Nvidia scores a couple of deals with Wintel
Nvidia is announcing a couple of deals with Wintel today that show the company is making progress with its new technologies.
In an endorsement for a new mobile graphics technology from Nvidia, Microsoft said it had certified Nvidia’s Ion platform to deliver a premium Windows experience on low-cost netbooks, or low-cost web browsing computers that are cheaper and less functional than laptops.
Nvidia’s Ion combines a chip set with a graphics core in a single … Continue Reading
StartupNation, Toshiba and GoToMeeting team up for Elevator Pitch Contest
Today, a group called StartupNation announces its Elevator Pitch Contest for 2009 — a competition designed to reward bright business ideas with capital.
Sponsored by Toshiba and GoToMeeting, it will give winners a chance to pitch their ideas to top venture capitalists in their industries, as well as win a Toshiba Satellite laptop and one-year GoToMeeting account, and of course legitimacy in an economic environment that doesn’t favor fledgling enterprise.
Prospective competitors are asked to … Continue Reading
Real Games executive tells how the recession will affect casual games
John Barbour has been the president of Real Games — Real Networks’ gaming division that was set to spin off before the IPO market froze over — for just 14 weeks.
And he says that he’s never seen so much worry and anxiety in an industry that’s growing by 20 percent a year. Keynoting the Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, the outspoken Scotsman said that online games can provide millions of players around the world … Continue Reading
C12 Energy captures $4.5M for carbon sequestration
C12 Energy, a stealthy startup looking to lower the cost of routine carbon sequestration, just raised $4.5 million from Sequoia Capital and other undisclosed investors. Very little is known about the company’s technology or what it does — except that its chief scientist just registered a patent for electrochemical weathering, a process that allows the ocean to effectively absorb carbon dioxide, reports VentureWire.
While C12 has had to tighten its belt due to the downturn, … Continue Reading
Golden Gateway scores $5 million for reverse mortgages
Golden Gateway Financial, an Oakland, Calif.-based firm that offers reverse mortgages tailored to senior citizens, has raised $5 million in a first round of funding led by Menlo Ventures — which had also kicked in $6 million earlier in the round, according to peHUB. The company’s site gives its clients the option to pay certain monthly bills automatically out of their reverse mortgage income. That way, they don’t have to worry about mail fraud or … Continue Reading
diaDexus lands $9.2M for cardiovascular diagnostics
South San Francisco, Calif. biotech firm diaDexus just raised $9.2 million in sixth-round funding from Scale Venture Partners, GlaxoSithKline and Baker Brothers Advisors, according to peHUB. The company’s first and only product, the PLAC Test, is used to detect early indicators of risk for heart attack and stroke. If such conditions can be determined at an early stage, aggressive treatment can prevent possibly-fatal events from ever occurring, diaDexus claims.
Founded in 2000, the company had
Online pet supply catalog FetchDog vies for dog enthusiast dollars
Happily coinciding with the Westminster Dog Show (the Super Bowl of the dog world), FetchDog, an online portal for dog owners to shop and socialize, just raised $4 million to expand the scope of its web presence and services. Right now, users can use the site to find everything from chew toys and leashes to car seats and eco-friendly pet gear. Perhaps its most notable claim to fame, however, is that one of its founders … Continue Reading
Real estate sites like Trulia see record traffic and revenue
updated
Online real estate sites like Trulia.com, are reporting record traffic and revenues — even as most of the rest of the real estate industry is in the doldrums.
Trulia, based in San Francisco, says it hit record traffic levels in January, and users viewed 40 percent more pages per visit compared to a year ago.
In addition, the company plans to announce a co-branded web site with the Washington Post tomorrow that integrates Trulia’s … Continue Reading
Sierra Solar snags $40M for cheaper thin-film
One of the major barriers standing in the way of solar power’s wider adoption is its high cost. Sierra Solar plans to address this problem by offering cheaper thin-film photovoltaic cells, and just raised $40 million in a second round of funding to do it.
The Fremont, Calif. company achieves its cost-effective prices by manufacturing its products in China. On the use side, Sierra’s cells are reportedly 16 to 17 percent efficient (the average is … Continue Reading
20,000 apps under the App Store?
It was only about two months ago that Apple hit 10,000 applications available in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch devices. Then, last month it confirmed that the number had surged to 15,000 with 500 million downloads. Today, the number of apps has hit another milestone, 20,000, according to Apptism, a site that tracks iPhone apps.
As some commenters on TUAW’s coverage of this story point out, those numbers may be a … Continue Reading
I'm not in the office, just check my Gmail signature
I’m currently on vacation in Florida. Well okay, “vacation” is a relative term. For me, it means mixing one hour of family stuff into a day’s work. And because I’m still working, I don’t want to set up a default vacation message, but would still like for people to know that I’m not on my usual schedule back in San Francisco. Google has just launched a feature that makes this possible in Gmail Labs.
The … Continue Reading
Android's tipping point: Paid apps launch this week?
Buried in a Wall Street Journal article about Microsoft’s mobile strategy, is an arguably more important nugget: That Google’s Android Market is opening its doors to paid applications this week for the first time — this according to “people familiar with the matter.” The report is in line with earlier rumors of the impending launch and Google’s stated goal of an “early Q1″ release.
This could be a watershed moment for the Market, which has … Continue Reading
Perfect World importing more free-to-play games into Western markets
Chinese game company Perfect World has gained 50 million registered players throughout Asia thanks to its free-to-play business mode.
Now the company is expanding in the U.S., having launched its flagship game Perfect World International for free about six months ago. It already boasts about a million registered American users. And today, it launched a closed beta for EtherSaga Online, a new fantasy role-playing game aimed at young people.
Both games raise some funds through … Continue Reading
Twitter travel tips arrive in Portland
If you use Twitter and you’re planning to visit Portland, Ore., here’s an easy new method for finding your way around. You can get recommendations for where to visit, eat and shop in the city from the Twitter account @travelportland.
First, send a tweet concerning what you want to know, with the hashtag #inpdx. The Twitter account, called the “Twisitor’s Center,” is staffed by people at a private non-profit called Travel Portland, an official Portland … Continue Reading
Former Windows chief wants to be a rock star. Really.
Iconic tech gurus are often dubbed “rock stars” for their stellar performance — as in, “you know that guy Neil in product? He’s a friggin’ rock star.” But if you entertain the metaphor in the literal sense, you get the stuff mediocre Saturday Night Live (SNL) skits are made of — which is why I have to hand it to longtime former Microsoft Windows chief Jim Allchin for the courage it must have taken him … Continue Reading
Did Twitter just ruin Virginia Republican plans?
Everyone raves about how microblogging service Twitter has become a source for citizen journalism; users don’t just break news, they inadvertently leak stories, such as Google’s development of offline Gmail. Looks like politicians aren’t immune to Twitter’s rumor-mongering lure either — Virginia House Delegate and State Republican Chairman Jeff Frederick tweeted some good news for his fellow party-members today. But his tweet may have actually stopped that news from coming to pass.
What the heck … Continue Reading
CSR acquires Sirf for $136 million to form wireless and GPS chip powerhouse
The British wireless chip firm CSR has agreed to buy Sirf Technology Holdings for $136 million in stock.
The newly combined company will be a powerhouse in wireless and global positioning system (GPS) satellite navigation chips. CSR, based in Cambridge, England, makes wireless chips such as Bluetooth radios, while Sirf, based in San Jose, Calif., makes GPS chips.
The $2.06 per share price is a steal made possible by the weak stock market. CSR paid … Continue Reading
Note to analysts: If you remove all the features from the iPhone, it can almost be free!
The rumor of the $99 iPhone is back. And yes, again it’s from an analyst. This time, it’s RBC’s Mike Abramsky, who says that his checks indicate that Apple will remove features from the current iPhone 3G to sell it for $99 after a subsidy, while at the same time adding features to a higher-end iPhone that will continue to sell at $199. Unfortunately, as I love to point out, analysts are almost always wrong … Continue Reading
It will be good for the web, Google, when Feedburner finally works right
Google likes to talk about how it promotes technology that benefits the entire web — open standards for social networking and the availability of white-space spectrum, for example. Which is why it’s really frustrating that one of its very own technologies — a service that numerous blogs and web sites depend on — is proving unreliable. The service, feed distributor Feedburner, keeps having problems — despite efforts to become more reliable.
This morning Feedburner went … Continue Reading
This Valentine's Day, live-stream your love with Qik and Boingo
Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but on Valentine’s Day, it can just suck. Luckily, these days we have technology to help bridge those distances. Of the technologies that help, live streaming video may be the best, and thanks to services like Qik, people can do it from just about anywhere on their mobile phones. Now Qik is hoping to make the connection a bit better in time for the romantic holiday.
Qik is … Continue Reading
