Facebook co-founder Saverin backs mobile payment startup Jumio

Jumio, a mobile payments startup based in Mountain View, Calif., announced today that it has raised $6.5 million in a first round of funding led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Saverin’s profile has been on the rise recently, after his role in the early days of Facebook got a sympathetic portrayal in the movie The Social Network. He was pushed out of an active role in Facebook but settled with the company for an … Continue Reading

Asus looks to Chrome OS/Android for $200 netbook

Computer manufacturer Asus is betting there’s still a pot of gold to be found in the netbook market, despite decline due to growing competition from tablet computing devices.

The company will team up with Intel on a $200-$250 light-weight netbook featuring either Google’s Chrome operating system or Android Honeycomb 3.0, according to a Digitimes report based on sources from an Asus components maker.

The line of netbooks, the report states, will target people seeking a … Continue Reading

Why everyone's confused by The New York Times’ paywall

For a publication that’s supposed to set the gold standard for writing about the news, The New York Times has done a pretty poor job of explaining its new payment plan.

I mean, if you look at reader responses to The Times’ announcement, you’d think that most Times readers are about to be left outside the paywall. In fact, both Times representatives and other experts predict that the vast majority of readers will never hit … Continue Reading

StarCraft II game's next frontier is China

It used to be that if a Western game showed up in China, it was pirated. But times have changed, and Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase.com have announced that StarCraft II is beginning a long-awaited open beta test in China on March 29.

During that time, players can play the multiplayer mode of StarCraft II for free. At some point, though, players will have to shell out money for the game, and that could turn out … Continue Reading

Does the future of electric cars lie in capacitors?

Back to the Future may have been right: The cars of tomorrow will be powered by capacitors (they will not, presumably, be able to time-travel).

At least, that’s what Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at yesterday’s Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, unleashing a torrent of speculation that the electric car company may be researching capacitor storage.

Capacitors are electric devices that can store charges temporarily. They can handle a greater number of charge cycles than … Continue Reading

Google's first biofuel investment: CoolPlanetBiofuels

Google Ventures, the venture-capital arm of the search engine giant, has invested an unknown sum in CoolPlanetBiofuels, a company developing alternative fuels with byproducts that help remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Google would not release the specific details of its first biofuels investment, but a Google spokeswoman said that it was not the lead investor in the $20 million Series B funding round.

CoolPlanetBiofuels, headquartered in Camarillo, Calif., makes “negative carbon biofuels” out of … Continue Reading

Android vs. iPhone browser speed test sparks dispute

Google’s Nexus S smartphone is remarkably faster than iPhone 4 loading mobile web pages, says a study by Blaze Software — a study that Apple disputes.

Both devices are generally fast. The median load time with Nexus S was 2.144 seconds; for the iPhone load time was 3. 254 seconds.

Blaze used Fortune 1000 websites for the test. There were 45,000 load tests in all. Android-based Nexus S was faster 4 times out of 5.… Continue Reading

Is Groupon worth $25B? (Poll)

Daily deals giant Groupon might be in talks with several banks to file for an initial public offering later this year that would value the company at $25 billion, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Groupon works with local businesses to offer steep discounts — sometimes anywhere from 50 to 90 percent. For example, it offered a year’s subscription to car-sharing service Zipcar along with $30 in driving credit for $30 — down from … Continue Reading

Noteleaf texts you quick info on the person you're about to meet with

Noteleaf, a contact information aggregator for Google’s Gmail and Calendar apps, launched a number of new features for its text-messaging notification service today.

Noteleaf’s edge is that it doesn’t require a whole lot of extra work to use the contact information aggregator, co-founder Jake Klamka said. The online service automatically imports contact information about a name when a user types it into a Google Calendar entry. Noteleaf also sends a text message to the user … Continue Reading

Algae biofuels for less than $40 a barrel?

That green stuff in your koi pond could power the world for less than $40 a gallon, if Australian biofuels company Algae.Tec has its way.

Pilot plant studies show that the firm could produce energy-rich materials from algae at the equivalent of less than $40 a barrel, a steep drop from current crude oil prices of more than $100 a barrel and comparable to the cheapest price we’ve seen for crude, which bottomed out at … Continue Reading

Social publishing startup Scribd completes its embrace of HTML5

It has been nearly a year since Scribd, a popular site where users can share documents and e-books, announced it was converting its content from the Flash format into HTML5. Today the company is making the last major step in that transition — it’s converting the more than 20 million Scribd documents that are embedded on other sites across the Web.

On one level, the format switch seems like a minor change, but it’s part … Continue Reading

New York Times paywall plans are ambitious and sort of crazy

In a bid to wean online readers from reading the paper’s content for free, the New York Times finally announced its digital subscription plans today, starting at $15 for four weeks of access.

While certainly ambitious, and something that every online publisher will be paying attention to, the paper’s paywall plans seem both too expensive and too confusing to take off.

The $15 four-week subscription gets you unlimited access to the site on the web … Continue Reading

Zong expands its mobile payments to game consoles and tablets

Mobile payments company Zong said today that it is expanding its mobile billing service to game consoles and tablets.

Zong lets you make payments online and bill them to your mobile phone, making online payments easy, especially for people who don’t have credit cards.

People use Zong and services like it to pay for virtual goods in social games or mobile apps. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said today it is expanding its reach to … Continue Reading

Social media popularity can predict stock prices

A new study conducted by a doctoral student at Pace University, in association with Famecount (which tracks how popular brands are according to social media) concludes that social media popularity can reliably predict daily stock prices.

The study tracked three brands, Starbucks, Coca Cola and Nike, over the course of 10 months in 2010-2011. The number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers and Youtube views were used as measures of each brand’s social media popularity. This … Continue Reading

Ask the accountant: What taxes will I owe on restricted stock?

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.

This week’s tax question:

I’m used to getting stock options, but my new employer offers restricted stock instead. Does this change what I’ll owe in taxes, and do I need to do anything now?

We passed … Continue Reading

Second time's a charm: FriendFinder files to go public again

FriendFinder Networks, an internet holding company for some of the most popular dating and adult-oriented websites in the world, including FriendFinder.com, AdultFriendFinder.com, and Cams.com, has filed to go public for second time.

The company plans to use the proceeds to pay back part of its debt.

The company initially attempted to go public in 2008, aiming to raise $460 million, and later reducing that amount to between $200 and $240 million, but its plans were … Continue Reading

Verizon’s 4G HTC Thunderbolt available today for $250

It’s been a long wait for the HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon’s first LTE 4G smartphone. After a delay of almost a month, Verizon has finally made the phone available today for $250 with a two-year contract.

First expected around late February, the Thunderbolt was delayed for weeks without explanation. One reason for the delay could have been trouble with the phone’s battery life, which testers reported at around two to three hours, Engadget reported.

The Thunderbolt … Continue Reading

Ngmoco's We Rule logs 3 billion minutes of game play in one year

When Ngmoco launched its We Rule kingdom-building game on the iPhone a year ago, it had high hopes. The game was a high-quality title offered for free and meant to take advantage of Apple’s in-app purchase feature for selling virtual goods.

A year later, the title is a success. It has been downloaded more than 13 million times, and players have logged more than 3 billion minutes building kingdoms and farming crops. In social games, … Continue Reading

Cyber security investments gain momentum with rising threats

Cyber security isn’t as sexy as social media among venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. But it’s a critical technology sector that has been gaining momentum with the economic recovery and the rising threats from cyber criminals.

That was the message for security entrepreneurs and investors from a group of venture capitalists and security experts at today’s Information Technology Security Forum at Stanford University. They said that cyber security’s hot segments include protecting mobile devices and … Continue Reading

U.S. immigrant smartphone owners drive video calls

U.S. immigrants with smartphones account for a quarter of all video calls made on PCs or mobile phones, according to a new survey.

The survey suggests that roughly five million immigrants have placed video phone calls with PCs or smartphones, according to Rebtel, the world’s second-largest mobile internet calling company. That’s a sizable sample and it makes sense, considering the distance that separates immigrants and their loved ones. It also means that video call marketers … Continue Reading