Response Logix captures $5.6M for car dealer lead gen

Response Logix, maker of software deigned to help car dealers catch and respond to online leads within ten minutes and offer reasonable quotes, has raised $5.6 million in a round of venture financing led by Emergence Capital Partners and including AH Belo, Belo, GRP Ventures and Shasta Ventures, reports Dow Jones VentureWire. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company also helps dealers keep in touch and follow up with their customers to improve their customer service … Continue Reading

Chevron follows the money, bats down climate bill

In a not so surprising turn of events, Chevron’s CEO heir apparent, John Watson, spoke out against U.S. climate change legislation — offering the party line argument that increasing regulation will jack up energy prices and let the air out of our barely buoyant economy. His is just one voice in a chorus of fossil fuel executives opposing the Kerry-Boxer bill pending in the Senate.

But what makes his voice interesting is how hard Chevron … Continue Reading

For Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, failure is an option

Silicon Valley is known the world over for its acceptance of failure as a rite of passage. Technology legends from Netscape founder Marc Andreessen to Apple founder Steve Jobs have all experience failure, revived their careers, and then gone on to change the world.

In other places, failure means disgrace. But according to futurist and Stanford engineering professor Paul Saffo, in the tech-obsessed valley, “the spires of success are built on the rubble of failure.”… Continue Reading

Mobile email app reMail gets a key addition: Multiple accounts

reMail, a startup incubated by Y Combinator, has already convinced many email junkies that it offers a better way to store and search their messages than Apple’s built-in iPhone app. The latest version, which just went live in the App Store, helps reMail stand heads and shoulders above the native email app. Now users can access multiple accounts, and search all of them from one box.

Before this, I liked the fact that reMail stores … Continue Reading

5 O'Clock Roundup: Nokia enters world's largest market, New York Times boss clams up on Apple tablet

Nokia launches 6788 phone with China Mobile – The world’s largest handset maker meets the world’s largest wireless carrier in the world’s largest market. The 6788 is Nokia’s first phone for TD-SCDMA networks, China’s proprietary standard for its largest network. Engadget has the parts rundown:

The handset itself brings a 2.8-inch QVGA display, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual-LED flash, 4GB of memory plus microSD expansion, GPS, 3.5mm headset jack, and Bluetooth … Continue Reading

Copenhagen may be a bust, and it's all the U.S. and E.U.'s fault

The much-hyped climate talks scheduled for Copenhagen in December may be a failure before they’ve even started, according to United Nations climate change guru, Janos Pasztor. The goal of the 11-day global conference is to produce a new climate treaty requiring all signing nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a set amount — much like the Kyoto Protocol back in 1997. But if political infighting continues in both the United States and European … Continue Reading

Is there a Rock Band game coming for The Who?

Roger Daltry, the lead singer of The Who, spilled the beans today that there’s a version of Rock Band coming that will be based on songs from his band.

In an interview with a newspaper, Daltry said of Rock Band, “The game, yeah, yeah, they’re going to be doing a Who one next year. There is one planned.”

That’s pretty clear. But it isn’t necessarily a confirmation. MTV Networks, Harmonix and Electronic Arts just launched … Continue Reading

Google released second version of Android mobile software tools

Google said today it is releasing its newest software tools for its Android operating system for smartphones in advance of Motorola’s launch of its Droid cell phone for Verizon Wireless.

The code-named Eclair version of Android has a number of improvements, such as support for multiple fingers controlling a touchscreen on a smart phone. Phones that use Android 2.0 will let users sync multiple e-mail accounts and contact address books. Users will also be able … Continue Reading

Facebook, Stanford ask — can social networking promote world peace?

Facebook and a Stanford University lab specializing in persuasive technology have launched http://peace.facebook.com, an experiment in social networking data with a warm, fuzzy premise: Can online friendships translate into greater collaboration and reduced conflict in the world?

The site is part of a broader PeaceDot Initiative, which is a volunteer-run, distributed movement to create peace sub-domains across the web. It’s meant to showcase new data-sets and new tools for creating peace. (Hat tip to commenter … Continue Reading

Obama puts full-court press on climate change foes

In the wake of its health care reform victory yesterday (the inclusion of a public option), the Obama administration today turned its attention to climate change — it’s other big campaign promise that has yet to come to fruition. While Energy Secretary Steven Chu lobbied for the Kerry-Boxer climate bill on Capitol Hill, president Obama unveiled $3.4 billion in grants for carbon-minimizing Smart Grid technology, and vice president Joe Biden promoted Fisker Automotive’s new plug-in … Continue Reading

Charge your iPod on the go with Neuber's "Sun Bags"

Ever have your iPod die on you right when you leave for a jog? Or realize your digital camera is out of juice during a perfect photo opp? Now two companies are harnessing the power of the sun to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Sports apparel retailer Neuber and unique solar panel maker Konarka have teamed up to make solar-powered “Sun Bags” that hold and charge personal electronics while you’re out and about.

The … Continue Reading

Cleantech execs pessimistic, nonchalant about cap-and-trade bill

Executives at major cleantech companies say that carbon trading legislation — namely the Kerry-Boxer climate bill pending in the U.S. Senate — would eventually infuse the country’s economy, even though the chief argument against it is that it would hike energy prices and damage the rebounding economy (see cartoon). That said, they are dubious that such a bill will pass anytime soon. Both these findings came out of a survey of industry leaders conducted by … Continue Reading

Cisco buys Web security company ScanSafe for $183M

Cisco has smartly acquired ScanSafe, maker of software-as-a-service Internet security tools, which means it can now tighten the integration between its own networking gear and ScanSafe’s defenses against malware and other attacks.

The $183M price for the company, founded in 2004, fits nicely into our Revenge of the South Bay theme even though ScanSafe’s offices are a block from VentureBeat in downtown San Francisco. Companies that make boring-but-utilitarian IT back end hardware and software are … Continue Reading

Plastic Logic to sell Que eBook reader in Barnes & Noble stores

Plastic Logic said today it will sell its novel plastic eBook reader in Barnes & Noble stores nationwide.

The deal is a coup for Plastic Logic, a startup that has figured out how to make electronic displays out of plastic. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company plans to launch its Que proReader, an eBook reader for business people, in early 2010.

For Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest book retailer, the deal is a chance to … Continue Reading

Reddit's co-founders move on to new pastures

Reddit co-founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian are leaving the crowd-sourced news service when their contracts end on Oct. 31.

The pair helped found the social news site four years ago, and it was a promising competitor to Digg but never got quite the same traction. So it went open-source last year, after being acquired by Conde Nast (the parent company to Wired) in 2006. Based in Boston and backed by YCombinator, the group moved … Continue Reading

Varicent secures $35M, second only to Facebook in IT funding for this quarter

Toronto-based Varicent Software, maker of software for sales performance management (SPM in industry jargon), has closed an impressive $35 million round of funding led by San Francisco-based FTV Capital. FTV also has an office in New York. Also participating are RBC Venture Partners, the Royal Bank of Canada’s investment arm and Edgestone Capital in Toronto.

The deal is the second largest privately funded IT investment so far this quarter, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Varicent … Continue Reading

California quietly passes first statewide Smart Grid law

Largely ignored by the national media, California passed the first statewide Smart Grid bill in the U.S. earlier this month, amid the flurry of renewable energy and efficiency legislation Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also signed.

Now enacted, Senate Bill 17, requires the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to develop an overarching plan for Smart Grid deployment — the installation of smart meters, data networks and other infrastructure for a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid by — … Continue Reading

Ten-year venture capital returns drop as boom years fade away

Venture capital firms can’t boast 10-year returns riding on the golden era of IPOs anymore.

Ten-year returns have fallen by more than half compared to a year ago as the late 1990s tech boom no longer gets included, according to the National Venture Capital Association. They fell to 14.3 percent for the 10-year period ending on June 30, from 33.9 percent a year earlier. Will we see the same effect for 15 or 20-year returns … Continue Reading

Obama gives utilities $3.4B jolt for Smart Grid roll out

Last week, we reported that a large federal infusion for the Smart Grid was coming down the pipe. And today, as predicted, president Barack Obama used his visit to Florida’s DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center to announce the distribution of $3.4 billion in stimulus grants to utilities working to build out a cleaner, more efficient Smart Grid. The sum is not only the largest amount ever invested in electrical grid improvements but is also … Continue Reading

Amazon expands its database products with the Relational Database Service

Amazon continues to expand the services and infrastructure it provides online. Early this morning, it announced that you can run a powerful database in Amazon’s cloud with its Relational Database Service (RDS).

The RDS should serve as an online alternative to buying and maintaining a database server such as those offered by Sun (which owns database company mySQL). The new service uses mySQL technology, so Amazon says it should be easy for developers to make … Continue Reading