Who invented cloud gaming? T5 Labs tangles with OnLive (exclusive)

Cloud gaming service OnLive recently announced that it had a fundamental patent on its business of instantly providing sophisticated video games to users over broadband connections. But an unknown startup, T5 Labs, says it has won a patent that predates OnLive’s filing. At stake is a the future of Internet-delivered gaming — and a lot of money.

OnLive launched its service last year, allowing gamers who might previously have popped a disc into a console … Continue Reading

Drawing a line: DOE offers $343M loan guarantee for Nevada transmission project

The Department of Energy has finalized a $343 million loan guarantee to develop a 500-kilovolt transmission line in northern Nevada that will connect the state with renewable energy sources.

Transmission lines and infrastructure that enable renewable energies to get to customers are a crucial part of the cleantech sector. They’re particularly important for developers of large-scale renewable projects, which need lines to transmit electricity across the state or even over state lines in order to build … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: Solar and wind prices drop, Solar Junction hits efficiency milestone

Here’s the latest news we’re following today on the GreenBeat:

Solar and wind prices have dropped — Increased manufacturing in China and the financial crisis has led to over-capacity and pushed prices down over the last three years, according to a Reuters analysis. Prices of turbines fell by a fifth and solar panels by a half since 2007. and expected to fall another 10 to 25 percent this year. The drop in price is expected to … Continue Reading

Android Ice Cream will combine Honeycomb for tablets, Gingerbread for phones

With Google positioning Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb, as a tablet-only operating system, it’s been unclear when similar upgrades will make their way to phones. Today while on stage at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Google’s Eric Schmidt shed some light on the matter.

Schmidt said that the next version of Android, which will “start with an I [and] be named after a dessert”, will combine the current Gingerbread release for phones … Continue Reading

Internet security is like public health — we need a collective defense

The parallels between real-life viral epidemics and internet viruses is obvious. It’s the whole reason that fast-spreading malicious computer programs were called viruses in the first place.

It stands to reason then that stopping computer malware from spreading should mirror efforts to collectively protect people from public health risks, said Scott Charney, corporate vice president for trustworthy computing at Microsoft. He made the remarks in one of the opening keynotes at the RSA security conference … Continue Reading

Video-calling app Tango raises $8.7M

Tango, a video-calling app for the iPhone and devices running Google’s Android mobile operating system, has raised $8.7 million of a $10 million funding round, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Tango app lets tablet and smartphone users make video calls to other Tango users, much like Apple’s FaceTime app for the iPhone 4. The service works over 3G and 4G networks, whereas FaceTime only works over wi-fi.

The service … Continue Reading

HTC announces Flyer tablet, Facebook phones, revamped Android lineup

We expected Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC to show off plenty of new wares this week at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, and the company definitely didn’t disappoint.

HTC launched its first tablet, the Flyer, as well as teen-focused Salsa and Chacha Facebook phones, and updated many of its existing Android phones with the Incredible S, Desire S and Wildfire S.

First the tablet: The Flyer is a 7-inch Android tablet running a 1.5 … Continue Reading

Apple’s iPhone 5 may sport a 4-inch screen

In addition to releasing a smaller version of the iPhone, Apple is also looking to expand the screen on its full-size phone to 4 inches, according to the site Digitimes.

The news, while unconfirmed, doesn’t come as a big surprise. Even with the iPhone 4, Apple’s adherence to a 3.5-inch screen was beginning to seem dated — although Apple’s high-resolution Retina Display made up for the size deficiency. Since the iPhone 4’s launch, Samsung has … Continue Reading

Survey suggests local businesses checking in to Facebook Places

Facebook Places, the feature that allows users to check in and share their location, may be winning the hearts and dollars of local businesses, according to a MerchantCircle quarterly report of more than 8,000 U.S. local businesses.

First reported by The Financial Times, Facebook Places is getting a larger percent of businesses using the service compared to location-based competitors Foursquare and Gowalla. The survey suggests that 32 percent of businesses are promoting their services through … Continue Reading

Madison Avenue meets Sand Hill Road: KBS+P Ventures bets on ad startups

Can a New York advertising agency replicate the success of Silicon Valley’s venture-capital firms? Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners has launched KBS+P Ventures to find out.

The fund, structured more like a corporate venture arm than a traditional VC firm, will focus on early stage investments in ad and consumer technologies.

Entrepreneurs who receive funding from KBS+P Ventures will have access to the resources of sister companies under Kirshenbaum’s Parent, MDC Partners. MDC clients include … Continue Reading

Control4 nabs powerful Cisco partnership

Home energy systems maker Control4 announced an agreement with Cisco today to develop home energy and smart community projects worldwide.

The partnership is part of realizing Cisco’s vision for smart and connected communities, in which homes around the world have the technological abilities to do anything from give their kids remote schooling from the living room to getting a teleconference visit with a doctor who can measure your blood pressure remotely.

That vision also includes … Continue Reading

RadiumOne: Get ready to "like" ads

Ad network RadiumOne is following Facebook’s example as it tries to figure out whether viewers liked an ad.

The San Francisco startup is launching a new feature called the “R1 Like Button,” which brings the “like” button that Facebook popularized into the world of advertising. If advertisers choose to include it, viewers will be able to both like and share an ad. When viewers like an ad, they’re giving RadiumOne data about what ads are … Continue Reading

Soladigm grabs another $10M to make smart glass

Smart glass company Soladigm has raised an additional $10 million in equity financing on top of its previously announced $30 million third-round funding.

The  company nabbed new investors The Westly Group and Navitas Capital for the oversubscribed round, which was led by DBL Investors and Nano Dimension and included investment from GE, Khosla Ventures and Sigma Partners.

Soladigm makes electrochromic glass that automatically adjusts tint, which can reduce visual glare and cut cooling and heating … Continue Reading

Adknowledge brings alternative payments to the iPhone

Adknowledge is announcing today that it is opening up new payment options, such as offers, to iPhone app developers. This gives users yet another way to pay for goods and developers another way to make money.

Adknowledge’s Super Rewards division specializes in ads known as offers on platforms such as Facebook. In social games, users can play games under the free-to-play business model, where the game is available for free and users can pay real … Continue Reading

Digg shows page view stats in ongoing effort to recapture relevancy

Social news aggregator site Digg.com has unveiled more new features designed to satisfy users unhappy with the direction the site has gone since a botched redesign attempt last year. Interestingly, some of the features look promising enough that longtime users may be distracted for a few days before remembering the fact that there are still massive issues Digg needs to fix before possibly recapturing its lost user base and site community activity.

In what looked … Continue Reading

Everloop and i-Safe bring “tween” social networking into schools

Everloop, a startup offering social networking tools aimed at users aged 8 – 13 (“tweens”), is announcing a big partnership that could bring the company to an estimated 56,000 schools.

Kids under the age of 13 aren’t allowed to join most social networks, but Everloop says it can offer social networking to younger users because it’s compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Thanks to Everloop’s features and the work of moderators, kids cannot … Continue Reading

GetJar raises another $25M for its mobile app store

Independent mobile-app seller GetJar just announced that it has raised $25 million in a third round of funding for what it calls the largest “open” app store in the world.

The news comes just a few days after chief executive and founder Ilja Laurs published an op-ed arguing that the United States is “still the land of opportunity for VC funding.” It seems he had even more reason to make that argument than was obvious … Continue Reading

Man vs. Machine: IBM's Watson ties for first on Jeopardy

In a classic battle of man vs. machine on Jeopardy tonight, it was a tie.

Human competitor Brad Ruttner tied with Watson, a supercomputer created by IBM. Another human rival, Ken Jennings, isn’t far behind in the first of a two-game tournament. The match showed that IBM’s artificial intelligence technology is a force to be reckoned with, and in the future, it’s only going to get better.

At first, Watson was running away with the … Continue Reading