Seagate makes backing up data even easier with Replica

Backing up your system is getting a lot easier this morning, thanks to an announcement from Seagate.

Most backup systems for computers are pretty easy these days, but most computer users still don’t back up their systems. In fact, only two in three people back up data, according to Parks Associates.

There’s something about backing up data that’s still too intimidating. I recently had two computers fail and a third one is on the ropes. … Continue Reading

Android attack continues: Skytone Netbook to cost $250, Samsung i7500 confirmed

Everyone has been waiting for the wave of Google Android-based phones and devices to arrive, and here they come.

This week, we’ll see the second Android phone, the G2, launch in Germany.

Now we’re getting news that a bunch of other Android devices will hit the market soon. The most exciting is the first Android netbook, called the Alpha 680 (pictured left). Made by China’s Skytone, it will cost $250. It will run on an … Continue Reading

With Three UK deal, is Skype killing voice revenue for carriers?

Late last week, the internet phone service Skype announced that the UK carrier Three UK had become the first 3G carrier to embrace Skype and offer it freely without restriction.

You may ask: Who in their right mind will continue to use their regular carrier voice service when they can make free Skype-to-Skype calls, or free IM via Skype?

Good question. This is a big development because eBay-owned Skype has so far been shunned by … Continue Reading

The great Google exodus continues: Priti Choksi goes to Facebook

The Googlers keep exiting, one by one.

Priti Choksi, a director of strategic partner development at Google whose team handled a lot of distribution deals for for the search giant, including one for the Google toolbar, has just accepted an offer to head business development at Facebook, VentureBeat has learned. We’re told her colleagues consider her “sharp.”

Choksi (the picture left is from her Facebook profile, natch) is just the latest in a wave of … Continue Reading

Ticket marketplace Viagogo announces tennis deal, strong Q1 results

Viagogo, the online marketplace where anyone can buy or sell tickets for live events, announced today that it is partnering with the French Tennis Federation to create a special ticket exchange channel for tennis, making it the first secondary ticketing platform to land a deal in France. Reinforcing the good news, the London-based company also reported strong first-quarter earnings and rapid growth.

Viagogo recently hit more than one million ticket listings on its site, with … Continue Reading

Qualcomm will pay $891 million to Broadcom to settle patent disputes

Qualcomm will pay $891 million to Broadcom in a patent dispute settlement, the chip companies announced today.

The deal will settle all pending litigation between the companies worldwide. The companies were in a state of legal warfare over cell phone and other tech patents in the U.S., Europe and Korea. San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm will pay the money to Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom over four years. Qualcomm will make the first $200 million payment in the … Continue Reading

Game and virtual world fundings reach $936.8 million in 2008

This is a second update to our game and virtual worlds funding list. Here we’re adding new data from Jussi Laakkonen’s blog. Previously, we had updated to include data from Virtual World Management’s list, so the number is much bigger than we reported earlier.

In 2008, VentureBeat chronicled lots of game and virtual world fundings. Our updated list now shows 112 game companies raised more than $936.8 million worth of venture capital and angel funds. … Continue Reading

Nonoba casual-game platform signs up 100 customers in first month

In just one month, Danish startup Nonoba said it has signed up 100 customers for its GameRise content management system, which makes it easy for anyone to set up a professional-looking game web site.

Among the customers are four portals, including sites in the Netherlands, China, Slovenia and Portugal. GameRise lets casual game developers manage a catalog of games and display them in up to 26 different languages. It also provides tools to create and … Continue Reading

Roundup: Facebook's election, Google's new toolbar, and more

Facebook users vote on site’s governing documents — An overwhelming majority of votes supported the new terms of use (which were rather controversial) over the old ones.

Google adds new features to Toolbar — New features include a search using your current location and a simplified Chinese toolbar.

Amazon earnings jump – The online retailer handily beat analysts estimates during the first quarter of the year.

Twitter gets 19 million global users – That’s according … Continue Reading

Opscode raises $2.5M to manage cloud applications

Opscode, a company that automates the management of applications in the Internet cloud, has raised $2.5 million in funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Seattle-based Opscode has released an open source system called Chef which it says is already used by Engine Yard, 37Signals, Wikia, and others. With Chef, companies can run their applications on cloud computing platforms like Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), then write code to automatically scale applications and resources up and down … Continue Reading

Bill Gossman is social network Hi5's new chief executive

MySpace isn’t the only social network with a new chief executive — Hi5 has one, too. It’s Bill Gossman, a serial entrepreneur who most recently was the chief executive of behavioral ad-targeting company Revenue Science (since renamed to Audience Science).

Hi5 has had a turbulent couple of months, laying off nearly 40 percent of the staff in March after having failed — from what we’ve previously heard — to raise a new round of funding. … Continue Reading

5 best tutorials in product development

Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner is every week publishing a new video or podcast on entrepreurship with great entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, Larry Page, Google Founder or Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur.
Here is VentureBeat’s choice of the best tutorials in product development.

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf… Continue Reading

5 best Stanford tutorials in management

Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner is every week publishing a new video or podcast on entrepreurship with great entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, Larry Page Google Founder or Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur.
Here is VentureBeat’s choice of the best tutorials in management.

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf… Continue Reading

Joost: For sale, or just fortifying?

The buzz in the online vid biz is that Joost, a once touted video portal, might be headed for a buyout. After two years of going it alone, the company is rumored to be in talks with Time Warner Cable and satellite providers for a possible deal, reports CNet’s anonymous source.

Though this is still considered speculation (a Joost spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on rumors), it’s fair to say the company has seen … Continue Reading

SunPower lands solar panel deal as its earnings drop

SunPower has scored a deal to provide 600 megawatts-worth of solar panels and components to the FPL Group, the company that owned utility Florida Power and Light, over the next three years. This could not come at a better time for SunPower, which just announced a net loss of almost $5 million for the first quarter — down from the $12 million net gain reported last year at this time.

Whether this deal will be … Continue Reading

Triond finds way for B-list bloggers to make money

Not everyone can run a profitable blog. Of the 133 million blogs identified by Technorati last September, the majority were labors of love, not real businesses.

But Israeli startup Triond says it has figured out a way to enable more hobbyist bloggers to make a living as paid writers. The company has started a service that functions as a publisher and distributor for writers, a kind of middleman that is the equivalent of an old-world … Continue Reading

An experiment in using tech abroad

My first trip to Berlin this week was an experiment for me in using technology abroad. While road warriors can set up their gadgets for easy travel, I hadn’t done so before. My experience was pleasant, though not without some hiccups, and generally much better than I expected.

I was in Berlin to give a speech to game developers. Before the trip, I bought print travel guides to Berlin and checked out a history book … Continue Reading

TextsFromLastNight: Because what you shouldn't have said is hilarious

Mobile text messaging. We all do it — even more than we use Facebook and Twitter. And when we do it, we sometimes say things that we shouldn’t. Especially late at night when we’re not necessarily thinking clearly. And no, I’m not just speaking in the royal “we” here. You know who you are.

And now there’s a site for the best things that we all shouldn’t have said. It’s called TextsFromLastNight, it lets anyone … Continue Reading

Apple Store gets a little less shiny with loss of 1,600 "full-time equivalents"

Apple may have just announced an impressive second quarter earnings, but that doesn’t mean everything is going gangbusters. Revenue growth has slowed at Apple’s retail stores, and the Cupertino, Calif. company just revealed via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (spotted by CNET) that it has cut its retail workforce by 1,600 “full-time equivalents.”

Update: As Peter Kafka points out at MediaMemo, that term most probably means man-hours and not employees, per … Continue Reading

Exploit 'em while you can: Saving Captain Phillips game

Reality games have a rich tradition of picking up on current events and using interest in them to sell games. The latest to do so is Saving Captain Phillips, a game by Games2win based on the US Navy SEAL rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates.

Is it shameful or educational? That’s the question these sorts of games always get, whether it’s a simple flash game like this one or an expensive, high-end game … Continue Reading