Facebook gets serious about face recognition

If you thought Facebook knew a lot about you before, wait until it recognizes your face.

The company published a blog post this afternoon announcing a new feature called “tag suggestions,” which use face recognition technology to suggest which friend is probably featured in which photo. So when you upload a big batch of photos, Facebook will group similar faces together, because they’re probably photos of the same person. It will also look at past … Continue Reading

With Kleiner funding, Twitter’s valuation climbs to $3.7 billion

Folks who had a hard time believing that Twitter was worth $1 billion a year ago are going to have an even harder time swallowing the company’s new valuation.

AllThingsDigital’s Kara Swisher reports that Twitter just raised a $200 million round that valued the company at $3.7 billion.

In a company blog post, CEO Dick Costolo confirmed that the company has raised a new round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and existing investors. (Kleiner … Continue Reading

Fastest-growing game in history: Zynga's CityVille hits 26M players in 12 days

Zynga‘s CityVille has become the fastest-growing game in history. And based on an interview with a key Zynga executive, that isn’t an accident. The company has all but figured out how to turn its game launches into a science, and that helps them spread to increasingly large audiences on Facebook.

The city simulation game has drawn in more than 26 million users since it debuted on Dec. 2. In just 12 days, the Facebook game … Continue Reading

Buy your tickets for the Crunchies

The first set of tickets go on sale today for the fourth annual Crunchies, the startup awards co-hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm, and VentureBeat.

The ceremony will be held on January 21 in San Francisco, starting at 7:30pm. We’re moving the venue to the Palace of Fine Arts Theater. Tickets cost $75 and include a pass to the afterparty at the Exploratorium next door. And it won’t just be tech bloggers in attendance. The stars of … Continue Reading

DOE loan chief: Where we'll invest in 2011

As the Department of Energy moves forward to disperse loan guarantees to grow cutting-edge cleantech, its focus will shift from the maturing sectors of solar and wind to less-developed areas like biofuels and carbon capture.

Loan guarantees promise that the government will cover a company’s debt obligation in the event of a default. Getting one allows companies to seek better financing term, and it’s a powerful endorsement to emerging technologies. VentureBeat spoke to Jonathan Silver … Continue Reading

Pocket Gems fills its pockets with $5M from Sequoia for iPhone games

Pocket Gems has raised $5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and other Silicon Valley luminaries as it competes in the crowded iPhone game market.

The small San Francisco company has had five major hits on the iPhone, even though its founders were still in university when they launched their first game a year ago. The funding from venerable venture capital firm Sequoia is a testament to the rapid growth of the iPhone as a … Continue Reading

Bing exec explains how social can win the search race

Microsoft unveiled a number of updates to its Bing search engine today, most interestingly in how it delivers socially-improved search results through its integration with Facebook.

Back in October, Bing and Facebook unveiled a feature where Bing highlights search results that are endorsed by your Facebook friends (endorsements taking the form of Facebook Likes). So if you’re signed into Facebook and you perform a search for steakhouses on Bing, then if one of your Facebook … Continue Reading

Gaikai isn't concerned about OnLive's fundamental patent on cloud gaming

OnLive announced yesterday that it had received a fundamental patent on cloud gaming, where users can play high-end games on low-end computers by utilizing the computing power of broadband-connected data centers. But one of its chief rivals, Gaikai, said it isn’t concerned about the patent because it is operating in a different way.

Both companies can stream game imagery from a data center to a gamer’s computer. Most of the heavy-duty computing is done in … Continue Reading

Google launches easy Chrome installer for enterprises — another challenge to Microsoft

Google has launched an installer for companies that automatically loads the Chrome web browser on all of a server’s managed users and includes a suite of security and privacy options for administrators — an area long dominated by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

The enterprise deployment package is yet another salvo in the quasi-rivalry that has emerged between Google and Microsoft. Lots of enterprises already use Internet Explorer, the primary web browser included with Microsoft’s Windows operating … Continue Reading

DeNA and Ngmoco will launch global mobile social network, starting with Samsung phones

Japan’s DeNA and its Ngmoco subsidiary plan to launch a worldwide mobile social gaming network starting in April. As part of that effort, Samsung‘s Android phones will use the DeNA Mobage mobile social network.

The mobile social gaming platform will let players compare their high scores with friends and duel each other in challenges, replicating the features of social networks in a mobile setting. DeNA has combined its Mobage-town social network on Japanese phone networks … Continue Reading

Coming soon … a green laptop that runs on water?

Green chemistry company SiGNa Chemistry has unveiled a new chemical process for generating hydrogen from water, which the company says could solve both of the most vexing hydrogen fuel cell problems: real-time hydrogen generation and storage.

SiGNa Chemistry’s CEO Michael Lefenfeld told me that the new process could make hydrogen fuel cells practical as a power source for consumer electronics like laptops and cell phones. Since the hydrogen is generated from water, this effectively means … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: First Solar forecast beats expectations, Bridgelux to move into residential LEDs

Here’s some of the latest action we’re following on the GreenBeat today:

First Solar posts strong forecast, sells Arizona plant to NRG – The top solar panel maker and low-cost leader forecast 2011 profits above Wall Street’s expectations, Reuters reports. It also sold its 290-megawatt Agua Caliente plant to power company NRG Energy for $800 million. First Solar executives said they will continue to beat competitors in cost by around 30 percent, and will spend … Continue Reading

Spoken Communications gets $4M for call center voice recognition

Spoken Communications, a provider of speech recognition software for call centers and the like, announced today that it has picked up $4 million in its most recent round of funding to help promote its virtual call centers.

If you’ve ever called a customer help desk that asks you a question directly, you’ve experienced a voice-assisted call center. The software basically detects what the person on the phone is saying and moves through the menu. In … Continue Reading

Google TV's first update brings improved Netflix, Android remote app

Two months after Google TV devices hit the streets, the platform is seeing its first major update, bringing with it an improved Netflix app, a remote control app for Android and more.

I mentioned in my review of the Logitech Revue with Google TV that its Netflix experience had a lot of room for improvement. Google TV launched with a simple Netflix app that let you watch streaming video titles but didn’t offer the ability … Continue Reading

Why Mark Zuckerberg is like Hitler (and Stalin, too!)

Congratulations, Mark Zuckerberg: You’ve joined a long line of dictators, miscreants, and troublemakers!

The conventional groupthink on Time’s naming of the youthful Facebook CEO as Person of the Year for 2010 is a sort of geek coronation, a celebration of his social network’s ascendancy.

But that simplistic take does an injustice both to Time and Zuckerberg. For the Person of the Year is an observation, not a celebration. As a young editor a decade ago, … Continue Reading

Why does Zipcar need an extra $21M before it goes public?

Zipcar, a car-sharing service that lets people rent cars by the hour, announced today that it has raised an additional $21 million in its seventh round of funding led by Meritech Capital Partners.

The service is available in most cities, where cars are strewn across the city in special parking spots. Users sign up for a subscription, and then schedule a time and a car to pick up. They receive a card that activates the … Continue Reading

Sungevity raises $15 million to grow Internet-based rooftop solar leasing

Solar financing startup Sungevity has raised $15 million in a third round of financing to put more solar panels on rooftops by leasing or selling the systems to homeowners.

The company has now raised a total of $25 million, and Sungevity CEO Danny Kennedy said the company will use the capital to expand. Using a hot solar model, Sungevity offers solar leases that allow homeowners to put panels on their roofs for little to no … Continue Reading

The early bird gets the DEMO launch spot

Don’t forget that the early deadline for DEMO applications is today. If you apply now, and are accepted, you’ll receive two extra passes to the conference (a $6,000 value).

DEMO Spring will be in Palm Desert, Calif., Feb. 27–Mar. 1. That’s just over ten weeks away. If you’ve got new technology to show off to the world, DEMO is the place to do it. So apply now by filling out this form. (The final deadline … Continue Reading