Pew: Tablet owners consume a crazy amount of news but they won’t pay for it

A new Pew Research Center study shows that the behavior of tablet owners is changing significantly when it comes to consuming news, for good and bad.

Several studies have already shown that tablets create a higher level of engagement than a desktop or laptop, most likely because of the physical interaction with content and media. A popular video floating around the web even highlights tablet interactivity versus traditional print media using a baby as a … Continue Reading

Sencha launches HTML 5 cloud service, receives $15M

Sencha, provider of HTML 5 tools for web and mobile developers, received $15 million in a second round of funding led by Jafco Ventures.

HTML 5 applications can make beautiful, interactive experiences on PCs and mobile devices. But there are some drawbacks to using HTML 5 that have held the marketplace from rushing the field. These apps are unable to connect to a device’s own native apps and data. For example, an HTML5 app running … Continue Reading

Groupon IPO roadshow begins with one tough question: Can the company turn a profit?

Groupon is taking its show on the road this week to pitch wary investors on its stock. Can the company prove it will be profitable in the long term even though it’s posting nothing but losses so far?

“If you look at the company’s prospectus, they say they expect to see losses for the foreseeable future,” said Dun & Bradstreet tech specialist Lee Simmons in a call with VentureBeat this morning.

At the end of … Continue Reading

Android leads iOS in mobile app downloads

Out of all mobile app downloads in the third quarter of 2011, 44 percent were Android apps, making Android the market share leader over iOS’ 31 percent, according to data from ABI Research.

The research firm attributed the large shipment of phones running Google’s Android operating system as the reason for the high market share. The total number of Android devices activated worldwide has now reached 190 million (or an estimated 600,000 per day), according … Continue Reading

Rockstar announces Grand Theft Auto V with maddeningly few details

Rockstar Games surprised just about everyone this morning by confirming the existence of Grand Theft Auto V, the latest in the company’s hit series of open-world games.

Rockstar announced the game by replacing its website with the GTA V logo, as well as the news that a trailer would be released next week on November 2. That’s it. On its Twitter account, the company posted a tweet that just pointed back to its website with … Continue Reading

Sequoia Capital offers free bootcamp session for all Innovation Showdown finalists

We’re thrilled to announce that all 10 finalists in the CloudBeat 2011 Innovation Showdown will be invited to attend a special Bootcamp session hosted by Sequoia Capital. The session will take place at Sequoia’s offices in Menlo Park on November 11, a few weeks before the event.

As will be the case live at CloudBeat 2011, each company will have four minutes to showcase their cloud product or service. After each presentation, a mix of … Continue Reading

How Airbnb failed its way through “the trough of sorrow” to a $1B valuation

Today Airbnb is one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, but it has definitely failed its way to glory.

That made yesterday’s Failcon — a San Francisco event where entrepreneurs revel in their most humiliating defeats — an ideal venue for co-founder Joe Gebbia to talk about his company’s five-year journey to legitimacy, and some serious revenue generation.

The key to success is finding your way out of “the trough of sorrow,” where an entrepreneur’s true … Continue Reading

Loku boils down big data into bite-sized, neighborhood nuggets

In a world where  information overload is driving us further apart, a startup called Loku has launched a technology to connect neighbors to their community and help people find cool things to do nearby.

Loku boils down huge feeds of data from sources such as local blogs and weekly newspapers, social media, restaurant reviews and deals, arranging them in a gorgeous webzine layout that’s automatically customized for your neighborhood. Currently Loku is rolling out in … Continue Reading

Two pictures show how far Battlefield 3′s 3D graphics have come

A picture is worth a thousand words. Electronic Arts is launching Battlefield 3 on Oct. 25. The screenshot above shows you what the images in the 3D combat game will look like on a PC. Compare that to a shot from Battlefield 2 (pictured below), which was released as a state-of-the-art game in 2005.

Battlefield 3 is one of the best-looking titles being released this fall, and it will compete with some of the best … Continue Reading

Slice brings its ecommerce tracking smarts to Gmail

Shopping-tool startup Slice is available for for Gmail users today, the company announced, which opens up the ecommerce tracking tool to an additional 200 million users worldwide.

Previously available for Yahoo Mail users, Slice helps shoppers track their purchases from checkout, to their doorstep in one central location, as opposed to having to comb through their inbox for information about each purchase from sites like Amazon.com, eBay and Groupon.

Slice is available as a standalone … Continue Reading

iPod creators unveil Nest, the smartest (and prettiest) thermostat yet

An intelligent thermostat seems like an odd project for the minds behind Apple’s iconic iPod, but in a strange way, the iPod folks may just be the perfect team to revolutionize home heating.

The project is the Nest Learning Thermostat, a Wi-Fi connected thermostat that learns your heating preferences and optimizes your home’s temperature to save energy. The brains behind it are Tony Fadell, former SVP of Apple’s iPod group, and Matt Rogers, former lead … Continue Reading

ViewSonic launches $200 ViewPad 7e Android tablet

While it’s not as exciting as the similarly priced Amazon Kindle Fire, Viewsonic’s new $200 ViewPad 7e Android tablet will be available in a matter of days, the company said.

If Google Android tablets have any chance of erasing the steep gains the Apple iPad has already made in global market share, it will be through innovating in the inexpensive tablet space. There are plenty of cheap Android tablets available now or soon to be … Continue Reading

Apple’s “iTV” may be brought to you by iTunes creator

Apple has apparently turned to Jeff Robbin, who created iTunes and co-developed the iPod, to spearhead development of an integrated television set.

Three sources with knowledge of the project divulged the news to Bloomberg. If true, it means that Apple is prioritizing development of a TV set, potentially called the “iTV.”

In his official biography, released yesterday, Steve Jobs claimed he “cracked” the code for an integrated Apple television, saying “It will have the simplest … Continue Reading

Travel search service Hipmunk adds Google Calendar integration

Travel search site Hipmunk has added another wonderful new feature to help you book your travel plans: Google Calendar integration.

The new integration will allow users to check their flight (or train) listings against their personal schedule within Google Calendar to determine the best possible times to book a trip, Hipmunk announced today.

While other travel search sites allow you to import your travel schedule into Google Calendar, Hipmunk is the first that lets you … Continue Reading

Meg Whitman joins Zaarly’s board, company gets $14M from Kleiner Perkins

Mobile marketplace Zaarly announced today that Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman is joining its board of directors, and that it’s getting a $14 million investment led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

“I just love her,” said Bo Fishback (pictured left), co-founder and chief executive of Zaarly, in an interview with VentureBeat. “She built the biggest peer-to-peer marketplace on the planet Earth … I just know she’s going to make me a better CEO.”

Meg … Continue Reading

Anonymous disables child pornography servers as part of OpDarknet

Hacktivist group Anonymous has taken down the servers of Freedom Hosting, which Anonymous said was providing hosting services for child pornography websites.

“When we came into this virtual realm, we were disgusted with the content that was provisioned and readily available for the perverted masses,” said a computerized voice on the group’s YouTube manifesto. “You know who you are and so do we.”

The realm Anonymous is referring to is called the Darknet, a hidden … Continue Reading

Netflix loses more than 800K subscribers in the third quarter

Netflix ended the third quarter of 2011 with just 23.8 million total subscribers — 810,000 fewer than the previous quarter, the company revealed today in its latest earnings report (PDF).

So, where did those lost subscribers go? Most of the losses are attributed to the company raising subscription rates by 60 percent on its DVD-by-mail service. The low numbers are also reflective of Netflix’s unpopular decision to break off its DVD-by-mail business into a separate … Continue Reading

Startups battle it out for charity in Dodgeball Invitational (photo gallery)

Code-slinging warriors from 17 Silicon Valley startups met for a gridiron foam-dodgeball clash on Sunday. The games, which raised money for charity, were part of the Octocat Dodgeball Invitational and were hosted by code repository company Github.

The event was a chance for members of the startup community to get together and do something good for charity. At stake were bragging rights for the winning team, and a prize purse of $57,000, to be donated … Continue Reading

Vinod Khosla: Freedom to fail is key ingredient in success

The willingness to fail is the key ingredient in success, billionaire investor Vinod Khosla told the audience at the Failcon conference in San Francisco today.

Failcon is an annual event where people gather to talk about failing their way to success, a unique forum that celebrates mistakes.

Khosla (pictured) has had may successes, but he also knows about failure first hand. He was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, as well as a partner … Continue Reading