DEMO: Hashwork hooks companies up to Twitter

Employees are lukewarm about using internally-developed Twitter-like tools in the enterprise. So Hashwork has created a business tool that brings externally developed social networking tools, including Twitter itself, into the enterprise for work purposes.

The New York-based company, which is launching at DEMOfall 09, provides a social presence on the web for a company and its community of employees, customers, prospects and partners. It integrates Twitter into work by letting people work socially with their … Continue Reading

DEMO: Symform trades you cloud storage for your hard disk space

The cost of providing storage in the data center cloud isn’t as cheap as you might think. That’s why it can cost a small business $500 a month to backup its computers.

Why is that cost so high for storing a terabyte of data, when a terabyte hard drive costs no more than $100? Symform, unveiling at this week’s DEMOfall 09 conference, has figured out how to keep the costs of cloud-based storage low — … Continue Reading

Social gaming firm SGN hires some big guns from video game industry

In the midst of a rapid expansion, SGN is announcing today that it has hired a number of managers from prominent video game companies, including a new No. 2 executive.

The social gaming company, which makes games for the iPhone and Facebook, hired Randy Breen as its chief operating officer. Breen previously served as an executive at game startup Emotiv Systems. He also held positions at George Lucas’ game studio LucasArts and Electronic Arts. He … Continue Reading

Dell and Alienware launch sleek, powerful computers for the fall season

Dell and its Alienware game computer division are unveiling computers today that are meant for the hard-charging enthusiasts who want to play a lot of games and watch a lot of high-definition video on their computers.

Today, Alienware is announcing two new gaming desktop computers and a new gaming laptop that will use the latest Intel chips. The machines will ship in October in time for the launch of Windows 7 on Oct. 22.

The … Continue Reading

Could Google Sidewiki finally make website markup popular?

It’s an idea that’s been done before: Let people write notes about websites they visit, and then share those notes with others. Diigo has been doing it for years.

[Update: Google's reply to my email is included below.]

Google Sidewiki is different — it has the world’s biggest brand behind it. People who’ve never heard of Diigo will give Google a spin.

Sidewiki basically adds user comments to every page on the Internet, with Google … Continue Reading

Siemens, Silver Spring announce Smart Grid interoperability

Interoperability is the elephant in the room that is the Smart Grid industry. As large companies, startups and utilities alike strive to create a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid — deploying new technologies wherever they can — it is becoming increasingly important for their devices and networks to be able to communicate and work together. Toward that end, leading smart meter and wireless networking provider Silver Spring Networks announced that its equipment can now integrate … Continue Reading

DEMO: LeapFILE promises faster, easier file-sharing

A startup called LeapFILE says it has developed a product to ease the pain of anyone who has struggled with business file-sharing. Instead of waiting for files to upload and download, or worry about whether you’re working on an obsolete draft, everyone on the team gets a LeapFILE folder on their computer desktop. Files are updated in real-time, and propagated to each user who has “subscribed.”

From the user’s perspective, it’s hard for me to … Continue Reading

DEMO: TrafficTalk delivers real-time traffic data to your phone in audio format

It isn’t easy to deliver real-time traffic information to someone driving a car. For one, it’s not that safe to have the driver constantly looking at a map on a phone or a GPS device. So a startup called TrafficTalk is delivering traffic reports to your phone in an audio format.

All you have to do is listen via your Bluetooth headset or speaker phone to traffic reports that are read aloud to you. That’s … Continue Reading

DEMO: Answers.com adds wiki features to its Q&A service

The new version of question-and-answer site Answers.com tries to bridge the worlds of professional reference works and user-generated content. It combines more than 250 licensed reference source with community, discussion and a user-edited database of more than 5 million answers. Anyone can answer, edit, or collaborate on answers in thousands of categories.

The team demonstrated the new site on stage at this week’s DEMOfall 09, the technology conference co-produced by VentureBeat. The interface was pretty … Continue Reading

GeoVector lets smartphone users "click on the real world" to get info

GeoVector, one of many companies capitalizing on GPS technology to provide location-based information on mobile phones, has launched a new directional search and point application for the smart phone market called World Surfer.

Functional only on compass- and GPS-enabled smartphones, the application basically lets users point their phones in particular directions to search for things from restaurants to grocery stores to clothes retailers.

Let’s say you are walking down the street and pass an H&M … Continue Reading

TargetCast buys Ripple Networks for out-of-home TV advertising

TargetCast Networks, an agency that provides different types of digital advertising in out-of-home environments like restaurants, gyms and malls, has acquired Ripple Networks, a company that manages a web of television screens in these types of locations across the country — primarily Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Juice It Up franchises.

San Ramon, Calif.-based TargetCast says Ripple’s network of screens could generate as many as 3.9 million impressions every week. The idea is to … Continue Reading

Permuto launches platform to track performance of display ads

Permuto, an online marketing company seeking to optimize display advertising for its client brands, has launched a new platform that measures the performance of this type of ad with the same precision that most search engine text-ads are evaluated. Called, ShopperConnect, the platform is targeted at web-based retailers, promising to collect purchasing data, provide dazzling ads, buy ad space and calculate browsers’ responses to the ads.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Permuto says its new … Continue Reading

Altius lands $8M to launch accredited online colleges

Altius Education, a company that partners with real junior colleges and universities to run a cost-effective, accredited online degree program, has brought in $8 million in a first round of funding.

Recognizing the need to provide access to areas of study being trimmed from budgets, especially at the community college level, Altius launched Ivy Bridge College in 2007 — with help from Tiffin University in Ohio. The web site gives enrolled students a more affordable … Continue Reading

Nokeena Networks renames itself Ankeena Networks

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nokeena Networks, a company that serves online video content at large scales and television quality, has changed its name to Ankeena Networks to avoid a trademark dispute, reports the San Jose Business Journal. No other details were provided except that the new name is the Hindi word for “eyes” — symbolic of the sights it gives its customer base, the company says.

The company has raised $15.2 million to date from Clearstone … Continue Reading

Tokoni gives marketers social networking tools to build customer loyalty

Tokoni launched its new Community Platform today, providing companies with the tools they need to create branded social networks and online communities for their customers. The Cupertino, Calif. company says that providing consumers with a social, interactive channel to offer feedback will inspire greater brand loyalty and eventually hike sales.

Tokoni’s Community Platform provides features that allow customers to share their experiences with particular companies and products with confidence that their voices will be heard … Continue Reading

Envia nabs $7.1M for automotive lithium-ion batteries

EnVia Systems, a supplier of lithium-ion batteries for hybrid and fully electric cars has brought in $7.1 million of a targeted $7.7 million round of equity and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Hayward, Calif., the company did not list its most recent investors — though it has named Bay Partners and Redpoint Ventures in the past.

The company’s stated goal is to produce lighter and more affordable battery packs to … Continue Reading

Energy Dept., Treasury announce $550M more in grants for green energy projects

Today, Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and Energy secretary Stephen Chu joined forces to announce $550 million more in cash awards for 25 cleantech energy projects and companies under the banner of the U.S. stimulus package. So far, the government has provided more than $1 billion in financing to jumpstart the sector, which took a hit in private investment following the economic downturn.

The primary goal behind the money is of course to create new green-collar … Continue Reading

Unchallenged by Nvidia, AMD makes the world's most powerful graphics chips — and it ships them too

Advanced Micro Devices has the world’s most powerful graphics chip. There haven’t been that many product launches in the past where the company could say that. Today, the company is announcing that its ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics chips will be the fastest ever created. And they’re available to buy now in new PCs you can order today.

Nvidia could challenge that statement, which comes from AMD’s graphics chief Rick Bergman. But it … Continue Reading

Nasdaq OMX, Clean Edge launch Smart Grid index

The Nasdaq OMX Group has teamed up with cleantech publishing firm Clean Edge to launch a new Smart Grid Infrastructure Index to track companies working toward a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid from meter makers to storage and demand response providers.

In order to access this information, users must go through Nasdaq OMX Global Index Watch. The site has over 2,000 indexes tracking companies across all categories.

The index is intended to attract more attention … Continue Reading