Intel buys security software firm McAfee for $7.68B

Intel announced today that it will acquire McAfee, maker of anti-virus and other security software, for $7.68 billion in cash, or $48 per share.

The per share price is 60 percent more than McAfee’s $29.93 closing price on Wednesday. McAfee shares jumped 58 percent after the deal was made public to $47.42 in pre-market trading, while Intel shares dipped 2.5 percent to $19.11, the AP reports.

The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the … Continue Reading

Roundup: Home Depot to sell cheap LED bulbs, Vevo launches mobile apps

Here’s the latest action:

Precise Path Robotics lands $4.5M — The maker of robotic lawn mowers has raised $4.5 million in venture capital funding from angel investors. It has now raised $10 million to date.

Home Depot to sell $20 LED bulbs – The home improvement chain is partnering with both Cree and Philips to sell LED light bulbs for as little as $20, significantly cheaper than these bulbs have been before.

Google offers universal … Continue Reading

Where's Zuckerberg? On stage introducing Facebook Places (video)

Mark Zuckerberg was in his element today. The chief executive of Facebook got to unveil his company’s latest creation, Facebook Places, which adds location to the world’s largest social network. He got up on a makeshift stage in his company’s own cafeteria at its headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. He mingled with the partners and members of Facebook’s own engineering team, high-fiving those who looked his age — only they didn’t have a net worth … Continue Reading

Skype engineering chief jumps ship amidst tech blog comment debacle

Only a month after Skype’s new chief development officer, Madhu Yarlagadda, joined the company comes news that he’s leaving due to “personal reasons”, a company spokesperson told the New York Times today.

Of course, there’s a potentially juicier reason he’s leaving Skype a mere week after it filed for an IPO: Those in the know told the Times that Skype executives grew concerned over an onslaught of negative comments against Yarlagadda from a TechCrunch post … Continue Reading

Booyah builds a new location app for Facebook Places in three weeks (video)

Keith Lee, chief executive of location-based game company Booyah, said today that his team built its new Facebook Places location app — InCrowd — in just three weeks. The app lets users interact with friends and share posts in real-time in real-world locations.

InCrowd is coming soon to the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and it is powered by Facebook Places. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook Places to the world today at the … Continue Reading

Gowalla says it will build on, not compete with, Facebook Places (video)

Scott Raymond is the chief technology officer and co-founder of Gowalla, a location-based entertainment firm. His company is one of the partners that is launching a new app for Facebook’s new location service, Facebook Places, which Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed this evening.

Facebook Places is a new location check-in feature that lets users share their location with friends, see where their friends are, and discover new places. It sounds a lot like what … Continue Reading

Facebook's Chris Cox explains why Places is 'dope'

Facebook concluded the unveiling of its new Places location check-in feature today with a speech from vice president of product Chris Cox (pictured here at another event) that was either inspiring or cheesy, depending on how charitable you were. Either way, it hinted at the bigger vision that company executives have for the product.

Cox wasn’t afraid to get a little highbrow — he cited sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s concept of “the third place,” namely communal … Continue Reading

Foursquare's Dennis Crowley: Still deciding on Facebook Places

With Facebook’s announcement of a check-in feature dubbed Facebook Places, we’re all wondering how it will affect location-based services like Foursquare. So I went ahead and asked founder and chief executive Dennis Crowley.

While Foursquare had a presence at the Facebook announcement, it wasn’t very clear what exactly the two companies would be doing together. Other location-based games, like Gowalla and Booyah, were a bit more vocal claiming integrations with Facebook.

The reason for the … Continue Reading

Foursquare working with Facebook Places … somehow

Updated

A big part of Facebook’s announcement of its new location-based check-in service, Places, today was the list of partners who will be integrating with it. Those partners are supposed to illustrate the potential of Facebook Places as a platform; but showing off partners might also be a way for Facebook to say, “We come in peace,” and make clear that it doesn’t intend to crush location startups like Foursquare and Gowalla.

So executives from … Continue Reading

Facebook reveals the details behind Places

Facebook just confirmed the rumors that it’s launching a new location check-in feature. Company executives (including founder Mark Zuckerberg, who kicked off the event) said the product serves three main goals: To allow users to share their location with friends, to see where their friends are, and to discover new places.

Speaking at the company’s office in Palo Alto, Calif., Facebook Pages Product Manager Michael Sharon also emphasized what Facebook Places is not supposed to … Continue Reading

China’s Suntech on its way up despite Q2 loss

Chinese solar equipment maker Suntech Power Holdings today reported a loss of $174.9 million despite a 95 percent increase in revenue to $625.1 million in the second quarter of 2010. Still, the company says demand for its products is way up, boding well for the future.

It attributed the loss it incurred to reorganization costs and write-downs. And, for the most part, the results exceeded analysts’ forecasts.

Suntech was hit hard by the economic downturn, … Continue Reading

Range Fuels opens plant to commercialize methanol

Range Fuels, one of the more successful biofuel startups backed by Khosla Ventures, announced today that it has opened up its first commercial plant to make cellulosic methanol out of non-food feedstocks. Located in Georgia, the facility is expected to pump out 20 million gallons of ethanol and biodiesel every year.

The company’s plan is to use wood waste generated by timber plants located around the Soperton, Ga. site (pictured above). It will convert that … Continue Reading

Why e-commerce IPOs will soon be the smarter buy

Media is hard. Let’s go shopping!

In Silicon Valley, market-watchers are looking to digital media in its many forms — social networks, tablet apps, user-generated content — to revive the IPO market. That’s why there’s so much buzz about Zynga and Facebook as IPO candidates. But there’s a smarter bet for investors: e-commerce.

Don’t scoff. Sure, after the dotcom bomb, e-commerce had a stench from Pets.com, Webvan, and other expensive duds. But savvy investors who … Continue Reading

Accelerator teaches Silicon Valley culture to international entrepreneurs

On Tuesday, the Plug and Play Tech Center, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup incubator, inked a deal with the government of Belgium to help connect entrepreneurs from that European country with Silicon Valley.

Often, the international competition for jobs is framed as a zero-sum game. But the Plug and Play Tech Center has figured out a way to spread the region’s risk-embracing culture to overseas entrepreneurs. And that can lead to jobs in both the U.S. … Continue Reading

Verizon to bring live TV to iPad, video-on-demand to PCs and mobile devices

Verizon today showed off its attempt at a TV Everywhere offering — which would allow subscribers to its internet/TV/phone bundle service FiOS to access content on screens other than their televisions. It’s working on both an iPad application that would let users view live TV and a video-on-demand (VOD) offering for computers and mobile devices, reports NewTeeVee.

The iPad app, which Verizon expects to release early next year, will let users view the same live … Continue Reading

Google may be readying Chrome OS tablet for Black Friday release on Verizon

We’ve been hearing rumors that tablets based on Google’s Chrome OS were getting ready to hit the market for a couple of months. Now there’s word that Google is preparing a Chrome OS tablet with Verizon for release on November 26 — a day better known as Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year in the U.S. — according to a source speaking to Download Squad.

Now that Google and Verizon seem to … Continue Reading

Placecast and Location Labs team up for location-based shopping alerts

Location-based ad and alert companies Placecast and Location Labs have teamed up to send shopping alerts to more than 180 million consumers across multiple cell phone networks.

The companies are creating ShopAlerts, which are location-triggered text messages sent from brands to consumers who opt into the service. The companies claim they can use the service to reach as many as 60 percent of U.S. consumers. The two companies are working on ShopAlert brand campaigns for … Continue Reading

Google's Chrome Web Store likely coming in October, focusing on games

Back in May, we reported that Google was working on an app store for web applications, dubbed the Chrome Web Store. Now we have further details on the project.

Google spoke to gaming press at the Game Developers Conference Europe, where it unveiled further details on the mechanics of the store and announced that it’s “most likely” expected to launch in October, gaming site 1Up.com reports.

The store resembles a web-based version of the iTunes … Continue Reading

Groupon copies eBay's playbook in international buying spree

Trying a little of its own medicine, social buying juggernaut Groupon went on something of a shopping spree Tuesday, announcing that it has bought Japanese and Russian rivals Qpod and Darberry, respectively. While the terms of the deal were undisclosed, the company plans to assimilate both into the Groupon brand, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A great idea naturally draws copycats, and it’s cheaper than ever to launch consumer websites — which means companies … Continue Reading