Practice Fusion funnels electronic health records to BioReference Labs

Practice Fusion, a major provider of electronic health record services announced a partnership today with BioReference Laboratories — one of the largest full-service laboratories in the U.S. The Practice Fusion system will allow physicians at BioReference to easily view, add information to, and redistribute patients’ health records.

The PracticeFusion platform allows doctors from various facilities and regions to continually update individual patients’ charts. It also allows them to prescribe medication over the internet, keep track … Continue Reading

Zoho Discussions launches as FriendFeed-forum hybrid to help groups track online conversations

After somewhat of a dry spell, Zoho has finally launched a new product: Zoho Discussions. Designed for companies and groups to carry on internal, time-lapse conversations, appears to be a combination of FriendFeed and traditional internet forums.

The simple interface lists all the topics on a particular forum, along with the name of the user that has added to the thread most recently and when. The topics are split among four main categories: Discussion, question, … Continue Reading

Social game Spymaster partners with Super Rewards to make money across platforms

Spymaster is a location-based game that has taken off in a viral way on Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone. To ensure that it monetizes its popularity, the company that makes the game, Irata Labs, has teamed up with Adknowledge‘s Super Rewards division to tie the games on the different platforms together.

It isn’t a huge deal by any means, but it’s a sign that there are ways to make money via social games on Twitter … Continue Reading

StudentAid.com offers deep reports to figure out college costs and student aid ahead of time

Online student advisor Rezolve is launching StudentAid.com today, a web site to help parents and students figure out how much college will cost them and what kind of student aid they can get.

That sounds pretty ordinary. College aid web sites seem like a dime a dozen. But Sacramento, Calif.-based Rezolve has done something special. It takes your income levels, school choices, and projected attendance dates to come up with custom calculations. The company will … Continue Reading

DEMOfall 09: Your guide to VentureBeat's coverage

We’re in the middle of DEMOfall 09 today in San Diego, where 56 tech companies will launch new products, and another 14 will give sneak peeks of the products that they’re working on.

This probably hasn’t escaped your notice, since VentureBeat’s front page is plastered with our stories about launching companies. Dean Takahashi, Kim-Mai Cutler, and I have each written in-depth posts about some of the launches, and we’re going to be covering many more … Continue Reading

DEMO: Nubli organizes your email inbox the way a good assistant would

Email overload seems like it’s only getting worse. Not only is 92 percent of actual email spam. But it’s easy to miss the important stuff among all of the less-critical stuff.

Nubli hopes to organize your inbox in a way that a good assistant would. It creates a virtual assistant that learns your priorities, preferences, and work flow habits. It is currently available for Microsoft Office 2003 and Office 2007. It is coming soon for … Continue Reading

DEMO: Liaise turns your emails into a to-do list

For a lot of people (like me), email has become the center of working life. The challenge, of course, is getting all that useful information out of your inbox. That’s where a startup called Liaise comes in — it looks at the contents of your emails, figures out which items require action, and turns those items into a to-do list.

The Sunnyvale, Calif. company is launching its service at DEMOfall 09 this week, the technology … Continue Reading

DEMO: Waze adds voice-driven turn-by-turn directions to its driving app

Waze, a mobile application that offers user-generated driving and traffic advice, is launching what it says is the first free, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation system. The Israel-based company also introduced availability on Windows Mobile and Symbian, adding to its previously existing availabilityon the iPhone and smart phones using the Android system (sorry, Blackberry users, looks like we’ll have to stick with BBMing friends ahead of us in the commute to find out about traffic: Waze is … Continue Reading

DEMO: Zuora says it has a bold plan to save journalism — subscriptions

Zuora has already signed up more than 100 customers for its online software, which helps companies automate subscriptions and billing. At the spring DEMO conference, it launched a subscription engine for Facebook applications. So what’s next? Saving journalism, apparently.

Many of you just rolled your eyes, I know. After all, everyone seems to have a scheme to save the newspaper industry. But co-founder and chief executive Tien Tzuo notes that most proposals, like Steve Brill’s … Continue Reading

DEMO: Kryon Systems says it's better than the Microsoft Paperclip

Remember that little guy?

Yes, him. The Microsoft Office Paperclip. Whatever your thoughts were on its decade-long existence — helpful, goofy or other strings of expletives — reserve them for a moment.

Tel Aviv-based Kryon Systems says it has developed a better version called LEO or “Learn, Evolve, Operate,” which not only answers questions but actually carries out the tasks needed to resolve them. The angel-funded startup’s product works on Windows-based applications.

Now this could … Continue Reading

DEMO: 80legs promises web crawling for the masses

In tech, it’s trendy to offer something “as a service” — to deliver it online, usually for a subscription fee. We’ve seen software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, data-as-a-service, and more. Now a startup called 80legs says it’s selling web crawling as a service.

Web crawling means browsing and indexing online content in an automated fashion. Its most prominent usage is in creating the databases for search engines like Google, but it’s important for anyone who wants to find … Continue Reading

DEMO: MyVocal lets you listen to your favorite content on your mobile phone

Turning on the radio is a simple way for commuters to listen to something. Digital options for listening to mobile content are usually more complicated than that. In the name of simplification, MyVocal will let you access high-quality audio versions of your favorite web content just by dialing the phone.

MyVocal, unveiling today at DEMOfall 09, makes it easy on both the listener and publisher. You can listen to your favorite podcasts, audio books, audio … Continue Reading

DEMO: Shake Tungle's iPhone app to find the best meeting time

Scheduling startup Tungle already has a web application to help people find the best time to meet. The problem is, I schedule a lot of meetings while I’m away from my computer, especially if I’m at a conference. That’s why the Quebec-based company is releasing an iPhone application.

Tungle is launching its iPhone app at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. The company says the app has the full functionality of its web … Continue Reading

DEMO: Piryx wants to be a payments platform for politics, non-profits

Piryx says PayPal’s not enough.

The Austin-based startup is a commerce platform for non-profits and political organizations and says there needs to be a company that focuses exclusively on the space. Like PayPal, the website is integrated with online banking software: when users sign up, they’ll enter in their bank account and routing numbers.

But it also provides a layer of services on top of that. The company says candidates, political action committees, donors, voters, … Continue Reading

DEMO: RumbaFish sets up social media campaigns for businesses

With eyeballs moving online and away from traditional media properties, it’s no surprise that a number of startups are competing to be go-to company for setting up interactive advertising campaigns.

RumbaFish is another one entering the pack today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. The Palo Alto-based startup says it provides an easy way to set up online campaigns involving contests and user-generated content, then update them with a single click.

The … Continue Reading

DEMO: NativeTung automates translation for business Web sites

Any business on the web today has to be prepared for a global audience. But translating content into foreign languages can be expensive for a small to medium-sized business and not all businesses have millions of invested users who are willing to translate it for them like Facebook.

That’s where NativeTung comes in. It’s a platform that automatically translates web sites and feeds back analytics. The Los Angeles-based startup is self-funded and will explain its … Continue Reading

Marketo raises third round for marketing automation solutions

Marketo, the software-as-a-service company offering marketing automation solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount in a third round of venture funding. Based in San Mateo, Calif., the company is backed by Mayfield Fund, among others.

Specifically, Marketo says it bridges software offerings that complement each other to help its customers optimize their marketing strategies. For example, many businesses use Google Analytics to understand web traffic, where it’s coming from and why, and tools from Salesforce.com to … Continue Reading

Seagate's self-encrypting drives protect systems from "smash and grab" thefts

Some thieves have figured out that stealing laptops is small beans compared to stealing storage racks or servers. These so-called “smash and grab” crimes threaten are taking their toll on companies that store customer records on site in servers and mass storage systems.

That’s why Seagate is rolling out its self-encrypting technology across a wider number of products and a broader distribution network today. This technology, dubbed the Seagate Secure Self-Encrypting Drive, can protect data … Continue Reading

Four million gamers celebrate: World of Warcraft back online in China

The paid version of World of Warcraft is now back online in China after more than three months of disrupted service. That should give the massively multiplayer online game’s four million Chinese fans a reason to celebrate. It should also prompt a sigh of relief at Activision Blizzard, which is heavily dependent on the game for its profits.

WoW was offline since June 7, when Activision Blizzard’s Blizzard Entertainment division began what should have been … Continue Reading