Research In Motion plays a new smartphone hand with BlackBerry Dakota

Can RIM play its cards right?

After a year of getting was decked by Apple and Google, the BlackBerry manufacturer appears to have a few aces up its sleeve yet. With the aim of impressing its core audience of business users, it’s rolling out new models — including a BlackBerry Curve-like phone that sports a touch screen running on the latest BlackBerry 6.1 operating system, according to a series of reports by tech blog BGR.… Continue Reading

Sprint to connect Ecotality's electric car chargers nationwide

Electric car charging company Ecotality announced today it has partnered with Sprint to its electric car charging stations. The partnership will make stations searchable on GPS and will enable billing services and the ability to track data on charging habits.

This is one of many examples in recent months of cellular carriers moving into the smart grid with increasing vigor. In the past few months, Sprint announced its 4G network will be used by Grid … Continue Reading

Launch of News Corp.'s iPad newspaper delayed

The launch of The Daily, News Corp.’s iPad-only newspaper, has been delayed. The Daily was set to be unveiled in San Francisco next Wednesday. The delay will last “weeks, not months,” a source told All Things Digital.

The postponement apparently has nothing to do with the app itself, but with Apple’s new iTunes subscription method. Apple will automatically charge users either weekly or monthly and will automatically update the app every morning as new … Continue Reading

Benchmark raises $425M fund — but top firm loses partner who made it famous

Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm that belongs to a handful of elite Silicon Valley venture firms, has raised a fresh $425 million fund to invest in new companies.

But fresh on the news, first reported by PEHub, came the revelation that one of its star investors, Bob Kagle, is apparently stepping down. Kagle was the man who backed eBay, the online auction site that went public in late 1998. eBay was not only a … Continue Reading

Who turns down $6 billion? Someone who's after $15 billion

Social buying powerhouse Groupon may be looking to move ahead with an initial public offering (IPO), according to anonymous bank sources in the New York Times.

The company recently turned down a $6 billion dollar acquisition offer from Google and, while many people said they were crazy, a $15 billion IPO could be a good indication of why. Others noted the reason was that the search giant lacked the needed human touch for daily deals.… Continue Reading

With latest accolade, the future is Bing Gordon's game (exclusive interview)

Few outside of the video-game industry have likely heard of Bing Gordon. But the game pioneer now wields major influence over the future of the Internet, with board seats on companies from Amazon.com to Zynga. Today is a day that Gordon’s fame may spread wider: he has been named the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, a prestigious video-game association.

Gordon spent more than 25 years at … Continue Reading

Zynga's CityVille grows to 100 million users in 43 days

Zynga keeps making history with CityVille, the fastest-growing game of all time. Today, the Facebook game broke another record as it reached 100 million users, just 43 days after its launch on Dec. 2.

The simple city simulation became the biggest-ever app on Facebook, surpassing the peak number for Zynga’s FarmVille, on Jan. 3. FarmVille hit a peak of 83.76 million users in March, 2010, according to market analyst AppData.

The growth rate is breathtaking … Continue Reading

Watch IBM’s Watson AI defeat puny humans in Jeopardy (video)

Earlier today we gave you the run down on IBM’s Watson AI supercomputer, and now we have video of our would-be conqueror’s test match with two top Jeopardy players.

IBM only demonstrated a few minutes of the test match, but what was most impressive was just how natural Watson seemed at the game. Sure it sounds robotic, but Watson is choosing questions and formulating answers on par with top Jeopardy contestants Ken Jennings and Brad … Continue Reading

ShopSocial locks down $1.2M for "commerce as a social service"

ShopSocial, an online commerce site that lets brands reward their customers for buying and sharing offers with friends across social media sites, has raised $1.2 million in venture capital financing, TechCrunch reports.

The most recent project of BuzzLogic co-founder-Todd Parsons, ShopSocial lets users share and recommend products and services with their friends via display ads, commerce sites and fan pages.

Founded last year, the nascent site — not to be confused with ShopSocially, which just … Continue Reading

Twitter: Make that almost San Francisco

Twitter, the popular messaging site, may be growing out of its startup phase with a possible headquarters move to Brisbane, California, according to brokerage sources in the San Francisco Business Times.

The company appears to have more than 175 million users, has sent over 25 billion tweets, and 100 million accounts added in 2010, according to statistics from Royal Pingdom. What do these numbers have to do with moving headquarters? Twitter is growing and with … Continue Reading

Will Facebook ever be rid of the Winklevoss twins?

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who settled with Facebook two years ago in a dispute over the social network’s origins, were back in court this week trying to undo the settlement.

What makes the case so interesting, besides the inherent drama of the twins’ accusation that Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea, is the fact that Facebook hasn’t been able to make the Winklevosses go away. In addition to $20 million in … Continue Reading

Shortages coming for Microsoft's Xbox 360, Kinect

Microsoft confirmed today that its Xbox 360 game console and Kinect motion-control system sold in such large numbers during the holidays that it expects shortages in the near term.

Microsoft saw huge demand for the Xbox 360 and Kinect after the Nov. 4 launch of the motion control system. To deal with that, it pulled production of consoles that were previously planned for January and February, said David Dennis, a spokesman for Microsoft. The company … Continue Reading

Pop that cork! Intel quadruples employees' bonuses

Intel is giving four times the usual bonuses for its employees thanks to its record year with $43 billion in revenues. The company is also paying its workers the equivalent of 3 extra days of work on top of that.

The higher bonuses cap a year when many Silicon Valley companies offered raises or bonuses to employees to keep talent from being poached. Google said it was giving all of its employees a 10 percent … Continue Reading

VentureBeat's top gadgets from CES 2011: Atrix, Xoom, PlayBook and more

With this year’s Consumer Electronics Show behind us, it’s time to take a look back and reflect on what stood out the most. There were plenty of tablets, phones, computers and other gadgets at the show, but only a few were truly memorable. This year we saw a phone that turned into a smartbook, RIM’s miraculous comeback, a PC competitor to the Macbook Air and more.

Motorola Atrix

We expected to be wowed by tablets … Continue Reading

Video game sales were down 6 percent in 2010

[Updated]

Video game sales were down 6 percent to $18.58 billion in 2010, compared to $19.7 billion in 2009, according to preliminary estimates for games of all kinds, according to market researcher NPD.

Game hardware sales were $6.29 billion, down 13 percent. Game software — consoles and portable games sold in stores — was down 6 percent to $9.36 billion, and game accessories were up 13 percent to $2.93 billion. The latter rose because of … Continue Reading

Intel CEO isn't scared of Windows on ARM

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said today during an earnings call that he is skeptical that ARM chip vendors will be able to muscle in on Intel’s turf on the Windows PC.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said at the Consumer Electronics Show last week that a future version of Windows will run on ARM chips for the first time, allowing vendors such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments to compete directly with Intel for … Continue Reading

Intel will go hog wild, spending $9B on chip factories in 2011

Intel said today it will spend $9 billion on chip factories and other capital improvements in 2011, far above the $5 billion in spent in 2010.

The company made the disclosure in its fourth quarter earnings report, which set a new record for the world’s biggest chip maker. Intel has never been timid about spending money during downturns. But now that we are in a full-blown recovery, as evidenced by the company’s strong sales of … Continue Reading

Capping its best year ever, Intel reports record Q4 earnings

Intel reported record fourth quarter sales and earnings as it ramped up production for a new generation of microprocessors and saw strong demand during the holiday-selling season. That’s good news for the PC industry, since Intel is the world’s biggest chip maker and its earnings are a bellwether for the whole industry.

“2010 was the best year in Intel’s history,” said Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel in Santa Clara, Calif. “We believe that 2011 … Continue Reading