Here’s the latest action:
Rulings could make website owners more vulnerable to lawsuits — Decisions made by judges in two separate cases, against Friendfinder.com and Roommates.com, could expose websites to potentially harmful lawsuits, according to an article on CNET. Websites were previously immune to most lawsuits based on content added to their sites by others.
Video search firm Meevee wants to throw in the towel — “Combining with an established player will maximize the potential for the community, technology and content relationships the company has built,” in-video search company Meevee said in a press release yesterday. Translation: Despite some growth, 1.1 million unique users per month just isn’t cutting it for a company that took $27 million in funding. Investors included Bay Area Equity Fund, Defta Partners, FCPR Israel Discovery Fund, Labrador Ventures, Rothschild Ventures and WaldenVC, according to peHUB. We wrote more about the company’s business model here.
Scientists learn to map CO2 emissions — Researchers have found a way to do daily tracking of carbon dioxide emissions based on locality. Preliminary results show the Southeast is an even heavier emitter than previously realized (but California produces a lot, too). It seems likely that such maps could someday be used to help address problem areas, when attempting to scale back emissions.
EMC lays down $213M for storage firm Iomega — Iomega, the maker of the popular branded storage drives Zip and Rev, sold itself to information infrastructure company EMC for $213 million. EMC has three main divisions, in content management, information security and storage; the acquisition should help it expand further into the consumer market.
Nimsoft acquires Indicative Software — Nimsoft works in the information technology management field, competing with the “Big Four” made up of Hewlett-Packard, CA, IBM and BMC, while Indicative Software makes domain monitoring and end-user experience testing tools for IT departments. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Indicative had taken $19 million from Sequel Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures and Vista Ventures. [Red Herring]
Search engines pressured to delete user info more quickly in Europe – Google and other search engines should delete info showing what users searched for within six months, says the European Commission, which is considering making the suggestion a commandment. Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer claims the data should be kept for up to 18 months in order to help protect user’s identities, but the argument may not sway the EU. Thanks to the global nature of the internet, any decision made overseas may well be reflected at home.
Mytopia raises part of first round for cross-platform gaming — We recently wrote about Mytopia, which is working on connecting games across platforms like Facebook and MySpace. It’s raised about half of a sub-$5 million first round of funding, according to VentureWire. Update: According to Mytopia itself, they’re simply “in the midst” of raising a first round, and have not disclosed the total amount they’re aiming for.
Floating solar balloons proposed to power remote regions — Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology has created a design for floating, thin-film solar cell-coated balloons capable of generating about a kilowatt of power each, aimed at powering remote regions. It plans to start selling them in spring 2009. One question: Don’t remote regions, almost by definition, have plenty of free space on the ground? [Reuters via Ecogeek]
5 Comments
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Jojo said:
In other news not covered on tech sites…
NY Times
April 9, 2008
A Silicon Valley Slowdown -
Chris Morrison said:
Jojo.. we, and most other people around here, have been talking about a slowdown for months.
If anything, the fact that the NYT finally chose to write about it might mean we’re about to shake off the slump, ala the famous Time Magazine cover story effect.
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Jojo said:
Ha Chris. Or it might mean that reality is finally intruding on SV. The recession we are just in the beginning of is not going to be a short or easy one.
I doubt that old saw about big media always being late and on the wrong side of the tracks is very accurate. Sure, sometimes it fits the curve, but there are many times when it didn’t. As they say, it works until it doesn’t. :)
I also had to change my IP addr to make this post, sigh. Wordpress said:
“You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.”
and wouldn’t allow the post. Huh? 4 hours since my last post here and that is too quick????
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steveballmer said:
Most readers agree that my FPB (fake persona blog), all of the rest of the internet is garbage!
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Chris Morrison said:
Jojo: OK, perhaps I was being excessively snarky about the NYT’s arrival. And the two writers of that particular article have, I’m sure, been aware of what’s going on for months.
Still, the fact that the New York Times writes an article doesn’t mean it’s incumbent on us to mention it. The last full article we wrote about it was just a week ago:
http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/02/venture-investors-grapple-with-slowdown-ahead/Sorry about the Wordpress problems, it’s done it to me once or twice as well. Should be fixed soon.
