PlotWatt wins GE Ecomagination Challenge, secures seed funding

General Electric announced the winners of its GE Ecomagination Challenge today, among which was greentech startup PlotWatt. GE awards $500,000 total to five companies with the most innovative ideas for managing, capturing and using energy in the home.

PlotWatt’s winning energy solution, which also secured a $1M seed funding round from Felicis Ventures, allows residential and small multi-location commercial users to monitor and receive feedback on their energy usage. The product tracks energy consumed in … Continue Reading

Turntable.fm adds 140K users a month after launching

Music sharing social network Turntable.fm has gained over 140,000 users since launching to the public earlier this month, reports Betabeat.

Turntable.fm turns its users into DJs who can share musical tastes within specific virtual rooms classified by subject or  genre. Only five DJs can share music in a single room, but anyone can enter a room to listen. And unlike actual rooms featuring a performing DJ, people using Turntable.fm can rate extremely good or bad … Continue Reading

Hulu gets ready to put itself up for sale

Hulu is retaining investment banking firms Morgan Stanley and Guggenheim Partners to facilitate a potential sale of the company. Prospective bidders were notified today that the sale process will begin about two weeks from now, according to information from anonymous sources in correspondence with the L.A. Times.

The news of Hulu’s intentions comes less than a day after information surfaced of an offer to purchase the streaming media company by an undisclosed potential buyer rumored … Continue Reading

Pinger takes on Apple’s iMessage with launch of Textfree Web

Pinger, a startup offering free text and voice messaging, has launched Textfree Web, a service that aims to blur the lines between SMS and mobile IM. Anyone with access to a web browser can text any mobile number from the U.S. and more than 18 other countries. Messages with photos can also be sent gratis.

Pinger faces competition from Apple’s iMessage – a feature in the iOS 5 update that will send free messaging between … Continue Reading

In a world with cyber warfare rules …

What do fighter jets have in common with cyber attacks? During war, neither can be deliberately routed through another country if that nation has not given permission.

This is one of the new rules, similar to existing guidelines for nuclear bombs, missiles, and espionage, signed today by President Barack Obama. The executive orders outline cyber attack etiquette for military commanders. The United States is currently collaborating with other countries on the rules.

Word on the … Continue Reading

Updated: Is PopCap being bought for $1B?

PopCap, a game developer that focuses on casual quick-hit style games like Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled, might be in talks to be acquired for more than $1 billion, according to TechCrunch.

PopCap is an appealing target for almost any game company because it has several extremely popular games that can be turned into franchises. The company also has a large number of regular users who purchase games from the company, and it is expanding … Continue Reading

Apple iCloud manager departs for healthcare service

Time to queue up “Get Off My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones. Apple iCloud senior manager John Herbold has departed Apple to join online healthcare service HealthTeacher as vice president of product.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to define, ship and market a variety of products for one of the world’s most admired product companies,” Herbold wrote on LinkedIn. “That opportunity was a great privilege. Now I get to take that experience and apply it to … Continue Reading

Tap and Pay: Coming to a store near you (ASAP)

Within the next year, you will be able to “Tap and Pay” with your mobile phone at a third of all retail store and restaurant checkout terminals in the United States. This prediction comes today from Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt at the Cannes Lions advertising festival.

Tap and Pay refers to mobile wallet services that let consumers pay by swiping or tapping their smartphone at checkout. No cash or credit necessary. Schmidt says it’s … Continue Reading

Usabilla raises $1 million to make user-feedback tools

Usabilla,  a Dutch startup producing web site usability tools, raised $1 million Wednesday in a round led by local venture fund Boralis and five undisclosed investors in Europe and the U.S.

Usabilla helps marketers, analysts and designers define usability tests and collect user feedback. Reviewers can make notes on a webpage and add colored pins to show whether they find particular page elements appealing or not. Aggregate results are summarized in charts and heat maps.… Continue Reading

Sayonara Salon: CEO Gingras bolts, will run Google’s news products

Only in the age of Google could news aggregation be considered a step up from news publishing. So when word came Wednesday that Salon’s CEO Richard Gingras is abandoning his post at the veteran online-news site to head the news products division of Google, it arrived without shame or snickering.

Gingras’ move will happen in early July, leaving Salon in a state of uncertainty – but then again, Salon has been in a state of … Continue Reading

New bill demands carriers finally explain 4G

Still not sure what 4G really means? A new bill put before Congress today intends to push wireless providers to dish all the dirty details about their data networks.

If passed, the Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act would effectively force providers to quantify the speeds behind current marketing terms like 4G. Championed by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the bill also calls for disclosure of network reliability, minimum speeds, and even network conditions that might adversely … Continue Reading

Former White House aide joins startup’s board of directors

Mobile payment company Square today added former Obama Chief Economic Advisor Larry Summers to its board of directors.

If you didn’t follow Summers’ political career, you may recall him as Harvard’s President in The Social Network. Although the movie is fictional, earlier this year Summers said the scene in which he dismisses the Winklevoss twins’ claim that Facebook was their idea ”was pretty accurate.”

“We are proud to have Larry join our board and we … Continue Reading

Ford expands Sync app support for 2012 line

Ford is betting big on the smartphone. The U.S. automaker has announced that its upgrading some of its 2012 fleet to play nice with apps.

“Mobile app growth is literally skyrocketing,” Ford’s president of operations, Mark Fields told Reuters.  “This is a trend that we cannot ignore, especially as a Nationwide Insurance study shows that one in four Americans who download apps admits to using them while driving.”

The new addition for the 2012 line … Continue Reading

Sony’s PS Vita shipping in January: Report

Uh-oh. First Sony said that its next handheld game console, the PlayStation Vita, would be available for the 2011 holiday season. Now, judging from a report on Destructoid, the console may ship in the first week of January through Amazon.com.

The holiday shopping season, of course, is critical for consoles and video games, which can make good presents because they are relatively inexpensive and aren’t typically impulse buys. The Vita will cost $250 for a … Continue Reading

Hardcore iPhone game Infinity Blade lands on DeNA’s social gaming network

Japanese mobile games portal DeNA announced today it’s bringing the popular iPhone game Infinity Blade, one of the first mobile games geared toward hardcore gamers, to its mobile social network.

The game will be marketed as Infinity Blade X for Mobage. It will be free to play and supported by selling virtual goods in the game. Players can spend real-world dollars to buy better weapons, armor and spells that will help them progress through the … Continue Reading

Court rejects Samsung’s request to see Apple’s iPhone 5, iPad 3

A U.S. judge late on Tuesday rejected Samsung’s request to take a look at the next version of iPhone and iPad products from Apple, according to FOSS Patents. The two companies have been fighting each other for months over patent infringement claims.

Apple has taken part in several high-profile lawsuits as of late over patent claims, and whichever company wins usually ends up with substantial gains. Most recently, Apple lost in a patent battle with … Continue Reading

Best Buy reveals cloudy ambition with Music Cloud

Electronics retailer Best Buy announced the launch of its own cloud-based music service for the U.S. today, dubbed Music Cloud. The new service will let users register and stream their music libraries for on-the-go listening through iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices.

Though the service got some subtle marketing last week (and is already running in the UK), today’s announcement throws the tarp off of a modest demo and an ambitious strategy for the U.S. market. … Continue Reading

LulzSec recruits Brazilian hackers, takes down two government websites

A Brazilian component of hacker group LulzSec has taken down several Brazilian government websites as part of a massive hacking campaign led by LulzSec against government agencies.

Both the main website for the government of Brazil and the office of the President of Brazil were offline when VentureBeat tried to access the accounts. Both sites were taken down by LulzSecBrazil, a subgroup of the hacker group that has made headlines recently for several high-profile attacks … Continue Reading

RIM lowers PlayBook Q2 projections amid slow sales

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has lowered the sales targets for its PlayBook tablet for the second quarter, following slow sales after its launch, reports Taiwanese news site Digitimes.

Instead of shipping 2.4 million PlayBooks in the second quarter, RIM now expects to ship between 800,000 and 900,000 units, supply chain sources tell the news site. RIM had also initially expected to ship the same 2.4 million PlayBooks in its launch quarter, but the company … Continue Reading