New Apple TV may finally offer Netflix streaming video access
As if we needed any more rumors surrounding Apple’s media event on Wednesday (we covered the major rumors in an earlier post), we’re now hearing that the company may finally bring Netflix’s Watch Instantly streaming video service to its revamped Apple TV, three unnamed sources tell Businessweek.
Netflix’s streaming video service was first released in 2007 with support just for Windows PCs. It quickly gained popularity as it landed on popular devices like the Xbox … Continue Reading
Keith Lee's location gaming firm Booyah launches InCrowd on the iPhone (video)
Booyah launched today its InCrowd mobile social app for the iPhone. The app, one of the first to utilize Facebook Places, is the latest attempt to loop social gaming services and the location stack. Using art and game mechanics from Nightclub City and MyTown, Booyah is pushing the envelop of the involvement of location and brands in social gaming far beyond where rivals such as Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla have taken it.
This leading edge … Continue Reading
Writer Neal Stephenson unveils his digital novel The Mongoliad
Author Neal Stephenson has been credited for inspiring today’s virtual world startups with his novel Snow Crash. Now he’s launching a startup himself: Subutai, where he is co-founder and chairman.
The company, based in Seattle and San Francisco, has developed what it calls the PULP platform for creating digital novels. The core of the experience is still a text novel, but authors can add additional material like background articles, images, music, and video. There … Continue Reading
HP's fall line-up includes 3D laptop, wireless TV-laptop link, and colorful notebooks
Hewlett-Packard may not have a permanent chief executive. But it hasn’t stopped launching loads of new products. Today, the company is taking the wraps off its fall line-up of consumer laptop and netbook computers.
The flagship is a 3D laptop (below, right) that is very Apple-like in its elegance. The Envy brand, originally created by the Voodoo PC business that HP acquired, is as elite as HP gets. HP trots out the brand whenever it … Continue Reading
Apple to livestream its Wednesday press event for the masses
Apple said it will livestream its press conference on Wednesday in San Francisco at 10 am Pacific time. I’ll be at the event covering it live and snapping pictures. But you can follow along on Apple’s own site. The press-only event is going to be held at the Yerba Center for the Arts. Look for plenty of stories from us covering the announcements as they happen. The event is restricted to viewing by Apple devices … Continue Reading
Institutional Venture Partners aims for big exits with $750M fund
Institutional Venture Partners, a Menlo Park, Calif. firm whose portfolio includes hot startups like Twitter, Zynga, and Ngmoco, announced today that it has raised a new $750 million fund.
With the money, General Partner Todd Chaffee said IVP will continue to invest in three sectors, which are all experiencing big upheavals — communications and wireless, enterprise IT, and digital media. IVP is a later-stage firm, so it looks for companies that are already successful and … Continue Reading
Electronic Arts goes to war with Zynga in Facebook games
Electronic Arts is putting the blitz on rival Zynga today as it launched Madden NFL Superstars on Facebook.
This joint production of EA Sports and EA’s Playfish social game division is the first time that the company’s flagship video game franchise has graced a social network. It is the second major branded game that Playfish has launched on Facebook since EA acquired Playfish for as much as $400 million last fall. In May, Playfish launched … Continue Reading
New XBox 360 controller changes with the flick of a wrist
Microsoft is clearly not above the complaints of gamers, as it unveiled a new controller for its XBox 360 that does away with the oft-maligned “disc” directional pad.
The new controller sports a method of changing the traditional disk-like directional pad into a typical cross-type pad that the Wii and Playstation 3 controllers use.
XBox Live director of programming Larry Hryb, known by his gamer tag Major Nelson, made the announcement this morning. The controller … Continue Reading
The race for the next eBay: Will Accel and Kleiner beat Benchmark?
Accel Partners, the venture capitalists behind Facebook, have a lot in their shopping bag. The latest bauble they’ve picked up: part of a $47 million investment in Showroomprive.com, a European members-only sales site.
The members-only sales phenomenon, popularized by Showroomprive rivals like Gilt Groupe and HauteLook, is part of what I’m calling E-commerce 2.0, a wide-ranging rethinking of retailing that’s being enabled by mass adoption of broadband, the buildings of social graph, and the incorporation … Continue Reading
First Europe, now Japan: Ad exchange OpenX is expanding fast
Ad serving company OpenX just announced that it’s moving into the Japanese market, thanks to a partnership with Cyber Communications Inc (CCI).
OpenX Chief Revenue Officer Jason Fairchild said the deal is similar to a partnership announced earlier this year between OpenX and European giant Orange — except that CCI is an ad agency holding group, not a telecom company like Orange. In both cases, the local partner actually sells and operates the service, while … Continue Reading
HP and Hynix to popularize new kind of chip circuit dubbed "memristor"
Hewlett-Packard has teamed up with Hynix Semiconductor to make a new kind of fundamental circuit for semiconductor chips. The alliance is a sign that HP’s breakthrough designs for memory circuits could see the light of day as finished products in the form of new memory chips.
The two companies will jointly develop the materials and manufacturing process to create the memristor, which could prove to be very useful in future memory chips. HP Labs designed … Continue Reading
Nissan limits its initial Leaf rollout to 200 cars in five states
Nissan is taking orders today for the Leaf, the first mass-produced, all-electric vehicle, but it’s only offering up 200 cars for December delivery.
Those Leafs will go to five states in the initial rollout market – California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee — which amounts to just few orders per dealer. Fleet sales manager Ray Ishak of the CampbellNelson dealership in Seattle (pictured below), who gave VentureBeat the initial rollout numbers, said his dealership has … Continue Reading
What to expect from Apple's Wednesday event: New iPods, Apple TV, and more
Apple’s next big media event is set for this Wednesday, September 1 at 1PM EST (10AM PST), and as always, there’s no shortage of rumor and speculation floating about. We’ll be at the event, and will be following any major announcements. But first, let’s take a look at what Apple may have up its sleeve.
iPod Touch Updates – Given the Apple-branded guitar in its event invitation, as well as the fact that it’s been … Continue Reading
VMware outlines strategy for iPad-friendly IT
One of the big challenges facing IT managers is the proliferation of non-Windows PC devices in the workplace, said VMware chief executive Paul Maritz. So the virtualization company is working on tools to simplify the management of those devices.
Speaking on stage at the VMworld conference today in San Francisco, Maritz said he was “willing to bet” that between 10 and 20 percent of the VMworld attendees had iPads with them, and that they’re bringing … Continue Reading
Samsung lets you control apps on your TV with Galaxy S smartphone
Samsung said today that it will let you control apps on your web-connected Samsung TV with the company’s latest smartphone.
Samsung is moving aggressively to market its web-connected TVs and believes that its Samsung TV apps will help differentiate its products from rivals, much like Apple’s App Store sets apart the iPhone. So the South Korean electronics giant is emphasizing the fact that the same apps can run across various Samsung devices and that those … Continue Reading
Samsung really, really wants to sell web-connected TVs with apps this year
Samsung Electronics is going ga-ga over apps. The Korean electronics giant plans to spend $70 million marketing its Samsung TV apps for internet-connected TVs and other devices.
Building on Apple’s success with apps, the whole tech industry, from Intel to Samsung, is obsessed with creating app platforms now as the way to reach consumers who increasingly want personalized content wherever they are.
For three years, Samsung has been selling internet-connected TVs. In January, it announced … Continue Reading
Teaching site Udemy struggled for funding, but now it's raised $1M
Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani (pictured left) had to get used to the word “no” for a while when he first took a shot at raising money for his online education platform Udemy. About 30 of them, he said, and then the Udemy team decided to wait about six months to launch the site before trying again.
But the second time around, with the help of AngelList.com and investors Keith Rabois, of Yelp and LinkedIn fame, … Continue Reading
Amazon.com exec to become Digg's third CEO in six months
It takes just under five months to redesign one of the largest news aggregation sites in the world and bring in a new CEO, apparently.
On the heels of former CEO Jay Adelson’s departure in April, news aggregator Digg will reportedly announce former online retailer Amazon.com executive Matt Williams as its new boss today.
Founder Kevin Rose ran the company as an interim CEO as the company, known for its crowdsourcing strategy of letting users … Continue Reading
GM's Volt heads for China, but as a Chevy-not a Buick after all
Ceremonial handshakes offer photo opportunities the world over, and so it is with the arrival of the first running Volt range-extended electric car in China.
And despite earlier reports–including ours–to the contrary, General Motors plans to sell the car as a Chevrolet, rather than as a Buick–a brand that carries far more prestige in China than the mass-market Chevy label.
“At this time,” said GM spokesman Rob Peterson, “we are planning to sell only the … Continue Reading
VMware buys systems-monitoring startup Integrien for $100M
Virtualization giant VMware announced today that it has acquired an IT analytics startup called Integrien for $100 million.
Irvine, Calif.-based Integrien offers systems monitoring software, similar to IBM’s Tivoli, with an emphasis on up-to-the-minute information about problems with your infrastructure. Microsoft’s Sidekick unit signed up as a customer to make sure it doesn’t have another outage like it did last fall. Itegrien was funded by Clearstone Venture Partners, Tech Coast Angels, Acartha Group, and Mariner … Continue Reading
