So much for recession-proof: U.S. video game sales take a 17 percent dip in March

U.S. video game sales have held up in the recession, until now. Sales of console games, hardware and accessories fell 17 percent in March to $1.43 billion from $1.72 billion a year ago, according to market researcher NPD Group.

So much for the talk that games are recession-proof. The March results are a big contrast to February, when game sales rose 10 percent, and January, when sales were up 13 percent.

Despite the drop in … Continue Reading

Applied Research Associates Acquires Virtual Heroes to make serious games

Defense contractor Applied Research Associates has acquired Virtual Heroes, a game developer which has shown a particular skill in creating games for business or educational purposes.

Albuquerque, N.M.-based ARA bought Virtual Heroes, based in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, for an undisclosed sum. Virtual Heoes specializes in “serious games,” or those which have some kind of educational or business purpose beyond pure entertainment.

While serious games have been the subject of plenty of research and … Continue Reading

TwitPub aims to bring marketplace to Twitter

TwitPub has set up shop as a Twitter marketplace — that is, a place where you can, say, sell horoscopes or stock tips on Twitter and make money from Twitter users who subscribe to your offering. TwitPub calls these subscriptions “premium tweets.”

All you need to get started is a private Twitter account or an account that has its updates protected. From there, you sign up for a TwitPub account, and the service automates the … Continue Reading

Google defies economy, ekes out decent Q1

Google has announced its first quarter financial earnings, and so far the results look decent — given the economic climate. The search giant reported net revenue of $5.5 billion, or $5.16 per share. In terms of historic earnings, Google’s Q1 performance was actually down 3 percent compared to Q4 2008, and up 6 percent in comparison to Q1 2008.

The company’s net profit came in at $1.42 billion for the quarter, or $4.49 a share. … Continue Reading

Tribal Nova raises $2.5 million for kids' online games

Canadian firm Tribal Nova said today it has raised $2.5 million to help develop kids’ games and virtual worlds, Virtual Worlds Management reported.

Tribal Nova has worked with partners such as PBS to create Kids Play games on the nonprofit organization’s web site. The company has also launched its own virtual world for kids, Kidstudio, which combines games with content from a bunch of TV partners.

The company is also working with the Canadian Broadcast … Continue Reading

Ning's 200,000 active social networks are starting to add up

Ning lets anyone (not in the porn business) create their own social network, and the company says that sometime today the millionth social network will be formed on the site.

Of all the networks formed, some 200,000 are currently active, chief executive Gina Bianchini tells me. And the site is growing fast. Ning had two million new registered users in February, and its growth grew to 2.4 million new registered users in March.

Bianchini believes … Continue Reading

Watch it live: Kutcher vs. CNN race to a million Twitter followers

You can’t get more meta than a site that micro-blogs trends in micro-blogging. But we’re through the looking glass anyway, so here goes: Tinker.com, part of the distinguished Glam Media Network, is live streaming the Twitter race to a million followers between Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN (@cnnbrk).

Tinker.com is a micro-blogging platform itself that lets users converse about events and breaking news in real-time. How it’s different from Twitter in this respect is unclear … Continue Reading

Microsoft kills Purple, but keeps going on Pink phone platform

Microsoft is apparently moving forward on a much speculated-about mobile phone platform called “Pink,” which many believe is an effort to create a competitor to Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone.

We know Microsoft is moving ahead because of a new deadline for the completion of the advertising campaign competition Microsoft has just opened for Pink. The competition will be completed by May.

While no one knows exactly what the service will be, all the leaked … Continue Reading

You won't care if you lose these Samsung encrypted flash drives

Flash memory storage devices are a convenient way to transfer data from place to place, but they’re also a big security risk if lost. Today, Samsung Electronics and Wave Systems are launching new flash memory drives that can encrypt data automatically.

If you lose a lot of flash drives while traveling, this solution is better than having to tell the boss that you lost a bunch of sensitive data.

The self-encrypting solid state drives (SSDs, … Continue Reading

Blizzard switches World of Warcraft partner in critical China

Blizzard Entertainment, owner of the massively popular World of Warcraft game, has switchted distribution partners in the increasingly important Chinese market.

Blizzard will now work with NetEase.com to distribute and operate the game for the next three years in China, following the expiration of a deal with The9. The change isn’t surprising, since Activision Blizzard’s chief rival, Electronic Arts, holds an ownership stake in The9.

China is one of the fastest growing games markets, because … Continue Reading

Outspark invites game publishers to cash in on casual MMO game portal

Outspark, a company that offers online games where many players play simultaneously, has seen rapid growth in the past year and is now opening its online platform to let other publishers and developers publish games there.

The San Francisco company has generated a solid audience for its six online games with the “free to play” business model. The games are free, but players can buy virtual goods that customize characters inside the game or give … Continue Reading

Scoreloop launches social game platform for iPhone

So many people are creating games for the iPhone that there’s cottage industry emerging to help them create their applications more easily.

The latest is Scoreloop, a Munich, Germany-based startup that has created a platform for developers to build social features into iPhone games. Today, the company is launching a software development kit that developers can use to add new multiplayer features.

I can see the logic. The chances of any developer producing a tremendously … Continue Reading

Add Zoho to other sites with Zoho Gadgets

Zoho provides useful and free Web applications for productivity and business, just like Google does. But Zoho has done a particularly impressive job integrating all these applications together. Now it’s integrating those apps with non-Zoho websites, in the form of “gadgets” that can be added to services like Gmail and Facebook.

These gadgets, or little windows that sit on your homepage, can keep updated on the data contained in your Zoho applications (Zoho Docs, Zoho … Continue Reading

Roundup: Ashton vs. CNN, the NY Times vs. Sarah Lacy, Dell vs. HP and more

Here’s the latest action:

Expectations run high for Apple earnings — Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey estimates the iPhone maker’s take at $8 billion for the second quarter, up 6 percent from last year.

Twitter topped 9 million visitors in March — The micro-blogging site saw a 131 percent spike in traffic, largely driven by older users. comScore has the scoop.

CNN and Ashton Kutcher neck and neck in Twitter race — The sprint to … Continue Reading

Greystone and SolarCity partner to fund solar projects with tax credits

Greystone Renewable Energy Ventures has joined up with solar equipment provider SolarCity in a new tax equity fund that will be used to fund future solar projects. Basically, Greystone capitalizes on its expertise in tax regulations to funnel capital to cleantech companies that qualify for federal tax credit programs. It manages about $12 billion in assets.

SolarCity, the largest residential energy provider in the U.S. last year, is looking to finance $100 million worth of … Continue Reading

Fuel cell tech gets $41.9M shot in the arm from the DOE

The Department of Energy has earmarked $41.9 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the development of fuel cell technology. The goal is to create manufacturing and maintenance jobs for Americans who have been laid off from automotive factories and the like.

Coincidentally, the announcement came right after Michigan’s approval of $300 million in tax credits to convince battery and energy storage companies to prop up the state’s deflated economy. The companies that … Continue Reading

Sempra and First Solar join forces for Nevada solar farm

Sempra Energy, the major utility and energy services company in Southern California, announced today that it has contracted First Solar to build a 48-megawatt array of solar panels in the Nevada desert, dubbed Copper Mountain. The facility is expected to start producing electricity within the year, reports the Wall Street Journal.

This is not the first time Sempra has worked with First Solar. It also tapped the Tempe, Ariz. company to construct its 10 megawatt … Continue Reading

Google's Q1 forecast looks cautiously optimistic

The economy has been chewing up tech companies left and right, but tomorrow (Thursday) will reveal the quarterly fate of one of the industry’s biggest — Google. After a Wall Street-beating fourth quarter, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant will release its first quarter financial earnings to an undoubtedly anxious market.

Though the company is known for solid revenue growth (Q4 beat estimates at $4.22 billion, or $5.10 per share), the attention paid to Google’s … Continue Reading

Webcor teams with Climate Earth to track construction emissions

To help construction companies reduce their carbon footprints, Webcor Builders is partnering with carbon accounting firm Climate Earth to create a database recording the environmental impact of various building projects and their corresponding supply chains.

The plan is for Climate Earth to track the amount of greenhouse gases emitted at every phase of a project. Webcor hopes to use this data to learn what works best and to encourage its clients to choose more efficient … Continue Reading

Customize your home page with Netvibes Labs

Netvibes, a company that lets users personalize their home page by pulling in things like their RSS feeds, social networks, and email on a single page, is letting users do even more customization with a new area called Netvibes Labs. In Labs, users can both try out new features before they’re released and vote on the ideas that NetVibes works on next.

The “labs” idea may be most familair to users of Gmail, where users … Continue Reading