Blurb Books, Siri's Brother, and Broken iPhones -- the Latest from Xconomy San Francisco

[Wade Roush]

Hey friends -- Time to catch you up on the top Xconomy news from the last couple of weeks. 

- My most-viewed story recently was a profile of iCracked, a Y Combinator-backed startup with a network of field technicians who can repair broken iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Founded by a pair of young entrepreneurs from Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara, the startup hopes to grow into "the AAA of smartphones" -- for about $36 per year, they say they could insure your iOS device against loss, theft, damage, or failure, with a $50 deductible. I've had four iPhones and I've never managed to break one, but I know a few clumsy people who would love that plan.

- I wrote a new profile of Trapit, a startup that has built a personalized Web discovery engine using AI technology from the same SRI project that gave birth to Siri. The line that got retweeted the most: "If Siri goes down in history as Skynet's sassy, slightly airheaded grandma, Trapi will be its nerdy, intellectually omnivorous uncle."

- I spoke with Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham about YC's decision to reduce the size of the outside investment package offered to incoming startups. Turns out the old package of $150,000 was more than the best startups really needed -- and for failing startups, the leftover cash was provoking nasty "divorce" proceedings. Now startups will get just $80,000, on top of the regular YC investment of about $20,000.

- Still looking for holiday gift ideas? For my World Wide Wade column yesterday, I wrote a review and how-to article about Blurb, the San Francisco company that lets you design photo books (and other types of books) on demand. Blurb's BookSmart software is fun and easy to use, and the book I designed, a compilation of photos from my recent Italy trip, showed up just 9 days after I ordered it.

- Investor Frank Tobe shared a map he's compiled showing the leading 1,000 companies in robotics around the world. It's fascinating to see how younger robotics startups cluster around university towns, while the older, more traditional makers of industrial robots are in the big manufacturing cities.

- A research group called Startup Genome released a study claiming that after Silicon Valley, the second- and third-best places to found a tech startup are Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. Make of that what you will.

- Colleagues like Luke Timmerman handle most of our life sciences coverage, but I pitched in with a piece about an effort to restart entrepreneurship programs at UCSF, the life-sciences-focused campus just over the hill from my office.

- I've been busy getting ready for our Power of the Pivot event at PARC on December 4. I'd be thrilled if you could join me -- tickets available here.

That's it! Talk to you again in a couple of weeks.