GigaOM

The slow resurgence of the technology IPOs - Clearwire and BigBand Networks - has raised the hopes of many Silicon Valley companies that are hoping to use this window of opportunity and tap the public markets. Even those with shaky financial are looking at the market more optimistically.

Take Glu Mobile and Aruba Networks, two wireless companies focusing on different segments of the mobile ecosystem. The two companies are still bleeding red, but are hoping for mega-million dollars valuations, that could make even a raging optimist pause for a minute.

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Months of waiting for the AppleTV is over. The device, which I believe is going to act as rocket fuel for the independent video community, and some day put the likes of TiVo on the defensive, has finally started to ship. A privileged few, such as Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, had a chance to play around and review the unit.

…our verdict is that it’s a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos, and photos stored on computers. It has some notable limitations, but we really liked it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant.

The NewTeeVee gang wanted one quite badly, so we decided to charge our Mastercard, except Apple wasn’t willing to take our money - at least today.

Our extended friend network fanned out through Silicon Valley, looking for the device, but couldn’t find a single on in any Apple store. Even the company store in Cupertino hadn’t received any AppleTV boxes. It won’t be till Friday when you can walk into an Apple store and buy one.

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Despite years of market hype cycles pumping up the short range wireless technology UWB, investors are still interested. UWB chip company Artimi says Khosla Ventures just added $5 million to its series B, bringing its total to $50 million.

Trying to create an upstart hipster cell phone company is utterly expensive. Peter Adderton and Sky Dayton, the CEOs of MVNOs Amp’d Mobile and Helio, know this all too well by now. Amp’d is adding another $107 million in funding, according to PEHub and VentureWire, which will bring the company’s funding to over $360 million.

Helio has the backing of two public companies that are shelling out a lot of money — $440 million — to get it on its feet. Helio says it will reach 100,000 subscribers by the second quarter of this year while Amp’d officially brought in over 100,000 subscribers by the end of 2006. Though this report says they have close to 200,000 by now.

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Fear not, network neutrality fans: Google is still on your side, and is working hard to make sure its sometimes mixed messages on the topic are more harmonious in the future.

That was the word from Rick Whitt Tuesday, as Google’s new “Washington Telecom and Media Counsel” made his net-neutrality big-stage debut, as part of a panel at the Spring 2007 VON show in San Jose. Before mixing it up with telco opponents at one of the historically premier events for NN debate, Whitt wanted to clear up any doubts raised by some recent public comments from other employees of the search colossus.

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Nokia’s Internet tablet efforts – the 770, and more recently, the N800 – have produced a mixed bag of results. While the techies have been enthusiastic about the Linux-based tablets, the consumer electronics crowd (and buyers) hasn’t been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

On Tuesday, some Nokia folks stopped by in our makeshift offices and articulated their vision for the tablet series. The company is betting that as more web services start to support the platform, the devices will gain in popularity. The Finnish phone maker believes that tablets are the next evolution of computing, and as web service matures, these Internet-centric devices will gain more traction.

And one such service is Skype. Nokia is expecting that Skype support will make the device more alluring, especially in the overseas markets.

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How many times will Microsoft try its hand at Voice over IP before it finds a winner? While waiting for its enterprise VoIP strategy to build steam, Redmond this week took a stab at the low end of the business market with a plug-and-play phone system that bundles a PBX-like server with dedicated IP phones.

The phones-in-a-box kit is just the latest attempt to simplify telecom installation for small businesses who may not have the necessary IT expertise to take on the challenge of say, Fonality’s or Digium’s lower-end offerings. But there are several red flags waving around this one, making you wonder once again why Microsoft’s approach to VoIP seems so scattered.

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For someone I have never met, I sure am jealous of Sacramento, CA.-resident, Jim Husman, who according to his phone company, SureWest Communications has one of the fastest residential Internet connections in America.

Actually make that the fastest symmetric residential connection - for there are some parts of the country where Cablevision and Verizon FiOS have similar asymmetric speed offerings.

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