I have become recently fascinated with what some have referred to as “People as a Service”. Because “PaaS” was already taken as a tech acronym as “platform as a service”, I’ll call it “HaaS”, or “Humans as a Service”, for short. HaaS refers to the growing business of digitally mechanizing and monetizing people’s fractional time. The one’s you’ve heard about on a national level are Uber for rides, or if you live in Austin like me, Burpy for groceries or Favor for, well, any favor like picking up things at a restaurant or at nearly any store. One major HaaS segment, a huge one, is home repair and improvement. Right now the press has keyed in on the big guys like Amazon.com who is entering the space or the small upstarts like Thumbtack, backed by Google Capital, but I believe companies with an established track record like IAC’s HomeAdvisor are the most interesting ones to watch.  I had the chance to interview Chris Terrill, HomeAdvisor’s CEO, and I’d like to tell you a little bit about HomeAdvisor and why I think they are unique. A little background first.

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The two soccer powerhouses both have more Facebook and Twitter followers than the 32 NFL teams do combined.

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China’s efforts to reduce air pollution could be negated by its unregulated and unmonitored burning of petcoke, a fuel dirtier than coal, an expert on Chinese climate and energy policy said Tuesday in Washington D.C.

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While the United States is working to get four new nuclear units up-and-running in Georgia and South Carolina, it is also partnering with China and Canada to operate some highly advanced next-generation nuclear plants. “Molten salt reactors” that burn ?thorium? are not only safer but they also create less radioactive waste

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Automation is massively important in the realm of software application development and software systems testing and management today. But what is it? Technology automation is in fact not so far away from the industrial automation systems that drove the industrial revolutions(s) i.e. it looks after ‘stuff’ when the humans aren’t watching.

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Amazon has had a great run in the last 20 years. But as it adds another day of discounting to a long list, can it double in size in the next five years? And if so, should your portfolio go along for the ride?

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The truth behind stories of zombie and vampire graves may be more complicated and less gruesome than previously imagined.

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ZestFinance, which has long used algorithms to underwrite to borrowers whose risk is not easily captured by a credit score, now offers a near-prime loan.

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