mandag 2. november 2009
Globalfoundries styreformann Hector Ruiz trinn ned etter innsidehandel påstander
Hector Ruiz, en av de mest respekterte statsmenn i chip industrien, hadde sitt rykte anløpet forrige uke etter at han ble identifisert av navngitte kilder for tipping av Galleon-relaterte handelsfolk som brukte informasjonen til å gjøre ulovlig innsidehandel handler. Nå er han trekker seg som styreformann i Globalfoundries, chip gjør selskapet det spunnet ut av Advanced Micro Devices tidligere i år. Ruiz er tidligere toppsjef i AMD og var viden kjent for å ta på Intel i en omfattende antitrust-saken. Ruiz vil bli erstattet av Alan E. "Lanny" Ross, som vil fungere som midlertidig styreleder, med øyeblikkelig virkning, inntil en permanent leder er oppnevnt av styret. Ross var tidligere konsernsjef i chip maker Broadcom. Ruiz angivelig tipset handelsmann at AMD ville delt seg i to selskaper.
PBWorks speeds up collaboration with real-time tools
Collaboration using PBWorks‘ technology is about to become more fast-paced — the San Mateo, Calif. company plans to add real-time communication and editing to its tools on Nov. 17.
Though it now includes features like document management, the heart of PBWorks platform (as suggested by its original name, PBWiki) is a set of company wikis. Previously, if you were working on a wiki, everyone else would have to wait until you were done to even see what you were changing. If you wanted to talk about the edits, you could send emails back-and-forth, or instant message each other using a separate application, or organize a web conference with tools like WebEx.
Now, you can do all of that within PBWorks itself. If, say, three team members want to work together on a wiki, they can start a group IM session to toss ideas back-and-forth during the editing process. And through the Live Editing feature, everyone sees changes as they’re made, so you’re all looking at the most current version of the page. (It sounds like only one person will be able to edit a page at a time, though.) Other new features include Live Notifications so you can receive updates on the activity in a team or on a project right away, wherever you are in PBWorks, and Voice Collaboration, which basically allows you to hold conference calls with coworkers.
As far as I know, PBWorks is the first among the batch of collaboration companies like Socialtext and Box.net to go this far into instantaneous communication. The closest other companies come is through the Twitter-style microblogging applications offered by Socialtext, Yammer, and PBWorks itself. The company’s page describing the new features also positions the real-time version of PBWorks as potential competition for Google Wave, which also combines instant messaging with live document editing. PBWorks notes that Google Wave still in testing, and works more as a standalone product, whereas PBWorks’ IM and video conferencing services just plug into the existing workspace.
PBWorks raised $2.45 million to date from Seraph Group, Mohr Davidow Ventures and independent investor Ron Conway. It says it has more than 50,000 customers. Real-time tools will be available as a free upgrade to Project Edition and Legal Edition users.
Though it now includes features like document management, the heart of PBWorks platform (as suggested by its original name, PBWiki) is a set of company wikis. Previously, if you were working on a wiki, everyone else would have to wait until you were done to even see what you were changing. If you wanted to talk about the edits, you could send emails back-and-forth, or instant message each other using a separate application, or organize a web conference with tools like WebEx.
Now, you can do all of that within PBWorks itself. If, say, three team members want to work together on a wiki, they can start a group IM session to toss ideas back-and-forth during the editing process. And through the Live Editing feature, everyone sees changes as they’re made, so you’re all looking at the most current version of the page. (It sounds like only one person will be able to edit a page at a time, though.) Other new features include Live Notifications so you can receive updates on the activity in a team or on a project right away, wherever you are in PBWorks, and Voice Collaboration, which basically allows you to hold conference calls with coworkers.
As far as I know, PBWorks is the first among the batch of collaboration companies like Socialtext and Box.net to go this far into instantaneous communication. The closest other companies come is through the Twitter-style microblogging applications offered by Socialtext, Yammer, and PBWorks itself. The company’s page describing the new features also positions the real-time version of PBWorks as potential competition for Google Wave, which also combines instant messaging with live document editing. PBWorks notes that Google Wave still in testing, and works more as a standalone product, whereas PBWorks’ IM and video conferencing services just plug into the existing workspace.
PBWorks raised $2.45 million to date from Seraph Group, Mohr Davidow Ventures and independent investor Ron Conway. It says it has more than 50,000 customers. Real-time tools will be available as a free upgrade to Project Edition and Legal Edition users.
GSM-fueled Motorola MileStone aka DROID lanseres i Europa
Det tok ikke lang tid - GSM-versjon av Motorola DROID er offisielt og ledes for Europa. Det kommer til å bli kalt MileStone og Tyskland og Italia vil være den første til å få det, men den dårlige nyheten er at det ikke vil ha ...
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 overtar catwalk igjen
En annen dag, en annen Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 lekkasje. Denne gangen har vi en annen video av den søte utseende UI pluss en rekke offisielle bildene for deg. Kunngjøringen av appetittvekkende Android ...
Intelleflex gets an engineering team from big chip maker and raises $8M
Silicon Valley has the rarest of things today: a silicon company with a new infusion of funding. Chip maker Maxim Integrated Products is spinning out one of its engineering teams into the chip startup Intelleflex in return for an equity stake. On top of that, Intelleflex has raised $8 million from New Enterprise Associates to make tiny radio chips.
Intelleflex is making radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, the tiny tags that aim to replace bar codes as product identifiers. These new RFID chips are more sophisticated than previous types and can be used to identify and track all sorts of things, such as a fleet of trucks. Older generations had relatively short ranges and were easy to compromise, while these new versions are more secure, have more storage capacity, and have a longer radio range. Intelleflex says its new RFID chips will be used to identify parts on Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. And drugstore chain Walgreens is testing 50,000 tags in its stores and supply chain.
The transaction is kind of a complex deal. Maxim, a Silicon Valley chip maker with $1.6 billion in revenues expected in 2009, was working on something similar to Intelleflex. Now the two companies will combine their engineering teams in order to accelerate a product launch. Seven Maxim engineers will join Intelleflex, and the so-called “extended capability” RFID chips are expected to launch in 2010.
Maxim will retain an equity stake in the startup. Maxim and Intelleflex plan to partner in sales and marketing efforts in the future.
Intelleflex itself has had a long history. It was founded in 2003 to focus on amorphous silicon, or plastic chips. But it moved to RFID when its initial technology did not work out. The original founders left in 2006, while Richard Bravman joined as chief executive in 2005. Peter Mehrin became CEO in July, while Bravman became executive chairman. Now Intelleflex has 35 employees.
To date, Intelleflex has raised $60 million. Earlier investors in Intelleflex include Arcapita Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures and The Woodside Fund. Intelleflex’s closest rivals are Savi Technology and Rfcode.
Intelleflex is making radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, the tiny tags that aim to replace bar codes as product identifiers. These new RFID chips are more sophisticated than previous types and can be used to identify and track all sorts of things, such as a fleet of trucks. Older generations had relatively short ranges and were easy to compromise, while these new versions are more secure, have more storage capacity, and have a longer radio range. Intelleflex says its new RFID chips will be used to identify parts on Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. And drugstore chain Walgreens is testing 50,000 tags in its stores and supply chain.
The transaction is kind of a complex deal. Maxim, a Silicon Valley chip maker with $1.6 billion in revenues expected in 2009, was working on something similar to Intelleflex. Now the two companies will combine their engineering teams in order to accelerate a product launch. Seven Maxim engineers will join Intelleflex, and the so-called “extended capability” RFID chips are expected to launch in 2010.
Maxim will retain an equity stake in the startup. Maxim and Intelleflex plan to partner in sales and marketing efforts in the future.
Intelleflex itself has had a long history. It was founded in 2003 to focus on amorphous silicon, or plastic chips. But it moved to RFID when its initial technology did not work out. The original founders left in 2006, while Richard Bravman joined as chief executive in 2005. Peter Mehrin became CEO in July, while Bravman became executive chairman. Now Intelleflex has 35 employees.
To date, Intelleflex has raised $60 million. Earlier investors in Intelleflex include Arcapita Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures and The Woodside Fund. Intelleflex’s closest rivals are Savi Technology and Rfcode.
lørdag 31. oktober 2009
Video of Arrington-Shukla fight highlights controversy of special offers
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington and Offerpal Media chief executive Anu Shukla got into a brouhaha over special offers, which are used to monetize social apps on social networks, at the close of the Virtual Goods Summit on Friday.
At the close of a panel where Shukla spoke, Arrington asked how Shukla could defend her business of making offers that were leading the social game industry “into hell.” Shukla responded with a long answer about why Arrington’s commentary was “shit, double shit and bullshit.” You can see Alexa Lee’s video on the whole 10-minute exchange below. I also interviewed Shukla about the issue before the panel.
The debate revolves around whether specials offers are unethical and a bad experience for both users and advertisers. Shukla defended the practice of monetizing games and other social apps through offers, which let users pay with their time, participation and attention, rather than actual money.
Users can play games from the likes of Zynga and Playdom for free. But when they want to buy something in the games, such as a better plow to farm the land in Zynga’s FarmVille game, they have to pay. As an alternative to shelling out cash, they can accept an offer from Offerpal, which gets the user to do something like fill out a survey or subscribe to Netflix.
Arrington alleged these offers are so much trash. The offers are “slimy” and users scam the advertisers by making up answers in surveys or signing up for services they plan to cancel. Arrington said that this means that advertisers like Netflix aren’t getting their money’s worth from the ads, but Facebook and others involved aren’t putting a stop to the practice because they all make money from it.
Shukla contended that those objections are “shit” because most of the offers are high-quality and are filtered. She said, as we wrote earlier, that more than 160 million consumers have participated in Offerpal’s offers over the past two years. The total reach of the whole offer industry is still small, with only 5 percent to 30 percent of all gamers participating in offers.
The vast majority of offers are working out well, because the advertisers keep coming back. Most of the business is on Facebook, though it moved to Open Social-based networks for a time and has now returned to Facebook, thanks to that network’s rapid growth to more than 300 million users.
“We see more users turning to offers as a way to pay,” Shukla said in our interview.
Shukla acknowledged there were some offers in the general industry that were “spoiling the experience.” That’s why Facebook issued new policies in July that put restrictions on the offer business, particularly on offers that had to do with the mobile phone business. Shukla said Offerpal spent a lot of time cleaning out marginal offers and had to take a revenue hit as well. All of the social app companies are taking a hit as a result. Shukla said that was good for the industry, since some offer companies were letting bad offers creep in to gain market share.
“Unfortunately, some of the offers that were considered poor quality actually perform well,” she said. “If we took them out, and our competitors didn’t, they would perform better than us. So I love the fact that Facebook forced everyone to take them out.”
Even so, Shukla struck back hard at Arrington, who promised to expose bad practices. Video and pictures by Alexa Lee.
At the close of a panel where Shukla spoke, Arrington asked how Shukla could defend her business of making offers that were leading the social game industry “into hell.” Shukla responded with a long answer about why Arrington’s commentary was “shit, double shit and bullshit.” You can see Alexa Lee’s video on the whole 10-minute exchange below. I also interviewed Shukla about the issue before the panel.
The debate revolves around whether specials offers are unethical and a bad experience for both users and advertisers. Shukla defended the practice of monetizing games and other social apps through offers, which let users pay with their time, participation and attention, rather than actual money.
Users can play games from the likes of Zynga and Playdom for free. But when they want to buy something in the games, such as a better plow to farm the land in Zynga’s FarmVille game, they have to pay. As an alternative to shelling out cash, they can accept an offer from Offerpal, which gets the user to do something like fill out a survey or subscribe to Netflix.
Arrington alleged these offers are so much trash. The offers are “slimy” and users scam the advertisers by making up answers in surveys or signing up for services they plan to cancel. Arrington said that this means that advertisers like Netflix aren’t getting their money’s worth from the ads, but Facebook and others involved aren’t putting a stop to the practice because they all make money from it.
Shukla contended that those objections are “shit” because most of the offers are high-quality and are filtered. She said, as we wrote earlier, that more than 160 million consumers have participated in Offerpal’s offers over the past two years. The total reach of the whole offer industry is still small, with only 5 percent to 30 percent of all gamers participating in offers.
The vast majority of offers are working out well, because the advertisers keep coming back. Most of the business is on Facebook, though it moved to Open Social-based networks for a time and has now returned to Facebook, thanks to that network’s rapid growth to more than 300 million users.
“We see more users turning to offers as a way to pay,” Shukla said in our interview.
Shukla acknowledged there were some offers in the general industry that were “spoiling the experience.” That’s why Facebook issued new policies in July that put restrictions on the offer business, particularly on offers that had to do with the mobile phone business. Shukla said Offerpal spent a lot of time cleaning out marginal offers and had to take a revenue hit as well. All of the social app companies are taking a hit as a result. Shukla said that was good for the industry, since some offer companies were letting bad offers creep in to gain market share.
“Unfortunately, some of the offers that were considered poor quality actually perform well,” she said. “If we took them out, and our competitors didn’t, they would perform better than us. So I love the fact that Facebook forced everyone to take them out.”
Even so, Shukla struck back hard at Arrington, who promised to expose bad practices. Video and pictures by Alexa Lee.
Week in review: A pop quiz for startups, Google’s free GPS navigation
Here’s our rundown of the week’s tech and business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
Start-up studies: A pop quiz — “There’s a classroom exercise that’s a part of the Stanford technology venture program hits its students with each year: If you had five dollars and two hours, what would you do to make as much money as possible?”
Xerox develops a silver ink for wearable or throwaway electronics — “Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles.”
MySpace and Facebook are officially talking. But it probably doesn’t look like this — “So they’re talking, but the conversation between the one-time rivals probably looks nothing like this version between Zuck, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson and good old Rupert Murdoch.”
Zynga’s Mark Pincus: I got kicked out of some of the best companies in America — “It was really a disaster. The CEO had a breakdown. He was doing weird stuff I won’t even talk about.”
Mark Zuckerberg on how to build hacker culture inside a company — “It’s just better to just launch and have something cool that you can fix over time.”
And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or fun:
Google announces turn-by-turn GPS navigation, for free — “There’s a good chance you’ve driven with someone who’s bought a fancy GPS navigation system for their car that gives them voice directions for each turn as they drive. Now Google says it’s releasing a version of Google Maps that does the same thing, and you won’t have to pay anything for it.”
China’s growing addiction: online farming games — “A new agrarian revolution has occurred in China, but only in the virtual worlds of social games.”
Copenhagen may be a bust, and it’s all the U.S. and E.U.’s fault — “The much-hyped climate talks scheduled for Copenhagen in December may be a failure before they’ve even started, according to United Nations climate change guru, Janos Pasztor.”
whereIstand.com crowdsources its opinion database — “Arianna Huffington feels the Internet has had a positive effect on journalism. How do I know? Because I looked it up at whereIstand.com.”
Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: ‘Many CEOs are afraid to get too personal’ — “Our mission has always been to change the way the software industry works, so of course we would want to have an impact on the industry’s largest player. Maybe some people don’t take us seriously, but we have a history of attacking much larger competitors.”
Start-up studies: A pop quiz — “There’s a classroom exercise that’s a part of the Stanford technology venture program hits its students with each year: If you had five dollars and two hours, what would you do to make as much money as possible?”
Xerox develops a silver ink for wearable or throwaway electronics — “Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles.”
MySpace and Facebook are officially talking. But it probably doesn’t look like this — “So they’re talking, but the conversation between the one-time rivals probably looks nothing like this version between Zuck, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson and good old Rupert Murdoch.”
Zynga’s Mark Pincus: I got kicked out of some of the best companies in America — “It was really a disaster. The CEO had a breakdown. He was doing weird stuff I won’t even talk about.”
Mark Zuckerberg on how to build hacker culture inside a company — “It’s just better to just launch and have something cool that you can fix over time.”
And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or fun:
Google announces turn-by-turn GPS navigation, for free — “There’s a good chance you’ve driven with someone who’s bought a fancy GPS navigation system for their car that gives them voice directions for each turn as they drive. Now Google says it’s releasing a version of Google Maps that does the same thing, and you won’t have to pay anything for it.”
China’s growing addiction: online farming games — “A new agrarian revolution has occurred in China, but only in the virtual worlds of social games.”
Copenhagen may be a bust, and it’s all the U.S. and E.U.’s fault — “The much-hyped climate talks scheduled for Copenhagen in December may be a failure before they’ve even started, according to United Nations climate change guru, Janos Pasztor.”
whereIstand.com crowdsources its opinion database — “Arianna Huffington feels the Internet has had a positive effect on journalism. How do I know? Because I looked it up at whereIstand.com.”
Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: ‘Many CEOs are afraid to get too personal’ — “Our mission has always been to change the way the software industry works, so of course we would want to have an impact on the industry’s largest player. Maybe some people don’t take us seriously, but we have a history of attacking much larger competitors.”
Abonner på:
Innlegg (Atom)