Here’s what we REALLY thought about this week’s news (video)
Skyrim is awesome; Pinterest users need to calm the hell down; and Facebook users need to stay away from the gun cabinet.
In this week’s episode of VB Weekly, the VentureBeat writing staff takes a front seat, with a range of our editors and reporter spouting off about the stories they found most interesting.
This week, we’re talking about:
Steve Jobs’ FBI file
the crazy coming features for hit game Skyrim
Facebook’s all-new lightbox for
Lance Armstrong joins Mobli’s board of directors
Mobli, a video sharing website, can add Lance Armstrong to its list of celebrity endorsers today. The famed cyclist is joining the company’s board and starting his own Mobli channel.
Mobli’s goal is to show you life through another person’s eyes. It does this by allowing people to set up channels, similar to YouTube, where they can post pictures and video, as well as search for image-based content through certain verticals. These verticals include food, … Continue Reading
Skyfire gets $8M to stream mobile videos without any wait
Mobile browsing and video optimization company Skyfire announced today it has raised $8 million in its third round of funding. The round was facilitated by Verizon Investments, Matrix Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Skyfire gained popularity as an alternative to the stock browsers on Android and iOS devices. Since Apple does not provide Flash support for its mobile devices, many people flocked to Skyfire’s browser apps to watch in-browser Flash videos on their … Continue Reading
NBC News to start publishing interactive e-books
Interactive e-books are a hot business. NBC News is the latest major player to dip its toes into the e-book publishing business, the company announced on Monday.
The new unit, called called NBC Publishing, will exploit NBC’s extensive library of archival video, audio, and text to create interactive e-books, Publishers Weekly reports. The new group will be able to take content from all NBC News properties as well as NBC Sports, NBCUniversal, Universal Pictures, and … Continue Reading
Google+ lets you record and share video via webcam
What’s better than posting photos or text updates? Sharing videos, of course. So says Google, which has slightly enhanced its Google+ social network today with a webcam video recording option.
“Today we’re making video a bit more fun by letting you record and share videos of yourself using your webcam,” Google+ Photos engineer Shana Gitnick wrote in an update on the social site.
“To get started, click the video icon in the share box and … Continue Reading
Fanhattan aggregates videos on your iPad (video)
There are plenty of movies and TV shows available to watch online or on your mobile device. The trouble is, they’re spread across too many sources, so it can take a lot of searching across sites like Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and Vudu to find what you’re looking for.
Fanhattan tries to make sense of that, organizing your entertainment under one roof. The company showed off its app for aggregating online video content at the Consumer … Continue Reading
CES Day 2 was full of smart TVs, super-thin Ultrabooks, and a tweet choir (video)
While Sunday was the unofficial start to CES 2012, the real fun began on Monday with press conferences and announcements from heavy hitters like LG, Intel, Sharp, Samsung, Nvidia, Sony and Microsoft.
At the end of that incredibly busy day, fellow VentureBeatnik Dean Takahashi and I decided to chat about how the events unfolded and what stood out from the pack. Notably, smart TVs for home and business, thin-and-light Ultrabook laptops, the upcoming Windows 8 … Continue Reading
Putting Leonard Nimoy and Woz on stage together is every bit as awesome as you’d think (video)
Ever wonder what it would be like to put two of the biggest icons among geeks into the same room? Well wonder no longer avid VentureBeat reader.
VentureBeat Founder and Editor-In-Chief Matt Marshall had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and legendary actor Leonard Nimoy on stage at the VentureBeat/DEMO Enterprise Disruption event last night.
Having the co-creator of arguably the most important tech company in the world on stage at the … Continue Reading
Leonard “Mr. Spock” Nimoy speaks at DEMO (video)
We were honored to have Leonard Nimoy, best known as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, as one of our speakers last night.
VentureBeat and DEMO produced the event, which was hosted by Fusion-io, a leader in efficient server technology.
As we gathered to discuss large-scale innovations and future-focused technologies, we were joined by Mr. Nimoy, who shared some of his thoughts on how science fiction of the past is becoming the scientific and technological reality in … Continue Reading
Web series network Blip.tv raises $6M round of funding
Blip.tv, a site known for producing independent web videos, has raised a $6 million round of funding, according to a recent SEC filing.
Unlike competing video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, Blip.tv isn’t focused on letting people upload their videos. Instead, it is focused on becoming the top destination for videos produced independently by big studios or networks. Basically, it’s like a refined crop of YouTube’s best channel partners with more polish. The site … Continue Reading
Klip version 2.0 brings even more goodies to its video-sharing iPhone app
More than 115 million smartphones were sold during Q3 of 2011, according to the latest Gartner report, and almost all of them have some video capability. But with the spike in video creation comes a new problem: what to watch. Startup Klip tackles this problem by making it easy to track and sort videos from your friends on your iPhone.
Klip is a video sharing app that helps you sift through all that video to … Continue Reading
YouTube’s updated analytics tool could be a game-changer
YouTube has launched a new analytics tool that lets users see a variety of information about the videos uploaded to the service, the company announced today.
The new tool, which replaces YouTube’s Insight page, will provide video viewing data that’s more user friendly for the average person. (See a screenshot of the new YouTube Analytics dashboard embedded below). The new YouTube Analytics tool is also intended to help people grow their channel subscriptions and see … Continue Reading
Google chronicles the evolution of search (video)
Have you ever wondered how Google’s search got so good? An insightful new video released by Google uses employee interviews and engaging graphics to show how Google’s core search product has evolved since it began in 1997.
While it’s easy to focus on evolving Google products like Gmail and Google+, Google still makes most of its revenues on search and advertising. And its core search product is still one of the most helpful ways to … Continue Reading
Lights, camera, Klip: Social video startup raises $8M
As people’s pockets fill with camera-enabled smartphones the rush is on to be the top dog in social video sharing. Palo Alto video startup Klip announced today that it has raised $8 million in a second round of funding, just two months after launching and raising $2 million.
The money will help Klip solidify its position against competitors such as Socialcam, recently launched by Justin.tv, or tools such as Vimessa, which let users share video … Continue Reading
VBWeekly: E-readers, the death of Flash mobile, and the future of apps (video)
Yes, it’s time for another installment of VBWeekly. This week we discuss, in free form, the release of the latest Android-based e-readers, the Kobo, the Kindle Fire and the Nook. We wonder if they can be considered a different class of tablets from the pricier devices, such as the iPad or Galaxy Tab.
We then pay our final respects to Flash mobile, as Adobe announced it will stop developing Flash mobile in order to put … Continue Reading
RIM has its own future of mobile video — take that Microsoft
Update: Research in Motion requested Vimeo take down the videos due to copyright infringement. The parody is still hilarious, though.]
As if the Microsoft video detailing the future of technology wasn’t enough, Research in Motion may have accidentally released its own predictions.
Two videos were accidentally posted on a commissioned artist’s online portfolio and quickly taken down thereafter, according to Pocketnow.com, which fished the videos out of its cache. Whether the videos were actually ordered … Continue Reading
Nokia’s Lumia 800 shows off smart style and smooth Mango UI (video)
Nokia has bet the house on the Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system, and the first fruits of Nokia’s relationship with Microsoft were finally shown today with unveiling of the new Lumia 800 and 710 smartphones.
Between the two, the Lumia 800 is the flagship device with the better design and internals. Its design looks and feels expensive with a solid body that decidedly European. The Lumia 800 features a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen, 1.4-GHz single-core … Continue Reading
Mobli adds Leonardo DiCaprio as advisor and investor, looks for help with branding
Mobli, a photo sharing application, said today Leonardo DiCaprio will be advising the company and also participated in a $4 million first round of funding, along with other private investors.
The technology sector has seen a recent onslaught of celebrity investors such as DiCaprio, Will.I.Am, Lady Gaga and Ashton Kutcher, who is now playing an internet tycoon on CBS’ sitcom Two and a Half Men. But many have to wonder, do these people actually have … Continue Reading
CBS posts the full 60 Minutes interview with Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs’s biographer answered questions about the Apple founder’s life on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, and now you can watch the interview online.
The special interview was recorded about two weeks after Job’s unfortunate death. The version posted online has several extras that weren’t in the original broadcast.
Walter Isaacson’s biography, titled Steve Jobs, goes on sale in brick and mortar retail stores Monday morning. However, Kindle owners and those that have access … Continue Reading
OVIA to make finding jobs less painful, gets $2.5M (exclusive)
Video recruiting software company OVIA, received a $2.5 million first round of funding from DCM today, with the goal of removing the phone screening process and introducing video.
“Productivity process-wise, this is the future of recruitment,” said David Chao, co-founder and general partner of DCM, in an interview with VentureBeat.
Especially in this economy, the jobless are being dragged through terrible recruitment processes more and more. There’s the standard application, phone screen and, if you’re … Continue Reading
