SolarCity today announced that it is taking a $21.5 million round of funding led by Mayfield Fund, and the company’s previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, DBL Investors and Generation Capital. The company’s prior funding totaled approximately $134 million, and included investors First Solar, JP Morgan and Elon Musk.
SolarCity helps businesses, home owners and government agencies adopt solar… → Read More
I try not to take sides on these little skirmishes between Mac and PC. In matters of taste, there is no dispute. And I’m fine with a little railing on both sides — to a point. But when Microsoft’s COO decides to tease Apple, saying “It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that,” I have to step in. This kind of attitude seems a bit… → Read More
I love seeing the shots that NASA has been releasing from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter! The latest is from the Apollo 16 site, and they really timed this one right. The LRO was passing over the site exactly at noon (local time of course) so there’s a minimum amount of shadowing, and a maximum amount of contrast → Read More
Green data geeks now have another tool for controlling their energy consumption. Enphase Energy‘s new Environ Smart Thermostat lets you control your home’s temperature and monitor your solar installations remotely.
The company is known for its microinverter system, which turns solar-generated DC power into home energy friendly AC power. A microinverter is attached to every solar module, and the… → Read More
GrabCAD, an open source library for CAD (computer aided design) engineers, has secured €256k of angel funding from the Estonian Development Fund and telecommunication technology company Astrec Baltic (owner of Motors24.ee) with the aim to become “the world’s leading web environment for CAD engineers within three years.”
Founded by Hardi Meybaum and Indrek Narusk, GrabCAD, which is set to… → Read More
Much like the binder clip cable management system, this is one of those products that make you go “duh, why didn’t I think of that”. Designer Arman Emami just won the 2010 Red Dot design award for his latest creation, the USB Clip Memory stick. → Read More
Just a quick note for anyone keeping track of the changes in Apple’s iOS 4.1: Game Center, Apple’s unreleased (outside of the developer network) Xbox Live-esque gaming hub, just got a massive visual overhaul. → Read More
Power Assure, a Santa Clara green IT company, today announced that it scored $11.25 million in series B funding. The round was led by energy efficiency-focused investors Good Energies, and joined by Point Judith Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Power Assure’s chief technology officer Clemens Pfeiffer said the company will use this capital to take its technology to a broader market. Its… → Read More
Remember those awesome iPhone 4 versus EVO 4G videos? Hopefully you do, it has only been a few weeks since we posted both of them. You know, the ones that almost got the Best Buy employee fired? The ones that made him rethink his career path? Yeah, those videos. Well, they just got potentially a lot more interesting.
Paramount Pictures has just contacted us, asking if we can put them in contact… → Read More
Updated with Foursquare statement
Dennis Crowley didn’t get the big personal payday he would have if he had sold Foursquare to Facebook, which he almost did. But Crowley and co-founder Naveen Selvadurai did okay with the $20 million Series B funding they raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square, and O’Reilly AlphaTech. According to an SEC filing (first spotted by Dan Frommer at SAI), the… → Read More
Shopkick, a startup that’s focused on bridging the real world shopping experience with mobile, just closed a rather large $15 million round of funding from Greylock Partners. Partner Reid Hoffman, who is also an individual investor in the company, is already on the board of directors.
The company had previously raised $5 million from Hoffman and Kleiner Perkins Kaufield & Byers. Kleiner… → Read More
And now, to answer the question that’s on everyone’s mind: Does the just released iOS 4.1 update fix the iPhone 4′s death grip issue — or at least appear to? → Read More
We saw the new NEX camcorder teased about a month ago, and thought it looked pretty sweet. But it’s Sony, we thought. They might still mess this one up. And as it turns out… well, not really. It’s looking like a pretty solid camera system. The only trouble is the price. Update: AND the fact that it only shoots in 60i. What you’ve got here is an interchangeable-lens… → Read More
The Chevy Volt is finally coming together. GM just went public with the details surrounding its battery warranty and it’s on the same level as the Prius’s. The auto maker will cover the Volt’s LG Chem lithium-manganese pack for eight years or 100,000 miles. This comes after extensive testing over a three-year period in which testers logged over 1 million miles of driving and 4 million hours on the… → Read More
Foursquare, freshly flush with cash, is in the process of altering its service. They realize that the check-in model can only go so far, and they have to build utility on top of it. Part of that is changing the game aspect. Another part is the user-generated “Tips.” Today, those have been made a clear area of emphasis on Foursquare’s website.
On the newly redesigned venue pages, there is now a… → Read More
Online gamers received quite the scare last week when Blizzard announced it would require message board posters to use their real names. This was to be done in order to fight the scourge of online anonymity. The Internet freaked out, of course, so much so that Blizzard eventually changed its mind. I mention this up to not open old wounds, but to take the time to remind you of this: there are other… → Read More
3 weeks after launch, the first major update to iOS 4 has arrived — but as is par for the course, it’s for developers only at the time being. We’re downloading it right this second, and will let you know what we find. Update: Nothing too major so far. No iPad support. The achievements system for the developer preview of Game Center seems to have been disabled, presumably only… → Read More
Okay, the iPhone 4 death grip fiasco has official hit a new level now that it’s a late night punch line. There’s no turning back after both Letterman here in the states and Top Gear across the pond have both done bits on it. Apple’s PR machine better be warming up because it’s going to be running overtime to recover from this. Click through for the video.
[Thanks for the tip, Nate!] → Read More
We R Interactive, a London-based online games publisher, has turned on the lights, and is on a mission to give birth to a “new generation of interactive and social games that allow players an unprecedented level of control, influence and engagement across multiple platforms”.
The company is headed by former PlayStation and Eidos executive David Rose, ex-ITV Interactive Commissioning Editor Oli… → Read More
“It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that.”
That was Microsoft COO Kevin Turner during his keynote speech at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington today. I’m going to go out on a (not very big) limb and predict that this comment is going to come back to bite Microsoft in the ass.
Microsoft has a long, illustrious history of putting its foot… → Read More
Yup, just some random iPhone docks for your view pleasure. But isn’t it sweet! Look at it. Your iPhone can either chill right side up or on its side. Your choice! $14.99. [Amazon via 7 gadgets] → Read More
Ideas4all, the platform where users share ideas to help solve problems, has raised an additional €1 million, largely from existing angel investors, adding to the €3m raised in previous rounds.
As well as its consumer facing site, the Madrid-based startup sells a version of its service to businesses and organisations who want to foster innovation amongst their employees. Ideas4all says it has… → Read More
When it comes to remotely controlling your computer from your Android phone, there’s no shortage of solutions. Heck, many of’em are even free. The downside? They generally require a bit of technical know-how to get up and running, with little obstacles like dynamic IPs and router firewalls gunking things up.
Back in 2008, LogMeIn launched an iPhone app called LogMeIn Ignition, which promised to… → Read More
Here’s another iPad alternative..well two..maybe; Acer 7 and 10-inch tablets running the new verision of Android, Android 2.2. If announced, the devices are rumored to get flash support and sport ARM chipsets. It’s speculated that Acer is shopping around telecom providers to package with the devices, because clearly, they want to compete with the iPad. Expect 3G on this all-out media tablet, and… → Read More
Today at a special event in San Francisco, Evernote CEO Phil Libin unveiled Trunk, a new showcase of products, services, and hardware devices that have integrated Evernote. The idea is to help users enchance their Evernote experience with features they may want but that Evernote doesn’t offer by default, like Voice Transcription (via services like Dial2Do, pliq.me, and QuickTate), PDF annotation… → Read More
It is not often that a company’s first round of venture funding comes in at $60 million and eight years after it was founded with $10,000 worth of credit card debt. But Atlassian, which was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2002, is taking its first venture money today from Accel Partners. The company pulled in $59 million in revenues in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2010, and has been… → Read More
It is not often that a company’s first round of venture funding comes in at $60 million and eight years after it was founded with $10,000 worth of credit card debt. But Atlassian, which was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2002, is taking its first venture money today from Accel Partners. The company pulled in $59 million in revenues in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2010, and has been… → Read More
Mobile social network Flirtomatic (“the world’s number one flirting company”) today announced that it has raised $9 million in Series C funding from Nauta Capital and existing investors Doughty Hanson, Seraphim Capital and Chairman Avi Azulai. This brings the total capital raised to $17 million.
The London-based company says it will use the new investment to “further its growth across Europe and… → Read More
The iPad is the king of tablets and might hold that title for years to come. However, there are a ton of alternatives that we’ve featured over the last few months, mostly in these two posts (1 & 2) detailing the top 14. But since I ran those posts, a lot has changed and while some managed to make it to the market, others were delayed or scrapped entirely.
It’s sad, really. While the iPad… → Read More
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