GameStop pulls coupon for free OnLive Deus Ex: Human Revolution copy from physical PC game

Video game retailer GameStop has admitted to removing coupons from boxed PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution for free versions of the game on cloud gaming provider OnLive.

Gamers who purchase a PC version of the game are treated to a free copy of the game on OnLive, which runs games on powerful remote servers. The brick-and-mortar game retailer is instructing its employees to open copies of the game and remove the code. GameStop … Continue Reading

ZigFu gives developers a way to make motion-controlled apps in minutes

ZigFu is letting developers race “from zero to working motion apps in a couple minutes,” the company’s co-founder Amir Hirsch told VentureBeat.

This startup is from the most recent batch of Y Combinator companies, and it’s all about making gestural interfaces faster and easier to create.

For developers, the company provides bindings to the Unity3D game engine, and it also gives developers a handful of sample apps to start their own work.

“We haven’t released … Continue Reading

OnLive rolls out parental controls and group voice chat

Games-on-demand service OnLive has rolled out parental controls, group voice chat, and Facebook achievement sharing in the latest upgrade to its service.

The company has steadily rolled out new features since its debut in mid-2010 in a quest to offer just about everything that rival consoles or PCs offer.

With parental controls, parents can manage how their kids use the OnLive Game Services by sharing their own accounts in a restricted mode. Once an account … Continue Reading

Google’s +1 button gets social with Google+ sharing

Google on Wednesday updated its +1 button with new functionality that lets users both “+1″ content and automatically share it on their Google+ accounts.

Google’s +1 button, launched in early June, helps users recommend web pages in Google searches; in July, the +1 button hit the 2 billion daily view threshold. It makes good sense that the button now works with Google+, the company’s new social network that’s amassed more than 25 million unique visitors … Continue Reading

People still lining up for cheap HP TouchPads

To be fair, $99 is a pretty sweet price for a tablet computer.

Dozens of people lined up outside Best Buy in San Francisco today for a chance to pick up the now dirt-cheap Hewlett-Packard TouchPad after the company started a fire sale for the poorly-selling tablet.

A few people initially lined up at the Best Buy at 13th Street and Harrison Street at around 8 a.m., with the larger part of the crowd coming … Continue Reading

Wine deals site Lot18 gets funding from Diapers.com founders

Today, Lot18, a daily deals site for wine lovers, got a financial nod from two people known for smart business moves. Lot18 announced funding from the founders of Quidsi (Diapers.com and Soap.com), which was acquired by Amazon for $545 million in 2010.

“We raised a small amount of money from individuals that we felt bought strategic value to the company, the Quidsi founders were in that group,” says Lot18 founder Philip James. “In total the … Continue Reading

DOJ: Google to pay $500M settlement over illegal online drug ads

Google will pay $500 million to the federal government for allowing ads from Canadian pharmacies to be displayed through its AdWords program, the Department of Justice announced today.

The ads made it easy for US residents to order controlled and non-controlled prescription drugs from Canada, which is illegal. The $500 million fine takes into account the gross revenue Google received through running ads from Canadian pharmacies, as well as the gross revenue made by those … Continue Reading

ShortForm lets you curate web videos for a live audience

Anyone with dreams of hosting a web video clip show like Web Soup or Tosh.0 should take note of video curation platform ShortForm, which debuted a new Live Video Party feature today that’s capable of turning those dreams into a reality.

Previously, ShortForm’s video curation platform let you create a custom channel composed of streaming video clips from YouTube, Vimeo and other sites. The new live video feature basically brings everyone who watches your custom … Continue Reading

Taptera grabs $2M with help from Salesforce.com to build mobile enterprise apps

Enterpise-focused mobile app developer Taptera announced Wednesday that it has raised $2 million in first-round funding.

Taptera develops iPhone and iPad apps for enterprise customers. The company’s first app, Colleagues, will be unveiled this fall. It works as a mobile-optimized employee directory.

The funding was led by prominent Silicon Valley investor Terence Garnett. Salesforce.com and former HP exec David Murphy also participated. The company will use its funding to build more robust and versatile applications.… Continue Reading

Apple scores another patent win: Dutch judge bans Samsung Galaxy S sales

Apple’s long-running patent war with Samsung has led to another casualty. A Netherlands judge has issued a Europe-wide preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace phones, which would effectively ban sales of the phones, reports FOSS Patents.

The judge found that Samsung’s phones violated Apple’s European software patent 2,059,868, which has to do with scrolling in mobile photo galleries. The sales ban will take effect on October 13, which gives Samsung … Continue Reading

Ticketmaster and Facebook team up so you can sit with your friends

Facebook and Ticketmaster are making it somewhat easier to coordinate group outings to concerts, sporting events, monster truck rallies and the like with a new integration.

Ticketmaster’s new interactive seat maps will integrate with Facebook, so you can tag yourself in your own seat, find out where your friends are sitting, and even see non-friend Facebook users who will be at the same event.

However, the feature only works if the user in question elects … Continue Reading

Online video publisher Brightcove gets busy with $50M IPO filing

Online video publisher Brightcove has filed for an initial public offering to raise up to $50 million, according to an S-1 form filed with the SEC.

Brightcove makes it possible for large and small content providers to publish video content to the web using HTML 5 rather than Adobe Flash. On top of standard video, the company also has live, on-demand and mobile-specific offerings.

The company’s customers include AOL, Oracle, Showtime, The New York Times, … Continue Reading

HTC’s Puccini is AT&T’s first LTE 4G tablet

We got our first glimpse yesterday of what could be AT&T’s first LTE 4G phone. Now its first LTE tablet, the HTC Puccini, has been uncovered by Engadget.

The Puccini is HTC’s first 10-inch tablet, and its spy sighting now is a sign that AT&T may be gearing up to finally launch its LTE network.

The company previously said it plans to launch LTE in five cities this summer — but with the season nearing … Continue Reading

China’s PapayaMobile reveals strong growth stats for mobile games

PapayaMobile, China-based maker of a mobile social networking platform for Android phones, now has more than 25 million users, up 940 percent since January 2010, the company said today.

More than 11 million paid transactions have been made using Papaya’s virtual currency, the Beijing-based company reported. Those numbers suggest mobile app and game developers are starting to get traction on the Android platform.

Papaya makes a mobile social network for game developers to use to … Continue Reading

Inkling social functions make digital textbooks a study group in a box

Imagine a classroom living inside your textbook, constantly chattering and available to answer your questions. That’s what digital textbook creator Inkling wants to bring students with its announcement of social functions for its iPad app.

“The idea is that whenever you download any Inkling title, you have the collective wisdom of anyone else who has been in that book,” Matt MacInnis, Inkling founder and chief executive told VentureBeat in an interview.

Inkling takes textbook content … Continue Reading

Bunchball gamifies Salesforce.com and launches game widgets

Bunchball is trying to “gamify” every web site in the world via tools that make sites more game-like. Its new Nitro for Salesforce.com uses game-like rewards to motivate salespeople, driving up adoption, engagement and performance among sales employees.

Nitro integrates with Force.com and is scalable and customizable. Nitro has more than 100 customers with millions of users, but the Salesforce.com integration is a coup because it is a high-profile cloud-based enterprise service with more than … Continue Reading

Reddit begins holiday shopping season early, acquires Redditgifts.com

News sharing social network Reddit has acquired Redditgifts.com, a popular independent gift exchange site created by Reddit community members, the company announced Tuesday.

Redditgifts is best known for organizing the world’s largest Secret Santa gift exchange and the mid-summer arbitrary gift giving event (appropriately named) Arbitrary Day. More recently, the site has organized specific exchanges for books, crafts and snacks.

“We’ve been in close contact with Redditgifts for about a year. Not (to talk) about … Continue Reading

Druva raises $12M for protecting enterprise data

Druva, a startup that protects data on enterprise laptops, said today it has raised $12 million in a second round of funding.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s Enterprise inSync software backs up data on enterprise laptops, smartphones or tablets. It can also retrieve data as needed. Intel recently said that the cost of a lost laptop with unprotected data is $49,000.

Druva’s backups are more efficient than a standard backup because the company “de-duplicates” data, … Continue Reading