What Does the Future Hold for Newspapers?Sunday, March 28, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Last year was the worst year since 1986 for newspaper ad revenues (unless you use inflation-adjusted numbers, in which case it was the worst since 1963). Some papers are looking to pay walls as a solution, while others are hoping the Apple iPad will save them. Read more |
For Open Cloud Computing, Look Inside Your Data CenterSunday, March 28, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media For all the talk about openness in cloud computing, both public-and private-cloud providers operate very much in their own silos. However, things may be changing — especially when it comes to internal clouds. Read more |
PE Firm Plans Open LTE Network To Challenge ATT and VerizonSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media A New York private equity firm plans to build a multi-billion-dollar wholesale 4G wireless network using the Long Term Evolution standard that will cover most of the country by 2015. The ambitious plans by Harbinger Capital partners relies on spectrum owned by several satellite companies. Read more |
Apple already sells out first week’s shipment of iPadsSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Apple’s web site says that it has already sold out its first shipment of iPads, the tablet computers that start selling on April 3. Now the company says that anyone who orders an iPad now can expect them to ship starting April 12. And that’s just for the versions with Wi-Fi only, with prices ranging from $499 (16-gigabyte model) to $599 (32-gigabytes) to $699 (64-gigabytes). If you want to buy a more expensive version with 3G data networking service, you have to wait until shipments in late April. [...] Read more |
Week in review: Y Combinator Demo Day, Trip Hawkins’ new Facebook gameSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Here’s our summary of the week’s business and tech news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the past seven days: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups — Y Combinator hosted its latest Demo Day this week for startups graduating from its incubator. This post offers a roundup of every presenting company, except for those in stealth mode. Photoshop’s new “Content-Aware Fill” feature gives you the power of the gods — You can practically see VentureBeat’s Devindra Hardawar drool as he describes Adobe’s preview of a new feature in its image editing program. [...] Read more |
Roundup: First week of iPads sells out, cities compete to join Google’s broadband testSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Here’s the latest action: Apple sells out first week’s worth of iPads — If you order an iPad now, you’ll have to wait until April 12, more than a week after the April 3 launch. Meanwhile, MacRumors has pulled together a list of some launch applications created specifically for iPads. Cities vie for test Google’s experimental broadband network — More than 1,100 communities applied to be part of Google’s pilot program, some using promotional stunts like temporarily renaming themselves “Google. [...] Read more |
Roundup: First week of iPads sells out, cities compete to join Google’s broadband networkSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Here’s the latest action: Apple sells out first week’s worth of iPads — If you order an iPad now, you’ll have to wait until April 12, more than a week after the April 3 launch. Meanwhile, MacRumors has pulled together a list of some launch applications created specifically for iPads. Cities vie for test Google’s experimental broadband network — More than 1,100 communities applied to be part of Google’s pilot program, some using promotional stunts like temporarily renaming themselves “Google. [...] Read more |
Facebook says new program to automatically share data ‘has nothing to do’ with adsSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Tucked into Facebook’s new proposed privacy policy released yesterday was a paragraph saying the social network will automatically share your data with special “pre-approved” partners when you visit their sites. But no partners were listed, nor was there any detail given on how these partners would be chosen. I talked to Barry Schnitt, Facebook’s director of communications and public policy, today to get a few more details. More broadly speaking, Facebook has a deep inherent tension in its business model. [...] Read more |
EC Roundup: Becoming a giant-slayer and 6 critical tips for launching a startupSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Here’s the latest from VentureBeat’s Entrepreneur Corner. Ask the attorney: M&A waters can be dangerous – especially for the buyer – Buying a competitor is a sign of strength, but one that also carries a lot of risk. Attorney Scott Edward Walker runs down four more things to watch out for – and ways to keep the upper hand. 5 ways startups can slay giants – Entrepreneurs regularly face off against companies significantly larger than them. It’s an uphill battle, but not an impossible one. [...] Read more |
Our hands-on impressions: Nintendo to start selling DSi XL a week before Apple debuts iPadSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology To buy a DSi XL, or an iPad? That is the question. The coming week is a big one for gamers, as Apple and Nintendo go head-to-head in the handheld gadget market. Nintendo starts the battle on Sunday as it begins selling the DSi XL game handheld for $189.99. Apple follows with the April 3 debut of the iPad, which is a tablet computer with many applications beyond games. On the one hand, the competition between these devices is fierce because gamers aren’t likely to dish out money for both of these gadgets. [...] Read more |
When It Comes to Apps, Feature Phones Are the New BlackSaturday, March 27, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Feature phones – you know, those passé, non-OS handsets that account for a whopping 83 percent of the U.S. handset market – are set to join their higher-end counterparts as viable vehicles for mobile applications. Read more |
GameStop rolls out Jolt as it moves into digital distribution of gamesFriday, March 26, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology GameStop is opening 400 retail video game stores a year. But it’s not blind to the fact that digital distribution of online games could threaten that physical store business. That’s why the nation’s biggest game retailer bought Jolt Online Gaming last year and today launched its first free-to-play online game. The first title is Legends of Zork, a fantasy online game, and it one of a billion such games online. But this one stands a real chance because it will get exposure in every one of the thousands of GameStop stores in the U. [...] Read more |
Will Facebook be the One Ring for Location?Friday, March 26, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media In a blog post on its updated privacy policies, Facebook dropped some hints about what the social network has in mind in terms of future location features. But will they co-exist with Foursquare and Gowalla, or will Facebook become the one ring that rules them all? Read more |
Freemium Summit: Evernote shares the insider secrets of free appsFriday, March 26, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Giving away your product for free can be either a disaster or a great move. Doing it the right way is an art, as various speakers said at the Freemium Summit in San Francisco today. A case in point is the “freemium” business model of Evernote, which creates software that serves as a memory aid, or external brain. The company gives away its product for free on a variety of platforms and charges a $5 per month subscription to the power users who want the most features. Phil Libin, chief executive, revealed a wealth of details today about how the freemium model makes sense for Evernote, which now has 2. [...] Read more |
Speaklike offers human-powered translation for blogsFriday, March 26, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Blog publishers wanting to translate their works into multiple languages now have a range of human-powered translation options from translation company Speaklike. The company, which launched a translation service for instant messages last year, has built a plugin for the popular WordPress blogging system used by VentureBeat and The New York Times. The system isn’t instantaneous, but it uses experienced freelance translators rather than amateurs or machine translation. Speaklike offers a pay-as-you-go system for small publishers, and an enterprise-scale service for bigger companies. [...] Read more |
Nvidia gets back in the game with long-awaited Fermi graphics chipFriday, March 26, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Since Advanced Micro Devices launched its newest generation of desktop graphics chips in September, Nvidia has been a distance second in the performance game for graphics chips. But today, Nvidia is launching its graphics chip, the GeForce GTX 400 series, code-named Fermi, in the hope of taking the speed demon title back. These are high-end graphics chips that hardcore gamers care about, but in six months to a year they’ll be widely available to all sorts of PC consumers. The GTX 480 and GTX 470 graphics chips will debut in graphics cards for PCs at the prices $499 and $349, respectively. [...] Read more |
Hot Deals, Big Money: What’s Up With Silicon Valley?Friday, March 26, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media Foursquare is being actively wooed by four major venture capital investors, which are valuing it at between $50 million and $70 million. And it isn’t the only startup seeking a “big round” at a “big valuation” -- indeed, big-ticket investments are making a comeback. Read more |
Verizon slows down expansion of its FiOS fiber networkFriday, March 26, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Verizon is looking to end the expensive roll out its FiOS service — which delivers high-speed internet, television, and phone service, to millions of subscribers across the East Coast. The company will finish up its FiOS expansion in certain major markets, but those that haven’t received it yet are most likely out of luck, according to the AP. The company is still looking to bring FiOS to communities where it has secured “franchises” — the rights to sell TV services that compete with cable. [...] Read more |
The iPad Will Usher In a New Era of HTML5 VideoFriday, March 26, 2010Source: GigaOM | Category: Media When Apple first introduced the iPad to the world, there was more than a bit of consternation around the fact that the new device, which finally ships next week, wouldn’t support Adobe Flash. While limiting access to a whole range of Flash-based games and web sites [...] Read more |
Bancorp, Sungevity team up to finance residential solarFriday, March 26, 2010Source: Venture Beat | Category: Technology Rooftop solar panels may be dropping in price, but they’re still out of range for most consumers to buy out of pocket. To bridge this gap, companies like SunRun and SolarCity have cropped up, offering new payment models to make solar panel ownership more realistic. Now one of the newer entrants, Sungevity, has landed a partnership with U.S. Bancorp to finance short-term solar leases. This leasing program launched today in California, helping regular homeowners find, install and maintain the right solar panels for to ten years. [...] Read more |
