China gets World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion next month

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the latest expansion pack for Activision-Blizzard’s online role-playing game, will finally be released in China on July 12.

Video game launches have become like premieres of Hollywood blockbusters, both in the dollars consumer spend and the time they devote to the product. Cataclysm sold well when it first launched, even though Activision-Blizzard’s first person shooter blockbuster hit Call of Duty Black Ops came out at around the same time and brought … Continue Reading

Should you invest in the Grouponzi IPO?

On the heels of filing its $750 million initial public offering, online coupon startup Groupon is under heavy scrutiny from critics.

Until recently, most people praised Groupon for its simplistic business model and its incredible growth, which some have called the fastest of any company to date.

Groupon lets users purchase steeply discounted deals from local merchants. Discounts range anywhere from 30 to 80 percent off the regular sale price on food, trips, drinks at … Continue Reading

Condoleezza Rice joins the board of biofuel maker KiOR

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced on Wednesday that she will join the board of directors of biofuels producer KiOR beginning July 2011.

Rice has some experience dealing with petroleum companies and biofuel companies, having served on the board of directors of Chevron. That is probably good enough for KiOR, which focuses on transportation fuel for cars, jets and the like.

KiOR seems to have brought on Rice more for her business expertise than … Continue Reading

Amazon set to launch tablets in August or September?

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has practically confirmed that the company is working on tablets. The only question is when we’ll finally see them. Now it seems Amazon may be gearing up to launch the tablets in August or September, according to the Taiwanese news site Digitimes.

Component makers in Taiwan tell the site that the launch is being timed so that Amazon has tablets ready for the holiday season in the US. Amazon is expected … Continue Reading

Alta Wind Energy Center gets an extra $102M from Google

Google is still bullish on wind energy. The company said today that it’s invested an additional $102 million in the Alta Wind Energy Center, bringing its total investment in the wind power farm to $157 million.

Google previously invested in the Alta IV project, which would generate 102 megawatts of power. This time the company is investing in the Alta V project, which will generate an unannounced amount of power. The deal does not involve … Continue Reading

Box.net CEO: Apple’s cloud strategy is like Microsoft’s, and it won’t work

There’s not much future in online office-suite apps, like the ones Microsoft and Apple offer, if you believe Box.net chief executive Aaron Levie.

Rather than getting all their office apps from one vendor, he said, the best strategy in the enterprise space — and now the consumer space — is to find a service that wraps together the best apps from multiple companies that all do one thing very well.

Box.net (which specializes in enterprise … Continue Reading

Box.net adds Google Docs to its army of software add-ons

Cloud storage provider Box.net announced today that it is integrating Google Docs into its main web application, giving all Box.net customers the ability to create and edit Google Docs from within Box.net.

The company’s newest integration will allow Box.net customers to transfer Google Docs documents to and from their cloud storage units. Box.net user will be able to open Google Docs from within the Box.net application and share them with other Box.net customers in their … Continue Reading

Social games company MindJolt taps new mobile veteran

MindJolt, the social game company headed by MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, has added a mobile veteran to its staff in a move to expand to mobile social games.

Ulf Waschbusch (pictured), who recently served as chief product officer of Garena, a company that runs electronic sports leagues and promotes video games, has joined the company to lead internal social mobile game development. He will lead the team under the Social Gaming Network studio, which MindJolt … Continue Reading

Loopt lets local business customers request daily deals

Loopt, an early leader in location-based services, today announced the launch of Loopt u-Deals, a feature that allows consumers to request daily deals from local businesses.

The feature will enable any consumer to request that a business launch a daily deal. For example, I could request that a local restaurant offer a $50 off coupon for $25. Once the deal is accepted by Loopt, the deal requester is then asked to share it. Using channels … Continue Reading

Mozilla kills security updates for Firefox 4

When Mozilla launched Firefox 5 yesterday, there were no mentions of security updates for Firefox 4. And for good reason: Mozilla is treating Firefox 5 as 4′s final security update.

Now that Mozilla has put itself on a rapid release development cycle, similar to what Google does with Chrome, old numbered versions of the product will no longer get security updates. Users that don’t update will likely be exposed to vulnerabilities as they are discovered.… Continue Reading

Broadcast media discovery app Shazam raises $32M from Kleiner Perkins and others

Music and broadcast media discovery app developer Shazam announced that it has raised $32 million in its most recent round of funding.

Shazam builds an application that gives iPhone and other mobile device owners a way to discover new content by listening to music or television broadcasts. The application “listens” to the sounds of the music or a television broadcast after a user “Shazams” it, or activates the app. It then checks that sound file … Continue Reading

SlideShare integrates with LinkedIn for a match made in heaven

Presentation sharing startup SlideShare announced today that it is integrating its service with the professional network LinkedIn, which has all the makings of a pitch perfect partnership.

SlideShare allows you to share presentations, documents, and videos with anyone. And since most presentations are work-related, a match-up with LinkedIn — which has more than 100 million users worldwide — seems like a perfect fit. SlideShare users will be able to easily share their content with the … Continue Reading

Camera startup Lytro promises a “picture revolution”

Photography lovers will surely be delighted to hear the mission of the new startup Lytro. The company, which made itself known Tuesday, said it will to bring a new kind of camera to the consumer market and that its launch later this year will be “the start of a picture revolution.”

Lytro’s breakthrough new camera hinges on a new kind of sensor that captures the entire light field around a picture, rather than only a … Continue Reading

Did Yahoo approach Hulu with a buyout offer?

The LA Times is reporting that Yahoo is the undisclosed potential buyer that made an offer to purchase popular video streaming company Hulu Tuesday.

Acquiring Hulu does make sense for Yahoo, which is looking to extend into the online video market. The company purchased social television startup IntoNow in April and lost a bid to acquire movie website Flixster (along with Rotten Tomatoes) in May.

Yahoo has undergone several restructuring initiatives over the past few … Continue Reading

GameSalad unleashes HTML5 game creator — no coding required

Game development tool-maker GameSalad announced it is releasing a suite of applications that will let game developers create a game for HTML5-powered browsers.

The company sells a suite of tools that let game developers create games with a drag-and-drop user interface. It makes it easy for users to develop their own games even if they don’t know any programming languages. It removes the barrier to entry for developing games for the iPhone, Android-powered mobile devices … Continue Reading

Next iPhone to carry A5 and 8-megapixel camera, coming in September?

The next version of the iPhone, dubbed by most to be the “iPhone 5,” will carry Apple’s A5 processor and sport an 8-megapixel camera, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

Two people familiar with the device’s plans told Bloomberg reporters that the phone would come out sometime in September, which is in line with most reports that Apple would release the device sometime this fall. The sources also said Apple is working on another … Continue Reading

Cloud-based systems management provider ScaleXtreme raises $11M

ScaleXtreme, a company that makes cloud-based products for systems management, has raised $11M in a second round of funding. The Palo Alto-based company plans to use the funding to expand its product capabilities and strengthen its marketing and sales efforts.

The service opened to select users at the end of May. The product helps systems administrators easily configure and manage complex cloud architectures. ScaleXtreme currently works with services like VMware virtual machine and Amazon EC2. … Continue Reading

Outfit7 signs with WME to develop film, TV and book brands

After almost a year since the birth of Talking Tom in July 2010, the Outfit7 Talking Friends are ready to graduate from their smart phones and head for bigger screens. The company has signed with Ari Emanuel, co-chief executive of talent agency William Morris Entertainment. WME will help the brand extend into books, movies and television.

Apps aren’t just for iOS and Android anymore. They are becoming increasingly influential in youth entertainment and developers are … Continue Reading