VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

Leading market researchers team up to report on video game sales – The leading research companies in the field (The NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Limited and Enterbrain) have released the Top Global Markets Report in a long overdue move to provide reliable data on worldwide game sales. The bestselling game of the year so far is Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV, according to the report.

Microsoft introduces photosharing technology Photosynth — A “synth,” as Microsoft calls it, is a three-dimensional, 360-degree version of your digital photos. The service was so popular that Microsoft’s servers failed, which the tech giant seemed oddly happy about.

Medical social network Xoova shuts down — The company, which previously received $2.5 million from Spark Capital, decided to fold after an unsuccessful attempt at raising a second funding round, according to VentureWire.

Solar firm Suniva reaches $1B in orders — Suniva, which raised $50 million back in February, already has a $1 billion in orders, split between two big firms. The company declined to tell us what that translates to in megawatts, but said it had already planned out its production capacity before the orders, so the backlog should last a while.

Amazon opens Elastic Block Store for persistent storage in the cloud — The new store works in conjunction with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, a service for running web applications.

Social bookmarking service Iterasi launches Scheduler and a version for Macs — The new tool allows users to automatically save sites on a scheduled basis, as often once a day. Iterasi is useful because because it allows you to save all the information on a page, including images and links.

Quantcast hires Yahoo vet Todd Teresi as chief revenue officer — Teresi will start at the online audience measurement firm after Labor Day. His responsibilities at Yahoo included handling the publisher channel and managing off-network partnerships.

Comcast says it has no final plans on traffic management — Despite earlier reports that the Internet service provider will slow connection speeds for its heaviest users for up to 20 minutes during peak traffic, Comcast clarified today that it hasn’t finalized its plans.

Chinese censors block iTunes — Customers in China have been unable to download songs from the iTunes store for several days, according to Business Week’s Frederik Balfour, who says the move may be related to iTunes’ sale of a Tibetan solidarity album.

A stealthy Georgia-based startup with plans to manufacture silicon-based solar cells unveiled itself this morning, announcing a hefty $50 million financing that will help it start production.

The company, called Suniva, says its cells operate at about 18 percent efficiency, near 50 percent better than the average cell produced today. CEO John Baumstark told us that there is a “clear roadmap” to boosting their efficiency over 20 percent within a year or two. Just as importantly, they are designed to be cheap.

The company is a spin-off of Georgia Tech’s Center for Excellence in Photovoltaics, a research group founded in 1992 by the university. The company is a little more than a year old, and has technology licensed from the Center and has its director, Dr. Ajeet Rohatgi, as its chief technical officer.

Using established manufacturing techniques including screen printing, Suniva expects to be producing cells for under $1 per watt within two to three years. If true, that would make Suniva’s cells some of the most cost-effective photovoltaics available.

The new funding is planned to go towards a 25 megawatt per year production facility located near Atlanta, Georgia, the company’s homebase. Baumstark said in an interview that the production line would be highly automated, requiring a total of about 40 staff members for round-the-clock production.

If it meets its initial cost targets, this first factory can be scaled up to higher production, although the company is also considering opening facilities in other states depending on the incentives offered. However, plans have yet to be finalized even for the first factory.

The funding is Suniva’s second, and was co-led by New Enterprise Associates and Advanced Equities. Goldman Sachs participated though Cogentrix Energy, alongside HIG Ventures and Quercus Investments. The company previously took $5.5 million in mid-2007 from NEA, HIG and Quercus.