Social investing site Cake Financial raises $1.26M more
Cake Financial, a social networking site for investing, is raising a $1.5 million addition to its first venture round, with $1.26 million raised so far.
The San Francisco-based company lets users import their portfolio data from multiple brokerages and share their trades with other users. You can follow the investments of other users on the site, especially those whose investments doing particularly well. The site’s big selling point is the quality of its top one … Continue Reading
Dell uses Zink Imaging to create an ink-free mobile printer
Zink Imaging is steadily expanding its reach for its inkless printing technology as it announces that licensee Dell has released its Dell Wasabi PZ310 Ink-free Mobile printer.
Bedford, Mass-based Zink Imaging figured out how to print without inkjet cartridges by embedding dried ink in paper. It heats the ink in precise locations to form an image. This new technology works especially well in creating mobile printers for devices like iPhones, where a normal printer is … Continue Reading
Winklevoss twins made $65 million on Facebook "copycat" settlement
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss may have had some serious evidence showing that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole ideas like “profile pages” back when he worked at their social-networking startup, ConnectU. Facebook recently paid the brothers (and presumably other ConnectU stockholders) a cool $65 million to settle long-running lawsuits they brought against him after he left their company to start his rival site.
The news leaked out through a brochure made by business litigation law firm … Continue Reading
Sega, facing losses in games and amusement centers, lays off 560
Sega’s parent company Sega Sammy Holdings is laying off 560 people, or 18 percent of its work force, and closing 110 amusement facilities.
The Japanese company, once one of the titans of the video game business, has had operating losses for two years and is now making the cuts so it can return to profits, Kotaku reported.
Everybody’s rooting for the company that exited the game console business with the death of the Dreamcast. But … Continue Reading
Alios nabs $8.4M to treat viruses
South San Francisco-based Alios BiopPharma just brought in $8.4 million in first-round funding from Novo, Novartis BioVentures and Roche Finance, according to peHUB. The company develops treatments for viruses by activating various parts of the normal human immune system.… Continue Reading
HX Diagnostics lands $3.1M to diagnose infectious disease
Biotech firm HX Diagnostics, based in Emeryville, Calif., has raised $3.12 million in a first round of funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Nanogen and Xiamen YST Biotech, reports peHUB. The company says its mission is to develop rapid diagnostics for seasonal and emerging infectious diseases, partcularly different strains of influenza.… Continue Reading
GDC 09: conference to reflect a more global game industry
The 2009 Game Developers Conference will feature a more global list of speakers who reflect the video game industry’s changing landscape.
The show, which runs in San Francisco from March 23 to March 27, will include keynote speakers Satoru Iwata, chief executive of Nintendo, and Hideo Kojima, the Japanese creator of the Metal Gear series of console video games, published by Konami.
Iwata is a hero for reviving the industry with the launch of the … Continue Reading
Roundup: Intel pours cash into factories, N.J. goes solar, Obama taps cybersecurity chief, and more
Microsoft to tighten ties with Facebook chat? — Steve Ballmer implies (oh so subtly) full interoperability between Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger.
Intel to sink funds into factories — Despite the downturn, the giant earmarks $7 billion for its chip manufacturing plants over the next two years.
Obama anoints Melissa Hathaway cybersecurity czar — The former aide to president Bush’s intelligence director plans to evaluate current measures to secure government networks from spies and … Continue Reading
Twitter starts to talk up corporate-account plan
Sometime soon, Twitter is expected to unveil its plan to make money. Based on comments made by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams recently, it seems likely the plan will involve charging companies for accounts with special privileges.
In New York Magazine this week, both Stone and Williams said that charging companies for brand verification is something that the company was looking into. This makes a lot of sense, especially given the rise of … Continue Reading
PowerMeter: Proof positive Google wants to run your life
Joining Google’s Android, Calendar, Docs, Mail, Maps, Reader and a few dozen other products today is a new application, PowerMeter. It’s not launched yet, but when it is, it’ll help you keep track of your home power usage by tapping into information sent from your devices to your electrical meter, and from there on to the “smart grid”.
What Google is showing of PowerMeter looks a bit like a line graph, with the X-axis representing … Continue Reading
Jobvite brings job listings to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter
Even on “fun” social networks, you can’t escape from business. Specifically, you can’t escape from job recruitment, especially not now that Jobvite, which offers recruitment tools via online subscription, is integrating with Facebook, professional network LinkedIn, and microblogging service Twitter.
Jobvite’s new tools sound compelling because they let you integrate a recruitment campaign across so many sites and services. The Facebook and LinkedIn applications are pretty similar. Basically, a company sends a listing to its … Continue Reading
FlowPlay distributes its games through Miniclip
FlowPlay is announcing today it will distribute its online games through Miniclip, one of the biggest casual online game portals.
Seattle-based FlowPlay said the long-term agreement gives the company access to Miniclip’s 50 million monthly gamers, who play a variety of games on its site.
FlowPlay makes ourWorld, a web-based virtual world with movie theaters, night clubs, etc. Entrance to the world is free, but the world is a vehicle for virtual goods transactions, with … Continue Reading
Last Day of Work debuts Virtual Families simulation
It’s taken a while, but The Sims finally has a clone. Last Day of Work, a San Francisco casual game developer, has unveiled Virtual Families for the PC and Mac.
The game lets players care for and nurture a simulated family, using the same framework as the series Virtual Villagers. It has a hand-drawn map with a house and garden, sophisticated artificial intelligence, and a selection of customizable families.
Arthur Humphrey, the company’s founder, said … Continue Reading
Zumbox creates an all-digital alternative to the U.S. Postal Service
The U.S. Postal Service is about to get some competition in the digital world. Zumbox is launching the public beta test today for its all-digital alternative to the paper postal service.
Wait a minute, you’re thinking. Isn’t that email? Nope. Westlake Village, Calif.-based Zumbox lets you send or receive scanned, physical representations of letters, bills or other things you might normally send via paper mail. You can log into your mailbox at the Zumbox site … Continue Reading
Hobby turning serious? Apple TV gets a survey, Valentine's promotion
Much is made about Apple’s seemingly nonchalant attitude when it comes to the Apple TV. Several times, the company has dismissed the service as a mere “hobby” rather than a core businesses like the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone. But a new survey Apple put out this week, and a new Valentine’s Day themed promotion suggests the company is looking at the device with a more serious eye now.
And it makes sense, because … Continue Reading
Oodle raises round, plans to relaunch Facebook Marketplace soon
Classified ad network Oodle seems to be banking on the idea that more people will buying and selling stuff informally during a recession. It has just raised $5.6 million from existing investors.
The San Mateo, Calif.-based company also says it passed 10 million visits in January. These are visits that I assume didn’t just come from Oodle’s site but from its ads that run across sites and services provided by companies like Comcast, Wal-Mart and … Continue Reading
I'm sorry Dave: HAL 9000 finally comes to the iPhone
By far my favorite application on my Chumby personal widget device is the HAL 9000 app. It takes one of the truly great movie villains of all time from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and puts its glowing red eye on a screen while it talks to me in that terrifyingly monotone voice. It freaks out guests in my apartment — I love it. That’s why I’m shocked that it’s taken this long to come … Continue Reading
Source: Apple asked Google not to use multi-touch in Android, and Google complied
One of the bigger complaints about T-Mobile’s G1, the first phone based on Google’s Android platform, is that its touch screen doesn’t use multi-touch, the technology which allows for a screen to accept multiple points of contact as simultaneous input. Now we may know why.
Apple, which of course makes the signature multi-touch mobile device, the iPhone, apparently asked Google not to implement it, and Google agreed, an Android team member tells us.
Further, the … Continue Reading
Facebook Connect comes to Israeli election coverage
Updated
The Israeli legislative elections are happening now, and Hebrew-language portal site Nana10 has just introduced a way to help readers share their thoughts about it, using Facebook Connect’s status update feature.
To start using it, you just click on the Connect button within the site’s homepage. You’ll get a box asking you to approve the site’s access to Facebook features like news feed and your profile; if you click on the status bar tab … Continue Reading
Facebook gives FriendFeed's "like" button a thumbs-up
Facebook has been watching “lifestreaming” site FriendFeed closely, and today the larger company’s attention has resulted in a new FriendFeed-like feature in its news feeds. It’s a button called “like,” and it’s a one-click way to show your friends that you liked a link to a news story or other item. On FriendFeed, it’s called “like” with a smiley face. On Facebook, it’s a thumbs up.
Glimpses of Facebook’s “like” button have previously appeared in … Continue Reading
