EA chief vows to keep up with big changes in the video game industry

Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello said in a conference call today that the video game industry has fundamentally changed as gamers embrace new digital alternatives to console games – from mobile games to social games. And, he said, EA’s strategy is changing with it.

“Most of us recognize that the industry has radically changed and the pace of change has altered dramatically,” Riccitiello said in a call to discuss its first-fiscal quarter earnings today. … Continue Reading

YouSendIt makes a play for businesses with unlimited cloud storage

For years, YouSendIt has been one of the top sites for consumers and businesses to send files to each other that are too big for e-mail. Now the company is bringing both its brand and its service into the now by offering a Dropbox-like cloud storage and file sharing solution.

Users of the service will be able to access files through a browser, a Windows desktop application, and apps for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. The … Continue Reading

EA expands its guidance for digital game revenue this year

Electronic Arts reported strong gains for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30 as both digital and packaged-good games saw good results. EA beat earnings estimates slightly in the quarter.

The big publisher of video games is pursuing a multi-pronged strategy to beat rivals such as Activision Blizzard and Zynga. Aiming to be a leader in both console games and social/mobile games, EA recently bought PopCap Games for at least $750 million. Based on what … Continue Reading

WalMart offering streaming video rentals on its website via Vudu

Retail giant Walmart is now offering customers the ability to rent streaming movies on its website.

The company announced Tuesday that its website will have full integration with movie rental service Vudu, which Walmart acquired in February 2010. In November, it began allowing customers who purchased DVDs from Walmart to stream the movie through Vudu.

“One of our key priorities is to provide one seamless shopping experience for our customers and to help them shop … Continue Reading

Radio Shack to replace T-Mobile with Verizon in Sept.

Radio Shack announced this morning that it’s ending its relationship with T-Mobile and will start going steady with Verizon in September.

The company said that it will stop offering T-Mobile phones and services in its stores and on its website on September 14. On September 15, the company will be a Verizon Wireless shop. Radio Shack currently has more than 4,300 stores in the US.

The news isn’t a huge shock: Back in April Radio … Continue Reading

AngelList celebrates milestones: 1.5 years, 400 investments

“It’s too hard for startups to raise money,” says AngelList co-founder Babak Nivi. “And investors have to say no to good startups all the time.”

These are the underlying problems that AngelList set out to solve a year and a half ago. And its founders think they’ve met with some success in addressing those problems so far.

The organization, itself an offshoot of startup-focused blog Venture Hacks, has announced some pretty impressive stats to go … Continue Reading

Emergence Capital Partners raising $200M fund

Venture capital firm Emergence Capital Partners is in the process of raising its third fund, a $200 million fund labeled “Emergence Capital Partners III,” according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Emergence Capital Partners is known for investing in enterprise companies like cloud storage provider Box.net and online enterprise social network Yammer. It also invested in file transfer service YouSendIt.

The firm was an investor in customer relationship management (CRM) software provider … Continue Reading

Updated: Y Combinator-backed Humble Bundle racks up $300k in day one of third indie game sale

Y Combinator-backed Humble Bundle, which bundles together independently-developed games into a single sale that runs for less than a month, has launched its third bundle of games for sale and already made $286,188 in revenue — and it increases about every second.

Humble Bundle gives independent developers a way to publicize their games and compete with the major publishers in an industry that regularly churns out triple-A titles. This bundle’s breakout hit is a 2-D … Continue Reading

Verizon announces 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Verizon Wireless on Tuesday added a little bit of 4G magic to its Android tablet lineup with the 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Verizon has shown off its impressive reach by expanding its blazing fast 4G LTE network at an impressive clip since its introduction in Dec. 2010. The 4G network now serves more than 70 metropolitan areas.

The Android-3.1-running tablet is equipped with a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 resolution screen, a dual-core NVidia … Continue Reading

HTC: We’re open to patent negotiations with Apple

Taiwanese phone maker HTC has said that it’s willing to talk things out with Apple over the two companies’ recent patent spat, Reuters reports.

“We are open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable,” HTC CFO Winston Yung told Reuters in an interview. “On and off we’ve had discussions with Apple, even before the initial determination came out.”

The news comes after Apple scored a … Continue Reading

LearnVest unveils new free and premium tools to simplify financial planning

LearnVest, the financial planning site aimed at women, is launching some major new free and premium features today that will make it an even more indispensable tool for taking charge of your finances.

The company will now offer free access to the LearnVest My Money Center, which lets you link all of your financial accounts and track your spending with an email-like folder system, as well as the Take Control Bootcamp, a 10-day action-oriented email … Continue Reading

Calling all developers: Twilio unveils Skype-like in-app voice calling

Twilio, which provides software to connect phone calls to web-based applications, announced today it is releasing a software development kit (SDK) that integrates the company’s two-way audio service into web applications with a few lines of Javascript.

Like Skype, the Twilio client allows voice communications to occur over a number of different channels including through phones, tablets, websites, within web and mobile applications and more. Developers can use the client to solve a number of … Continue Reading

RIM says new BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones coming Tuesday

Research in Motion has taken a pounding in the stock market and is laying off 2,000 employees. But Tuesday should be a good day for the company, as it is preparing to announce a number of new devices.

The company tweeted tonight that it will be announcing BlackBerry devices with the company’s new operating system, BlackBerry 7. These are some of RIM’s most eagerly awaited models in years.

Among the rumored devices are a new … Continue Reading

Google VP offers up fixes to Google+ name policy, debunks myths

Google has already admitted it made mistakes with its user name policy on Google+, its fledgling social network, and now we have further word on how the company plans to fix its mess.

Google will warn users with names in violation of its terms of service before it suspends their Google+ accounts, provide clearer naming instructions during the sign-up process, and add support for nicknames, VP of product for Google+ Bradley Horowitz wrote on the … Continue Reading

Call it GlobalVille: Zynga to launch version of CityVille on Tencent’s network in China

In its biggest diversification beyond Facebook to date, game maker Zynga is announcing today that it has partnered with social network Tencent in China and is launching a version of its CityVille game for the mainland Chinese market for the first time.

The partnership gives Zynga access to Tencent’s Pengyou platform, which together with Tencent’s other platforms has more than 674 million users and is China’s most popular internet service portal. If Zynga succeeds with … Continue Reading

Social CRM company reaches out to small businesses with Assistly 2.0

Customer relationship management (CRM) software provider Assistly is shaking up its business model to become affordable for smaller and mid-sized businesses.

Assistly’s application gives businesses ways to interact with customers via various social media sites like Twitter and Facebook as well as email, all through a single window. Like the customer service product it is, Assistly listened to its own reviews and found smaller and mid-sized businesses could not afford the product.

Enter new business … Continue Reading