VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

Intel to launch six-core microprocessor – A chip code-named Dunnington is expected to debut on Sept. 15. Intel will put six cores, or computing brains, on a single chip. But this is really no big deal. I’ve got a 666-core chip of my own in the works. I used a cookie-cutter to make it.

Linkedin gets linked to CNBC – The popular business social network will integrate its community and networking functionality into CNBC.com. Linkedin has more than 27 million members now.

Security deal has investors under water – Secure Computing is buying Securify for $15 million plus an earn-out of $5 million — far less than the investment into the company.

Michael Cerda joins Venrock — Cerda, founder of Internet telephone company Jangl, who joined competitor Jajah briefly after Jangl was wound down earlier this year (and its assets sold to Live Universe) has already moved on, and has joined Silicon Valley venture capital firm Venrock as an Entrepreneur in Residence. He’ll focus on digital media, specifically “multi-modal marketplaces, platforms and services.” By multi-modal, he refers to services “that aren’t just web or just phone or just video or just TV…but services that have on-ramps in some or all of those modes.”

Liberty Media to make public its DirecTV stake – The cable company plans to spin off its 50-percent stake in DirecTV into a new public company dubbed Liberty Entertainment Group.

Another Siemens snafu – Siemens has been accused of posting its rival’s secrets. French software maker Dassault Systemes says a confidential trove of its customer data was found on Siemens’ intranet.

hi5 launches 0.8 version of open social – The social network announced that it has launched a version of the OpenSocial 0.8 standard which gives developers the ability to build applications in languages other than English.

Seven funds known to have invested in Miasole’s latest round — Miasole, one of the biggest thin-film solar startups, has been raising a $200 million round. So far, the company has obtained commitments from seven funds.

The full story of how Google Chrome came to be — Niall Kennedy has the scoop on something that has generated reams of blogger text in very short life. This story alone could double the number of words written about Chrome to date.

Get ready to chuck your Blu-ray disks in five years — Samsung exec says that Blu-ray has five years left to get the video disc market before something else takes over.

Microsoft’s answer to Google Docs — Redmond is reportedly going to blast back at Google’s cloud-based applications suite by the end of the year.

Here’s the latest action:

Apple can deactivate iPhone apps remotely? — The device can apparently phone home (to Apple), check your applications against a list of unauthorized ones and deactivate them remotely. iPhone Atlas found a URL that appears to contain the banned app list. If this is true, it’s troubling to say the least from a personal privacy perspective.

I Am Rich vanishes from the App Store — Speaking of Apple removing iPhone apps, it has removed what has been perhaps its most controversial application so far from the App Store, Cult of Mac points out. Maybe the company read some of the criticism on this site and others, or maybe it just realized that I Am Rich was a $999.99 app that did nothing. It’s still somewhat troubling that Apple can remove apps such as this, NetShare and BoxOffice without any explanation as to why it is doing so.

It also looks like at least one person downloaded I Am Rich by accident and is not happy!

Zoho hits 1 million users — The online office suite reached the milestone in less than three years. Of course, Google Apps also has hit 1 million users — in schools alone!

Sierra Wireless Buys Junxion Assets — The deal will allow Sierra to offer backhauling, which could help ease the strain on wireless networks by mobile Internet usage, according to VentureWire.

Dish Network and DirecTV thinking merger again — The Wall Street Journal has details.

Apple may finally release new monitors…in 2009 — The current crop of Cinema Displays have been around forever, which is odd for a company that does (product) refreshes quicker than your average monitor. MacWorld 2009 could bring us new ones, according to MacRumors.

Twitter gets profiled in Fortune — The micro-messaging service that we love to write about is getting a lot of mainstream press recently.

Digg gets a slick new Firefox 3 extension — Founder Kevin Rose explains more on the Digg Blog and in the video below.

Digg Firefox 3 Extension from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

VentureBeat is hearing that Google is negotiating an advertising deal with DirecTV, the nation’s largest satellite broadcast service with 16 million subscribers.

Dish, the nation’s second largest satellite TV company, announced a deal with Google last week. (VentureBeat was first to report the Dish deal a month ago).

This is just the latest move by Google to sew up the entire advertising world. Google is pushing into newspapers, magazines, radio, cable and now satellite.

The DirecTV deal is taking more time than Dish’s to close because DirectTV is managing the ownership change announced last last year (when News Corp said it would sell its ownership stake to Liberty). More details on DirecTV here. The deal with Google will go through eventually, says a source who wants to remain anonymous. [Update: Google says "no comment," and DirecTV says: "We are always looking for ways to increase our ad sales revenue but we have nothing to comment regarding any new partnerships."]

In case there’s any doubt about Google’s ambition, there’s a notable interview in Wired with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, who says Google is first of all an “advertising system.”

Here’s the relevant snippet from Schmidt’s interview:

Wired: Wired How should we think about Google today?

Schmidt: Think of it first as an advertising system. Then as an end-user system…