Has AOL mothballed Userplane?
Userplane, a chat service for other web sites as well as an advertising network, sold to AOL for possibly up to $40 million in August of 2006. But reports from its clients — and sources I’ve spoken with — indicate that the service has been neglected if not abandoned by AOL.
A number of dating site owners, historically a core group of users, have been publicly griping for weeks that nobody at the company is … Continue Reading
Resistor Productions launches a bloody browser-based game for adults
There isn’t enough blood and guts in browser-based web games. That appears to be one reason that Resistor Productions has launched a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game for adults.
The San Francisco company launched its game, Disciple , to about 12,000 pre-registered users today. The idea is to provide a graphically appealing game without forcing users to download a lot of code before they start playing. In the fantasy world of the game, dubbed … Continue Reading
How to protect yourself from PowerPoint hackers
"Microsoft says hackers seek to attack PowerPoint users ," screams the headline from Reuters. Good news: Microsoft has already published a security update you can download and install. It plugs 14 holes in PowerPoint that could possibly allow remote control of a compromised PC. As far as anyone knows, only one of those 14 holes has been attacked, but the other 13 were potential problems.
The problem affects many versions of PowerPoint. Microsoft’s bulletin lists … Continue Reading
Jerry Bruckheimer's game studio signals games are still hot
Video games are officially cool. Jerry Bruckheimer has blessed them. And he’s serious about making high-quality games.
The famous Hollywood producer (Pirates of the Caribbean, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) has now launched a game studio in partnership with MTV and a couple of seasoned video game veterans, according to Variety .
Bruckheimer announced the foray into games 18 months ago, but now he has named his game producers: Jim Veevaert, a Microsoft game veteran who … Continue Reading
Reversing a five-quarter trend, AMD regains market share against Intel
Changes in quarterly market share for PC microprocessors don’t usually raise our eyebrows. But the first quarter results from market researcher IDC are interesting because Advanced Micro Devices has finally reversed five quarters worth of market share losses to Intel .
While the market share change is small, it can add up to a lot of dollars. AMD hit 25 percent market share a few years ago during the heyday of its Opteron server chips. … Continue Reading
T-Mobile stays focused on Android, not WM7 nor Symbian
Carrier T-Mobile isn’t just staying bullish about Android, it’s aiming to continue leading the commercialization of the Google-created mobile operating system. T-Mobile chief technology officer Cole Brodman outlined his vision for the evolution of Android as part of T-Mobile’s larger plans, in an extensive interview with Om Malik published earlier today. Having introduced the first Android-powered phone last fall — HTC’s G1 — Brodman says the company has a few more devices lined up, and … Continue Reading
Depeche Mode lets iPhone fans remix new album
The iDrum app for iPhone has been around for a while. But after Depeche Mode producer Ben Hillier used iDrum while working on new tracks for the band’s latest album, Sounds of the Universe, iDrum maker iZotope brought the story full-circle with iDrum: Depeche Mode Sounds of the Universe. The app lets non-musicians remix and recombine rhythm loops, synthesizer sounds and vocal snippets from the album any way they want. Think of it as … Continue Reading
Google throws real geeks a bone with More Text option
Who the hell invented the IMG tag? Google has given Neal Stephenson and his fans reason to rejoice today. Buried beneath a bunch of announcements about blah blah realtime search blah Twitter is a great new Google feature: More Text. Check out this pageful of bliss : A bunch of Star Trek reviews from the past 24 hours, with extra-long text summaries and NO PICTURES.
To use More Text, do a Google search. Then, on … Continue Reading
Overseas Craigslist rival OLX brings in $5M to fuel rapid growth
OLX, a self-styled Craigslist competitor that has gained traction abroad, announced that it’s raised $5 million in a third-round of capital to continue its expansion in 87 countries and 39 languages. It will use the money to improve its site and beef up its marketing efforts (though calling itself “the largest free classifieds site no one’s ever heard of” might not be the best strategy).
It’s likely that New York and Buenos Aires-based OLX will … Continue Reading
TweetMeme's latest Twitter search tools take on Scoopler, OneRiot
Hot on the heels of Scoopler’s Twitter search launch last week and Twitscoop’s relaunch this week, British competitor TweetMeme today launched a significantly enhanced set of Twitter search tools. TweetMeme is run by news aggregator Favorit.
The trick to using TweetMeme’s new features is to look at the right-hand side of the page, where your eyes are accustomed to avoiding ad banners. There are four tools for refining your search: Age, which will return results … Continue Reading
Stepping up graphics war, Intel invests $12 million in German research lab
If Intel is going to get anywhere chasing after the graphics chip business, it has to invest heavily in research and development. The world’s biggest chip maker took a step in that direction today as it announced it is investing $12 million in a new research center in Germany.
The investment will fund research over five years and represents Intel’s biggest collaboration with a university in Europe. The Intel Visual Computing Institute is at the … Continue Reading
Tour college campuses on the web with Unigo
Editor’s note: VentureBeat has started a new series called “Startup Spotlight.” Twice a month, we’ll sift through the scores of companies applying to be promoted in this series, and profile the best one. Companies can sign up here at the Entrepreneur Corner, which is currently sponsored by Microsoft. (Of course, we’re still interested in covering startup news and innovation in our day-to-day coverage.) Today, we kick it off the series with Unigo, below.
High school … Continue Reading
Sustainable Energy catches $7.6M for solar inverters
Sustainable Energy Technologies, provider of solar inverters, has brought in $7.6 million in private placement capital to take its newest product to market in Europe and North America. Based in Calgary, Canada, the company says this new model, called the SUNERGY II, converts sunlight to grid-ready electricity much more efficiently than other inverters used with parallel solar arrays.
Doughty Hanson led the recent round of funding with $4.5 million and will have the option to … Continue Reading
PlexPress raises $2.8M to enhance gene expression
PlexPress, maker of technology that can measure which genes are being expressed and how in a given environment, has raised $2.75 million in seed funding to commercialize its lead product, called TRAC. Based in Los Altos, Calif., the company says this offering could rapidly accelerate certain types of genetic research, including diagnostic studies and drug development. And because it simplifies laboratory procedures, it could even cut costs.
The round of funding came from Conor Technology … Continue Reading
Google Searchology: Search options, Google Squared and more
Google just completed today’s Searchology event, a “State of the Union” of sorts for its web search products. The first half of the event was a rehash of some of the features that are already live in Google search, with explanations of Google’s philosophy and development process, but things got more interesting later on, with the announcement of several new features. These aren’t just tweaks to the existing experience, either, but potentially powerful new ways … Continue Reading
Medialets gets $4 million for mobile ad, analytics service
Medialets, a combination mobile analytics and advertising service for developers, has aimed to bypass larger competitors by focusing on the innovation happening on the iPhone and Android devices. The plan has been working so far — and it has won the confidence of venture capitalists with a $4 million first round of funding from Foundry Group, DFJ Gotham and angel investor Bobby Yazdani.
The New York company provides software to developers, so they can track … Continue Reading
OneRiot lets you search for Spock in realtime
Social search — the ability to find what people are tweeting on Twitter or sharing on Facebook — is heating up. Last week Scoopler began offering near-realtime search of Web content shared by users on Twitter, Flickr, Digg, del.icio.us, and other social networks. Today, San Francisco-based OneRiot went live with its own high-speed search of the content being shared on social networks.
As seen in the results of a search for Spock, OneRiot returns not … Continue Reading
Google's mobile jihad: Support the web, but live with the app
Over the last year, it’s become clear that Google has a bigger mobile war on its hands than it had anticipated. Its principal antagonist is Apple’s sexy Apple iPhone, which has seriously disrupted Google’s ambitions to turn the mobile industry into a Web-based world.
With its iPhone and the App Store, Apple has suddenly made it easy for people to download and install mobile apps. Now other big players are scrambling to follow Apple’s lead: … Continue Reading
Mobile crunch time: Marketing company Velti acquires Ad Infuse
Velti, a global mobile marketing and advertising company, has acquired Ad Infuse, a Silicon Valley competitor, for an undisclosed amount — in a sign of early consolidation in the industry.
It also opens the door for a U.S. expansion by Velti, which so far hasn’t had a large presence here.
While mobile advertising is expanding, the recent economic slowdown is hitting the weaker players. Ad Infuse, which raised $18 million from venture firms Storm Ventures, … Continue Reading
Roundup: DFJ's fund target cut, VC cleantech shift, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Draper Fisher Jurvetson cuts target for its tenth fund — Back in November, we wondered why Silicon Valley venture capital firm DFJ was trying to raise $600 million for its latest fund in such a tough market. Now, the firm has reduced its target to $400 million. Also, it’s offering better terms to its investors, demanding carried interest of only 20 percent, instead of 25 percent, according to Private Equity Insider.… Continue Reading
