More than 200 kids virtual worlds in development
More than 200 virtual worlds aimed at young people are in development around the world, according to Virtual Worlds Management.
What explains the mad rush? Basically, Disney bought Club Penguin in 2007 for $700 million, triggering an industry-wide gold rush.
Virtual Worlds Management tracks all of this business, and first released a count of 150 kids virtual worlds in the works in August. Of those, 59 use a micro-transaction business model — in which the … Continue Reading
Human-based search engine ChaCha seeks $30M, raises $11M
[Update: ChaCha has confirmed since I first posted that it has successfully raised the full $30 million. Thanks to Robin Wauters at TechCrunch.]
Human-powered search engine ChaCha just brought in $11 million of an expected $30 million third round of funding, according to peHUB. It’s assumed, based on the filing, that the round came from existing investors, potentially including private investor Morton Meyerson, Bezos Expeditions, Compaq Computer cofounder Rod Canion and Maven Ventures partner … Continue Reading
MobileMonday announces Peer Awards finalists
MobileMonday, the global organization for professionals in the mobile business, just announced a list of 20 finalists for its annual Mobile Peer Awards contest to be held in Barcelona on Feb. 16. The companies — including 12 early-stage startups and eight seed-stage startups — were selected by an international jury from a pool of 42 nominees, each representing a specific MobileMonday chapter from around the world.
In the early-stage category:
Addict Digital Media (Buenos Aires … Continue Reading
Stretch raises $15 million for surveillance camera chips
Stretch, provider of fabless semiconductor components, has raised $15 million to continue making chips for surveillance cameras. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company plans to use the funding to expand its customer base around the world. It currently makes three different types of processors to support digital video in the latest security cameras.
The company’s processors run alongside image sensors (which capture pictures) made by Pixim, another chip company that has had success raising money as it … Continue Reading
Flurry signs up hundreds of iPhone and Android developers for its analytics tool
The problem facing many mobile application developers is that they don’t get the best analytics information on the cross-platform software they create.
That’s why San Francisco-based Flurry has launched a new mobile application analytics tool that works across a variety of mobile platforms, including the iPhone and Google’s Android. Today, the company is announcing that more than 300 developers have used its free service since the beta launched in October.
The analytics also work with … Continue Reading
InflectionPointMedia launches ad network for small businesses
InflectionPointMedia (IPM) is launching an ad network today for small and medium businesses.
The goal is to help small businesses reach targeted audiences across a network of sites with 32 million monthly users. South Norwalk, Conn.-based IPM uses search data to identify business buyers and retargets ads related to what the buyers want to see. The point is to catch those buyers when they’re actively thinking about buying something.
Participants include web sites such as … Continue Reading
AMD fills out its server product line in salvo at Intel
The tennis match continues. Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are in a duel for the top performance in microprocessors. Today, AMD is taking a swing with the launch of its new series of server processors for high-end computers and Internet servers.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD is launching two new families of Opteron server chips. The HE series are low-power versions (dissipating 55 watts) that can be used in power efficient computers. And the new high-performance SE … Continue Reading
Digitalsmiths raises money for video search from Cisco
Digitalsmiths has raised a new round of funding from strategic investor Cisco to expand its video search and analytics business.
The company did not disclose the amount of the round. But based on past disclosures, Cisco probably kicked in about $2 million.
Last November, Digitalsmiths announced it had raised $12 million in a second round of funding. This means the company has successfully raised two rounds of funding during the downturn — not too shabby. … Continue Reading
Lucid Imagination: Open source competition in enterprise search
A San Mateo, Calif. startup called Lucid Imagination is launching today with the goal of supporting (and making money from) Apache Lucene and Solr, open source search products that power high-profile websites like Netflix and Ticketmaster.
The “enterprise search” market, which covers both web site search software and tools for internal search within a business, has some big players — like Autonomy, Microsoft-owned Fast, and search’s 800-pound gorilla, Google. But Lucene (the search library) and … Continue Reading
Compensation software co. Xactly buys rival Centive
Xactly, maker of software that measures and tracks employees’ sales performance and compensation, has bought its major competitor, human resources software provider Centive. The stock-based deal gave San Jose, Calif.-based Xactly all of the company’s assets and employees for an undisclosed sum.
Incorporated under the name Xactly, the new entity will continue to support all of the products the companies have on the market right now for the next 18 months to ensure a seamless … Continue Reading
CloudSwitch secures $7.4M for stealthy cloud software
CloudSwitch, a Waltham, Mass. company that creates cloud management software, just brought in $7.4 million in first-round funding to continue development on several stealthy projects. Little is known about what may distinguish its products from those offered by similar cloud firms RightScale, Hyperic and Amazon Web Services, only that they “will help enterprises dramatically reduce costs,” according to its web site.
The company, backed by Atlas Ventures and Matrix Partners, also says it’s hiring but … Continue Reading
iMafia, a social game for iPhone with new virtual goods model
Social games have taken off on networks like Facebook, and now mobile platforms like the iPhone. One of the newest examples is the iMafia game from PlayMesh, which has found a clever way to integrate virtual goods — a challenge for most iPhone apps.
Social games like Mob Wars are already hugely popular online. But Charles Ju, co-founder of PlayMesh in San Francisco, believes the time is right to migrate the concept to the iPhone, … Continue Reading
In dry times, Twitter going back to the funding well?
Twitter is closing in on raising another round of funding, according to TechCrunch. The site reports that the micro-messaging service has signed a term sheet with at least one venture fund, and that the round will put its valuation at $250 million.
This valuation is a huge jump from where it was during Twitter’s previous $15 million round back in June — probably in the $80 to $100 million range. That was before Facebook looked … Continue Reading
25 years ago: Apple's Macintosh says hello
25 years ago today, on Jan. 24, 1984, the first Macintosh computer went on sale. Now better known as the “Mac,” the name came from the Apple employee who created the project, Jef Raskin, who wanted to name it after his favorite kind of apple, McIntosh, but had to tweak the name for legal rights.
This original Macintosh came with 128 kilobytes of RAM (it would later become known as the Macintosh 128K) and featured … Continue Reading
China sees record VC investments last year, but cool-down may be coming
Venture capital investments in China last year hit a record $4.2 billion, or 30 percent higher than in 2007 — and VC firms are still flush with cash even as the economic slowdown is poised to worsen.
Some Chinese entrepreneurs say unemployment there could skyrocket any day now as many companies have been waiting until after the Chinese New Year next week (Jan. 26) to make cuts. China has become a major outsourcing partner, which … Continue Reading
Microsoft's Chris Early, head of Games for Windows Live, among the layoffs
The fallout from the layoffs announced by Microsoft on Thursday continues: Among the casualties is Chris Early, general manager of Games for Windows Live, the online gaming service for gamers who play on personal computers.
The division launched its service about 20 months ago and created a new user interface for it in November. I haven’t reached Microsoft or Early for comment, but an email bounce-back says that Early’s time at Microsoft “has come to … Continue Reading
Q4 venture investing plummets; silver lining in cleantech?
New data shows venture capital investments plummeted during the final three months of 2008: VCs invested $5.4 billion in 818 deals, down 26 percent from the $7.3 billion Q3, and the lowest dollar amount invested since the first three months of 2005.
That’s according to the latest MoneyTree Report on venture investments, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Overall, the report shows $28.3 billion invested in 3,808 deals during the past year, … Continue Reading
Report: Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia cutting back
The National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers won’t be releasing their report on fourth quarter venture investments until later tonight, but Private Equity Hub has already published a list of the 10 biggest investors using the same data from Thomson Reuters. Pretty much all of the firms shrank their investments compared to the previous quarter; Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the two biggest names in venture capital, both funded less than half … Continue Reading
HBO and Walmart the latest to create iPhone apps for promotion
There are a lot of applications available for the iPhone — over 15,000 in fact. Some are good, some are great, a lot are junk, and increasingly, a lot are being made by big brands to promote themselves. Two of the latest to fall into this category are the premium cable movie channel HBO and the world’s largest retailer, Walmart.
HBO’s application, called “HBO Snowman” is little more than a cute way to play clips … Continue Reading
Emoji emoticons on any iPhone :)
The iPhone has support for popular Japanese emoticons known as emoji — but only if you’re in Japan. Us Americans (and other iPhone customers across the world) have been stuck with the bland old “:)” — text-based emoticons — until now. A small hack will allow any iPhone owner to use emoji icons without jailbreaking the phone.
The hack, first published by the Japanese site iPodTouchLab and translated by the site WinandMac, works as follows:… Continue Reading
