Facebook rejects funding at $4 billion valuation, may not raise more
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg just had a board-level conversation about possibly accepting money at a $4 billion valuation, but decided against doing so.
Facebook isn’t commenting directly, but sources close to the company say it rejected the funding because it doesn’t need it, despite reports by BusinessWeek, Techcrunch and others that the company might need more funds to cover a “high burn rate.”
Speculation has been that Facebook won’t be able to pay its … Continue Reading
Office 2010 continues Microsoft's streak of brilliant product names
Microsoft has given a name to the upcoming version of Office, which will be the first version to include web applications for collaboration. It is Office 2010.
Given Microsoft’s last big naming announcement, when it said the operating system code-named Windows 7 would in fact be named Windows 7, you might expect that the suite of productivity software code-named Office 14 would also be named Office 14. But no, the software giant decided to mix … Continue Reading
eBay to buy Korean auction site for $1.2B
eBay has offered to buy Korean auction site GMarket for [updated figure]$1.2 billion.
It’s the latest in what seems to be a big shakeup at eBay. Out with the old acquisitions, in with the new.
Just yesterday, eBay said it would spin off its Skype Internet phone service in an initial public offering in 2010, and it also agreed on Monday to sell the StumbleUpon media company back to its founders. Now eBay will pay … Continue Reading
Can batteries save Detroit? $300M tax credits say yes
The hits keep on coming for the battered automotive industry and its home base in Detroit, Mich. But there might be a new source of hope: Lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid cars. With few other places to turn, the state has bet all its chips on the technology, approving $300 million in tax credits for four advanced battery makers who have set up shop there.
Approved by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, the credits … Continue Reading
Stop the tweet spam! Two ways to filter Twitter into Facebook
Maybe Facebook is redesigning itself to be more like fast-growing microblogging service Twitter. But as we’ve said, and as many Twitter users discover when they start feeding their tweets into Facebook as status updates, the two services are still pretty different. Specifically, the sheer number of tweets that the average Twitter user seems to send out overwhelms — if not annoys — their friends on Facebook. The solution is better filtering of those tweets, and … Continue Reading
MOG relaunches, calling itself the "Huffington Post of music news"
MOG, a social networking and blog site for music lovers, is going through some cosmetic changes. Today’s relaunch is designed to leverage a new organizational structure, homepage widgets, and the site’s own editorial staff to transform MOG into a ‘Huffington Post’-like destination for music news.
To date, the bulk of MOG’s following stems from its wealth of music-related blogs. By offering users a free blogging platform and forging syndication agreements with over 300 popular music … Continue Reading
Trend Micro debuts iPhone app for safe browsing
Security firm Trend Micro has released a free iPhone application that incorporates its Smart Protection Network (SPN) into a browser to protect users from malicious websites while surfing the web on the device. ‘Smart Surfing’ uses the Mobile Safari engine, although it doesn’t replace the device’s default browser.
As a user surfs from site to site, the bar changes color depending on the site’s rating. The progress bar stays green when loading, and a check … Continue Reading
New bill may give president ability to shut down Internet
Legislation is now passing through the U.S. Senate that could give the president unprecedented powers over the Internet, including the ability to ‘shut down’ portions of it when a cybersecurity emergency is declared. The bill was introduced at the beginning of the month, but concerns have since been raised over its vague wording.
At issue is Section 18(2) of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which reads as follows:
“The president … may declare a cybersecurity
High-speed optical co. Photonera absorbs rival Intexys
Photonera, maker of optical equipment to facilitate high-speed connections, announced that it bought Intexys, its French peer. Still in stealth mode, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Photonera did not disclose any other information about the deal.
Little is known about the company’s products (slated for release in the next few months) except that they’ll help run interconnection and storage systems in data centers. The acquisition will give Photonera ownership over all of Intexys’ assets and intellectual property — … Continue Reading
Silver Spring takes smart grid networks down under
To meet their government’s mandated transition to the smart grid, Australian utilities Jemena Electricity Networks Limited and United Energy Distribution (UED) have chosen Redwood City, Calif.-based Silver Spring Networks to implement IP-based smart metering systems for more than 1 million buildings in the state of Victoria (see map below).
The ultimate goal is to bring the wireless meters installed in these homes and businesses online starting on Sept. 1 of this year — and to … Continue Reading
VideoEgg's Twig: An ad toolbar that's hard to ignore
VideoEgg is offering a new advertising format that will be hard for web users to ignore: A toolbar-style ad that it calls Twig. It runs at the top or bottom of web pages, scrolls with you as you move up and down the page, and expands to show videos or other media when you hover your cursor over it for three seconds. The problem this format is trying to solve is that web readers tend … Continue Reading
Cancer drug maker BiPar sells to Sanofi-aventis for $500M
BiPar Sciences, maker of tumor-targeting cancer treatments, will be acquired by public global pharmaceutical company Sanofi-aventis. The two companies have signed a binding agreement that could deliver more than $500 million to BiPar, divided into varying milestone payments.
Based in Brisbane, Calif., BiPar creates therapies, primarily for breast and ovarian cancer patients, that use inhibitors to kill cancer cells by preventing them from repairing their own DNA. Its lead compound in this area, BSI-201, is … Continue Reading
Digg tries to make its new social news toolbar suck less
Facing ongoing criticism from web publishers about its new toolbar, the DiggBar, social news site Digg has another company blog post up today describing how it’s turning the toolbar into a win for users and publishers and not just for the company itself.
The toolbar, which you can access by adding “digg.com/” before a URL on a web page, lets you submit new stories to the social news site, or vote and comment on submitted … Continue Reading
Marketing whiz tries to juice Sony's PlayStation business in Europe
Sony has played executive musical chairs in its game division once again. Andrew House, until recently the chief marketing officer for all of Sony, has been appointed president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
The move is a big one — Europe is a key battleground in the console war. Nintendo and Sony dominate in Japan. Nintendo and Microsoft lead in the U.S. But Europe has always been up for grabs in this generation of console … Continue Reading
Ocarina-maker Smule releases Leaf Trombone World Stage
Smule, the company behind the popular Ocarina application that turns your iPhone into a musical instrument, has released a new app called Leaf Trombone World Stage. Ge Wang, the Stanford professor who co-founded the company, likes to talk about his vision for a Smulean future, i.e. one in which music-making is more accessible and social — and Leaf Trombone definitely takes the iPhone further in that direction.
At the center of the Leaf Trombone app … Continue Reading
Pocket PC maker OQO shopping for buyers
OQO, a maker of pocket-sized personal computers with capabilities similar to laptops, is looking to be bought after running short on cash. Already in talks with a few potential matches — none of which it would disclose — the San Francisco company says its acquisition should remedy its financial woes and sharpen its competitiveness.
Facing a tight capital market, OQO has postponed the release of its OQO model 2+, a pocket PC that uses Intel’s … Continue Reading
Tired of the events mess on Facebook? Try Socializr
Socializr, a service that lets you organize your events online, has just released a cool new set of features that let you more easily see what events your friends are going to, and then track and manage the photos of these events.
Called “Socializr Event Connect,” it also lets you more easily integrate all your event invitations in one place (whether those events reside on Socializr, or on Facebook or elsewhere.) Lots of old fogies … Continue Reading
Roundup: MySpace history, Silicon Valley gloom, and more
Here’s the latest action:
How Google overpaid for weak advertising inventory on MySpace — Entrepreneur Andrew Chen has published a tell-all blog post about his early years working at ad network Revenue Science, where he did formative deals with MySpace. The post is a tribute to a new book out called “Stealing MySpace,” which details the ins and outs of the social network’s evolution. Among the juicy details divulged in the book:
The point is, … Continue Reading
JumpTap launches mobile AdWords competitor
Heavily funded mobile search and advertising startup JumpTap is launching a new mobile ad marketplace called tapMatch, which it says will offer a more targeted approach than the competition.
The Cambridge, Mass. company already offers mobile search and display advertising, but tapMatch is JumpTap’s answer to Google’s AdWords, where advertisers can bid to have their ads (usually just a few lines of text) appear next to specific keywords. In tapMatch’s case, those ads can appear … Continue Reading
Single sign-on service OpenID getting more usage
After nearly four years of development and proselytization, social networking technology standard OpenID is beginning to show signs of going more mainstream on the web. The service is live in a number of company web sites and consumer-facing services, from airlines to social networks — and, while it’s too early to tell how well OpenID might do in the future, new numbers from the industry-driven OpenID Foundation indicate more people are logging in through it.… Continue Reading
