Google's Eric Schmidt wants computer-controlled cars to drives us around (full keynote video)

Google’s Eric Schmidt has always been something of a geek. He stuck to those roots today in a speech where he talked about how the role of computers is to augment the human brain.

Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Schmidt said that computer-enabled devices will augment humans, allowing them to do things they can’t do or can’t remember how to do. That starts with things like Google Maps, that help you navigate better, … Continue Reading

Official Google Voice app finally headed to the iPhone?

A few weeks ago, third-party Google Voice apps for the iPhone started getting approved by Apple. Now it appears that we may soon see the official Google Voice app on the iPhone, sources tell TechCrunch.

Apple’s earlier refusal to approve the Google Voice app, which used the phone’s normal voice service for calls but integrated with its address book and other core features, proved contentious, sparking an outcry from app developers and government investigations in … Continue Reading

Google CEO: the Internet of things will augment your brain

For Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the next step in technology is the same that it has always been — augmenting humanity to handle information that a human brain couldn’t otherwise keep up with, and just make things work.

“Computers will clearly handle the things we aren’t good at, and we will handle the things computers clearly aren’t good at,” Schmidt said. That can range from helping users find their way to a new restaurant to … Continue Reading

Yingli Solar scores with New York Jets installation

Touchdown, Yingli Solar. The Chinese company has completed the installation of a solar power system at the headquarters of the New York Jets headquarters in New Jersey.

The installation covers the rooftops at the NFL team’s headquarters and training center (pictured below). It uses 3,000 of Yingli’s photovoltaic panels and is designed to generate 750,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.

The solar system should save “tens of thousands of dollars” per year in electricity costs, … Continue Reading

San Francisco mayor confirms Zynga building local HQ for 2,000 employees

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom confirmed today that hot social-game company Zynga will build a new headquarters that could house as many as 2,000 employees.

Zynga is making a seven-year commitment to lease 270,000 square feet in the Townsend Center building in the city’s warehouse-laden South of Market district, historically a hotbed of startups. Newsom made the announcement of the deal at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco today, in an exhibition hall across … Continue Reading

Google CEO Schmidt: We're open … at least compared to Apple

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt talked about his company’s contentious relationship with Apple this morning — specifically, he emphasized the idea that Google has a culture of openness compared to Apple’s “core strategy of closed-ness.”

Schmidt was speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, where he outlined an ambitious vision for the future of computing. But he couldn’t resist taking some jabs at Apple, something that Google has been doing more of recently. … Continue Reading

Confirmed: AOL acquires TechCrunch, founder Arrington to stay at least 3 years

AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong just confirmed that his company has acquired popular tech blog TechCrunch. He’s currently on-stage in San Francisco with TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference. The pair said they were spurred to reveal the acquisition earlier than planned after a scoop by GigaOm, a rival blog, yesterday that the deal was about to close.

In fact, they signed the contract on-stage.

Armstrong said he first approached Arrington … Continue Reading

New York gets another super angel as Josh Kushner announces his new fund

As the New York tech scene has flourished in the past few years, a number of so-called ‘super angel’ funds have been formed to fund the city’s fledgling startups. Now another angel is ready to spread his wings with Josh Kushner announcing his new $10 million seed fund Thrive Capital.

While Kushner is only 25 years old, he is already a successful entrepreneur in his own right. He is the co-founder and chief strategy officer … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: GE puts $28 million in China wind JV, Amyris shares start trading today

GE announced it has formed a joint venture with Chinese company Harbin Power Equipment to service the $13 billion wind industry in China. The country is the world’s biggest market for wind turbine sales, according to the release, and is expected to grow 500 percent from 2009 to 150 gigawatts of installed wind capacity by 2020. China’s electricity demands are growing at 12 percent a year, and the government’s encouraging renewable-energy policies convinced GE to … Continue Reading

U.S. virtual goods market to hit $2.1 billion in 2011

Are your friends loading up on tractor fuel in FarmVille, the most popular social game on Facebook? If so, you might understand this prediction: the U.S. virtual goods market is expected to hit $2.1 billion in revenues in 2011.

The Inside Virtual Goods report predicts that 2011 revenues for virtual goods — which include things such as better weapons or decorations in games that users pay real money for — will be up 40 percent … Continue Reading

Trouble with China's iPhone 4: Crippled maps and curious search results

Users of Apple’s recently released Chinese iPhone 4 are in for a nasty surprise: Apparently, the phone comes equipped with ensored map data that complies with Chinese government propaganda, according to the site Ogle Earth.

The Chinese iPhone 4 Maps app depicts borders as the Chinese government would have it — for example, the Arunachal Pradesh region shows up as part of China, even though it’s actually administered by India today. If Chinese iPhone 4 … Continue Reading

NetShelter raises $15M for its ad network of tech influencers

NetShelter, an advertising network built around influential tech sites, has raised $15 million in a second round of funding.

(Disclosure: NetShelter sells some of VentureBeat’s advertising.)

The San Francisco company says its network now includes more than 200 sites in mobile, IT, and consumer electronics, including MacRumors, SlashGear, and CrackBerry. The network reached 133 million unique visitors in the month of August, according to numbers supplied by the company. But cofounder and chief executive Peyman … Continue Reading

USA Network scores loyalty rewards for its online games and web site

TV network USA Network has a thriving online business on the web. Today, the network said it has scored good results from a rewards system launched last month and aimed at keeping gamers and video viewers loyal.

Such systems are becoming increasingly common on all web sites, not just game sites (as predicted by game design professor Jesse Schell), and it shows that USA Network is doing what it has to in order to hang … Continue Reading

Verve Wireless lands $7M for mobile publishing and local ads

Verve Wireless, a startup that offers mobile publishing and advertising platforms for local media companies, announced today that is has snagged $7 million in a funding round led by BlueRun Ventures.

The Verve Publishing Platform allows publishers to easily bring their content and advertisers to mobile devices. Verve Wireless is also notable for local mobile advertising — Verve Connect is the largest premium local ad network around, the company says. It serves 750 customers with … Continue Reading

Video game industry giants spit insults at each other

Despite his litigation with his Infinity Ward studio co-founders, Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick says that his company treats its studios the right way and preserves studio culture, while rival Electronic Arts suffocates its development teams.

Grooming and retaining key talent and studios is critical to the results of these giant companies and so its important to both EA and Activision Blizzard to be perceived as friendlier to developers — and to point out … Continue Reading

At Adobe campus, Bloom Energy completes largest fuel-cell installation to date

Bloom Energy has just completed its largest installation to date of its fuel cells, placing 12 of its powerful Bloom Boxes at Adobe’s San Jose campus.

The company makes fuel cells that generate energy onsite. Each of its parking-space sized Bloom Boxes contains thousands of ceramic squares that can convert air and natural gas into electricity while producing little to no emissions.

The fuel cells will power Adobe’s three office towers (four boxes assigned to … Continue Reading

Namesake is a Twitter that connects job hunters with recruiters

As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, but who you know — and a startup called Namesake plans to capitalize on that mentality by providing a social network that gives users a way to  seek and promote job opportunities through the people they know — all in under 200 characters.

Namesake provides users with a news feed that consists of updates in their network and job opportunities posted by either their immediate connections … Continue Reading

Flash app platform Sprout reinvents itself as AdVine ad platform

Sprout, a San Francisco startup that first launched as a platform for building Flash applications, has been refocusing its technology on ad-creation. In case the shift wasn’t clear, Sprout signaled the new focus today by relaunching its flagship product under the name AdVine.

One of AdVine’s big attractions is the fact that it creates ads that can display both the Flash or HTML5 formats. Those ads will use Flash on Web browsers, then they’ll play … Continue Reading

Opzi demos Quora-like Q&A platform for businesses

Opzi, which provides a question-and-answer platform similar to Quora for enterprise customers, is betting that companies relying on email and services like Salesforce’s Chatter for quick answers have exhausted employees to the point of jumping on board the service. Opzi founder Euwyn Poon demoed the product at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today.

The platform serves as a way for employees to ask and answer questions, providing a company with a crowd-sourced FAQ for how … Continue Reading