DEMO: Emo Labs and Liaise win $1M media prize

Two companies have been selected as winners of this week’s DEMOfall 09 conference and will receive a total of $1 million in free advertising. (That’s $500,000 each.) The winner on the consumer side was Emo Labs, which developed a speaker that delivers great sound, despite the limited space in high-definition TVs. The enterprise winner was Liaise, which makes email more useful by looking at the contents of your inbox, figuring out which items require action, … Continue Reading

5 O'Clock Roundup: Korean iPhones, free Wi-Fi for cellphones, Google's world domination plan exposed

Google’s plot to centralize all Internet discussions is exposed by a guy who used to write for TV Guide — I’m serious. Jeff Jarvis spotted the difference between Google’s new Sidewiki and its search engine, because that’s what he does for a living:

Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it. This isn’t like Disqus, which enables me to add comment functionality on my blog. It takes comments away from … Continue Reading

Finally, an app store for Twitter from Oneforty

For Twitter newbies and pros alike, a wealth of apps have cropped up over the past year with scarcely any way to search through and elevate the best of the pack.

So Twitter for Dummies author Laura Fitton is launching oneforty today, a store for third-party applications. Users can tag, sort and review a little over 1,300 apps while each application gets its own page where people can add comments and screenshots. Because so many … Continue Reading

DEMO: Gogrok uses voice for better document collaboration

Gogrok is launching a better way to work with others on documents — not only are you able to co-edit a document in real-time, but you can also annotate it and chat with your collaborators using instant messaging and phone calls using voice over IP. That means disputes and confusion can be resolved much more quickly.

Gogrok is launching at today’s DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. The company says you can share … Continue Reading

DEMO: ePulze uses sentiment analysis to build better advertising

A company called ePulze has created a search engine that monitors public opinion and sentiment as expressed in the news and elsewhere online. The company has developed this technology specifically for advertisers, so that brands can change advertising campaigns as needed if public perception shifts.

EPulze is launching today at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. Judging from the presentation on-stage, it’s easy to use — you can enter one brand, or two … Continue Reading

DEMO: Burt launches Rich to deliver rich data on ad campaigns

Advertising software company Burt is launching a new analytics service called Rich. The service breaks down all its data into a single report page, which the company says is tailored to the needs of creative agencies. It’s supposed to answer questions like, “How long was the ad visible?” and “Did people actually notice it?”

The company launched Rich today at DEMOfall 09, the emerging technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. Like any good analytics service, it … Continue Reading

Former AMD chairman blasts Intel for its antitrust stance

Hector Ruiz, the former chairman of Advanced Micro Devices, has been out of the limelight lately. He was never shy about criticizing Intel for alleged anticompetitive behavior, but Now he has penned an editorial blasting Intel for its reaction to the European Commission’s release of evidence that backed up the EC’s decision to fine Intel $1.45 billion in May.

During Ruiz’s reign as AMD chief executive, from 2004 to 2008, AMD made gains against the … Continue Reading

DEMO: CallSpark gives salespeople data to make smarter phone calls

Ever feel like you were making a sales call that you didn’t have enough information for? CallSpark says it can help, by integrating data from Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce.com, Whitepages, and more. So before and during a sales call, you can see the latest social updates from your client, and then update their status in your customer relationship management (CRM) service afterwards.

This isn’t just for salespeople, though. Callspark also gives you a much wider selection … Continue Reading

A123Systems is ready for its close up — preps for tomorrow's IPO

A123Systems is the name on everyone’s lips today as the most gabbed-about IPO of the week — maybe even of the last few months — preps to go live on the Nasdaq tomorrow morning as AONE. The Watertown, Mass., company made news yesterday, hiking its share prices. And today, industry analysts are stepping back, looking at what the sale might mean for other advanced energy storage companies hoping to follow suit.

A123 is of particular … Continue Reading

New startup, Goby, finds niche in the travel market

Goby, a new startup based in Boston doesn’t consider itself just another travel site. Rather than offering plane tickets and hotel rooms, Goby’s selling point is that it pulls together listings of events, attractions, and such at your target destination, based on your target dates. Here’s their walkthrough:

Goby poses three questions: What, Where and When. By answering just two of these in any combination, users instantly receive an easy-to-read results page. It includes detailed … Continue Reading

Nokia to buy travel social network Dopplr

Nokia has acquired Dopplr, a London-based social network focused on traveling, TechCrunch reports, based on information reportedly passed on by an anonymous source close to the deal. The deal continues Nokia’s fierce acquisition strategy, which has already rolled up small companies like Plum, Bit-Side and Cellity just in the last year.

Clearly, neither of the companies involved have confirmed the financial terms of the deal, however the TechCrunch post estimates the purchase price at 10 … Continue Reading

DEMO: Glam Media's Tinker.com connects advertisers to real-time conversations

Advertising company Glam Media is launching Tinker.com, an application that helps advertisers engage with the real-time conversations on social services like Facebook and Twitter. It showed off the new application at the DEMOfall 09 conference today.

Not only does Tinker.com help advertisers search and browse conversations on those sites, it lets them create their own topics and events. The goal is to give them a broader picture of the conversation, rather than getting mired in … Continue Reading

DEMO: OrganIP hopes to make phone numbers a thing of the past

A new service called OrganIP makess it possible to speak anyone’s name and call them using voice over IP technology. A company called Digitrad developed the service by combining its Yes.tel unified identity technology and its messaging services — just as OrganIP says it wants to destroy the business card with Yes.tel, it now says you may never have to remember a phone number again.

OrganIP can connect your calls using online communities or social … Continue Reading

DEMO: Faculte makes it easy to produce high-quality business videos

Faculte is launching a product called Broadcast Studio that should make it easier for business professionals who aren’t experts in video to create video broadcasts. These broadcasts can include video, images, audio, narration, annotation, and webcam recordings. The company is launching at DEMOfall 09, the emerging technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat, and DEMO executive producer Chris Shipley says Faculte could do for business video what presentation software did for business presentations — make it easy … Continue Reading

DEMO: Pho.to's a basic version of Photoshop on the web

Adobe Photoshop has been a must-have editing tool for almost two decades. But with photos moving to the cloud on sites like Facebook and Flickr, VicMan Software says there’s a room for a web-based competitor.

They showed off Pho.to, an online photo editing service, at DEMOFall 09 today, an emerging technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. It can get rid of red-eye, enhance color and cut out your face and stick it into Rambo photos (like … Continue Reading

DEMO: Numenta and Vitamin D want to bring us out of 'the dark ages of computer video'

Numenta and Vitamin D both showed off cool new technology at today’s DEMOfall 09 conference that makes video footage “smarter.”

Numenta is the new(er) company from the co-founders of Palm Technologies. Since launching four years ago, the company has been building a platform around a new model of processing data, starting with video. Specifically, it demonstrated technology that can “learn” to distinguish between different types of visual data.

While on stage, Numenta created an application … Continue Reading

DEMO: Dotgo browses the web through text messaging

Dotgo is a service that lets you pull information from Web sites through text messages, that launched at DEMOfall 09, an emerging technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat.

Users can text Dotgo’s shortcode, or a special phone number designed to facilitate SMS messages, at 368266 (which is ‘DOTCOM’ on a phone keypad) and the name of whatever service they’re interested in like ‘GOOGLE’ or ‘WEATHER’. In return, they’ll receive a text message with a feed of … Continue Reading

Real-time search engine OneRiot courts developers

Real-time search is a fast-growing area that digs up results based on what people are saying or publishing right now. Companies like OneRiot, Topsy and Scoopler scour through sources like Twitter, Digg and Flickr to find out what users are sharing at the moment.

Boulder, Colorado-based OneRiot is one of many real-time search startups, and it’s launching a Developer Network today that builds off the release of its application programming interface (API) in July. It … Continue Reading

DEMO: GuruStorms crowdsources ideas from experts

GuruStorms helps businesses crowdsource ideas and offers rewards of up to $5,000 for responses from highly specialized experts. The company is launching at this week’s DEMOfall 09 conference.

Here’s how it works: A business sets up a challenge, and recognized experts respond, offering their best ideas. The person who created the challenge then picks the best three ideas, allowing their creators to share the reward.

The company faces competitors like InnoCentive, which sets up research … Continue Reading

DEMO: Anaplan helps businesses connect their applications

Anaplan offers a range of online applications that it says will make it faster for you collaborate and work on business data. It uses “snap plug-and-play” architecture to automatically connect applications. Its tools include revenue, sales, and cash forecasts; project plans; employee management; budgets; and demand plans. Pricing starts at $49 per month for three users.

The company is launching at DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. During its presentation, Anaplan compared its … Continue Reading