Yacht Combinator? Step aboard this ship full of startups bound for international waters

May 11, 2012 2:00 PM Sarah Mitroff

Ahoy there, startups of Silicon Valley and beyond! Unreasonable at Sea wants you to sail around the world on a fancy boat while expanding your business to international shores.

Unreasonable at Sea mixes startups, Semester at Sea students, venture capitalists, …

GamesBeat Weekly Roundup

May 11, 2012 1:48 PM Jasmine Maleficent Rea

Jasmine Maleficent Rea

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

Mini-projector for smartphone may change the way we play with our phones

May 11, 2012 12:50 PM Meghan Kelly

Meghan Kelly

My grandma hates showing me photos on her smartphone. It’s small and “pinch and zoom” doesn’t show the full photo — “I just miss prints,” she says. This very neat concept smartphone projector, however, may solve her problem.

A group …

Your mom is so social, she’s on Facebook and Pinterest right now

May 11, 2012 11:37 AM Sarah Mitroff

Sarah Mitroff

To get us excited for Mother’s Day this Sunday, research firm Nielsen has released a few stats on the online habits of American moms.

Facebook ranks number one for moms in the U.S., something that comes as no shock to …

Why should I attend TiEcon this year?

May 11, 2012 11:21 AM -

Sponsored Post Successes such as Instagram, has got the whole tech community up in restless excitement. At least 2 developers approached me the day the Instagram acquisition was announced. They needed to do something...

Spotify update lets you create radio stations from playlists, share to Tumblr, & more

May 11, 2012 10:55 AM Tom Cheredar

Tom Cheredar

Streaming music service Spotify is rolling out a new version of its desktop software for Windows and Mac today, adding a handful of new features and improved functionality.

Version 0.8.3 of Spotify includes the ability to create custom radio stations …

Facebook testing whether you’ll pay to ensure friends see your status updates

May 11, 2012 10:30 AM John Koetsier

John Koetsier

Facebook is testing a feature in which users can choose to pay money to highlight their status updates for their friends.

The feature is fairly simple: add a status update just like you would ordinarily, then pay to have it …

Why you need to work with the machine, not against it

May 11, 2012 10:00 AM Jared Tame

Guest Post

Whether or not you were aware of it at the time, the world changed in 2011 when Ken Jennings lost to IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy. As a part humorous, part chilling conclusion to the historic show, Jennings wrote the following …

Foxconn prepping its plants to make an Apple iTV

May 11, 2012 9:53 AM Sean Ludwig

Sean Ludwig

Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn will soon ready its plants to manufacture a television made by Apple, according to China Daily.

We’ve routinely heard reports that Apple’s “iTV” will be coming to the market before the end of 2012, but now …

Apple’s Siri calls the Nokia Lumia 900 “the best smartphone ever”

May 11, 2012 9:40 AM Ricardo Bilton

Ricardo Bilton

Conventional wisdom nowadays might suggest that Apple’s iPhone 4S is “the best smartphone ever.”

But that’s not the case if you ask Siri, the voice assistant software installed on the 4S. Strangely enough, Siri answers the question by pointing to …

Thompson needs to go as Yahoo’s CEO

May 11, 2012 8:32 AM Rocky Agrawal

Guest Post

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s latest explanations don’t cut it. He needs to go.

According to Business Insider, he told Yahoo employees that the errors on his bios were not his fault — he didn’t submit a resume to Yahoo, some …

Nvidia’s earnings drop 55 percent with PC slowdown, but beats expectations

May 11, 2012 8:32 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

Nvidia said that its net income fell 48 percent for the first fiscal quarter ended April 29. But the graphics-chip maker beat expectations and its stock is rising.

Revenues for the quarter were $924.9 million, down 4 percent from a …

Geeknet may sell Slashdot, SourceForge, and Freecode

May 11, 2012 8:28 AM Tom Cheredar

Tom Cheredar

Geeknet announced today that it is considering selling off some of its iconic tech properties, including software sites SourceForge and Freecode as well as curated technology news site Slashdot.

The company’s board of directors said it’s reassessing its media business …

The DeanBeat: A tale of two industry giants

May 11, 2012 8:00 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

The rivalry between Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts came into focus this week as both companies reported their quarterly results, revealing their latest thinking on strategic priorities and the differences in their execution. It brings to mind a topic I …

Why China’s game business will hit $20B by 2016 (exclusive interview)

May 11, 2012 8:00 AM Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi

China has one of the most dynamic and unique game markets in the world. Rising from virtual non-existence a decade ago, and surviving a stage when every disk was pirated, the nation has become a force to be reckoned with …

Apple dropping Google Maps on iOS 6 in favor of its own app, report says

May 11, 2012 7:09 AM Sean Ludwig

Sean Ludwig

Apple will likely get rid of Google Maps on its upcoming iOS 6 mobile operating system and instead offer its own mapping software, according to a 9to5Mac report.

Since 2007, Apple has included Google Maps as a standard application that …

NYC: Love VentureBeat and smart tech panels? Check these out next week

May 11, 2012 6:00 AM Devindra Hardawar

Devindra Hardawar

With Internet Week New York upon us in just a few days, we’re busy mapping out our schedules (and figuring out the best parties to attend). There’s certainly a lot to look forward to, but I wanted to bring your …

Video-sharing sensation Viddy rockets toward 30M users, banks $30M

May 11, 2012 6:00 AM Jennifer Van Grove

Jennifer Van Grove

Smoking-hot mobile video-sharing startup Viddy has closed a $30 million financing round and is fast-approaching 30 million registered users.

If you’ve taken a two-month hiatus from the Internet, then you’ve most certainly missed Viddy’s overnight comeuppance. The one-year-old company makes …