Last tickets to VentureBeat's Digital Media party Thursday

We’re having a party Thursday to celebrate the launch of VentureBeat’s digital media coverage, and so far we’ve kept it invite-only.

It’s at The Ambassador in San Francisco (pictured), 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Last week, we provided some tickets to people who offered feedback on what we should cover with the new digital media blog we’re rolling out. We’ve had some great responses. See below.

By doing so, we were hoping to limit the party to … Continue Reading

Disney enters the programmable robot market

Robots aren’t just for hobbyists anymore. The programmable gadgets have taken off thanks to the efforts of tech-oriented companies such as WowWee, Sony, Ugobe and LEGO. But the market may be ready for a whole new level as Disney enters the market tomorrow.

Disney Consumer Products is announcing Wednesday that it will make programmable toy robots based on Disney characters, with the first robot debuting at Maker Faire, a geek fest at the San Mateo … Continue Reading

Roundup: WB returns as a website, XBox 360 prices drop in Asia and more

Here’s the latest action:

The WB rises from the dead with a new website — The television network, famous for launching teen-aimed shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, merged with UPN to become the CW network in 2006. But now the WB is returning as a website. And while the nerd in me is most excited about the ad-sponsored Buffy reruns, the most interesting news is that the site will also feature … Continue Reading

Sonic acquires Simple Star to expand multimedia sharing for Roxio

Sonic Solutions said it has agreed to acquire the assets of Simple Star. Sonic’s Roxio digital media products will make use Simple Star’s PhotoShow multimedia storytelling platform and online community.

The platform allows users to quickly and easily turn personal photos and video clips into shows that can be can be shared on PCs, TVs, handhelds, or published to popular social media sites. About 13 million copies of the PhotoShow desktop software and Adobe Flash-based … Continue Reading

Boom! 3G iPhone. One more thing: $199

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs likes to wow the crowd during his keynote addresses with his “boom!” moments and then saves the best for the end with: “One more thing…” This summer, potentially at the WWDC conference, he may have two perfect candidates. The “boom” would be the 3G iPhone. The “one more thing” could be its price: $199.

Yes, you read that right.

When the 3G iPhone is released this summer (and we are … Continue Reading

Web platform maker Kaazing raises $1M

Kaazing, which offers a platform for creating and deploying web applications, has raised $1 million in a first round of funding. The investors have not been disclosed.

The Mountain View, Calif. startup says its Enterprise Comet platform, which will be further developed with the new funding, can build applications ranging from online trading systems to RFID/GPS tracking systems. Chris Shipley named Kaazing one of the top 10 companies that presented at DEMO earlier this year, … Continue Reading

Nonprofit social networks reach escape velocity

The social networking market has brought fame and fortune to a number of Silicon Valley startups. But several entrepreneurs have veered off the path of being the next valley billionaire and have instead harnessed the viral nature of social networking to support nonprofit causes. After a couple of years laying the groundwork, these social-networking nonprofits are just now hitting escape velocity.

Probably the best example of this kind of company that combines doing good with … Continue Reading

Panorama Capital closes $240M fund

Panorama Capital has just closed a $240 million fund, its first fund as an independent brand.

Menlo Park, Calif.-based Panorama says it plans to invest in life sciences, the Internet, semiconductors and Internet infrastructure and services. The company has already made six new investments with the fund.… Continue Reading

BlackBerry opts not to sit around and wait for the iPhone to kill it

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) can see the writing on the wall. No doubt already concerned about some of the new business-friendly functionality (Microsoft Exchange support for example) coming to Apple’s iPhone with the 2.0 software release in a couple of months, now comes word that Apple will be entering RIM’s own home turf, Canada (RIM is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario). As such, the company has an interesting Apple-centric job listing that was uncovered … Continue Reading

Record labels fund music discovery site MOG [Updated]

Updated

Some of the early music discovery startups, like Imeem, Pandora, Last.fm and iLike, now have many millions of people using their services every month. MOG, a standalone desktop music player and music fan site perhaps most similar to social network-focused iLike, isn’t too far behind — it has around a million unique users a month, it says.

So maybe the record labels investing in MOG will figure out some interesting ways to help it … Continue Reading

O Canada — to finally get the iPhone

Given that the United States and Canada share a border of over 1,500 miles, you might think it would be easy for the U.S.-based Apple to send north the iPhone shortly after its release.

That hasn’t been the case. Canada sat back and watched as the UK, Germany, France, Ireland and Austria all got the device — with a lot of talk of China, Japan and other Asian countries being at the forefront of the … Continue Reading

Hitwise: Twitter traffic is, in fact, going up but still not big [Updated]

Updated with Twitter’s “real” traffic numbers, below the original post.

Web analytics service Hitwise has just released more data on web traffic to group messaging service Twitter, confirming what many blogs have anecdotally observed. Which is that the service is growing fast: It has received eight times more Internet visits now versus a year ago, Hitwise claims.

We’ve already spent a lot of time explaining how Twitter’s simple means of communicating short messages between friends … Continue Reading

Austin Ventures provides eyebrow-raising $50M to nascent enterprise social software company

Austin Ventures is pumping $50 million into a company, as yet without a name, that wants to somehow provide social software to enterprises. The founder, and apparently the reason for the large round, is Jeff Dachis, best known as the cofounder of 90′s era web consultancy company Razorfish, that lost billions in market value when the dot-com bubble burst. For a brutal but interesting recap of Dachis’ career, see Valleywag.

I’ve been hearing a lot … Continue Reading

Stealthy device maker ExploraMed raises $18.5M

See our post on this stealthy Mountain View, Calif., medical-device startup over at VentureBeat LifeScience.… Continue Reading

Stealthy device maker ExploraMed raises $18.5M

Stealthy Mountain View, Calif.-based ExploraMed NC4 has raised $18.5 million of an expected $20 million first funding round, I’m told. The medical-device startup doesn’t have a Web site, and doesn’t even seem to have its own address yet.

Instead, ExploraMed NC4 — the name is a placeholder intended to obscure the startup’s strategy — is still housed at ExploraMed, a medical-device incubator backed by New Enterprise Associates, among others. ExploraMed was founded in 1995 by … Continue Reading

Intacct raises another $15M to offer online financial management software

Intacct Corp, a San Jose online financial management software company that competes with Intuit’s Quickbooks, said it has raised an additional $15 million of financing.

The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing investors Emergence Capital, Sigma Partners, and Sutter Hill Ventures participated.

This follows the $14 million Intacct raised last year to restart itself financially. It had already raised $45 million previously from Emergence, along with other investors Deloitte & Touche, Hummer Winblad, … Continue Reading

Tech support company PlumChoice raises $2.8M

Remote tech support company PlumChoice has raised an additional $2.8 million to complete its third funding round at a total of $8 million.

The Billerica, Mass. startup provides training, maintenance and repair for more than 370 applications. Its technicians can make home visits when necessary, but they provide most of their services remotely, says chief executive Ted Werth.

It looks like PlumChoice has gotten some real traction in the crowded tech support market, which also … Continue Reading

Wigix wants to kill eBay

Ever gone to eBay in search of something — an iPod, say — and had to comb through an endless array of half-literate, confusing and possibly inaccurate listings?

Or perhaps you’re a seller on eBay, and angry at its policies?

Either way, Wigix, the “Want it, got it Xchange,” hopes you’re annoyed enough to switch. The company, which launches today, offers an online marketplace modeled on stock exchanges, aimed at reducing inefficiences.

When an item … Continue Reading

PARC shows off research projects beyond its Xerox work

The famed Palo Alto Research Center opened its doors to journalists today to show off a bunch of research projects from smart documents to cleantech.

Mark Bernstein, head of PARC, told me today that no interviewer ever forgets to ask about how Xerox fumbled the future by failing to commercialize the technologies behind the personal computer that built companies like Apple. But he says the R&D center — the birthplace of the laser printer and … Continue Reading

SkyFuel raises $17M for solar thermal mirrors

SkyFuel, a manufacturer of components and technologies for solar thermal power generation, has raised a $17 million second round of funding (release via Earth2Tech).

The company’s primary products are a mirrored material called ReflecTech, which could make mirror production for solar thermal plants cheaper, and the SkyTrough, a parabolic reflector.

SkyFuel is also working on a “Linear Power Tower”, which is a Fresnel solar system somewhat like what Ausra uses for its own solar thermal … Continue Reading