VentureBeat

AOL plans to shutter a bunch of businesses: Among the businesses on the chopping block are Bluestring, Xdrive, and AOL Pictures.

Apple is testing update for iPhone software: Apple is testing version 2.1 of its iPhone firmware. It includes improved location features.

Vonage getting new CEO? The Wall Street Journal reported that Vonage Holdings Corp. CEO Jeffrey Citron will step down next week and appoint a new CEO. The VoIP phone service company also said it has signed a letter with Silver Point Finance setting the terms and conditions for up to $215 million in private debt financing of which Silver Point has committed to provide $125 million.

Solar firm to build more: First Solar, which has designed efficient thin-film solar cells, announced plans to build another solar cell production plant in Nevada.

Sprint Nextel offloads its towers to reduce debt: The struggling U.S. mobile carrier agreed to sell nearly all its cellphone towers to a private-equity-backed firm called TowerCo in a deal that will generate about $670 million in cash.

Microsoft debuts robotic receptionist: Chief Strategy Officer Craig Mundie showed off a virtual robot receptionist that could recognize speech and see objects so that it could perform rudimentary greeting services for a company.

Both Walt Mossberg (subscription required) and David Pogue panned Apple’s MobileMe service: Apple’s new productivity synchronization service got low marks from its biggest fans as columnists at both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times panned the product for spotty performance.

Samsung’s financials disappoint: The Korean electronics giant failed to meet second-quarter expectations as results suffered from a weak memory chip market and falling margins on flat-screen TVs.

Microsoft shows off fake Mojave operating system: As a gimmick to show that Windows Vista isn’t so bad, Microsoft played a trick on focus groups with people who were fans of Windows XP. It showed them a faux new operating system prototype, code-named Mojave — which was in fact Windows Vista — and came back with a 90-percent favorable result.

1. KnockaTV a big lesson for start-ups
2. Nokia unveils handset made entirely of recycled pieces
3. Magnify.net, the DIY video platform, growing
4. Novell buys Sitescape, open source collaboration tool
5. MySpace rips-off another Facebook idea: Slingshot Labs
6. GumGum helps photographers make money on the web
7. Hollywood’s writers have voted to end strike
8. Microsoft exec calls Vista-capable machines “junk”
9. Internet phone company Vonage in financial trouble
10. Intel puts $3.5 million into bizarre idea: Bragster

KnockaTV a big lesson for start-ups — KnockaTV, a video site we’d reviewed positively (see here and here ), is blowing up after founders began fighting each other over the company’s burn-rate. Reports about the Israeli company’s saga (the Globes has the fullest account; the English translation is here, though truncated) suggest the founders are driving the company into receivership on purpose. The team is made of the creators of ICQ, the successful early instant messenger service, which sold for $407 million a decade ago. The company was backed last year with $3.5 million, led by Evergreen Venture Partners. Lesson: No matter how successful or high-profile your founding members are, teamwork is more important.

Nokia unveils handset made entirely of recycled pieces — Details here. The phone, called the “Remade,” is part of Nokia’s effort to go green.

Magnify.net, the do-it-yourself community video platform, growing — Details here.

Novell buys SiteScape, an open source collaboration tool – Details here.

MySpace rips off another idea from Facebook: A program to fund third-party applications — Slingshot Labs is MySpace’s way to match the fund created by Facebook and its backers to invest in third-party application companies that use Facebook’s platform. Details here in Business Week. It’s an incubator for developing Internet ventures, and it plans to back four or five ideas per year.

GumGum, trying to help photographers make money on the web — Let’s say you’re a member of the paparazzi, and you have a thousand photos of Britney Spears. You upload those photos into GumGum, then a web publisher — let’s say gossip blogger Perez Hilton — goes to GumGum and finds a Britney photo he wants to use. Hilton would make money for you one of two ways. One, Hilton pays you for the Britney photo on a cost-per-impression basis. If lots of people see the image on the publishers’ site, Hilton pays you, based on the CPM amount you set. Two, you run VideoEgg ads on on your photo that appears in Hilton’s site. Los Angeles-based GumGum has raised $125,000 in angel funding. See video, below Techcrunch has more.

Hollywood’s writers have voted to end strike — They ended after 100 days, probably because there was nothing decent anymore to watch on TV (it all went to the Internet).

Microsoft exec calls Vista-capable machines “junk” — Ouch.

Internet phone company Vonage in financial trouble — Details here.

Intel puts $3.5 million into bizarre idea — The chip giant’s investment arm is backing “Bragster,” a site where people can show off. Details here.

Jajah, the Internet telephone company living up to its “scrappy” reputation, has just pulled in $20 million from the venture capital arm of giant chip maker Intel and others.

This is a big endorsement for the young company, which goes up against a multitude of competitors. It now plans to target Skype, armed with a valuable patent it will borrow courtesy of Intel.

Jajah also signaled it is about to obtain funding from a major telecommunications company in three weeks or less. “The new investor will really rock the industry when it’s announced,” said chief executive Trevor Healy in a phone call with VentureBeat. He said the valuation of this latest investment is “significantly higher” than during the last round.

The move is significant beyond the stamp of credibility afforded by Intel’s brand and deep pockets. A large part of Intel’s business revolves around integrating chips into PCs. And Jajah gets access to Intel’s patent (No. 7120140) that covers interaction between digital phones and computers — and lets a telephone service be downloaded onto PCs as software. This technology would integrate Jajah’s service more seamlessly with devices, making it a so-called “softphone.” This lets it match Skype’s software. It also helps give Jajah the legal protection it needs to avoid the sort of lawsuits that plague Vonage. Jajah’s advantage over Skype is that its service calls you back on your land line or mobile phone, so you are not tethered to your PC.

Jajah’s vision now is to integrate itself into any device, and to allow you to call anywhere, anytime, from anyplace.

While Skype is moving in a similar direction, integrating its service within mobile phones, Jajah argues its back-end infrastructure is more modern than Skype’s. See our earlier coverage on this here. Jajah has been expanding coverage with confidence.

To refresh, the young company, now based in Mountain View, Calif. and Austria, lets you make cheap Internet calls from your PC or mobile phone by using the Web. You enter your recipient’s number, and Jajah’s service simultaneously hooks you up with an Internet line. I use it to call my relatives in London on a weekly basis, replacing Skype, and I’m happy with it.

This is the company’s third round of funding. It was originally backed by Sequoia Capital.

Jajah says it has more than two million users, and that number should be five million users by the end of the year. A high percentage of registered users remain active users, Healy said, but would not be more specific.