Bill would give President emergency control of Internet in his dreams

West Virginia Senator John Davidson “Jay” Rockefeller IV — the Democratic great-grandson of oil mogul John D. Rockefeller — has been said to be working for months on a draft of S. 773, a bill whose stated goal is “to ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications … Continue Reading

Yahoo SearchMonkey keeps chugging as Bing looms

Since last month’s announcement that Microsoft’s Bing search engine will be powering Yahoo search, it’s unclear how exactly Yahoo’s search technology will transform, especially since the switch won’t happen until the technical details get worked out and federal regulatory agencies approve the deal. But despite the uncertainty, Yahoo’s search team soldiers on, announcing small improvements. Case in point: Yahoo just launched new features for SearchMonkey, its program for websites to provide richer search results.

Previously, … Continue Reading

Chinese wireless carriers, profits falling, cut deals to sell smartphones

The sales slump that’s undermined U.S. and European carriers finally made its way to China this past quarter. The world’s largest wireless carrier, China Mobile, reported its first drop in profits since 1999 last week. Yesterday, the country’s second and third largest carriers, China Unicom and China Telecom, also reported slumping business. China Telecom reported a 29 percent drop in net revenue and warned that its profitability date may be postponed by up to a … Continue Reading

Austrian startup Mobilizy unveils augmented reality driving directions

Austrian startup, Mobilizy, released a navigation system today as an experiment to see if augmented reality can work with driving directions. (Augmented reality involves superimposing data and information over the real world viewed through your phone’s viewfinder.)

The idea of using augmented reality in navigation isn’t new. The military has long used it to guide fighter pilots and identify targets, but GPS-enabled smartphones with accelerometers have finally made commercial applications feasible.

Mobilizy’s program, called Wikitude … Continue Reading

Think secures $47M, will begin making electric cars again soon

Think, the Norwegian maker of cute, recyclable electric cars, suspended production last December after running out of money. But the company has emerged from court-protected bankruptcy with its debt restructured and $47M in new funding led by U.S. firm Ener1, Finnish Valmet Automotive and Norway’s Investinor.

“This means we can re-start production of the TH!NK City as soon as possible,” CEO Richard Canny said in a prepared statement. Besides its creative use of uppercase and … Continue Reading

Intel boosts its estimates for third quarter as consumers buy computers again

Intel said today it was raising its third quarter revenue and gross profit margin guidance because it has seen stronger than expected demand for microprocessors and chip sets. Those components are used in personal computers, and Intel’s announcement suggests that both computer makers and consumers are bullish about buying again.

Intel had set its revenue guidance at a conservative $8.5 billion, plus or minus $400 million during its last quarterly call in July. Now it … Continue Reading

Emerging trends in the future of technology

While the plethora of tech companies might make some entrepreneurs fear that the field is closed to them, Steve Ballmer says the field is still wide open. In an entrepreneur thought leader lecture given at Stanford University earlier this year, the Microsoft CEO said the dynamic nature of tech means the players are always changing – and there are a lot of areas, such as human-computer interaction, that haven’t been tapped.

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

OpSource launches virtual private cloud, says it's better than Amazon's

OpSource just announced a new product called the OpSource Cloud, which it says will provide the benefits of cloud computing — where the computing takes place remotely, on someone else’s infrastructure — without sacrificing the control and security of traditional IT. Amazon made a similar announcement yesterday, but the startup’s chief executive Treb Ryan claims the OpSource Cloud goes further in addressing the needs of large, enterprise-scale companies.

Basically, OpSource allows a company to create … Continue Reading

Roundup: Dell up, phishing down, App Store forecasts all around

Dell beats forecasts, boosting stock despite loss in profits — The company reported revenue of $12.9 billion net income of $472 million, 24 cents a share, a 23 percent decline from last year’s $616 million net from $16.4 billion in revenue.  That’s 28 cents per share excluding costs associated with an in-process restructuring. Analysts had forecast $12.6B revenue and 23 cents per share earnings. Dell’s stock price jumped to $15.65 just before the close of … Continue Reading

Music blogging network MOG raises $5 million

MOG raised another $5 million to build out editorial content and advertising on its music blogging network.

Through its main site and all of its blogs, the company says it reaches at least 8 million unique visitors a month and has signed up advertisers like Nike, Procter & Gamble and LG. MOG’s business model is like Glam Media’s approach: the company builds up advertising relationships for hundreds of blogs that are tightly focused on a … Continue Reading

Real-time search engine OneRiot rakes in $7 million

Real-time search engine OneRiot has raked in another $7 million in funding from existing investors Appian Ventures, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, and Spark Capital.

That brings the Boulder, Colorado-based company’s total financing to $27 million.

“It made sense for all of us to do this right now,” said Tobias Peggs, the company’s general manager, in an interview. “There’s an increasing and significant demand for real-time search results. This is a vote of confidence from our existing … Continue Reading

Game industry's lobby group crushes its opposition on anti-game laws

The Entertainment Software Association has had a pretty good year zapping its opponents on video-game violence laws, based on the annual report released today for 2009 fiscal year that ended March 31.

The game industry’s lobbying group managed to win legal battles in almost every state where lawmakers tried to introduce bills that made it a crime to sell mature-rated violent games to minors. The ESA fought 43 bills aimed at regulating content or controlling … Continue Reading

isocket raises $2M for self-serve advertising

isocket, which has created a commission-free platform for selling online ads, has raised $2 million in seed funding from a group of big-name investors. The round was led by Tim Draper at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, while the other VCs participating including David Blumberg of Blumberg Capital, Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, and Dave McClure of Founders Fund.

The Mountain View, Calif. company (the two-man team recently moved out here from the Midwest) says its technology … Continue Reading

Pogue: Snow Leopard crashes Word, Photoshop, printer

New York Times gadget guru David Pogue wrote in his review of Apple’s brand new operating system, Snow Leopard, that he experienced “frustrating glitches” with several applications and parts of the user interface. We asked him to stretch it out a bit and tell us what exactly the glitches were. The glitches turn out to be Windows-grade failures that could stop you from doing your job.

Hey Paul!

It’s very difficult to say whether my … Continue Reading

Which video game console should you buy?

Now that the seasonal price cuts have finally arrived for video game consoles, the console makers are positioned for the fall selling season. The question for gamers is which console is the best bargain.

I still use the Xbox 360 more than any other game system, even though it has had the worst history with reliability. The answer comes down to your taste in games, how much you play, your budget and who else in … Continue Reading

Facebook's latest iPhone app is out now in Apple's store

Apple finally approved the latest version of Facebook’s iPhone app, which pulls in broader functionality from the Web.

You can upload videos and photos and RSVP to events. The news feed is closer to what you’d see on Facebook’s site and you can “like” posts or photos. When looking at other people’s profiles, you can see mutual friends and make friend requests. There is also a built-in web browser for shared links.

The app doesn’t … Continue Reading

Yelp's augmented reality app is an iPhone first, but still needs improvement

Yelp, the social review site, is claiming to have “the first Augmented Reality app specifically for the U.S. in the iTunes App Store.” By augmented reality, Yelp means that the app displays markers for restaurants, stores and other locations of interest right on top of the live view through the iPhone’s camera lens. Internet content firehose Robert Scoble touted the app — you need to shake it to turn it on — on FriendFeed earlier … Continue Reading

Apple approves Spotify's music service app for iPhone

Popular European music streaming service Spotify has, after weeks of delay, been approved by Apple for the iPhone App Store.  Spotify, whom many industry watchers consider a direct challenger to Apple’s iTunes, has been showing off its app although Apple’s reviewers had not yet approved it as a downloadable iPhone application. That roadblock has been cleared.

“The current status as of right now is it’s been approved and we hope to add the app to … Continue Reading