Industry Standard News and Predictions

HelioVolt claims CIGS thin film efficiency record

Jeremy Jacquot — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:34 -0700

HelioVolt CEO BJ Stanbery is set to announce that his company has set a new speed record for CIGS conversion efficiency, ratcheting up the pressure in the competitive, high-stakes thin-film solar...

Powerset unveils test version of Google-killer

Juan Carlos Perez — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:05:29 -0700

The public will get its first chance Monday to test a search engine from start-up Powerset that eschews conventional keyword technology and instead is designed to understand the meaning of Web...

Vertica moves BI database to Amazon's cloud

Chris Kanaracus — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:05:27 -0700

Database maker Vertica Systems is moving its technology to Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud infrastructure (EC2), hoping to score customers who want a hosted, pay-as-you-go model for data warehousing...

Aniboom cuts a deal with I-Play to do game-based animations

Dean Takahashi — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:01:27 -0700

Q&A about the $150M Blackberry Partners Fund

Matt Marshall — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:58:15 -0700

VentureBeat earlier broke the news that RIM and other investors, including JLA ventures, have created a $150 million investment fund to back start-ups that work on the Blackberry.
Here’s a...

RIM-Blackberry announces $150M fund

Matt Marshall — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:58:13 -0700

Updated: For more, also see our Q&A with one of the partners managing the Blackberry fund

Research In Motion, the RBC and Thomson Reuters have invested in an $150 million venture investment...

Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo to leave the company

Eric Eldon — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:09:29 -0700

Updated with more details
Quiet Facebook co-founder and chief technology officer Adam D’Angelo is leaving the company, one source tells me. D’Angelo announced the news internally this...

Reports of the 3G iPhone’s imminent release may be slightly exaggerated

MG Siegler — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:45:59 -0700

The hype and speculation around the 3G iPhone are mounting quickly. Yesterday, it was uncovered that an “Enable 3G” button was part of the latest beta firmware update for the device....

iPhone vs Blackberry - Survey Sample Size of One

Fred — Sun, 11 May 2008 07:35:30 -0700

My daughter Emily was passed down the iPhone I bought when it first came out. It didn't work for me so I gave it to her. That phone developed a small crack in the screen last fall but she kept using...

Three Reasons To Use Disqus

Fred — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:32:47 -0700

First, I'd like to be perfectly clear that our firm, Union Square Ventures, is an investor in Disqus. So I am clearly biased about what I am about to say. Second, I'd like to point out that the...

VentureBeat SF Green event adds three new companies; audio post

Chris Morrison — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:19:26 -0700

The clean-technology event VentureBeat is co-hosting with SF Green is coming up on Monday (it starts at 5pm for networking at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco; program content starts at...

Madison Avenue shift: Look who’s leaving big firms, moving to digital startups

Julie Ruvolo — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:08:22 -0700

Executives at major media companies and advertising agencies are defecting to web start-ups in increasing numbers, attracted by some combination of equity and autonomy. Here’s a closer look at...

Look, up in the sky: Zeppelin company Airship Ventures raises $8M

Anthony Ha — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:47:48 -0700

This fall, if our San Francisco Bay Area readers spot a zeppelin overhead, don’t worry — you haven’t been caught in a time warp. It will just mean that a startup called Airship Ventures has...

Facebook borrows $100M to build out its infrastructure

Eric Eldon — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:42:00 -0700

Facebook is borrowing $100 million from venture loan firm TriplePoint to finance the expansion of its server farms, and other infrastructure expenses, Business Week’s Spencer E. Ante...

Microsoft surpasses 2 million Zunes sold. Apple sells 3.53 million iPods a month

MG Siegler — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:59:59 -0700

It has been known for a while that Microsoft’s Zune is the number two or number three digital music player (depending on the market) in the United States. However, just how far behind the...

The iPhone is winning at the game of Risk

MG Siegler — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:43:21 -0700

Remember the game Risk? You know, the one with the world map where you battle other players to gain the most terrain and literally take over the world? Yeah, fun game. Apple may think so too, and...

Adobe fixes Photoshop Express

Peter Cohen — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:30:16 -0700

Adobe Systems on Friday confirmed that it has fixed a bug that plagued an update of Adobe Photoshop Express first expected earlier this week. The company has now released the updated version....

Socialmedian offers a collaborative way to sort through the news

Anthony Ha — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:27:57 -0700

As more and more news floods the Internet, more and more companies are releasing products to help you sift through that flood. One of the latest is socialmedian, a site that uses social networking...

The rise of social gaming

Larry Borsato — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:13:08 -0700

Last week a brand-new video game, Grand Theft Auto IV, racked up US$500 million dollars in sales -- in one week.Last year online gaming attracted 28 percent of the total worldwide online population...

Geek Week: Google exec flees; librarian defeats Feds

Robert X. Cringely — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:06:12 -0700

Going, going -- Google. The hejira from Google continues, as head Google spin doctor Elliot Schrage has taken a position with -- who else? -- Facebook. Schrage is the sixth top-shelf G-exec to fly...

JAVAONE - Sun announces open source Solaris updates

Kathleen Lau — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:57:45 -0700

Sun Microsystems Inc. plans on releasing a new version of its open source OpenSolaris operating system every six months, one of which will serve as the basis for the next version of its Solaris Unix...

JavaOne show re-dubbed 'VomitOne' after stomach bug hits

Eric Lai — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:47:46 -0700

The thousands of techies who came to Sun Microsystems Inc.'s JavaOne conference this week were exposed, not to a computer virus, but the nasty norovirus, which causes fevers and roiling...

TOP 10 - It's all about perspective

Nancy Weil — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:25:59 -0700

News from and about Microsoft dominated this week from start to finish. But the dire situation caused by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, where the ruling junta cares more about oppression and domination...

AccessKenya announces dividends, forecasts growth

Rebecca Wanjiku — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:23:54 -0700

The only Kenyan technology company listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) – ISP and broadband provider AccessKenya -- was not affected by the country's post-election crisis and expects 50...

UPDATE - Microsoft to appeal US$1.3 billion EU fine

Elizabeth Montalbano — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:07:01 -0700

Microsoft is appealing the US$1.3 billion (€899 million) fine imposed on it by the European Union for failing to honor a 2004 antitrust agreement, the company said Friday.Microsoft spokesman Jack...