Come see The Dark Knight a day early
Perhaps you’ve heard of a little film called The Dark Knight. It’s the sequel to Batman Begins and it’s opening this Friday in theaters. As a little treat to our VentureBeat readers we have 20 tickets to give away to a screening of the film the… Continue Reading
Microsoft to buy semantic search engine Powerset for $100M plus
Microsoft, the software giant flush with billions of dollars in its warchest, has agreed to buy Silicon Valley semantic search engine Powerset, we’ve learned.
The purchase price is rumored to be slightly more than $100 million. An announcement is expected next month.
Powerset, of San Francisco,… Continue Reading
Powerset opens to everyone — now, what’s next?
Today, natural language search engine Powerset is finally opening its doors to everyone, as well as unveiling a set of tools that have previously been seen by only a handful of people. This marks the end of a long phase for Powerset — since we… Continue Reading
Powerset: Don’t call us a search engine
It appears 2008 might well be shaping up to be the year that semantic technology kicks off: Semantic search engine Hakia has begun licensing its technology, the intelligent organizer Twine is readying for launch, and now natural language search engine Powerset is also considering a… Continue Reading
Roundup of action: Opus Select, Boobik, Branson’s space warming & more
1. Yandex, Russian search engine, grows quickly
2. Opus launches hedge fund in New York
3. Matrix goes to China
4. Dogster takes $400,000 in financing
5. Semantic search engine Powerset raises $2M
6. Pubmatic, draw ads from all networks
7. Boobik, the Twitter clone, but for sex
8. Branson taking global… Continue Reading
Powerset, the hyped search engine company, sees shakeup
updated
Powerset, the “natural language” search engine company saying it wants to take on Google, has seen a shake up in its management.
The San Francisco company received substantial hype when it emerged last year saying it had found a way to understand the phrases you type… Continue Reading
New companies launch: Yap, Cognitive Code, Viewdle, Faroo & more
Ten companies presented during today’s morning portion of Techcrunch40 conference in San Francisco. If we were able to have stock in these companies, here’s how we’d rank them: CastTV, Cubic Telecom, Yap, Cognitive Code, Viewdle, Powerset, Trutap, Faroo, Ceedo and Loudtalks. Summaries of each company… Continue Reading
Roundup: Dual-mode Blackberry, VCs go late, Pyramid 2.0 continued, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Blackberry 8820 announced – It is the first BlackBerry that is dual-mode, letting you use both cellular networks (EDGE/GPRS/GSM) and WiFi. More at ZDNet. This is probably enough for BlackBerry to stave off the iPhone, at least among the BrackBerry-fixated VC crowd.
Ashopfor.com,… Continue Reading
An update on Powerset, the natural language search engine
Powerset is a quixotic search engine company here in San Francisco that has convinced itself it can take on Google.
While Powerset gears up to release its search engine publicly later this year, it hopes to nurture an army of 50,0000 early testers, or “Powerlabbers,” to… Continue Reading
Roundup: Ooyala to launch, Google gobbles Greenborder and more
Here’s the latest action:
Ooyala, secretive ex-Google company, about to launch — The Mountain View, Calif. company, founded by ex-Google engineers and product managers, is secretive but says it delivers a high-quality, interactive, video experience, and is a couple of months away from launch. Sean Knapp, a… Continue Reading
Powerset raising more money
After raising a decent $12.5 million in cash last year, Powerset, the secretive search engine company that wants to take on Google by using “natural language” technology, is going to raise a larger round this year.
This and other gossip about Powerset spilled out Saturday evening… Continue Reading
Powerset’s search technology scoop, may scare Google
Powerset, a San Francisco search engine company, will announce Friday it has won exclusive rights to significant search engine technology it says may help propel it past Google.
The technology, developed at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley, seeks to understand the meanings between… Continue Reading
TextDigger, Hakia say they can improve search
TextDigger is the latest company seeking that Holy Grail: Improving on Google’s results by understanding the sense of the words you’re looking for.
TextDigger’s search engine is called Digger, and it just launched at the DEMO conference.
First, some context: Digger, of San Jose, joins Powerset, the… Continue Reading
Roundup: All Hail Google, WiFi in cars, Wallop walloped, Ahnold’s funding
Round-up of the latest action in Silicon Valley:
It’s all about Google — Notable post by Rich Skrenta about how Google is becoming ever more important. Having become the “start page” for the Web, Google makes $90 to $120 for every thousand times its pages get viewed… Continue Reading
More on Powerset, the secretive search engine
(Update: See our subsequent funding story here)
We promised to bring you more on Powerset, that secretive company that wants to better Google with a new kind of search.
Powerset is going after the holy grail. It is called “natural language” search, or understanding language as it… Continue Reading
Bold start-up, Powerset, about to raise $10M to take on Google
Updated
We’ve been hearing about a new Palo Alto start-up called Powerset, which says its search technology is better than Google’s.
The start-up, led by artificial intelligence and natural language expert, Barney Pell, has been pitching its business idea aggressively to Silicon Valley venture firms. The company… Continue Reading