Venture capitalists are avoiding chip investments like the plague. In the third quarter, chip design and chip manufacturing companies raised $231.6 million, down 44 percent from the second quarter and down 57 percent from a year ago, according to the Global Semiconductor Alliance.
The industry trade group’s report says that funding deals have decreased for two [...]
Posts by Dean Takahashi
Dash Navigation has laid off two thirds of its employees and plans to stop making the hardware behind its Dash Express car navigation devices. That’s a shame. Chalk it up as a victory for commodity products, and a loss for innovation. It’s a reminder that no matter how clever your inventions, you can still lose [...]
When times get bad, it pays to have a sense of humor.
That’s a hallmark of Gilman Louie, a celebrated video game geek and seasoned venture capitalist. He was chief executive of MicroProse, a seminal simulation game company that made flight simulations such as the Falcon series. He was also more recently the founder of In-Q-Tel, [...]
Microsoft said today that security for Windows Vista has gotten better, but the threats from online attackers have become more serious.
Among the culprits are organized criminals who have gone online, and naive users who are duped by message scams. The company’s fifth Security Intelligence Report said that the amount of malicious software removed from Windows [...]
Bracing for the downturn, Palo Alto Networks has added $10 million to the third round of financing it announced in August.
Lane Bess, chief executive of the enterprise firewall and security firm, raised $27 million just a few months ago but felt it was prudent to raise more. He said that the company was taking the [...]
Western Digital may have uncovered the trick to getting into your living room: simplicity. Today, the company is launching its WD TV HD Media Player, a box that makes it very easy to listen to music or watch movies, home videos, and pictures on your TV.
The box isn’t hooked up to the Internet. You simply [...]
Here’s our latest Buzzdash poll.
Teens don’t carry a lot of credit cards with them. That’s why KingsIsle Entertainment is expected to announce on Monday an alternative payment system for its Wizard101 online game based on micro-transactions.
The fantasy wizard massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game launched in early September with a $9.95 a month subscription fee, or $6.95 a month [...]
Here’s the latest action:
Will deflation accompany a worldwide slowdown? – Economists fear a spiral of decline in prices could accompany a global recession.
Can Saturday Night Live save McCain? – As the presidential campaign enters its last weekend, John McCain will try upstage Tina Fey with an SNL appearance.
Evidence of recession piles up as GDP shrinks [...]
Electronic Arts reported a big loss today and said it would lay off 6 percent of its 9,000-person work force, or roughly 540 people.
The cutbacks come after a huge increase in the employment rolls thanks to acquisitions and EA’s focus on making original games built by its own internal studios.
The stock fell 14 percent in [...]
Nintendo reported another record for the six-month period from April to September. The record sales, profits and shipments move the company a step closer to dominating the games business.
Sales were 836.9 billion yen, or $8.85 billion, for the six months ended September 30, up 10.4 percent from a year ago. Net income was 144.8 billion [...]
Games are starting to catch up with movies in this respect: low-budget titles from indie studios have the same chance to succeed as blockbusters. And the indie game makers are about to make their biggest strides yet as Microsoft prepares to sell user-generated games on the Xbox 360 game console.
The launch of the Xbox Live [...]
The view of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists on the downturn: act responsibly, but don’t panic.
That’s one of the messages at the first panel this morning at VentureBeat’s conference on “How to manage your start-up in the downturn.” The conference, at the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park, has a full house of a couple [...]
Pretty soon, we’ll all be hosting our own virtual worlds. VentureBeat has a new virtual scene today (you need a Windows computer to access it on the web), courtesy of Vivaty, which is launching its own widget to embed 3-D virtual scenes on any web page.
The Vivaty folks created our virtual scene in about half [...]
Hewlett-Packard is announcing today three new models in the HP MIni 1000 family that are its thinnest and lightest entries in the growing category of computers known as “netbooks.” One of them, a colorful version created by fashion designer Vivienne Tam, could easily be mistaken for a clutch purse.
The models are targeted at “information snackers,” [...]
Logitech International has acquired Internet video communication firm SightSpeed for $30 million.
Switzerland-based Logitech, which makes computer mice and other peripherals, will get access to SightSpeed’s video calling technology. SightSpeed makes it easy to conduct video conferences between multiple parties over the web. The deal is subject to closing conditions and is expected to finalize in [...]
The Consumer Confidence Index for the U.S. hit a 40-year low in the latest report. The Conference Board index fell from 61.8 in September to 38 this month. Analysts had expected 52. This augurs a bleak holiday season for anyone selling to consumers. Is this record low an appropriate response to the economic turmoil? Do [...]
As other industries contract, the game industry is showing resiliency as a source of jobs. A new census shows that the number of industry jobs in the U.S. is up 12 percent from a year ago.
There are 44,400 people working in games in the U.S., up from 39,700 in 2007, according to the Game Developer [...]
Charlie Miller has another notch in his belt. The security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators headed a team that hacked Google’s Android software, which debuted last week on the T-Mobile G1 cell phone. Miller, Mark Daniel and Jake Honoroff were able to hack the G1 and compromise its web browser just days after sales began. [...]
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