Nokia's N8 smartphone facing power issues
In yet another strike against Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, the company admitted today that its N8 phone is having power management issues for “a very small number” of users.
The issue in a nutshell: Some N8 users are reporting that their device no longer turns on. What’s worse, their phones won’t even charge properly — a clear sign that some aspect of the device’s power hardware is faulty.
Nokia assured customers that the issue is … Continue Reading
Groupon promotes holiday deals with a new holiday — Grouponicus
The holiday shopping season is about to start, and group-buying startup Groupon is hoping to get in on the action — not just by offering special deals, but by creating its own holiday, Grouponicus.
It’s another offbeat promotional campaign from a company that prides itself on smart, tongue-in-cheek writing. And compared to the last one I heard about, the Grouspawn dating site (where the company offered college scholarships to the children of couples who use … Continue Reading
How precious is Twitter? $2.5 billion to $4 billion, according to rumors
Only in the bubble of Twitter-obsessed San Francisco would a buyout offer of $2.5 billion seem “insulting.”
Yet that is reportedly how executives at the microblogging startup saw an informal offer from Google and a larger offer of $4 billion from another bidder earlier this year.
There remains a strong element of twee in Twitter, the San Francisco-based microblogging startup. Despite its increasing reach with 175 million users, it still cultivates the quirky spirit of … Continue Reading
Blog plug-in Zemanta scores $3M as it heads towards profitability
Blog plug-in Zemanta has raised $3 million in venture capital as it attempts to bring “semantic” blogging to the rest of the world, the company said Wednesday.
London-based Zemanta bills itself as “Your Blogging Assistant.” It lets bloggers fiddle with content that is more specific for their blog, suggests related content and pictures, and promotes posts on online platforms best suited for the blog’s theme.
The startup, which was founded in 2007 after winning $100,000 … Continue Reading
Gnip grabs $2M as it teams up with Twitter in new data selling deal
Social data provider Gnip has raised $2 million in funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and announced this week that Twitter had tapped it as the first partner to resell data from users’ posts.
Boulder, Colo.-based Gnip was created to collect and then sell data to social media monitoring companies.
Under the terms of its deal with Twitter, Gnip will now offer those same companies three different types of Twitter … Continue Reading
MySpace CEO tries to explain why he isn't surrendering to Facebook
MySpace and Facebook held a joint online press conference today where they announced a new integration using Facebook’s social data. Prior to the event, TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington described it as a “formal surrender ceremony,” but MySpace chief executive Mike Jones responded that it just reflects MySpace’s new focus.
“MySpace is very committed to the new strategy of social entertainment,” Jones said.
In other words, Jones suggested that MySpace has more or less given up on … Continue Reading
Facebook wants to be your…. homepage?
Facebook is apparently starting a push to get users to make it their default homepage. In fact, that’s exactly what they are doing with a new “Make Facebook Home” button that is beginning to appear on the top of user’s profiles.
Users logging in may be prompted by several pictures of their friends and a customized sentence reading, “See what’s happening with Stephanie, Kim and the rest of your friends the moment you open your … Continue Reading
Google's TV Ads heads to Verizon FiOS TV
Google has scored a coup for its new TV Ads platform. Google announced today that it has partnered with Verizon FiOS TV, the company’s fiber television offering, to reach 3.3 million homes on over 50 TV networks.
The partnership makes sense since Google and Verizon have become fast buddies. Verizon has been the premiere wireless network for Android phones since it spent $100 million marketing the original Motorola Droid, and the two companies have also … Continue Reading
The who's who of the digerati: A gargantuan Web 2.0 Summit photo gallery
The Web 2.0 Summit drew the who’s who of the digerati to San Francisco this week. Chief among them were conference organizers Tim O’Reilly (left) and John Battelle (right). O’Reilly opened the conference talking about the theme of “points of control,” or key pieces of technology that companies can use to dominate their markets. O’Reilly started out with a plea that companies not engage in destructive competition. Rather, he suggested they find the Blue Ocean … Continue Reading
Deal of the day? LivingSocial could be raising $100M from Amazon.com
There’s a big business in online bargains. How big? Amazon.com may be about to tell us, if a rumor VentureBeat has heard about the giant Internet retailer investing in daily-deal venture LivingSocial is true.
A source close to an investor in the Washington, D.C.-based startup, backed by former AOL CEO Steve Case, Grotech Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others, said that talks are underway for a $100 million strategic investment. It’s not clear how … Continue Reading
Why startup Coda thinks it can compete against Big Auto
I just spoke to electric car startup Coda’s interim CEO Steven “Mac” Heller, who is stepping in since former chief executive Kevin Czinger stepped down. Heller talked to us from Los Angeles Auto Show, where Coda is showing off its all-electric sedan — and where automotive titans like Toyota and Honda have also unveiled their electric cars.
So Coda has a lot of competition from major automakers, and is competing as an underdog given that … Continue Reading
Chevrolet will invest $40 million to offset carbon emissions
On the heels of GM’s $20 billion IPO, GM company Chevrolet has stepped in with a pledge to spend $40 million on clean energy projects in the U.S.
The company is looking to offset carbon emissions — 8 million metric tons, to be exact, or about one year’s worth of electricity use in 971,000 U.S. homes (or, to put it another way, the year’s worth of emissions from the 1.9 million cars the automaker will … Continue Reading
Plastic Jungle raises $10M for a place to exchange and sell gift cards
I’m not a particular fan of gift cards. There are few things worse than getting a gift card for Christmas to some store I’ve never heard of — or worse, one I hate. Hopefully that’s about to change with Plastic Jungle, a provider of a marketplace for trading and selling gift cards.
Plastic Jungle announced today that it has raised $10 million in its third round of funding led by Jafco Ventures to help consumers … Continue Reading
Apple's Wozniak calls Android the winner in smartphone race
[Update: Wozniak has said he was slightly misquoted during the interview to gadget blog Engadget.]
Oh Woz, we love it when you shoot from the hip.
Apple’s own co-founder Steve Wozniak managed to spill the beans on an Apple phone preceding the iPhone, bash Nokia and call the winner in the mobile operating system race — all in the span of a single interview with a Dutch-language newspaper today.
Wozniak said that Android would likely … Continue Reading
Android ties for lead with iPhone on mobile ad network
After lagging behind Apple’s iPhone for some time, Google’s Android platform is now tied for the lead spot in ad impressions on Millennial Media’s network, according to the company’s October Mobile Mix Report.
Both mobile platforms represent 37 percent each of Millennial’s smartphone OS impressions. Android jumped up 8 percentage points since last month’s Mobile Mix report, while the iPhone OS dropped 9 percentage points.
Millennial’s mobile ad network covers 73.5 million unique users, which … Continue Reading
GE's cleantech contest highlights 3 trends to watch
GE this week announced 12 winners in the first $55 million phase of its venture-funded $200 million Ecoimagination contest. The worldwide competition aims to hunt down the most promising cleantech startups, an area GE is actively investing in and chief executive Jeffrey Immelt has underscored in recent moves and speeches.
The company teamed with Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Emerald Technology Ventures and RockPort Capital to parse over 4,000 submissions from more than 150 countries. Their … Continue Reading
Are you dummies ready for location services?
For all of you who are still trying to figure out how to use location-based services for your business, fear no more. We’ve gotten wind that, come June 2011, Dummies.com, the infamous how-to series from Wiley Publishing will have a new book on the market — “Location Based Marketing for Dummies”.
The really interesting part of the new Dummies book is that it may bring a bit of good news to the location-based space. While … Continue Reading
Dell loses mobile chief Ron Garriques as it repositions mobile group
Changes are afoot with Dell’s mobile communications group. The company announced yesterday that the division’s chief, Ron Garriques (pictured right with singer Bono), is leaving Dell as the company integrates the group into its “core operations”, Reuters reports.
Garriques joined Dell in 2007 and was tasked with managing its mobile consumer business. The company adopted Google’s Android mobile operating system and started selling its Mini 3i smartphone in China last year. In August, Dell rolled … Continue Reading
On the GreenBeat: Trilliant inks deal with British Gas, NRG Energy launches charging infrastructure
Here are the top cleantech stories we’re following today on the GreenBeat:
Smart grid communications company Trilliant announced it has inked a deal with British Gas to roll out one million smart meters by 2012. The deal could open up the door for more contracts with British Gas, which has 16 million customers. Earth2Tech points out that the British government has said it wants smart meters in every home by 2020.
NRG Energy has launched… Continue Reading
Stipple snaps up $2M to easily tag the web's pictures
Image tagging startup Stipple announced today that it has scored $2 million in seed funding, just three months after its launch in August.
The San Francisco-based company lets anyone tag photos on their website, similar to how you can tag photos on Facebook and Flickr. The tags can reference people or products in the photo or can just be fun notes.
If you tag a product, the service figures out the best place to buy … Continue Reading
