Workday raises an astounding $85M for cloud HR and payroll services

If you’ve doubted that cloud-based services are going to take off in a big way, Workday wants you to put your foot in your mouth. The company has raised a new $85 million round of funding with a reported $2 billion company valuation.

Workday provides more than 230 companies with cloud services for human resources, payroll and financial management. While that may not initially sound exciting, those 230 companies account for more than 2 million … Continue Reading

Dell’s XPS 14z actually thinner than the MacBook Pro it targets

After years of trying, Dell may have finally bested Apple’s MacBook Pro — at least in terms of thinness.

The company officially announced its XPS 14z laptop today, which is not too subtly being positioned as an alternative to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. But unlike past Dell designs, the XPS 14z may be attractive enough to tempt away those eyeing Apple’s devices.

At 0.9-inches thin and 4.36 pounds, the laptop is both thinner and lighter … Continue Reading

Netflix heads to the U.K. and Ireland in early 2012

Netflix will launch its popular streaming TV and movie service in the U.K. and Ireland in the first months of 2012, the company announced today.

Netflix has had a turbulent past few months with a price hike that angered users and a botched plan to move physical DVD rentals to a site called Qwikster. But even with its shortcomings, the service has been trying to rapidly expand its presence outside of North America. This year, … Continue Reading

This isn’t your father’s Halo: a preview of Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (video)

Fan service is a tried and true way to make money in video games. That’s why Microsoft is re-releasing an upgraded version of its Halo blockbuster game on the 10th anniversary of the game’s debut.

Microsoft has sold more than 40 million Halo games since 2001, or more than $2 billion at retail. By coming out with a new Halo game just about every year, the company hopes to get past 50 million in the … Continue Reading

CBS posts the full 60 Minutes interview with Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs’s biographer answered questions about the Apple founder’s life on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, and now you can watch the interview online.

The special interview was recorded about two weeks after Job’s unfortunate death. The version posted online has several extras that weren’t in the original broadcast.

Walter Isaacson’s biography, titled Steve Jobs, goes on sale in brick and mortar retail stores Monday morning. However, Kindle owners and those that have access … Continue Reading

Launch app Quicksilver roars onto Mac OS X Lion

Popular launch app Quicksilver has added support for Mac OS X Lion in the latest update, the development team announced on its blog today.

For those unfamiliar with the impressive app, QuickSilver is sort of like Spotlight on steroids. It’s essentially an application that lets you set your own shortcut/hot keys to launch other apps, open windows and delete files — pretty much anything. The purpose of QuickSilver is to speed up your workflow. Having … Continue Reading

Equinix launches data center marketplace

Equinix has a lot of bandwidth for running web sites. The web hosting company has more than 99 data centers around the world that form much of the backbone of the internet.

Today, it’s launching the Equinix Marketplace platform so that it can help the company’s more than 4,000 partners, customers and suppliers do business with each other more easily. You could think of it as a federation of housing contractors that all work with … Continue Reading

Kindle users get first dibs on Steve Jobs biography

Not only do Kindle users get to avoid fighting through book store crowds to get their hands on Walter Isaacson’s new Steve Jobs biography, but they also got the chance to start reading it long before everyone else.

Amazon delivered electronic copies of the book earlier this evening to Kindle users who preordered it, several hours before the book was supposed to go on sale. At the time of this post, the Jobs bio still … Continue Reading

Apple celebrates 10 years of the iPod — (When did you get your first iPod?)

It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago today Steve Jobs first introduced the iPod at a low-key event far different from the auditorium-sized keynotes that have since become standard for Apple announcements.

At the time, Apple was entering into a portable digital music player market that had no clear market leader — although companies like Creative, Sonic Blue and Sony had certainly been trying. Jobs talked about how music had been around a long … Continue Reading

Whoa, Microsoft’s patent deals now cover half of all Android devices

Yah, you read that right. As of today, Microsoft’s patent licensing agreements with Android manufacturers now cover more than half of all Android devices,  thanks to the recent addition of Taiwan-based Compal.

Compal is the tenth company to form an Android licensing deal with Microsoft, and it’s joining more well-known Android manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and Acer. Companies get protected under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for a fee, which protects them from further patent litigation from … Continue Reading

Week in review: Everyone’s in love with Siri

Each week, we take a look at the best and most popular stories that appeared on VentureBeat over the previous seven days. This week, Siri led the headlines.

Most popular

It’s not surprising that three of this week’s most popular stories had to do with Apple, which released its iPhone 4S to an eager public on October 15. And while some were disappointed that it wasn’t the iPhone 5, the phone’s Siri virtual assistant has … Continue Reading

Google considers financing a deal for Yahoo buyout

Google is the latest company to be connected to a potential buyout of troubled Yahoo Inc. The search giant has talked to at least two equity firms about helping it acquire a chunk of Yahoo, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which sites an unnamed source close to the matter.

The talks are said to still be in the early stages, and no serious offers have been made, but the play would … Continue Reading

U.S.-backed electric car maker Fisker misses early goals, delays production

Government-backed electric car company Fisker Automotive is delaying plans for production after missing its early manufacturing goals. According to a report by the Washington Post, the delays are being blamed on regulatory issues, and the company is brushing off any comparisons to Solyndra, another clean-energy company that received half a million in government loans, which filed for bankruptcy in September.

Fisker has already received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to … Continue Reading

Blizzard COO Paul Sams talks mobile games and giving away Diablo III for free

VentureBeat ran into Blizzard Entertainment’s Paul Sams at this weekend’s BlizzCon fan event in Anaheim, Calif., and we sat down with him to discuss the company’s newly announced World of Warcraft Annual Pass, declining subscribers, and the company’s plans for future mobile projects.

Sams has been with the company since the mid-90′s, and as chief operating officer, he’s overseen development of every Blizzard title in some way or another since Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. … Continue Reading

Facebook accused of retaining deleted user data, could face fines

Facebook’s international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland is facing an audit this month for keeping users’ deleted data. The company could face a $138,000 (€100,000) fine if it does not comply with Irish data protection laws.

The audit was triggered by an Austrian law student named Max Schrems, who requested a copy of all of his personal data from Facebook while writing a paper on privacy laws. What he received was a CD containing 1,200 pages … Continue Reading

Why World of Warcraft added Pokemon-like battling to Mists of Pandaria

Developers of the ridiculously popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft announced that the next game expansion will include a new battle system that essentially turns a player’s companion pets into Pokémon.

The announcement, made yesterday at the annual Blizzcon event, was one of many that Blizzard Entertainment made about World of Warcraft’s fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Companion pets are somewhat of an accessory. They follow a player’s character around when summoned … Continue Reading

Galaxy Nexus with Ice Cream Sandwich confirmed for Verizon

Verizon Wireless plans to offer the powerful Samsung Galaxy Nexus running the next generation of Android software “this year,” the company said late Friday.

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus is notable not only because it’s the first smartphone to run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), but also because it features a monster 4.65-inch screen with 1280 x 720 resolution that is capable of HD video playback. The Verizon Wireless version of the phone will offer Verizon’s blazing … Continue Reading

Sprint’s unlimited 4G data party is over for most devices

Sprint is no longer offering unlimited 4G data consumption for most mobile devices on its network, the company announced Thursday.

Previously, Sprint only put a 5 gigabyte limit on data consumed over its 3G wireless network, while 4G data consumption was unlimited. But as of November, the company will treat all data consumption the same.

The devices affected by Sprint’s data rate change include tablets, netbooks, notebooks, USB cards and Mobile Hotspot devices. And while … Continue Reading