Channels.com centralizes and stores Web video

Channels.com compiles video from around the Web — including premium TV shows — into a central hub, where you can create playlists and subscribe to the shows you like. The two-year old Palo Alto-based start-up relaunched today with a new design stressing premium content. (The old site was more of a rough RSS service — a tool for subscribing to content on the Web, in this case video — for early adopters.)

Channels.com reckons itself … Continue Reading

Yahoo adds apps to Mail, upgrades Messenger

Yahoo’s kitchen sink approach to its mail and messaging services were on display as the company unveiled updates to both.

The updated Mail site rolls out today in the U.S., and over the next few weeks worldwide. Users of Yahoo Messenger can download version 10 today.

The biggest change to Yahoo Mail is the addition of applications, which replace advertisements in the bottom left corner of the screen. The recently-acquired Xoopit has been fully integrated … Continue Reading

Yahoo reveals alternative to "10 Blue Links"

Back in May, Yahoo hinted at how it wants search to be more than a simple string of links, and today the company showed what it has in store.

It turns out that Yahoo has no intent to destroy the “10 Blue Links.” They’re as prevalent as ever in the redesign of its search page. The difference is a sidebar of contextual searches and site-specific search results, as you can see below:

The main changes … Continue Reading

News Corp wants allies in paywall wars; and this is legal how?

I’m no legal expert, but my general understanding is that companies aren’t allowed to come together and agree on pricing for their products. In some circles, that’s called price-fixing.

So it struck me as odd that News Corp is reportedly trying to enlist other media organizations in a consortium that would hide content behind a paywall. The Los Angeles times reports today that News Corp’s chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller, is “believed to have met … Continue Reading

MySpace will expand iLike beyond music

MySpace officially announced its acquisition of  music recommendation service iLike today, but said the platform and popular Facebook application will be expanded beyond music to other areas of the site, such as videos and gaming.

“We believe what iLike has created isn’t limited to just music, and should extend all of the areas important to MySpace users, such as entertainment, video and games,” chief executive Owen Van Natta said in a conference call.

As such, … Continue Reading

Dorthy spending $4 M on "broken" search for dreams

Let’s face it, hunting through Google can be frustrating, especially when searching for advice, so Dorthy.com is working on a remedy.

The project of New York-based startup Saber Seven has raised $4 million to date, and is pushing to release the public alpha of its “dream achievement service” by the end of the summer.

Here’s founder Jordan English Gross’ favorite example of how Dorthy works: Say you want to run a marathon in Maui. Using … Continue Reading

FatSecret wants nutritional info everywhere

For many of us, the extent of learning how healthy we’re eating amounts to glancing at the back of our food’s packaging, but FatSecret aims to provide a more complete picture.

The New York-based start-up recently launched a tool for food companies and restaurants to upload the nutritional information of their products, along with an interface for programmers to mash up that data. FatSecret’s Web site is currently a hub for diets, recipes and general … Continue Reading

Google Reader lets you snoop on friends' feeds, more easily share content

Google Reader, a Google service that pulls content from all your favorite news sites and blog into one place, has announced two new features for receiving and sharing information that’ll make it far more social.

The first lets you add friends’ feeds to Google Reader, provided those friends are using a Google Profile.

Of course, you can already subscribe to people’s updates on FriendFeed and Twitter, among other services, but Google Reader’s latest update makes … Continue Reading

Microsoft is packing real muscle into its Zune HD . . . but for what?

CNet is talking up the processing muscle in Microsoft’s Zune HD, saying it’ll use “one of the most powerful chips to go into a portable media player yet.”

That’s in reference to the Nvidia Tegra, a processor that combines the basic ARM 11 core running the operating system with a GeForce graphics chip. It’s light on power consumption too, burning less than 0.5 watts.

Now, the question remains: What’ll Microsoft do with that added muscle? … Continue Reading

Kid-friendly MMO MyMiniPeeps gets $300,000 (in real-world currency)

Aficionados of popular video game World of Warcraft will tell you that, despite the game’s reputation for being more addictive than drugs, it has redeeming value in team building and the pursuit of goals. But it’s hard to justify that when everyone’s killing each other.

Enter MyMiniPeeps, a Massive Multiplayer Online game intended specifically for children ages 6 through 13. Masher Media, the game’s developer, just received $300,000 in angel funding from Tech Coast Angels … Continue Reading

Shapeways opens 3-D creation marketplace to the public

Got an idea for a 3-D design you’d like on your desk or dresser? Starting today, a company called Shapeways will let you hire people to design and build it.

The company takes a page from Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” marketplace, which allows developers and businesses to crowdsource tasks for a price. Shapeways‘ version is intended specifically for the creation of 3-D models.

For instance, let’s say you’ve been dreaming of a paperweight that looks like … Continue Reading

Get ready for femtocells: Ubiquisys raises $11 M

If you’ve used an iPhone, you’ll know how frustratingly spotty its wireless coverage can be.

Fact is, wireless carriers such as AT&T (which serves the iPhone) are desperately searching for ways to unload the huge amount of traffic that are hitting their networks from iPhone and other smartphone owners. These users are slurping up large amounts of bandwidth to do things like browse the Internet and watch videos.

Ubiquisys is getting ready to attack cell … Continue Reading

ChemBioConnect crowdsources scientists for better meds

Scholarly as they are, it’s easy to picture chemists quibbling over atoms and molecules, but Imaginatik hopes great things will happen by letting hundreds or even thousands of scientists work together.

Imaginatik partnered with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and with CambridgeSoft, a maker of enterprise software for biotech and chemistry organizations, to create collaboration tools on a grand scale. Dubbed ChemBioConnect, the software lets scientists around the world collaborate with illustrations of the problems they’re … Continue Reading

Spying tools come to iPhone, legality dubious

New software turns the iPhone into a powerful eavesdropping tool, but only for those who are willing to jailbreak the phone and wade into murky legal territory.

Seychelles-based FlexiSpy, a purveyor of snooping applications for mobile devices, has released new software that lets you remotely turn on an iPhone’s microphone and listen in on the surroundings. FlexiSpy likens this to an audio bug — the kind used by the FBI to keep tabs on mobsters.… Continue Reading

Attack of the Palm Pre VoIP apps

Voxofon is angling to be the first native VoIP application for the Palm Pre later this year, but a new Web version of Shape Services‘ IM+ can already access the more-familiar Skype.

IM+ for the Palm Pre, spotted today by JkOnTheRun, can be reached by pointing the Pre’s Web browser to s4palm.com. (This actually works on my iPhone as well, but it’s redundant with a native app available.) There, users can call other Skype contacts … Continue Reading

3jam solves Google Voice's portability problem, for a price

In theory, call management programs like Google Voice are attractive, except they’re useless to people who don’t want to hand out new phone numbers to their contacts.

3jam, which launched today, solves the problem by letting users transfer existing phone numbers to the service, which otherwise is a lot like Google Voice. Starting at $5 per month, 3jam offers call forwarding, voicemail transcription, text by e-mail and low call rates. It can also forward calls … Continue Reading

uShow lets videos skip to the good stuff

Sometimes, the best part of a video is a minute or two past the starting point, and a new service called uShow is making it easier for users to get there.

The service lets users tag online video with notes or names of people they follow on Twitter or Facebook. Once tagged, a link to the video can be shared with anyone, and it automatically jumps to the relevant playback point.

The idea is, if … Continue Reading

Poor Yahoo, here's a defense

Looking around the Internet, it’s hard to find arguments in favor of Yahoo handing its search technology to Microsoft. Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis calls the move “seppuku,” and the Guardian’s Charles Arthur said the gains for Yahoo are “invisible.” The stock market wasn’t too friendly to Yahoo, either.

So call me a fool, but I’d like to take a shot at defending Yahoo.

What sticks in my head is Yahoo’s dominance in the content market. … Continue Reading

Arkadium to make advergaming social

The community gaming features found on social networking sites will soon come to Arkadium’s “advergaming” portals. (Advergaming means using video games specifically to advertise a product).

In acquiring Advergame.com and relaunching another gaming portal, GreatDayGames.com, Arkadium, whose clients include Sony, CBS and Good Housekeeping, said it’s well on the way to stepping up the way marketers can reach gamers. But the biggest change will be in social features coming to Arkadium’s network of sponsored gaming … Continue Reading

IBM fares surprisingly well in Q2

Wall Street failed to predict how well IBM would perform this quarter, with the tech giant posting an 18 percent increase in earnings per share from 2008. Earnings per share was $2.32 in Q2, compared to analyst estimates of $2.01.

Now, IBM is showing more optimism for the year as a whole. The company has adjusted its expectations for the year from $9.20 to $9.70 per share. That seems pretty good compared to last year’s … Continue Reading