Week in review: A first look at Google's Music Beta

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Google’s Music Beta first look: it’s miserable – Google’s Music Beta is supposed to provide users with a way to access the music anywhere, anytime as easily as physically possible. But it’s just not that easy.

Bad information spreading on PlayStation Network’s return date: nothing new, folks — There was some unfortunate wording in … Continue Reading

Entrepreneur Corner: Learning from the music industry and hiring recruiters

Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner:

Demystifying the VC term sheet: Pay-to-play provisions – Attorney Scott Edward Walker continues his ongoing series looking at some of the arcane language of venture capital term sheets – and how entrepreneurs can turn befuddlement into benefits.

4 customer connection lessons from the live music industry – The music industry might not seem the obvious place to draw lessons on how to improve your startup, but Dan Teree, … Continue Reading

Amazon cloud server was used to attack Sony

Amazon.com’s cloud servers were used by hackers to attack Sony’s PlayStation Network online gaming service, according to Bloomberg.

Citing an unnamed source, Bloomberg said that the hackers signed up for a legitimate Amazon web services account, which allows companies to rent data center computing power to power web-based businesses.

The hackers used an alias to rent a server through Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud service and launched the attack from there, according to the source. The … Continue Reading

ShoeDazzle raises a dazzling $40M from Andreessen Horowitz

Money keeps pouring into a new wave of e-commerce startups. The latest news: A big $40 million round for fashion deals website ShoeDazzle.

While a number of companies are trying to add a social element to online shopping, Santa Monica, Calif.-based ShoeDazzle sounds a little more traditional — in some ways, it’s a fashion-focused, personalized spin on the book of the month club that I belonged to in high school. Users fill out a style … Continue Reading

OnLive adds better games like Borderlands to its all-you-can-eat PlayPack game library

OnLive, the online games on demand service, is announcing today it has added Borderlands to its all-you-can-eat subscription service known as PlayPack. The PlayPack library is very similar to Netflix subscriptions. In this case, you can access a bunch of games for a flat fee of $9.99 a month.

And with the addition of Take-Two Interactive’s Borderlands, the games in the library are getting better and better, said OnLive chief executive Steve Perlman in an … Continue Reading

IBM researcher talks up Watson's potential

Now that IBM’s Watson computer has defeated human champions at Jeopardy, the company has even bigger plans for its future, according to David Ferrucci, who leads the Watson research team.

I had a chance to interview Ferrucci at a press event last night, where he told me that his team is still trying to improve Watson’s underlying technology, but it’s also looking at ways to turn that technology into a commercial product. We’ve already written … Continue Reading

OpenFeint expands free-to-play model to Android games

With Google’s Android mobile platform adding 400,000 new devices a day, it’s clear the platform is becoming a lot more attractive to developers. In recognition of that, game network OpenFeint is launching its free-to-play monetization platform for Android games. That’s another measure of how Google’s mobile ecosystem is catching up with Apple’s.

OpenFeint is launching its OFX platform for Android, which enables developers to launch free-to-play games, where users play for free and pay real … Continue Reading

Luxury hybrid-electric car maker Fisker Automotive raises an extra $100M

Fisker Automotive, which manufactures luxury plug-in electric hybrid cars, has raised an extra $100 million in its third round of funding to help fund production of its luxury sedan and a second, cheaper electric car that is geared toward more mainstream hybrid electric car buyers.

The Karma sedan is actually a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, similar to the Chevy Volt manufactured by General Motors. It carries around a 20 kilowatt lithium-ion battery that will extend … Continue Reading

Connecticut axes wind power plans thanks to 'not in my backyard'

Connecticut regulators struck down plans to install the state’s first wind power farm that would produce 3.2 megawatts of power after a group of residents complained that the turbines would bring down property values.

This is a familiar argument for wind power companies — many residents complain that the large wind turbines can be an eyesore and will bring down property taxes. The Connecticut residents complained the noise from the turbines and the flickering sunlight … Continue Reading

Sony Online Entertainment offers deal on PC online gaming outage

Sony Online Entertainment, the PC online game branch of the Japanese company, offered its 24 million gamers a deal to entice them to come back to its service once it fixes its outage. The deal includes free game time.

SOE is a sister company to Sony Computer Entertainment, whose 77-million-member PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 has been down for more than three weeks. By contrast, SOE discovered that it had been hacked on May … Continue Reading

Samsung, LG to duke it out over crazy high-res tablet LCDs

Tablet screens are about to get a whole lot sharper. Samsung today announced a new 10.1-inch display for tablets with an incredibly high resolution. And LG — which builds the iPhone 4′s sharp Retina Display — has some new display technology in the works.

It’s about time. While current display technology works just fine in tablets, having a higher resolution display will certainly improve the tablet experience, especially as displays approach the sharpness of print … Continue Reading

Pitch your startup at the "Who's Got Game?" contest at GamesBeat 2011

Our GamesBeat 2011 conference is coming up on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. This year’s conference is focused on the meteoric rise of mobile games and looks at best cases for money-making and growing user bases in mobile games. We’re calling it Mobile Games Level Up. And it will feature our third annual edition of the “Who’s Got Game?” contest that highlights the best game startup.

We’re looking to ferret … Continue Reading

Sony's online outage starting to take toll on PS 3 sales (poll)

Retailers are starting to report increased trade-ins of PlayStation 3 consoles for Microsoft’s Xbox 360s as gamers run out of patience with Sony’s online outage, according to game publication Edge.

Citing industry sources, Edge reported a growing trend of PS 3 consoles being traded in for cash or Xbox 360s. It also said sales of PSN points cards, which can be used to purchase games or movies on the PlayStation Network, have decreased. More than … Continue Reading

Google's $500M DOJ fine all about illegal online drug ads

The mysterious $500 million Google set aside in the last quarter for an ongoing Department of Justice probe was finally made clear last night. Google is apparently close to settling a criminal investigation over ads from illegal online pharmacies that have earned the company hundreds of millions, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The half a billion dollar fine would be among the largest paid to the government to settle investigations, the Wall Street Journal notes, … Continue Reading

Today's bad idea: Compensating solely on performance

In most companies, the better you perform, the more you earn. But Geoffrey Moore, author and venture partner at MDV, says focusing exclusively on that metric can hurt a company in the long run. Instead, he tells students in this Entrepreneur Though Leader Lecture, given at Stanford University, those who develop new initiatives or ideas deserve a second look, since they’re creating the power that fuels a company’s long-term growth.

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf

(Can’t see the video? … Continue Reading

Cisco's layoffs could be its biggest ever

Cisco Systems is expected to cut thousands of jobs in what could be the biggest layoffs ever for the world’s largest maker of networking equipment, Reuters said.

Faced with slowing growth, Cisco chief executive John Chambers has set a goal of cutting $1 billion in costs. Analysts contacted by Reuters predicted that Cisco will lay off 4,000 workers in the coming months, or about 4 percent of its worldwide workforce of 73,000. Cisco also employs … Continue Reading

The Taliban start to embrace Twitter

It was only a matter of time before the tools of technology fell into the hands of America’s enemies. The Taliban have begun to embrace the microblogging platform of Twitter, according to the Guardian.

That’s a big switch, considering most of the Taliban didn’t use modern technology  — from televisions to music players — when they ruled Afghanistan. But Osama bin Laden’s own use of thumb drives to mask the location of his computer and … Continue Reading

Sony tries to reassure game makers about PlayStation Network

Sony knows that the 100 million members of its PlayStation Network, Qriocity, and Sony Online Entertainment services aren’t making any online purchases now, as the networks are still down after more than three weeks following a hacker attack. And it knows that its game developers and publishers aren’t happy about that.

So the company sent a letter letting its partners know how bad it feels about the continuing outage, which is costing a lot money … Continue Reading

AT&T could lose up to $6B if T-Mobile deal falls through

We already knew that AT&T had promised T-Mobile a $3 billion breakup fee if their merger isn’t approved by regulatory agencies, but now it appears that AT&T may have another $3 billion worth of assets at stake in the deal, Reuters reports.

That extra $3 billion includes $2 billion worth of wireless spectrum and a roaming agreement valued at $1 billion, sources told the news agency. A $6 billion breakup fee would be worth about … Continue Reading

Deals & More: TOA Technologies gets $17.2M to manage employees on the go

Today’s funding announcements include services that oversee mobile employees and energy use:

TOA Technologies gets $17.2M for mobile employee management: The developer of mobile workforce management software for large businesses has raised a fourth round of funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures with participation from Intel Capital, Draper Triangle Ventures and others. Based in Beachwood, Ohio, the company helps clients deliver a positive customer experience by helping mobile employees with tasks like scheduling, customer appointment … Continue Reading