Smart meters could breathe life into flagging chip market

Smart meters could breathe life into flagging chip market

Even as the downturn dries up cleantech capital, smart-meter makers continue to do quite well. With the Obama administration placing emphasis — in the form of $4.5 billion — on smart-grid development, and major utilities like PG&E jumping on board, it looks like the smart-meter… Continue Reading

Wireless media delivery co. Digital Fountain sells to Qualcomm

Digital Fountain, a company specializing in sending media over wireless networks — especially streaming video — just sold to San Deigo goliath Qualcomm. It’s unclear whether the flagging economy played a role, but the Fremont, Calif. company may have been running short on funds. It… Continue Reading

DEMO: Always Innovating’s Touch Book sounds amazing. Can it deliver?

DEMO: Always Innovating’s Touch Book sounds amazing. Can it deliver?

I haven’t gotten a chance to try a Touch Book yet, but I want to. Who wouldn’t? The netbook produced by Always Innovating, making its debut at the DEMO conference today, claims to offer 10 to 15 hours of battery life, weighs under 2 pounds… Continue Reading

Roundup: Obama’s environmental policy, Sun’s big loss, and more

Roundup: Obama’s environmental policy, Sun’s big loss, and more

Here’s the latest (mostly depressing) action:

President Obama reverses Bush policy on environment — Obama endorsed California’s strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and vowed that the federal government will follow suit. Auto manufacturers’ responses were “similar in their ambiguity and political correctness,” according to The New… Continue Reading

Roundup: Yahoo, Apple pre-earnings reports, Akamai’s new ads, and more

Roundup: Yahoo, Apple pre-earnings reports, Akamai’s new ads, and more

Here’s the latest action:

Earnings: Yahoo may shortly be cutting employee compensation – This may be instead of or in addition to planned job cuts.

Earnings: Apple lowballs projections, as usual — Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog has a closer look at this historical trend.

Akamai launches ad targeting service —… Continue Reading

Samplify Systems — a rare semiconductor startup

Samplify Systems — a rare semiconductor startup

Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs alike have been bemoaning the fact that nobody starts semiconductor companies anymore. It seems that it’s just too costly and too risky for entrepreneurs to challenge old world chip companies who have locked up the market.

But the folks who started Samplify… Continue Reading

Roundup: Texas Instruments lowers overall cell phone forecast, but women drive smart phone sales

Roundup: Texas Instruments lowers overall cell phone forecast, but women drive smart phone sales

Texas Instruments says cell phone sales weakening: TI said that sales of chips for wireless handsets were “unseasonably weak,” causing the bellwether company for the cell phone economy to lower its second-quarter earnings outlook. The Dallas-based chip maker said that it expects revenue to be $3.17… Continue Reading

Nvidia shoots for portable Internet handheld market with Tegra brand chips

Nvidia shoots for portable Internet handheld market with Tegra brand chips

Intel isn’t going to be alone as it tries to skewer Samsung and other chip makers in portable Internet devices. Nvidia is out to claim that market as well.

Today, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia is announcing its Tegra brand of chips for beefy Internet handhelds that… Continue Reading

Big companies create a HomeGrid Forum for networking on home wiring

Big companies create a HomeGrid Forum for networking on home wiring

Major tech companies are expected to announced tomorrow that they have created a “HomeGrid Forum” in order to advance the cause of broadband networking over wiring in the home, VentureBeat has learned.

Members of the group include Infineon Technologies, Intel, Panasonic, Texas Instruments, Aware (DSL chip… Continue Reading

Roundup: Google moves ‘Sky’ into the browser, Harvard grad server gets hacked and more

Roundup: Google moves ‘Sky’ into the browser, Harvard grad server gets hacked and more

Here’s the latest action:

Google moves ‘Sky’ into the browser — Google has a layer for Google Earth that is known as ‘Sky.’ Now the company has created a version for web browsers as well according to the Google Lat Long Blog. This browser-based ‘Sky’ features three… Continue Reading