Producers of The Hurt Locker to sue nearly 25,000 BitTorrent users

The makers of the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker are aiming to put users that illegally downloaded the film in a world of financial hurt. Voltage Pictures, which produced the movie, is working with the U.S. Copyright Group to threaten and potentially sue 24,583 BitTorrent users, according to TorrentFreak.

The lawsuit will be the largest BitTorrent suit in history and might be a sign of building momentum to fight against piracy fueled by BitTorrent clients … Continue Reading

Yahoo updates mail service to better compete with other services

Yahoo announced Tuesday it will roll out a brand-new interface for its estimated 277 million users during the next few weeks. The company has been testing a beta version of this powerful upgrade for seven months and wants all its users to embrace this better working and smarter designed version of the popular service.

The most notable change users will notice is speed, as the service claims to be twice as fast as the old … Continue Reading

Just how frustrated are PlayStation Network users over downtime?

Sony brought its online gaming network, the PlayStation Network (PSN), offline today — though this time it was just for some scheduled maintenance. But the downtime was a frustrating reminder for many PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable owners, as well as developers, over how the company handled the PSN’s downtime.

“Thanks for the heads up. It’s nice to be prepared for downtime,” one commenter wrote on the PlayStation Blog’s most recent post about the scheduled … Continue Reading

UK payment startups join forces in $87 million merger

2011 seems to be the year that mobile payments go mainstream with everyone from the big mobile carriers and handset manufacturers to scrappy new startups scrambling on to the payments bandwagon.

sQuid and ACT, which together cover 85 percent of the UK’s smartcard-based, contactless payments market, announced a merger today. The new company, Smart Transactions Group is valued at $87 million and expects to generate revenue of $15 million in 2011.

ACT specializes in retail … Continue Reading

Getaround makes it safe and easy to let anyone rent your car

Getaround, a car rental marketplace that makes it dead simple to rent your car or take a spin in a total stranger’s, officially launched today. And as TechCrunch Disrupt judge Chris Sacca noted during the startup’s presentation today, it’s the sort of well-executed idea that simply makes you say “holy shit.”

Getaround first started generating buzz late last year, but with its official launch the company has seemingly responded to every criticism it initially faced. … Continue Reading

Take-Two Interactive beats forecasts on momentum of past hits

Take-Two Interactive reported a loss for the seasonally slow fourth fiscal quarter, but the company beat expectations for both revenues and profits thanks to the strength of ongoing sales of past hits.

While it was a quiet quarter for Take-Two, the company continues to draw a ton of attention — including from possible acquisition suitors — for making some of the best games in the business, like the recently launched LA Noire(pictured), which has gotten … Continue Reading

Maine wind farm could be latest 'not in my backyard' casualty

Another day, another batch of complaints about wind power turbines. This time, residents of the small island of Vinalhaven, Maine, are arguing that the owners of three wind turbines violated state noise ordinances and are creating a lot of noise pollution.

That means Maine could be the next state in a growing list of states that have summarily killed proposed wind power projects due to “not-in-my-backyard” complaints. Wisconsin regulators caused enough delays in a proposed … Continue Reading

Sequoia defends its infamous "RIP Good Times" presentation

Onstage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference today, Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital, looked back at one of the firms’ more controversial moments — the presentation that it gave to its portfolio companies after the financial crash in late 2008.

Back in October 2008, the firm supposedly called all of its entrepreneurs together into one room and outlined its position on the financial crisis. The presentation took its tone from the first slide, a … Continue Reading

Intel offers cloud service for small businesses

Intel announced today its AppUp cloud service for small businesses. The service will give companies access to a wide variety of apps over the cloud, or web-connected data centers.

The announcement will put Intel into competition with players like Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM and Amazon, but it will also extend Intel’s direct contact with users of its technology. The move will also ensure an important role for Intel’s own chips, software and hardware in future data … Continue Reading

Brightcove steps into app creation biz with App Cloud

Brightcove, a company best known for its online video platform, is today launching a new online product, dubbed App Cloud, that will help developers create mobile apps.

It looks like App Cloud will do for mobile apps what Brightcove has already done for video publishing — making the production process as painless as possible, while delivering a high quality result.

App Cloud will allow companies to develop apps once using its online interface, and then … Continue Reading

Twitter reportedly finalizes buyout of Tweetdeck for over $40 million

Twitter has finalized its acquisition of immensely popular third-party client TweetDeck, according to a report by CNN Money. The report says the deal is worth more than $40 million in a mix of a cash and stock.

A few weeks ago, TechCrunch reported the first tidbits of the deal. TechCrunch initially cited a $40 million to $50 million range for the purchase, and if the CNN report holds up, TC’s first report will prove accurate.… Continue Reading

Announcing first speakers at GamesBeat 2011 conference on mobile games

Drum roll please. The first announced speakers at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference include Steve Perlman, chief executive of games-on-demand firm OnLive; Bart Decrem, head of mobile games at Disney and former chief executive of Tapulous; and Trip Hawkins, chief executive of Digital Chocolate. This trio is the first of numerous speaker announcements we’ll have as we release more details about VentureBeat’s GamesBeat 2011, which will take place July 12-13 at … Continue Reading

Fast Charging Electric Cars: How Much is it Worth?

Ask any electric car owner to name the benefits of owning an electric car and the ability to leave your house every morning with a ‘full tank’ is likely to be at the top of their list, followed closely by the fact that most electric cars can provide enough range to last more than a day’s worth of driving.

But what happens when you need to charge up more than once in a day? And … Continue Reading

Google drops another $55M on Calif. wind farm

Google has invested $55 million in a wind energy farm in southern California that will generate up to 1,550 megawatts of power — bringing the search giant’s total investments in clean energy up to $400 million.

The farm is located in Tehachapi, Calif., “where the Mojave sands meet the Tehachapi Mountains,” according to a blog post by Google’s renewable energy guru Rick Needham. The deal does not involve a power purchase agreement — meaning Google … Continue Reading

Ubisoft announces Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online free-to-play game

Diving into the free-to-play game market, Ubisoft is announcing today it is developing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online.

The game is an attempt to capitalize on the collision of two worlds: the hardcore console games and the free-to-play online games that are taking off in places such as Asia. Ubisoft is walking a tightrope, making some of its cool content available at a lower entry price than its typical $60 games, but still giving gamers … Continue Reading

After 15-year gestation, Duke Nukem Forever goes gold

Yes, hell has frozen over. Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold, meaning it’s ready for production and on schedule to ship on June 14 in the U.S. That’s a considerable milestone — and one that many fans never thought they would see — after 15 years of development.

The game from the 2K Games label of Take-Two Interactive and Gearbox Software is a crass first-person shooter game starring Duke Nukem, who revels in lap dances … Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble's new $139 Nook is simple, touch-friendly

Just a month after releasing a major update to the Nook Color, Barnes & Noble announced today a smaller, more simplified version of the original black-and-white Nook. At $139, the device will compete better with the Amazon Kindle, which retails for the same price with its Wi-Fi only version, and the just-released $129 touch-enabled Kobo e-reader.

Like the latest Kindle, the new Nook has a 6-inch E Ink Pearl display, but that’s where the similarities … Continue Reading

Lark aims to improve your sleep — and your partner's

If a mismatched sleep schedule has been causing tension with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife, a new startup called Lark has built a product that may be able to help — a silent, vibrating alarm.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company demonstrated its technology on-stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference last fall, where entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker skeptically remarked, “I just have a hard time believing you’re serious.” But Lark’s product is real, and … Continue Reading

Ashton Kutcher: Working on Two and a Half Men will give me more time for tech

Ashton Kutcher stepped on stage at the TechCruch Disrupt conference today to chat with veteran interviewer Charlie Rose, but perhaps some of his most interesting comments came after the interview, in a back stage chat with TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy.

Kutcher’s latest acting gig — replacing Charlie Sheen on the sitcom “Two and a Half Men” — was off-limits to Charlie Rose (something that TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington joked about before the interview), but Lacy brought it … Continue Reading