Picasa adds face recognition, geotagging, albums
Picasa 3.5 is an update from Google to its photo collection software. It begs the question: If there’s anything big here, why isn’t it 4.0?
Name Tags are the feature Google wants you to notice this time. It seems dumb, but there’s a hook. Picasa wants to become your de facto address book. You’ll have to prime the pump by tagging individual people in your photo collection. But as shown here, it can pull photos … Continue Reading
Augmented reality browser Layar puts 3-D objects around you
Childhood fantasies of playing Pac-Man in the real world are about to be fulfilled.
Augmented reality browser Layar will let developers stick 3-D graphics and information onto your surroundings in a way that’s viewable from a phone this November.
The nascent field of augmented reality can make a phone’s viewfinder resemble Terminator-vision, with information overlays covering the area around a user.
Up until now, Layar, from Amsterdam-based SPRXMobile, has focused on more practical applications like … Continue Reading
DEMO: Hand Eye Technologies lets your mobile phone watch TV with you
We’ve already seen some limited uses of mobile phones to interact with television shows — such as American Idol voting via SMS text message. But a startup called Hand Eye Technologies takes things to the next level of interactivity and customization, with a software platform that allows mobile phones to interact with digital media in a number of ways. You can buy items you see on the television, search, and vote.
Hand Eye Technologies is … Continue Reading
DEMO: Emo Labs rethinks the home theater speaker
Emo Labs says it has developed a speaker that delivers great sound, despite the limited space in high-definition TVs. The company describes its speakers as “invisible” and “zero-footprint,” and says the experience is like hearing great stereo sound coming directly from the television display. It’s launching at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.
While on-stage, the company acknowledged that you can get great sound quality with external speakers, but those come with their … Continue Reading
DEMO: Enthusem.com combines printed greeting cards with web technology
Enthusem.com is a new website that lets users print out greetings cards that are connected to online content. For example, you could take a picture with your iPhone and turn it into a printed postcard in minutes, then add a link to your Twitter handle.
The company demonstrated creating a card onstage today at DEMOfall 09, the emerging technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. It was simple, as promised: You enter the name and address if … Continue Reading
DEMO: RadioWeave ties everything you like into a single Internet radio station
A company called YiqYaq is launching an online radio service called RadioWeave, which promises a new, 21st-century model for listening to the radio. Even when you listen to popular Internet radio services like Pandora, you’re listening to one radio station at a time. RadioWeave, on the other hand, mashes together all your favorite content into a single stream.
The Redwood City, Calif., company gathers radio channels from multiple sources and weaves them together into a … Continue Reading
Sungevity brings in $6M to bring satellite data to solar installation
Sungevity, a solar panel installer that uses satellite technology to determine size and placement of rooftop systems, has brought in $6 million and hired several new executives to fortify its business for the battle ahead. With more solar installers entering the field, each offering appealing financing and leasing plans for homeowners and businesses — SunRun, SolarCity and Borrego Solar, among them — the competition is heating up.
Incidentally, one of Sungevity’s new hires, Charles Ferer … Continue Reading
DEMO: Twirl TV lets you watch TV with your friends, virtually
Twirl TV has launched a new social TV web site for friends to share TV viewing experiences, even when they’re not together. The company, debuting at this week’s DEMOfall 09, is launching its browser gateway, which “brings the virtual living room to the YouTube on-demand generation via a four-foot social TV experience.”
Viewers create their own networks of primetime TV shows across many network web sites. On stage, Twirl TV showed the site, indicating how … Continue Reading
DEMO: Keen Systems lets printers take orders online
Commercial printers are feeling the pain as more and more paper-based businesses shift to doing business online.
Keen Systems provides an easy-to-use service that gets printers online so they can take orders over the web. The so-called “web to print” service lets them accept and inspect files from customers, manage communications, and handle things like billing, scheduling and shipping. The subscription-based on-demand service lets printers reduce costs, increase efficiency, and focus on their core business.… Continue Reading
DEMO: Social music player TuneWiki brings lyrics to your phone
Social music player TuneWiki debuted an updated version of its mobile app for Nokia phones that lets you bring lyrics to your music and browse popular songs from friends and around the world.
When you start playing music from your library, it sends the lyrics in sync with the song and can automatically translate them to your native language.
You can follow what your friends are playing or what they’ve played in the last hour … Continue Reading
DEMO: Zorap delivers video chat rooms where friends can hang out
Zorap delivers the next-generation consumer chat service, a video-chat “hang out” for friends and co-workers.
The system, unveiled at DEMOfall 09, is designed to deliver quality video and audio in lower-bandwidth environments that encourages long sessions times without penalizing users for doing so. You can create a room, invite friends, and play any sort of audio or visual media in the environment while you engage in live chat.
There’s lots of rivals, from Facebook to … Continue Reading
Vuclip raises $6M for mobile video search and delivery
Vuclip, a service that allows users to search for and call up videos on their mobile phones, has brought in $6 million in a second round of funding. Once it locates the video you want, it makes it play on a wide range of platforms and devices, regardless of encoding, in 20 seconds or less.
Based in Milpitas, Calif., the company is backed by Jafco Ventures and New Enterprise Associates. It raised $8 million in … Continue Reading
DEMO: Sarithi LocalMart lets small businesses handle e-commerce
Sarithi LocalMart helps local businesses and small retailers build a better e-commerce presence.
The company, which pitched today as part of DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat, created a peer-to-peer platform called Neuro. It says Neuro will help small businesses scale their online reach by letting them collaborate with each other to reach customers.
The Manchester, Connecticut-based company says it will make it easier for shoppers to connect with local businesses even when … Continue Reading
InSound raises capital to the tune of $2.8M to sell hearing aids
InSound Medical, a manufacturer of invisible hearing aids that can be worn for extended periods of time, has brought in $2.8 million of a targeted $4.5 million round of debt and rights, according to a filing with the SEC. Past investors in the Newark, Calif. company include the Stanford Group, CMEA Capital, De Novo Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Psilos Group, Sightline Partners and Gund Investment.
The company claims that its product, called the … Continue Reading
Chelsio bags $9.3M for Ethenet unified wire offerings
Chelsio Communications, a company that provides 10-gigabite Ethernet unified wires, has brought in $9.3 million of a targeted $16 million round of venture funding, according to a filing with the SEC. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company did not list its most recent investors, but in the past it’s been backed by Investor Growth Capital, New Enterprise Associates, INVESCO Private Capital, LSI Logic Corporation, Hotung Capital Management, Abacus Capital Group, Pacesetter Capital Group and Horizon Ventures. It … Continue Reading
DEMO: Social aggregator Digsby launches a more conversational client for Twitter
Digsby has offered software to help users manage their instant messaging, emails, and social networks all in one place for a while now. At this week’s DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat, it’s launching a Twitter client that gives the microblogging service a more conversational feel. It supposedly avoids the pitfalls of other Twitter clients, such as taking up to much screen space or becoming too complicated.
In its on-stage demo, the Digsby … Continue Reading
DEMO: I.ndigo's Dekks is a Twitter-like social app for business and education
I.ndigo is launching its Dekks social application for business and education customers. The software allows companies and their employees to build a knowledge network using a Twitter like approach to posting notes and rating answers.
The application, unveiling at this week’s DEMOfall 09, is built for employees to ask “who knows the answer” to work-related questions and then get answers back that they can share with the crowd. Of course, email can be used for … Continue Reading
PBWorks injects social networking into collaboration tools
PBWorks, a startup that provides collaboration tools to companies and organizations looking to complete projects with a lot of moving parts and remote workers, has updated its platform of offerings, which now includes user profiles (giving it more of a social-network feel), a micro-blogging feature, and email integration.
Before now, PBWorks provided a system for document sharing and general product management. It says social-networking features should help bring workers even closer together, speeding up project … Continue Reading
DEMO: Traackr delivers a who's who on the web for marketers
Inside social networks, blogs and Twitter is a veritable gold mine of information on who’s influential and how people distribute messages through a community.
Traackr wants to harness that by launching its “A-list” or “Authority List,” which can give you a list of the most influential people online for any given subject. It’s announcing the service today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.
If you’re a marketer or a public relations professional, … Continue Reading
DEMO: Rseven launches "lifecaching" service so you can examine your life in detail
Some people really want to know what they did in every waking moment, presumably to examine their past activities in full narcissistic glory. For those people, there is Rseven, a startup service being unveiled at this week’s Demofall09 conference. Rseven backs up everything on your mobile phone to a secure site so that you can restore it if necessary.
But it also offers “lifecaching.” That is, it lets you view a chronology of your phone … Continue Reading
