Are solar panel manufacturing component prices falling fast enough?

The price of polysilicon, a key component in manufacturing solar panels that capture sunlight and convert it to electricity, fell 5.1 percent to $74.4 per kilogram from $78.19 last month. Still, the decline is smaller than expected and the current prices could hurt profit margins for solar panel manufacturers that rely on crystalline silicon panels.

Many solar panel manufacturers live and die by the cost of polysilicon. Polysilicon prices crashed — along with almost everything … Continue Reading

Roambi Flow turns your business information into gorgeous iPad reports

After revolutionizing the way companies can interact with their business data on the go with its Roambi app, San Diego-based startup Mellmo is now aiming to let you use that data to create gorgeous interactive reports and presentations with its new iPad app and publishing platform Roambi Flow.

The move is the next step in Mellmo’s plan to make business intelligence (BI) more accessible, and dare I say it, sexy.

Mellmo’s initial Roambi app … Continue Reading

Tradeshift reinvigorates invoicing with $7 million in funding

Tradeshift calls itself a social network for business but its main service is currently free, web-based invoicing. The company just landed $7M in funding from Notion Capital.

Notion Capital is the venture fund of the founders of MessageLabs, which was sold to Symantec for $700 million in 2008. Tradeshift previously received seed funding from PayPal.

The company was started by a group of developers who created the e-invoicing system for the Danish government. 50,000 businesses … Continue Reading

StackMob stacks up $7.5M to be Heroku-style backend for mobile developers

StackMob, a backend development platform for mobile applications — in the vein of the successful Ruby-backend platform Heroku – has announced that it has raised $7.5 million in its first round of funding.

Currently in a private beta, the startup targets mobile developers and looks to provide them with a complete solution to host, manage, and deploy their mobile applications. It also offers developers the ability to create APIs, push notifications, measure analytics, integrate with … Continue Reading

SanDisk buys enterprise flash memory firm Pliant Technology for $327M

Flash memory chip maker SanDisk will pay $327 million to buy Pliant Technology, a maker of enterprise solid state drives.

Flash memory chips, used to store data in the enterprise solid state drives, are going through a revival in memory caches inside corporate data centers. That’s because they can speed the retrieval of data without using a ton of energy. The result is apps that run faster and consume less power.

Under the terms of … Continue Reading

Miramax brings its movies to Netflix streaming in June

Tarantino fans rejoice! Netflix announced today that it has inked a multi-year deal with Miramax –  the studio behind films like Kill Bill, The English Patient and Pulp Fiction — to stream its movie library starting in June.

Not only is the deal another massive grab for content from Netflix, it’s also Miramax’s first stab at a digital distribution deal since Disney sold off the studio to an investor group for $660 million last … Continue Reading

Japan demands Sony prove PlayStation Network is safe before restart

Service for Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) is finally being restored in the US and across the globe after a long outage, but the company’s home country of Japan still hasn’t approved the restart of the service, according to a report by the Dow Jones Newswires.

Sony won’t be allowed to restore PSN in Japan until it proves that it has followed through with preventative measures for future hacking attacks, and it has taken further measures … Continue Reading

National Geographic virtual world Animal Jam hits a million kids

National Geographic Animal Jam is a rarity as a successful kids virtual world. The online world is announcing today that it has reached a million registered players in seven months.

Sure, virtual worlds have lost their luster and Animal Jam isn’t growing as fast as Facebook. But there aren’t that many worlds aimed at kids ages 5 to 11 that have taken off like that lately.

Animal Jam was created by Salt Lake City-based Smart … Continue Reading

Pitch your hot mobile startup at MobileBeat 2011!

It’s that time of the year again: VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2011 conference is coming up on July 12 – 13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. This year our theme is “Who wins in the 4G nirvana?” We’ll be focusing on the rise of 4G and what it means for every aspect of the mobile industry.

This year we’re looking to showcase the top 20 companies with the coolest mobile ideas. You can sign up … Continue Reading

Seagate debuts mobile wireless storage for iPhones

Storage giant Seagate is announcing today the first mobile wireless storage device for iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches).

The GoFlex mobile wireless storage device is a battery-powered external hard drive that can wirelessly extend the storage capacity of any Wi-Fi-enabled device.

The device can store 500 gigabytes of data and extend a device’s storage via 802.11 b/g/n wireless networking. It has enough storage capacity to back up the entire library of video, music, … Continue Reading

PlayStation Network comes back across North America, with some hiccups

Sony said it has restored service for the PlayStation Network across North America, although it has had a few hiccups because of a heavy load of users logging in for the first time since the network went down on April 20 due to a hacker attack.

Sony began restoring service this Saturday for the 77-million registered users of the PSN, Qriocity, and the 24-million-strong PC-focused The Station site. Users can now play online games and … Continue Reading

With latest models, HP still believes in the desktop PC

The old-fashioned desktop computer isn’t getting much respect these days, with the onset of tablets, smartphones, all-in-one computers and sleek laptops. But Hewlett-Packard‘s latest line of desktop PCs being introduced today show the world’s biggest computer maker is still investing a lot of time in designing new PCs.

These new desktops have “clean lines, soft forms and contrasting materials” and they show that HP pays as much attention to design these days as a high-end … Continue Reading

Sony Online Entertainment restores service for PC online games

Online game addicts rejoice! Sony Online Entertainment has now restored service for its PC online games.

Similar to the restoration of the sister network, the PlayStation Network today, the SOE restoration of The Station online gaming service will happen in phases. Sony discovered hackers had attacked the PC online game service on May 1, about 11 days after it discovered the hacking of the PlayStation Network.

The restoration will begin with the return of all … Continue Reading

Will PlayStation Network's improved security be good enough?

After a 24-day outage, Sony has announced that it has begun restoring the PlayStation Network on a region by region basis.

Kaz Hirai (pictured) said in a video that the company has rebuilt the security system of the online gaming service, which has 77 million registered users. Hackers attacked the network on April 19, forcing Sony to close the network as it fixed the security and investigated the hack.

Sony’s security measures start with users, … Continue Reading

And we're back: Sony's PlayStation Network is now online in U.S. and Europe

Parts of Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) have finally come back online in certain areas around the world — including the U.S. and Europe — after hackers were able to break into the network, forcing the company to bring it offline for nearly a month.

Sony Online Entertainment also restored online gaming service for The Station, the PC online gaming network that was also infiltrated by hackers.

The announcement was made by Sony chief executive Kazuo … Continue Reading

Google’s in-house philosopher: Technologists need a “moral operating system”

The technology industry needs to think long and hard about ethics, according to Googler Damon Horowitz.

Horowitz has co-founded several startups, and he’s currently a director of engineering at Google (which acquired his latest startup Aardvark). But he also has a Ph.D. in philosophy and apparently holds the title of “in-house philosopher” at the search giant. He spoke today at the TEDx Silicon Valley event at Stanford University, where he offered a slightly more nuanced … Continue Reading

Modern Warfare 3 game will reference SEAL team that got bin Laden

Call of Duty Modern Warfare games have immersed gamers in fictionalized yet seemingly realistic combat experiences that reference real world events. So it’s not surprising that the upcoming Modern Warfare 3 game refers to the Navy SEAL team that took out Osama bin Laden.

The reference could prove to be very controversial for the game, as it could mean that publisher Activision Blizzard will be on a tightrope. The reference could make the game get … Continue Reading

Wired's Chris Anderson: How accelerometers make life better

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson kicked off today’s TEDx Silicon Valley event by offering his thoughts on why this year’s conference theme, “Living by Numbers”, represents a big improvement in our lives.

Anderson said that three big shifts have added up to what he calls “the new cybernetics” (though he admitted that he doesn’t expect the term to catch on) — namely, new ways that technology allows us to measure and improve our own behaviors.

The … Continue Reading

Report says Modern Warfare 3 coming Nov. 8

Like clockwork, Actvision Blizzard has been launching a new version of its Call of Duty combat shooting video game every November. This year will be no different, the company has said.

But game news site Kotaku says it has the first early details on the game, called Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, scheduled to debut on Nov. 8. Modern Warfare 3 will be the latest installment in a series whose past two titles have … Continue Reading