WPTE: Real-Time ECN for WPT ENTERPRISES, INC - Yahoo! Finance

WPTE: Real-Time ECN for WPT ENTERPRISES, INC - Yahoo! Finance: "WPT ENTERPRISES, INC (RT-ECN)
Symbol:WPTE
Last Trade:11.87 4:01PM ET
After Hours Change: 5.31 (80.95%)
Today's Change: 5.25 (79.31%)
Bid:3.15
Ask:11.00"

The Black Box That Would Conquer Telecom - March 1, 2006

"And that's what makes it as disruptive as a leaf blower in a feather factory: Vyatta's router will cost about a fifth the price of comparable models from big networking equipment makers such as Cisco Systems. 'Open-source is providing real competition to the commercial telecom companies,' says John Todd, an open-source telephony expert. 'It will force them to improve.'
Even as open-source software has ravaged the bottom lines of Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, Cisco and Juniper Networks continue to enjoy fat margins selling expensive gear running proprietary software. But as corporate IT managers switch to open-source for operating systems (Linux), Web servers (Apache), and databases (MySQL), many are realizing that they spend an even bigger portion of their budgets on networking equipment: routers and switches to direct traffic, firewall devices to ensure security, and PBXs to run office phone systems."

3. Picture services aim to help ease-of-use problems

Sprint announced it will launch this spring Picture Mail groups, a service that allows subscribers to create an online community about any subject and invite friends with an email address or Sprint phone to add pictures, video clips and text of their own at no additional cost. And Seattle-based Vizrea has introduced the Vizrea Snap service, which can automatically move pictures between a phone, PC and the Web.

These services might help push the camera-phone market along. In-Stat has said that only a tiny percentage of camera phones are used regularly to transmit pictures or to store for later use. Less than a third of camera phone owners surveyed by In-Stat indicated that they share picture messages with friends. One of the reasons was that they were turned off by the difficulty of creating and sending pictures.

intermix

Brad Greenspan, founder of Intermix Media Inc., has sued VantagePoint Venture Partners and current Intermix executives and directors. He claims that the defendants breached their fiduciary duty in selling Intermix to News Corp. last year for $580 million - a price he believes didn't reflect the growth potential of Intermix property MySpace.com. Greenspan tried to use his remaining Intermix equity position to block the takeover, but failed. www.intermix.com

EarlyStageVC: Traditional Venture Capital Sure Seems Broken - It's About Time

To make a modest venture return on a $500M fund, you need to generate $1B. Assuming you own an average of 20% of companies at the exit, you need to create $5B of shareholder value. If the average IPO valuation is $216M (per VentureOne, according to a WSJ article last week), that means you need 23 IPOs in a portfolio of 30 companies. The math worked when venture funds were $200M and exits were $500M. It doesn’t work when the numbers are reversed.

SiliconBeat: Redpoint Ventures raises $400 million, despite mediocre results

megite

we received an email from matthew chen introducing us to megite.com - "It is the newspaper for anyone interested in what's happening right now by intelligently uncovering the most relevant items from auto discovered news sites and weblogs."


techcrunch profiles the company:
TechCrunch � Is Megite a Contender?

Google, Earthlink hook up for San Fran wi-fi - WebWatch - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

"EarthLink has teamed up with Google on a bid to offer free wireless internet access throughout the city of San Francisco and a premium service for a fee, a Google spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
The Google-EarthLink bid was among six presented to the city by Tuesday, the bidding deadline, according to a statement from the office of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. A review panel is expected to make recommendations by early April, the statement said.
The other proposals were submitted by Communication Bridge Global, MetroFi, NextWLAN, Razortooth Communications (dba RedTAP) and SF Metro Connect (a joint venture of community-computing not-for-profit SeaKay and Cisco Systems and IBM)."

Digital Imaging Firms Team on PC-Free Photo Transfers Between Devices

Digital Imaging Firms Team on PC-Free Photo Transfers Between Devices

Orlando, Fla. - A group of digital camera, camera phone and portable media player makers has announced the development of guidelines aimed at increasing interoperability between the devices. Epson, HP, IDS, Olympus, PortalPlayer and Samsung are backing the PictSync technology, which enables the transfer of digital photos between two portable devices that can capture or store images -- without the need of a computer. "Today, it can be difficult for the average consumer to transfer an image from a camera phone or digital camera to a personal media player without first transferring the image to a PC. Even then, it may not be possible because data structures, transfer protocols and synchronization policies are not followed consistently by all manufacturers," said PictSync facilitator Felix Nemirovsky. "Clearly defined interoperability guidelines using existing industry standards such as MPV, DCF, MSC, PTP and others will enable fast, easy and consistent sharing or archiving of digital photo in portable media players and other non-PC devices."
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=110586
http://www.pictsync.com

China Claims 400M Mobile Phone Users - Yahoo! News

"China's mobile phone market, already the world's biggest, has passed 400 million users, the government said Thursday.


The number of subscribers on the country's mainland rose 5.4 million in January to 398 million, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the Ministry of Information Industry.
It said that with further growth this month, the total number has hit 400 million by this point, though it didn't give an exact figure."

About Wikia - Wikia

"Wikia, Inc. was founded by Jimmy Wales in 2004. Originally a project to create a search engine, Wikia expanded in October 2004 when Angela Beesley and Jimmy Wales founded Wikicities, with the aim of creating freely hosted wiki communities. In February 2005, the Wikia search engine became a project of Wikicities. Further expansion in 2005 saw the acquisition of Memory Alpha, a large Star Trek wiki, in February, and Wikicities:Uncyclopedia, a parody site, in May. In October 2005, Kennisnet launched the first of their Wikia-hosted Dutch educational wikis, and Michael Davis was hired as Wikia's Chief Operating Officer. The company re-incorporated in Delaware in January 2006. "

Bessemer just funded them

mobile marketing comps

NeoMedia is behaving like a lottery winner in a shopping mall…the latest acquisition is London-based Sponge, which develops mobile applications for agencies and media groups. “The agreement with Sponge signed earlier this week calls for an aggregate of $17.4 million consideration, including $6 million in cash and the remainder in NeoMedia shares, with an additional $4.35 million available under an earn-out if Sponge meets pre-determined earnings targets over the next two years.�
Recent Acquisitions:
–Mobot
–HipCricket (intends to buy)
–12Snap
–Gavitec
The purpose of this $62.1 million shopping spree is to become the leading mobile marketing agency in North America and Europe. Sponge focuses on tools that its customers deploy in an extensive range of SMS- and MMS-based entertainment and mobile marketing applications, as well as handset software solutions for marketing and promotional agencies, and for media groups. It was the company behind the recent on-pack promotion for Walkers Crisps in which more than 5% of the UK participated.

mblox - moconews.net

mBlox has raised $25 million to accelerate its new product roll-out and extend its global footprint. The equity investment was led by new investor Trident Capital and supported by existing mBlox investors including BA Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Novus Ventures and Avanti Capital Ltd.
mBlox plans to use the funds for acquisitions in Europe and Asia, infrastructure advancements, and global expansion of mBlox’s mobile transaction network services. mBlox also made a promise to “abstain from engaging in the provision or promotion of content�, apparently to reassure its clients that it would not become a competitor.
“mBlox provides message delivery and mobile billing services to businesses worldwide. As the only company to focus exclusively on providing a global mobile transaction network, mBlox has secured leadership in major markets including the United States and Europe, processing over 1bn mobile business transactions worth approximately $400M in 2005.�

TechCrunch � Foldera: Never organize your inbox again

Huntington Beach, California based Foldera’s goal is to organize all of the chaos surrounding work based documents (email, calendar, office documents, instant messaging, etc). It is a very big idea.

The company is in private beta right now, with a full launch on the way.

Burnham's Beat: Hedge Funds, Venture Capital and The 25% Solution

insightful article

MercuryNews.com | 02/22/2006 | Software services companies get hotter among VCs

"In the past year, venture capitalists had flings with one hot investment idea after another. Now, another promising opportunity could be getting a lot more love in coming months -- software as a service, where customers use software over the Internet.Software-as-a-service companies have already been attracting attention. Venture funds in the United States poured $460 million into them last year.Traditional software companies, where customers buy expensive programs they install and run in-house, received just as big a welcome, but this may end.``If a company came by and said my business is closing multimillion-dollar (traditional) software deals, I don't think I would take that meeting,'' said Keith Benjamin, managing director at Levensohn Venture Partners.This new attitude has evolved slowly but is gaining momentum in the past six months. It is offering an abrupt statement to the software industry as a whole: The shift to a new model where revenue comes more like monthly rent payments, rather than big upfront checks, is taking hold."

YouTube - robot dance

Hummer and consumer subscription models

"At Hummer Winblad, we are seeing a tremendous number of innovative consumer-facing subscription services. Be it on-line storage, photo sharing, social networking, or other creative ideas, there appear to be a myriad of businesses emerging that are dependent on subscription-based business models"

Venture Chronicles: PHP investment by SAP Ventures

Tim Bray has an interesting post on PHP, which actually gets interesting in the updates (which he appends to from email because he doesn’t have comments, pity). When SAP did the Zend investment a lot of time was spent on the technical due diligence. The slap on PHP has always been that it’s a scripting language trying to be a “grown up� development language… you often hear this from older developers or, for lack of a better term, technology snobs.

"In the end, the strength of PHP for the investment decision came down to the fact that there were so many developers using it on so many websites. Community, it�s increasingly coming down to the community and not the technology. "

Sportingbet PLC | Reuters.com

"Sportingbet (SBT.L: Quote, Profile, Research), Britain's second-biggest online gaming group, beat forecasts with a 72 percent gain in second-quarter profit and said on Wednesday it was planning to launch new online games.
But its shares fell after the company said that a major shareholder was cashing in 17 million of the shares it received on selling Sportingbet its Paradise Poker Web site in 2004.
Finance Director Andrew McIver told a conference call Sportingbet would soon launch new casino-type games to broaden its existing portfolio, which already includes roulette, sports betting and the world's number four poker site, Paradise Poker.
Profit before tax rose to 27 million pounds ($47.1 million) in the three months to Jan. 31, while its average poker commission rose 107 percent to $542,000 a day."

Light Reading - Broadband - AirBand Secures $8M - Telecom News Wire

"airBand Communications, Inc., the largest fixed wireless company for business customers in the United States, announced today that it closed a new round of $8 million in funding. Key Venture Partners led the round with participation from existing investors Sevin Rosen Funds, Crescendo Ventures and Dolphin Equity Partners.
�This investment validates the disruptive role fixed wireless technology will play in the telecom industry as we begin to deliver a broader bundle of services across the network with economics that traditional providers can�t touch,� said airBand President and CEO Mark Spagnolo. �We intend to use the funding to significantly broaden our offerings, expand our footprint and deliver truly integrated services over our wireless network.� "

Securities Industry News - Vantage Reporting

"Vantage Reporting today announced that Bain Capital has implemented the Vantage Precision Tailoring Framework and Vantage Investor component-based software module to extend and enhance the $27 billion private investment firm's investor reporting. Given industry-wide pressure to provide increased business processing efficiency and transparency, Bain Capital turned to Vantage Reporting because of the provider's specialized focus on private investment firms and unique ability to tailor its software to meet their specific needs."

Venture Capital's Space Shot - Forbes.com

"If you think venture capital's hype has gotten ahead of its performance lately, consider this: The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is raising its own fund.
By next week, NASA hopes to have gathered a bunch of ideas from investing entrepreneurs on the particulars of its proposed Red Planet fund, and the aim is to get something launched before the end of this year. Lisa Lockyer, the acting deputy director for NASA's innovative partnerships program, says it's too early to talk about the fund in detail, but she says the agency is getting interest from a number of established venture capitalists.
Red Planet Capital isn't going to be pouring a huge amount of money into startup aerospace and rocketry projects. Its initial plans call for annual investments in the neighborhood of $20 million ($11 million for 2006), which is a pittance in the venture capital world. But it is symbolically important."

Focus Ventures - VentureWire Professional

VentureWire Professional: "Focus Ventures is closing in on a new fund of up to $250 million, its first since 1999.

General Partner Steven Bird said the Palo Alto, Calif.-based later-stage investor is still talking to limited partners but already has closed on $185 million with another $40 million committed. It is looking to start investing the new pool in April, he said.

This will be the firm's third fund. It is smaller than the $465 million prior fund, but Focus has found a niche since the tech bubble in putting modest amounts of capital into technology companies financed by large, early-stage firms who want to make a substantial investment in the new round. Bird said that in most cases, prior investors want to provide half to three-quarters of the round."

Since closing Fund II in December 1999, Focus has backed 57 companies for the first time, according to VentureOne, a venture industry tracker owned by Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of VentureWire. Three of those have gone public, 11 have been acquired, 12 are out of business and the rest are still private and independent.

YouTube is not a real business - The Jason Calacanis Weblog

hmm

ContentSutra :: Mauj To Get Funding From WestBridge Capital, Intel And Sequoia Capital

"ContentSutra Exclusive: We hear from our sources that Mumbai-based mobile content company Mauj Mobile is all set to get funding from three VCs. They include WestBridge Capital Partners, Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital. The amount of investment is not clear which we hope to get in the next few days. An announcement is likely very soon.

It's interesting to note that WestBridge has already invested in Nazara, another Mumbai-based mobile content company (we had reported this first). So they have two companies in the same space in their portfolio. This is the second VC deal in the Indian mobile content space. And WestBridge is involved in both.

MAUJ is the wireless division of the People Group, which is also involved in Internet businesses (Shaadi.com, Fropper.com) and Film Production (People Pictures). The company was founded by Anupam Mittal in 1997. "

YouTube - Green Day Yahoo! Commercial

YouTube - Aya Ueto Yahoo!Japan CM

YouTube - Divizia Sexy Revine In Forta

footnoted.org�Blog Archive � Sweeter than a chocolate shake�

"Buried in the S-1 that Burger King filed yesterday was this interesting little disclosure about the company�s new headquarters building, which is currently under construction.
Turns out that the company building the 224,638 square-foot building in Coral Gables happens to be owned by one of Burger King�s newest directors: Armando Codina. Codina, 59, joined Burger King�s board in November, according to the filing, and is founder and Chairman of the Codina Group, a real estate developer in Coral Gables. He also sits on a few boards: AMR (AMR), General Motors (GM), BellSouth (BLS) and this past summer, joined Merrill Lynch�s (MER) board. Burger King, the newest board, will be No. 5.
In the filing, Burger King says it plans to pay $5 million a year to lease the new building, which will not be ready until 2008, and that it has signed a 15 year lease for the building. So, that�s a $75 million deal. Yet, amazingly, Codina is still considered an independent director. Now that�s pretty sweet."

China Venture News - China Investment News - Orchid Asia�s Gabriel Li on China Investments

"As part of CVN�s new weekly China VC interview series, I managed to catch up with Gabriel Li, managing director of Orchid Asia Investment as he makes plans to return to China. Orchid Asia Group Management Ltd. recently closed its third fund, Orchid Asia III, LP, raising more than US$180 million. Li has been investing in China for over ten years and is widely regarded as one of the first international private equity investors in China.
His bullish attitude about China�s venture capital future and the advent of more Chinese-style entrepreneurialism is fueled by his fund�s earlier successful first round investment in Ctrip.com International (Nasdaq:CTRIP), a leading travel service provider
specialized in discounted air ticket and hotel reservation in China, which returned over 20 times the initial investment. Orchid Asia also invested in the first round of Eachnet, the largest online acuction company in China, which was
subsequently sold to eBay (Nasdaq: Ebay for about 5 times return."

Barron's Online - Thiel

"But for Thiel, the second act may be even better than the first. Thiel, in short, is racking up an astonishing record as a hedge-fund manager. Since its inception in late 2002, Clarium has more than tripled its money, net of fees. Last year alone, the fund returned 57% net to investors. The stunning performance has attracted considerable investor attention: The fund now has $1.6 billion in assets. If Thiel can keep this up, no one will care what he did before.
As we've noted previously ('Game Theory,' March 1, 2004, and 'Beyond $50 Barrels,' Oct. 4, 2004), Thiel's investment style largely involves making huge macro bets on the future of the economy and the financial markets. In our initial piece two years ago, Thiel laid out a four-pronged investment strategy. One, he predicted a coming period of deflation and lower interest rates, triggered in large part by a drop in real-estate pricing, and loaded up on 10-year bonds. Two, he forecast a substantial slide in the dollar. Three, he took a bearish stance on U.S. stocks, anticipating a big drop in prices. And fourth, he argued that oil, then in the $30 range, was underpriced by at least a factor of two, and deserved to be $50-to-$60 a barrel."

Barron's Online - Divining Truths from Insider Stock Sales

"Amid worries over a housing bubble, homebuilders Hovnanian Enterprises slid 48% and Toll Brothers dropped 29% in the six months following sales in June and July, respectively."

PlayStation 3 costs $900, sez Merrill Lynch mob - Engadget

If there are some people out there right now who are in the know when it comes to what the hell is going on -- we mean really going on -- with Sony, it's those investment firms. But even barring their research analysts getting all kinds of privvy information from direct executive input or connections on the supply side, it's kind of funny when one of these investment firms lets loose some juicy gossip. Like that Sony's albatross PlayStation 3 is going to cost them $900 per unit at launch. $900 per unit?

Telecom Trends, Wireless, News, Resources, Articles

Telecom Trends, Wireless, News, Resources, Articles

WSJ.com - No Longer Just the Facts

WSJ.com - No Longer Just the Facts: "Once upon a market dreary, which meandered, weak and weary,
Given many a quaint and curious report of macroeconomic lore --
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping on my trading floor.
' 'Tis some investor, ' I muttered, 'rapping on my trading floor--
Only this and nothing more.'
Ah, I do recall cold sober it was in the bleak October;
And each separate widening spread wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow -- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my trades surcease of sorrow -- sorrow for the lost bravado--
For the appetite for risk that had been widespread heretofore--
Gone this month for evermore.
And the sudden, sad, uncertain busting of each merger spread
Thrilled me -- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
' 'Tis some investor entreating entrance to my trading floor--
Some nice investor entreating entrance to my trading floor--
That it is and nothing more.'"

Software, Internet companies ripe for buyouts in '06 - Feb. 17, 2006

"Of the 'Web 2.0' companies, social networking sites will continue to generate interest, as they did last year, when Newscorp bought Myspace.com and Yahoo! bought photo sharing Web site Flickr and bookmark-sharing Web site Del.icio.us.
Social networking companies such as Linked In and Plaxo -- which help manage huge networks of people and allow users to keep their contacts current -- fit the bill, according to Brian Skiba, managing director at Arma Partners, an investment banking firm that focuses on technology companies. So do social communities such as video sharing Web site YouTube, which counts venture capital firm Sequoia Capital as an investor, as does Linked In."

EETimes.com - Micron buys plant for sensor business

" In a move to support its fast-growing CMOS image sensor business, Micron Technology Inc. on Friday (Feb. 17) said that it has purchased an 8-inch fab facility from Zilog Inc. in Nampa, Ida. for $5 million.
Micron (Boise, Ida.) plans to use the facility for the final stages of image sensor production and other fabrication processes. The company, a leading supplier of CMOS image sensor solutions, purchased the 8-inch wafer fabrication facility and surrounding land from Zilog and its affiliate for a total consideration of $5 million. "

WSJ.com - Will red-hot China plays end up burning Hong Kong investors?

"Many of the hottest China plays are those tapping its rapidly growing consumer spending power. Fueling what some analysts call a 'China consumption mania' was December's revelation from the National Bureau of Statistics that the economy was 16.8% larger than previously stated, mostly because of undercounting of output in the services sector.
Then, last month, China said its economy grew 9.9% in 2005. And statistics showed that China, which last year leapfrogged Italy and France, had overtaken the U.K. to become the world's fourth-largest economy, following the U.S., Japan and Germany."

EETimes.com - Indian VC activity declined in 2005, says report

"Private equity and venture capital firms invested about $1.5 billion in 125 Indian companies during 2005, slightly down on the year before, according to an AltAssets report that referenced Venture Intelligence India, as its source.
The 2005 Indian VC activity represented a slight decrease from 2004 when 129 companies raised $1.6 billion. A total of 63 out of the 125 companies closed rounds of over $10 million, the report said.
�In today's investment climate, Silicon Valley VCs tend to like technology companies with a cost-effective offshore component. Companies with Indian founders are well equipped to leverage their India connections and quickly set up strong R&D or back-end operations in their country of origin,� the report quoted Arun Natarajan of Venture Intelligence India, as saying. "

Solarflare Communications :: About SOLARFLARE

"SOLARFLARE Communications, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company dedicated to becoming the leading provider of innovative solutions for network and system connectivity at the furthest limits.

SOLARFLARE'S products redefine the speed and distance capabilities of widely installed and new types of low-cost physical media, enabling significant new markets while allowing existing networks to migrate to higher speeds without costly infrastructure upgrades. "

Nuance Communications Sues Tellme Networks: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"Nuance Communications Files Lawsuit Against Tellme Networks Over Patent Infringement
BOSTON (AP) -- A patent dispute has erupted between a provider of speech-recognition technology and a manager of voice-driven phone systems for several large directory-assistance and customer-service clients.
Shares of Nuance Communications Inc. rose more than 9 percent to a 52-week high Friday after the company filed a federal lawsuit against privately held Tellme Networks Inc.
Nuance, however, says it doesn't expect its lawsuit will disrupt services, even though the complaint seeks an injunction to halt what Nuance considers an infringement on patents covering technology for receiving voice input and database query techniques.
'Our intent is to cause zero disruption with current services,' said Richard Mack, a spokesman for Burlington-based Nuance.
The two companies have done business together for years, with Nuance providing speech-recognition technologies that Tellme licenses to manage phone systems for automated customer services and for 411 directory information.
Tellme's customers include Verizon Communications Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Fidelity Investments and UnitedHealth Group Inc., and it also operates the 1-800-555-1212 directory service.
Tellme spokeswoman Marci Gottlieb said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation."

Print Story: NTT DoCoMo, RealNetworks in video software tie-up on Yahoo! News

"NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437.T), Japan's largest mobile operator, said on Friday it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with RealNetworks Inc. (Nasdaq:RNWK - news) to jointly deploy software to boost video streaming capabilities for DoCoMo's phones.
The move reflects DoCoMo's efforts to beef up its new video streaming service, a company spokesman said.
Under the MOU, RealNetwork, a maker of software for playing video and music on computers, will aim to develop an open software environment enabling content providers to use their own multiformat servers to stream video content over the Internet to DoCoMo's handsets.
Shares in DoCoMo closed down 0.56 percent at 176,000 yen prior to the announcement, compared with a 1.60 percent fall in the benchmark TOPIX (^TOPX - news) index. "

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits: "A Logical Move: Cutting Print Stock Tables"

Home sales falter, hinting at slowdown

"Bay Area home sales tumbled to their lowest level in five years last month, and prices hovered well below record territory, further evidence that the region's seemingly unstoppable housing boom may have peaked with the blistering market of 2005.
What remains to be seen is whether the new figures amount to a hiccup or the beginning of prolonged slowdown.
'The various scenarios are that the market takes a deep, deep downturn to reach an equilibrium or comes in for a soft landing,' said DataQuick analyst John Karevoll, who noted that the first two months of the year are generally poor statistical gauges of the market's direction. "

Venture Capital Access Online | Venture Capital News

"Demandware, Inc. (www.demandware.com), provider of the Software as a Service (SaaS)-based ecommerce platform that offers merchants the optimal combination of control, flexibility and a usage-based pricing model, today announced that it has raised a $12 million Series B round of funding, bringing its total raised capital to $22 million. The round was co-led by both of Demandware's Series A investors, General Catalyst Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners, with participation from Demandware management. The financing will be used to support the continuous enhancement of Demandware's ecommerce solution functionality, support its hiring plans, and expand the Company's sales and marketing activities in order to capitalize on the market opportunity for ecommerce solutions.

'We are pleased to have received a vote of confidence from both of our Series A investors through this latest round of funding,' said Stephan Schambach, CEO of Demandware. 'Both Larry Bohn of General Catalyst Partners and Michael Skok of North Bridge Venture Partners are experienced and knowledgeable investors in this market space. Our management team is looking forward to working with Larry and Michael to build on our mutual success, leveraging the tremendous knowledge, experience and network of contacts that they offer.' "

ApaceWave to begin volume shipments of WiMAX chips in 2007 | TG Daily

"ApaceWave Technology, a Silicon Valley-based broadband wireless solution provider, is expected to start production of WiMAX chips by the end of this year, with volume shipments slated to begin in 2007, according to company sources. The development of the company�s WiMAX chips is expected to gain momentum, now that the company has received all of its first round of venture-capital funds, totaling US$12 million, from investors who include Venrock Associates and Doll Capital of the US, as well as WK Associates and the Fortune Consulting Group of Taiwan, the sources indicated."

Mass High Tech: Spine Wave

"Spine Wave Inc. of Shelton, Conn., has closed on a new $36.5 million Series C round of equity financing.

The new round was led by existing investor New Enterprise Associates with new investor Foundation Medical Partners. Also participating in the financing were existing investors Canaan Partners, Morgenthaler Venture Partners, Sprout Capital, Thoma Cressey Equity Partners, CHL Medical Partners, and California Technology Partners.

According to company officials, Spine Wave is a medical device company focused on the development of advanced materials, techniques and implant systems for spine surgery for three of the largest and fastest growing spinal market segments: nuclear replacement and augmentation, vertebral compression fracture repair and spinal fusion.

The company has raised a total of approximately $80 million in funding to date."

symc and mobile | Reuters.com

"BARCELONA (Reuters) - Corporations are starting to invest to mobile security software, but among consumers the takeup is still at least a year away, a senior official of U.S. security software firm Symantec (SYMC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday.
'In enterprises, this is starting to happen now, but in consumer side I would not expect a large uptake at least for a year,' Sarah Hicks, vice president for strategy, told Reuters in an interview at mobile communications fair 3GSM in Barcelona.
She said the world's largest security software maker was benefiting from its wide customer base among corporations who are starting to invest in mobile security software as the amount of advanced handheld devices grows.
'I think (our customer base) is a huge benefit to us ... we have a lot of our existing customers coming to us. They are looking for their traditional security provider,' she said.
'In the consumer market, it is going to be operator driven. In enterprises, the market is more direct,' she said. "

IBM to invest $1 bln for "info-on-demand" practice | Reuters.com

"IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will invest $1 billion to develop software and recruit thousands of consultants over the next three years to expand its business of making corporate information more accessible to office workers, the company said on Thursday."

KPCB and BCRX - Forbes.com

"Silicon Valley powerhouse venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is delving into new territories: bio-defense, infectious disease and clean technologies. The 30-year-old firm, which has traditionally invested in information technology and life science companies, announced today that it has already raised money for two new funds--a $200 million Pandemic and Bio Defense Fund, and a $100 million Green Technologies fund. It's already made one investment with its bio-defense fund and five investments in the Green Techologies fund.

The Pandemic and Bio Defense fund is intended to accelerate innovation in an area that has aroused widespread concern, particularly due to the spread of the avian flu in Asia, Africa and now Europe. 'There's been a dearth of innovation around infectious disease,' said Kleiner Perkins partner Brook Byers. 'We want more people to pay attention to this problem.'"

MercuryNews.com | 02/16/2006 | Venture fund first to back biodefense

"One of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture-capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has raised the nation's first fund to invest in companies developing drugs and technologies to prevent and combat pandemics.The $200 million fund, expected to be announced today, accompanies the raising of a separate $600 million fund by the firm for its regular investment activities -- which include information technology, life sciences and other fast-growing industries.The pandemic fund, formally called the ``KPCB Pandemic and Bio Defense Fund,'' is significant because it comes at a time of heightened public awareness about the risks of a breakout of avian flu and other diseases. The bird-flu virus now spreading in Asia and Turkey can infect humans who come into contact with infected birds. If the virus mutates into a human-transmitted disease, it will move around the world with shocking speed, experts and governments have warned."

XenSource gets new CEO, direction | CNET News.com

"XenSource, a start-up trying to commercialize software that lets several versions of Linux run on the same computer, has chosen a new chief executive and altered its business strategy.
Peter Levine has replaced co-founder Nick Gault as CEO, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up plans to announce Wednesday. Levine most recently spent three years as a managing director at the Mayfield Fund venture capital firm. Before that, he led marketing, product development and business development at storage-software maker Veritas for 11 years.
Although Xen's influence has been spreading, making a business out of the software is a different challenge. Although IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other industry allies are helping XenSource to improve the Xen foundation, they become potential competitors when it comes to selling management tools such as XenSource's XenOptimizer. The Xen foundation this year is becoming a standard part of Linux versions from the two leading sellers of the open-source operating system, Red Hat and Novell. "

Word is they are getting eaten alive by VMWARE

WSJ.com - Software Makers Launch Simpler Antivirus Services

"Keeping your computer in good health is about to get simpler.
Over the next year, a number of major software makers are rolling out new antivirus services that aim to 'automate' the way consumers protect and maintain their PCs -- bundling a number of different computer-protection programs into one product that updates itself frequently. The programs will stop viruses, prevent 'phishing' fraud, back up data, and check up on a PC's overall health. The new services are also altering the way users pay for keeping their antivirus protection up to date.
Microsoft Corp. last week detailed plans for Windows OneCare Live, taking a major step into the antivirus business. The new software and Internet service is designed to automatically monitor the health and performance of a PC over the Web, fixing problems when it finds them and regularly installing new software to fight threats. While most antivirus services sell software that comes with one year of updates and charge for new versions after that, Microsoft will charge an annual fee of $49.95 for OneCare."

WSJ.com - VC Firm Makes Move Into China

"Another U.S. venture-capital firm is moving into the increasingly competitive China market -- but this time, with some big-name partners.
Ignition Partners, the boutique Bellevue, Wash., firm founded by several former Microsoft Corp. executives, has hired Gary Rieschel, the founder of Silicon Valley's Mobius Venture Capital, and Duane Kuang, the former director of Intel Capital China, to help run a new $200 million China investment fund. Intel Capital is the venture-capital arm of chip maker Intel Corp.
Two U.S.-based Ignition partners -- Rich Tong and John Zagula -- also will be partners in the new fund, called Qiming Venture Partners. Messrs. Tong and Zagula plan to move with their families to Shanghai this summer. Qiming's fifth partner is Edward Zhou, a former business-development executive with Cisco Systems Inc. Messrs. Zhou and Kuang were both born in China."

CNN.com - Bird flu 'could take 142m lives'�� - Feb 15, 2006

"As many as 142 million people around the world could die if bird flu turns into a 'worst case' influenza pandemic, according to a sobering new study of its possible consequences.
And global economic losses could run to $4.4 trillion -- the equivalent of wiping out the Japanese economy's annual output."

iVillage bids likely to come in low - sources Reuters.com

"A $700 million price would imply an enterprise value of 24 to 29 times iVillage's estimated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for 2006, far more than the lofty multiples used to value Ask Jeeves, Intermix and About.com. About.com was sold for 23 times estimated EBITDA and IAC's AskJeeves purchase valued the Web portal at 15 times its cash flow.
WHO'LL TAKE A VILLAGE?
iVillage.com, the No. 1 women's community Web site, reaches nearly 11 percent of U.S. women aged 18 and older each month, according to comScore Media Metrix. The portal offers health, parenting and fashion advice and publishes a broad range of entertainment news aimed toward women, who now account for close to 60 percent of prime-time television viewers and make the majority of purchasing and entertainment decisions.
Shares of iVillage, which bought Women.com Networks Inc. in 2001, jumped 12 percent from their Monday closing price on Tuesday after the company said revenue grew while its quarterly net income more than tripled. The rally pulled iVillage's current market value up to about $560 million.
General Electric Co.'s (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) NBC Universal unit and Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) America Online unit have already made investments at points in the women's network."

PathScale to be acquired by QLogic for $109M: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"QLogic Corp. said on Wednesday that it has agreed to buy PathScale Inc. for $109 million in cash plus the assumption of oustanding unvested stock options.
QLogic (Nasdaq: QLGC - News) is based in Aliso Viejo. The company supplies Fibre Channel host bus adapters, blader server embedded Fibre Channel switches and Fibre Channel stackable switches for storage area networks. The company's products are used by firms like Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.
PathScale is headquartered in Mountain View. The company develops technologies that enable breakthroughs in high-performance computing, science and engineering.
The acquisition is expected to be completed in April.
Published February 15, 2006 by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal"

RED HERRING | Yahoo, AOL Email Move Blasted

"Yahoo and America Online�s plan to charge businesses for guaranteed delivery of their commercial email could potentially leave the Internet giants exposed to lawsuits for invasion of consumer privacy, industry experts said Tuesday.

Yahoo and AOL have said that they plan to charge businesses anywhere from a penny to a quarter of a cent as a fee to deliver bulk messages to their email subscribers (see AOL, Yahoo to Charge for Email). The fee is being labeled as an electronic postage stamp that guarantees compliance with anti-spam legislation. It would also certify the sender's email as authentic.

But industry experts said the plan is �dangerous� and �dead on arrival� because it violates the democratic principles of the Internet and will have little impact on spam, the biggest problem that email users face right now. What�s more, it�s likely to prompt a huge consumer backlash as users wouldn�t be able to control what kind of emails they receive."

WSJ.com - Former AOL Official Pittman Puts Web Firm Daily Candy Up for Sale

"As a fall guy for the disastrous merger between America Online and Time Warner Inc., Robert Pittman faded into obscurity after resigning from the company in 2002.
Four years later, Mr. Pittman could find some redemption in his latest business move. He stands to earn a potential windfall from a small Web business, called Daily Candy, that he has just put on the auction block. Mr. Pittman bought a controlling stake in the site for about $3.5 million in 2003. With traditional and electronic publishers keen to get their hands on Internet-advertising properties, Daily Candy could fetch more than $100 million, people familiar with the matter say."

Sprint Nextel customers download 1 million songs: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"Sprint Nextel Corp. said Wednesday that its customers have downloaded 1 million songs on the Sprint Music Store service.
In a written release, Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S - News) said that it launched the service Oct. 24. The company charges $2.50 a song. The service enables customers to browse, preview and buy songs from a catalog of more than 320,000 songs via mobile phones using the Sprint Power Vision network."

Official Google Blog: Here comes Measure Map

GOOG analytics acquisition:

"My first post to my blog was a little paragraph about my obsession with cycling, and I remember feeling a little ... let down. Sure, it was remarkably easy. Write. Click a button. Reload. Cool! But then what? It wasn't until someone left a comment that I was hooked. An audience! Someone is reading!

It was this feeling that led to the idea of Measure Map. Our goal has been to use the power of web analytics to help bloggers feel that same sense of connection with their audience. Today, as the Measure Map team joins Google, our mission remains the same: to build the best possible user experience so people can understand and appreciate the effect their blogs - their words and ideas - can have."

YouTube porn - hot foot

YouTube Porn - babe

YouTube - Grey's Anatomy 2/12/06 Episode

We wonder how long it takes before this episode of Grey's Anatomy gets pulled on youtube.

Video Details //
Runtime: 42:58 | Views: 13,867 | Comments: 25

YouTube porn - delhi girl

We wonder how long before this skit gets pulled.

Premarket Movers: Cisco Game for Shanda: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"Investors were game for shares of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. in premarket electronic trading Wednesday after networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. reported buying a large stake in the firm."

Review: Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition - Yahoo! News

"Going up against the likes of McAfee and Symantec is no easy task. However, Grisoft's AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, available as a free download from the company's Web site, is a viable alternative to what the established antivirus market leaders now offer. "

Oracle Acquires Sleepycat Software - Yahoo! News

"SAN FRANCISCO - Continuing a recent shopping spree, business software maker Oracle Corp. on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Sleepycat Software, which provides development tools used in open-source databases. "

Prosper: The online marketplace for people-to-people lending

Prosper: The online marketplace for people-to-people lending

Accel Partners
Benchmark Capital
Fidelity Ventures
Omidyar Network

Virgin Mobile Launches Mobile TV Service on Yahoo! News

"Virgin Mobile became the first European cellular network to launch a live digital TV service on mobile phones.
The mobile operator � part of British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin empire � will begin selling handsets equipped to receive the BT Group PLC's BT Movio digital television and radio services later this year, both companies said Tuesday.
Graeme Hutchinson, sales and marketing director at Virgin Mobile, emphasized that it's live television, unlike the prepackaged video downloads that have been available for some time of news reports, music videos and short series.
Major U.S. cell phone carriers have already started TV broadcasts, and trials are under way in many countries around the world. Handset makers Nokia and Sony Ericsson announced a joint mobile TV development program on Monday.
Virgin Mobile's launch was announced on the second day of the 3GSM World Congress in Spain, one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications trade shows.
Scores of exhibitors at 3GSM are showcasing mobile TV technology, which telecom carriers hope will unlock new sources of revenue and provide a return on their massive investments in third-generation phones and infrastructure.
Operators are upgrading their networks to cope with the increased demands of new services like video and music streaming and Internet browsing.
T-Mobile Chief Executive Rene Obermann told a news conference here that mobile access will become the primary way of reaching the Internet."

MSQL

"venture market summary
By VentureWire Staff Reporters
Even as rumors swirl about the fate and future independence of a number of open-source software start-ups, an acknowledged leader in the latest wave of open-source development, MySQL AB, has raised $18.5 million in its latest round of funding.
Both this financing and the speculation over a $700 million roll-up by Oracle of as many as three different open-source start-ups reflect the choices early-stage companies face between independence and acquisition.
At MySQL, the decision to raise capital was all about sending a message of independence to its customers and the market, according to the company's chief executive, Marten Mickos. 'A strong balance sheet is a great thing to show to customers or partners,' he said. 'Just to show -- hey, nothing can rock this boat.' "

NetLi

"Netli�, the fastest growing global service provider for accelerating applications and content over the Internet, today announced that it has raised more than $18 million to fuel further expansion of the company. Lead investor Granite Global Ventureswas joined in the round by all of Netli�s current investors, including Alta Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, BlueRun Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, and Reed Elsevier Ventures. "

North County Times - Business - Digital Orchid reaps $6M funding

"Digital Orchid, a wireless technology company, said Monday that it has raised $6 million in venture capital funding. The company makes software to enable electronic commerce, entertainment and news through cell phones.

Digital Orchid customers include Nascar.com, ESPN, Major League Baseball Advanced Media and a number of Latin American sports organizations. The company said in its Monday press release that more than 40 percent of its subscriber downloads came from outside the United States.
The investors are Shepherd Ventures, also of Carmel Valley; and NeoCarta Ventures, based in San Francisco and Boston. In December, 2004, Digital Orchid was funded by Qualcomm Ventures, the venture capital arm of telecom giant Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego."

business2blog: B2Day

"This video iPod will feature a display that will occupy the entire front face of the device. Sources who have seen the device report that it features a digital click wheel, one that overlays the touch-sensitive display and appears when a finger touches it and disappears when the finger is removed.

While not all the engineering was completed in-house by Apple, sources have said Apple could hold an exclusive license on the technologies it borrowed from other developers for a period of time, limiting the ability of competitors to copy Apple's design"

business2blog: B2Day

"managing a social space is way more about being a club promoter than about being a technologist. And sometimes being a good club promoter is knowing when a club needs to be retired."

Bloomberg.com: Asia - Focus Media

"Focus Media Holdings Ltd., China's biggest overseas-listed advertising company, plans to bring the lights of Times Square to Shanghai.
The Nasdaq-traded company, whose stock more than tripled since July, aims to install giant screens of light-emitting diodes in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, similar to those in New York's most-illuminated junction, Chief Executive Officer Jason Jiang said in a Feb. 9 interview.
The giant video screens on as many as 15 buildings, would increase competition with Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. and JC Decaux SA, the world's largest outdoor advertisers, in an ad market worth $39 billion. Retail sales in the world's most populous country climbed 12.5 percent last year as rising incomes encourage people to spend more on cars, homes and food. "

axa

"AXA SA's private equity unit is allocating $550 million for its first Asia-specific investment fund, seeking to capitalize on the region's economic growth.
Paris-based AXA Private Equity, the buyout unit of Europe's second-largest insurer, plans to invest another $1.5 billion to $2 billion in Asia over the next three to five years, Chief Executive Officer Dominique Senequier said. The firm wants to invest directly as well as with local partners and European entrepreneurs, the company said.
``It's necessary to be in Asia,'' Senequier said in an interview today with Bloomberg News. ``It's a very fast growing market in private equity and for economic reasons, it's obvious that we must be there.'' "

Barron's Online - In the Drink

"INVESTORS HAVE BEEN FIXATED on Google the past few weeks, as its shares have tumbled nearly 25% from a peak of $475 -- and the fact is, there could be a lot more tumbling ahead. The share price could well be cut in half over the next year as the Internet giant grapples with growing competition from Microsoft and Yahoo!, increased pricing pressures in its online ad sales and mounting concern about what's known as click fraud.
Suffice it to say, there are those who disagree: Fans insist that Google (ticker: GOOG) is headed to $500, maybe even $2,000. But the list of challenges the company faces is nothing short of mind-googling. As if Microsoft weren't enough, the search concern is headed for brawls with content providers like newspaper and book publishers. Phone and cable firms may also join the fray. Google's cost structure, meanwhile, is ballooning, with the company hiring thousands of new workers and mulling projects as far afield as space travel. If Google trips on even a few of the challenges, its earnings could easily disappoint.
To get a sense of what might happen to the stock, we gave one �ber-bull's 2006 revenue estimate for Google a 20% haircut, trimmed his projected expenses by 5% (but no further, because bulls greatly underestimate Google's costs), deducted stock-based compensation and, generously, gave the company credit for the considerable interest income on its cash. The result: Earnings would be 30% lower than the bull's projection, at $6.28 a share. If the stock were to maintain its current multiple of 41 on those lowered earnings, it would be worth $257. It's more likely the multiple would shrink to as low as 30, in line with the slower growth. That would make the stock worth $188, versus its recent $360"

Oracle may buy 3 more companies

"Oracle Corp. is in talks to spend up to $600 million to buy three software companies in its biggest embrace yet of open source software, according to news reports.
The Redwood City database giant is reportedly looking to bolster its offerings in the area of middleware by buying Atlanta's JBoss, which sells an open source version of application server software. The story, first reported by BusinessWeek Online, cited unnamed sources and said negotiations could still unravel. The price being talked about is $400 million, the reports said.
The other open source companies Oracle is reportedly eyeing are Sleepycat Software Inc. and Zend Technologies Inc., although the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Zend purchase looks doubtful."

RED HERRING | Security Startups Secure Funds

"Mazu Networks and Tizor separately announced new venture funding on Tuesday as the interest in security startups picked up in advance of the largest commercial security conference of the year.

Tizor said it bagged $15 million in its second round of funding, bringing the total amount it has raised since 2004 to $18 million. Mazu Networks said it collected $7 million in cash from its investors.

The funding came as digital security startups and large public companies gear up for RSA, the sector�s largest conference, which starts Monday in San Jose, California. Scheduled speakers include Bill Gates of Microsoft, John Chambers of Cisco, and John Thompson of Symantec.

Tizor�s Series B round was led by Hummer Winblad, and included Thor Technologies, Longworth Venture Partners, and Brabeion Software. Tizor closed the funding in January but company CEO, Prat Moghe, said he wanted to talk about the funding closer to the conference. "

RED HERRING | Fabless Semi Firm Snares $25M

"Newport Media, a fabless semiconductor firm that makes sophisticated chips for mobile TV receivers, said Thursday it had received $25 million in a second round of financing to continue research and development efforts, among other plans.

The round was led by Oak Investment Partners, and includes prior investors Benchmark Capital, Venrock Associates, Global Catalyst Partners, and Pinnacle Ventures. The round brings the company�s total funding to $36 million.

Mohy Abdelgany, Newport�s president and CEO, said the company still has much of its first round of financing, and that it will also use its venture war chest to ramp up production, sales, and marketing efforts.

Based in Lake Forest, California, Newport Media is one of many companies developing so-called �system-on-a-chip� solutions that support the major mobile TV standards. The aim is to give mobile users a better experience viewing video on the tiny screens typically associated with mobile devices. Such systems have to not only be workable on tiny screens but must also be skimpy on using power as well as cheap to make."

Tandberg TV Acquires SkyStream Networks for $80 Million

Tandberg TV Acquires SkyStream Networks for $80 Million

Southampton, U.K. - Tandberg Television, a provider of digital video delivery technology to networks and distributors, has acquired SkyStream Networks, a provider of Internet video delivery technology, for $80 million. Founded in 1996, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SkyStream employs 100 people and posted 2005 revenues of $30.7 million. U.K.-based Tandberg said the deal will allow it to expand its technology offering for IPTV with the addition of SkyStream's 300 customers, which include Reuters, Comcast, Clear Channel and EchoStar Communications.
http://www.tandbergtv.com/newsview.asp?n=556
http://www.skystream.com
____________________________________________

Bon Voyage, Vonage: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"Vonage is in a slightly different situation. It has a million subscribers, but it also has plenty of competition from other VOIP providers and free online providers. eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY - News) will pay as much as $4.1 billion for Skype, a software provider whose flagship chat program has been downloaded more than 250 million times. Skype users can voice-chat for free with other users over the Internet, or pay just pennies a minute to call mobile and landline phones. Even RadioShack (NYSE: RSH - News) is selling Skype handsets, wireless or stand-alone phones with seamless Skype integration."

Vonage's current financials don't look too appealing. The company has lost $190 million through the first nine months of 2005, significantly wider than the $43 million that it lost over the same nine months a year earlier. Sales growth has been spectacular, though, up 245% in that time to a hearty $174 million.

InternetRetailer.com - Zappos

"Shoe and handbag e-retailer Zappos.com Inc. in 2003 rung up $70 million in gross sales. In 2004, gross sales increased by 163% to $184 million. Last year they swelled 101% to $370 million. What next? Company executives are aiming this year for 62% growth�$600 million in sales.
The reason Zappos.com has been growing so well is the company�s focus on customer service, contends CEO Tony Hsieh. �Our focus is on providing the very best customer service and making sure we have that focus throughout the entire company, not just in our customer loyalty department,� Hsieh says. �Our growth primarily has come from repeat customers and word of mouth. Our revenue from repeat customers has increased such that on any given day more than 60% of our sales come from repeat customers. As long as we continue to focus on providing the best service, I believe we will have a good chance at hitting the 2006 target.�
The pure-play company, No. 45 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, hit numerous milestones last year. These included: increasing its customer base to more than 3 million; securing additional equity financing from Sequoia Capital, which also has funded Yahoo!, Google and Paypal; growing its workforce from 500 to 700 individuals; and adding a new warehouse, the company reports. "

MobileCrunch � Kajeet Promises Kids a Revolution, VC�s a HUGE MARKET CAP

MobileCrunch � Kajeet Promises Kids a Revolution, VC�s a HUGE MARKET CAP: "Just when you though the top tier VC�s had gone completely conservative, this news comes in out of left field that a massive first round of funding has been secured by pre-launch MVNO Kajeet.com, a Bethesda, Maryland based company focused on building out mobile communications services for the rapidly expanding youth market. The bet? a $27MM A-round lead by none other than Bessemer Venture Partners and syndicated with Gabriel Venture Partners, InterWest Partners and Fidelity Ventures."

Toll Brothers Cuts Delivery Forecast

"Toll Brothers (TOL:NYSE - news - research - Cramer's Take), continuing its adjustment to a less-frenzied housing market, reported another strong quarter of home sales Tuesday but again tempered expectations for its 2006 delivery rate.
The mansion purveyor said first-quarter homebuilding revenue rose 35% from a year ago to $1.33 billion, while its backlog rose 22% to $5.95 billion. Less impressive was the company's rate of signed contracts, which fell 21% to $1.14 billion amid uneven demand, and deliveries, which Toll said were below plan. "


We've been calling housing bubble and burst for some time - 1.5 years or so. It's time to take action and short the shit out of TOL

Google marries Gmail and instant messaging - vnunet.com

"Google has equipped the Gmail online email client with support for its Google Talk instant messaging service.
The new technology allows users to use instant messaging directly from the Gmail.com webpage, without having to download any client software.
While the service providers users access to Google Talk's instant messaging service, they are still required to use the Google Talk application to place voice calls over the internet."

YouTube - Commericals - Google

YouTube - Google Maps Ad

funny

YouTube - Googles evilness

Venture Capital News for entrepreneurs and investors | PowerFile secures series B funding

"PowerFile, Inc., an innovator in online archive solutions for long-term storage of fixed digital content today announced that it has received US $10 million in Series B funding. Silver Creek Ventures of Dallas, Texas led the round followed by Sequoia Capital, the initial investor in the Company.
Closure of this latest round of financing punctuates a year of noteworthy achievements for PowerFile, including general availability of the SA2000 Permanent Storage Appliance, several strategic alliances in the medical imaging and video surveillance sectors and several OEM agreements in digital home media market.
PowerFile has pioneered the concept of online archive, offering solutions that combine the speed of online access with the economy and integrity of new archiving technology to empower organizations of all sizes to efficiently search manage and permanently preserve valuable digital assets."

Playlist: Buying iPods from vending machines

"If you happened to be staying at the Argent Hotel in San Francisco for last week�s Macworld Expo, you might have noticed something odd about the vending machine in the lobby. Instead of popping in something south of a dollar, this machine will suck a few hundred bucks right from your checking account. But instead of spitting back some sort of God-awful tooth-rot that�s been sitting behind glass for the past twelve lifetimes, the ZoomShop machine in the Argent sells something much sweeter: iPods. "

EETimes.com - Philips not first with plastic RFID, claims startup

"Plastic-electronics developer PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG has contested a claim by Philips Research that Philips engineers realized the first plastic-electronics-based radio-frequency ID tag capable of transmitting multibit digital identification codes at 13.56 MHz.
The performance details of the Philips plastic circuit are being presented in San Francisco this week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, which runs through Feb. 9.
�We are happy to have a big player such as Philips in this market. But one thing we want to correct is, they were not the first. We have successfully demonstrated and published on a 13.56-MHz tag based on polymer materials,� Wolfgang Mildner, managing director of PolyIC, told EE Times in an e-mail. Mildner said PolyIC (Erlangen, Germany), a joint venture of Leonhard Kurz GmbH & Co. KG and Siemens AG, presented a paper on its RFID tag at an organic RFID conference held in October 2005. "

EETimes.com - Nvidia defends marketing program, say reports

"Graphics chip company Nvidia Corp. has gotten caught up in the debate about the ethics of viral marketing, as online reports have surfaced citing allegations�and denials�that Nvidia or its representatives paid people to endorse its products on message boards frequented by gaming enthusiasts.
At issue is whether the enthusiasts had a relationship with Nvidia and, if so, whether the parties should have declared it.
The story was picked up by The Consumerist Web site. Its account draws attention to the relationship between Arbuthnot Communications Inc. (Los Angeles), which trades as Arbuthnot Entertainment Group (AEG), and Nvidia.
According to the AEG�s Web site, AEG is a public relations agency that combines media relations with integrated online community development. It is the online community development aspect of AEG�s activities that has become a flash point. "

EETimes.com - TI, MIT claim lowest voltage SRAM

"Moving closer towards �ultra-dynamic voltage scaling� for future ICs, Texas Instruments Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Wednesday (Feb. 8) described what the entities claim is the industry�s lowest voltage, 65-nm SRAM device.
At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) here, MIT claims that it has developed an ultra-low-power, 256-kilobit SRAM based on TI�s 65-nm process technology.
Using ultra-dynamic voltage scaling techniques � reportedly pioneered by MIT � the 0.4-volt, sub-threshold SRAM achieves 2.25 times lower leakage power, as compared to its six-transistor counterpart at 0.6 volts, according to TI and MIT. The SRAM also claims to incorporate 10 transistors per bitcell to enable operations down to 400-mV.
Ultra-dynamic voltage scaling is seen as a promising technology to reduce voltages at the sub-threshold level, said Dennis Buss, vice president of silicon technology development at TI (Dallas). The technology could enable ultra-low power devices at �the 45-nm node and beyond,� Buss said in an interview at ISSCC.
The collaboration between TI and MIT is partially funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The development is part of an ongoing effort to create ultra-low power logic and memory devices for battery-operated products. "

EETimes.com - Conformative sale confirmed; no word on buyer

"Charles River Ventures, one of two venture companies that backed XML processing startup Conformative Systems Inc., has confirmed that Conformative has been acquired but declined to identify the buyer.
Conformative�s Web site has been down for several days, and executives of the Austin, Texas, company have not returned calls.
�Conformative has been acquired; however, the acquiring company is choosing to keep it under wraps for the near time. In respect for that decision, we are not commenting on what�s happening there right now,� a spokesperson for Charles River Ventures (Waltham, Mass.) told EE Times by e-mail.
Earlier, a source had told EE Times that Intel Corp. was believed to be the acquiring company but that the acquisition had not been considered materially significant; thus Intel had not filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission and had not issued a press release. But at the time an Intel spokesman said he was unaware of an acquisition of Conformative by Intel (see Feb. 3 story). "

SANTA MONICA--- TagWorld Announces Draper Fisher Jurvetson Funding; Tim Draper Joins TagWorld Board of Directors

"TagWorld, an integrated online social ecosystem, announced today that Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), a leading venture capital firm, has invested in the company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. DFJ is best known for its successful investments in companies such as Skype, Baidu, Overture, and Hotmail. DFJ's investment in TagWorld represents the firm's first venture in the social networking space.

Founder and Managing Director of DFJ, Tim Draper (tagworld.com/TimDraper), joins TagWorld's Board of Directors. Tim is recognized as a leader in his field and is one of the strongest and most influential advocates for entrepreneurs and free markets. 'We are excited about the social networking space and the growth of user generated content on the Internet. TagWorld has demonstrated remarkable growth and execution since their launch three months ago.'

DFJ's track record for identifying and investing in fast-growing, emerging markets and TagWorld's persistence in cultivating the social networking space make for a logical and natural pairing. 'We are pleased to have DFJ as a part of our team. Their mission and determination is a complement to our own. We truly believe we are in the early stages of a revolution in user-generated content,' says TagWorld CEO Fred Krueger.

TagWorld's announcement of DFJ's investment comes on the heels of an earlier release today introducing TagWorld Social Commerce, an e-commerce solution for the social web. Available February 15, 2006, this revolutionary offering enables any TagWorld member to build an online store in minutes. "

Tarari Accelerates Growth With $14 Million in Series C Funding

"Tarari Inc., the award-winning acceleration company, today announced that it has successfully completed a Series C round of private equity financing for $14 million. The lead third-round investor, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital (EPVC), was joined by existing investors, including Crosspoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Miramar Venture Partners, and XMLFund. Bob Conn, managing director at EPVC, has also joined the Tarari board of directors.

�We are extremely proud to add Enterprise Partners Venture Capital to the prestigious list of investors on our Series C round,� said Randy Smerik, co-founder and President/CEO Tarari. �The continued strong interest in the company by the investment community is based on Tarari�s sound fundamentals. We have an excellent team in place with the exact right core competencies to build and deliver the right products to our OEM customers. We firmly believe that within the Security, Application Networking, XML/Web Services, and Digital Media markets, there is a large and rapidly growing need for accelerating content-aware processing using specialized ASICs, silicon, and software. Bob Conn�s business and technical expertise will provide valuable insight as we move forward.�"

Wichita Eagle | 02/07/2006 | Gannett considering partnership with MediaNews in possible Knight Ridder sale

"MediaNews Group is discussing a possible alliance with Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain, to acquire Knight Ridder, the San Jose newspaper company that put itself up for sale under pressure from shareholders. Knight Ridder owns the Wichita Eagle, the Kansas City Star and 30 other newspapers. Sources confirmed that MediaNews, a privately held Denver-based newspaper chain, is in talks with Gannett regarding Knight Ridder, the nation's second largest newspaper company. MediaNews, the seventh-largest newspaper publisher, needs partners to finance a bid for Knight Ridder and has already teamed up with three private equity firms. Gannett canceled two days of meetings with Knight Ridder that were to take place last week. "

YouTube - nextel

Valleywag - selling to whom?

"Flip Trifecta: the race to sell out
1. Digg: Kevin Rose denies a Yahoo buyout, but commentators (like TWiT's Leo Laporte) say 'if he sells, he's buying dinner.'
2. Newsvine: The citizen-journalism-slash-real-journalism site hasn't even publicly launched, but it's already earning accolades from beta users. Already fresh, but still ripe, this would make a trendy purchase for Yahoo.
3. Tailrank: Kevin Burton's tiny aggregator could become a one-man merger -- but only if Kevin drops his dream of a user-funded startup.
4. Odeo: A natural acquisition. None of the portals have a good podcast play. And it's not taking off all by itself. Biz Stone just left Google to work at this startup; could he find himself back on campus?
5. Riya: The facial recognition software is a perfect technology to complement Flickr. On one round of funding, Riya has already developed smart recognition algorithms -- for example, it recognizes founder Tara Hunt. But one search giant already took a look at Riya and passed.
6. Six Apart: The blog platform developer is suffering downtime as it struggles to handle a growing user base. Would anyone buy a company that's a mishmash of publishing software, hosting services and a free community site? Or will Six Apart patch itself up and run solo?
7. Technorati: CEO Dave Sifry told the Red Herring two years ago to 'watch this space' for the blog tracker's exit strategy. This year, BusinessWeek predicts a flip to Microsoft. But in those two years, Technorati's piled on a lot of VC funding. Will its investors force it to take a lowball offer?
8. Napster: Not selling any time soon, and definitely not to Google. This sucker's losing money fast."

PaidContent.org: Moviebeam

"Moviebeam Recapitalized; Gets $52.5 Million in Funding; Spun Off From Disney [by rafat] : Moviebeam, the doomed movie delivery service from Disney, is being revived again, and has been recapitalized in a series E funding round, according to an SEC filing. The amount: $52.5 million, and the funders: Mayfield, Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Cisco, Vantage Point Venture Partners and ABC. Disney's ABC television will still be the biggest shareholder, though a minority interest.
Board member now include Kevin Fong of Mayfield, Salil Mehta, exec. VP of ESPN Enterprises, one of the original Disney executives involved in Moviebeam, and Alex Izzard, also a former Disney-MovieBeam exec. Alex will also be the CEO of the new Moviebeam.
This means that Disney has essentially sold off the assets (the company is now called Moviebeam Inc) and had retained a minority interest. I'm assuming the backers bought it for its delivery technology (datacasting, from Dotcast) and assets, not for the domain name...that would be too high a price. "

Clean Edge - a123

"A123Systems, developer of a new generation of Lithium-ion batteries, today announced it has completed its third round of private equity funding totaling $30 million.

New investors in the company are GE, Alliance Capital Management and FA Technology Ventures. Also participating in this round are existing investors, including Motorola, Qualcomm, North Bridge Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, OnPoint, YankeeTek and Desh Deshpande, the company's Chairman of the Board.

A123Systems will use its new capital infusion to increase manufacturing capacity, to continue support for its current customer base and revenue growth, to accelerate the development of batteries for hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and to continue development of products for other markets demanding improved power technology.

'A123Systems' advanced batteries have the potential to drastically lower the weight and cost of batteries for hybrid electric vehicles, bringing a new level of performance to automobile manufacturers,' said David Vieau, CEO and president of A123Systems. 'An A123Systems battery is projected to be 80% lighter than batteries used in current HEVs and will offer superior life and durability.'"

Sawtel To Deploy Meru's WLAN System for World�s Largest Virtual Cell

"Meru Networks, a leader in wireless VoIP infrastructure, has been chosen by Hartford, CT-based Sawtel Inc., a Satellite and Wireless Telecommunications company, for an island-wide WiFi deployment in the Bahamas. With the Meru solution, Sawtel will offer converged voice, data, and video service to both business and residential users across the island of Nassau. The voice services will give subscribers access to hosted IP PBX, PBX Enhanced Services, and IP Centrex applications."

SiliconBeat: Rumor: Google to buy Friendster. Hard to believe

"...They [Kleiner] have injected limited additional funds (I’ve heard numbers between $5 million and $12 million) and have restructured the capitalization of the company to heavily favor their fund (this would be customary in a recapitalization). No reports as to whether Benchmark or Battery were also involved, or whether the current executive team will be looking for new jobs.
Update: More rumors, that the round was done at a $3m pre-money valuation. This is not a healthy company."

Mobile ESPN is live - Engadget

BMW Cut From Google Results for Cheating - Yahoo! News

"In a move that analysts say indicates a problem that still needs a solution, Google has removed BMW's German Web site from its index for violating Google's guidelines against trying to manipulate search results."

Bush administration sees $25 bln in wireless sales - Yahoo! News

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The sale of U.S. wireless communications licenses is projected to raise about $25 billion between 2007 and 2009, $7.8 billion higher than last year's estimate, according President George W. Bush's 2007 budget released on Monday. "

Alzheimer's has genetic cause in most cases: study - Yahoo! News

"A new study of nearly 12,000 twins shows that Alzheimer's has a genetic cause in up to 80 percent of cases, researchers said. "

IBM says alters silicon's behavior to power new chip

"SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 6 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it had developed new chipmaking methods that will allow its upcoming Power6 computer processor to run twice as fast as current versions.
Instead of just making transistors smaller, IBM came up with a process to alter how silicon behaves by placing a layer of insulator underneath a layer of silicon less than 500 atoms thick, said Bernard Meyerson, chief technologist of IBM's technology group.

'You literally can squeeze silicon, and thereby give it properties to make it faster. The thing that is making it run faster is not just that it's smaller but because you're changing its basic physical properties,' Meyerson told Reuters in an interview.
IBM's advances mean its Power6 chip, due in the middle of 2007, will run at speeds between 4 and 5 gigahertz, at least double the speed of current Power chips found in server computers that run corporate networks, Meyerson said."

Silicon Valley Watcher--GOOG, Skype and FON

What's Google up to? It's going to become a wireless Telco with its own fat backbone...

I think it is very clear what Google's strategy is, or rather has to be. I think it is getting ready to do a wireless Telco buy. Because everything is rapidly being walled up into gated communities, and the gatekeepers are the cable companies and the wireless mobile phone companies (the land-liners are toast).
Those walled gardens can shut Google out, or put Google a click or two away....and on a mobile phone that might as well be Siberia, you are going to use the first search box you see and it doesn't have to be Google.



This is the battle for the last-mile--whoever controls the entry into the digital home controls a very lucrative content market.

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"Founded just three months ago by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, FON's objective is to build a global WiFi network bottom up, with one million hot spots by 2010. To do this, FON users, or 'foneros,' are able to connect to the Internet via Fon WiFi hotspots provided by other foneros. For foneros, the development of the FON global network means they will be able to connect to the Internet safely and securely all around the globe. For service and application providers such as Skype and Google, the FON network makes their services more ubiquitously available. For ISPs, FON provides a way to expand their reach globally. For developers, the FON network is a new platform for creating and delivering services on a global scale.
With a simple download-and-install approach, similar to Skype's, FON is a secure 'by-the-people, for-the-people' network. FON has registered 3,000 members since it went live with a beta of its service in November, 2005. The company plans to use its funding to grow the network of foneros and support the growth of WiFi worldwide, particularly in countries where broadband is currently unaffordable to most people.
FON will drive its revenue from a multi-tiered subscription model. Members sign up in one of three foneros categories: Linus, Bill or Alien."

Some senders would be charged under new plan by Yahoo, AOL

"AOL and Yahoo said the program, which is being offered through a company called Goodmail Systems, will target banks, online retailers and other groups that send large amounts of e-mail. In exchange for a payment and a pledge to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, the companies would be ensured their e-mails aren't diverted to spam folders or have images or Web addresses filtered out."

Google, Skype in Startup to Link Hotspots: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

"NEW YORK (AP) -- Google Inc. and eBay Inc.'s Skype are investing in a startup that plans to help hotspot owners charge for Wi-Fi access, a plan that could face significant opposition from Internet service providers.
The Internet heavyweights were joined by venture capital firms Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital in making a $22 million investment in FON, the Spanish startup. In its announcement Sunday, FON did not say how much each investor was contributing.
FON's idea, floated just three months ago in a Web posting by founder Martin Varsavsky, is to sign up people who have Wi-Fi hotspots in one of two ways.
'Linus' members, named after Linus Torvalds, who created the freely distributed Linux software, will share their hotspot with other Linus members for free.
'Bill' members, named after Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, will charge for access to their hotspot. FON will get some of that revenue, and share it with Internet service providers, or ISPs."

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: Sequoia's Google Gains

"There is a story out tonight on Bloomberg about the gains venture firm Sequoia has obtained from its Google stake. Fair enough, but the math in the piece doesn't work for me. The author says that Google has gained more than '150-fold' on its investment in the last six years.

Well, yeah, but isn't it a lot more than 150-fold? That multiple times the original $12.5-million that Sequoia invested in Google produces 'only' (I use that term advisedly in the context) $1.88-billion. Given that Sequoia held 23.9-million shares at the Google offering, to get the above-mentioned figure they would have to sell all their shares for an average price of $78.60. Howzat, given that Google never sold for that low of a price ever post-IPO? And more importantly, Sequoia did much of its distributions this year at way-way higher prices.

By my math Sequoia's Google gains were closer to 500x than 150x. Is there something going on here that I'm missing?"

SAN DIEGO--- Tarari Accelerates Growth with $14 Million in Series C Funding

"Tarari, Inc., the award-winning acceleration company, today announced that it has successfully completed a Series C round of private equity financing for $14 million. The lead third-round investor, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital (EPVC), was joined by existing investors, including Crosspoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Miramar Venture Partners, and XMLFund. Bob Conn, managing director at EPVC, has also joined the Tarari board of directors.

'We are extremely proud to add Enterprise Partners Venture Capital to the prestigious list of investors on our Series C round,' said Randy Smerik, co-founder and President/CEO Tarari. 'The continued strong interest in the company by the investment community is based on Tarari's sound fundamentals. We have an excellent team in place with the exact right core competencies to build and deliver the right products to our OEM customers. We firmly believe that within the Security, Application Networking, XML/Web Services, and Digital Media markets, there is a large and rapidly growing need for accelerating content-aware processing using specialized ASICs, silicon, and software. Bob Conn's business and technical expertise will provide valuable insight as we move forward.'

'Tarari has demonstrated the ability to design, deploy and deliver complete acceleration solutions to leading Tier 1 customers,' said Bob Conn, managing director at EPVC. 'We believe Tarari is uniquely positioned in its end markets and we are excited to work with a team that has such deep expertise and prior success in the relevant end markets.' "

Venture Capital Access Online |Certive Announces $8.6 Million in Series B Financing

"Certive Corporation, the leading provider of Data Stewardship solutions, announced today that InterWest Partners and Leapfrog Ventures have co-led an $8.6 million venture funding round in Certive Corporation. Mike Boich of InterWest Partners and Pete Sinclair from Leapfrog Ventures have joined the Board of Directors. Existing investors Outfitter Ventures and Crosspoint Ventures also participated in the round.

The financing will fuel Certive's sales and marketing growth as the company scales to meet demand for automated Data Stewardship solutions -- solutions that are not attainable from traditional tools and platforms. "

Investment planning - financial budget planning - Interactive Investor

"Nothing is hotter than uranium. The metal has risen to $37 per pound, from $29 a year ago, as the supply position has been turned on its head. Back in 2003 only about half of all uranium consumed came from operating mines, with the balance derived from secondary supply sources such as highly enriched uranium from dismantling nuclear weapons and inventory draw down. But decommissioned warheads have almost been depleted, while the build up in nuclear capacity is gaining pace, particularly in Asia where some 92 reactors are planned or under construction to help meet soaring demand."