Ahhha wants to turn your great idea into money

There’s a good chance that you’ve had some random product ideas throughout your life. Like, “Boy, it would be great if there was a tortilla chip that didn’t get soggy when you put salsa on it?” But unless you’re a startup CEO (and hey, maybe even if you are), you probably haven’t done anything with those ideas.

A new company called Ahhha wants to change that. The goal is to take all those random idea … Continue Reading

Google asks users to help fight content farms

There’s been a lot of discussion about the quality of Google’s search results recently, particularly its ability to filter out “content farms” filled with low-quality articles that are written to appeal more to search engines than readers. Today, Googler Matt Cutts revealed a new weapon in the company’s attempt to block spammy content.

With a new extension for Google’s web browser Chrome, people will be able to block websites that they don’t want to see … Continue Reading

BrightSource raises $89M out of planned $100M for solar thermal

Solar thermal company BrightSource Energy has raised $89.5 million out of a planned $100 million round, according to an SEC filing.

Last summer, the company set out to raise $215 million and closed on $176 million of it as of June of last year. It also announced in May it had raised $150 million in equity financing from investors that included Alstrom, Draper Fisher Jurveston, Morgan Stanley and VantagePoint. The company is perennially bandied around … Continue Reading

Zynga launches its flagship mobile game Words With Friends on Android

Zynga, the maker of FarmVille, dominates Facebook games with more than 275 million users for its social games. But mobile gaming is another story.

If Zynga can take a big stake in the fast-growing mobile games segment, then it will diversify beyond Facebook and give investors another reason to get excited. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Zynga was raising a $250 million round of funding that valued the company at $7 billion to … Continue Reading

Big media, not popular bloggers, dominate the conversation on Twitter

Who determines the big topics of conversation on social media such as Twitter? It’s isn’t the loudest bloggers with large followings of virtual fans.

Rather, mainstream media tends to play the biggest role in the top “trending” topics on Twitter, or those that appear in the top ten search terms on the service at any given point in time, according to a study by Hewlett-Packard’s research labs.

“You might expect the most prolific tweeters or … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: BMW readies electric car, Obama pitches $8 billion for clean energy

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

Obama proposes $29.5 billion for DOE budget — The president pitched more clean energy projects for the 2012 budget, to be funded by cutting $3.6 billion in fossil fuel subsidies, an idea he proposed in his State of the Union address last month. The Department of Energy’s proposed budget would give it $29.5 billion for the fiscal year 2012, with $8 billion for clean energy … Continue Reading

Ubisoft ships 6.5M copies of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Ubisoft, the third-largest video game publisher in the U.S. market, said today that it scored a big hit with the third installment of its Assassin’s Creed series, shipping more than 6.5 million copies of the latest game. That means the French company’s big bet on launching new versions of Assassin’s Creed games every year has paid off.

The success of the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood game reinforces the notion that blockbusters are ruling in games, just … Continue Reading

Will the iPhone Mini only stream media? That's crazy talk

It’s easy to go overboard with Apple rumors, and that’s what I fear is happening with this little tidbit: A source tells Cult of Mac that the rumored iPhone Mini will only stream media over the cloud, and it won’t have any storage onboard to play back media.

Now think about this for a second. What does Apple have to gain by implementing such a horrendously un-user friendly design? Would the company that invented the … Continue Reading

Netflix finally lands on the Boxee Box

Support for Netflix streaming video has finally made its way to Boxee’s set-top box, the company announced today in a blog post.

Netflix support was the most common user request for the Boxee Box, the company said, and for good reason. The feature wasn’t available when the Box started shipping in November — at the time Boxee said that it would be available by the end of 2010. Obviously, it missed that deadline, and it … Continue Reading

Kleiner Perkins adds Facebook to its social lineup

Legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers sat out most of the recent social networking craze, but it’s been catching up quickly over the past year. And the latest addition is Facebook, the social networking crown jewel.

Kleiner is buying as much as $38 million in Facebook stock from other shareholders (which usually means employees and early investors) at a $52 billion valuation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal’s Venture … Continue Reading

HP snaps up real-time data management provider Vertica

Hewlett-Packard announced today that it will acquire Vertica, a provider of analytics and data management software, for an undisclosed sum.

Vertica develops software that’s used to index and call up information on databases with massive amounts of data. The software works on both in-house servers and cloud infrastructures — meaning the data is stored on remote servers and accessed through the Internet. The company also provides its clients with a set of analytics tools to … Continue Reading

Twitter CEO: We need to be everywhere — like indoor plumbing

Twitter, according to CEO Dick Costolo, needs to be like indoor plumbing: simple, instantly useful and always present. Twitter users should not have to relearn an interface when they switch between devices. To this end, the company is pursuing deep integrations with various mobile OEMs and carriers

Costolo just finished a keynote speech at the mobile industry’s big event of the year — the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. His speech was short on announcements … Continue Reading

Intel Capital pours $26M into six online and mobile startups

Intel Capital announced today that it has invested $26 million into six companies across the mobile hardware, software and applications markets.

The investment arm of Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, typically invests in promising new technologies that will eventually help create demand for its chips or otherwise advance some of the company’s strategic initiatives. It made the announcement at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona today to show that it has its pulse … Continue Reading

Windows Phone 7 and Kinect learn to play ball together (video)

Now here’s a cool demonstration of some possible integration between Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and its Kinect motion gaming controller: using a phone to throw balls at gamers playing the Rally Ball game on the Xbox 360.

Microsoft showed off the demo at the Mobile World Congress event today in Barcelona. It doesn’t appear as if the integration will ever make its way to consumers, but it’s a sign of the sort of integration possible … Continue Reading

Windows Phone 7 multitasking interface rips off WebOS?

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system will be getting multitasking later this year with an interface that looks like a direct copy of Palm’s (now HP’s) WebOS platform.

Multitasking refers to the ability to use more than one application at once. For mobile devices, it usually involves creative methods to keep apps running, as well as easy ways to juggle them.

To switch between apps, Windows Phone 7 users will be able to use a … Continue Reading

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop vows to beat Android

On stage at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona yesterday, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop (pictured right) announced that the company’s first priority now, after partnering with Microsoft to use Windows Phone 7 on its devices, is to beat Android.

The company also hinted that we’ll see its Windows Phone 7 devices this year, and it confirmed the concept designs that were floating around the web a few days ago.

Elop, who hails from Microsoft, … Continue Reading

Anti sleep pilot keeps you awake at the wheel

ASP Technology just launched its Anti Sleep Pilot iPhone and iPad application to help prevent fatigue-related driving accidents. The app calculates a your fatigue level in real-time, maintains your alertness via reaction tests, and alerts your when it is time to take a rest break.

Founder Troels Palshof fell asleep at the wheel in 2007 (soon after the arrival of his first child) and narrowly avoided a crash. Not being able to find a product … Continue Reading