Personal rapid transit gets another chance at life

Beneath the tall buildings and alleys of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, in a hidden, vault-like space, a unique transportation system may one day whisk passengers back and forth to their destinations, faster than any bus system and more accurately than rail. Instead, it will use small, driverless pods that bear as much resemblance to taxis as public transit.

The scheme is called personal rapid transit (PRT), and it’s an idea that’s been floating around for … Continue Reading

Streaming live reality shows: Is the technology ready?

Over the weekend, I participated in a novel live video experiment at Sundance Film Festival in Utah — and I promised to come back and explain what we’ve learned about the state of technology surrounding video.

The tools we tried out over a 24-hour live streaming session weren’t perfect. But it’s partly because we weren’t prepared, and the event lacked sufficient organization. Take care of this, and the tools are actually close to excellent. Conclusion: … Continue Reading

It's official, print is dead

Update: As one of the commenters points out, a PDF of today’s Chronicle implies that the ad is just a sticker or overlay on the front page, not the front page itself. That’s not unprecedented, but I’m still boggling at how the ad is virtually the only thing you see through the newsstand window.

Check out the front page of today’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. I’ve seen ads along the the top or … Continue Reading

GamesBeat 09 preview: Bing Gordon foresees games replacing textbooks at schools

Bing Gordon, a partner at Kleiner Perkins and former chief creative officer of Electronic Arts, says games have become one of the most effective ways for children to learn about the world and will eventually replace textbooks in schools.

Gordon (pictured right) made the remarks at a dinner for games entrepreneurs and investors hosted last night by VentureBeat (see photo below), which served as a preview for our upcoming GamesBeat 2009 Games Conference.

At heart, … Continue Reading

Palm will defend its IP too, confirms former Apple spokesperson

When mentioning that it would go after anyone ripping off its IP during its earnings call this week, Apple wouldn’t specifically name a company that warning was directed at. But if you want to know, look no further than the company commenting on that statement. “Apple was not the first to do multi-touch,” Palm spokeswoman Lynn Fox told Reuters yesterday.

Truth is, just about everyone realized right away that the comments made on the call … Continue Reading

Roundup: Intel's Craig Barrett to retire, Verizon Wireless shows off web phone, NetApp is best place to work

Here’s the latest action:
Intel Chairman Craig Barrett will retire: The 69-year-old former CEO of Intel will leave his job as chairman at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May. He will be replaced in the non-executive chair role by Jane Shaw, who joined the company’s board in 1993. Barrett will spend more time on his interests in healthcare and education. He gave a swan song keynote at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show.

Qimonda … Continue Reading

Who watches the Watchmen: Twitter, FriendFeed, and Flickr

Updated

In the last few days, a bunch of my friends have sent me links to the video below — a gloriously cheesy fake news clip recounting the history of Dr. Manhattan, one of the characters in the new movie Watchmen. It turns out the video is just the beginning of a cool effort to promote Watchmen online. That effort is based around a site called The New Frontiersman, but also involves using social networking … Continue Reading

Why did CNN’s web site dominate inauguration coverage? Facebook Connect?

CNN‘s web site had the attention of more than four percent of U.S. web users when it streamed President Barack Obama’s inauguration live on Tuesday, according to a Compete traffic report today — much higher than rival Fox, CBS and MSNBC’s traffic combined. Why?

Maybe it was because CNN’s site was already much more popular, as you can see from the Compete traffic graph. Since most people already visited CNN’s web site for online news, … Continue Reading

Microsoft's game studios take a beating in layoffs; flight sim studio closure confirmed

Amid the news that Microsoft is laying off 5,000 people over the next 18 months, sources report that the game division has taken its share of the beating.

Gamasutra reports that the Flight Simulator studio, dubbed ACES, suffered big layoffs yesterday, which marked the cutting of the first 1,400 jobs. [Update: A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that ACES has been shut down.]

In addition, we’ve heard that about 30 percent of the company’s video game testers … Continue Reading

Aptera sets October delivery date for three-wheeled electric vehicle

One of the stranger-looking representatives of the electric car revolution is approaching its public debut. The Aptera 2e, an all-electric car that the company calls an “aerodynamic marvel,” has reached pre-production and is scheduled to start being manufactured in October of this year.

Aptera’s real claim to fame, aside from building electric vehicles in the first place, is its three-wheeled design that places two wheels at the front of the car and one in the … Continue Reading

Pelikan closes $25M for handheld diagnostics

Pelikan Technologies, maker of medical devices for diagnosing and monitoring diabetes, just brought in $25 million from undiclosed investors, reports VentureWire. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., the company spun out of Agilent Technologies in 2001 with the launch of its Pelikan Sun line, an electronic lancing device used to test blood sugar.

This round of capital brings its total raised to $145 million (it last raised $89 million at the end of 2007). Past investors … Continue Reading

Neuralitic pulls in $3M for data service analytics

Blackberry Partners Fund has provided a $3 million investment to Neuralitic, a company that analyzes how people use data services on their mobile phones — from email and games to video and web surfing. It joins BDC Venture Capital, GO Capital Fund and Vertex Venture Capital in a now $10 million second-round of funding for Neuralitic.

This is the fourth startup Blackberry’s fund has backed since its own founding in May 2008. Neuralitic says the … Continue Reading

MMOG-meets-casual game developer Ohai gets funding

Ohai, a company that is trying to combine casual social gaming (Facebook applications) with massive multi-player online games (World of Warcraft), has raised an undisclosed amount from August Capital and Rustic Canyon Partners.

The San Mateo company isn’t saying much more than that, except that it’s hiring engineers. For now, the most notable thing is that it is founded by some well-known names in traditional and casual game development. Company bios below:

Scott Hartsman, VP … Continue Reading

mEgo snags $2.5M for avatar-based widgets

Widget maker mEgo just brought in $2.5 million to add avatars and related media to users’ social networking profiles and blogs. Already running on Facebook, MySpace and Hi5 among others, the company’s application embeds a rectangular box containing an animated character or silhouette, and buttons leading to other information about the user in question.

For example, one mEgo shows a cutout of a cowboy standing against a starry sky with buttons leading to the user’s … Continue Reading

Crux pumps in $8M to prevent embolisms

Crux Biomedical has raised $8 million in second-round funding to cover its debt and finalize clinical trials on its device used to remove blood clots and air bubbles from the bloodstream. The Menlo Park, Calif. firm initiated testing in 2006 in Paraguay and implanted its first filter in the U.S. in October 2007. If used correctly, the device could prevent life-threatening pulmonary embolisms, the company says.

The recent funding came from Alloy Ventures and private … Continue Reading

TPI Composites raises $20M for wind turbine blades

TPI Composites, maker of blades for wind turbines, just brought in $20 million in second-round financing, mostly from General Electric’s Energy Financial Services and equity branch. The Scottsdale, Ariz. company will use the money to build out its manufacturing plants in Mexico, Iowa and China. It is still looking to expand despite the downturn, and had a three-fold increase in production last year.

TPI’s current plants supply energy to Mitsubishi Power Systems and GE Energy, … Continue Reading

FeedBurner is too broken for its biggest fan

Update: See this comment from Feedburner co-founder Dick Costolo for more on the progress the service is making.

Before Jason Shellen left Google and started Plinky (which launched earlier today), he helped develop products like Blogger and Reader — and he was the one who did the due diligence for Google before it bought FeedBurner for $100 million back in 2007. While I was talking to him about Plinky today, I asked him why … Continue Reading

Extreme Reach grabs $1.5M for video advertising

Extreme Reach, a company that integrates advertisements into digital videos across web, television and mobile platforms, just brought in $1.5 million in first-round funding to build its sales and marketing operations.

Based in Needham, Mass., the firm effectively holds clients’ hands through the process from the point of ad creation through performance tracking. It says that many companies have shied away from investing in digital video ads because they aren’t familiar enough with the process. … Continue Reading

Hi5's virtual entertainment plans could hit a virtual jackpot

Because Facebook is the largest, fastest-growing network in the world, a big question is what other social networks are going to do to compete. Hi5, with approximately 60 million monthly unique visitors, is in the process of making itself an “immersive social environment” that includes virtual goods, avatars, games, instant messaging and a 3-D world geared at older teens worldwide. The company plans to make money off of virtual goods — not traditional online advertising.… Continue Reading