VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

Amazon is like Apple, eBay is like Microsoft — Or at least that’s the tech-industry analogy that comes to mind when reading this piece about the increasingly competitive battle between the two e-commerce giants.

“Black” silicon is a better light receiver — A silicon variation discovered in Harvard University’s labs and licensed out to a company called SiOnyx, is far more receptive to light than ordinary silicon. The substance (pictured) may be useful for X-ray machines, transistors, night-vision goggles and a number of other devices. Solar cells are also a potential use, although it will be quite a few years before we see commercialization. Lots at Xconomy.

Egnyte file-sharing service gets iPhone interface — More here.

Fraud ring funnels credit card data to Pakistan – The Wall Street Journal has the story.

Google is testing out search ads on YouTube — YouTube has overtaken Yahoo as the number two destination for web searches, behind Google. Meanwhile, the video site is now broadcasting some full-length TV shows.

Video streaming company Joost launches new browser — PaidContent isn’t all that impressed.

Add hearing loss to ways your iPhone can hurt you — Earbuds, like the ones that come with the iPhone, hurt your hearing when you listen to loud music, researchers say. Already, other researchers are finding that keeping your phone in your pocket while you talk using such earbuds also reduces your sperm count, guys. And using a mobile phone in the first place may increase the chance of brain tumors.

Micron buys stake in memory-maker Inotera Memory — For $400 million. That’ll make some memories.

Justice Department closes investigation into collusion by graphics chip makers — Nvidia and ATI Technologies won’t be facing anti-trust charges.

President Bush signs “anti-piracy” bill — One man’s piracy is another man’s fuel for innovation.

Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu promise faster servers — The companies intend to increase the performance of applications like databases and online transaction software.

Tech outsourcing firm Infosys cuts forecasts — The cause is the firm’s dependence on business from the now-weakened U.S. financial sector.

EA has Spore expansion packs coming — The game-maker has confirmed.

Image recognition company Eyealike launches video advertising platform — TechCrunch has more.

Egnyte is a new startup that wants to help small and medium-sized businesses move their file management into the Internet cloud. After being self-funded for two years, the Mountain View, Calif. company has just raised a first venture round of undisclosed size.

At its most basic level, Egnyte is an affordable way to store data. There are, of course, tons of online storage services out there — Dropbox, for example, is a group storage site that left testing mode earlier this week. But chief executive Vineet Jain says most online storage services are aimed at consumers. Egnyte. on the other hand, targets small businesses with a cheaper solution than an on-site box like Microsoft’s SharePoint server. Egnyte makes it easy to share files among employees and customers through automatic “versioning” (so you have multiple versions of a file, in case you want to undo some changes), a system that lets administrators control who can read/write/delete each file and a way to send links to embedded versions of large files such as videos, rather than emailing the file itself.

The interface is very simple and clean. My favorite feature is the ability to download the application to your desktop, then use it as if it were just another hard drive — after installation, you may never need to visit the Egnyte site itself.

Jain says Egnyte should fit comfortably between consumer-oriented storage solutions (which tend to be weaker on sharing, security and administrative control) and the storage offerings sold to large corporations. He says an average Egnyte customer has around five employees. Since Egnyte charges a monthly fee of $15 per employee, that’s a total of $900 per year. The average on-site server, on the other hand, costs about $7,000 per year.

In a way, Egnyte is also competing with collaborative tools like Google Docs and Google Sites. VentureBeat, for example, does all of its filesharing and editing in Google Docs. But Egnyte is different because, in Jain’s words, “Our world is all about files.” That focus means Egnyte is much better for sharing many different kinds of files than Google Docs. It also means that if you want a company wiki or project management tool, you’ll want to use something in addition to Egnyte.

Since launching earlier this year, Egnyte has gained more than 1,000 customers, Jain says. If you want to try it out yourself, enter the promotional code “VENTUREBEAT” at the Egnyte site. The first 50 sign-ups will get a free one-month trial (in addition to the standard 15-day trial).

The funding was led by Maples Investments, with participation from retired serial entrepreneur Steve Blank. Although Jain wouldn’t say how large the round was, he did mention that it was “substantially less” than the $7 million first round he raised for his previous company, Kleiner Perkins-backed Valdero.