Back to school: Welcome to Wednesday, dear readers, as collegians return to campus and younger schoolkids watch the clock (just two weeks to go … bwaaa haa haaaa!).
Speaking of collegians and campuses, a quick reminder that your favorite innovation-news hub is taking a short break to deliver our higher-education students to their dorms, so no Friday Newsletter this week. Please enjoy today’s hump-hurdling issue (and if you miss us too badly, re-read it on Friday) – back on schedule next week.
Hard choice: The only difficulty on National Soft Ice Cream Day is selecting a flavor.
Care package: Today is Aug. 19, and parents transporting progeny to university aren’t the only ones performing good deeds – not on World Humanitarian Day, the UN’s annual homage to intrepid heroes who travel the globe to help those who need it (and way too often pay the ultimate price for their noble efforts).
Also framing today’s snapshot is World Photography Day, when shutterbugs and their eclectic, electric art form take center stage. (Why today, of all days? Glad you asked, see below.)
Tell me about it, spud: All due respect to Olivia Newton-John’s iconic one-liner, but try to keep the grease to a minimum on National Potato Day, when you don’t have to fry your tubers – mashed, baked, boiled and/or roasted work just fine, stud.
There are nearly as many ways to eat an apple, making Saviours of the Apple Feast Day (a Russian Orthodox celebration of the year’s first apple harvest) a mouthwatering delight, and plenty of soft-serve flavors out there, too, making National Soft Ice Cream Day another Aug. 19 extravaganza.
Say “cheese”: Alas, there is no fromage on today’s holiday menu, but French artist Louis Daguerre basically invented photography on this date in 1839, so let’s see those pearly whites.
Milking it: In actual dairy-related news, Brooklyn inventor Gail Borden earned a U.S. patent on Aug. 19, 1856, for his Improvement in Concentration of Milk.
Electric company: The London Electric Cab Company Ltd. rolled into service 129 years ago today.
Tesla not included: Requiring neither photographs, milk or gasoline, London’s first electric-powered taxicabs hit the streets on this date in 1897 (more than a century before Tesla was founded, for those keeping score, and while the actual Tesla was alive and experimenting with electricity at the time, he had nothing to do with this).
Hold it right there: Also utilizing electricity (but not milk) was Syncom 3, the first-ever geostationary communications satellite, which launched 62 years ago today. (Parked over the Pacific Ocean, it helped broadcast the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to the world.)
Toys will be toys: And it was Aug. 19, 1993, when childhood champion Mattel Inc. announced it was acquiring rival Fisher-Price in a stock-swap deal valued at $1.08 billion.
The transaction – which according to insiders was pitched, negotiated and completed in about a month – pulled Mattel into a neck-and-neck market-share tie with rival toy manufacturer Hasbro.
Cuckoo for Coco: The post-WWII world fell in love with the French designer.
Hot Coco: French fashion designer, perfumer and business magnate Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel (1883-1971) – known best as “Coco” Chanel, primary definer of post-World War II “chic” and the only fashion designer selected for Time magazine’s top 100 Persons of the 20th Century – would be 143 years old today.
Also born on Aug. 19 were British astronomer John Flamsteed (1646-1719), founder of the Greenwich Observatory and England’s first Astronomer Royal; American pharmacist, manufacturer and root beer pioneer Charles Hires (1851-1937), who renamed his original “root tea” to appeal to men; American master innovator Orville Wright (1871-1948), a high-flying champion bicyclist who wound up in the National Academy of Sciences (and the history books); American poet and humorist Ogden Nash (1902-1971), master of the light verse; and American businessman and politician Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990), who ran two unsuccessful campaigns for New Jersey governor but won hearts and minds as a media mogul.
Slick Willie: And take a bow, William Jefferson Clinton! The 42nd U.S. President – one of only three chief executives to be impeached (but not because he was a longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate) – turns 80 today.
The jury is still out on Clinton and other stars of the sordid Epstein Files – but there’s no doubt about the importance of your news tips and calendar events, which you can send to editor@innovateli.com (along with birthday wishes for the former President, if you care to).
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BUT FIRST, THIS
All aboard: One of Long Island’s most innovative transportation enterprises has received a sterling federal endorsement.
Glendale-based New York & Atlantic Railway recently hosted Federal Railroad Administrator David Fink and other Federal Railroad Administration officials for a tour of the NYA headquarters and in-depth discussion on reliable and efficient rail freight as an important socioeconomic engine. The gathering – which also included representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and several NYA customers – covered topics ranging from lower transportation costs to supply chain reliability to the importance of reducing roadway congestion, with Fink ultimately commending a “critical link in our national freight-rail network.”
Economics and environmentalism are the main precepts driving the NYA, which runs freight across Long Island on lines owned by the MTA’s Long Island Rail Road. “We are grateful to Administrator Fink and his team for … recogniz(ing) the importance of strengthening the nation’s rail-freight system, especially in a densely populated area like New York City and Long Island,” noted New York & Atlantic Railway President Marlon Taylor. “It’s good to know that the railroad industry has such a knowledgeable and astute leader … at the helm of the FRA.”
The pAIno man: How Billy Joel looked in 1971, according to AI.
Putting the “AI” in “Piano Man”: The second-annual LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival will include a world premiere featuring Long Island’s favorite son – sort of.
The Stony Brook-based Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame is set to debut “1971: Billy Joel’s Lost Interview” as part of its celebration of music-focused documentaries, scheduled to open Sept. 25. Directed by filmmaker Adam Ripp, the 20-minute flick uses AI technology to recreate Joel, his manager (Irwin Mazur) and the interviewer (Ed Mann) during a 1971 interview with LIU Post (then C.W. Post) college radio station WCPW, shortly after the release of Joel’s debut album “Cold Spring Harbor.”
Following the long-running “Billy Joel, My Life: A Piano Man’s Journey” exhibit, which graced LIMEHOF from 2023-2025, the premiere – slated to include a Q&A with Rupp, Mazur and Mann – is a brilliant continuation of LIMEHOF’s unique relationship with Joel, according to Music Documentary Film Festival Executive Director Tom Needham. “We recognize that AI in entertainment is a topic that will generate discussion and different viewpoints, but this film demonstrates how technology, when used thoughtfully, can help us reconnect with important moments in music history,” Needham noted. “We hope people will experience it with curiosity and an open mind.”
TOP OF THE SITE
Ill wind: Long Island lawmakers, labor leaders and environmentalists are cheering a new Long Island Association report on offshore wind’s impressive economic benefits – though one high-profile Island politician doesn’t share their enthusiasm.
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VOICES
The proliferation of data centers has generated one of the biggest socioeconomic debates in years – and with New York becoming the first state to put a moratorium on new data-center development, Sahn Ward Bradd Coschignano Managing Member and Innovate Long Island Voices Law Anchor Michael Sahn dives deep into both sides of the controversial issue.
STUFF WE’RE READING
First thought: In a scientific first, laboratory researchers have grown a brain cortex from stem cells. Popular Mechanics puts on its thinking cap.
Second fiddle: Sometimes, successful innovation means the customer must come second. Forbes puts the cart before the horse.
Third rate: Useful teaching moments abound in history’s most spectacular innovation fails. Ideawake puts famous flops in their place.
RECENT FUNDINGS
+ Takt, a Virginia-based warehouse labor-management platform, raised $9.25 million in Series A funding led by Ballast Point Partners.
+ Aligned Marketplace, a New York City-based primary-care marketplace, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Venrock.
+ Trajectory, a California-based AI infrastructure and agent-optimization platform, raised $40 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from NVIDIA and Bessemer Venture Partners.
+ Terra Industries, a California-based autonomous security system for critical infrastructure, closed a $52 million Seed funding round led by 8VC, Silent Ventures, Nova Global, Belief Capital, SV Angel, Norleo Space Investments and Grant Gordon.
+ Wispr, a California-based voice-detection and AI/human interaction platform, raised $280 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Notable Capital, NEA, Neo Ventures, 8VC, MVP Ventures, Acrew, Forerunner, Goodwater, Peak XV, Together Fund, PLUS Capital, Livvy Dunne, Shaun White, Dak Prescott, DK Metcalf, Joe Burrow, Kyle Hamilton, Aaron Gordon, Alex Caruso, Domantas Sabonis, Klay Thompson, Paul George and Trae Young.
+ Higgsfield, a California-based, AI-powered video- and image-creation platform for professional creators, raised $400 million in Series B funding led by DST Global, with participation from Tribe Capital, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Smash Capital, Fifth Wall, Valor Capital, Intel Capital, Liberty Global Tech Ventures, Mirae Asset Capital, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Accel, Menlo Ventures, AI Capital Partners, GFT Ventures, Capra Ventures, BAM Corner Point, BroadLight Capital and Natalia Vodianova Arnault.
Like this newsletter? Innovate Long Island newsletter, website and podcast sponsorships are a prime opportunity to reach the inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and executives you need to know – on Long Island, and soon, across New York State (just ask New York Tech). Gregory Zeller can tell you more.
BELOW THE FOLD (Data Center Edition)
Water world: Stashing data centers on the ocean floor could simultaneously solve multiple problems.
Underappreciated: Data centers are way more important than you think.
Underwater: Ocean facilities could help resolve the data-center debate…
Under consideration: …and so could data centers in spaaaaace.
Overjoyed: Please continue supporting the innovative institutions that support Innovate Long Island, including the New York Institute of Technology, where all the data points to smart, skilled and, most importantly, happy graduates. Check them out.
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