Microsoft planning Xbox 360 TV service to compete with Google TV

Amidst the hoopla surrounding Google TV and Apple TV, Microsoft has been oddly quiet. Now we have an idea of what the software giant is up to: It’s apparently in talks with media companies to license TV networks for a subscription web TV service, people familiar with the plans told Reuters.

The service would be accessible through devices like the Xbox 360 — which is increasingly becoming more of an entertainment hub for Microsoft, instead … Continue Reading

Mary "Queen-of-the-Net" Meeker joins Kleiner Perkins as partner

Influential technology analyst Mary Meeker has joined one of Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner.

The move marks the end of an era when investment banks employed high-powered analysts to bring insight to technology trends for their wealthy clients. Meeker, who leaves Morgan Stanley to join Kleiner, was one of a generation of bank analysts who emerged as an early champion of the Internet in the … Continue Reading

CloudBees' Java dream team lands $4M from Matrix Partners

CloudBees, which offers cloud services for Java developers, just announced $4 million in Series A financing led by Matrix Partners with participation from individual investors, including JBoss founder Marc Fleury and JBoss/HP/Bluestone veteran Bob Bickel. CloudBees was founded by former JBoss CTO Sacha Labourey in August this year.

A typical Java development team uses a range of software life-cycle tools for source control (stores the latest version of the code and manages changes), builds (compiles … Continue Reading

The Economist for iPad is barebones and featureless, but that's okay

I’ve been playing with the recently released iPhone and iPad apps for The Economist magazine in the past week, and I’ve got a stinging critique: not of the app itself (although it falls short in several ways), but of the new media and publishing 2.0 naysayers who incessantly repeat, “those old media farts got it wrong again!”

Not only is that line becoming terribly cliché, it’s downright ignorant of the market realities of the publishing … Continue Reading

Google acquires Groupon for $2.5B?

Rumors of a Google/Groupon deal have been swirling for weeks, and now Google has apparently bought the daily deal company for $2.5 billion, an anonymous source tells the news site Vator News.

Neither company has confirmed the news yet, and we’ve sent in our own inquiries regarding the deal. All Things Digital reported a few weeks ago that Google and Groupon were in talks, which sparked countless follow-up rumors. At the time, we argued that … Continue Reading

Nintendo says its sold 1.5M Wii and DS game systems during Black Friday week

Nintendo sold 1.5 million Wii console and DS handheld video-game systems during Black Friday week, according to the Japanese company.

The announcement by Nintendo’s American arm shows the company’s determination not to be counted out against heavy competition from Sony and Microsoft in the battle for consumers’ living rooms and pockets , a competitive landscape that’s growing ever more cluttered as smartphones and smart TVs add game and entertainment features which were once the sole … Continue Reading

VentureBeat and DEMO head to Canada — calling all Vancouver startups!

If you’re a technology entrepreneur or professional in the Vancouver area, please join us for a cocktail meetup at George Lounge in downtown Vancouver.

The meetup takes place on Thursday, December 2 from 6-8pm. The first 50 drinks are on VentureBeat and DEMO, which is the conference we co-produce every six months that showcases awesome emerging tech products. The address is 1137 Hamilton Street. Please register here if you’d like to come.

This is my … Continue Reading

WikiLeaks documents suggest China's leaders were behind Google hack attack

U.S. State Department cables leaked by WikiLeaks suggest that China’s leadership was behind the hacker attack on Google back in January.

WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents, released a new trove of 250,000 confidential American diplomatic cables over the weekend. Those cables allegedly reveal all sorts of secret views by the Obama administration of all sorts of foreign incidents, including the attack on Google that spurred the company to reconsider whether it could … Continue Reading

Online holiday shopping climbs 13 percent

More shoppers are taking advantage of the Web to avoid crowds, long lines, and the sometimes futile search for deals on Black Friday, according to new data from online research firm comScore.

On Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday shopping season, in case you need a reminder) US online merchants saw $648 million in sales this year, up 9 percent from last year. Since the beginning of November (which … Continue Reading

Week in review: Oracle wins huge verdict against SAP

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news (shorter than usual due to the Thanksgiving holiday). First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Oracle wins a whopping $1.3B verdict against SAP — Piracy doesn’t pay … at least not for SAP.

With Saturday Night Live spoof, TSA is losing the Internet war on pat-down searches — What we seem to have here is a citizen revolt in progress, aided … Continue Reading

EC Roundup: Crisis management and 5 unexpected challenges

Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner:

Cash? Equity? How should a startup pay its attorneys? – Cash is king, but it’s sometimes in short supply when you’re a startup. Some firms swap out equity for legal representation. Others cut back in other areas to pay in cash. Attorney Scott Edward Walker examines the pros and cons of the methods.

5 challenges entrepreneurs never expect – You expect troubles like building brand recognition and finding … Continue Reading

Google struggling to define Chrome OS as launch approaches

Google may have announced its Chrome OS operating system a year and a half ago, but it looks like the company’s executives are still wrapping their heads around its significance and potential. At least, that’s what I took away from a New York Times article about the OS.

Acer recently told Engadget that it won’t be releasing Chrome OS devices until 2011 but that Google has something up its sleeve for December of this year. … Continue Reading

Report: Windows Mobile was for work, Windows Phone 7 is for fun

Microsoft seems to have a new mantra: When all else fails, shoot for a bigger audience.

All of Microsoft’s top-downloaded paid applications for its newest Windows Phone 7 mobile devices are games — much like other mobile operating systems — compared to just one for its older Windows Mobile operating system, according to a report by Distimo.

Microsoft is running a pretty well-known and reliable play to reclaim its share in the mobile operating system … Continue Reading

What’s Twitter’s big vision? Twitter CEO says he’s figuring it out

If you’re wondering what Twitter’s long-term prospects are, you’re not alone — when British newspaper The Guardian asked chief executive Dick Costolo about the company’s long-term vision, he responded that he’s currently trying to come up with a good answer:

I am working on clarity around that at the moment. I am currently trying to define what Twitter’s purpose is in the long term. We will be able to be more specific on that answer … Continue Reading

First Windows Phone 7 jailbreak tool released

Microsoft’s fledgling mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7, managed to be live for little over a month before somebody released a jailbreak tool for the OS. Three men have just done that, as Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh and Long Zheng put out the ChevronWP7 yesterday, an executable file that allows users to sideload apps to a Windows Phone 7 phone – making it possible to install software on the devices without going through Microsoft‘s official … Continue Reading

Hydrogen refueling ramps up in Norway

A new hydrogen refueling station supplied by the Danish company H2 Logic will be installed just outside Oslo, Norway in summer 2011 as part of Norway’s “hydrogen highway“. Together with another planned Oslo hydrogen station in 2011, this means Norway will have one of the world’s densest hydrogen refueling networks.

Hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is compressed and stored in the vehicle. Most hydrogen vehicles react hydrogen with … Continue Reading

The hallmarks of a great boss

There are plenty of bad bosses. There are fewer good ones. But it’s especially rare to find a great boss.

Stanford professor and author Bob Sutton looks at the hallmarks and strategies of that rare breed in this Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture given at Stanford University. While traditional management theory indicates that monitoring employee monitoring and processes is the path to greatness, his own research shows just the opposite. Over-management, in fact, can stifle the … Continue Reading

Kurani Interactive gets a shot of angel funding to get the Internet's opinion on the fly

Kurani Interactive, developer of the Opinionaided iPhone application, announced today that it has secured $275,000 in funding from crowdsourcing angel investor Chuck Chesler and Al Angrisani, a former CEO of market research companies.

Opinionaided is an application for the iPhone and iPad that lets users post questions that any other user can answer. The idea is to get the consensus opinion of the Internet on matters ranging from fashion to which restaurant to visit. Users … Continue Reading

LG releases first water treatment solution

Consumer electronics giant LG just unveiled its first wastewater treatment solution, the Green Membrane Bioreactor (G-MBR) process, a mere two months after the company announced plans to enter the water treatment business.

LG admitted at that time to having no previous experience with water treatment technology, but it intends to invest $400 million in this new business in the next decade and generate $7 billion in revenue by 2020. The company said this marked the … Continue Reading