With 8M members, gamer network Raptr adds a social news feed

Raptr, the social network for gamers, has grown to more than 8 million users. It’s kind of like Facebook for game fans, and now it is adding one of Facebook’s cool features: the automated and intelligent social news feed.

Dennis Fong (pictured), chief executive of Mountain View, Calif.-based Raptr, said in an interview that the news feed will be integrated into Raptr so that users will now see a new home screen that shows them … Continue Reading

Nvidia lets users share 3D videos and photos on YouTube

Nvidia, the biggest maker of stand-alone graphics chips, is giving YouTube fans the ability to view thousands of 3D videos in rich, stereoscopic 3D using PCs and laptops equipped with Nvidia 3D Vision glasses technology.

When using the latest version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, users with Nvidia’s 3D glasses can view videos and photos in the 3D section of Google’s YouTube service, which allows users to upload their own 3D content.

YouTube is … Continue Reading

First demo: Modern Warfare 3 promises to be another nonstop combat shooter

Last week, I saw a preview of a little game called Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 in a darkened theater. From what I’ve seen, the tens of millions of fans of this video game franchise won’t be disappointed when the modern combat shooting video game debuts on Nov. 8.

The only question is whether Modern Warfare 3 will eclipse last year’s Call of Duty Black Ops as the best-selling game of all time. Black … Continue Reading

The new chain gang: Chinese prisoners forced to play for virtual goods

The Guardian is reporting that prisoners in labor camps in China were forced to play online games like World of Warcraft in 12 hour shifts in order to earn virtual credits, currencies and goods which could then be sold by the guards. Prisoners who did not meet their quotas were beaten.

The practice of “gold farming”, building up credits and other value in various online games which can then be sold, is widespread in China. … Continue Reading

Kabam raises $85M for hardcore social gaming business

Here’s a “kaboom” for all those social game skeptics out there. Kabam has raised $85 million in a fourth round of funding to fuel its business making hardcore games for social networks such as Facebook. The backers include Google Ventures, Pinnacle Ventures, Performance Equity and SK Telecom Ventures, as well as earlier backers.

It’s as good a sign of disruption in games as any. Based on the funding from such heavy-duty backers, Kabam is now … Continue Reading

TechCrunch Disrupt winner Getaround off to a good start

Getaround, the startup that offers a marketplace for personal car rentals, was named the winner of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC.

The company bested 32 other competing startups, including runners-up Billguard and Sonar, to win  $50,000 and a ton of valuable media exposure. But judges were not the only ones who thought Getaround was a great idea, as the company was also voted the Audience Choice winner.

Getaround offers a marketplace where people can rent their car … Continue Reading

Japan's DeNA loses a visionary of global mobile social network

Japanese game maker DeNA, which announced it was buying iPhone game maker Ngmoco for up to $403 million last October in a move to step out onto the global stage and build a global mobile social network, is losing its chief executive.

The company said today that its founder and chief executive, Tomoko Namba, is stepping down as head of the Tokyo company due to a family health issue. She will continue to play an … Continue Reading

Health gamification startup Basis snags Jef Holove as CEO

Basis is making a health monitoring device that could make it more fun to get into good shape. That could be a tough sell to couch potatoes, but the company has announced it has a new chief executive to lead the charge: Jef Holove, who was previously CEO at wireless photo card maker Eye-Fi.

Holove takes over from Nadeem Kassam, founder and now chief alliance officer at the company. Kassam started the San Francisco company … Continue Reading

Morgan Solar brings in $16.5M for lower-cost solar

Solar startup Morgan Solar plans to announce Thursday that it has raised $16.5 million in venture-capital funding. After declines in the second half of 2010, U.S. cleantech investment has been on the rise so far this year, with solar companies getting the most money, analysts say.

Founded in 2007 by company president John Paul Morgan and his brother Nicolas, Morgan Solar has developed a concentrating-photovoltaic technology that it claims can convert more sunlight into electricity … Continue Reading

After 200M installs, Google Maps for mobile will soon be bigger than desktop

Google’s Marissa Mayer came prepared with some juicy mobile stats at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City today.

She revealed that Google Maps on mobile devices has just recently surpassed 200 million installs, accounting for 40 percent of Maps’ usage. Mayer predicts that by June, mobile devices will account for the majority of Google Maps usage.

It certainly makes sense for mobile to dominate Google Maps usage. With pretty much every smartphone packing … Continue Reading

4chan founder: Canv.as and 4chan will remain separate

4chan founder Christopher Poole, also known as Moot on his rogue image board, said he wants to keep his latest image board project Canv.as separate from 4chan and will not compel the users to port over. He made the comments at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York today.

Poole said he wanted to re-imagine the image board with his new venture-backed company Canv.as. He also said he expects many members of 4chan to move … Continue Reading

Peter Thiel pays kids $100K to drop out of college

Peter Thiel is best known for being an early angel investor in Facebook and the co-founder of PayPal, but he’s making headlines with a new venture: paying college-age teens to drop out and start their own businesses.

The Thiel Fellowship: 20 Under 20 on Wednesday announced it had selected 20 students under the age of 20 and handed them $100,000 to get their business ideas off the ground.

The Fellowship plays on some of Thiel’s … Continue Reading

U.S. government scores a discount on home-grown Chevy Volt

The U.S. government is purchasing 116 plug-in electric and hybrid electric vehicles for its vehicle fleet — and it is picking up a nice discount on General Motors’ Chevy Volt, the same company it made a significant investment in to prevent the car manufacturer from failing.

The government is purchasing more than 100 Chevy Volts and is paying $38,500 for each one, which is under the car’s manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $41,000. Individual car … Continue Reading

Facebook partnering with Spotify for music service?

Facebook plans to launch a new music-streaming service powered by Spotify in as little as two weeks, according a report by Forbes. The partnership will only be in countries that already have a Spotify presence, which excludes the U.S.

When launched, Facebook users in Spotify-enabled countries — such as Sweden, France, and the U.K. — will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeeds. When you click on the Spotify icon, … Continue Reading

Twitter officially acquires Tweetdeck

After plenty of speculation and reports, Twitter announced officially today on its blog that the company had acquired popular third-party client Tweetdeck.

“This acquisition is an important step forward for us,” the company wrote. “TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time conversations they care about. In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love.”

After … Continue Reading

CloudFlare brings its speed and security to web apps, hits 3.5B monthly page views

After bringing pro-level speed and security to any website, plucky startup CloudFlare is now setting its sights on web apps with CloudFlare Apps.

The new service will make it easy for site owners to install web apps without changing any code. Previously, installing web apps could slow down websites or make them less secure. Apps will also be automatically updated by Cloudflare to their most recent version, so site owners won’t be stuck running outdated … Continue Reading

Google's AdMob becomes more tablet-friendly

It has been almost exactly a year since Google finally closed its deal to acquire mobile ad network AdMob (following a long review by the Federal Trade Commission). To celebrate the anniversary, the company is announcing three significant improvements.

First, the company announced some new formats for tablet advertising, including interactive videos and 360-degree images. Product manager Clay Bavor and engineering director Mark Schaaf told me that advertisers could already build these kinds of tablet … Continue Reading

Elon Musk Says Tesla Won't Be Sold, But Elon Musk Is Wrong

In a sign of its continuing need for capital — and the good performance thus far of its stock — Tesla Motors said today it would sell 5.3 million more shares of common stock.

At the same time, according to the announcement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk plans to buy an additional 1.5 million shares of the company in a private placement. An entity called Blackstar Investco, a unit of German carmaker Daimler, will also buy … Continue Reading

Six in 10 Americans say no to electric cars (poll)

Nearly 60 percent of Americans will not buy pure plug-in electric cars — no matter what the cost — because they do not have the same range as a traditional car powered by an internal combustion engine, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll.

The new poll indicated that American respondents said they would not want to own “an electric car that you could only drive for a limited number of miles at one time.” The … Continue Reading