Xconomy Report: Mobile Supremacy in Boston

You probably know Verizon Wireless for its 4G LTE commercial, but you might not know that the company has a wireless innovation center in the Boston area that could be key to its future.

At Verizon’s 300-person campus in Waltham, demos of about 20 new products — everything from sleep monitors to smart-grid sensors to virtual-retail devices, are all running on Verizon’s network. It’s part of a growing effort by wireless carriers to work with software and hardware makers, as they jockey with Apple and Google for mobile supremacy.
 
In other innovation news, Intarcia Therapeutics has raised $210 million from investors and is moving its headquarters from the Bay Area to Boston. The company is developing an implantable drug-device treatment for diabetes.
 
Our deal of the week is Akamai’s acquisition of Westford-based Verivue, a video-delivery tech company. Verivue had raised $85 million in venture funding since 2006, making it one of the Boston area’s biggest technology bets.
 
And it’s heavy event season in the local tech scene. One of the biggest events, the MassTLC unConference, takes place today in Boston, while the big-data workspace hack/reduce is holding its first “hackathon” in Cambridge on Saturday. The overall message? Let’s network and talk about the issues, but there's also a lot of work to do before the holidays.