Jambool brings in-game payments system to Flash games

Online payments firm Jambool said today it is bringing its in-game payments system to games based on Adobe Flash. That means it will be easier to monetize thousands of Flash games built by indie developers for casual gamers on the web.

San Francisco-based Jambool makes Social Gold, a virtual currency and payments platform. Social Gold has taken off on Facebook, where players use it to pay for virtual goods in a wide variety of social … Continue Reading

Obama's climate focus continues with $2.2B in Treasury bonds for clean energy

Capping off a day dedicated to climate change issues, the Obama administration had one final announcement in store: The Treasury Department released news that it is allocating $2.2 billion in bonds to support the efforts of 805 small-scale clean and renewable energy projects across the country.

As part of the federal stimulus package, and the Energy Improvement and Extension Act passed last year, these Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) will be administered through public power … Continue Reading

Motorola's Droid phone will arrive on Nov. 6

Motorola and Verizon just released the official details of their upcoming Droid phone, the first to use Google’s Android 2.0 operating system. Most of the features were already known, but the announcement gives us a concrete launch date and price — the Droid will be available on Nov. 6, and will cost $$299 ($199 after a $100 rebate) if you sign a two-year Verizon contract.

The Droid is being marketed as the anti-iPhone via the … Continue Reading

ScanScout lands $8.5M second round

(Update: This story originally and incorrectly listed EDB as the sole investor in this round.)

A group of investors including EDB Investments in Singapore, Time Warner, General Catalyst Partners, and First Round Capital have committed $8.5 million to Boston-based video ad networking ScanScout, which delivers what they call “in-stream” ads that play as part of an online video content clip.

Not everyone seems to know this: There’s a sort of Silicon Alley for online advertising … Continue Reading

Intel and Numonyx report a breakthrough in new kind of memory chip

Intel and startup Numonyx said today they have accomplished a breakthrough in a new kind of memory chip that combines the best features of a variety of memory types. Numonyx (founded in 2000) has been working on something called “phase change memory” for years, with Intel as an investor, and the companies view it as a candidate for the ideal memory chip. But it seemed to be lost in an endless research cycle. Until now.… Continue Reading

Unity offers free tool for making cool 3-D browser-based games

Unity Technologies is announcing today that it will give away a free version of its increasingly popular game development platform that lets developers create 3-D games that work in a web browser.

The Unity platform, previously sold for $199 and named Unity Indie, will now be available for free to developers who generate less than $100,000 in revenue a year from games based on the tools, said David Helgason, chief executive of the San Francisco … Continue Reading

JukeFly re-launches personal online music player

Music services are popping up like daisies in October. Not Pirate Bay-style bootleg sites, but licensed services that let you listen to music without worring about being arrested. The latest is JukeFly, a San Jose-based startup originally launched last year, but now revamped to make online playing and sharing of personal playlists easy. The privately-funded company still only has 4 employees, all engineers.

I have trouble tracking the differences between JukeFly, blip.fm, GrooveShark, imeem, Facebook … Continue Reading

Nodality scores $3.5M for personal diagnostics

Nodality, a biotech company that makes diagnostics focused on cell pathways, has brought in $3.5 million of an expected $10 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in South San Francisco, its backers include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Maverick Capital and TPG Biotechnology.… Continue Reading

Augmented reality company Layar gets $1M boost, launches on Symbian

Layar, which has forged early leadership in the nascent but inspiring field of “augmented reality,” is about to finish raising a round of more than $1 million.

The Dutch company, which superimposes images and other data on top of a mobile phone browser, so that you can see things like how much a house costs simply by pointing your phone camera at it, will also distribute its technology on Symbian-Nokia phones, it announced today. Nokia … Continue Reading

Google announces turn-by-turn GPS navigation — for free

There’s a good chance you’ve driven with someone who’s bought a fancy GPS navigation system for their car that gives them voice directions for each turn as they drive. You may have purchased one of those systems yourself, or maybe you went for the $100 iPhone version from TomTom. Now Google says it’s releasing a version of Google Maps that does the same thing, and you won’t have to pay anything for it.

Google Maps … Continue Reading

More gamers are selling virtual goods

A new survey shows that not only are game players buying virtual goods, they’re also selling them in large numbers.

About 31 percent of the people who have bought virtual goods have also sold them. That means that virtual currency is gaining momentum, since any currency that is both bought and sold has more legitimacy in the eyes of its users.

The survey was conducted by market researcher VG Market and virtual goods platform maker … Continue Reading

Obopay moves into mobile payments for online games

Obopay, a mobile payment company funded by Nokia, is announcing today that it is moving into online games so that you can buy items in social network games using your mobile phone.

Obopay is one of a number of startups that make it easy to pay for services with a mobile phone. Users can mobilize their credit or debit cards by linking them to a mobile phone number. They can then pay for services by … Continue Reading

Did AMD's former CEO reveal confidential secrets in Galleon insider trading case?

Former Advanced Micro Devices chief executive Hector Ruiz allegedly shared confidential secrets about his company to a trader involved in the Galleon insider trading scandal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

If true, it’s a huge scandal that will stain the record of a statesman of the chip industry. Journalists started probing into the possibility after the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York alleged that an unnamed AMD executive shared secrets about the chip manufacturer … Continue Reading

AlertMe teams with Google, British Gas to give consumers more control over energy use

AlertMe is the newest energy monitoring device maker to partner with Google PowerMeter, giving homeowners more information and control over how much electricity they are using, and how much they pay for it. By providing hardware that plugs into your home’s traditional electric meter and your broadband connection, British-based AlertMe now makes power consumption data available on your internet browser via the Google PowerMeter interface — if you happen to live in the United Kingdom.… Continue Reading

Aruba's AirWave OnDemand offers network management in the cloud

Wireless networking company Aruba Networks is the latest business to adopt a software-as-a-service model. Today, it’s announcing AirWave OnDemand, an online service for monitoring your company’s network.

Bryan Wargo, general manager of Aruba’s AirWave division (Aruba acquired AirWave last year), said the demand for network management software — which lets users check the status of their wireless devices and spot problems — is growing beyond large, enterprise-scale companies, but many of the organizations “can’t necessarily … Continue Reading

Vdopia raises $4M Series A for high-clickthrough App Store ads

Nexus Venture Partners has invested $4 million in Vdopia, a San Jose-based company that serves video ads to iPhone users while their apps are downloading from the App Store.

Vdopia has developed a way to serve these videos in a format called “pre-app” that is perfect for placing a brand-reinforcing ad that accompanies the app. It’s a lot like watching Hulu. Watch the demo video here to see how it looks on the iPhone. Vdopia … Continue Reading

Mission Bay seals the deal on $7.5M bioscience fund

Mission Bay Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focusing on seed-stage investments in biotech companies spun out of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences and the University of California, announced that it closed its new fund, its first, at $7.5 millon.

Counting Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, John Wadsworth Jr. of Manitou Ventures, and Pfizer among its limited partners, the firm says it will be giving 20 percent of the profit it makes on … Continue Reading

RingCube boxes $211K to virtualize operating systems

RingCube Technologies, maker of operating system virtualization software that facilitates more portable computing, is offering $211,000 worth of rights and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Mountain View, Calif., the company is backed by Mohr Davidow Ventures and New Enterprise Associates. It last raised funds in 2007, bringing in $12 million. In 2006, it took in a first round of funding totaling $4 million.… Continue Reading

Dilithium lands $10.9M for wireless multimedia systems

Dilithium Networks, provider of converged video services for wireless internet and mobile applications, has brought in $10.9 million of an $18.1 million round of equity and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Petaluma, Calif., the company is backed by CM Capital Investments, Deutsche Bank, Infocomm Investments, Jafco Ventures, Motorola Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners. The company has now raised close to $44 million in capital to date, including $8 million bagged … Continue Reading