Private eyes aim to kill Black Ops video-game piracy with kindness (exclusive)
Private investigators have begun tracking down pirates of Call of Duty Black Ops, an unpublished video game that’s expected to be the hottest game of the season.
But instead of busting them and turning them over to the FBI, the investigators are trying a different tactic. They’re approaching the pirates and telling them to please stop selling illegal copies of the game.
One of the people who bought a disk online has even posted a … Continue Reading
Bah, humbug! Google in talks with curmudgeonly networks over Google TV blocks
Just like Hulu, broadcast networks ABC, NBC, and CBS have chosen to block access to Google TV — the company’s new platform that brings web video to televisions — the Wall Street Journal reports.
Google, meanwhile, is in active negotiations to resolve the blocks, according to Reuters.
The content block prevents Google TV devices like Logitech’s Revue Box, or Sony’s Internet TVs, from viewing episodes of popular TV shows on the networks’ websites. After Hulu … Continue Reading
On the GreenBeat: $1.5 billion in federal money for biofuels, Siemens launches electric car charging stations
Here are the top stories we’re following this morning on the GreenBeat:
The government is offering more than $1.5 billion in assistance to bring next-generation biofuels to market, Reuters reports. The funds will aim to bring renewable fuel consumption to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and draw from non-food sources like algae and wood.
Siemens announced a line of electric vehicle charging stations, which will be part of Coulomb’s ChargePoint network. It joins … Continue Reading
Verizon's new wireless subscribers trail AT&T in third quarter
Even though Verizon performed better than expected in its third quarter, it still lost out to AT&T in contract subscriber gains.
In its third quarter 2010 earnings report today, the company announced that it added 997,000 net customers — a number that includes 584,000 contract (or postpaid) customers. AT&T, in comparison, added a total of 2.6 million new subscribers with 745,000 new contract users. Verizon’s wireless churn rate, or the rate at which users left … Continue Reading
Kabam acquires social game developer WonderHill
Kabam is hoping to build the next dynamite company in social games. Today, Kabam is announcing it has acquired social game developer WonderHill as part of a quest to build a powerhouse in next-generation social gaming.
The price wasn’t disclosed. Redwood City, Calif.-based Kabam is trying to build a high-end social game firm that could join the ranks of top companies such as Zynga, Disney-Playdom, EA-Playfish and CrowdStar. It has a ways to go in … Continue Reading
Book review: “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hsieh
(Editor’s note: Javier Rojas is a managing director leading U.S. investment activities for Kennet Partners. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
Tony Hsieh has founded two very successful companies. Along the way, he has learned innumerable lessons and develop a model for creating intensely passionate corporate cultures. In “Delivering Happiness,” he gives insight into both.
Hsieh is the first entrepreneur I have seen to take many of the tenets from the emerging field of positive … Continue Reading
Microsoft launches its own games-on-demand online market
Microsoft announced a new online store today that will let gamers buy digital copies of games.
The “games on demand” market, called Games for Windows Marketplace, will launch on Nov. 15 and will allow users to download games via connected PCs. It will compete with rivals such as Valve’s Steam online games market and OnLive’s games-on-demand service.
The store could thus help PC games get discovered more easily. Gamers can search by titles or genres. … Continue Reading
ShopWell makes grocery shopping more personal
Nutrition advice site ShopWell, which raised $1.1 million in funding last month, launched its free iPhone app today. The app, powered by bar code scanner RedLaser, allows users to scan grocery bar codes and get personalized nutrition information from inside stores.
Consumers looking for insights into their health first register with the site by taking a survey. The survey asks for information ranging from age to allergies to lactose intolerance so that personalized scores can … Continue Reading
Stealth social networking startup CafeBots scores $5M from sFund
Stealth social networking startup CafeBots came into the light in a big way today, after the firm announced it has closed an initial funding round of $5 million from early stage venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s brand new sFund.
Palo Alto-based CafeBots was founded by Stanford professor Yoav Shoham in an effort to create technology that gives online users tools that act on their behalf on Facebook.
Those tools will then … Continue Reading
RGB Networks issues $20M of new shares for video processing solutions
RGB Networks, a provider of video processing technology, has issued $20 million of new shares for the acquisition of RipCode, according to a filing with the SEC. RGB Networks announced the acquisition of RipCode, a transcoding vendor, in June.
Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company provides cable and telco operators with solutions for delivery of video to multiple devices. RGB works with clients in more than 20 countries.
Founded in 2003, the company last raised … Continue Reading
Amazon stock drops after hours despite upbeat earnings report
Amazon.com may have something with its Kindle e-reader. The company released an analyst-prediction beating third quarter earnings report late today, with both revenue and profit gaining.
But a gloomy margin forecast for the fourth quarter pushed the company’s stock down as much as 4 percent in after-hours trading as of 6:34 p.m. Pacific Time.
The company announced a 16 percent gain in net income of $231 million, or 51 cents a share, for the period … Continue Reading
Kleiner’s Bing Gordon: Social Web due for shake-up, old media will “eat their young”
Is Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ social push coming too late? The venture firm just announced the creation of a $250 million sFund for investing in “social Web” startups, but 2010 seems like the wrong time to be jumping onto that bandwagon.
Kleiner partner Bing Gordon will be leading the fund. In an interview after the firm’s press conference, he acknowledged that many investors think social networking has peaked. That’s not the case, he said. … Continue Reading
Enterprise-focused HP Slate 500 isn't much of a threat to the iPad (video)
Hewlett-Packard is launching its Windows 7-based tablet computer today in hopes of stemming the tide of demand for Apple’s iPad. From what I saw, I don’t think this is going to make much of a dent in the iPad’s advance.
The new HP Slate 500 Tablet PC is aimed at enterprise users such as executives or mobile workers. With Microsoft’s Windows 7 Professional software, this slate is a full-fledged PC. You can touch the 8.9-inch … Continue Reading
Social buying funding heats up as ShopSocially, Groupalia snag millions
Investors interested in grabbing a piece of the white-hot social buying sector threw more money into the space today, as shopping recommendation site ShopSocially announced $1.1 million in first round financing, and Spanish coupon site Groupalia locked down €5 million in its second institutional round of funding.
Today’s infusions are part of a larger trend in investments in startup social media sites that focus on spreading the word about shopping deals.
These sites include “friend … Continue Reading
Tesla gears up $42 million Fremont factory for Model S
Tesla has officially completed its $42 million acquisition of the former NUMMI factory, a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors that was shut down in April due to the recession.
The New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. facilities in Fremont, Calif. spans 5.5 million square feet and will have to be refitted for production of Tesla’s Model S sedan (pictured below), which is slated to begin in 2012. The new factory marks the company shifting … Continue Reading
Will the quants invade Sand Hill Road?
Will the quants storm the clubby bastions of the venture capital world? That question has been coming up frequently of late. At the Demo 2010 conference, InLab Ventures rolled out a new venture capital program it dubbed VC3.0 that included elimination of carry fees and incentives for board members to spend time with invested startups.
Most importantly, though, the InLab Ventures platform features back-tested screening technology that InLab claims can quickly and accurately identify which … Continue Reading
Sony says it shipped 1M PlayStation Move units in a month
Sony said today that its North American division has shipped more than a million PlayStation Move accessories to retailers in the peripheral’s first month on the market.
The PlayStation Move is a motion-sensing wand-like controller that is Sony’s answer to the Nintendo Wii. It is more accurate and responsive than a Wii controller and is thus the first major change to the controllers for the PlayStation 3 since the system was introduced in 2006.
Peter … Continue Reading
YouMail's "digital secretary" for voicemail reaches 15M unique monthly callers
YouMail, a startup that provides next-generation voicemail services like visual voicemail, voice-to-text transcription, and custom greetings, announced today that it has reached a new milestone with 15 million unique monthly callers.
That number represents “five percent of the U.S population’s phone system,” the company says. The average YouMail user in the U.S. gets 50 or more calls that they can’t answer — a sign that users also trust the service to accurately deliver their messages. … Continue Reading
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will never make games
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said today that Facebook will probably never build games. He made the comment at a press conference today to announce a new $250 million sFund for social applications, a fund backed by VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well as Facebook, Amazon, Zynga, and others.
There probably weren’t too many companies worried about Facebook stepping directly into the games industry, but Zuckerberg’s direct statement on the issue should … Continue Reading
Just how popular is Microsoft's software lately?
The latest iteration of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, Windows 7, has sold 240 million copies in its first year of being on the market, Microsoft announced today.
Add that to the roughly 6 million downloads of the newest version of its web browser, Internet Explorer 9, and its newest mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7, which shows some promise in being able to compete with the rest of the heavy hitters on the market, and … Continue Reading
