VentureBeat |
- What U.S. utilities can learn from China’s smart grid expansion
- Apple sends out invites for next week’s iPad 2 event
- YouTube wants to stream live NHL and NBA games
- Apple’s new high-speed interface may be called Thunderbolt
- Former Microsoft executive steps up to run Mac virtualization company Parallels
- Microsoft fumbles Windows Phone 7 update
- BookRenter raises $40M for textbook rentals
- Cash vs. equity: The compensation conundrum
- Deals & More: Sprout Social gets $10M for social media management
- Nancy Drew iPad app kicks off new “game book” genre
- HP’s new business laptops offer up to 32 hours of battery
- Kutcher bets on SeatGeek as online ticket sites battle
- Google kills Android contact feature in Facebook data spat
- Google yanks request for kids’ social security numbers
- Do women play more games than men?
| What U.S. utilities can learn from China’s smart grid expansion Posted: 23 Feb 2011 09:00 AM PST
China exceeded the United States in federal smart grid subsidies for the first time in 2010, and it looks poised to increase that lead if the US government doesn’t take further action. Utilities in the US are not centrally controlled like State Grid in China, so investment in smart grid technology must come from the private sector rather than government funding. China operates its state-owned industries like businesses. It aims to decrease the amount of money it must spend to build additional generating capacity by using existing energy production with smart grid technology. Through smart grid installations, China will be able to accurately predict and control energy consumption, lowering costly demand peaks and decreasing downtime. US utilities that are contemplating smart grid investments would be prudent to consider the undertones of China's smart grid initiative. China's central planners have seen the economic benefits of large-scale smart grid expansion and are quickly moving to integrate new technologies to realize that economic promise. US utilities should accelerate plans to add intelligence and real-time data gathering to their footprint, so that they, too, reduce the need to build additional generating capacity and lower their demand peaks. As Jesse Berst writes in SmartGridNews, utility commissions "focus far too much on the initial, short-run costs instead of total lifetime cost." Utilities should consider programs like the ARRA Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, which pays 50 percent of eligible project costs for smart grid development to help modernize their operations. Instead of relying on estimates of demand, utilities can leverage smart grid technologies such as device-specific load resource management to better understand the energy usage of their consumers, so that they can operate more efficiently and increase profitability by lowering demand peaks.
Jeff Ebihara is vice president of sales and marketing at Consert, an energy management systems company based in Raleigh, N.C. He has significant experience in the telecommunications and energy industry. [Image via Wikipedia Commons] Companies: GE, State Grid
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| Apple sends out invites for next week’s iPad 2 event Posted: 23 Feb 2011 08:45 AM PST
The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, like pretty much all of Apple’s San Francisco events. VentureBeat will be there covering it live. News of the event was first reported yesterday, following rumors that the iPad 2 may be delayed. Apple’s stock took a hit yesterday afternoon because of the rumor, closing at around $338.61. The stock is slowing rebounding this morning — it’s sitting at $341.87 at the time of this post — and it will definitely see some gains now that news of the iPad 2 event is certain. As with every major Apple device launch, rumors about the iPad 2 have been floating around for some time. By this point, it's pretty clear that it will feature front and rear cameras — although the back camera may be lower quality than many hope. It's also expected to be thinner and slightly lighter than the current iPad, and it will likely run Apple's new dual-core A5 processor. Many had also hoped that the iPad 2 would feature a higher resolution display than the first generation model, although now most rumors say that it will be the same 1024 by 768 pixel resolution. The craziest rumor by far is that we'll see yet another iPad release later this year, possibly called the iPad 3. Companies: Apple
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| YouTube wants to stream live NHL and NBA games Posted: 23 Feb 2011 08:07 AM PST
The company is in negotiations with both the National Basketball Association and National Hockey Leage to start broadcasting live pro-basketball and ice hockey games, according to a Bloomberg report. YouTube, the de facto website for user-generated video content, has viewers spending 15 minutes on the site daily, on average. While not unimpressive by any means, YouTube is constantly looking for more effective ways to wrest people away from their TV’s and go online instead. And sports are certainly among the most-watched content. With the IPL event, viewers spent on average 40 minutes watching each cricket match, said Google’s director of content partnerships Gautam Anand. According to the report, Google is in talks with not only North American pro-sports leagues, but soccer leagues in Europe as well. Securing the rights to broadcast major sports would surely cost Google a fair amount, but it would also bring in major ad revenue for the company. It could also be the first step towards YouTube, or other Google services, serving as a social hub for live sporting events. Whether or not this will happen is something that we’ll find out in the coming months as there was no substantial response to the statement from neither the NBA or NHL. In addition to sports, Google is looking at bringing other content to YouTube in growing amounts. Google is in the process of getting longer clips of movies and TV shows on the site this year in an effort to compete with the likes of Hulu and Netflix, as well as streaming live music events. YouTube has had successful efforts with music before: one of the biggest live music streams was of a U2 concert that could be watched in 16 different countries back in October, 2009. Companies: Google, Hulu, Nba, Netflix, NHL, YouTube People: Gautam Anand
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| Apple’s new high-speed interface may be called Thunderbolt Posted: 23 Feb 2011 07:55 AM PST
The site points to some leaked specification lists and screenshots that list the Thunderbolt port. Instead of finding space for an entirely new port location on the Macbook Pros, it appears that the Thunderbolt port will replace the Mini DisplayPort connection on the laptops. That means the Thunderbolt connection will support high-speed data connections, as well as the ability to connect additional monitors to the Macbook Pro. As VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi explains it, Intel originally proposed Light Peak as a fiber-optic connection to replace all of the cables that connect something to a computer. But initially, the usage for Light Peak looks more limited, and it will initially use copper wires instead of fiber-optic connections. The speed is faster than universal serial bus (USB) 3.0, carrying data at 10 gigabits a second in both directions at the same time. Sony is also expected to use Light Peak. Given its speed and bandwidth capabilities, Light Peak was meant to serve as a single interface to juggle multiple functions. The protocol is smart enough to know what you’re intending to use it for — for example, it will function as a disk interface if you plug in a Light Peak-capable disk drive into your computer, but if you plug in a Light Peak monitor, it will instead function as a display interface.
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| Former Microsoft executive steps up to run Mac virtualization company Parallels Posted: 23 Feb 2011 07:30 AM PST
The change marks a new stage of maturity for the upstart company, which generates more than $100 million a year in revenues and creates strategically important software for Apple. Parallels makes software that emulates Windows so that a Mac user can use Windows programs on a Mac computer. Birger Steen (pictured), president of Parallels, picks up the additional title of chief executive while founder Serguei Beloussov relinquishes the CEO title and moves to executive chairman, president and chief architect. It means that a former Microsoft executive is now in charge of the software that gets people to move from Windows to Mac computers. The company made the announcement at the Parallels Summit 2011 event in Orlando, Fla. Steen left Microsoft to join Parallels in September to take the No. 2 job and oversee sales, marketing, product management, customer support and services. During that time, Parallels launched Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac. NPD estimates that Parallels has more than 78 percent of the market for desktop virtualization software. Revenue has been growing 50 percent a year and the company is profitable with a gross profit margin higher than 90 percent. Previously, Steen was vice president of small and medium business distribution at Microsoft. Parallels was founded in 1999 and it has more than 800 employees.
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| Microsoft fumbles Windows Phone 7 update Posted: 23 Feb 2011 07:14 AM PST
Now Microsoft has says it has found an issue with the update process, and it’s temporarily disabling the update for Samsung phones, WinRumors reports. Ironically, the update was meant to improve the updating process for Windows Phone 7 devices. It was to pave the way for a bigger update next month that would add copy and paste capabilities to the platform. Microsoft certainly isn’t alone with software updating snafus, but since it’s one of the first big updates for Windows Phone 7, the issues shed a negative light on the platform. Owners of the Samsung Omnia 7 and Focus phones seem to be having the most trouble. For some, the updating process merely fails midway through, but their phone is left working. For others, it completely corrupts their phone’s firmware, and goes as far to “brick”, or completely kill the phone. Microsoft has been telling users who have bricked their phones to exchange it for a new one at stores. Microsoft is apparently hard at work fixing the update’s issues, and will release it again to users soon.
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| BookRenter raises $40M for textbook rentals Posted: 23 Feb 2011 06:01 AM PST
Chief executive Mehdi Maghsoodnia told me last year that BookRenter isn’t just copying the competition. The San Mateo, Calif. startup keeps costs down by not buying and warehousing the books itself, and instead connecting renters with partner companies. Perhaps more importantly, BookRenter focuses on building its presence on college campuses by creating partnerships with campus bookstores. Maghsoodnia reemphasized that second point yesterday, saying that textbook rentals aren’t an industry where companies can win by building a standalone website and appealing directly to consumers. Chegg may be going strong now, but he predicted, “in a year, they’re going to be in a world of hurt” because bookstores are becoming more competitive. BookRenter says that it has partnered with more than 560 campus bookstores which serve more than six million students. To push forward with that goal, BookRenter also just announced a partnership with the National Association of College Stores, which will start offering three new BookRenter services to its member stores, including the RapidReturn feature that allows students to drop off their rentals at the store rather than shipping them at the post office. An NACS study found that customers of stores partnering with BookRenter were 21 percent more likely to rent from their college store and 10 percent more likely to shop there for items other than textbooks. I also asked Maghsoodnia about the e-books — after all, Chegg’s founder is now running tablet textbook company Kno. Maghsoodnia replied that BookRenter plans to add e-book options soon, but that the demand isn’t exactly overwhelming. As evidence that students don’t want to spend a lot of money in a textbook-reading device, he pointed out that Kno is reportedly selling off its hardware business to focus exclusively on software. The round brings BookRenter’s total funding to $56 million, which is less than the extremely well-funded Chegg, but still seems like an impressive amount of capital. Adams Capital Management, Comerica Bank, Focus Ventures, Lighthouse Capital Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Storm Ventures (most of them existing investors) provided the new funding. [image via Flickr/Wohnai] Companies: BookRenter, Chegg People: Mehdi Maghsoodnia
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| Cash vs. equity: The compensation conundrum Posted: 23 Feb 2011 06:00 AM PST (Editor's note: Jason Cohen is an angel investor and the founder of Smart Bear Software. This story originally appeared on his blog.) As we bring on new employees at my new venture, I’ve been struggling with the question of how much equity (shares) should I give a new employee or partner. I’m not alone. It’s one of the most frequent questions in start-up forums – and it’s doubly complicated when the company is young and according to typical financial assessment the shares are "worth nothing?" The question gets even muddier when the new hire is getting a salary. Typically that salary is less than market with the balance given in the form of equity, but again how do you compute that when the stock is, today, of no value? With WPEngine recently I had yet another question to answer: "What if I took $X/mo salary, then how much equity would you part with? What about $Y/mo?" Hard to know, but an important question for a bootstrap startup to answer. Here's a simple framework for how to come up with those numbers. When someone works for less salary than they deserve (meaning: what they could make elsewhere), I think of that as a cash investment they're making in your company. Here's why: Suppose a new hire just quit a job paying $10,000/month and agrees to take $3,000/month for a year with you, after which time (assuming the company does as well as everyone hopes) she'll be raised back up to $10,000/month. So for $36,000 you're getting someone who should have made $120,000. She gave up $84,000 in potential earnings, but that's what a startup is, sacrificing cash now for a chance at a ton of cash later. Of course she needs to own P% of the company so she can share in those potential earnings, but how do you compute P? Now consider this scenario: That same new hire quit her old job but demands the same $10,000/mo from you. You agree, but since you can spend only $36,000 this year, you raise the balance ($84,000) as an angel investment. The angel will of course demand Q% of your company for this extremely risky loan, but how do you compute Q? Financially, these two scenarios are identical, therefore P must equal Q. In both cases you give up a percentage of your company so that you can spend a specific amount of cash to get a specific person. Whether it's the hire herself who's investing her loss in cash or an angel fronting the cash, you're trading P% of the company for an amount of cash. This is the key, because Q — what an institutional investor would accept — is a well-understood system. So if that's the same as P, we're done. So what kind of return does an angel investor need to make on their $84,000? Investors in early-stage startups need large potential returns to compensate for the fact that most of those investments will be lost. If you like thinking about this in terms of "annual return," they need between 40 percent and 60 percent compounding annual return. (Remember, this isn't like a bond or savings account paying X percent every month, this is a one-time payout years from now that almost surely won't happen at all.) Usually this is stated as a rule of thumb: "3x return in 3 years, or 10x return in 5 years." That formulation rings true to almost every investor I've met, from angels to VCs. So let's apply it to our example. If the company were sold in three years the investor would like to make $250,000; if sold in five years the investor needs $840,000. Now the question is: How much money could the company be worth in three or five years? Clearly you're about to pull a number out of your ass, but that's OK because we're just going for ballpark figures. In the case of WPEngine, I've been saying $5m in three years or $25m in five years. To make $250,000 out of $5m the investor would need 5 percent; to make $840,000 from $25m the investor needs 3 percent. Of course the numbers don't match because, again, I pulled those potential valuations out of nowhere. But the exercise has proved fruitful because now you know that this new hire needs something like 3-5 percent for this to be a fair trade. That's a much tighter range than you had a few minutes ago. Remember, though, that when you're very small, new hires should mean more to you than just financial investment. This might be a good method for computing compensation for employee #10, but hire #1 ought to also be able to substantially affect your chance of success, by changing the slope on the revenue curve, by adding expertise or skill you didn't have before, by opening new markets, etc. And if that's happening, they're contributing more than just the balance of a normal salary, they're changing the risk profile of the company, and that deserves compensation too.
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| Deals & More: Sprout Social gets $10M for social media management Posted: 23 Feb 2011 06:00 AM PST Today’s funding announcements include tools to help businesses oversee social media and spending:
Coupa Software gets $12M to help companies manage spending: The developer of cloud spend management software has raised a fourth round of funding led by Mohr Davidow Ventures, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in San Mateo, Calif., the company helps more than 150 customers, including salesforce.com and Amazon, keep track of purchases and potentially cut costs through its web-based tool. WhiteGlove raises $12.5M to bring doctors to you: The Austin-based company has raised a new round of funding led by Enhanced Equity Fund for its medical care service, peHUB reports. Founded by a software entrepreneur, the company, which brings doctors directly to patients at home or work, started in Texas and plans to use the funding to focus on national expansion. Stanford spinout C3Nano raises $3.2M: The Hayward-based startup has raised a first round of funding from GSR Ventures to develop transparent electrode material to be used in touch screens, smart windows and flexible displays. The company, which began at Stanford University’s chemical engineering department, was founded in January 2010 and plans to use the latest funding to further develop its technology and establish partnerships. Companies: Amazon, C3Nano, Coupa Software, Enhanced Equity Fund, Facebook, Groupon, GSR Ventures, Lightbank, linkedin, Mohr Davidow Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Salesforce.com, Sprout Social, Twitter, WhiteGlove People: Brad Keywell, Eric Lefkofsky
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| Nancy Drew iPad app kicks off new “game book” genre Posted: 23 Feb 2011 05:00 AM PST
This title takes game play much farther than some of the other electronic books on the market, says Megan Gaiser (pictured), chief executive of Her Interactive, a maker of video games targeted at broad audiences including girls and women. “By combining a book and a game, we’re trying to create a whole new form of interactive entertainment,” she said in an interview. “You get to play the story.” The game book is the first in a series of titles dubbed Mobile Mysteries that Her Interactive will make around the Nancy Drew license. The game book runs on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Gaiser said the team at Her Interactive has been working on the title for months, refining it meticulously since it is the company’s first foray into the Apple mobile market.
“It has a lot of nostalgia value,” Gaiser said. Her Interactive was founded in 1995 and has been working on Nancy Drew computer games since 1997. At first, Gaiser said that no game publishers would publish the company’s games because they were targeted at girls, who were perceived as non-gamers. The company launched its games on Amazon.com, bypassing the traditional publishers. Then a successful Barbie title launched and the publishers all came back. Her Interactive focuses on high quality games with humor, stories, and a modern interpretation of Nancy Drew as a character. Since Her Interactive launched its first Nancy Drew computer game, the company has sold more than 8.7 million units. That’s a better record for a game series on the PC than Myst or Lord of the Rings, Gaiser said. The series has won 23 Parent’s Choice gold medal awards. About 40 percent of video game players today are women, according to the Entertainment Software Association. But relatively few titles are targeted at women and girls. The game book has a bunch of rich graphics that you can tap on the iPad’s touchscreen. On the first page, you can tap on a picture of a truck and hear its horn honk. As you turn the pages, an animation shows the page turning as if it were a real book. The book is filled with lots of hidden object games, where you find the eggs hidden in a forest or collect things that you’ll need later on in the adventure. There’s a part where you have to solve word puzzles in order to help Nancy win a horse race. And there’s a part where you have to navigate your way through underground caves. Altogether, there are 20 hidden object games and a bunch of other mini games across eight chapters. There are 49 collectibles, 49 word challenges, 65 images, 60 sounds, 10 animations and five graphical choices and a couple more mini games. The game is not the same as the Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch game that Her Interactive published on the PC in 2004. The story is different and so is the game play. The competition is plentiful on the App Store, between the 57,455 books and 51,450 games available. But game books are relatively rare. Oceanhouse Media makes a lot of books based on the Dr. Seuss and other children’s book brands. And many of its titles are also interactive, although they’re aimed at teaching kids how to read. The Nancy Drew app is $9.99 on the iPad and $2.99 on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Gaiser says the game book is targeted at girls ages 9 to 14. My 7-year-old girl tried it out and loved it. My 14-year-old girl also picked it up and read the book for three hours straight. When she gave the iPad back to me, she said the book was “boring.” But she just didn’t want to admit that she liked a Nancy Drew game book, since she acts like she’s too old for it. Overall, I’d say the game book is very well done and is worthy of being labeled a pioneering work. Companies: Her Interactive, Oceanhouse Media People: Megan Gaiser
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| HP’s new business laptops offer up to 32 hours of battery Posted: 22 Feb 2011 09:01 PM PST
The battery life number is getting interesting because most laptops range in battery life from four to eight hours. The higher battery life is a big milestone because it’s very hard to balance great performance with power consumption. The more powerful a device is, the more power it consumes. But this device crosses the one-day threshold in battery life, and that takes a lot of advanced technology. Most computer makers are striving to get to 24-hour battery life. But by packing in a heavy battery, HP was able to get to 32 hours for its HP EliteBook 8460p laptop (pictured right) for business users. It shows that the newest generation of chips, hard drives, batteries and other technologies is starting to yield considerable benefits for consumers. The p-series laptops from HP start at $999 and will be available on March 15.
HP is launching its new line-up now because it is using the newest Sandy Bridge microprocessors from Intel. It’s also the first time in a couple of years that HP has revamped its industrial design for business laptops. The new machines use a common “design language,” which goes by the acronym FORGE (see picture at bottom), with a focus on “form, optimized, richness, green and enduring.” That means HP is trying to design cool, nice-looking products that last a long time and are environmentally friendly. It’s the kind of design philosophy that HP hopes will help it compete with Apple in industrial design.
The back of the EliteBooks are interesting because you can remove the back plate by flipping a switch. You can thus swap out a hard drive, change the memory, or do other things to it without using a screwdriver or any other tool. Compare that approach to Apple’s which goes so far as to change screws so that people can’t get inside their machines. The p-series machines (8460p and 8560p) weigh 4.56 pounds and 6.1 pounds respectively. They have 14-inch and 15.6-inch diagonal LED-backlit displays and run the latest Intel second-generation Core microprocessors (code-named Sandy Bridge, with graphics and microprocessor on a single chip). The HP ProBook b-series laptops are more configurable and have a 13.3-inch display. They start at $799 and will be available on March 15. They use the Sandy Bridge processors or Intel Celeron processors. They also have a smudge-resistant and wear-resistant tungsten-colored design. The HP ProBook s-series machines have a wide variety of sizes, from smaller ultralight machines to desktop replacements. They’re targeted at small businesses. The displays range from 13.3 inches to 17.3 inches. The starting weight is 3.79 pounds and the machines use Intel Sandy Bridge processors or Celerons. The prices start at $579 and machines will be available on March 15. The s-series machines have HP’s ProtectTools security suite, including HP’s fingerprint sensor and HP face recognition. Check out our video below of the face recognition technology, which can be used to identify you quickly when the computer boots up. Companies: Hewlett Packard, HP
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| Kutcher bets on SeatGeek as online ticket sites battle Posted: 22 Feb 2011 08:24 PM PST
SeatGeek uses algorithms to match the best deal with a customer's specific needs for an event. It lets event-goers peruse thousands of potential pricing and seating options available for concerts and sporting events on the secondary market. The company said it would use the money to hire more employees (it currently has about a dozen), add more events and venues, and begin a push into the lucrative European market. The company is on a bit of a roll — on Tuesday it announced it has teamed up with one of the five biggest sporting publications online, Bleacher Report. The New York-based startup landed $550,000 in funding from a group of investors and signed a distribution deal with the Wall Street Journal back in October. It also partnered with Yahoo Sports as it continues to try to carve out a niche in the crowded ticket comparison and price forecasting sites for sporting and entertainment events. Its competitors include similar ticketing sites FanSnap and TicketsBuy. Kutcher is well known for spotting — and funding — the latest “cool kids” in Silicon Valley and has previously invested in companies such as Flipboard, Nowmov, Optimizely, Blekko and Quora. Kutcher heads up A Grade Investments with Israeli businessman Guy Oseary. Past funding has come from a consortium of previous backers PKS Capital, Founder Collective, Stage One Capital, Trisiras Group and angel investors Mark Wachen, Thomas Lehrman, Sunil Hirani, Allen Levinson and Arie Abecassis. Although the terms of today’s deal were undisclosed, previous funding brought the start-up a total investment of over $2 million since its founding in 2009. Companies: A Grade Investments, bleacherreport.com/, Blekko, FanSnap, Flipboard, Founder Collective, NowMov, optimizely, PKS Capital, quora, SeatGeek, Stage One Capital, TicketsBuy, Trisiras Group, yahoo sports People: Allen Levinson, Arie Abecassis, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, Mark Wachen, Sunil Hirani, Thomas Lehrman
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| Google kills Android contact feature in Facebook data spat Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:46 PM PST
Yes, this is the latest chapter in the baffling spat between Google and Facebook over user contact data. As outlined by TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid, Google’s latest update to its Nexus S phone eliminates the ability for users to see their Facebook contacts in their Android address book. What's the rationale? Here's what a Google spokesperson said:
Maybe I'm being too cynical here, but it's hard to imagine that Google made this change in response to users complaining, "Oh darn, I can't export my Facebook contacts from my phone. If that’s the case, purge them from my address book completely!" Instead, this looks like another way for Google to pressure Facebook into sharing more of its contact data, or at least to score some publicity points around the issue of data portability. That feeling is exacerbated by the fact that this only applies to the Nexus S right now (though Google says it could also include "future lead devices" for the Android operating system). That means the company can make its grand statement about data portability without affecting a large number of users. Google isn't even making this change on the current device's predecessor, the Nexus One, because "the Facebook app was preloaded on Nexus One," which "created an expectation for users of how the device would function." On the other hand, allowing this feature and then taking it away isn’t a case of false expectations at all, right? So why make the change now? Well, the timing may be coincidental, but there have been reports that Google will finally launch its big social networking product this spring.
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| Google yanks request for kids’ social security numbers Posted: 22 Feb 2011 06:31 PM PST
That’s what privacy advocates were asking, prompting Google to withdraw a requirement that parents entering their children in its popular “Doodle-4-Google” provide the last four digits of a child’s social security number. The art contest, which drew more than 33,000 entries last year, was created by Google to highlight “the creativity of young people” by having them send in a drawing under the theme “What I'd like to do someday …” It is open to children from kindergarten through the last year of high school and requires that a contestant provide a Parent Consent Form along with their submission. The original form asked for the child’s city of birth, date of birth, the last four digits of the child’s social security number, and complete contact info for the parents. But with all of that info, watchdogs worried about online sites having too much information pointed out it would be relatively easy to steal someone’s identity — or sell the data to marketers who could do just about anything with it. Bob Bowdon, who directed “The Cartel,” a documentary about corruption in the public-school system explained the significance to New York Magazine:
Bowdon admits he has “no evidence that Google will use or sell this information for marketing purposes.” But regardless of its motivations, 26 hours after the FTC was alerted about the requiqrement, Google had reconfigured its consent form and deleted the request for the last four digits of a child’s Social Security number. To date, it is still requiring parents to list a child’s birth, not current, city. Here’s the explanation that Google sent to New York Magazine:
Companies: Federal Trade Commission, Google, new york magazine People: bob bowdon
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| Do women play more games than men? Posted: 22 Feb 2011 04:21 PM PST
More than half of all mobile and mobile social gamers — 53 percent, to be exact — are women, bucking the stereotype that gaming is typically a male-dominated form of entertainment, according to the report. Only 40 percent of “traditional” gamers are women, according to the report. The report found that women social gamers were typically older than their male counterparts — as women outnumbered men in the 26 to 65 age range. Men barely outnumbered women in the 18 to 24 age range. Just about a third of all mobile and social gamers were also in that same age range — 18 to 24 — while about half of mobile and social gamers fell in the 26 to 44 age range. A majority of mobile and social gamers also appear to come from middle-class origins and make between $50,000 and $80,000 yearly, according to the report. Mobile and social gamers typically earn 50 percent more than the average American and are twice as likely to have a college bachelor’s degree. The majority of mobile and social gamers — about 65 percent — are white, as well. Flurry detected more than 250 million devices running Apple’s iPhone operating system and Google’s Android mobile operating system, and detects around 750,000 new activations across both operating systems each day, according to the report. Flurry tracks around 26 million unique users that play social games for an average of about 25 minutes each day. [Photo: popculturegeek.com] Companies: Apple, Facebook, Flurry, Google, Popcap, Zynga
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China's state-owned State Grid Company of China 
It’s official, Apple has sent out invitations to a March 2 event in San Francisco that unambiguously hints that it will unveil the iPad 2.
After a successful experiment with broadcasting cricket’s Indian Premier League last year, 
Apple is 
Parallels 
An update released on Monday for Windows Phone 7 devices has caused issues for many users, including trouble with its installation, and some phones have been left completely nonfunctional, or “bricked.”
Looks like investors don’t think Chegg has the textbook rental market locked up. 
Sprout Social brings in $10M to consolidate a business’ social presence: The Chicago-based 
The Nancy Drew series has been around for 80 years. But game maker 
The app includes text inspired by the original Nancy Drew book. But the company calls Shadow Ranch a “game book,” the first in a series that will up the ante for publishers cranking out eBooks by the dozen. If this combination of gaming and storytelling takes off, you can expect to see the genre of game books open up in a big way on smartphones and tablets.
The focus on girls is aimed at creating games that match the audience for the Nancy Drew books, which have been entertaining young readers since 1930. Gaiser hopes that women who grew up with the books (which includes women such as Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) will read the game book with their children. Overall, the Nancy Drew books have sold more than 100 million copies.
Hewlett-Packard
To get to 32 hours, you have to buy the HP BB09 ultra-extended life notebook battery and download the latest Intel graphics driver and HP BIOS (or startup software). The notebook can get to 32 hours if you use Intel graphics, a 160-gigabyte Intel flash memory SSD drive, an HP LED HD display and Windows 7. So it costs more and it adds one pound to the overall weight, but in case you’re using your computer on the battlefield and can’t get back to your base, it could come in handy. (I’m only partly joking there, since the machine is up to military specifications for durability).
Each of the new p-series, b-series (pictured above), and s-series laptops (pictured below) share the same design language. HP’s new laptops use precision aluminum-alloy hinges so that it isn’t easy to snap the laptop in two. It also has cast titanium-alloy latches and a strong magnesium-aluminum chassis. There’s a “double-shot” rubber frame that acts as a shock-absorbing barrier to protect the display panel from scuffs and scratches. There are quick access buttons on the keyboard that let you access functions such as wireless networking, mute, and a calculator.
Celebu-vestor 
It looks like Google is willing to eliminate product features in order to make a point about data portability.
What does Google need with (part of) your child’s security number?
Women now play games more than men, according to a report by mobile app analytics provider Flurry. At least that’s true in the realm of mobile and mobile social games, where the likes of Zynga’s FarmVille and Popcap’s Plants vs. Zombies are at the forefront.
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