Spoon feeding: Facebook redesign brings feeds (and ads) to the masses

Facebook began to roll out a new design of its homepage today, with a number of subtle features intended to make feed-based social networking more intuitive for the typical user. When the company first showed off its plans last week, we and many others compared some of the changes to microblogging service Twitter and lifestreaming service FriendFeed. But upon using the service, significant differences become more clear — and point to Facebook’s long-term strategy of … Continue Reading

Burn down the disco. Hang the iTunes DJ.

With all the hype around new products, sometimes it’s easy to forget that Apple is also pretty good at making features that are just plain old fun. Tonight brought the perfect example: iTunes 8.1‘s new “iTunes DJ” feature.

iTunes DJ is the new name for “Party Shuffle” in previous releases of iTunes. But now it’s actually a useful and fun feature when paired with iPhones or iPod touches. And you’ll notice I use the plural … Continue Reading

Google Voice: a killer phone application

Google has just upgraded its free phone service, Google Voice. And it’s going to be a hit.

I’ve played with it and am sold. It adds free transcription to your voice messages on a tidy Web page, as well as SMS forwarding to your cell phone, and host of other goodies I’m convinced will make a lot of people run out and start using it. It’s free for national calls, and competitively priced for international … Continue Reading

Roundup: Windows Marketplace strategy, Apple netbook craze continues, Getty gets Flickr images and more

Here’s the latest action:

Microsoft unveils Windows Marketplace developer strategy — Like Apple, Microsoft will give developers a 70 percent cut of app sales. But the keyword in the company’s press release seems to be “transparency,” an obvious shot at Apple’s less-than-transparent rules for its store. Of course, Apple’s App Store may already be on pace to be a billion dollar a year business, and Windows Marketplace will need Windows Mobile 6.5 — which won’t … Continue Reading

Worlds.com: We've patented the world

Here’s the winner of the anti-innovation award of the day. Worlds.com chief executive Thom Kidrin told Silicon Alley Insider that his company owns the idea of a scalable virtual world with thousands of users. Kidrin says the company has patented the concept and will sue anyone who refuses to pay for a license.

That includes makers of virtual worlds as different as Linden Labs’ Second Life and Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. This is no … Continue Reading

iSkoot wants to make cheap phones smarter

iSkoot, the company that first got attention by allowing you to make calls on your mobile phone through Skype’s Internet call service, is launching a new software development kit (SDK) that it says will let standard mobile phones add the kinds of web services and applications that make devices like Apple’s iPhone so popular.

Basically, this means manufacturers can now bring Facebook, email, instant messaging, RSS feeds, and Twitter (all under the umbrella of iSkoot’s … Continue Reading

Gossip about the news with Google Reader's new comments

Huh, I guess I might have to pay attention to the “shared items” section in Google Reader now. The search giant already emphasized the sharing area of its site for reading RSS feeds in the redesign unveiled in December, but it just added the crucial missing ingredient — comments.

Now, when you your friend shares an article with you and others they’re connected to in Reader, you can actually start a conversation with them about … Continue Reading

Social music startup DropPlay blends YouTube, Facebook and Pandora

Social music startup DropPlay launched today, tying together YouTube, Facebook and a recommendation service similar to Pandora Radio to provide what the company claims is the equivalent of a free online version of iTunes. The site lets you search for any song (which plays as a YouTube video), save and add songs to playlists, share music with friends via Facebook Connect, and discover new music based on previous selections.

When you first navigate to the … Continue Reading

Newly-formed Blade Games raises $4M for cheaper developer tools

Blade Games, the result of last month’s merger between developer tool provider Digini and game outsourcing company Vyk Games, has raised $4 million in a first round of funding led by California Technology Ventures.

The new entity provides a video game development platform, called Blade3D; an online store called the Blade3D Marketplace for developers to sell intellectual property and game features to their peers; and an outsourcing division inherited from Vyk.

Based in Bellevue, Wash., … Continue Reading

System-on-a-chip software co. Direct2Silicon takes $7.2M

Direct2Silicon, a San Jose, Calif. company that makes direct-write e-beam lithography software to create system-on-a-chip integrated circuits, announced that it’s raised $7.19 million of an anticipated $9.48 million round of funding from investors including Benchmark Capital, Cadence Design Systems and Advantest, reports peHUB.

The company says its technology reduces the time it takes to design and manufacture these chips. Its past funding history, if any, has not been disclosed.… Continue Reading

Want to be the next Facebook? Rent its old downtown Palo Alto offices

Facebook has long been planning to move its still-expanding workforce to an office park in a suburban pocket of Palo Alto next to Stanford University and out of bustling downtown Palo Alto. The move is beginning to happen now, it appears, as the company’s real estate agent, Cornish & Carey, has been emailing out an announcement about Facebook offices for sub-lease. Although the ad, now circulating Silicon Valley inboxes, doesn’t mention Facebook, you can see … Continue Reading

Heart drug co. Relypsa gets $10M more to complete trials

Pharmaceutical company Relypsa announced that its investors extended its first round of funding by $10 million to a total $43 million to help it finish phase-two clinical trials on its lead drug candidate, a treatment that could alleviate symptoms of heart failure and chronic kidney disease.

Based in Santa Clara, Calif., Relypsa predicts the phase to close by the end of 2009 and already plans to raise new funds in 2010. The drug being tested … Continue Reading

Crowdsourcing music on a Bicycle Built for Two Thousand

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a powerful tool for “crowdsourcing” menial or repetitive tasks — companies like Dolores Labs and Smartsheet are even building software to make Turk easier for businesses to use. But it turns out Mechanical Turk isn’t all about serious work; it can also be used for strange and wonderful art projects too, like the just-announced Bicycle Built for Two Thousand.

Here’s how it was made: Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey sliced up … Continue Reading

VentureBeat announces finalists for Who's Got Game startup competition at GamesBeat 09

We are happy to announce the finalists for Who’s Got Game? startup competition at the GamesBeat 09 game conference.

A group of esteemed judges reviewed applications from more than 50 video game and virtual world startups before deciding upon seven finalists to present at GamesBeat 09 on March 24.

“The ingenuity in evidence here — blending games, social memes, and inspired engineering — is a great reminder that creativity and opportunity don’t take a back … Continue Reading

Real estate intelligence site SmartZip lands $2M

SmartZip, an early-stage real estate intelligence startup based in Pleasanton, Calif. just brought in $2.05 million in first-round funding from Claremont Creek Ventures, Step5 Venture Partners and Northpoint Financial Group, reports peHUB.

Very little information is available on the company. It has sent out invitations to test its product to select individuals who can sign into its site with their personalized passwords. And it’s still unclear what kind of real estate data it will provide … Continue Reading

GridPoint lands more funds for smarter utility use

GridPoint, one of the largest companies in the emerging smartgrid sector, announced that it has brought in an undisclosed sum from Craton Equity Partners. Already working with several investor-owned utilities like Duke Energy Corp. and Xcel Energy, GridPoint says its system automatically manages energy loads and storage, integrates renewable sources and can be used to power electric vehicles more efficiently.

That last function is of particular importance to GridPoint, which acquired V2Green, a company that … Continue Reading

iTunes 8.1: Fitter. Happier. More productive.

Alongside its new iPod shuffles released today, Apple is about to launch the next version of iTunes. Version 8.1 is a small step up in terms of its version number, but it actually sports three fairly large improvements.

Speed boost

The first noted improvement, according to Apple, is a “speed boost.” It notes that everything should be faster from loading large libraries (thank God) and browsing the iTunes store to syncing your devices.

While Apple … Continue Reading

"I'm a Mac" versus "I'm a PC" as told by your iPod shuffle

One nice feature on Apple’s new iPod shuffle is the new VoiceOver feature, which communicates the name of songs and playlists through speech. What’s especially interesting about the feature is that you hear a different voice depending on whether you’re syncing your iPod shuffle with a Mac or a PC. And, not surprisingly, the Mac voice is much clearer.

Apple demonstrates the difference in both its walk-through video and on this page. The OS X … Continue Reading

Free online meeting tool Mikogo launches for Mac

Mikogo, maker of the online meeting tool of same name, announced today the release of a free, public version that works across platforms, now including Mac. The software lets up to 10 meeting participants share a screen over the web during a presentation.

A group of colleagues can virtually huddle around one screen to edit a project collaboratively from their separate desks, or a single user can conduct a product demonstration as the rest of … Continue Reading

Nintendo crosses 100 million DS game handhelds sold

Everything is relative. Sony recently celebrated the sale of 50 million PlayStation Portable handheld game players. But today, Nintendo announced it has sold more than 100 million Nintendo DS handhelds. Both launched in 2004.

The Japanese company said today it shipped the 100 millionth unit on March 6. It is also preparing to release the next version of its handheld, the DSi, on April 5 in the U.S. for $169.

When the DS launched in … Continue Reading