Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed invests $300M in Twitter (update)

Hot on the heels of Twitter’s $800 million sixth round of funding, Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his firm Kingdom Holding have announced a $300 million investment in Twitter.

But the investment is actually a secondary deal, meaning Alwaleed bought the shares from existing Twitter investors, reports Fortune’s Dan Primack. That means Twitter won’t be seeing any additional funds from the investment.

Referred to as a “strategic stake,” or more than 3 percent … Continue Reading

Chip executive outlook reveals bleak times ahead

Semiconductor industry executives worry that profits and revenue are sinking, and they don’t plan to hire as many people as they did a year ago.

That’s not particularly encouraging, as the semiconductor industry — the source of chips that go into everything electronic — is the backbone of the tech economy. About 41 percent of chip industry executives say they expect revenue will grow more than 5 percent in 2012, compared with 78 percent a … Continue Reading

TV features emerge as Apple holds meetings with media companies

Apple may be deeper into the television project than we thought, as the company is reportedly visiting media companies to share its technology plans.

Since Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs was released, people have been buzzing about what the late Apple chief executive suggested was Apple’s next adventure: televisions. Many have speculated what an Apple television could be like. Former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée sees it as another box, supporting applications, a function that … Continue Reading

The Web is a student’s primary source as universities adopt the digital age (infographic)

Education must evolve as curriculum changes, and new subject information becomes available. But it also must change to adopt the Web and accept that students are using it for just about everything.

Students learn in totally different ways now that the age of the Internet is upon them. The knee jerk reaction after receiving an assignment is to consult Google, as opposed to hopping off toward the library. Not surprisingly, 93 percent of students prefer … Continue Reading

Consumers will lose $10M to cyber crime this holiday season

Over $10 million will be intercepted by cyber criminals this holiday season, as consumers turn toward the Internet for their presents.

Online shopping around the holidays has increased 10 percent since the same time in 2010, to around $30.9 billion dollars spent thus far in the season, according to a report by comScore. Specifically days like Cyber Monday, which raked in $1.25 billion, and Free Shipping Day, which totalled around $1.72 billion, draw people away … Continue Reading

Facebook releases iPhone update 4.1, Timeline has arrived

If Facebook had a Timeline, today it would read, “became friends with iPhone.” The company released an update to the application today, supporting Timeline, along with a couple new improvements.

The update, 4.1, allows people to view Timelines like they would on the mobile and regular websites. The company released updates to its Android application and mobile websites on Thursday, shortly after the Timeline itself rolled out worldwide. Why Facebook decided to wait on the … Continue Reading

Facebook’s Android app beating out iPhone for daily usage

Facebook‘s Android app passed the iPhone in daily active users today, but is still trailing behind when it comes to monthly activity.

According to analytics reports by AppData, the Android application had 58.3 million daily active users on December 17, as opposed to the iPhone’s 57.4 million DAU. Indeed, Facebook is the most popular Android app for users 18 and older, according to a Nielsen report. The social network’s app came right after the Android … Continue Reading

Watchitoo is best of WebEx and live streaming, launches layers (exclusive)

Watchitoo is adding a little flavor to the video conferencing industry tomorrow with its new interactive “Layers” function, including a way to monetize what you’re seeing on the screen.

The company, which competes with the Cisco owned WebEx and Citrix‘s GoToMeeting, is trying to be the less clunky, more integrated option for all kinds of businesses with video conferencing needs. Up to 25 people can interact with the video as a participant or a viewer, … Continue Reading

Star Wars: The Old Republic debuts on Tuesday as one of the most ambitious games ever

BioWare’s epic new online game Star Wars: The Old Republic debuts on Tuesday. A persistent world known as a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), the title is one of the most ambitious video games in history. One of its many lofty goals is to challenge World of Warcraft, the seven-year-old fantasy role-playing world that is the world’s biggest money-making online game with more than 10.3 million paying subscribers and around a billion dollars a year … Continue Reading

Sony launches the PlayStation Vita in Japan to big crowds

Sony finally launched its PlayStation Vita portable game system in Japan today as thousands of game fans lined up early to buy it. The device will launch in North America and Europe on Feb. 22.

The launch appeared to go off without any major problems. The timing of the launch is very late in the holiday season, so it isn’t clear just how popular it will be. The device will face strong competition from all … Continue Reading

The United States of Innovation (infographic)

Innovation has gone global. The United States is no longer the majority source of patents in the world — though it does lead other countries by a wide margin, at least as measured by the number of innovative companies that call the U.S. home.

In this infographic from Good Magazine, the world map shows what percentage of Thomson Reuters’ “Global Innovators” list is headquartered in each country. The U.S. leads, with 40 percent of that … Continue Reading

Jury fails to settle ancient suit between Microsoft and Novell

A seven-year old lawsuit over a fifteen-year-old operating system and a thirty-year-old word processing program has finally ended. With a hung jury.

Novell’s $1.4 billion lawsuit against Microsoft ended in a mistrial December 15 after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Bloomberg reports.

That could be considered a victory for Microsoft. Novell’s suit, filed in 2004, was based on Microsoft’s alleged lack of support in Windows 95 for WordPerfect, a word-processing program acquired … Continue Reading

The fast, fabulous life of 32-year-old billionaire Sean Parker

If you ever wondered what it would be like to be a billionaire before forty, look no further than Sean Parker.

His fabulous, $20 million townhouse in New York’s West Village has an indoor swimming pool, features Byzantine icons and two massive, six-foot portraits by Spanish Renaissance painter Alonso Sánchez Coello, is large enough to accommodate a party of 800, and has at least four floors. Oh, and it’s called “Bacchus House,” which might give … Continue Reading

Week in review: Zynga goes public, while we go holiday shopping

Don't panic: It's only a week until Christmas.

To help you procrastinate on your shopping (not to mention Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice preparations), we've assembled this list of ten of the best tech business and gaming stories of the week.

We'll start with a a gift guide, so you can pretend this is actually helping you accomplish your holiday goals.

“Groupon for good” launches a service for charitable group buys

Group buying services have grown explosively over the last few years. Groupon, LivingSocial, Yipit, Foursquare and even Google have jumped into the suddenly hot arena of offering consumers discounts on local merchants’ products and services.

Yet another new player has just launched in the field of group buying, but this time, with a twist. The Mutual, a Brooklyn-based startup, is pitching its service as the “Groupon for Good.” Its goal is to reward buyers for … Continue Reading

Uncharted Golden Abyss has precision aiming on the PlayStation Vita

Trying to aim a weapon on a modern handheld gaming device isn’t easy.

But Sony’s demo of the Uncharted: Golden Abyss shows that the PlayStation Vita has a new way to aim more precisely. This sort of thing could be very important as a way to distinguish the Vita from other kinds of gaming devices that don’t have such sophisticated control systems. I tried it out this week at a Sony preview event and it … Continue Reading

Why did Zynga’s stock fizzle on day one? Analyst cites red flags

Zynga’s stock sank 5 percent yesterday, from $10 to $9.50, on its first day of trading. Some investors might feel like the stock will bounce back on Monday or in the weeks ahead. But at least one analyst is staying bearish.

New York-based PrivCo, a private market research firm headed by Sam Hamadeh, has been prophetic in its skepticism about Zynga so far. Early this summer, after Zynga filed its papers to go public, PrviCo … Continue Reading

Chip startup fundings, IPOs and acquisitions are cooling off

For a mature and giant industry growing at a few percent a year, the semiconductor industry remains active when it comes to the creation of new startups and the initial public offerings of young private companies. But just as those activities create new companies, acquisitions and mergers count that effect, consolidating the industry into fewer companies, according to a report by the Global Semiconductor Alliance.

So far this year, there has been less overall change … Continue Reading

Will they laugh this time? Shervin Pishevar predicts social mobile games to dwarf Facebook games

As the founder of Social Gaming Network, Shervin Pishevar squared off against Zynga in the early days of social gaming. But Pishevar veered off into iPhone gaming while Mark Pincus stayed put on Facebook with social games.

The consequences of that competitive battle have played out. Zynga went public at a $10 billion valuation yesterday, while MindJolt acquired SGN for a much lower price in April. But Pishevar isn’t bitter. He offered his congratulations to … Continue Reading