Scale Computing raises $17M to sell storage one terabyte at a time

Scale Computing, a provider of small-scale computer storage databases, announced today that it has raised $17 million in its third round of funding to triple its staff over the next three years.

Scale Computing sells servers loaded with the company’s custom storage software for small businesses that don’t necessarily need the petabytes of storage that massive companies need. The company offers 3TB nodes for $12,000, 6TB nodes that cost $15,000, and 12TB nodes that cost … Continue Reading

Stewart Butterfield built Flickr into a mass market tool. Can he be a success in online games?

Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake built Flickr into the first great photo-sharing site on the web. They sold it to Yahoo in 2005 and Butterfield stayed a few years at Yahoo. But 18 months ago, Butterfield returned to the idea of building an online game — the idea that preceded Flickr itself. Today, his new startup, Tiny Speck, unveiled a new web site and trailer for the social game Glitch, which will debut next spring.… Continue Reading

Milo.com revamps its product search for Black Friday

Looks like stores aren’t the only ones getting ready for Black Friday, the big holiday shopping day after Thanksgiving. Milo.com, the startup that lets shoppers see the products available in local stores in real-time, just launched a site redesign that highlights Black Friday deals.

Founder and chief executive Jack Abraham said that even without building many Black Friday-specific features, Milo’s traffic nearly doubled on Black Friday last year. Which makes sense — not only are … Continue Reading

Deals & More: Welocalize gets $34M to translate websites, Better Advertising brings in $9.5M for ad transparency

Here’s a quick roundup of some of today’s funding announcements:

Welocalize gets $34M for website translations — The company translates websites and marketing materials into more than 100 languages on demand to give global companies local relevance. Started by a husband and wife team, Welocalize’s linguists serve global companies including IBM, Microsoft and Autodesk.

Better Advertising Project raises $9.5M for transparent web ads — The company helps brands like AT&T comply with industry guidelines for … Continue Reading

Did Apple buy voice recognition company Nuance, or is Wozniak off his rocker? (Updated)

Update: Wozniak now says he was “totally wrong” about the Nuance purchase. Original story below.
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Apple may have bought the voice recognition company Nuance, the creator of the popular Dragon Naturally Speaking software, according to a brief statement by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in a video by Romil Patel of TVDeck.

Wozniak briefly mentions that Apple bought Nuance when speaking about the importance of voice recognition technology for mobile devices. He mentioned that … Continue Reading

Badgeville raises $2.5M to spread game mechanics across the web

Badgeville, a white-label platform for publishers looking to integrate social rewards into their websites, announced today that it has raised a $2.5 million round.

The startup offers widgets and APIs to publishers looking to add game mechanics such as badges and rewards to their sites. Publishers can add existing widgets or create a more personalized experience through working with Badgeville’s APIs to reward visitors for performing various actions on their site — for example, leaving … Continue Reading

Paula Abdul takes a crack at startups with a way to find fame on the Internet

There’s a subtle difference between being famous and being internet famous.

Entertainer Paula Abdul, at one point a judge on the hit talent-seeking show American Idol, has decided that there aren’t enough ways to become famous in the traditional sense. So she’s launching a new startup that will help young up-and-coming stars find talent agents and gigs.

The service, called AuditionBooth, lets users upload videos and other forms of media displaying their talents and abilities. … Continue Reading

iPad beats back first Android tablet — what does it all mean?

Samsung announced this morning that its Android-based Galaxy tab sold 600,000 units globally in the first month of its launch. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPad sold over a million units in the same time period (and in even fewer nations than Samsung’s global count). Furthermore, some pundits see consumer anticipation of the “iPad 2″ as weakening the whole tablet market till Q1 of next year when such a product could be announced by Apple.

So just a … Continue Reading

Zamzee fights childhood obesity with activity meters and Omidyar funding

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam have gotten most of the attention for their do-gooder efforts through their investment firm the Omidyar Network. But back in 2001, Pam Omidyar also founded a nonprofit research group called HopeLab, which is announcing a new project to try to reduce youth obesity.

Specifically, HopeLab has spun off and invested $1 million into for-profit company called Zamzee, which is supposed to launch a limited beta test of … Continue Reading

The latest in the hunt for HP's CEO: Pssst. Hey Larry, Leo is hiding out in Palo Alto

If you believe Oracle, Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive Leo Apotheker has been dodging Oracle’s subpoena in a lawsuit against SAP. But Apotheker has finally surfaced to speak on HP’s earnings conference call today, from HP’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

Apotheker, who was formerly CEO of SAP and was appointed as HP’s CEO on Nov. 1, is wanted for testimony in a case where SAP allegedly set up a division to pirate Oracle’s software. Oracle is … Continue Reading

As game business changes, Disney's longtime game studios chief resigns (exclusive memo)

Disney’s top video game chief Graham Hopper just announced to the company’s employees that he is resigning from the division that he ran for more than eight years.

Disney did not give a reason for the departure. But it’s clear that the video game industry is going through a lot of disruptions as social and mobile games join console and PC games as the drivers of growth. Executive departures in this context aren’t that surprising.… Continue Reading

Viacom blocks Google TV, the madness continues

The list of Google TV haters continue to grow. Viacom confirmed this morning that it is blocking Google TV’s access to its web video, which includes popular networks like Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon.

First reported by GTV Hub, the blockade puts Viacom in company with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, all of which also decided to restrict Google TV’s access to their web video. When you visit any of the blocked sites with a … Continue Reading

HP posts solid earnings despite turmoil around Mark Hurd's departure

Although it didn’t have a permanent chief executive for all of its fourth fiscal quarter ended Oct. 31, Hewlett-Packard still turned out solid results during the period and has raised its outlook for the coming year.

The company reported solid results despite the fact that the board fired chief executive Mark Hurd in August.

In a conference call, newly appointed HP CEO Leo Apotheker said the company would reinstitute salary increases in 2011. That’s in … Continue Reading

With Saturday Night Live spoof, TSA is losing the internet war on pat-down searches

The Transportation Security Administration isn’t winning the war for hearts and minds of the public on its new pat-down searches at airports. A lot of critics have come out of the woodwork lately, and the recent parody video from Saturday Night Live has gone viral, hitting the mark in a very humorous way on why people are concerned about being touched by TSA officers.

What we seem to have here is a citizen revolt in … Continue Reading

ReplyBuy shows text messaging can make some serious bank with daily deals

Apparently, there’s still money to be made in text messaging. ReplyBuy, a startup launching today that uses text messaging to deliver Groupon-like daily deals, is a perfect example of just how much life the technology has left.

Backed by a number of former YouTube employees, ReplyBuy lets users sign up to receive text messages for daily deals with partner merchants. ReplyBuy users can also text back to purchase the deal, after signing up and saving … Continue Reading

A first look at Toyota's electric RAV4, powered by Tesla

As they say, everything old is new again.

Fourteen years after it launched its very first RAV4 crossover at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota returned to Los Angeles to launch an all-electric version of its latest RAV4.

And this one is, as the logos in a teaser photo released earlier said, “powered by Tesla.”

The launch of the second version of the RAV4 EV is on a fast timeline, led by a working group … Continue Reading

Foursquare looks for full team of West Coast engineers

If you’re an engineer on the West Coast looking to join a hot startups, here’s a good reason to prepare your resume. According to a company blog post, popular mobile check-in application Foursquare has decided to put together a full team of engineers in its new West Coast office.

Foursquare is going from basically squatting at the Square office in San Francisco to claiming additional space for a larger team of engineers, who are needed … Continue Reading

Tiny Speck reveals a glimpse of its zany Glitch video game

Tiny Speck, a game startup founded by high-profile entrepreneur Stewart Butterfield, released a trailer and new web site today unveiling a glimpse of the zany world of the company’s Glitch game.

Butterfield started the company last year. He’s better known for creating photo-sharing site Flickr with his wife Caterina Fake, a site that was bought by Yahoo in 2005. Butterfield created Tiny Speck with a number of the core people from Flickr, including Cal Henderson, … Continue Reading