Juniper Networks launches $50 million venture fund

Juniper Networks upped its offensive against rival Cisco today with the announcement of a $50 million venture fund. The Junos Innovation Fund will primarily target early and growth-stage startups that can help accelerate the speed and variety of network solutions. The company plans to deploy the fund over the next two years.

The move is likely intended to cultivate applications that can earn the “Junos Ready” moniker, in hopes of catalyzing a broad ecosystem of … Continue Reading

Pike Research: 2.8M fuel-cell vehicles will hit the road by 2020

Fuel cells have catapulted into the public spotlight this week following the 60 Minutes debut of Bloom Energy’s powerful Bloom Box fuel cell. But before all the talk of these devices powering buildings and neighborhoods, there was buzz about hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Today, Pike Research revisited the topic, issuing a report that predicts 2.8 million fuel-cell vehicles will be sold over the next decade — amounting to a $23.9 billion market.

Several major automakers have … Continue Reading

CivicSolar bags $400K to help you choose the right solar panels at the best price

With rooftop solar panels becoming increasingly affordable, and more sellers entering the market, residential and commercial consumers alike could very well be paralyzed by choice. Should they go with standard photovoltaics? Thin-film panels? What’s a good price? Who do you get to install and maintain them? A startup called CivicSolar says it can answer these questions and deliver the best possible product.

Based in San Francisco, the company, which calls itself a direct solar distributor, … Continue Reading

Eventbrite launches discounted service for non-profits

Event management site Eventbrite launched a new service today for non-profits. Eventbrite for Causes is open to all US-based non-profits with 501(c)(3) status. It will charge non-profits 2% of the event ticket price plus 99 cents per ticket sold (the normal rate is 2.5% of the ticket price plus 99 cents per ticket sold).

Eventbrite’s new service lets attendees to an event share their attendance plans and make donations via social networks such as Facebook … Continue Reading

Youtube to end support for Internet Explorer 6 on March 13

We’ve known this was coming for some time, but Youtube has finally announced a date for the end of its Internet Explorer 6 support: March 13, 2010. Starting on that date, IE6 users who visit Youtube will be presented with the above message to cajole them into upgrading to a modern browser.

Youtube won’t be killing access to IE6 users — they will still be able to view videos, add comments, etc. — it’s just … Continue Reading

Mobile ad network Millennial Media acquires analytics firm TapMetrics

Another big change is afoot in the world of mobile advertising. Millennial Media — the largest independent mobile ad network, and itself the subject of buyout speculation — announced today that it is acquiring mobile analytics firm TapMetrics. The news follows Google’s recent acquisition of Admob for $750 million, and Apple’s purchase of Quattro Wireless, another mobile ad firm, for $275 million. Further details on the deal were not disclosed.

The addition of TapMetrics will … Continue Reading

Strings: A recommendation engine that's transparent about its data mining

It’s no secret that companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google study our behavior to recommend products or push advertising our way.

A Bellevue, Washington-based company called Strings is trying to do the exactly that, but with very explicit user permission. Users can track the books they buy on Amazon, songs they enjoy on iTunes or other types of behavior on hundreds of other web sites. Combined with aggregated, anonymized data from other users, Strings can … Continue Reading

DocStoc expands its document marketplace in a big way

DocStoc, a popular site for uploading and sharing business documents, is opening the doors to its DocStore document marketplace today. Since the DocStore launch in August, the Los Angeles company has been working with a few select partners, but now anyone can apply to sell in the marketplace.

DocStoc is often compared to document-sharing site Scribd, which also has a marketplace, but the stated aims of the two stores are pretty different — the Scribd … Continue Reading

AT&T wins PC World's cross-country mobile speed test

A 13-city mobile data speed test conducted by the serious wonks at PC World has validated results from a similar test by gadget blog Gizmodo in December.

“AT&T says it has worked hard to improve its much-maligned 3G network over the last eight months — erecting hundreds of new cell towers, using better-performing wireless spectrum, and souping up its cell sites across the country,” PC World reporter Mark Sullivan wrote. “The results of our latest … Continue Reading

SecondMarket raises $15M from Asian investors as its business becomes more global

SecondMarket, which claims to be the largest secondary market for illiquid assets — shares in pre-IPO and lockup-period companies, auction-rate securities, bankruptcy claims, structured products, warrants and restricted stock, whole loans, etc. – announced that it brought in a $15 million second round of venture capital today.

The Hong Kong-based Li Ka-shing Foundation and Singapore-based Temasek Holdings (through its Dunearn Investments subsidiary) each invested $7.5 million. SecondMarket CEO Barry Silbert said in a prepared statement, … Continue Reading

FCC report profiles broadband non-subscribers in the U.S.

We’re about a month away from the Federal Communications Commission’s announcement of its National Broadband Plan, and it’s clear that the agency is in full gear to figure out how exactly it needs to approach the issue of broadband adoption in America. Last week, the FCC released a report that detailed some of their initial goals with the plan, including setting the goal for 100Mbps broadband across the country.

Now the Wall Street Journal points … Continue Reading

Wattpad lands popular titles on Sony's Reader store

Popular e-book community Wattpad announced today an agreement with Sony Electronics to make several of its top unique titles available on Sony’s Reader store.

Wattpad is a community-driven platform where users upload and share all content. For writers, Wattpad is especially enticing as it allows for them to easily share their writings and gain feedback and suggestions. The company recently announced an undisclosed amount of angel funding from various private investors to continue growth and … Continue Reading

Hooked Media launches social game platform Yoo-Mee

Hooked Media Group launched its social game platform that allows developers to reach a community of players across web sites, social networks and mobile devices.

The Yoo-Mee platform lets publishers create games that try to get players to come back to compete against each other, talk about games and otherwise gather in a like-minded community. Developers embed code in their games that ties them in with other games in the platform.

The idea is to … Continue Reading

Warner Bros. buys stake in Batman game developer Rocksteady

Warner Bros. expanded its presence in video games today by buying a majority position in Rocksteady Studios, the game studio behind last year’s spectacular surprise hit, Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The terms of the deal weren’t revealed. London-based Rocksteady will now be part of a collection of studios Warner Bros. has acquired over the years. Time Warner, owner of the film company Warner Bros., has made a number of investments after the spin-off of its Time … Continue Reading

Intel starts alliance to invest $3.5B fund in U.S. tech industries

In a kind of Marshall Plan for the U.S. tech economy, Intel said it is starting a $3.5 billion fund to invest in American tech companies.

The Invest in America Alliance was unveiled by Intel chief executive Paul Otellini in Washington, D.C., today as part of a speech outlining the need for a “culture of investment” in the United States. He delivered the speech at the Brookings Institution think tank as part of a plan … Continue Reading

As audiences shift to social games, so do game reviewers

Audiences are shifting rapidly toward playing games on Facebook and other social networks. Accordingly, the media that cover games are shifting as well.

The latest example of this is at Gamezebo, a web site for covering casual games started by Joel Brodie in 2007. Back then, Brodie, former head of business development at Yahoo Games, found that many game publications looked down on casual games, which are online titles such as Bejeweled that are downloaded … Continue Reading

Epic games could bring hardcore gamers back to stores in 2010

After an eight percent dip last year, the U.S. console video game business is turning to green-clad heroes and familiar names in 2010 to galvanize sales. Namely Halo: Reach, Final Fantasy XIII, and possibly a new Zelda. In other words, hardcore games are expected to come roaring back this year.

“Many of the games generating excitement are sequels to existing games that have performed well in the past,” says John Davison, content director for GamePro. … Continue Reading

Currensee grabs $8m to expand social network for traders

Currensee, a social network for foreign exchange traders, today announced it has secured a second round funding of $8 million to expand its presence in Europe and Asia as well as continue development of several new products.

Currensee is currently a membership community in beta testing that allows foreign exchange traders to share and collaborate ideas, insights and data based on daily trading activity. The company claims traders in over 70 different countries and 100 … Continue Reading

Office software maker Zoho connects with Facebook

Zoho, a company offering an array of more than 20 web-based office applications covering everything from email to documents to sales to invoices, just announced that it’s supporting Facebook Connect. That means users can sign into Zoho with their Facebook login, and tie their Facebook accounts to their accounts on Zoho.

As a company going up against more well-known competitors like Google Apps, Zoho has previously taken steps to open up to other account types, … Continue Reading