VentureBeat

VC spending increases, but mostly on existing companies – Here’s a different way to look at the survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association that VentureBeat writer Anthony Ha reported on earlier: Brand-new startups will find it harder than ever trying to raise capital. VC spending increased to $4.8 billion in the quarter that just ended, according to the survey. But the money is going to keeping existing companies afloat. New startups only received $633 million, the survey says. That’s a record low.

The New York Times adds that big spending at a few startups, mostly in green technologies like Solyndra, covered up for lower spending at other companies. The president of the National Venture Capital Association, Mark Heesen, told the Times, “Venture capitalists are becoming increasingly focused on industry sectors which require multiple rounds of financing for an extended time horizon.” For Internet startups, Twitter’s billion-dollar valuation and $100 million funding would have, in the past, set people’s expectations too high. But in 2009, entrepreneurs seem much smarter about the low chance of becoming another Twitter.

Sun Microsystems will cut up to 3,000 jobs, 10 percent of its staff – Holdups in Sun’s acquisition by Oracle have put pressure on the company to reduce its payroll. “The longer it takes for this deal to get approved, the worse it gets from a jobs perspective as competitors keep taking business from Sun,” an ISI Group analyst told Bloomberg today. Severance expenses will cost the company up to $125 million. The cuts will be compared to Oracle’s PeopleSoft Massacre of 2005, when 5,000 employees were let go, or its severance of 2,000 Siebel employees one week after acquiring the firm in 2006.

Firefox for mobile devices to be released soon — The mobile version of Firefox, named Fennec after a small nocturnal fox that lives in the Sahara desert, will soon be available for Android, Nokia and Windows smartphones, reports ReadWriteWeb.

Fennec will get a huge jump start in popularity from Firefox fans. But the browser is late to the game. Other browsers have already taken over a lot of the mobile market, at least in terms of buzz if not headcount. Skyfire supports Flash video. Opera Mobile is optimized for speed, particularly over slow network connections. These are the kinds of features for which people refuse to switch.

Barnes & Noble unveils its cute-but-doomed $259 Nook e-reader – The book industry continues to live on a different planet from the rest of the mainstream media. I’m sure the Nook works just fine, and did really well in pre-market tests. But there’s something stale about the whole affair. The first 10,000 buyers got a free copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. The book is nearly 10 years old. Can’t they find something fresher to bundle with the Nook? Or are they saying that nothing published since The Tipping Point has been as good? Many would agree.

[Photo: The New York Times]

Camera with built-in projector wows David Pogue, which is not easy — Nikon’s latest CoolPix camera has a tiny projector setup in it that will flash a 640-x-480 pixel image onto a nearby wall, up to 40 inches wide. Gadget guy David Pogue hauled the thing around to a few social events. He wasn’t crazy about the camera, but he praised its”gasp-inducing” projector:

“Everyone who sees this stunt is captivated by the possibilities. Whenever you want to show off the pictures or videos on your camera, there’s no need to transfer them to a computer or hunt for the TV cable; just aim the camera, set it on its little stand if you like, and maybe whip out the included remote control.

You can take pictures on a camping trip, far from computers or TV sets, and conduct on-the-spot slide shows. Take pictures at a party and immediately show them off. Load up a memory card with PowerPoint slides and carry your sales pitch in your pocket. It’s fantastic.”

Here’s a demo video from Nikon that shows how the CoolPix can be used to get girls to like you:

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