IBM: Parking spot tracker Streetline is the world's smartest startup

IBM’s smartcamp global entrepreneur competition culminated in Dublin today with 9 startups from all around the world competing for the title of the “world’s smartest startup”. From 660 original applicants the final winner was Streetline, which helps cities track parking violations and drivers to find parking spots.

Ultra-low power sensors are installed in parking spots, which can detect if the space is occupied. Sensors can also be installed in the parking meter to verify whether … Continue Reading

Breaking all video game records, Call of Duty Black Ops sells $650M in five days

Call of Duty Black Ops has broke  another record. The combat video game sold more than $650 million in its first five days of sales.

Game publisher Activision Blizzard said those sales numbers make this the biggest entertainment launch of all time, beating out the previous video game world record of $550 million sold by last year’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

“Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to … Continue Reading

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski says U.S. could lead in mobile broadband

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, wants the U.S. to catch up with other countries in making sure a high percentage of the population has access to broadband communications. He believes the way to do that is to set aside more of the radio spectrum for mobile broadband services than is currently allotted. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, Genachowski talked about how to maximize investment in broadband … Continue Reading

Scoreloop loving 18M subs a week as Android honeymoon continues

Ah, newlyweds.

Cross platform social gaming platform Scoreloop is still going strong in its six-month lucrative partnership with smartphone Android, announcing today that is taking in over 18 million score submissions a week as consumers eagerly snatch up gaming apps on increasingly sophisticated smartphones.

Munich, Germany-based Scoreloop makes a software development kit that adds social features to mobile games.

Scoreloop’s platform creates social features such as leaderboards, achievements, virtual currencies and player challenges—while allowing game … Continue Reading

Once speechless on business models, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams now has plenty to say (video)

Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter, is finally getting comfortable talking about the micro-blogging company’s business models.

As little as a year ago, Williams couldn’t answer questions about how the service, which has more than 100 million users, would make money.

Now, the company is having success with advertising and will try out a variety of other business models as well, Williams said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. The options include … Continue Reading

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts check-in to Gowalla

Popular mobile check in application Gowalla today announced a new partnership with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

The agreement will provide Gowalla users with custom Disney Gowalla pages, a collection of recent check ins and activities for specific parks and resorts, as well as hundreds of available custom Passport stamps, an image in recognition for checking in to a specific attraction.

Disney and Gowalla have come up with several ways to promote the new partnership, … Continue Reading

Click it and book it: MerchantCircle brings appointment making online

The days of having to know somebody who knows somebody to get an appointment at the local chi-chi salon could be over, as using the online ecosystem as a way to make your life easier and find deals rapidly becomes localized.

International business network MerchantCircle today launched its new Appointment Scheduler, a free, easy-to-use online tool for customers to book appointments with local businesses online.

Founded in 2005, over 1.4 million merchants currently use the … Continue Reading

Milo.com sweetens its product listings with coupons

Milo.com, a startup that lets shoppers see online which products are available on the shelves of local stores, is giving users even more reason to go shopping– it’s adding coupons to its service.

Shopping deals seem to be a big focus among location-based services. Facebook, for example, just announced that retailers can offer deals through its Places service. But Milo founder and chief executive Jack Abraham argued that the payoff from those deals isn’t obvious, … Continue Reading

NaturalMotion pivots from consoles to iPhone games

NaturalMotion has had great success making realistic physics technology for video games. But as a console game maker itself, it didn’t fare so well. The company’s Backbreaker Football console game featured brutal football games with realistic tackles. The concept was good. But when it debuted, the game was full of bugs and was panned by the critics.

Now the company is looking for its second life in digital games. Using an outside developer, the company … Continue Reading

Steering clear of Zynga, Big Fish Games goes global with casual game expansion

Zynga may be darling of the social game industry, but Big Fish Games has been selling casual games for eight years now and doesn’t want to be forgotten.

The Seattle-based company is expanding overseas today with five localized language portals in Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Italian and Swedish. It is also adding 12 new currency payment options so that players can pay in the most convenient manner. Those moves should help the company reach as … Continue Reading

Netflix charges ahead amid mad competitive scramble for internet TV

Netflix is charging ahead on providing a streaming-only movie service in the United States, according to chief executive Reed Hastings.

Speaking on stage on Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit with former News Corp. president Peter Chernin and journalist John Heilemann, Hastings said that the plan to offer subscriptions for movie-streaming only is part of the company’s overall plan to reach as many customers on as many platforms as possible with its movie service.

The … Continue Reading

MindJolt releases money-making tools for third party social game developers

Social game platform MindJolt said today it is releasing new tools to help third-party game developers make money with its new ad platform, AdJolt.

The new monetization tools include a virtual currency product that developers can use for power ups, virtual goods, and other things. AdJolt essentially maximizes revenues for game developers who put their games on the MindJolt platform, which reaches 20 million users across the web and on Facebook.

MindJolt will use the … Continue Reading

Google's idea of the perfect ad (video)

Shedding light on Google’s latest thinking about “the perfect ad,” Google’s vice president of product management, Susan Wojcicki, ran through five demos in 10 minutes at the Web 2.0 Summit today in San Francisco.

Wojcicki, who is in charge of the design and innovation around Google’s ad and measurement platforms, talked about ways to enhance advertising effectiveness through a combination of web search, location-based mobile phone technology, and photo imagery. The demos worked, for the … Continue Reading

Verizon considers charging for 4G wireless based on speed

Verizon is considering charging users based on the speed of their wireless data connection as well as the amount of data they consume every month, the Wall Street Journal reports.

We can blame the carrier’s LTE 4G network for the move. Verizon is aiming to roll out its 4G network in 38 cities across the US by the end of the year, and it’s currently in the process of working out how to charge for … Continue Reading

Steve Perlman shows off OnLive's disruptive MicroConsole (video)

Steve Perlman, chief executive of instant-play game company OnLive, is also chief pitch man for the company’s games-on-demand service. Today, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is announcing it is taking pre-orders for its $99 MicroConsole and wireless controller. With it, you can play high-end games on low-end hardware.

OnLive has been working on its server-based technology for more than eight years and has a team of 200 people. It has raised a considerable amount of … Continue Reading

OnLive starts pre-sales for MicroConsole aimed at eliminating game consoles

In a move aimed at disrupting the game console market, gaming startup OnLive announced that it is beginning pre-sales today for its MicroConsole, which allows you to play games-on-demand on a TV.

The MicroConsole TV adapter and a wireless controller will cost just $99, and yet it will allow gamers to play high-end computer games on flat-panel displays in 1080p high-definition running at 60 frames per second, or faster than a blink of the eye. … Continue Reading

Twitter's Ev Williams: Being CEO is "kind of a sucky job"

The reasons behind co-founder Ev Williams’ decision to step down from the chief executive role at Twitter have been subject to much discussion, including a longish profile in The New York Times. And the subject came up again today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, where Williams was the closing speaker.

Previously, Williams said he demoted himself so that he could spend more time focusing on developing Twitter’s products. (The Times piece basically … Continue Reading

Looking for perfect event pic? CrowdOptic says: Look no further

A new smartphone app that allows marketers and event organizers to enlist the crowd in pinning down the best photos during an event is garnering a lot of attention from marquee-name companies, co-founder and chief executive Jon Fisher of CrowdOptic told me today.

CrowdOptic lets marketers and event organizers harness amateur photographers in finding that “perfect” picture from just the right place at the right time.

The app then sends a broadcast out to cell … Continue Reading

Zynga finally caters to international audience with localized versions of next game

Zynga’s games on social networks already have a lot of international appeal. It seems the social game giant is finally catering to that market with the release of its next game.

Zynga today announced that it will launch (soon) several localized versions of its next game for Facebook, a sim-city like city building game called CityVille.

That means the games won’t have haphazard translations, but a complete conversion to other languages — including French, German, … Continue Reading