is perfectly cooked .
in 2013 , rubin discussed his restlessness with larry page , and—as rubin recounts it—the two men agreed it was time for a change . that march , rubin stepped down from android . ( not every account paints that decision as quite so mutual ; bloomberg businessweek described page as “forcing rubin’s hand . ” ) for a year , rubin spun up google’s new robotics division , but he quickly realized that google’s goals , which reportedly involve creating humanoid assistants , would take a decade of basic research .
rubin couldn’t wait that long . “he’s intolerant of the current state of the world , ” says marc andreessen , a close friend and adviser to rubin . “andy sees what the world can be like in five , 10 , 15 years , and then he sees the world today and thinks , ‘holy lord , we aren’t there yet ? ’”
antsy futurists in silicon valley have several options for bringing their visions to life , but none of them appealed to rubin . he could have stayed at google—or joined any of the other large companies investing in ai—but he felt that even the most adventurous conglomerate was fundamentally too bureaucratic and risk - averse . he could have joined a vc firm or a hardware incubator like highway1 , but he didn’t want to merely fund and advise companies that were building the future—he wanted to build it himself . at the same time , he wasn’t eager to create just another startup ; after the phenomenal success of android , doing so would have felt anticlimactic .
rubin left google in 2014—a departure that friends say gave his always overclocked ambition an extra kick . “i think he would love for larry page to look back in five years and say , ‘oh my god , i made a mistake in letting that guy go , ’” andreessen says .
the fundamental idea , rubin says , is to create what he calls an idea amplifier—a system that quickly turns concepts into products with maximum impact . it’s a fitting goal for someone as impatient as rubin , a way of pressing fast - forward to deliver the future a little bit ahead of schedule . there’s another term for a contraption like that : you might just call it a time machine .
rubin has a long history of building , and littering his workplaces with , robots .
a sculpture of iron man made by the thai artist mai sudjai , who fashions sci - fi characters out of scrap metal , next to an electric motorcycle .
the machine shop , where hardware startups have access to the latest fabrication equipment .
rubin has cultivated this sense of childlike wonder ever since 1978 , when , as a high school student in chappaqua , new york , he hooked a remote control for a kenner r2 - d2 up to his computer and wrote a routine that sent the droid wheeling down the hall and into his brother’s room . “when you’re a kid programming computers , you’re in your own world , ” he says . “but when you start interfacing it with r2 - d2 toys , it brings it out of that world and into the real world . ”
rubin’s fascination with robots is storied—he named his first two companies after them . ( before android , he named danger in reference to the robot from lost in space . ) so it’s a little ironic that his first company that isn’t named for robots is the one that might actually bring them into widespread existence .
here’s how he sees it happening . much of the energy in ai today is focused on building out massive neural networks , a task that involves gathering copious amounts of data . right now , most of that data comes from the internet . facebook culls through uploaded pictures to identify faces in photographs ; google’s rankbrain pores over search activity to parse unfamiliar queries ; microsoft’s skype translator ingests hundreds of translated web pages and captioned videos to convert conversations from spanish to english . but , easy as it may be to forget this , there is an entire universe outside of the internet . for ai to reach its true potential , rubin argues , we need to bring it into the physical world . and the way to do that is to create thousands of devices that pull information from their environment : text and images , sure , but also sound , location , weather , and other sensory data . rubin wants to fill the world with these data - gathering machines , the better to feed and train those massive neural networks . this will create a virtuous feedback loop—new machines will make the underlying ai smarter , which will allow for even better machines .
“i don’t believe in skynet . in general , that technology is used for good , ” rubin says .
it’s easier than ever to build these kinds of smart—or at least smartish—devices . sensors and cpus are cheap , and chinese manufacturers are eager to work with small - batch startups . but “easier than ever” still translates to “incredibly difficult . ” that’s because there’s a huge difference between building a prototype and mass - producing a commercial product .
that’s true for even the simplest piece of hardware . let’s say you want to build a basic dashcam—a video camera that sits on a car’s dashboard and starts recording as soon as the car is in motion . ( these are already popular in russia , where limited auto insurance means that drivers are vigorous about proving their innocence in any accident . ) let’s also say you’d like it to track the car’s location and automatically upload its footage . the first thing you’ll need is a system - on - a - chip , or soc—a semiconductor that contains the cpu and peripherals like an interface for an sd card . you’ll probably want an lcd . you’ll need a camera module , of course , with an image processor . you’ll have to have a power - management circuit , which connects to the battery . you’ll need a gps chip , which is attached to an antenna . and you’ll also need a wireless interface , probably a usb attachment to a qualcomm chip or something similar ; that will require another antenna . and that’s just the electrical system ! you’ll have to make similar decisions about the design as well as the software . you’ll want the whole thing to be as small as possible , and you’ll want it to run efficiently so it doesn’t drain the battery . of course , you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the most reliable components at the best possible price . but because your dashcam won’t hit the market for another year or so , today’s components will already be obsolete . so you need to predict what those components will look like a year from now and design your dashcam accordingly . if you guess wrong , your dashcam will die before it ever ships to stores .
right now , every hardware entrepreneur must answer these questions on their own—a burden that distracts them from actually building products . fortunately , rubin has been here before . before the release of android , smartphone makers faced a similarly byzantine set of challenges . ( how do you manage memory ? download content from the web ? host third - party apps ? ) by giving away its operating system , android freed manufacturers from worrying about any of that stuff , resulting in an explosion of smartphone models .
andy rubin has a track record of being early and setting the template for major technology trends . —victoria tang
twenty - three years before facebook , rubin hones his coding skills in college by running an early social network called spies in the wire .
as an engineer at the apple spinoff general magic , rubin helps create magic cap , an operating system for early handhelds that is years ahead of its time . it includes a prototype of the virtual keyboards used on phones today .
as a cofounder of danger , rubin unveils the hiptop—aka the t - mobile sidekick—which introduces now - familiar features like always - on connectivity , cloud storage , and a rudimentary app store .
rubin launches android , a comprehensive , open source mobile operating system . android goes on to be acquired by google—and to become the biggest smartphone platform on the planet .
rubin puts $ 100 , 000 into sebastian thrun’s efforts to build a self - driving car—resulting in a victory at the 2005 darpa grand challenge . thrun goes on to head google’s autonomous car program .
at this point , that big , big idea may sound familiar . for the past several years , technologists have heralded the dawn of the internet of things—networked thermostats , lightbulbs , refrigerators , and other gizmos that talk to one another . companies like google , apple , and samsung have all built proprietary ecosystems to enable that communication and are racing to convince manufacturers to build products for them . but rubin says they have it backward ; ecosystems arise to support popular products , not the other way around . playground’s first step is to provide startups with the technology to build new devices ; the network will emerge later . “all these investments i’m doing , all these modules , all this tech—it’s all planting the seeds for the next ecosystem , ” he says .
to extend the oceans metaphor , rubin and his three cofounders are the grizzled veterans , coming together to engineer one last big score . in addition to leak , rubin has enlisted peter barrett , a collaborator since his general magic days , and matt hershenson , one of his danger cofounders . rubin has also pulled together a group of high - rolling financiers ; the endeavor is supported by a $ 300 million venture capital fund , whose investors include google , hp , foxconn , redpoint ventures , and tencent , the chinese internet - services company .
but rubin has never been satisfied to play the distant mastermind . so it’s not surprising to learn that , in addition to his platform , rubin is building actual products himself . he is , after all , creating the software and hardware to power each of his startup companies’ tech ; why shouldn’t he use that ip to make something of his own ?
the future—thousands of robots whizzing around , all connected to a networked intelligence that humans can’t fully understand—may not sound like everyone’s idea of progress . philosopher nick bostrom has argued that the coming era of what he calls “superintelligence” represents a potential existential threat , a concern that’s been repeated and endorsed by such technologists as elon musk , stephen hawking , and bill gates . rubin dismisses those fears with a certainty that borders on faith . “i don’t believe in skynet or any of that stuff , ” he says . “i believe , in general , that technology is used for good . ”
the more immediate danger for rubin is that his current path puts him directly in competition with some of the biggest tech companies in the world . microsoft has already built a cloud platform to collect and make sense out of sensor data ; it reportedly receives a trillion pieces of data every week . google has open - sourced a version of its ai software engine , called tensorflow . facebook took a similar step in december , releasing the designs for the server that runs its own ai operations . and elon musk recently started a nonprofit called openai , pulling together top researchers to create open - sourced artificial intelligence “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole . ”