Placecast lands $5M more for location-triggered mobile advertisements

San Francisco’s 1020 Placecast, a company working on new mobile advertising technology, said today it raised $5 million in more funding to continue developing its opt-in location-triggered ad service.

Placecast, which previously raised $4 million, pushes advertisements from major brands to the consumer’s phone depending on their physical location, but allows users to opt-in to the system. Here’s a scenario: You’re shopping and have opted in to receive advertisement alerts from your favorite store, say … Continue Reading

Boston Millennia’s Callow on the state of the VC industry

(Editor’s note: This is a truncated version of an interview that originally ran on VCExperts.com)

Dana Callow is the Managing Partner of Boston Millennia Partners.  Prior to founding Boston Millennia Partners, Dana co-founded Boston Capital Ventures.  In addition to working with Fortune 100 companies in strategic planning and implementing M&A strategies, Dana is, or has served as, a director of a number of other public and private companies.

Some have recently argued that the venture … Continue Reading

Gravity Bear unveils its first social fighting game on Facebook

Game startup Gravity Bear is unveiling its first original game for Facebook today. Battle Punks is a “3-D social game” that will debut this holiday season.

The game is set in a variety of fantasy locations, combining in-depth game design with social networking. As such, it’s one of a new generation of Facebook games that aims to deliver a better experience than the simpler two-dimensional games such as FarmVille that dominate Facebook today. Players create … Continue Reading

Amimon creates wireless networks to connect PCs and TVs

Chip maker Amimon is announcing today that it has created wireless modules that can connect computers and high-definition TVs so that consumers can effortlessly watch PC content on their TVs.

The devices could make it a lot easier to watch PC-based Internet videos, flash media, digital photos and games on a TV. Based on the Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) wireless standard, the new chips can be embedded into notebook computers or netbooks, which are … Continue Reading

Profitable Paltalk acquires Vumber for phone number privacy services

Paltalk, the profitable chat startup that bought back its own stock earlier this year, acquired Vumber to offer phone number privacy services today. They didn’t disclose the acquisition price — but Vumber had 3,000 paying subscribers and a monthly rate of $9.95 per month.

Vumber gives you an extra number for your phone in case you want to keep your real one private. It’s a service you could use for dating or if you’re a … Continue Reading

IBM moves closer to creating chips based on the brain

IBM said today that it has made significant progress toward developing a computer that simulates and emulates the brain’s abilities to sense, perceive, interact, and recognize.

The computer does this by imitating the brain’s low-power energy consumption and compact size, and it has an intelligence level that approaches the smarts of a cat. Big Blue will announce the development at the SC 09 supercomputer conference in Portland, Ore.

IBM Research’s cognitive computing team has made … Continue Reading

Chile's Austral Capital to help Latin American startups reach the US — and vice versa

Santiago, Chile-based Austral Capital is one of a growing number of Latin American VC firms making names for themselves. Thanks to aggressive support from the Chilean government, the less than two-year old company has funded several Chilean start-ups, including Atakama Labs, which I wrote about earlier today. And it’s also moved quickly to set up an office in Silicon Valley and hired Hiroshi Wald to run the show. Wald (pictured) said Austral’s Silicon Valley mission … Continue Reading

Norwest Venture Partners raises $1.2B fund

Norwest Venture Partners, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that has invested in companies from Rackspace to Peoplesoft, has raised a new fund of $1.2 billion.

It is the eleventh fund in the firm’s history, and its largest.

Managing partner Promod Haque says the new money will help the firm expand — in terms of geography, industry, and the type of deal it gets involved with. The fund is so much larger than Norwest’s $650 … Continue Reading

5 O'Clock Roundup: Moving into a networked era, Tumblr envy, Open Web

Watch out Lexis-Nexis and WestLaw! Google’s coming: You can now read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts with Google Scholar. Expect an oligopoly (as in the legal research industry) to feel some pressure as Google rolls out another free and disruptive service. You can search by cases, topics or specific phrases. You can also explore how different rulings are cited by other judges and later opinions.

Google … Continue Reading

Salesforce.com profits up, but analysts disappointed

Salesforce.com saw its revenues and profits rise substantially in the third quarter of this year, but that reportedly wasn’t enough for some analysts, or for Wall Street.

The company, which delivers sales and business applications via online subscription, brought in $330.5 million in revenue in the quarter ending Oct. 31, up 20 percent from the same period last year. Its made $20.7 million in profit, or 16 cents per share, double its profits from last … Continue Reading

GE wins with new China railway deals

General Electric’s latest in a string of joint ventures with China is a plan to transition its manufacturing of train-based engine components to Beijing.

By the end of 2011, testing and re-building of components like turbochargers and power assemblies will take place in China. Starting in 2013, engines will be assembled, tested and rebuilt in Beijing as well. Providing these components keeps approximately 120 manufacturing jobs in the U.S., though jobs in the test and … Continue Reading

Chilean startup focuses on games for social good

The latest game company to raise a round of funding reflects the global reach of the industry. Chile’s Atakama Labs has raised $4 million from two Chilean venture capital funds, Austral Capital and COPEC-UC.

The company hasn’t announced its games, but its co-founders say they’re working on “meaningful games” that “help you feel better as a human being.” The first game is expected to debut in January.

Atakama Labs was founded by Esteban Sosnik (right) … Continue Reading

Twitter/Facebook app Seesmic may ditch Adobe for Microsoft

Loic Le Meur, founder and chief executive of Seesmic, demonstrated a new Windows version of Seesmic’s desktop console for managing your alerts and accounts in Twitter and Facebook today at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. After the presentation, Le Meur told me this is part of a big bet that Seesmic is making on Microsoft and Windows.

The current version of Seesmic Desktop is built on Adobe’s AIR technology, which allows applications to … Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Google's Lu, OPower's Yates join the program

There’s one day to go before GreenBeat 2009 takes off, and we’re still adding Smart Grid experts to the agenda. Rounding out the program, we have Google PowerMeter engineer (and former astronaut!) Ed Lu, and OPower CEO Dan Yates, each adding their own brand of expertise to the conversation on consumer-facing energy management solutions: What will change consumer behavior? What do people really want to know about their energy use? Hear answers to these questions … Continue Reading

Intel Capital invests $25M in 7 new startups

Intel said today that it has invested $25 million in seven new startups as part of its goal of increasing demand for its own products.

The investments were led by Intel Capital, which is the investment arm of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker. The investments show that Intel hasn’t flinched from its goal of supporting startups during the recession, said Arvind Sodhani (right), president of Intel Capital, at a press conference at Intel’s 10th … Continue Reading

Honeywell partners with SoCal Ed to run demand response

Honeywell announced that it has been awarded $11.4 million dollars in grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy. This grant is part of the single largest power infrastructure investment in U.S. history, totaling $3.4 billion. Honeywell is one of the four non-utility companies to receive grants.

Honeywell will be using the money to support demand response programs to be enacted in cooperation with Southern California Edison (SCE). The program will support almost 700 customers … Continue Reading

Microsoft's Ray Ozzie: Apps don't make your phone special

Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie weighed in at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference today on the battle between different smartphone platforms (including Windows Mobile). It’s not the applications available on the various platforms that will be the differentiators, Ozzie said, even though that’s what many companies and writers seem to focus on.

“All the apps that count will be ported to every one of them,” he said. “I don’t think there’s going to be differentiation … Continue Reading

U.S., China announce clean energy pact

President Barack Obama is in Beijing today, working with Chinese President Hu Jintao on a number of issues pertaining to U.S.-China relations. One of the prime areas of concern: Climate change — how the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases can collaborate to turn around global warming. As a start, the two leaders announced an ambitious list of agreements to accelerate the transition to clean energy in both countries.

The U.S. Department of Energy has … Continue Reading

Now you can find your Facebook friends on game consoles

Facebook made its much-anticipated debut on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles this week.

Microsoft launched the Xbox 360′s integration with Facebook today, bringing social networking experiences into the living room. With it, you can update your status from the game console, browse updates from your friends, and view photos on your TV. Gamers can link their Facebook profiles to their Xbox 360 gamertags (unique identification on the game console) to find … Continue Reading

Qualcomm's FLO TV makes a bid to become the mobile TV king

Bill Stone, president of Qualcomm’s FLO TV division, is making a huge bet that users won’t mind paying for mobile TV subscriptions to view shows on their tiny screens.

Speaking at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose, Calif. today, Stone said Qualcomm has collectively invested more than a billion dollars in lining up the digital spectrum license and other infrastructure to make the company’s live mobile digital broadcast TV service a reality. That … Continue Reading