5 O’Clock Roundup: Yahoo’s communication engine, Motorola’s idea factory, and more
Motorola turned to employees for new phone ideas — “Why should we trust you?” one employee blurted to co-CEO Sanjay Jha a few minutes into his first meeting with employees to gather new ideas for the company’s mobile phone handsets. Motorola corporate culture had stalled, and Jha wanted to jump-start it. He pressed forward, bringing employees not experienced at product design or product management into the brainstorming process for this year’s lineup of handsets.
Moto’s most… Continue Reading
Browser makers announce support for built-in 3D graphics
At today’s sessions of the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in New Orleans, a group of hardware and software makers that includes browser makers Mozilla, Opera and Google announced their plans to deliver built-in 3D graphics in Web pages that won’t require a plug-in or add-on to the browser. Early adopters may get to try it in a few months. The rest of us will probably see it arrive on our screens the second half of… Continue Reading
Intermolecular lands $20M to improve semiconductor manufacture
San Jose, Calif.-based Intermolecular, a company that streamlines the manufacture of semiconductor components, has raised $20 million of an expected $30 million fourth round of funding from CMEA Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Symyx Technologies and US Venture Partners.
The company recently announced a collaboration with chipmaker AMD for molecular self-assembly technology — in which molecules would arrange themselves without outside guidance to produce an intended effect. Many of its operations are devoted to research and development. Before… Continue Reading
Roundup: Cisco’s digital stereo, Twitter gets authority search, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Cisco offers digital stereo — The shift to digital entertainment is a big change from the company’s roots in routers and Internet pipes.
The Internet does another round of arguing about Twitter — Loic Le Meur, founder of video site Seesmic, sparked a discussion about the micro-blogging site Twitter by suggesting that the service should allow users to search by something he calls “authority.” Frankly, I got bored with the debate pretty quickly, but hey… Continue Reading
Roundup: Cisco’s mixed results, Hitwise election site stats, and more
Cisco does a little better than expected — Sales fell 9 percent in October, compared to a year earlier, the computer networking giant reported yesterday; the company expects sales to drop up to 10 percent this quarter versus the $9.8 billion a year ago. Yet “[i]n our opinion, the U.S. will be the first major country to recover,” chief executive John Chambers said. More at the New York Times.
Hitwise: Yahoo wins presidential election web site traffic —… Continue Reading
Roundup: MySpace to launch music service, Wall Street firms crumble and more
MySpace to launch free digital music service – MySpace Music sounds interesting, but it may not quite live up to Fortune’s declaration that it “promises to be the most significant roll-out of a digital music service since Apple’s iTunes.” Since you have to purchase songs from another service like iTunes if you want to download them, this doesn’t actually sound much more useful than existing service imeem. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times has some speculation about… Continue Reading
AMD sells digital TV chip division to Broadcom
Advanced Micro Devices will sell its digital TV chip business to Broadcom for $192.8 million.
The move is part of chip company AMD’s attempt to raise some cash and regain its footing in its core microprocessor business where Intel has been eating AMD’s lunch.
AMD needs the cash since it has been losing money for seven quarters and is in the process of switching to an “asset light” strategy where it will likely lease its factories rather… Continue Reading
Roundup: IPhone glitches may be fixed in Sept., Netflix suffers outage and more
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IPhone glitches may be fixed in September — A chip in the iPhone is being blamed for dropped calls and choppy web reception, according to BusinessWeek. The problems will hopefully be fixed next month with a software upgrade.
Netflix suffers shipping and distribution outage — The outage affects one-third of the movie rental service’s 8.4 million customers. Executives say they’re trying to figure out an appropriate refund or credit.
Open source movement scores court victory —… Continue Reading
Is Apple thinking about ditching Intel chipsets?
Apparently tired of using the same basic architecture in its computers that its other Windows-based rivals do, Apple is thinking about not adopting Intel’s so-called Montevina chipset, the key component of Intel’s Centrino 2 platform, according to AppleInsider.
This does not mean that Apple would stop using Intel CPUs, just its chipsets which usually controls everything else in a computer. AppleInsider even throws out there that Apple may have its eye on a new set by Intel-rival… Continue Reading
Roundup: HP courts EDS, YouTube dominates videos, Apple signs up HBO
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Hewlett-Packard confirmed today that it is in advanced talks to buy EDS — It wants to acquire the data center outsourcing service company for $12 billion to $13 billion, well above the company’s current value of $9.5 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story. If the deal is consummated, HP would have a lot more legs to compete with IBM’s global services division. HP’s services division brought in… Continue Reading
Roundup: AMD falls, Sequoia expands, and more
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Advanced Micro Devices is in a world of hurt — The Sunnyvale, Calif. chip company lost $358 million on revenues of $1.5 billion in the quarter. It cited a tough outlook for the computer market, but it is clearly hurting from Intel’s newfound competitiveness. AMD’s core business is microprocessors and graphics chips for personal computers. It has other businesses related to getting those chips into other devices, from consumer electronics to mobile… Continue Reading