Why Verizon needs the iPhone to stay in the lead

Common wisdom is that Verizon Wireless is kicking butt and taking names with its Android phones, but recent sales data reveals that even a myriad of successful high-end Android phones isn’t enough to take on AT&T’s success with the iPhone.

Unless Verizon lands Apple’s iPhone soon, it could potentially lose its leading carrier status to AT&T.

The sales data comes from a report by ITG Investment analyst Matthew Goodman and is based on point-of-sale data … Continue Reading

Media6Degrees raises $17M to aim ads at social audiences

Advertising startup Media6Degrees has raised $17 million in a second round of venture funding for what it calls “social targeting.”

The New York-headquartered company says it uses anonymous social data to go beyond normal online ad targeting, which is traditionally based on audience demographics or the content on a website. Instead, Media6Degrees finds “brand loyalists” or other audience members who have a strong connection to the advertiser, and it builds a customized audience for advertisers … Continue Reading

Microsoft and Google's war takes to the skies

Microsoft — along with a number of other new companies — has joined an increasingly large bandwagon trying to keep Google from purchasing ITA, a provider of flight information for search engines, for $700 million.

Google is looking to acquire the flight data provider for around $700 million to improve results for Web users making travel plans. The deal seems innocuous enough — Google said it had no plans to sell plane tickets and would … Continue Reading

CES preview: A bigger show with everything from connected TVs to smart grid monitors

After getting pummeled by the recession the last couple of years, the Consumer Electronics Show coming in January looks like it’s going to be bigger and better again.

The biggest U.S. tech trade show (officially called the 2011 International CES) is an over-the-top extravaganza that is expected to draw more than 126,000 attendees and command more exhibit space compared to last year, said Jason Oxman, senior vice president at the Consumer Electronics Association, which stages … Continue Reading

Is Netflix heading for a downhill ride?

This is more than a case of sour grapes. Time Warner CEO Jeffrey L. Bewkes belittles movie-rental company Netflix in an interview with The New York Times today. “It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian Army going to take over the world?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”

This “Albanian army” has transformed itself from a mailer of DVDs to a streaming media service and procuring the rights – for not much money — … Continue Reading

Dell salvages its 3Par fiasco, picks up cloud storage provider Compellent for $820M

Dell has picked up cloud storage provider Compellent for $820 million after losing out on its bid for storage provider 3Par a few months ago to Hewlett-Packard.

Compellent, like 3Par, is a provider of technology and software for cloud-based storage. It allows users to store data on both public and private cloud servers more efficiently and cut some management costs.

It’s an increasingly important set of technology as many companies move to have their employees … Continue Reading

Details leak on Motorola's Android 3.0 tablet for Verizon

Now that Samung’s Galaxy Tab is out, Motorola’s Android tablet has become the iPad competitor to pine over. Google’s Andy Rubin briefly teased conference-goers with the device at last week’s D: Dive Into Mobile event and since then even more details have leaked out.

The unnamed tablet features a 10-inch screen, runs Android 3.0 (which goes by the codename “Honeycomb”) and is Verizon bound, tipsters tell the gadget blog Engadget. It’s apparently driven by an … Continue Reading

Record-breaking World of Warcraft Cataclysm sells 3.3M units in its first day out

World of Warcraft Cataclysm broke all PC game records, selling more than 3.3 million copies on its first day of sales on Dec. 7.

Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Activision Blizzard, said this expansion for its World of Warcraft online virtual world has proven to be the most successful of the three major expansions in terms of fastest sales out of the gate. In November, 2008, the second expansion, World of Warcraft Wrath of the … Continue Reading

Google Latitude iPhone app will help you stalk your friends

After briefly appearing last week, Google’s official Latitude iPhone app is now live on the App Store, the company announced this morning.

Google launched Latitude in early 2009 as a way to easily keep track of your friends’ locations in real-time. Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian users have been able to take advantage of the service for some time with background updating, which automatically updates their Latitude location. Now with an official app, combined … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: Indian solar market heats up, OriginOil wraps carbon and algae fuel pilot

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

India heats up domestic solar market — The country plans to seek 300 megawatts’ worth of solar project bids in the next month, Dow Jones Newswires reports, and has awarded 184 megawatts in solar projects so far, to be completed by September of next year. India will also hold global bidding in mid-2011 for solar hybrid plants, which are a blend of solar … Continue Reading

New biofuels CEO waxes optimistic on LS9's Brazilian play

Biofuels company LS9′s new CEO Ed Dineen says he is planning to quickly ramp up the company’s presence in Brazil.

Dineen was recruited away from petrochemicals and polymers company LyondellBasell, where he was chief operating officer and helped build the company’s presence in Brazil. His background seems to align with the new direction that LS9 will go in, which includes making inroads in booming new economies, adding more partnerships to get its biofuels production to … Continue Reading

IBM makes Corpus Christi into a smarter and more sustainable city

IBM said today it has been helping to make the Texas city of Corpus Christi into a smarter, more efficient, and environmentally sustainable city.

The deal to help the city of 280,000 residents manage its future is part of IBM’s Smarter Planet business initiative, which promises to use state-of-the-art technology to transform cities. IBM will supply software to measure, monitor and improve the way the city manages water, roads, airport, parks, and utilities. The aim … Continue Reading

DEMO Early Bird deadline this Wednesday

If your company is launching an awesome technology product soon, then we want you at DEMO this spring.

The final deadline to apply is February 1, but if you apply by Wednesday, December 15, and are accepted, you’ll receive two extra passes to the conference (a $6,000 value). There’s no cost to apply, so fill out the form today.

DEMO is the world’s leading conference for emerging technology. It’s where thousands of great companies including … Continue Reading

Starting Monday, WikiLeaks will have a rival in Openleaks

Former WikiLeaks members say they plan to start rival Openleaks on Monday as part of an effort to compete for official leaks with WikiLeaks.

The new site is being started by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and others who say that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has “weakened the organization,” according to CNN. It’s kind of ironic that some of WikiLeaks’ members found that its own process of getting information out stood in the way of the group’s goals. … Continue Reading

Twitter prepares for European expansion

Microblogging service Twitter is preparing to open its first office outside the United States, with company representatives meeting with London property agents last week, according to British newspaper The Telegraph.

The San Francisco startup is already an international service in the sense that it has a growing user base outside the US. (That was a major reason Twitter struggled to deal with the heavy usage brought on by the World Cup.)

But just as the … Continue Reading

Online retail sales may be trouncing physical sales this holiday season

Holiday season e-commerce spending continues to boom, with sales up 12 percent for the first 40 days of the season, according to market research firm comScore.

Holiday sales to date are $21.95 billion, up 12 percent from a year ago. The most recent week ended Dec. 10 saw online sales hit $5.15 billion, up 11 percent from a year ago. Two of the days surpassed $900 million in sales.

The question is whether online sales … Continue Reading

Spike TV's Video Game Awards become the forum for debuting the big games of 2011 (trailers)

Spike TV’s Video Game Awards have become the forum for introducing the biggest titles of the coming year. The eighth annual show aired tonight from the LA Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles, featuring celebrities such as host Neil Patrick Harris and footage from 13 upcoming video games.

Since Spike TV (the Viacom property that is viewed in 99.4 million homes) caters to young males and the show features the biggest stars of the video … Continue Reading

Google plans to fix broken Android Market with upcoming update

The Android Market on Google’s Android operating system has been broken for some time. Today, Google said it will fix some of the longstanding problems with an update coming in the next couple of weeks.

In a blog post, Google executive Eric Chu said the update will apply to all Android phones running version 1.6 of the software or higher. That means it will go out to a majority of the devices on the market … Continue Reading

Week in review: Why Google needs DRM

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Why Google needs the video digital-rights technology behind Netflix — Google recently announced that it has purchased Widevine, a video digital rights management company mostly known as the technology behind Netflix’s video protection. Why does Google suddenly need a credible DRM solution? Webtrends’ Peter Yared explains.

Why Facebook’s playing a dangerous game with the … Continue Reading