Flash Player 10 brings new effects to developers (1)
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Anthony Ha (118)
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Flash Player 10, the latest version of Adobe’s nearly ubiquitous platform for web video and applications, is now available to the general public. The new features — most of them were already part of the test version released in May — include easier-to-use 3D effects and additional text options that could expand Flash’s international reach. The new player incorporates the Adobe Pixel Bender toolkit, which adds a bunch of motion filters and effects. Flash Player ...
Microsoft’s Silverlight 2 coming tomorrow (1)
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Anthony Ha (118)
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2 days, 5 hours
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The latest version of its Microsoft’s Silverlight platform for web applications and media will be available for download tomorrow. Silverlight 2 has been in testing mode since March, so many of the technical details were already available, but Microsoft today released more information about traction and partnerships, as well as announcing more open source support. From the business side, Microsoft’s partner news may be the most relevant. CBS College Sports, Blockbuster, Hard Rock Cafe, Yahoo ...
MashLogic adds links to ‘take back the web’ (2)
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2 days, 9 hours
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A new browser plugin called MashLogic launched in invite-only testing today, and it has a pretty lofty goal — in the words of David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners — which incubated the company — MashLogic is “a startup to save the web.” More concretely, the plugin can add useful links based on your interests, and block spammy links too. The Internet has become “a big honkin’ billboard,” Cowan says, where hyperlinks on popular websites ...
Google prepping special iPhone ads? (2)
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Anthony Ha (118)
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4 days, 13 hours
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Just because Google will soon release its mobile operating system Android, it’s not ignoring the iPhone. In fact, the online ad giant is preparing to offer advertisers a way to tailor ads for iPhone users, according to Adweek. For example, a normal American Airline web ad would offer a link to American’s site where users could buy tickets. An iPhone-specific ad might let you call American with just the push of a button or take ...
Zoho uses Google Gears to go offline — what about Gmail? (2)
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5 days, 5 hours
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There’s a lot to like about Zoho Mail, the next step in Zoho’s rapid roll-out of a broad range of business applications . But for a non-Zoho user, there’s one thing that’s kind of galling: You can access your Zoho Mail through integration with browser extension Google Gears. It’s a smart, useful feature, and that only makes it more annoying that Google hasn’t provided similar offline functionality for Gmail. Back in July, there were rumors ...
Don’t stop believing — Silicon Valley lip-synchs while market burns (3)
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6 days, 1 hour
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Tech stocks are plunging and venture capitalists are telling their startups to hunker down for an extended downturn, but a group of Silicon Valley techies still found time for a nice little retreat to Cyprus. They also produced this amusing video set to Journey’s classic song “Don’t Stop Believing.” Among those featured are Facebook platform manager Dave Morin, Facebook product designer Aaron Sittig, Drop.io founder Sam Lessin and Blip.tv founder Mike Hudack. Is it just ...
Amazon Simple Storage Services gets a new pricing model (3)
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Anthony Ha (118)
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6 days, 6 hours
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Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, also known as Amazon S3, plans to change its pricing on Nov. 1 in a move that should help it stay competitive against emerging cloud storage companies. Amazon S3, and the larger suite of Amazon Web Services, provides the infrastructure for many of the web companies that we’ve covered. (As is often the case, one of the most effective demonstrations of S3’s importance came when it failed in February, and again ...
What downturn? Private equity still going strong (2)
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Anthony Ha (118)
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1 week
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The financial sky may be falling, but it looks like private equity firms are relatively sheltered. In fact, fundraising by North American private equity firms during the first three quarters of 2008 is actually way ahead of fundraising during the same period last year, according to a report from Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst. Private equity is a category that that includes buyout, venture capital, mezzanine, distressed and several other types of firms. This year, ...
Zuora’s new product helps companies collect money from customers (1)
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1 week, 1 day
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Zuora, a startup that offers software to manage customer subscriptions, just announced its second product, dubbed “Z-Payments.” While Zuora’s first product, Z-Billing, automates the billing process (duh), Z-Payments handles the other side of the equation — actually allowing customers to pay those bills, including integration with online payment service PayPal. The product addresses a common complaint among Zuora customers, says chief executive Tien Tzuo — billing customers isn’t always enough. There are always people who ...
Roundup: Facebook’s cashout, Google-Yahoo delayed and more (1)
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Anthony Ha (118)
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1 week, 2 days
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Here’s the latest action: Google and Yahoo delay ad deal — The delay gives the Justice Department more time for its antitrust investigation. This news, as well as calls by Sen. Herb Kohl (chair of the Senate Antitrust Committee) for more scrutiny, probably doesn’t bode well for the deal, though it may buy the tech companies more time to negotiate. Wells Fargo plans merger with Wachovia — Friday’s announcement came only four days after Citigroup ...
Friendster says it’s compatible with Facebook apps (7)
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1 week, 5 days
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Social networking site Friendster announced that it now supports applications built on competing network Facebook’s popular platform. Friendster already supports apps built for OpenSocial (the Google-led effort to make all social sites compatible), and the announcement signals that Friendster is the first network to support both OpenSocial and Facebook apps. Obviously, Friendster is jumping on the bandwagon of a competing site and trying to steal some of Facebook’s platform success. Still, this late in the ...
Roundup: Health sites to merge, Google may embrace traditional ads and more (1)
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1 week, 5 days
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Here’s the latest action: Health site operators plan to team up against WebMD — The merger between Revolution Health Network and Waterfront Media is valued at $300 million, and should help the combined companies take on with market leader WebMD. We’ve heard that Revolution was trying to sell for $400 million a couple months ago, but difficult times call for difficult deals. Google rethinking its aversion to traditional advertising — The search giant has relied ...
Shaky economy drives users to LinkedIn » VentureBeat (13)
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1 week, 6 days
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When it comes to the current financial crisis, not everyone is suffering equally. In fact, professional networking site LinkedIn has gotten a boost from the bad times — unemployment, or the threat of unemployment, is sending many new users to the site. Not surprisingly, a lot of that boost comes from the financial sector, where many venerable institutions recently collapsed. LinkedIn says new member sign-ups from the investment banking industry have more than doubled in ...
Microsoft embraces the cloud with Amazon’s help (5)
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Microsoft, the king of traditional, desktop-based software companies, has two pieces of news today showing its movement into the Internet cloud. First, Amazon said its Elastic Compute Cloud — its popular environment for running web applications — will now support the Microsoft Windows Server. Then, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer talked some more about Microsoft’s operating system for the creation of web apps, which will be formally announced in a Los Angeles developer conference at ...
Boxes — where Facebook widgets go to die (1)
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Here’s another sign that widgets and badges won’t do well in the new Facebook redesign. Nick O’Neill of All Facebook just posted a chart showing traffic to his “Bush Countdown Clock” widget, and boy, has it taken a tumble. Granted, O’Neill’s widget is little more than a gag — it’s just a badge that users put in their profile to signal they’re literally counting the days until President Bush leaves office — so there’s a ...
Google stock falls $200 as market closes — oops, false alarm (6)
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2 weeks
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Hey, did you hear that? That was the sound of Google stockholders bursting into tears of relief. Google stocks appeared to fall off a cliff during the final few minutes of trading today (Silicon Alley Insider has a minute-by-minute breakdown), plummeting from more than $400 per share to around $200. Luckily, it turns out Nasdaq is declaring a “do-over,” canceling all trades above $425.28 or below $400.53. Given yesterday’s stock market carnage, during which Google ...
Send Word Now raises $14M for emergency notifications (2)
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2 weeks, 1 day
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Send Word Now, a New York startup that allows organizations to send out mass alerts, has raised $14 million in a fourth round of funding. The company’s goal is to provide government agencies, universities, nonprofit groups and others with a way to disseminate information, particularly in emergency situations where getting the news out quickly can save lives. For example, Tufts University hired Send Word Now to implement an alert system last year in the wake ...
Embeddable wall brings Cooliris to any website (1)
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I’ve been hearing a lot of positive things about Cooliris, the Kleiner Perkins-backed startup that allows users to explore media through a “fullscreen 3D” wall. Last week, the team shared some numbers that back up the positive buzz — the browser plugin currently has around 2.4 million active users per month, and it’s downloaded 30,000 to 50,000 times per day. Also, the plugin serves 8 to 9 billion pieces of content every month, and Cooliris ...
Digital Signal is watching you? Startup promises exciting and creepy advance in video surveillance (1)
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3 weeks, 5 days
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A venture-backed startup called the Digital Signal Corporation is developing technology that could take video surveillance to a whole new level. Instead of just showing you a video image, Digital Signal’s laser radar system provides a range of biometric data, so security groups or others using the system can quickly tell when someone appears to be particularly nervous or tense, and therefore catch potential terrorists, shoplifters, card counters and others in the act. There’s not ...
