Week in review: Debate grows around Apple's subscription plan
Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
Will Apple’s subscription plan spark a developer exodus? — For developers, it seems like it’s Apple’s way or the highway. And the highway is getting more appealing every day.
Apple iPad 2 said to be unveiled at March 2 event — Apple will finally debut the iPad 2 at a San Francisco event … Continue Reading
Will Microsoft conquer free-to-play games with Age of Empires Online? (video)
Age of Empires has sold more than 25 million copies in retail stores over the years. So it was a big leap when Microsoft announced last August that it would recreate the game as an online-only free-to-play game. This week, it took the wraps off the game and we got a close look at it.
If this free-to-play version takes off, it will become Microsoft’s flagship entry in the new age of downloadable online video … Continue Reading
iPhone 5 part shows bigger display, iPad 2 available next week?
We reported a few weeks ago that the iPhone 5 would likely feature a 4-inch screen, an upgrade over its predecessors’ 3.5-inch displays, and now we have our first glimpse as to what that larger display may look like thanks to a Chinese Apple part reseller.
And in other Apple news, there’s a good chance that the iPad 2 will be readily available for consumers next week, as opposed to the April ship date many … Continue Reading
Frog Design's Jan Chipchase on how the poor can least afford bad design
You could call Jan Chipchase the Indiana Jones of product design. He lives in Shanghai, has a Japanese wife and just returned from a research trip in the north of Uganda, an area recently controlled by the notorious military group the Lord’s Resistance army.
Chipchase’s job as Frog Design‘s “Director of global insights” takes him all around the world and into the most private areas of people’s lives. The aim of his research is to … Continue Reading
A List Games creates service to market self-funded indie games
A new business called A List Games is launching a service to make it easier for independent digital game developers to market their video games.
Pasadena-based A List Games (we can’t bring ourselves to spell it as they do: [a]list games) says it will identify promising digital games — mobile or social games that are distributed through app stores or online — and market them in ways that big game publishers do. It can, for … Continue Reading
Entrepreneur Corner: Facebook follies and the compensation conundrum
Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner.
Can you fire someone for disparaging your company on Facebook? – Having an employee grouse about your business on a social media forum is infuriating, but is it grounds for dismissal? Attorney Curtis Smolar runs down how the question stands on the legal front.
3 tips every entrepreneur should know – Starting a company is a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the moon—if the launch is … Continue Reading
Latin American startup gets $1.3M for 3D social gaming
Zio Studios, a 45-person animation and gaming startup based in Bogotá, Colombia, has announced that local venture capital firm Promotora, has invested $1.3M in the company in a first round of institutional funding. According to CEO Alejandro Gonzalez, the new funding will allow Zio Studios to execute on its vision of combining social media and 3D gaming.
Zio Studios includes post-production and animation divisions as well as a gaming unit called Brainz, which recently released … Continue Reading
Ticketfly: Facebook really does fuel ticket sales
Updated
San Francisco startup Ticketfly aims to take on concert ticketing giant Ticketmaster. Its main weapon? Social networking.
The company’s founders Andrew Dreskin and Dan Teree previously sold their company TicketWeb to Ticketmaster, and they told me last year that the larger company still doesn’t understand the importance of social media. This week, the company sent me some numbers to illustrate that social networking really is driving sales.
Specifically, in January of this year, Ticketfly … Continue Reading
Consumer Reports won’t recommend the Verizon iPhone. Do consumers care?
The new Verizon iPhone may have antenna issues that are similar to its counterpart on AT&T, according to Consumer Reports.
In one respect, this isn’t a huge surprise, since the Verizon iPhone 4 appears to be the same as the AT&T iPhone 4 — just, you know, on Verizon. If the antenna design created minor reception issues on one network (at least if you held the phone in a certain way), those problems wouldn’t go … Continue Reading
Update: Web site hints that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will be announced soon (or not?)
Activision Blizzard is starting its slow strip tease leading up to the launch of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which is expected to debut this fall.
That’s a big deal because Modern Warfare 2 was one of the best-selling video games of all time and Activision Blizzard has all but promised its investors that a Call of Duty game will come out every year. The Modern Warfare series has a different storyline than Call … Continue Reading
OnLive will give you a free console if you buy a game
Normally, you get free games when you buy a video game console. But with OnLive, the cloud gaming service, it’s going to be the other way around.
OnLive is announcing today that anyone who pre-orders the THQ video game Homefront from Feb. 25 to Mar. 14 will get a free version of the OnLive Game System — a $99 value. The customer will also get access to THQ’s Metro 2033 video game for free. It’s … Continue Reading
Watch out, Tesla and Fisker! More luxury carmakers go electric
Electric cars are getting blinged out.
We’ve written before about how major automakers like Nissan, Ford and GM are plowing forth with electric car and hybrid offerings. Nissan, in particular, wants to grab 20 percent of the global electric cars market. But luxury automakers are getting into the game, too. Could it mean competition for luxury electric car startups like Tesla and Fisker?
Big news on this came from BMW recently. First, the company is … Continue Reading
On the GreenBeat: Geothermal wins $96.8M loan guarantee, ethanol could suffer in national budget cuts
Here’s the latest action we’re following today on the GreenBeat:
Oregon geothermal project wins $96.8 million loan guarantee – The Department of Energy has finalized a loan guarantee to a project sponsored by U.S. Geothermal. The funds will go to back the construction of a 23 megawatt geothermal power project in southeastern Oregon, known as Neal Hot Springs.
Germany cuts solar subsidies by 15 percent — The cuts came six months earlier than planned, according … Continue Reading
Do CFL lights suck? 'Save the light bulb' campaign has Ron Paul on board
It’s surprising to see people get worked up about light bulbs. But the country’s government-mandated shift to more energy-efficient lighting is raising the ire of conservatives.
Congressman Ron Paul, in some circles considered the “spiritual father of the Tea Party,” isn’t too happy with the U.S. mandate that light bulbs become 30 percent more efficient by 2012 to 2014, phasing in a set of standards that will arguably ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of … Continue Reading
Ravenwood Fair passes 10M users and keeps growing (exclusive)
The shelf life of a video game in stores is measured in days or weeks these days. But online, games can live — and grow sales — longer. LOLapps‘ Ravenwood Fair social game on Facebook is a good example. Launched on October 19, the game has now grown to more than 10 million monthly active users.
That means 10 million users will log in during a month. About 1.2 million users log in every day. … Continue Reading
Google takes aim at low-quality sites in search, Demand Media unfazed
Google last night announced a major update to its search algorithm that aims to remove low-quality sites from search results and improve the rankings for high-quality sites.
But notorious content farm Demand Media — who some think that Google was specifically targeting with its update — seems unfazed by the news. The site is best known for churning out tons of content aimed specifically at search engines — hence the term content farm.
Google says … Continue Reading
HighlightCam aims to make video editing simple and mobile
Mobile video startup HighlightCam launched today, as it aims to make it easier for users to take their movie making totally mobile and simplify the editing process, CEO Robert Neivert told me Thursday.
Using “objective-based video editing,” a user can create “edited” minimovies without having to do any manual editing themselves.
“Think of it like having your own personal video editor: you send them the footage, and tell them what you want, and they do … Continue Reading
Grameen IT CEO on how technology transformed Bangladesh
Kazi Islam describes his job as “implementing the future”. He is the CEO of Grameen IT which runs the IT services of Grameenphone, Bangladesh’s biggest mobile carrier. Islam grew up in the U.S. become returning to his home country. ”I lived in the future. I went back into the past. My job is to implement the future” he says. Islam is convinced that emerging countries like Bangladesh will determine which technologies survive and dominate in … Continue Reading
iPad 2 rumors settle on thinner body and cameras, no high-res display
Now that we’re only a week away from Apple’s iPad 2 launch event, rumors surrounding the tablet are finally coming into focus. At this point, we can expect the iPad 2 to feature a thinner design, hardware upgrades and front and rear cameras, a source tells the gadget blog Engadget.
Missing on that list is the often-rumored high-resolution display for the iPad 2, as well as a Secure Digital card slot for expanding memory. A … Continue Reading
Why China could rule the new age of games
As the games business transitions from console and PC titles to social and mobile games, China is set to take away the United States’ leadership in the business.
That’s the bold prediction from Tim Merel, who has made a splash analyzing the video game market in the past couple of years as the managing director at investment bank Digi-Capital. Merel believes that in 2010, video game investment and acquisition activity changed fundamentally and accelerated in … Continue Reading
