Aardvark Daily

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What's up, or not

It's time for one of my "what ever happened to?" editions.

From time to time, I like to take another look at NZ's brightest stars on the technology landscape and see how they're going.

So let's get this ball rolling with a visit to IndraNet.

They were originally set up to create a fantastic new intelligent mesh-network that was going to become a "big thing" -- so how's that going?

Well the IndraNet website is incredibly light on content -- in fact it gives the feeling of a tissue-thin facade laid over an empty box.

Although it gives the impression of being content rich (with a nice nav-bar along the top), most options are only one level deep and contain nothing more than a little ad-speak.

I note that the claims and testimonials of yester-year, in respect to their mesh-networking product, have been removed.

They also seemed to have jumped on the "save the planet" bandwagon, but without offering any information on their key product in this area, nGen.

No, I fear that IndraNet is a fallen star -- long on hype, bereft of any delivery.

So what about those hi-tech startups that have received significant sums of taxpayers' money from governments who like to create an unlevel playing field by trying to pick winners.

First up, RocketLab.

Well according to their news page they're doing okay -- continuing with a DARPA contract to explore high density solid-fuel propellant systems.

They're also branching out into rocket control and avionics systems, claiming:

"Rocket Lab has a heritage in producing high performance miniature avionics and flight computer systems for rocket vehicles"... best we overlook that test flight of a while back where the data was never recovered.

Never the less, they seem to be chugging along -- albeit with the aid of the US military.

Then of course, there is my favourite Kiwi hi-tech company - The Martin Aircraft Company.

Their website seems not to have been updated for a while (5 months in fact) and there's no further news of their plans to float part of the company -- perhaps that idea didn't fly as well as they'd hoped either.

Perhaps they ought to tidy up their "news" list and remove embarrassing "didn't happen" announcements like this one.

Another Kiwi hi-tech we haven't heard much of for a while, and which has been the beneficiary of more than half a million dollars of taxpayers money is is PureDepth.

Their 3D display technology (which appears to be just multi-layer LCDs) has apparently found a niche in computer gaming devices of the kind found in Casinos and gaming halls. There's not much info about as to whether they're making money or not but there's certainly very little "buzz" in the industry with respect to this product.

In respect to those companies who have received massive wads of cash from you and I (the taxpayer), I'd like to see some kind of accounting report that shows just how much we (the taxpayer) have benefited from that investment.

Is it reasonable that we hand out increasingly scarce taxpayer money to anyone -- without some kind of obligation to report back how effective that cash has been in creating new export receipts, jobs or whatever?

And is it reasonable that any government effectively discriminate against the vast majority of startups by opting to favour a lucky (well-connected) few with millions of dollars in tax-free cash they never have to repay -- even if they go on to make billions?

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