Steve Jobs and the age of great turbulence

The tech industry is busier than normal this August, which is usually a time of summer doldrums. The stock market tanked. Google bought Motorola. Hewlett-Packard decided to move into software via a $10 billion deal even as it decided to get out of PCs and tablets. And now Steve Jobs has resigned as the CEO of Apple. If you blinked, or were on vacation, you would come back to a different tech world.

Everything is … Continue Reading

Cloud app platform Heroku now supports Java

Cloud application platform Heroku has announced support for Java, one of the most popular programming languages in existence.

Java will join Ruby, Node.js and Clojure on Heroku’s Celadon Cedar runtime stack.

While Ruby in particular is popular in the world of web startups and Node.js is wildly buzzy at the moment, Java is without doubt the most widely used programming language now supported by Heroku and may do a lot to increase Heroku’s adoption within … Continue Reading

Tumblr on verge of raising up to $100M with massive $800M valuation

Popular blogging startup Tumblr is close to raising between $75 and $100 million, with an incredible $800 million valuation, says the Wall Street Journal.

Tumblr’s blogging platform emphasizes its ease of use and now hosts more than 27 million blogs. Fashion and photography blogs are especially popular on the site because it pushes strong visuals. A reported 20 percent of Tumblr blogs are related to fashion.

Silicon Valley venture firm Greylock Partners, which has also … Continue Reading

Apple’s surprising new intern: iPhone hacker Comex

The notorious iPhone jailbreak hacker Comex has been snapped up by Apple as an intern, he announced on his Twitter account last night.

Comex, who was outed by Forbes as Nicholas Allegra, has gained a reputation as someone who can find obscure security holes in Apple’s iOS software. Last summer, he and his team made jailbreaking the iPhone as simple as visiting the website Jailbreak.me.

“It’s been really, really fun, but it’s also been a … Continue Reading

MasterImage 3D: The best glasses-free 3D technology yet

Most stereoscopic 3D experiences are weak. The glasses-free Nintendo 3DS turned out to be a disappointment, forcing Nintendo to slash the prices on that handheld gaming device. But the glasses-free experience MasterImage 3D has developed is something altogether different. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s going to offer an outstanding 3D experience on smartphones and tablets.

Roy Taylor (pictured below), executive vice president and general manager for MasterImage 3D, showed me a working prototype … Continue Reading

Why do big companies get stuck?

Everyone knows they need to engage with growth, but the resistance companies face in moving resources from areas that work into new areas is tremendous. This is why big companies are so slow to innovate, says Geoffrey Moore, author and venture partner at MDV. In this Entrepreneur Though Leader Lecture at Stanford University, he explains that while there are no shortage of great, groundbreaking ideas at big companies – including many that could threaten startups … Continue Reading

Red Robot launches Life is Crime game with location-based play (exclusive)

There’s got to be more to location-based mobile games than checking in. That was the thinking behind the game startup Red Robot Labs and its first game, Life is Crime.

The game debuted on the Android Market yesterday, and it’s one example of the growing number of game developers who are targeting Google’s mobile operating system first before launching an iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) app. Life is Crime uses what Red Robot believes is … Continue Reading

Pandora beats analyst estimates, reports $67M record revenue

Streaming music provider Pandora posted a 117 percent increase in revenue for a record $67 million after its first quarter as a publicly traded company, Pandora Media Inc. reported Thursday.

Pandora’s popular online radio service groups music into customized radio stations based on feedback from listeners. The company’s IPO in June opened with strong results that slowly dwindled as many questioned its ability to turn a profit.

The company’s overall boost in revenue, which beat … Continue Reading

Max Levchin leaves Google, Slide gets axed — blame Google+

Just one week after Slide’s Photovine photosharing app officially debuted, it appears that trouble is afoot for the Google-owned social app startup.

Slide founder Max Levchin (pictured right), who also cofounded PayPal, is leaving Slide and Google, All Things Digital reports. Slide itself will be shut down in the next few months, and remaining employees will be shuffled into Google proper. Meanwhile, the company’s apps, including the messaging app Disco and its other photo-sharing app … Continue Reading

Xbox Live Gold members get a nice ESPN update

Reaffirming its strategy to evolve the Xbox 360 into an all-in-one entertainment device, Microsoft debuted an update to its Xbox Live ESPN sports offering Thursday.

The new ESPN on Xbox Live channel adds a number of new or updated features, such as event reminders, sports news notifications, voice controls via Xbox Kinect and an easily accessible college football scoreboard. Perhaps the most notable addition is the ability to watch a live sports game while also … Continue Reading

Vizibility wants to help you game Google

Potential employers are going to search for you, it happens. But Google can be a fickle mistress. That’s why Vizibility has raised $1.3 million in a follow-on seed round to give you the Googling power back.

Vizibility has created a “search me” button that displays personalized Google search results in a pop up window. These results are managed through the “PreSearch” wizard, which allows you to design and control what appears in your pop up … Continue Reading

Gowalla trims feature set, eliminates virtual items and notes from check-ins

Location-based social network Gowalla is trimming its feature set to improve the overall user experience, according to Gowalla founder and CEO Josh Williams, who made the announcement in a blog post Thursday.

The company will eliminate the use of virtual items within Gowalla that users could attain by checking in to different locations. Also gone is the note taking feature, which Williams hinted may return further down the line.

Williams said Gowalla’s feature reassessment addressed … Continue Reading

What the !@#$ is marketing automation?

VentureBeat inadvertently stirred up a storm of controversy when we published a guest post about marketing automation.

The guest post, by Justin Gray of LeadMD, looked innocuous enough at first. To our editors, it at first seemed like a straightforward list of the pros and cons of several different marketing automation solutions: Eloqua, Genius, Marketo, Pardot and Silverpop.

Unfortunately, when we published the post we neglected to mention one important fact: Gray’s company, LeadMD, is … Continue Reading

Inside Jobs’ brain: Author talks about “crazy secretive” CEO (video)

Steve Jobs is a notoriously private figure, but you can learn more about him in Leander Kahney’s book Inside Steve’s Brain. Kahney, currently the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, stopped by VentureBeat to chat about the hurdles encountered while writing about Jobs. Kahney also talks about Jobs’ recent resignation.

Kahney approached over 100 people in the course of writing the unofficial biography, looking for sources who would tell him about the company, and … Continue Reading

Bleacher Report isn’t playing Fantasy Funding, scores $22M

No this isn’t Fantasy Funding, sports news site Bleacher Report raised a $22 million round of funding yesterday.

Bleacher Report is an online sports publication trying to take on the big boys of sports media like ESPN and Sports Illustrated. The company publishes content primarily from contributors. Since launching in 2008, B/R has seen a growth spurt. The company hired a new chief financial officer, Drew Atherton, who came to the company from consumer portfolio … Continue Reading

Node nerds unite at the first-ever Node Summit

“I don’t cargo cult often, but when I do, I do it with Node.js.”

So runs a wry joke we recently read about Node.js, the somewhat suddenly popular server-side programming technology that’s been all the rage among developers in our acquaintance.

If you’re ready to join the cargo cult too, initiation is just around the corner.

Node Summit is coming up January 24 and 25 in San Francisco, so mark your calendars, book your plane … Continue Reading

Tampa Bay Buccaneers replace playbooks with iPads

If being a professional football player wasn’t already a sweet enough deal, imagine being told by your coach that you’re getting a free iPad. Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris has issued his entire team iPad 2 tablets to replace printed playbooks and to allow players to re-watch game videos, reports the St. Petersburg Times.

The move to go paperless by replacing printed tomes with tablets is becoming a trend at companies and organizations. Two … Continue Reading

A look at life inside Y Combinator from a two-time alumnus (video)

Y Combinator‘s Demo Days this year featured a crush of innovation and excitement. After 63 startups presented to a room full of reporters, VCs and other influencers, we were all exhausted — none more than the belles of this particular ball, the founders themselves.

So we gave the bright young men of Parse a day to recuperate before we asked them to drop into the VentureBeat studio in downtown San Francisco to talk about their … Continue Reading

Home energy management provider EnergyHub raises $14.5M

EnergyHub, a provider of energy efficiency products and associated software, announced today that it has raised $14.5 million in its second round of funding.

The company builds web-enabled home energy software that tracks electricity usage. It sells outlets, surge protectors, thermostats and the like that plug into a home’s network and then exports that data to a web-based interface. It then gives home owners suggestions — such as powering down an air conditioning unit — … Continue Reading

Steve Jobs’s most ambitious product: Apple Inc.

The list of iconic designs Steve Jobs made possible is long. But his most brilliant and ambitious design may be Apple itself.

Jobs, who announced his resignation as Apple’s CEO yesterday, is rightly hailed as one of the most design-savvy executives in the electronics industry. He’s also an impressive architect of business structures.

In the coming years, with Jobs out of the leadership role, we’ll see just how well-designed the company he spent 15 years … Continue Reading