NASA Selects Astronauts for Commercial Spaceflights
NASA has selected four astronauts for the first American commercial spaceflights. The selectees, Robert Behnken, Eric Boe, Douglas Hurley and Sunita Williams are all veterans of in the field of aeronautics and space exploration, and will work closely with the Boeing Company and SpaceX to develop crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station. This is the most recent step in the Obama administration’s plan to partner with U.S. Industries in order to return American launches to U.S. soil and reduce the reliance on Russia for space travel. See the entire press release here.
Meet the astronauts in this video:
Contractually's New Feature Monitors Employee Performance
Tomorrow, Contactually is launching a new feature that tells managers how well their employees are performing. The feature, called Activity Insights, uses Contactually’s connections with reps’ email and phones to monitor how often and effectively they’re engaging with clients. It also tracks calls, meetings and email progress, and provides data on team impact, saving employees the time and effort of logging this data manually. Such a service is ideal for supervising activity in PR firms and sales departments, where reps need to be constantly reaching out to attract new clients and working to maintain current ones.
DC TechDay returns Oct. 6
The DC TechDay startup fair is returning Oct. 6 to the National Building Museum, after its success last October. Created by the group behind the New York TechDay events, last year saw more than 150 D.C. tech startups and over 3,000 attendees. The event is deliberately very light on programming, aiming for more organic connections and deal-making between startups, investors and the community.
"We wouldn't be able to come back if D.C. wasn't so supportive last year," TechDay director Sharon Lieberman told DC Inno. "Growing communities is kind of what fuels us. We want to be there to foster that growth."
Find out more about TechDay here.
Which VC firms in DC are raising cash now?
There are plenty of influential venture capital firms in D.C. investing in the local startup scene and beyond, and they've been busy the last few months getting new fundraising efforts off the ground. Find out who's looking to raise new money and what it means for D.C.'s startup economy in Chris Bing's report.
Nobody wants to buy an Apple Watch
Apple Watch sales are not doing well, according to a new analysis. It's a hard fall for Apple from selling about 35,000 units every day during pre-orders to just 5,000 units a day last week . Find out more about why no one wants to buy an Apple Watch in Chris' report.
Why the NYSE needs better IT support
A computer glitch shut down trading at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday for several hours. After some confusion (and amusing social media commentary like the tweet below), the NYSE assured everyone that there was no hacking involved and that the glitch was minor and had not caused important data to disappear. More on this via USA Today.
This photo just in from the #NYSE pic.twitter.com/fXtDlOY8Zr
— Doug Cantor (@dougcantor) July 8, 2015
