VentureBeat

Foursquare patches its content gap with Zagat, HBO partnerships

As competitors with rich content offerings like Yelp close in on its core market, Foursquare is rallying to fight back with a series of big media partnerships.

The New York Times reported today that the company will unveil a partnership with Zagat tomorrow where users can earn a ‘Foodie’ badge if they check into the right restaurants. It comes on top of a deal the location-based social networking game signed... Continue Reading

Motorola Droid to receive multitouch web browser with Android 2.1 this week

The past few weeks have been a blessing for Google Android users who have longed for official multitouch support on the mobile platform. Last week, Google released Android updates that enabled multitouch on the Nexus One, as well as multitouch in Google Maps for Motorola Droid users.

Now Engadget is reporting that Droid users can also expect multitouch in their web browsers thanks to the Android 2.1 update, which will start rolling out sometime this... Continue Reading

Shared content on Facebook surges fivefold from seven months ago

Facebook users are sharing five billion pieces of content a week, or five times as much as they were in July, according to new statistics the company released this month.

The big burst in sharing comes as Facebook has promoted share buttons and Connect, its effort to push a layer of social functionality across the web with partners like Digg and Hulu. As we’ve said before, Facebook is becoming more of a content portal in... Continue Reading

Redpoint Ventures raises $400M fund for investments in social, mobile, and more

Redpoint Ventures, a Menlo Park, Calif. venture firm whose investments cover everything from cloud application deployment (Heroku) to document-sharing (Scribd) to solar (Solyndra), has raised a $400 million fourth fund for early-stage investments.

Despite the broader economic climate, Redpoint partner Geoff Yang said he’s still excited about the startup landscape, in part because there are so many industries worth investing in. Ten years ago, everyone was investing in “the commercialization of Web 1.0,” he said.... Continue Reading

BlueKiwi lets companies build a community for free

BlueKiwi, a French startup that helps companies manage customer conversations, says it’s starting a big push into the US market. As part of that effort, it’s announcing new pricing that could be hard to resist — companies can build a BlueKiwi-powered community for free.

The company’s tools center around managing customer forums, and finding ideas within them. That sounds like something a lot of other companies including are doing, but Vice President of Marketing Erica... Continue Reading

Pursway grabs $6m to help find companies social influencers

Social networking is filled with people who like to talk. While a majority of the online chatter is simply noise, some individuals, for reasons that vary, have networks of friends, family and colleagues that listen, trust and act on their recommendations. These individuals are known as social influencers. Helping to locate and utilize these social influencers for marketing campaigns, Pursway(formerly Datanetis) announced today that it has secured $6 million in a first round of funding to expand its services... Continue Reading

An SD memory card adapter for your iPhone

I don’t normally blog about gadget hardware, but zoomMediaPlus‘ new zoomIt SD card adapter for iPhone and iPod Touch fills a gaping hole of utility. Not only does it let Apple handset owners look at photos, play music, and read documents off an SD card, it has smart software that optimizes the experience.

When you first connect the adapter, it prompts you onscreen to download a free iPhone app that controls the media on your... Continue Reading

Tumblr takes on Daily Booth with photo replies

Ooh, one youthful blogging network takes on another!

Tumblr, the uber-simplified blogging platform that has more than 3 million accounts, kicked off a 48-hour experiment today. It’s letting people reply to others with photos, instead of regular comments or re-blogs.

The blog owner has to turn on the feature by checking “Let people photo reply” every time they publish a post. If a post is photo-enabled, a camera... Continue Reading

Displax forgot to tell us it doesn’t make plastic nanowire film

One of our most popular stories in recent days has been about Displax, a company in Portugal that plans to start selling a plastic film that turns any surface into a touchscreen.

By July, Displax said it is planning to begin commercial sales of its “multitouch skin” which can be thinner than paper. The ideal is to spread a nanowire-laced plastic film over any flat or curved surface — glass, plastic or wood — so... Continue Reading

New material could turn your car’s body into a giant battery

A new invention out of the Imperial College of London could forever alter how we think about batteries — and powering cars for that matter. Researchers have patented a mixture of carbon fiber and polymer that can store and discharge electricity, meaning that eventually the body of your car could also be running its engine.

This technology could be game changing for three reasons. First, the material could replace lithium-ion batteries as a source of... Continue Reading

Electronic Arts tips its hand on big (and mysterious) titles in coming year

Electronic Arts is launching a number of big titles in the coming fiscal year that should get gamers excited, according to the company’s conference call with analysts today.

EA typically announces titles during its quarterly calls to get gamers frothing and to give analysts guidance about its expected financial performance. Those titles could always be delayed, but EA has been shipping more games on time than it used to.

During today’s conference call, EA chief... Continue Reading

LEDs take the spotlight with flurry of recent, positive news

Last month, the U.S. government granted $37 million to 17 projects developing light-emitting diodesfor various applications ranging from lighting systems to screen technologies. All the while, ongoing research and development is finally driving down the costs and increasing the efficiency of LEDs and their organic, increasingly popular cousins.

With lifespans exceeding 50,000 hours, LEDs have incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs beat hand down. But so far they have been prohibitively expensive. Most of the work... Continue Reading

Minnesota’s frozen turbines raise new doubts about wind power

In Minnesota, the wind is blowing but turbines aren’t turning. The machines, bought used from California and installed last fall, are completely frozen in place. Even on the windiest days, the blades sit at a standstill, producing no power. Why should anyone care? The problem highlights some of the less intuitive challenges associated with wind power — long considered to be the most feasible and cost effective source of renewable energy.

The likely culprit in... Continue Reading

Electronic Arts beats reduced earnings forecasts

Electronic Arts reported third fiscal quarter results today that were in line with the reduced expectations analysts had.

For the third fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, EA reported revenue of $1.24 billion, down from $1.64 billion a year ago. Net loss was $82 million, compared to a net loss of $641 million a year ago. Loss per share was 25 cents compared to a loss of $2 per share a year ago. On a non-GAAP... Continue Reading

Areva buys Ausra, looks ahead to bright solar thermal future

French nuclear company Areva has just taken its first step into the solar market with the acquisition of Ausra, a Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of solar thermal equipment. The deal represents a major new market for Areva, while simultaneously propping up Ausra, which weathered some hard knocks last year.

Last year at this time, the solar startup provider scrapped plans to build several massive plants across the southwest and California deserts. Weakened by the economic... Continue Reading

Flixster continues rapid growth with new $12.5M

A little over a month after it gobbled up primary competitor Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster, a social-networking site for movie enthusiasts, has landed $12.5 million in a new round of equity and common stock, according to a filing with the SEC. The San Francisco company has already been growing fast, but the new money could kick it up another notch.

The January Rotten Tomatoes acquisition came at an opportune time. Flixster was looking to expand its... Continue Reading

Report: Gmail to add social networking features as soon as this week

Google is trying to push more media sharing and status update features into Gmail as soon as this week, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Gmail users would be able to see a stream of status updates from friends as well as photos and videos shared through Picasa and YouTube.

Although Facebook has come to dominate the social networking space with 400 million users, Gmail contacts represent a formidable latent social network with hundreds or... Continue Reading

Is TechCrunch doomed by payola scandal?

Late last week, tech biz bloggers were shocked — and a few were cruelly happy — to read that TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington had fired 17-year-old intern, entrepreneur and Internet fameball Daniel Brusilovsky. Arrington said the teenage overachiever had accepted a computer from a company in exchange for coverage on TechCrunch. Brusilovsky also admitted, Arrington said, to asking a different startup for a MacBook Air, which led that company to complain to Arrington.

Not only... Continue Reading