Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google and Time Magazine have partnered to create a brilliant new project called Timelapse that shows satellite imagery of earth during the course of nearly 30 years, giving us a better understanding of how our planet is transforming.

“Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA, and TIME, we’re releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience,” Google engineering manager Rebecca Moore wrote in a blog post today. “We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.”

The image catalogs are built from more than two million satellite images from all over the world from 1984 to today. Some key examples of what you can see in the project are Alaskan glaciers melting, the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, and urban growth in rapidly evolving cities.

“We started working with the USGS in 2009 to make this historic archive of earth imagery available online,” Moore wrote. “Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images — a total of 909 terabytes of data — to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year.”

Time Magazine also used the Timelapse project as a jumping off point to tell stories about how satellites collect imagery, climate change, urban population increases, and the extraction of natural resources. One particular standout is the population explosion of Las Vegas from 1984 to today. Check out what Vegas looks today below:

It’s a fundamentally new experience, Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald said in a statement:

“Google Earth combined with Leap Motion’s 3-D, touch-free technology feels so incredibly immersive – people feel connected to the world in a new and compelling way.”

One billion people have downloaded the desktop version of Google Earth, which is available for PC, Mac, and Linux. That’s a staggering number of people exploring the planet in a way almost unimaginable decades ago, and that probably makes it one of the most popular pieces of software of all time. Initially, of course, only 10,000 people — developers in Leap Motion’s developer program — will be able to experience the new control technology.

But with huge pre-orders for the innovation product and already-announced bundling deals with Asus as well as full build-the-technology-right-in integration deals with companies like HP, many more will be able to enjoy flying around the planet.

Next up, Android?

This is a major win for Leap Motion, which has been innovating and consummating deals almost at light speed in the past few months. Not only is Google Earth extremely popular, this is a deal with one of the most powerful companies on the planet, Google. And it’s a first test of gesture control for a Google product that could lead to much, much more.

Last week Leap Motion COO Andy Miller told me that mobile devices will benefit from the company’s 3-D motion control technology too:

“We’re looking to embed our tech into watches and smartphones and glasses, and everything,” he said.

With one Google deal in the works, plus a complete hardware integration with HP in the books in which the controller widget disappears into the actual body of the laptop or desktop, Leap’s plans are getting closer and closer to reality.

CEO Buckwald added, “Our mission at Leap Motion is to provide a fundamentally better computing experience that frees people to create and explore the digital world in new ways.

Both free and professional versions of Google Earth will benefit from the Leap Motion integration, Leap Motion told me today.

The pro version of Google Earth adds analysis, measurement, visualization, and data features to the free version for use by construction companies, geologists, and marketers. Google also announced today that two new features have been added in Google Earth Pro: map-making (creating legends, scales, and titles for a map), and Viewshed (the ability to visualize viewpoints, distances, and potential views).

And, in a bonus for Earth Day today, Google Earth Pro is going on sale. Normally $399, it will be 50 percent off at $199 for the next 24 hours.

Google announced today that it has updated Google Earth for desktop with 100,000 new tours and a million photos from Panoramio, a geolocation-oriented photo share site that Google acquired in 2007.

“As you navigate in Earth, tour guide acts as a local exploration expert, suggesting interesting places near the location you’re visiting,” Google said in a Google+ post announcing the update.

Google last added significant amounts of new imagery to Google Earth in October last year, unveiling 3D imagery for 21 global cities. At the time, Google said it had 11,000 tours, such as the one below of  Rome. The tours are not all terrestrial; you can also explore Mars, the Moon, or a variety of Hubble Space Telescope images.

100,000 new tours means that Google has created 89,000 in less than three months — a fairly staggering feat. The tours include fly-overs, Wikipedia snippets, and the photos sourced from Panoramio. Panoramio focuses exclusively on natural photos of the planet, excluding photos of people or vehicles, but allowing city scapes.

No software update is required to view the new content.

Image credit: Google

The company is Hover, and it creates advanced real-life 3-D imagery from just about any images: smartphone snaps, drone airplane photography, satellite images, and yes, home movies. Today it’s announcing new funding — $3.1 million — and a new CEO, Kevin Reilley, the former top exec at Pictometry, which provides “bird’s eye” photography for Microsoft’s Bing maps.

“We started by selling a product for the military,” Ed Lu, the company’s chief technology officer told me. “Our product was used by special forces to understand what they’re getting into.”

Lu is the former astronaut. He spent 206 days in space, most of it in the International Space Station, and went EVA for spacewalks from the Shuttle. After every geek’s dream job, he moved on to Google, where he ran the company’s advanced project group and worked on image systems for Google Street View, Google Maps, and Google Earth.

In other words, Hover has an executive dream team for a startup focused on imaging and 3-D.

“Hover’s building the next-generation 3-D mapping platform,” Reilley told me this morning. “We’re rendering an environment that reflects real-life behavior.”

“One of the things that’s really hard on maps is exploring,” Lu tag-teams. “Street View is not so satisfying … it’s amazing technology but it’s not the way people think. 2-D maps with search is very good when you know what you want … but when you’re trying to figure out what is out there to explore … that’s a tougher thing.”

Typically, creating 3-D imagery is a demanding process that requires significant technology and control of variables. Your software needs to know exactly where each image was taken, what lens was used, the angle the camera was at, and all the details of photography like f-stops that SLR buffs know and the rest of us don’t.

The magic of Hover’s technology is that none of that matters anymore.

“We can generate these 3-D models using arbitrary images,” Lu says. “We do a visual mapping of common features from video, handheld images, overhead images from aircraft or drones … and build a 3-D structured model in real-time.”

The first versions of the software ran on a laptop so U.S special forces could use it in the field: shoot pictures with drones, mix in satellite imagery, and add a few shots on the fly, and then build a 3-D space from that raw visual material in which they could check sight angles, pinpoint likely spots where snipers might be emplaced, and generally get the lay of the land before actually setting foot in the target zone.

With the $3.1 million in funding from Almaz Capital, de Anda Capital, McKenna Management, and a few angels, Hover is taking the technology to the cloud … and your iPhone or Android smartphone.

The goal is not to compete with Google or Apple or Bing. The goal is to sell advanced 3-D mapping capabilities to organizations that already use 2-D photography extensively.

“We’re going to take this technology that’s been deployed for situational awareness for our special forces and provide it for other industries: the Department of Defense, law enforcement agencies, infrastructure companies, utilities, and oil & gas companies,” Reilley told me today.

And the crowdsourced part?

“We won’t hoover up images from Flickr,” Lu said. “But in our app, we will allow users to update the images themselves.”

“What’s the first things consumer do in Google Maps, Google Earth, or any other satellite images?” Reilley asked, now tag-teaming Lu. “They go look at their own houses.”

So Hover plans to capitalize on that by having consumers — as well as corporate clients — add photography in select regions to its overall database. And that photography will then be available for everyone to see in the company’s mobile app — and online in web browser.

Hover is based in Los Altos, Calif.

photo credit: EraPhernalia Vintage . . . (playin’ hook-y ;o) via photopin cc

Google Maps and Google Earth include a Coral Sea island that doesn’t actually exist.

Scientists from the University of Sydney sailed east of the coast of Brisbane to find the tiny spec of land, named Sandy Island, which was supposed to exist some hundred miles or so off the northern tip of New Caledonia. When they arrived, nothing was to be seen but the deep blue sea — with the nearest land almost 5000 feet underwater.

“It’s on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We’re really puzzled. It’s quite bizarre,” scientist Maria Seton told the AFP news agency after returning from the 25-day voyage to nowhere.

One clue that the island is not completely kosher can be found by comparing the map and satellite views. While the map shows the Island, the satellite view has zero detail, just a black smudge where the mapping functionality appears to be attempting to tell the satellite algorithms that something exists … even if they don’t see it.

The scientists are not sure how the island made it on to maps in the first place, but apparently it has been showing up for over a decade. Perhaps some creative cartographer wanted to commemorate a wife?

Sandy Island is still showing up in Google Maps and Earth right now, but will soon be deleted, a Google spokesman said, stating that “the world is an ever-changing place.”

Indeed.

Image credits: Google Maps

Here’s an example for Rome that showcases the ancient Coliseum and the Tiber river:

The 3D flyover tours were previously available on mobile devices, but you can now enjoy them on larger screens by downloading the new version of Google Earth to your desktop. Simply go to a part of the planet you’re interested in, and Google will highlight any available tours in that region.

Google previously updated the desktop version of Google Earth just at the beginning of this year to make its imagery more lifelike and realistic. Now the mobile and desktop versions are synced.

The 11,000 tours are not limited to our planet — you can also explore Mars, the Moon, or a variety of Hubble Space Telescope images. But there’s plenty to explore right here at home, with The Great Wall, Stonehenge, and more.

Between Google Earth with its 3D imagery and realistic flyovers — and flythroughs — and Google Maps with underwater “street view” panoramas in the Great Barrier Reef, Hanauma Bay, and other world heritage sites, there are precious few places you can’t virtually travel anymore.

Image credit: Google

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

So there could be something to the recent Consumer Reports review that said Apple’s new Maps application doesn’t suck. While it’s met with widespread anger and certainly lacks some data, Apple Maps shows images that are too good for some.

Taiwan’s military has asked Apple to blur images of its Hsinchu airbase, which is the site for the country’s newest radar defense station, according to Phys.org. The radar station is from Raytheon and is designed to give the country early warning of missiles fired from China.

While legally the government cannot force Apple to change the satellite images of sensitive areas, Taiwan is asking Apple to lower the resolution as a gesture of goodwill. This type of government request is not uncommon: U.S. Senator Charles Shumer raised concerns about both Apple and Google’s mapping technologies just in June.

According to the Taiwanese government, Google Maps (and Google Earth) already blur sensitive areas and have done so since 1997 … including former veep Dick Cheney’s house and the royal stables in The Hague, Netherlands.

The reality, of course, is that sovereign governments such as China have access to as good and frequently much better satellite images than Apple or Google. The concern here is likely much more for smaller, dissident or even terrorist groups.

Apple has not yet commented on the request, but we’ll update the story with its statement.

Source: Apple Maps

Probably not the secret Taiwanese air force installations.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Jiujitsu is the art of using your opponent’s strengths against them. Apple may be applying precisely that strategy against Google in the middle of its Maps debacle.

Today’s apology from CEO Tim Cook was close to unprecedented — Apple just doesn’t apologize very often.  Immediately after the apology, Apple began to promote multiple mapping applications in the app store.

Oddly — or perhaps intentionally — none of them are based on Apple’s biggest enemy du jour: Google.

Apple-recommended map apps in the app store.

That’s partly because Google already lost a significant number of location-related developers, such as Foursquare, in March when the company jacked data access rates up. Only after learning that Google Maps was on the outs for iOS 6 did Google slash prices.

And it’s partly due to the fact that Apple’s Maps is now the default API for developers on iOS.

But even though Apple’s fly-by technology is the most-panned aspect of the new Maps app, showing the Hoover Dam bridge plunging to the surface of the river, Google Earth is not on the list of Apple-recommended apps.

Nor can I easily find any other apps that use Google Maps on the iTunes store.

One example: Maps+ says it uses Google Maps, but a colleague who checked the app on his iPhone says it’s clearly using Apple Maps, and the description is just out of date. That’s likely the case with many apps that were simply using iOS APIs that previously fetched Google’s maps and now transparently fetch Apple’s.

In addition — and obviously — the multiple Telenav-powered apps such as AT&T Navigator and GPS, as well as MapQuest and Bing maps (the most likely candidates to replace an Apple Maps app) are all not powered by Google.

So even while Apple has failed in its attempt to seamlessly replace Google Maps on the iPhone, the company has succeeded in its strategic objective: to get Google Maps off the iPhone … which may very well be part of a larger strategy to get Google off the iPhone entirely.

Providing mapping data gives users great directions but gives Google a lot, too: information on users, data on important locations, and advertising opportunities down the road. That disappeared, to a large extent, when iOS 6 happened — and Google is at least partly to blame due to its price increases earlier this year.

And Apple, while getting egg on its face, may be strategically farther ahead than before. Because even if users don’t use Apple Maps, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The likes of Waze, Bing, Garmin, or Navigon are never going to be the massive strategic threat that Google is.

All of which doesn’t mean that Apple made the decision about the timing of its switch from Google Maps knowing that Apple Maps might fall on its face and was willing to take that bullet to get Google Maps off the iPhone.

But it’s certainly possible.

Only time will tell if the long-term strategic benefits outweigh the short-term customer pain.

photo credit: produzentin via photopin cc

Google has announced the newest hotness for Google Maps: offline mapping for Android and an insane wearable Street View camera (meaning more Street View images than before).

For Google Earth, the company is outfitting airplanes with Street View-like camera gear and flying them like high-tech crop dusters all over the earth’s surface to get photographic 3D data to display for users.

The bottom line is Google wants to make its mapping software more comprehensive, more accurate, and more usable.

The good word was delivered by Brian McClendon, vice president of Google Maps, at a press event in San Francisco this morning. The event has been a relatively hot ticket since we got our invite, mostly because of Apple’s decision to boot Google Maps off iOS in favor of its own 3D mapping software.

Currently, Google Maps covers 75 percent of the world’s service and includes images of more than 5 million miles around the globe, not to mention the 26 million miles of roads and highways for which Google can pull up driving directions.

Soon, you’ll also be able to use a new feature called “make available offline” to (duh) make the mapped area available when you’re offline, outside your 3G network, etc.

And while we’ve been accustomed to Street View imagery on streets (and even indoors), we’ll also be able to see the same quality of images for areas one can’t access via car. Google is crunching all the camera gear into a wearable backpack for Google-bankrolled explorers to wear while skiing, hiking, or otherwise slogging over the less navigable surfaces of the planet.

Here’s what the gear looks like:

Google rolled out a new version of its Google Earth software, replacing the patchy, quilt-like mapping graphics with smoother, more cohesive graphics.

“The Google Earth globe is made from a mosaic of satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates and under different lighting and weather conditions. Because of this variance, views of the Earth from high altitude can sometimes appear patchy,” wrote Google Earth Project Manager Peter Birch in a blog post yesterday.

The new way of rendering makes the mapping graphics appear far more like a single image, complete with textures and shading. It really looks like something that came out of a movie — so much so that when I typed in an address I checked my audio setting to find out why the music wasn’t playing. (And then I realized this wasn’t an episode of Planet Earth.)

The update also includes sharing integration with Google’s social network, Google+. You can now easily share a screenshot of any Google Earth view by clicking a button in the upper right-hand corner of the window. This could be pretty useful when giving directions since it’s a little more dynamic than the standard Google Maps street view feature.

The new update is available on both the mobile and desktop versions of Google Earth, which you can download on the official page.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google announced today that it’s bringing its 3D mapping tool Google Earth to Android tablets.

The product was demonstrated at the Social-Loco conference during the presentation from Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of location and local services. I’m not a heavy user of Google Earth myself, either on my laptop or on smartphones, but I was impressed by today’s demo, where the demonstrator searched for different locations like the Taj Mahal and San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference Center (where Social-Loco is being held), zoomed in using the touchscreen, and explored 3D models of each spot. It looked like a fast, immersive experience.

The demonstrator also highlighted how Google Earth can be timely and integrate with Google’s social features. Users can browse photos of different locations that were uploaded by other users. And people are submitting new 3D models all the time, in a way that helps give context around the news — for example, following the announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death, they uploaded a 3D model of the compound where he had been hiding, so people can visualize the compound and also see where it’s located in relation to the rest of Pakistan. (We’ve already written about how Google Earth imagery revealed the extent of the earthquake damage in Japan.)

In addition to demonstrating the new version of Google Earth, Mayer announced a new product called Google Business Photos.

4chan founder: Zuckerberg is “totally wrong” about online identity — Christopher Poole, the founder of controversial online image board 4chan, outlined his vision for Web-based community today at the South by Southwest Interactive conference on Sunday — and yes, his ideas are in pretty sharp contrast to those of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s 10 rules of entrepreneurship — Hoffman gave a speech this week about how entrepreneurs can “invent the future”.

Google Earth aerial photos show extent of quake damage — If you ever wondered why it would be useful to have instantly updated, real-time satellite imagery, this is clearly the answer.

Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 9, its prettiest browser yet — Microsoft’s long journey to revitalize Internet Explorer, and make it a competitive web browser against speedy upstarts like Google Chrome, finally reached its end this week.

Just how pretty are iPad 2’s graphics? The Infinity Blade test shows — Graphics aficionados may fell in love with Apple’s new device.

And here are five more posts we think are important, thought-provoking, fun, or all of the above:

New York Times paywall plans are ambitious and sort of crazy — In a bid to wean online readers from reading the paper’s content for free, the New York Times finally announced its digital subscription plans Thursday, starting at $15 for four weeks of access.

Nuclear crisis doesn’t panic cleantech investors — An escalating crisis at nuclear power plants in Japan following a massive earthquake and tsunami has not changed the investing thesis about clean technology, according to a number of leading venture capitalists and researchers.

First look at the Nintendo 3DS: it makes your eyes work hard — VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi got his first look at the final Nintendo 3DS portable gaming system this week and found that the glasses-free stereoscopic 3D is pretty tough on his eyes.

Tesla CEO: Model S will support third-party apps — Does your car have an app for that? If Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has his way, it will.

Look out PayPal: Visa jumps into personal payments — Visa took on PayPal Wednesday in the personal payment market, announcing that consumers in the U.S. would be able to receive and send funds to any eligible Visa account.

Google said it is working hard to provide the data directly to response organizations on the ground to aid rescue efforts. That’s a new use of satellite imagery, since it is happening so soon after the quake hit, and it allows damage assessments in near real-time. People far away from the region can use the maps to see whether their homes or those of their friends and relatives are still standing.

If you ever wondered why it would be useful to have instantly updated, real-time satellite imagery, this is clearly the answer.

Google has more information on disaster resources for those in need on a Crisis Response page in English and Japanese. It is also posting updates on Twitter at @earthoutreach. You can view the images in high-resolution by downloading a KML file and exploring it with Google Earth. You can also see imagery in Google Maps or a Picasa album.

The features, while not likely to matter in the short term to Google’s ad-driven revenues, signal the Web search giant’s intent to stay on the cutting edge of mapping technology as it expands into the potentially lucrative market for local, geographically targeted search.

Most notably, Google’s Street View, which looks to digitize much of the world’s accessible areas through photos from its 360-degree camera-equipped van, has been fully integrated in the new version and allows users to zoom-in from outer space right to someone’s door step in one swish. The feature previously required users to click on Street View icons in available regions.

Additionally, for nature-lovers among us, Earth 6 boasts the introduction of 80 million 3D trees in Athens, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Tokyo, which have been “digitally planted” using models of dozens of species of trees. The company also plans to work with environmental outreach programs such as Africa’s Green Belt Movement, Brazil’s Amazon Conservation Team, and Mexico’s Conabio to help model the planet’s threatened forests.

The ability to browse historical imagery on a location has also been made more easily accessible. Whenever there is a historical image of a location — allowing you to see how it looked back in time — a status bar will now be shown at the bottom.

The tool was previously updated back in June with version 5.2, adding an integrated Web browser and visualization of walking and biking tracks.

Google’s latest move on maps is impressive, and knocks out Microsoft’s latest effort to spruce up its maps with 3D imagery.

Separately, scared out of the shadows is a Waltham, Mass. start-up, Everyscape, which has a similar offering, but its twist is that it lets you cruise streets, landmarks and even enter buildings. It has a demo of Union Square, in San Francisco, and says a full lunch is planned for fall. It has a high gee-whiz factor, but takes some skill in directing yourself with navigational arrows — sort of learning how of to fly a magic carpet. More on Everyscape in a second, but first back to Google.

Google’s offering is called Street View. Go to Google Maps, select an address, and hit “street view,” and Google renders a 3D image of the street you’re on and surrounding view.

More impressive, it is interactive. Once you get the image (an example is below), you can drag it around, so that the image turns with you — a full 360 degrees. (Try it with the Golden Gate Bridge here). If you want a view of another place, you just take the little person-icon and drag them in the map to your desired location.

Microsoft, while doing something similar, is clunkier. The 360 degree swivel isn’t seamless. You can pick north, south, east and west, and have different screens for each. Still, Microsoft will no doubt scramble again to catch up.

More details on Google’s Street View from Greg Sadetsky: Cities covered so far are Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco. It is Flash, can be decompiled using Flare, and a server from Keyhole (a property recently integrated into Google earth) suggests Google Earth may be supported soon.

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EveryScape, meanwhile, lets you do even more. It lets you circulate in a neighborhood and enter stores and restaurants. It provides an on-screen window providing reviews of these locales, from Yelp and elsewhere. Turnhere, another start-up, offers videos of various places, but doesn’t offer the navigational kick provided by EveryScape.

EveryScape wants users submit photos of their favorite places, so that it can offer more than the nine cities where it is launching by the end of the year. It also wants to let visitors share their stories, opinions and reviews about their daily experiences at these places, against the visual backdrops. This is all dangerously close to the direction likely to be taken by Google’s Street View and Google Earth — though Google has yet to prove adept at encouraging user participation around its products.

On EveryScape, someone looking to rent his or her apartment can add a “For Rent” sign and an apartment tour. The beginnings of an ultimate virtual world?

No download is required. EveryScape is Flash-based. The company said the images it uses come from standard digital single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras, and are uploaded to EveryScape for processing. It says it wants to cover the entire world.

Update: More here from the Mercury News’ Elise Ackerman, about how the latest technologies are shaping up in the competition between Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and Google Earth.

Google working on a Google Earth version of Second Life? — So says venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg, a partner at Benchmark capital, the firm that invested in Second Life, citing a rumor from the “PhD grapevine.” [Update: Google spokesman Daniel Pastor says: "We're continually exploring opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time."] Google co-founders have always been about having “impact.” This would give them a chance to act as virtual central bankers, a function Second Life has been having problems with. See the latest allegations, for example, that Second Life is akin to a pyramid scheme, and that it’s much harder to pull your money out than you’re led to believe.

Marketclusters, latest effort to filter blogs for corporate clients — It is the old lemming play. Monitor110, of New York, and TechDirt, of Belmont, Calif. (Silicon Valley) are doing versions of this, and have just raised capital to sign up clients. And so Marketclusters, of London, has raised $3 million from New Media Spark. It serves corporate and financial clients. Notably, it lists among its clients Silicon Valley venture firm Benchmark Capital, which happens to be an investor in Seeking Alpha, a company that aggregrates information from financial blogs, and so is somewhat related. Benchmark has been known to hedge (for example, investing in both online loan marketplace competitors, Zopa and Prosper).

The world’s densest memory circuit — Researchers at Caltech and UCLA said they have created a circuit 100 times denser than today’s standard memory circuits — while remaining as small as a human white blood cell.

Adobe’s curious acquisition of a peer-to-peer networking company — Om speculates on why Adobe, the giant software and Flash multimedia maker, has bought a Santa Cruz, Calif. P2P networking start-up, Amicima though we’re still left scratching our heads about exactly why.

Bix, the little $41M web site? — Bix, you’ll recall, was the light-weight Web site that let people compete in online karaoke, hot or not and other contests. It raised $6.7 million, and then was snatched up by Yahoo, apparently for a 6-fold return (according to one rough account), within six months of launching. Not bad. [Update: A credible source close to Bix tells VentureBeat the actual price was higher than $41M]

CleverSet latest online behavior monitoring company — This company joins a number of other players, including Aggregate Knowledge, that try to predict what people will want to buy based on their behavior. CleverSet watches what you click on, what information its clients have about you, your purchase history, all to help their online retail clients make better merchandise recommendations to you. The Seattle company just raised $2 million. On its advisory board are Dr. Peter Norvig, director of research for Google, and Dr. Andreas Weigend, former chief scientist of Amazon.com.

The mobile TV revolution continues, and MobiTV is hot — MobiTV, of Emeryville is one of the start-ups on the forefront. It offers TV programming from networks and cable providers. It started out serving mobile phones. Now it has expanded, first to WiFi, and now with AT&T to anyplace with broadband.

Venture investors like Oak are paying a good price to play. MobiTV raised $70 million in a July third round, at a valuation in excess of a pretty $400 million, according to PE Week Wire. That’s compared to a value of just $50 million following a $15 million round in 2004. Oak invested $65 million of the total new investment.

Loopt, the mobile presence company, is finally launching — Loopt uses GPS and other data to give you the location of your friends, along with their presence status, such as available or away. Techcrunch has a review. The company has changed its name several times.

You’ll be able to get alerts when your friends are within a certain distance, and send messages to them (see image below). The service is initially available only to customers of pay-as-you-go service, Boost Mobile.

The Costco of travel sites — cFares, a travel start-up based in Redwood Shores, is charging you $50 to get access to wholesaler discounts, and the resulting prices are about $30 to $50 below those of other major sites, finds GigaOm. The company has raised $1.5 million from Garage Technology Ventures and is working on a second round. Also interesting: cFares.com has built a way for an airline to under-bid another airline at the point of sale, thereby providing a below-market price to the consumer. Finally, it has a “Name-Your-Price” feature, where it does an ongoing search online for fares priced at your wish, or lower.

Social networking siteXuQa raises more than previously thought — The youth oriented site, previously slammed by critics, has relaunched; it is focused on model contests, and revolves around a system of “gathering peanuts.” Goal is to become the most popular, and you get up to $1,000 in cash for rewards. We’ve mentioned the company before here. Some doubted it would raise VC money. But who isn’t able to raise money these days? Turns out, it has gotten $1.3 million from BV Capital and Morten Lund, an early Skype investor. It is based in San Francisco, with most of its developers in Karachi, Pakistan.

Yahoo Local revamps — It now lets you write reviews and submit ratings for local businesses, save your favorite locations, view local businesses on one map to see what’s around you and so on. (See more here, which includes a look at Microsoft Live Local Search’s improvements too.)

Yahoo seeks to retain talent — It is setting up an in-house incubator, called Brickhouse, and will be led by Flickr founder Caterina Fake.

Networking company Netgear ships a Skype phone that works with WiFi — The phone started shipping this week for $249.99.

Google’s market share in China is plummeting (see Red Herring article) — We got in touch with Kaiser Kuo, who wrote the piece, and he says the guy who led the study, Mr. Lu, is credible. As a start-up, Google neglected China. Chief executive Eric Schmidt first traveled there last year. More recenlty, Google was criticized for allowing censorship there, but China’s government has played hardball anyway, and now Baidu is eating Google’s lunch.

Google Earth shows you around the Bay Area with TurnHere videos — Google has released a host of new ways to find information while you’re zooming around its virtual globe. You click on the checkbox for “Featured Content” in the Google Earth sidebar, and a whole bunch of multimedia overlays pop up. In the Bay Area, we see the usual National Geographic feature boxes already announced. But now you see a whole bunch of new videos from start-up TurnHere; it’s a good way to check out restaurants or other places before you visit. In fact, TurnHere plans to shoot 25,000 short videos this year, most of them neighborhoods and local attractions. This could get interesting. Here’s a good Merc story on TurnHere. Here’s a story about Google’s Featured Content.