Biggest cost in the Nintendo 3DS is in its displays

About a third of the cost of Nintendo’s new 3DS portable game player is in its two high-end displays, according to a product teardown by market analyst IHS iSuppli.

The teardown gives a window into one of the latest mobile devices, which packs a lot of new technology such as a stereoscopic 3D display into a very small space. It also shows how much effort Nintendo has put into keeping the costs low on a … Continue Reading

Amazon Cloud Drive doesn't spook competing investors

Amazon might have grabbed a first-mover advantage by beating Apple and other companies to the punch with a web-based music storage and streaming service — but it wasn’t enough to floor investors in the same way companies like Apple have done in the past with these kinds of announcements.

Investor reaction to a dramatic change in company activity can sometimes be an indicator of how successful a new product might be. For example, when Apple … Continue Reading

Forrester yawns at Amazon Cloud Player

The first critics were quick to arrive after Amazon launched the Cloud Player music service last night. Forrester’s analyst Mark Mulligan wrote on his blog that music locker services like Amazon’s “are not an innovation in the music product” and they “will not save music industry”.

Cloud Player allows users to upload their music and play it on a PC, Mac or any Android device. The music playback is not restricted to a single computer. … Continue Reading

Meg Whitman rumored to join Kleiner Perkins. Wait, what?

Updated with confirmation

Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief executive who lost her bid to become governor of California last fall, will be joining top-tier venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a part-time adviser, according to a report in Fortune.

The article cites “sources closer to [Whitman] and the venerable Silicon Valley firm.” Whitman wouldn’t comment on the story for fortune, and I’ve also emailed a Kleiner spokesperson for confirmation. (I’ll update if … Continue Reading

Firefox 4 on Android will make iPhone users jealous

Mozilla’s latest mobile browser, Firefox 4, officially launches today after months of testing.

The browser brings features like Firefox Sync — which synchronizes tabs, personal data, and settings from Firefox 4 on any other platform — and a new interface that does away with distracting menus and icons. And of course, it’s also blazing fast.

Firefox 4 for Android shows just how innovative apps can be with an open mobile OS like Android. Apple’s iPhone … Continue Reading

GE to pick up power management pro Converteam for $3.2B

General Electric will acquire Converteam, a company that specializes in technology that converts electricity to mechanical energy and vice versa, for a whopping $3.2 billion to improve its power transmission and management network.

The deal is not specifically a clean-technology play because it is focused on improving the efficiency of transmitting power from oil- and other fossil-fuel-based power generation methods. Companies like GE have had to rely on less conventional sources for oil and other … Continue Reading

Social music app SoundTracking passes 100K downloads

SoundTracking, a mobile application for telling your friends about the music you’re listening to, has been downloaded more than 100,000 in the two weeks since it launched, according to co-founder and chief executive Steve Jang.

Users identify the song that they’re listening to, either by searching for it in the app, using the app to identify what’s playing at their location (SoundTracking licenses this technology from GraceNote), or by pulling this information from their iPod … Continue Reading

Greentech fail: U.S. comes in third in clean technology funding

The U.S. is now the third largest investor in clean technology ventures as of 2010, behind Germany and China, according to a report by Pew. It was the second largest investor in 2009.

Venture capitalists and others invested $65.8 billion in clean technology ventures in 2010, up 35 percent from 2009, according to the report. It’s a distant third behind Europe, the leading region that invested $94.4 billion in clean technology ventures in 2010. That … Continue Reading

Sony launches free-to-play online world Free Realms on PlayStation 3

Finishing a big conversion effort, Sony Online Entertainment today launched its fantasy-themed Free Realms online game on the PlayStation 3. The title is the first free-to-play massively multiplayer online game launched on any game console, and it means that Sony can now introduce its pay-as-you-go business model to console gamers.

The effort is a major attempt by a traditional console game company to modernize itself in the age of free content. Most games on the … Continue Reading

Apperian raises $9.5M to let employees access enterprise apps on the fly

Apperian, which develops the EASE mobile application that lets employees quickly access and download company-built applications on the iPhone and iPad, announced today that it has raised $9.5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and other venture capital firms.

Apperian lets users quickly access any application built or deployed by their company, and they can log in with a corporate email and password. The list of apps available to them is customized by the … Continue Reading

Stealth online payments startup Stripe draws backing from PayPal founders

Stealth online payments startup Stripe has raised $2 million in a venture round from some all-star investors.

Backers include PayPal founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, as well as Sequoia Capital, Andreesen Horowitz and SV Angel, according to TechCrunch. The company was valued in the round at about $20 million. If it’s true, there could be a new player in the hot market for online payments.

Just yesterday, American Express announced its Serve online payments … Continue Reading

4chan founder looks to Reddit for a new Canv.as community

Christopher Poole, also known as “moot” and the founder of online imageboard 4chan, has a new image-sharing startup called Canv.as. Now he just needs to build a community around it as successful as — but hopefully a bit tamer than — his last venture.

Poole has turned to Reddit, an online news aggregator that already has that kind of community, to build up Canv.as’s user base. He showed up in one of Reddit’s famous “ask-me-anything” … Continue Reading

Practice Fusion's free health record system for docs

This post is brought to you by Xerox. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity. Xerox had no involvement in the content of this post.

When Dr. Michael West decided to make his endocrinology practice a “paperless” office, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

He and practice manager Ken Harrington researched electronic health record systems throughout the fall of 2009, ultimately sinking tens of thousands of dollars into a … Continue Reading

Nokia hurdles: speed, accountability, and laziness

When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop joined the company last year and led it to partner with Microsoft, we knew it would be difficult for him to reshape the mobile giant into a worthy competitor against Apple and Google.

Now we have a better sense of what Elop (pictured) faces at Nokia, thanks to a Bloomberg report from this morning, and it all seems to come down to speed, accountability, and laziness.

Speed: Every flagship … Continue Reading

Limos.com lands $10M for swanky online limo services

Limos.com, an online marketplace for limousine services, announced this morning that it has raised $10 million in funding.

Limos.com, which provides online bookings and consumer reviews, has become the largest marketplace for limo services, the company said. The company pre-screens all Limo operators and makes it mandatory that they are covered by $10 million in insurance. Limos.com has established partnerships with notable companies including OpenTable and Ticketmaster.

Says T.J. Clark, Limos.com President & CEO, “After … Continue Reading

Nokia files another ITC patent lawsuit against Apple

Nokia has filed a second patent infringement complaint with the United States International Trade Commission against Apple. The suit alleges Apple infringes on Nokia patents in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers.

If Nokia prevails in these suits, it could slow down Apple’s gains in the market. But it’s clear that Apple represents a threat to the very heart of Nokia’s struggling mobile phone business. Both companies are engaged in … Continue Reading

Evernote revamps its website following slew of upgrades

Popular memory-aid service Evernote says it’s been upgrading all of its different products in the last few months, including its iPhone, Android, Windows, and Mac applications. Today the company is unveiling a revamped Evernote website too.

The fact that Evernote launched the new website after taking care of its other products should give you some sense of where the site stands in the company’s priorities. I really think of Evernote as a mobile application for … Continue Reading

Review: Does Steel Diver game go deep enough to make Nintendo's 3DS addictive?

Of the 18 games that debuted with the Nintendo 3DS on Sunday, the submarine combat game Steel Diver was one of the most intriguing and unique titles for the new handheld gaming system with glasses-free stereoscopic 3D.

The game is kind of a critical one for Nintendo, since its new 3DS still seems to be lacking a flagship game capable of making the device competitive against the numerous smartphones and tablets already on the market … Continue Reading