The Google leaders’ crazy asteroid venture: A platinum rush?

Speculation continues around the plans of company called Planetary Resources, backed by the Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, as well as Ross Perot, James Cameron and other bigwigs.

The company, in a vague but audacious statement released last …

Genome entrepreneurs say their data will help you live longer

The cost of sequencing the human genome continues to fall, reaching a low of $1,000 this year due to a new microchip and machine designed by genetics company Life Technologies Corp. And unleashed by those lower costs, a small cadre …

With Kinect, Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts are easier to bellow (hands-on)

Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing system is making its way into hardcore games, but not in the way everyone thought. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the hottest-selling games from the fall, will exploit the voice-recognition feature in Kinect so that …

Chumby calls it quits after tricky move from hardware to software

A lovable touchscreen gadget with beanbag mystique called Chumby, very much the precursor to today’s tablets, has long been a relic of simpler times. Now, the San Diego company behind the device, which eventually pivoted to focus entirely on software …

Get social and eco-friendly this Earth Day (infographic)

Earth Day is Sunday, April 22, and if you have no idea how to celebrate, we can help.

This weekend people will unplug their electronics, get out of their houses, and ride their bikes to a tree planting Earth Day …

Validas lands funding to make sense of your cellphone bill (exclusive)

As our cellphone bills get increasingly expensive and complicated, a startup called Validas has come up with a technology, dubbed VERA, that can help make sense of the mess.

Thanks to a new round of funding from existing investor Huntsman …

GamesBeat Weekly Roundup

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.

NY Companies: Get feedback from VentureBeat and RRE in May

After enjoying all of the great companies and speakers on stage at DEMO Spring, we’re already gearing up for the next DEMO event. DEMO Fall is six months away, and we’re not going to waste any time before we start …

5 tech deals that need to happen

Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of Instagram was the topic on everyone’s lips at Mega Startup Weekend last Saturday and Sunday. The world’s most expensive “Like” has clearly gotten tech entrepreneurs buzzing about who will be next. While there’s no way …

Author David Kushner tells the inside tale on Grand Theft Auto and the video game violence wars (interview)

David Kushner has been on the front lines of the video game culture wars. In 2004, he published Masters of Doom, a portrait of the founders of id Software (the makers of the seminal first-person shooter game Doom). Now he …

Can minors buy Facebook Credits? Parents demand refund in class action suit

Social media giant Facebook is facing a new class-action lawsuit that involves minors purchasing Facebook credits without parental consent.

Facebook Credits are the currency on Facebook’s platform. People can exchange real money for a number of Facebook Credits and use …

This ad was shot entirely with the killer 41MP camera on Nokia’s 808 PureView

Drumming up even more hype for its 808 PureView smartphone, Nokia today released an ad filmed entirely with the phone’s 41 megapixel camera. And boy, does it look good.

The ad shows how you can zoom into the 808 PureView’s …

WeVideo gets $19.1M to collaboratively edit videos online

WeVideo, a cloud-based collaborative video editor, just raised $19.1 million in its first round of funding. The service lets you edit videos in a browser, instead of using pricey software like Final Cut Pro.

WeVideo launched at the fall 2011 …

Cloudflare’s Instaflare is an Instagram for all the images on your website — seriously

Having a bit of fun with all the Instagram hype these days, website optimization service Cloudflare has launched Instaflare, a cheeky new feature that will let users of its platform apply filters to all of the images on your site.…

YouTube could get slapped with huge music royalty fees after German court ruling

Of all the overly oppressive music industry groups in the world, German royalty collections body GEMA definitely ranks near the top — especially after a recent court case the group won against Google’s YouTube.

GEMA, which represents over 60,000 German …

The DeanBeat: GamesBeat 2012 to focus on crossover strategies

GamesBeat 2012 is going to be all about crossover strategies. The game industry as we know it is changing. We’re seeing established companies cross over from one market to another, where once they faced barriers. As companies adapt to change, …