What we do not yet know is whether a different intention, backed by technologies of precision, will produce a different political result.
Evolution Robotics, a start-up that is based in Pasadena, Calif., and is backed by the technology incubator Idealab, is selling the ER1 at its Web site (www.evolution.com).
Uber and China's Didi Kuaidi, backed by Chinese technology giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding, have both spent heavily to subsidize fares to gain market share, betting on China's internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest.
"It's the first emergence of a broad-based Internet community that brings together not only tech giants and the users, but all the young innovators and investors," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group backed by several technology companies.
The final key theme of Midem was something that's being talked about more openly within the music industry: whether music-streaming services that aren't backed by a technology giant (namely Apple, Google or Amazon) can survive in the long term.
The company is backed by Accel, Technology Crossover Ventures, Iconiq Capital, Greylock, Meritech and Stripes.
The wider political battle — which has seen cities across Ukraine demonstrate in favor of closer ties with the European Union and against closer ties with Russia — has also been widely backed by the technology community there.
Uber and Didi Kuaidi, backed by Chinese technology giants Tencent and Alibaba, have both spent heavily to subsidize fares to gain market share, betting on China's Internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest.
Unlike last year's Stop Online Piracy Act or the PROTECT IP Act both of which died on the floor of Congress after being skewered by the private sector for violating free speech and raising the cost of doing business CISPA has been widely backed by information-technology firms, including AT&T, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle and Symantec.
"We believed that if we made watches backed by unique electronics technology, we would have products with unique identity," he said.
In the former country, almost all births take place in hospitals, where women have access to supportive midwives who are backed by sophisticated medical technology when needed.
