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News About Tech, Money and Innovation | Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:01:26 +0000 |
Salesforce.com launches Chatter Mobile to keep on-the-go employees updated
Salesforce.com, a company that creates applications for sales and customer support, today announced the launch of Chatter Mobile, a mobile application for colleagues to stay up to date on work activities while out of the office.
The mobile application leverages Salesforce.com’s Chatter feature, which allows users to share information and collaborate in real-time from their desktop, and brings it to their mobile devices. Users are alerted through the application when colleagues make status updates or make posts to conversations or documents. The ability to make updates and comment on conversations from a mobile device is also available. The application will be available on Apple iPad, iPhone and the new iPod touch, Google Android and RIM BlackBerry.
Competition in the enterprise collaboration space has been rapidly evolving lately. Yammer originally launchd as a Twitter for businesses to bring the microblogging service’s sort updates to internal corporate conversations. |
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| | Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:00:26 +0000 |
Intarcia Therapeutics raises $5M to treat long-term conditions
Intarcia Therapeutics, a biopharma company developing therapies for hepatitis C, type 2 diabetes and obesity, has raised $5 million of an expected $15 million in debt, options, warrants and other securities. New Leaf Venture Partners, Venrock Associates and New Enterprise Associates contributed to the round, according to a filing with the SEC. The company also raised $14.5 million in May from the same investors.
Earlier this summer, Intarcia announced that a clinical study of its diabetes treatment resulted in weight loss and increased quality of life for patients. The company plans to conduct another phase of the clinical study to confirm its results later this year. Founded in 1997, Intarcia is based in Hayward, Calif.
Tags: biopharmaceutical
Companies: Intarcia Therapeutics, New Enterprise Associates, New Leaf Venture Partners, Venrock
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| | Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:31:26 +0000 |
Samsung expects to sell 10M Galaxy Tab Android tablets by Q3 2011, may cost $200-$300
Unlike LG, which merely said that its upcoming Android tablet will be better than the iPad, Samsung is declaring its faith in its Galaxy Tab Android tablet with actual numbers.
The company expects to sell 10 million units by the third quarter of 2011, gobbling up a third of the tablet market in the process, according to Samsung product executive Hankil Yoon, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal last week.
In comparison, Apple’s iPad sold 3 million units in about three months — a figure that far exceeded analyst expectations. Samsung expects to launch the Galaxy Tab in Europe in mid-September, and worldwide this fall. To reach 10 million units sold by Q3 2011, the tablet would have to be about as popular as the iPad with consumers.
One reason consumers may opt for the Galaxy Tab instead of the iPad is price. We’ve yet to hear any firm pricing announcements from Samsung, but Yoon estimated that it would retail between $200 and $300 (although that... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:59:21 +0000 |
BlackBerry maker RIM acquires Office document platform developer DataViz
BlackBerry creator Research in Motion has acquired the developer of the Documents To Go app, DataViz, according to a report by AllThingsD, a technology blog published by the Wall Street Journal.
By picking up DataViz, the BlackBerry manufacturer may be making a move to provide a free version of Documents To Go for BlackBerry users and maintain a hold on its big-business clients. Research In Motion also made another recent acquisition — Cellmania — in a move to expand its app-delivery platform.
DataViz’s Documents to Go is a popular programming for opening and editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files for BlackBerry users. The exact details haven’t been released yet, but the number flying around the Internet is about $50 million. The CrackBerry blog first reported the rumor, stating that several members of DataViz had adjusted their LinkedIn profiles to show new positions at Research in Motion.
DataViz already reportedly canceled development... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:40:29 +0000 |
On the GreenBeat: A long road ahead for electric car batteries, how Cisco’s spree affects smart grids
Electric vehicles face a long road to progress when it comes to its lithium-ion batteries, IBM scientist Winfried Wilcke tells the New York Times. Advances in lithium-ion technology have been slow, says Wilcke, whose team is trying to develop a technology that would extend EVs’ range to 500 miles on a single charge (current EVs have a range of around 100 miles). He likens the long road ahead to “climbing Mount Everest.”
One oft-talked about issue with electric vehicles is the potential for climate – cold or hot temperature – to reduce the range of the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars. Ford plans to address the issue by using a liquid cooling and heating system to regulate temperature on its 2012 Ford Focus EV, which the company claims works better than air cooling systems – which are used in the upcoming Nissan Leaf and led Tesla CEO Elon Musk to call the car’s battery system “primitive.”
The National Renewable Energy... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:14:41 +0000 |
Online success pushes Gemvara to cut out jewelry stores
Gemvara, the online tool for customizing and buying jewelry, today decided to abandon its original go-to-market scheme of working with jewelry stores by cutting them out completely. The company previously allowed buyers to customize their jewelry in stores through web-connected displays.
Gemvara, previously Paragon Lake, has continued over the last year to move toward selling directly from its website, but was still working with jewelry stores (50 in total) in an attempt to create ongoing relationships with the sellers and reach customers already in the market for jewelry.
I asked founder and chief executive Matt Lauzon why Gemvara has now decided to stop working with jewelry stores completely. He said the company believes the real opportunity for customized jewelry is online and that the amount of success the company has seen in such a short time frame is the validation.
Since selling online, Gemvara has seen quicker growth than in stores. The company claims to... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:06:08 +0000 |
Google’s new search mantra: “Did you know?”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the future of search was blazing-fast, “autonomous” searching that constantly provides users with results. He made the comments at a keynote speech at the German IFA home electronics event in Berlin Tuesday.
But autonomous search isn’t really search as we think of it — a user querying a massive database to get a result. Schmidt likened it to telling a user what he or she didn’t know, but was probably interested in seeing. Google already sees more than a billion searches cross their servers daily, and providing an automated process that is constantly providing search data can only boost those numbers.
That means more potential ad revenue from Google’s advertisements running with searches. Advertising made up about 96 percent of Google’s revenue in the first six months of 2010, according to company financials. Try as it might to diversify away from that revenue stream, for now, search-linked advertising... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:52:58 +0000 |
HP lawsuit adds drama to Oracle’s Mark and Larry Show
Grab your popcorn! Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s hire of Silicon Valley neighbor and tennis partner Mark Hurd — who, by the way, just happens to have been freshly ousted as chief of Hewlett-Packard — makes for great theater. But will it be good for business?
Perhaps not, since Hurd’s new career at Oracle is kicking off with a civil complaint from HP, which is charging him with violating the terms of his severance agreement by joining HP’s rival.
The most likely outcome here is that Hurd will have to give up some or all of his HP severance and Oracle will make him whole with some new stock grants. In other words, Oracle shareholders will pay to stop HP shareholders from complaining.
The question Oracle shareholders should be asking: What are they buying? For now, Mark and Larry are best buddies. But Ellison has a history of treating his No. 2 like, well, No. 2. See former president Ray Lane, or more recently, Oracle co-president Charles... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:36:24 +0000 |
Blog platform Tumblr’s soaring traffic brings growing pains
Tumblr, a social media network made up of millions of personal and business blogs, is seeing massive traffic growth, but is undergoing equally big growing pains.
Activity on the network of Tumblr blogs skyrocketed over the first half of the year and reached about 1.7 billion page views in the month of August. (Automattic’s WordPress.com, an older, more established blog platform, recently reported 2.1 billion monthly pageviews.) But Tumblr, which employs about 10 people, has been unable to provide service for hours at a time to its users, because of high traffic.
“It’s got humongous potential, and humongous potential to fail,” said JD Rucker, president of Hasai Media, a digital marketing firm that builds Tumblr blogs for corporate clients. “We know it can fail. It was down 10 hours straight in July. It goes down way too often. How are they going to turn a profit without pissing people off?”
Both WordPress and Posterous, another... |
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| | Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:59:08 +0000 |
Oerlikon bets on thin-film silicon solar in cheaper, more efficient new line
Oerlikon Solar launched new thin-film silicon solar production equipment today that’s cheaper and more efficient than its previous product line, an achievement the company says closes the gap with industry giant First Solar.
The company, based in Switzerland, is touting its latest product as record-breaking in having the lowest module production cost. Its equipment, used by solar panel makers who manufacture thin-film silicon panels, can cut costs to 50 euro cents per watt (about 64 cents per watt), with a stabilized efficiency rate of 10 percent.
First Solar’s cadmium telluride solar panels, in comparison, have an average efficiency of 11.2 percent, but cost 76 cents per watt to produce, GigaOm notes.
The company also announced another record-breaker: a new champion cell that achieves 11.9% conversion efficiency, created in partnership with Corning, an experiment that showcases the potential of thin-film silicon, which companies have been abandoning as of late.
Oerlikon... |
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