Inside a small bungalow on the street separating Kansas City, Kansas, from its sister city in Missouri, a small group of entrepreneurs are working on their ideas for the next high-tech startup, tapping Google Inc’s new super-fast Internet connection that has turned the neighborhood into an unlikely settlement dubbed “Silicon Prairie.”
The home on State Line Road is one of several startup-friendly locations that have sprouted up in Kansas City in recent months. The catalyst is Google Fiber, the search engine giant’s fiber optic network being tested in the Kansas City area that advertises speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second — a rate that massively exceeds the average Internet speeds at homes hooked up with cable modems.
The advantage here for startups is simple: A fast Internet pipe makes it easier to handle large files and eliminates buffering problems that plague online video, live conferencing or other network-intensive tasks.
Though the Kansas City location presents challenges for startups, including the ability to raise money outside the traditional Silicon Valley venture capital scene, entrepreneurs like Synthia Payne believe it is the place to be right now for up-and-coming tech companies.
Payne is one of those entrepreneurs hoping to launch her startup dream — an Internet subscription service for musicians who want to collaborate online — on the cheap. She shares the State Line Road house, known as the “Home for Hackers,” with other startups under a deal that allows them to live rent-free while they develop their business plans.
Google’s network was attractive because her business plan “is dependent upon really good, really fast Internet,” Payne said.
“Without this on-ramp here I probably would have found it very difficult to come here,” said Payne, who last month moved from Denver, Colorado, to develop CyberJammer.
Residents were thrilled when Google announced last year that Kansas City and neighboring Kansas City, Missouri, would be its test bed for Google Fiber. The California-based company spent months and unknown sums installing optical fiber around the area. Google provides the full gigabit service for US$70 a month and its own cable-television-like service for another US$50. A slower Internet connection is free on a monthly basis after a US$300 installation fee.
The first homes were installed with fiber optics in autumn last year, with more “fiberhoods” planned in stages over the next several months. The Kansas Cities remain Google’s only fiber market, though the company has said it plans additional roll-outs.
Many in the tech industry believe Google’s move could ultimately force broadband providers to accelerate their networks to compete. Making Internet access faster would give the company more opportunities to attract traffic and sell more advertising — the main way Google makes money.
The Home for Hackers and its unique business pitch is the brainchild of local Web developer Ben Barreth, whose property was among the first wave of houses to be fiber-wired and is a block away from the Google Fiber offices. “Hackers” who pass Barreth’s application process and show a real intention to work on a viable project can live there rent-free for three months.
Since starting the home in October last year after cashing in his retirement account and putting a downpayment on the US$48,000 house, Barreth has gotten applications from nearly 60 people seeking a spot in the home.
The house has been full since the middle of last month with Payne and two others occupying rooms. Another room is reserved for “fiber tourists” who want to staty at a place where they can download anything faster than they can elsewhere for a day or two.
“The hope is that these startups will move their operations to Kansas City and this will really bless Kansas City, bring jobs and taxes and we’ll build a really cool tech scene,” Barreth said.
A few homes away from the Home for Hackers is the headquarters of the Kansas City Startup Village, which was started by local entrepreneur Matthew Marcus and where Mike Farmer, founder of mobile search app Leap2.com, has his offices.
Farmer said Google Fiber brought attention to Kansas City’s startup culture “because it sort of ignites the imagination about what you can do with that sort of bandwidth capability.”
However, despite the growth, it remains a challenge for startups to raise money from Kansas City, Farmer said. Silicon Valley venture capital groups in particular want startup entrepreneurs to be nearby in California, he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last