Samsung introduces Galaxy Tab 8.9, upgraded Galaxy Players

Samsung on Monday introduced its Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablet, a smaller sibling to the sleek Tab 10.1, which is currently of the best Android tablets on the market. It also showed off two updated Galaxy Player media devices.

The three new devices are not huge releases for Samsung, but they will help the company compete heavily with Apple’s popular iPad 2 and iPod touch devices this holiday season. The company first introduced the tablet to … Continue Reading

Stypi founders have a plan to reinvent Google Wave (video)

Google Wave was a colossal flop. So why are the founders of Stypi trying to revive the idea of Wave-style collaborative software?

We caught up with the Stypi team at VentureBeat’s San Francisco office and asked them exactly that. This Y Combinator-backed startup is revisiting the concept of cloud-based, collaborative work. It enables multiple people to work on the same document together in real time by sharing a link amongst themselves.

This is familiar ground … Continue Reading

Facebook iPad app may never get released despite being complete

Bad news for Facebook users who want to access the social network on their iPads: An official iPad app may never see the light of day, according to a former Facebook employee.

Many people have complained about Facebook’s lack of iPad support, which has forced them to use the iPhone application on the tablet or a third-party app like Friended or Facely HD. As of today, we can add former lead engineer of Facebook’s iPad … Continue Reading

iPhone 5′s killer feature: powerful Assistant voice commands

The coolest feature in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 may be something unexpected: a smart, voice-operated virtual assistant — simply called Assistant — that sounds like an evolutionary upgrade over the iPhone’s current voice commands.

We’ve been hearing for some time that Apple will integrate technology from Siri, a virtual assistant mobile application company it purchased last year, into the next iPhone. But new reports today from 9to5Mac and the Unofficial Apple Weblog make Assistant sound … Continue Reading

Seamless acquires MenuPages to further its online food ordering prowess

Online food-ordering company Seamless announced today it has acquired MenuPages, another restaurant-centric site known for its extensive database of up-to-date menus and user-generated reviews.

“There is not a more hyper-local market than the restaurant space,” Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky told VentureBeat. “MenuPages is one of the most trusted and accurate services for menus, so it will add a lot to our service.”

The online food ordering market market is heating up. Last week smaller-but-still-significant Seamless … Continue Reading

Under pressure, Blizzard Entertainment may unveil Titan in October

Blizzard Entertainment is under pressure to deliver something big before the end of the year, now that it has delayed Diablo 3 until 2012. It has plenty of options, but signs point to the company finally dropping details about its hotly-anticipated next online game, code-named “Titan.”

Blizzard is the developer behind World of Warcraft and it’s currently the dominant force in online. Its largest gaming event, Blizzcon, is coming up in Anaheim, Calif., in October, … Continue Reading

Google and Israel post 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls online

The famous 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls are now available for viewing online in high-resolution, thanks to Google and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 inside caves along the shore of the Dead Sea and contain the oldest known copies of many texts from the Bible. They also include secular writings that help shine a light on what life was like for people living in the first … Continue Reading

Apple slashing iPad manufacturing orders by 25 percent in China

Apple is apparently expecting less demand for its iPad 2 tablet in the fourth quarter, since the company has cut orders to its China-based manufacturers by 25 percent, according to a new report from JP Morgan.

The move could signal that Apple is getting ready to ramp up production for its third-generation iPad. At the same time, the cuts to Chinese manufacturers could also mean that Apple is adjusting its production more evenly with its … Continue Reading

Spotify forces new users to have a Facebook account

Want to sign up for an account on Spotify? If you don’t have a Facebook account (or don’t want to make one) then you’re probably out of luck.

The premium music streaming service is requiring that new users connect their Facebook accounts if they want to sign up for a Spotify account.

The move comes just days after Spotify tightly integrated its service with Facebook’s new OpenGraph platform, which allows users to see what their … Continue Reading

Want to be a VentureBeat intern? Turbo-charge your career by mastering the cloud

Are you interested in learning more about the exciting new world of cloud computing? You should be, because it’s one of the most sweeping trends hitting the economy right now.

We’re looking for part-time and full-time interns to help us produce our inaugural CloudBeat 2011 conference. Interns will work closely with our director of events, editors, and other staff to help with everything from content formation and agenda management to marketing and logistics.

The event … Continue Reading

Founder of WebMD’s consumer health branch hopes WellnessFX is the next game changer

WellnessFX, an online concierge service for improving personal health, launched out of stealth today. Behind the startup is Jim Kean, founder of Sapient Health Network, which became the foundation of WebMD‘s consumer health business in 1995.

“After I sold in 1999, a lot of the health VCs closed their health IT practices,” says Kean. He says that until recently the climate for health technology had been cold. Kean says he’s figured out how to monitize … Continue Reading

Slick news reader Pulse heads to Windows Phone, taking its time with ads

Windows Phone 7 users, rejoice! This week, the gorgeous news reader app Pulse will finally make its way to Microsoft’s new mobile platform, the company announced in a blog post today.

The free app will join Pulse’s family of iPhone, iPad and Android apps, bringing with it the same slick grid-based design for perusing news. The Windows Phone Pulse app will have a few features exclusive to the platform, including the ability to follow your … Continue Reading

HealthTap’s social network of 5,000 doctors is ready to give free advice

It’s fair to raise an eyebrow when a social network for healthcare comes along, but this network just might make you raise both eyebrows in surprise: HealthTap has created a healthcare social network with more than 5,000 real-live doctors to answer patient questions. Not peers, not “experts” and not brands. Health questions aren’t posted for the world to see or comment on. This is a private network between a patient and thousands of doctors.

“Facebook … Continue Reading

Facebook offers up to $10M in free ads for small businesses

Facebook will give U.S. small business owners up to $10 million in free Facebook advertising, the company announced today, saying it is working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business to provide the ads.

The stated goal of the program is to help “invest, educate, and connect” with small businesses by giving 200,000 companies $50 each in ad credits. The company wants to show businesses how Facebook advertising works … Continue Reading

Samsung ships 10M Galaxy S II phones, announces slick HD LTE variant

Sales of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S II Android phone remain strong, as the company announced yesterday that it has shipped 10 million units to retailers, 9to5 Google reports.

The company also announced the Galaxy S II HD LTE today, which is headed to South Korea soon. It’s the most powerful version of the phone yet, with a 4G LTE radio and killer high-resolution screen, according to Boy Genius Report.

The Galaxy S II reached its … Continue Reading

Tumblr grabs another $85M in fresh funding

Popular blogging service Tumblr has raised a fresh $85 million round of funding. Hopefully, the company will use this infusion to find more ways to make money.

Tumblr has seen some impressive page view growth. But even with the growth, the company has struggled to generate revenues.

Traffic for Tumblr’s blogs now attract more than 13 billion views per month compared to 2 million views at the beginning of the year. comScore stats indicate the … Continue Reading

Zynga takes its most popular game, CityVille, to Google+

Zynga announced today it has taken its most popular game, CityVille, to the fledgling Google+ social network.

The move could be strategically important for both Google and Zynga, which need each other: Zynga needs Google+ to help it gain more independence from Facebook, and Google+ needs successful games like Zynga’s CityVille to lure users over to its fledgling social network. Meanwhile, the move is a blow for leading social network Facebook, which has had CityVille … Continue Reading

Amazon Prime streaming video gets Fox titles, one step closer to Netflix

Hot on the heels of Netflix’s licensing deal with Dreamworks Animation, Amazon announced today that it has reached a licensing deal with Twentieth Century Fox to bring its movies and TV shows to Amazon’s Prime streaming video library.

That brings Amazon’s total number of streaming video titles for Prime customers (who pay $79 a year for two-day shipping and other niceties) to over 11,000, edging quite close to Netflix’s roughly 12,500 titles (according to Instant … Continue Reading