RIM's co-CEO joins in on the Steve Jobs backlash
Before Steve Jobs slammed Android in Apple’s fourth quarter earnings call yesterday, he had some choice words for Research in Motion’s new platform and its plans for a 7-inch tablet. Now RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie has issued a response to Jobs’ criticisms, just like Google’s Andy Rubin and TweetDeck’s CEO before him.
Balsillie writes:
For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big … Continue Reading
Solar Components gets $2.8M to charge smartphones with the sun
Solar Components, a company that makes portable solar chargers, has raised $2.8 million of an expected $4.9 million in equity, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Campbell, Calif., the startup makes a waterproof device, called the JOOS Orange, that it claims can power four smartphones on a single charge.
The device, which costs $99.95, can be used to charge portable electronics like cell phones, iPads and digital cameras, but the company also … Continue Reading
LivingSocial acquires Urban Escapes to take lead in daily deal war
Online daily deal site LivingSocial announced today that it has acquired social adventure company Urban Escapes in a bid to give members more bang for their buck as they search for activities that fit their lifestyles without breaking the bank.
LivingSocial bills itself as a social buying program that lets its 10 million subscribers search through a “local activity discovery engine” to find restaurants, shops, activities and services popular in their area at discounts of … Continue Reading
DiscoveryBeat 2010 photo gallery: a summary of tips and tricks, with pictures
Who will be the Google of discovery? VentureBeat tackled that tantalizing question at our DiscoveryBeat 2010 event in San Francisco on Monday. More than 200 attendees listened to talks on how to get apps noticed. We had the full ecosystem of discovery there, from successful app developers to PR folks to social game platform makers.
Above, Sebastien DeHalleux, co-founder of Electronics Arts’ Playfish social game division, kicked off the day with a fireside chat. He … Continue Reading
Creator of the fierce Doom and Quake games tries his hand at a cute Facebook app
John Romero is the creator of the Doom and Quake games that have haunted the memories of a generation of gamers with over-the-top shoot-em-up violence. Now he is trying his hand at making a cute Facebook game called Ravenwood Fair.
As a consultant to social gaming firm LOLapps, this kinder and gentler Romero (pictured, left) designed and built the game in the past couple of months with a team of eight artists and programmers. Ravenwood … Continue Reading
1366 raises $20 million for slashing solar manufacturing costs
Solar manufacturing company 1366 Technologies announced it has raised $20 million in a second round of financing.
The company makes a technology for producing crystalline silicon wafers that can make drastically cheaper solar modules than have been possible before. The company’s Direct Wafer process can reduce the cost of manufacturing silicon wafers (which are used to make solar modules) by 80 percent, Greentech Media writes — and wafers are a significant cost of making a … Continue Reading
Clovr Media snaps up $1.5M for credit card-linked ad offers
Clovr Media, a developer of credit card-linked offers for online advertising, said today it has received $1.5 million in seed funding in order to launch a new platform that bridges the link between online deals for consumers and banks looking to re-connect their customer base.
Waltham, Mass.-based Clovr bills its new card-linked platform as part of its “Loyalty 2.0” campaign, which can now directly link digital ad spending to consumer purchases with 100 percent attribution. … Continue Reading
One more sign the Verizon iPhone may not be coming (chart)
Apple’s surging iPhone sales are leading to boatloads of acessories — literally. And those overseas shipments may be a good indicator of expectations for future iPhone sales.
And the current indicators suggest accessories makers aren’t expecting a future surge in iPhone sales from a new model — like the hotly discussed possibility of an iPhone that can run on Verizon Wireless’s network.
Mobile accessories are a $500 million market in the U.S., according to estimates … Continue Reading
Yahoo growth slows, but profits double due to HotJobs sale
Search provider Yahoo generated twice as much profit in its third quarter this year than last year after selling its job-seeking site HotJobs, bringing in nearly $400 million despite slowing revenue growth, according to its financial results for the third quarter released today.
Yahoo’s revenue was up 2 percent in the third quarter compared to the same quarter last year. The second largest search provider of the Internet brought in $1.6 billion last quarter, compared … Continue Reading
Investing site KaChing gets classier as Wealthfront
KaChing, a startup backed by partners from some of the best-known venture capital firms, just celebrated the one-year anniversary of the launch of its investment website by revamping its site and announcing a new name — Wealthfront.
The Palo Alto, Calif. company says its goal is to “democratize” the fund management industry. Using a strategy that Wealthfront says it borrowed from the endowment funds of Ivy League universities, the company selects top managers who are … Continue Reading
Buddy Media locks down $23M to help marketers get facetime on Facebook
Buddy Media, the Facebook page-management service for brands and businesses, said today it has raised $23 million in mezzanine financing as it attempts to keep up with booming growth and capture the attention of deep-pocketed institutional investors.
Buddy Media uses its Facebook management system, named The Buddy Media Platform, to help seven out of 10 of the world’s largest advertisers connect with their customers through a suite of tools that raises brand awareness via social … Continue Reading
Two things about electric cars the Wall Street Journal missed
We read a lot of stuff about green cars and, lately, most of it’s about electric cars.
Sometimes the coverage is unquestioning and adulatory. More often it’s cranky and dismissive. But major media outlets are working hard to understand the complexities of what is a huge, slow, expensive, and very complex transition to another type of vehicle and powertrain.
A piece with yesterday’s date in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “Bumpy Road For Electrics,” got … Continue Reading
Why your office could soon be smarter than your home
This post is brought to you by IBM. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity. IBM had no involvement in the content of this or other posts. For more information on how IBM can help create a Smarter Planet, go here.
Smart cities will need smart buildings — buildings which know when to adjust the thermostat. Australian startup BuildingIQ, a finalist in the GreenBeat 2009 innovation competition, plans to play a big … Continue Reading
Tendril acquires GroundedPower, raises $23 million
Home energy management company Tendril announced it has acquired GroundedPower, a software company that focuses on behavioral-based engagement of consumers.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company also announced it has raised $23 million in a fourth round of financing. Investors include TIAA-CREF, Good Energies, VantagePoint Venture Partners, RRE Ventures and GE.
“The backdrop of all of the last two to three years in smart grid has been about plumbing,” said CEO Adrian … Continue Reading
StockTwits raises $4M more for real-time investor community
New York-based StockTwits, a site which bills itself as a real-time community for stock-market investors, announced today it has raised $4 million in funding.
The site, which started in 2008 as a simple filter for stock-related tweets on Twitter, has since expanded into becoming a popular community for investors to discuss financials and share trade ideas with each other in a real-time, Twitter-like microblogging format.
It has also received some acclaim for its desktop application, … Continue Reading
Google's Andy Rubin, TweetDeck CEO respond to Steve Jobs' Android slam
Apple CEO Steve Jobs didn’t hold back on his Android criticisms during the company’s fourth quarter earning call yesterday, and now defenders of Google’s mobile platform are retaliating.
Google’s Android chief Andy Rubin tweeted the following after Jobs’ tear about Android not actually being open:
the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”
The tweet refers to the commands you would use to build … Continue Reading
Scribd's books and magazines get rich links, thanks to Apture
Apture, a startup trying to improve online reading with a smooth way to explore extra content, is rolling out what chief executive Tristan Harris called the company’s biggest implementation yet: Apture’s technology will soon work on the millions of documents shared on Scribd.
Harris demonstrated the partnership to me on a couple of sample documents, and it works pretty similarly to Apture’s integration with news sites like The New York Times and the Financial Times, … Continue Reading
NBA to launch Turnstile check-in app for games
The National Basketball League (NBA) may be looking to take advantage of the growing popularity of consumers checking-in to locations through its own application dubbed Turnstile, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The new application is supposed to be released with the start of the new season later this month and will focus on giving fans the ability to check-in to games both in-person and while watching on the television. A smart move as many … Continue Reading
HP announces WebOS 2.0, Palm Pre 2
HP today finally unveiled the next generation of Palm’s mobile operating system, WebOS 2.0, as well as its next flagship device, the Palm Pre 2. But while WebOS 2.0 seems like a nice upgrade, the same can’t be said for the minimally revamped Pre 2.
WebOS 2.0 is the first major upgrade to the operating system since Palm introduced it 16 months ago — seemingly an eternity in mobile development years. Since then, Palm released … Continue Reading
Loopt brings users closer to Facebook friends
Loopt, an early leader in location-based services, today announced it has integrated Facebook Places into its mobile check-in application. The application is available for iPhone and iPod touch.
Loopt users will now be able to seamlessly connect their Facebook profiles with the Loopt application. Through the connection, users will be able to not only see where their Facebook friends are on a map (see above), but also have dual check-in capabilities. For example, a user … Continue Reading
