Word Lens iPhone app combines instant text translation with augmented reality

Just when you thought you’ve seen everything mobile apps have to offer, along comes an entry like Word Lens that makes you feel like you’re in the future. The app instantly translates Spanish into English (and vice versa) whenever you point your iPhone’s camera on text.

Translation apps aren’t anything new, but what’s amazing about Word Lens is that it translates text in real-time — there’s no need to take a photo and wait for … Continue Reading

Xerox creates a cool "smart document" touchscreen display

Researchers at Xerox have created a “smart document” touchscreen display that literally puts thousands of documents at your fingertips. The machine is a big tabletop display that can be shared by multiple collaborators, who can sort and search through the documents using touchscreens.

The new document review system is a prototype developed by scientists at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Grenoble, France. If it turns into a product, it could help the masses of workers … Continue Reading

Deals & More: Kapitall grabs $7.3M for iPad investment app, ScoreBig raises money for discounted sports tickets

Today’s funding announcements include new ways to invest in stocks, buy cheap event tickets and build sustainable companies:

Kapitall gets $7.3M for easy investing app: Stereo Scope, parent company of app developer Kapitall, has raised $7.3M in new cash and has converted more than $5.5M of previously issued promissory notes in a first round of funding. With offices in New York City and Seattle, the startup’s free iPad app has an easy-to-use interface (the visual … Continue Reading

Sibblingz puts social games inside Microsoft's Bing search engine

Sibblingz, a startup that makes it easy to launch an app across different game platforms, is announcing today it can put social games inside Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The idea is a novel one and it fits with the notion that social games can be played anywhere that users are, whether that’s on Facebook, on the iPhone, or even while searching the internet. With the addition of Bing, Sibblingz becomes more attractive for developers. Essentially, … Continue Reading

Consolidation comes to kids casual game sites as SecretBuilders buys Dizzywood's assets (exclusive)

Kids casual game site SecretBuilders is announcing today that it has acquired the assets of rival kids virtual world Dizzywood for an undisclosed price.

Both sites will remain operational but SecretBuilders will try to migrate as many of Dizzywood’s 1.5 million registered users as it can to SecretBuilders, which targets kids ages five to 14. It’s one more example that shows virtual worlds aren’t as hot as they used to be and there are plenty … Continue Reading

Learning from Groupon, OpenFeint launches group deals for mobile game buyers

If it works for Groupon, maybe the group-buying craze will work for mobile games. With that logic, OpenFeint launched a program today that will let groups of gamers buy iPhone and Android games at deep discounts.

Millions of consumers already buy goods and services at deep discounts via group-buying services such as Groupon, which is so hot it recently turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google. The vendors providing the goods can see … Continue Reading

AdKeeper wants to know: Are your ads "keepable"?

If AdKeeper chief executive Scott Kurnit has his way, there will soon be a new topic of discussion when ad teams evaluate their campaigns. Sure, they’ll talk about how many times an ad was seen and clicked on, but they’ll also want to know how many times it was “kept.”

New York City-based AdKeeper recently launched a private test of a new service that allows users to save their ads. When you see the AdKeeper … Continue Reading

Can mobile startup BreezyPrint end your printing headaches?

As smartphones become more central to our work lives, it gets more and more annoying when you have to move off your phone and onto your computer to accomplish some basic tasks — like, say, printing a document. That’s where a startup called BreezyPrint comes in.

BreezyPrint is a pretty young company — it just graduated from the Founder Institute, an incubator and training program for entrepreneurs, a few months ago. But it has a … Continue Reading

Feds charge five tech consultants with illegal insider trading

Federal prosecutors charged five Silicon Valley workers with illegal insider trading today, alleging that they used information they obtained about technology companies such as Dell, Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Flextronics to profit on their shares.

The charges stemmed from a three-year investigation; in the past few weeks, federal investigators have raided several hedge-fund and mutual-fund operators in connection with the probe. Those charged worked either as consultants or employees for Primary Global Research, a … Continue Reading

Facebook's new login for the Web could ruffle feathers

Facebook has launched a new registration tool that lets website developers provide a quick and easy way for users to sign up using their data from Facebook.

The tool, a counterpart to Facebook Login, involves customizing and inserting a small amount of code into a website’s pages, which then operates as a signup form.

Website developers can ask for specific fields required for an account (for example: name, birthday, gender, location, email), or add custom … Continue Reading

Oracle sets eyes on HP after posting strong second quarter

Hewlett-Packard? They’re just a minor roadblock, according to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

After easily beating the expectations of many analysts with its most recent earnings report, Oracle is setting its sights on capturing market share and claiming HP’s spot of number two database hardware and software provider behind IBM.

Net income for Oracle jumped 28 percent to $1.87 billion in its second quarter of 2011, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter a year … Continue Reading

Take-Two follows a profitable 2010 with stellar 2011 games lineup

Take-Two Interactive Software reported a strong profit for the fiscal year and quarter ended Oct. 31, the first time it has reported a sizable profit in a year when it didn’t ship a Grand Theft Auto Game. Much of that was due to the breakout hit from Take-Two’s RockStar Games label, Red Dead Redemption.

The results suggest that Take-Two has cracked the formula for consistently generating profits in an unpredictable, hit-driven business.

New York-based Take-Two … Continue Reading

And we're off! Electric cars are here — now they need a charge

It’s official: Electric cars for the mass consumer crowd have arrived.

The first all-electric Nissan Leaf was sold last week to a man in California, and more are trickling in. And the first Chevrolet Volts (pictured) — GM’s model that can go up to 50 miles on battery power before switching to its gas “range extender” — are rolling off assembly lines in Detroit this week, with 160 cars slated to go to dealers in … Continue Reading

AOL acquires Pictela to distribute more promos

AOL announced this morning that it has acquired New York-based Pictela, a service that distributes promotional content like videos, photos, and coupons across top publishers such as AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Glam Media.

While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, a source told the Wall Street Journal it could be between $20 million to $30 million.

The company’s motive for the acquisition, it claims, is to add to its premium tools for advertisers and … Continue Reading

What can we expect from Foursquare's new app?

According to a recent Foursquare post on Twitter, the company just had the next version of its iPhone application approved by Apple. (The post thanked “SantaJobs,” apparently a reference to Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs.)

Foursquare cofounders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai have been dropping a lot of hints about a major revamp to Foursquare, a popular location service used by 5 million people who announce their location to friends by checking in on … Continue Reading

Google's big, but is that bad?

Is Google getting too big?

Yes, argues Steven Pearlstein, a Washington Post business columnist — so big, he says, that the government should start reviewing every one of the company’s acquisitions on antitrust grounds.

But big doesn’t necessarily mean anticompetitive. With a cash hoard of $33 billion, a market cap of $189 billion, and a money-minting search franchise, Google is going to keep growing, whether critics such as Pearlstein like it or not. The only … Continue Reading

iPad social magazine Flipboard adds Google Reader, Flickr and more

Despite continued questions over its legality, the hot iPad social magazine Flipboard shows no signs of slowing down. The company announced the latest update to its app last night, bringing with it support for Google Reader, Flickr, live previews and more.

Flipboard made waves when it launched in July with its unique ability to turn any web page into an elegant reading experience. But publishers weren’t so enthusiastic. Flipboard first started off scraping content directly … Continue Reading

Groupon looks for additional funding after striking Google's $6B offer

Groupon, the daily deal site that has risen to infamy after rejecting a buyout offer from Google worth $6 billion, is on top of the world — for now.

To make sure things stay that way, the daily deal company is looking to raise more than $100 million in venture capital funding to fight off newcomers like LivingSocial, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

Groupon is the king of the hill, based on a … Continue Reading

Is Yahoo about to kill Delicious?

Updated

It looks like Yahoo’s cost-cutting efforts go beyond its recent layoffs. The company plans to “sunset” (i.e., shut down) a number of products including social bookmarking service Delicious, according to what looks like a leaked slide from a company-wide presentation.

The slide was posted on Twitter by Eric Marcoullier, who co-founded blog social network MyBlogLog, another service listed in the “sunset” column. The slide says that Yahoo Picks, AltaVista, Yahoo Buzz, and other services … Continue Reading