The new Mac mini rears its backside?

Many people were surprised when the Mac mini was a no-show at last month’s Macworld event. After all, in contrast to Apple’s usual way of doing things, its miniature computer has gone a long time without a refresh of any kind. But that refresh may finally be drawing near, if a new spy shot obtained by AppleInsider is legitimate.

The shot shows the back of a new Mac mini, complete with 5 USB (presumably 2.0) … Continue Reading

Twitter gets half the press coverage of Facebook, but a fraction of its traffic

Ever heard the phrase “why is everyone always talking about Twitter?” Well, here’s the reason, maybe. The micro-messaging service is getting half of social network Facebook’s press coverage, according to Google Trends stats for both companies in the U.S. — even though searches for Facebook dwarf searches for Twitter. Why are there more searches for Facebook than for Twitter in the U.S.? Because Facebook has more than 46 million monthly active users here while Twitter … Continue Reading

Dice Summit: EA CEO says game companies have to cut the fat, and focus

Electronic Arts has just had to cut 1,100 of its 10,000 employees. John Riccitiello, chief executive of EA, talked at the Dice Summit today in Las Vegas about how the company is dealing with that and about its strategy to survive in the recession.

It’s hard to talk about innovation, Riccitiello said, when you’re hearing negative economic news on a daily basis that’s equivalent to a once-in-a-century event such as landing a man on the … Continue Reading

Heyzap shows fast growth with its embeddable casual game widget

Heyzap announced a month ago that it was launching a widget that web sites could use to embed casual games on their sites. More than 3,000 web sites have installed the widget so far, with gamers playing about 5 million minutes a month with an average game session lasting 17 minutes.

Today the company is launching a game  database that can be sorted into categories like sports or puzzles. By organizing the games, Heyzap says … Continue Reading

You're now free to make Gmail as ugly as you want

If you’re like me, ever since Google introduced themes for Gmail, you get bored quickly with one and can’t stop switching them. The problem is, while there were previously only 30-some themes, the new “Choose your own colors” feature gives you endless possibilities.

Yes, you are now free to make your Gmail as ugly as you want — and let’s be honest, with this many options to choose, there’s nowhere to go but ugly. Don’t … Continue Reading

Diffuse those PDF web land-mines with DocShots

Some links to PDF files can be like web land-mines. They’re regularly added to webpages as downloadable links, but without the proper marking, you may just think they’re regular links rather than downloadable documents. A new Docstoc release, DocShots, helps diffuse those land-mines.

DocShots is a free service that installs a snippet of code on your website or blog that lets users browse a document overlaid on top of your content without downloading it. On … Continue Reading

Why all the bashing of branded apps? Lack of insight.

[Editor's note: In December, VentureBeat ran a column from Keith Rabois, vice president of strategy and business development at SuperPoke maker Slide, about the drawbacks of branded applications on social networks -- that is to say, apps created explicitly to market companies and products. Here, representing the other side of this debate, Mike Lazerow, chief executive at social app company Buddy Media, breaks down why branded apps are effective, and how they can be even … Continue Reading

Dice Summit: Resident Evil producer, Takeuchi, addresses Japan's weakening game market

Japan is a shrinking part of the video game market, with software sales now trailing behind the United Kingdom. It’s about six percent of the global market, and sales are shrinking on an annual basis.

Can the Japanese succeed outside of Japan? Jun Takeuchi, executive producer of Capcom‘s upcoming Resident Evil 5 game is addressing the question at the Dice Summit in Las Vegas. He can speak to this topic from experience, because the Resident … Continue Reading

Invenergy bucks wind power's slump with new $30M

Invenergy, a Chicago-based developer of large-scale wind power generation facilities, just closed on a $30 million convertible note from Leaf Clean Energy only weeks after raking in $250 million in capital from several other venture firms. The company has also landed tax equity to finance five wind farms in the U.S. with the potential to generate 603 megawatts of power. (Tax equity is money that banks and firms invest in companies — including many renewable … Continue Reading

RideCharge snags $4.6M for business travel apps

Ever feel the need to book your ground transportation from the airport while you’re still sitting on the runway? Or pay a taxi fare with a click of one button? Maybe not. But that’s the concept behind RideCharge, maker of TaxiMagic — an app that lets business travelers book and pay for ground transportation from their mobile phones (iPhones, Blackberrys and phones running Windows Mobile, for now). The Alexandria, Va.-based company just brought in $4.6 … Continue Reading

YouNoodle scores the buzz on 25,000 startups

YouNoodle, the company that made a splash last year by claiming to predict the future value of startups, is continuing its efforts to turn startup evaluation into a science. Now it’s adding a YouNoodle Score that tracks news stories to determine a startup’s “impact and importance based on traction, acitvity, and buzz.” And it’s making those scores available to the public, not just entrepreneurs who joined YouNoodle’s online community.

Co-founder and chief executive Bob Goodson … Continue Reading

VentureBeat partners with DEMO

I’m delighted to announce that VentureBeat has signed a strategic partnership agreement with DEMO, the leading conference for technology companies launching products.

Under the accord, I’ll be replacing Chris Shipley as executive producer of DEMO. Chris, who has been in the position for 13 years, will be stepping down following the DEMOfall event this September. During the transition, we will be co-producing the events together (i.e, both the DEMO coming up March 1-3 in Palm … Continue Reading

Valve's Gabe Newell kicks off Dice Summit with digital downloading talk

As a game developer, Gabe Newell wanted to have a close relationship with his customers. But in the past, the chief executive of Valve had to hear feedback via middlemen. Valve developed a game, a publisher released and distributed it, retailers sold it, and that was it.

To get around this problem, Newell took the profits from his mega-hit Half-Life and invested it into Steam, a digital downloading network that delivers games directly to consumers. … Continue Reading

International venture funding rose 5 percent in 2008

Venture funding didn’t fall everywhere last year — despite taking a plunge in the United States, and in Europe too, VC investments outside the U.S. actually rose 5 percent in 2008, according to new data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

Of course, we’re talking about growth in areas where venture investment is still dwarfed by the U.S. The United States alone accounted for $28.8 billion invested in 2,550 deals, compared to $13.4 billion invested in 1,416 … Continue Reading

India's star in media and entertainment rises amid worldwide recession

MUMBAI, India –- As the global economy limps along, media and entertainment gliterrati jetted to Mumbai this week (Feb. 17-19) to celebrate India’s entrepreneurial spirit, the new era of multimedia and the worldwide growth of Indian industries.

It begs the question: Is the country be recession-proof? At the very least, the event showed how the global slump is viewed through a different prism in India’s emerging economy. Executives, policymakers and entertainers descended on the city’s … Continue Reading

Video: A sleeker Gmail experience on the iPhone — with offline capabilities

As a Gmail user, the iPhone’s native mail application leaves a lot to be desired. You can’t, for example, easily “star” or label items without moving mail around to different folders, which really isn’t very intuitive. Occasionally, I’ll use Gmail’s web app for the iPhone, but it simply isn’t great. So it’s good news that a video posted by the blog iPhone Buzz, shows that a new and improved version is on the way.

The … Continue Reading

MySpace's John Faith sees half of all its users going mobile

MySpace has seen impressive growth in its mobile services over the last six months, especially outside the U.S. At the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, I recently caught up with John Faith, the vice president and general manager for the social network’s mobile services, to learn more. In the interview below, he tells me about MySpace’s collaborations with mobile carriers, handset manufacturers and content creators around the world, to help it deliver a more compelling … Continue Reading

Hulu channels Michael Corleone, Boxee support also whacked

Hulu, it seems, is tying up some loose ends.

Earlier today, it was revealed that the online streaming service had pulled its content off of CBS-owned TV.com — but that’s not all. It has also requested its content be removed from the media center software startup Boxee, an email from the company says. There’s the big media we all love to hate.

Hulu, which is backed by both NBC and Fox, offers many of the … Continue Reading

Facebook begins testing ads for third-party applications

Up until today, Facebook has been content to let third-party developers make money however they wanted to, without offering its own services to help them do so directly. Instead, it’s just been making money from developers by running ads alongside some application pages. But today, the company says it is beginning to test out ads that run within apps. In some sense, this move competes with third-party ad networks that already run ads within Facebook … Continue Reading