Superhero online game City of Heroes launches as free-to-play today

City of Heroes, an online role-playing game run by NCSoft, will now use a freemium model that makes money off the sale of premium goods in lieu of requiring all players to pay a subscription fee.

All City of Heroes players can now play until they reach level 50 without paying a cent. The game will give players the option to purchase new content and items — such as boosters that will help them become … Continue Reading

Facebook’s valuation sits at $82.25B based on private sales of stock

Facebook’s valuation climbed significantly this year, settling at figures in excess of $80 billion just after the company’s developer conference this month, f8.

Shares of the company’s stock on SharesPost, a marketplace for stock of privately held companies, are currently priced around $32. Overall, Facebook’s valuation  has fallen slightly from a peak of $87.5 billion, according to SharesPost prices.

In 2008, our reporters determined that Facebook was valued internally at around $4 billion. In the … Continue Reading

What people are saying about Windows 8 on Twitter (Infographic)

With its support for both desktops and mobile devices, the latest version of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system is a radical departure from previous iterations — and something that’s making people talk.

Social media monitoring firm MashWork recently created an infographic (below) showing what people are saying about the new operating system on microblogging social network Twitter. The data collection yielded some interesting results. For instance, about half of all tweets favored Windows 8 … Continue Reading

Glam Media hires new CFO, honing its edge for a likely IPO

Glam Media announced today that it has hired 16-year Apple veteran Jeanne Seeley as its new chief financial officer and executive vice president, a move that likely positions the company for a public offering. Seeley starts work today.

Samir Arora, Glam’s chairman and chief executive officer, described Seeley as “one of the top Silicon Valley CFOs,” due in part to her extensive experience at Apple, where Arora also previously worked.

“Apple really has one of … Continue Reading

Updated Skype iOS apps add Bluetooth support and (unfortunately) ads

Skype on Tuesday updated its apps for the iPhone and iPad, which now include Bluetooth functionality and image stabilization. Unfortunately the updates also introduce advertising for non-paid users for the first time.

Skype is trying to better monetize its service after Microsoft announced plans to acquire the company back in May for $8.5 billion. While Microsoft product integration is still in the planning phase, Skype is slowly changing into a company that wants to make … Continue Reading

Windows Phone Mango update is out — gets Web Marketplace, tethering

Microsoft’s massive Windows Phone 7.5 mobile operating system update, also known as Mango, started rolling out to users worldwide today.

It’s the biggest update yet for the mobile platform, and it includes a slew of new features that users have been anticipating for months now. Mango also contains two surprises that Microsoft announced for the first time today: Tethering, to let your share your phone’s mobile Internet access, and a Web Marketplace, which will let … Continue Reading

Go ahead, open more tabs; Firefox 7 runs even faster

Mozilla released Firefox 7 today, and the new version of makes web browsing faster than ever.

The update is especially helpful for the hardcore web junkies among us who browse with scores of open tabs and browsing sessions that span multiple days.

Firefox 7 reduces memory usage by 20 to 50 percent, which translates to quicker response times and fewer crashes. These improvements constitute the first publicly available implementation of MemShrink, Mozilla’s project focusing on … Continue Reading

Myopic entrepreneurs need to “think big,” Get Satisfaction CEO says (video)

Get Satisfaction CEO Wendy Lea has a few choice words for entrepreneurs, and the women and men in the business of creating and running startups would be well served to tune in.

“If you’re going to get into the entrepreneurship game… I think it’s our responsibility to think big,” Lea said in a recent interview with VentureBeat. She continued to admonish startup folks who are myopic in their aims while huge needs still abound in … Continue Reading

Clean Power Finance connects investors, solar providers and gets $75M from Google

Search giant Google today announced it has made another large investment in a residential solar provider, this time dropping $75 million into Clean Power Finance, an online service that connects solar panel installers with investors.

Clean Power Finance connects solar panel providers and installers with investors looking to drop money into residential solar providers. Those investors provide financing to home owners, who are then able to purchase or lease out solar panels at a more … Continue Reading

Delicious team unveils new version of the social bookmarking site

Avos, the new owner of social bookmarking site Delicious, has dusted off the previously neglected service and unveiled a slick revamped version today — complete with new features and functionality.

The changes mark the first major updates to Delicious since the height of the site’s popularity, despite being owned by giant tech company Yahoo from 2005 to May 2011 (when Avos purchased it).

“We realized that in order to keep innovating over the long term, … Continue Reading

Y Combinator-backed 1000memories launches Shoeboxes, says revenue in sight

1000memories, an online memory-sharing site, is well on its way to finding revenue after launching a new content-sharing feature today called Shoeboxes.

1000memories, which got its start in life at startup incubator Y Combinator, creates landing pages for individuals. Anyone can jump to a page and write a few words or post a picture or song. The result is a collage of photos, music and thoughts that’s supposed to capture the essence of that person. … Continue Reading

So long WiMax: Sprint preparing its LTE 4G network for 2012

Catching up with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, Sprint is gearing up to launch its own 4G LTE network early next year.

The LTE network is expected to arrive during the first or second quarter of 2012, CNet reports, citing people familiar with the carrier’s plans. It will be a part of Sprint’s previously announced  Network Vision plan, which will cost the carrier somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion over the next three to five … Continue Reading

SlideShare boosts mobile abilities with new HTML5-powered site

Presentation sharing startup SlideShare on Tuesday launched a new HTML5-powered site that eliminates the need for Adobe Flash for slideshows and works seamlessly on mobile devices like Apple iPad and iPhone.

The popular service follows others like LinkedIn and Pandora that have based their sites completely on HTML5 to improve the mobile experience and work seamlessly on Apple iOS devices, which are growing more popular by the day and famously don’t support Flash in the … Continue Reading

Kobo Pulse gives ereaders a powerful shot of social

Imagine turning the page of the latest best-selling novel and receiving a notification that, right at that very moment, President Barack Obama is reading the same book and is on the very same page. You have the option of talking about the book with him. What would you say?

Today Kobo, the maker of the third most popular ereader in the world with 4.9 million users, announced Kobo Pulse, a social reading platform that gives … Continue Reading

MOG and Samsung team up for streaming on smart TVs and Blu-ray players

Streaming music service MOG on Tuesday announced it has partnered with Samsung to offer its 12-million-song streaming catalog to owners of the latest models of Samsung Smart TVs and Blu-ray players.

The move allows MOG to spread its brand further, following rival streaming service Pandora in moving outside of PCs and mobile phones to find new customers. Samsung’s 2010 and 2011 Smart TVs or Blu-ray players will work with the service.

Samsung Smart TVs and … Continue Reading

Apple sends out invites for October 4 iPhone 5 event

Confirming recent rumors, Apple has sent out press invites for its iPhone 5 event on October 4 at its Cupertino campus.

Surprisingly, Apple is pretty straightforward in the invite regarding what the event is about: “Let’s talk iPhone.” Typically, Apple tends to be more coy about its events, even when it’s plainly obvious what they will be about.

The invite confirms that new Apple CEO Tim Cook will be leading the event, which will begin … Continue Reading

Peak Games raises $11.5M for social gaming deals

Peak Games has raised $11.5 million for its plan to become a social gaming powerhouse in emerging markets, the company announced today.

The Istanbul-based company has also acquired two small game studios in Turkey and now ranks among the top social gaming companies on Facebook, according to AppData. The company’s growth reflects the rapid growth of Facebook and social gaming in markets such as Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa, South America, and Mexico.

Peak … Continue Reading

Former Gizmodo editor launches new tech site, Wirecutter

Brian Lam, the former editor of Gizmodo who took the site from a few million pageviews a month to more than 100 million, is launching a new site.

Called Wirecutter, it is a consumer-focused tech site. Unlike other gadget sites, Wirecutter is organized primarily as a leaderboard, highlighting the best products in a variety of categories (cameras, laptops, TVs, etc.). Instead of a constant stream of news and reviews, Wirecutter will recommend the top products … Continue Reading

Yammer raises $17M from former Facebook VP to improve enterprise social networking

Enterprise social networking site Yammer has raised $17 million in a new funding round.

Since its launch in 2008, Yammer has made incredible gains with enterprise users, with more than 3 million verified corporate users and more than 80 percent of companies on the Fortune 500 list using the network. It has attracted more than 100,000 businesses in 160 countries. The service tailors Facebook and Twitter-like communication strategies to give businesses activity feeds, private messaging, … Continue Reading