RedSeal takes $12M for security software
RedSeal Systems, developer of cybersecurity software that estimates and manages risk, has raised $12 million in a third round of venture funding led by OVP Venture Partners. Based in San Mateo, Calif., it is also backed by Venrock, Jafco Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Leapfrog… Continue Reading
What makes a Bing homepage?
I asked Bing homepage editorial director Stephanie Horstmanshof to explain it to me: What is the recognizable quality of a Bing homepage photo that makes it Bing-worthy?
“There are three things we look for,” she told me over the phone. “A sense of exploration, a sense… Continue Reading
Should you be able to “abhor” Facebook posts? Threadsy says yes
Oh, “I bought new socks” status update. How I hate thee….
And now you literally can hate them.
Threadsy, which puts e-mail and social network updates together in one stream, is experimenting with an “abhor” button to flag lame Facebook posts.
Facebook, which adopted a “like” feature in… Continue Reading
4Home logs $525K for central home electronics control
4Home, maker of software dashboards capable of remotely controlling all of the electronics and appliances in your home, has raised $525,000 in convertible promissory notes, according to a filing with the SEC. The company recently brought in another $770,000 in notes.
Indirectly related to the Smart… Continue Reading
5 O’Clock Roundup: Oracle results are meh, PC sales drop, funding you missed this week while reloading TechCrunch
Oracle’s profits up 4 percent despite lower sales – Quarterly revenue was off 5 percent, but the company kept costs down and grew profit margins by 4 percent. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company earned $1.124 billion, or 22 cents a share, on sales of $5.054 billion. In… Continue Reading
Google poaching Yahoo engineers in public
Mountain View’s largest ad network with a search engine attached is looking to hire more software experts. Specifically, Google wants to hire one or more “excellent Yahoo engineer(s) with solid experience in search.”
Normally, Silicon Valley companies hire recruiters to identify and solicit senior technical people…. Continue Reading
OpSource launches virtual private cloud, says it’s better than Amazon’s
OpSource just announced a new product called the OpSource Cloud, which it says will provide the benefits of cloud computing — where the computing takes place remotely, on someone else’s infrastructure — without sacrificing the control and security of traditional IT. Amazon made a similar… Continue Reading
Chip maker Amalfi gets $24M funding for cellphone guts
You may be holding an Amalfi product to your head right now. The company designs CMOS power amplifiers, an integral part of any mobile phone. But Amalfi Semiconductor can’t name its customers, not to me nor to anyone else.
Battery Ventures led this round of funding,… Continue Reading
Utilities jockey for position following deadline for DOE stimulus funds
(Updated List of known utility applicants for DOE stimulus funds below)
Yesterday, we reported that three new utilities had filed applications for the $3.3 billion the U.S. Department of Energy plans to hand out as part of its Smart Grid Investment Grant Program. But these are… Continue Reading
Roundup: Ad market reset, Windows 7 pricing, Pogue’s voicemail crusade continues
Online advertising stops its nose-dive — Second-quarter global ad revenues, at $7.864 billion, were down 3.4 percent from a year ago. But admit it: After the past year, a 3.4 percent drop almost feels like growth. Is this a “reset” of base level from which the… Continue Reading
Apple beats the street with $1.23 billion profit
That darned iPhone! Sales of iPhones and Macs turned out to be stronger than expected during the three-month period that ended on June 27th. Apple’s revenue for the quarter jumped up to $8.34 billion, with $1.23 billion of that logged as profit. That whumps last… Continue Reading
Yahoo will launch new homepage months early on Tuesday
The Wall Street Journal has obtained reliably-sourced insider information that Yahoo’s overhaul of its flagship site, a project code-named “Metro,” will go live tomorrow. The new site will encourage users to customize Yahoo with links to other sites, says the Journal:
The biggest change in the… Continue Reading
Use Cc:Betty to follow MobileBeat 2009 on the iPhone
Virtual assistant Cc:Betty started out by organizing the information in your email, but chief executive Michael Cerda says the vision goes far beyond that — starting with the Twitter integration launched last week. It looks like Cc:Betty isn’t limiting itself to standard web access either,… Continue Reading
Microsoft Office 2010 — where’s the part where they get paid?
Microsoft Office 2010, which gets its official debut at Microsoft’s international partner conference in New Orleans on Monday, will be based around a free, ad-supported Web version of Office. And it’s not a jokey one, from what our embargoed friends in the press have told… Continue Reading
VCs pass $100M in iPhone funding
Among companies developing solely for the iPhone, social network startups have drawn more VC investment money than games, according to startup investment tracker Chubby Brain’s latest set of charts. Listing 22 rounds of funding for 17 companies, Chubby accounted for over $100 million in investments, with… Continue Reading
Video: How to surf faster with Internet Explorer
A few enterprising Microsoft employees have produced a low-cost video that shows how accelerators, a feature of the Internet Explorer 8 browser, reduce the number of steps to perform common tasks.
What Microsoft’s doing is attempting to beat Google by changing the game. Instead of trying… Continue Reading
Facebook debuts live chat pages, Ustream live video
Facebook’s new Live Stream Box is a cut-and-paste HTML widget that can be added to a website to let Facebook users chat alongside a live event. Updates to the stream post quickly and then wash off the screen, to maximize the live-event feel.
In the example… Continue Reading
HTC Hero phone will have a Flash player
If you’ve got an iPhone in your pocket, you know what’s most conspicuously missing from it (besides a keyboard): a Flash player.
Adobe’s Flash technology has evolved in the past four years from being hated for the proliferation of “Skip Intro” website home pages, to being… Continue Reading
New York Times appoints a “social media editor”
How’s this for a dream job? America’s paper of record has reassigned one of its editors to be the in-house expert on Facebook and Twitter.
You can read up on Jennifer Preston’s background in this morning’s entertainingly cruel Gawker post. More important is that the New York… Continue Reading
TiVo’s still watching you, but by region now
It’s no secret TiVo has been watching its subscribers. But now the DVR company has announced it’s giving advertisers up-to-the-minute info on what users are watching (and fast-forwarding through) based on specific geographic regions.
As a web-enabled DVR/TV guide service, TiVo already collects a wealth of… Continue Reading