Citrix incubating startups in mobile tech

Citrix Systems has created an incubation program at its Santa Clara campus to kick-start research in mobility research.

The virtualization

The virtualization and cloud computing company, which has 600 workers in its Silicon Valley offices, plans to provide near $400,000 each to up to 12 entrepreneurs to help them develop their ideas and business plans.

The Citrix Startup Accelerator is geared toward efforts focused on virtualization, mobile apps, security, networking and cloud computing. Citrix is interested in would-be startups that share its vision of allowing people to work away from the office using any device, be it desktop or mobile.

New features as well allow users to: highlight their closest friends on the social network; share interests and activities, like recent work projects and favorite musicians; and quickly browse photos through an "infinite scroll" feature that eliminates the need to click through to subsequent pages.

His nonprofit group, the Thiel Foundation, is encouraging philanthropists to donate more money to scientific pursuits that could lead to big breakthroughs in medicine, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, among other fields.

The tech industry

"Within the tech industry, there are a large number of people who are very interested in these sorts of futuristic technologies," Thiel said in a phone interview Monday. "It's something that people are quite receptive to. They've made money in tech, and on the nonprofit side, it makes sense to re-invest anyway part of that into nonprofits and foundations that have a technological orientation."

The organizations include the Seasteading Institute, which promotes the construction of permanent dwellings at sea; and the Foresight Institute, which promotes nanotechnology innovation. During much of philanthropy focuses on giving that helps its beneficiaries in the nearly term, Thiel hopes to persuade donors that they can better serve their legacy by making a few higher-risk, higher-reward investments.

Twitter users: About 8 percent of adult Internet users in the United States are using Twitter, and the microblogging service is most popular with young adults, minorities and city dwellers, according to a new report.

Related Topics: United States, Pew Technology Center, Facebook, Peter Thiel, Citrix Systems, Artificial intelligence, Internet, Venture capital, Social network