Ask the accountant: VentureBeat fields your tax questions

This series is brought to you by TurboTax Home & Business Edition – Guides You to Your Biggest Tax Refund. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity. TurboTax had no involvement in the content of this post.

As April draws near, our thoughts turn to taxes. More than a bit unwillingly, for most, because the workaday parts of running a business can distract from building the great products that drew us into this … Continue Reading

Multitasking touch gestures headed to the iPhone (video)

Adding more validity to the rumors that future iPads and iPhones will lose their home buttons, Apple is apparently testing multitouch gestures for multitasking on the iPhone, according to the mobile site Boy Genius Report.

As depicted in BGR’s screenshots, the gestures will let iPhone owners swipe up with four or five fingers to reveal running applications, swipe left or right to jump between apps, and pinch to get to the home screen. As you … Continue Reading

Coca-Cola, Walmart sign up for Bloom's new fuel-cell electricity service

In a carefully orchestrated series of announcements this morning, hot fuel cell company Bloom Energy announced a new electricity service that allows customers to buy electricity produced by its Bloom Box fuel cells without having to buy any of the hardware.

It looks like Bloom’s attempt to expand its reach and offer more affordable options —  it has been criticized in the past for the roughly $800,000 price tag of its Bloom Boxes. Bloom also … Continue Reading

T-Mobile to resurrect the Sidekick with 4G and Android

T-Mobile is bringing back the Sidekick messaging phone from the dead, and this time it will be packing Android and support for its 4G network, PC Magazine reports.

At a press breakfast today, T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm confirmed that the next-generation Sidekick, as well as a 4G version of Samsung’s Galaxy S, will be “coming soon.” The devices, which will run on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network, are expected to appear in the first half … Continue Reading

Samsung buys Liquavista: You'll electrowet your displays

Expect to hear the somewhat disturbing term “electrowetting” thrown around over the next few years. Samsung announced yesterday that it completed its buyout of Liquavista, a company focused on next-generation electrowetting display technology, last month.

Electrowetting tech allows for displays that are bright, low-power, flexible, and transparent, making for easy outdoor reading. Samsung says the acquisition will further its position in next-gen display technology, and that it will pioneer the use of electrowetting in e-paper … Continue Reading

Amazon acquires LoveFilm, Europe's Netflix, for approximately $200 million

Amazon today announced that it has acquired LoveFilm, Europe’s leading movie subscription service, for an undisclosed sum, but a figure of around $200 million is being bandied around. Amazon already owned 42 percent of Lovefilm. The LoveFilm service and website will remain live, but no other details of Amazon’s plans for the service have been released.

Lovefilm is the top DVD-rental subscription service in Europe. As with Netflix, users sign up for a subscription online … Continue Reading

Deals & More: ChaCha grabs $3M to answer questions ASAP, CloudTalk gets $5M to let you talk and text for free

Today’s funding announcements include free services for asking questions, talking to friends and meeting new people:

ChaCha raises $3M for quick online answers: The question-and-answer service has raised funding from Qualcomm Ventures, extending the $20M sixth round of funding the company raised in October. Based in Indianapolis, the free service pays its responders, called Guides, between 3 and 20 cents per answer and generates revenue through advertising. Self-described as a “smart friend,” the company says … Continue Reading

Dumped by Barry Diller, GarageGames returns to its indie gaming roots

There is life after Barry Diller. GarageGames is proving that.

Diller’s IAC bought the company in 2008 but decided to bail out of its InstantAction game business, which included the GarageGames team, in December.

Now the company is born again as a subsidiary of Graham Software Development, an investment company that acquired the Torque business from IAC and is now renaming it GarageGames.

“It’s like a return to our indie roots,” said Eric Preisz, chief … Continue Reading

Bunchball helps Bravo "gamify" its Top Chef All-Stars TV show

The Bravo TV channel is teaming up with start-up Bunchball to “gamify” its Top Chef All-Stars show so that fans will be more engaged and loyal.

Gamification adds game-like features, such as rewards and achievements, to non-game applications. San Jose, Calif.-based Bunchball has specialized in gamification for web sites for five years. With the TV show, Bunchball is creating a Virtual Top Chef competition on the BravoTV.com web site.

This kind of deal is what … Continue Reading

Badgeville's gamification rewards snare dozens of customers

Badgeville creates reward systems that make web sites more engaging for users. Since unveiling its business in October, the company has rounded up 25 well-known customers, who have a combined 2 billion monthly page views.

Among the customers are Major League Gaming, Active.com, and India Games. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Badgeville has created a white label platform that allows its customers to offer rewards to their most loyal and social users. This business is squarely focused … Continue Reading

Does your iPhone make you happy? Text analysis says no

Relationships, not gadgets or money, make people happy. This is the conclusion of a study by text analysis firm Saplo.

The company looked at which words appeared most often together with the word “happiness” in articles in the Swedish press in 2010. Saplo’s technology can read and understand any block of text. It’s a sort of “Pandora for text” whose ultimate aim is to filter articles, tweets, ads or any other types of text based … Continue Reading

With Jawbone Era, your headset becomes a motion-sensitive computer

Jawbone, the maker of the Jawbone headset, is launching a ground-breaking new Bluetooth headset today. It’s called Era, and it has built-in motion-sensing, high-definition audio quality, and multiple processors. The company (formerly Aliph) is also turning the Jawbone headset into a connected app platform whose features can be updated over time. It also provides caller identification by verbally telling you the name of who is calling you.

It’s one more smart device in an era … Continue Reading

RockYou signs deal with Doom creator John Romero's social game studio Loot Drop

Aiming to lock up a high-quality game developer, RockYou has signed a deal with Loot Drop, a new social game studio created by id Software founders and gaming legends John Romero and Tom Hall.

Romero and Hall were the co-founders of id Software, the creator of classic video games such as Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D. Their careers have spanned 30 years of the game industry, and now they’re turning their focus to social games … Continue Reading

With anti-Zynga strategy, Kabam raises $30M for social games

The social gaming Gold Rush continues, and not all of the money is flowing into the pockets of Zynga, the biggest social game company on Facebook. Kabam, which has built its business in a very un-Zynga way, is announcing today it has raised $30 million in a third round of funding to develop social games and make acquisitions.

Kabam makes massively multiplayer strategy games for hardcore gamers who play on Facebook. Altogether, Kabam has 7.4 … Continue Reading

Google Ventures backs LawPivot, a legal Q&A service for startups

If you’re running a startup, you probably have to wrestle with plenty of legal questions, but hiring a law firm may be beyond your budget. That’s why a startup called LawPivot offers entrepreneurs a place where they can get their questions answered confidentially and for free (at least for now).

Google Ventures, Google’s startup investment arm, seems to think that the site is filling a real need — it just led LawPivot’s $600,000 seed round. … Continue Reading

Another Nokia setback: X7 smartphone for AT&T canceled

Things aren’t getting easier for Nokia in America. The company has canceled the launch of its X7 smartphone, which was supposed to be available on AT&T exclusively this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The cancellation comes only a few weeks before the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, where Nokia was planning to unveil the X7. Getting a new phone on AT&T would have been a major score for Nokia. The X7 likely … Continue Reading

Facebook’s mobile dominance grows with new feature phone app

Facebook has already established itself as the most popular application ever on the iPhone, but now it wants to expand mobile usage to people who don’t own fancy smartphones.

Last year, Facebook launched Zero, a mobile website that was stripped down to lower bandwidth usage, and which was free thanks to deals with mobile operators (as long as you didn’t view photos). Today, Facebook announced a new app that supposedly improves the experience with “an … Continue Reading

Gevo slashes biofuels IPO goal to $100 million, potential boost from Total, United Airlines?

Biofuels company Gevo is seeking a roughly $100 million IPO by selling over seven million shares priced between $13 and $15 each, a pared-down goal from its $150 million public offering hopes announced last August.

At $13 to $15 a share, Gevo could raise $93 million to $107 million, but the total may actually come out to $89 million after fees, according to VentureWire/Earth2Tech.

Looks like Gevo’s prospectus to potential investors doesn’t quite market it … Continue Reading