With no more money from its corporate parents forthcoming and few remaining businesses to sell, Nokia Siemens Networks has gone to European and U.S. banks for the funding it needs to restructure and survive. Will $1.6 million be enough to set it on course? Read more »
Asia, with its rapidly growing number of car owners and large pollution problems, could very well be the biggest market for biofuels and green chemicals one day. LanzaTech, which announced Monday it has raised $55.8 million, is certainly finding more willing customers and partners Asia. Read more »
Toronto-based Polar Mobile, which provides a digital media distribution platform powering the apps of some of the biggest media companies in the world, including Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated and The Wall Street Journal, announced a new $6 million funding round on Monday. Read more »
If you thought 2011 seemed like a big year for web startup funding, you were absolutely right. According to the latest MoneyTree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, 2011 saw the highest level of VC investment in Internet companies over the past decade. Read more »
Google SVP of ads Susan Wojcicki said on the company’s earnings call that 60 percent of all video ads that appear on YouTube are TrueView ads, meaning that viewers can skip it and move on to the video if it’s not relevant or interesting. Read more »
Nanosolar, which has struggled for years to fulfill its promise as the next major thin-film solar manufacturer, announced Thursday it has a new CEO. Eugenia Corrales, who has been the startup’s head of engineering and operations, is taking over the chief executive post effective immediately. Read more »
AT&T has raised prices on wireline phone users. Behind the rate hikes isn’t just greed on the part of Ma Bell, but the rapid disintegration of the wireline business as customers abandon ship and providers are stuck maintaining a network for fewer people paying less. Read more »
At a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday evening, Facebook unveiled a host of new apps — more than 60 in total — that integrate with its Timeline user interface. The social networking company also announced it will begin approving Timeline apps from all developers. Read more »
Apple had a record-breaking day in trading Wednesday, closing at an all-time high of $429.11 per share, after peaking earlier in the day at 429.47. Its market cap rose to just shy of $400 billion, and currently rests at $398.82 billion. Read more »
It’s time to start placing bets as to how many iPads Apple will sell in 2012. Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu is starting things off with an estimate of 48 million, he said Wednesday morning. Wu says that number could end up being “conservative,” and I agree. Read more »
Social gaming company 6waves Lolapps (which is now going by the shortened moniker “6L”) is continuing its stated quest to take on industry leader Zynga. The company is announcing Wednesday the acquisition of Escalation Studios, a Dallas, Texas-based mobile game company. Read more »
Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned from Yahoo’s board of directors and all his other positions with the company, effective Tuesday. Yang has been with Yahoo since he co-founded the company in 1995; his departure comes less than two weeks after Scott Thompson joined as CEO. Read more »
It’s been a long time coming, but the worlds of fashion and technology have finally begun to combine in a serious way. A new crop of companies is using the web to make the process more data-driven and social than ever before. Read more »
Exclusive. Gnip is making it very clear it’s not just about Twitter anymore. The company, which provides aggregated API access to a variety of social media streams, has significantly expanded its partnership with Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. Read more »
Apple has filed suit against Samsung once again in Germany, aiming to have sales of 10 of the Korean company’s smartphones halted. In a separate newly filed suit, Apple also targeted five models of Samsung tablets. Apple is targeting design rights with its latest suits. Read more »
Startups looking to disrupt the traditional energy industries — oil, coal, gas-burning cars — need to have more than just innovative technology. They need a team and a plan in place that can scale their technologies to compete on the massive scale needed. Read more »
In a new research note to clients, Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White noted December was a record month for his “Apple Barometer”: an index of sales at Apple’s Asian suppliers. It’s an unusual bump in a month when orders at Apple’s suppliers typically fall off. Read more »
Apple’s iOS mobile platform tends to sell more paid software than its rivals, and its biggest advantage might be a head start that Google, Microsoft or any other mobile competitor can’t do much to eliminate: iTunes. It’s also an advantage Apple likely isn’t done profiting by. Read more »
Phone company Verizon quietly launched its smart home products nationwide about three months ago, which enable customers to lock and unlock doors and windows, watch home video cameras remotely, and manage thermostats and lighting. Read more »
Although we live in an AC-dominated world, DC seems poised for a comeback, particularly in data centers. Facebook adopted a DC architecture in its Prineville, Ore., data center. SAP spent $128,000 retrofitting a datacenter at its offices in Palo Alto, Calif., to rely on DC power. Read more »
Apple might not have as impressive a year in 2012 in terms of iPad growth as it did in 2011, according to some early predictions. Numbers from DisplaySearch on Friday indicate 9.7-inch flat panel shipments for iPads are expected to hit around 65 million in 2012. Read more »
Hulu made $420 million in 2011, and is expected to pay $500 million to rights holders this year alone. The service now has 1.5 million paying subscribers, and Hulu CEO Jason Kilar projects that Plus will account for more than half of Hulu’s revenue this year. Read more »
Apple is in for another huge iPhone 4S launch, if early lineups are any indication. Lines outside Apple’s five official retail stores in China have already extended into the hundreds ahead of Friday’s launch, which is good news for Apple’s next-quarter results. Read more »
Apple has a lot of App Stores in play right now, so it might be tough for developers to decide which to focus on at first. Some new info shared by 2D Boy, developer of World of Goo, might help make that decision a bit easier. Read more »
At CES, T-Mobile launched the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G which can take full advantage of the operators HSPA+ 42 Mbps speeds. I sat down with T-Mobile CTO, Neville Ray, to discuss the operators 4G network of today as well as it’s plans for the future. Read more »
Group chat startup Convore had pretty good traction after launching out of Y Combinator last year. But in the competitive world of consumer social apps, “pretty good” isn’t enough. So Convore’s founder Leah Culver built a new, business-focused iteration of the group chat service, called Grove.io. Read more »
Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs shared his mobile vision at CES Tuesday, with much of the focus on emerging markets. With half of all smartphones expected to be sold in emerging markets by 2015, it’s no wonder the chipmaker is looking to innovate beyond traditional borders. Read more »
Affine Systems, which makes software to scan and sort the content in online video, has raised nearly $5 million in a new funding round, according to a regulatory filing. Affine’s software gives advertisers the tools to analyze online video in a way that’s similar to television. Read more »
Apple’s MacBook Air continues to be a hot seller according to the latest sales estimates coming out of Apple’s supply chain. Shipments of the ultra-slim notebook were up to 1.2 million units in the fourth calendar quarter of 2011, up from 1 million the quarter before. Read more »
The 2012 CES show hasn’t even officially kicked off and already the smart energy home has emerged as a key target for a variety of sectors, including telcos, big box retailers, startups, chip companies and now cable operators like Time Warner Cable. Read more »
Apple is set to reap the benefits of increased consumer interest in smartphones, according to a new study. A survey of 15,000 U.S. shoppers found that Apple and Google will dominate, with Apple’s winning back share over the next six months. Read more »
In his early 20s, entrepreneur Donald DeSantis had an interesting mentor — a very successful businessman whose business happened to be organized crime. Despite — or perhaps because of — his seedy profession, the mentor taught DeSantis much about managing risk, acquisitions and networking. Read more »
Apple’s mobile devices tend to have much higher profit margins than the competition, as well as having a strong reputation in terms of build and component quality. A big part of that is due to its unique approach to using NAND flash memory. Read more »
Apple could add considerably to its retail reach, if a new report out Friday is accurate. According to the report, Apple will bring store-within-a-store retail outlets to Target locations sometime soon, helping it reach markets in the U.S. that Apple’s own stores don’t cover. Read more »
Networking silicon vendor Mindspeed aims to become a big player in wireless infrastructure in a very small way. It is purchasing femtocell system-on-a-chip (SoC) maker Picochip for $51.8 million, creating what Mindspeed hopes will be a powerhouse in the so-far disappointing miniature base station market. Read more »
Apple’s iMac occupies a prized place in a fast-growing segment of the overall desktop PC market, the all-in-ones, that few others can approach. It got there by spotting a growth opportunity that’s paying off big now, and the MacBook Air is primed to do the same. Read more »
At least one of Apple’s patent disputes has come to and end on Thursday, according to the other party in the case. Elan Microelectronics Corp has settled with the Mac maker, the Taiwanese company said, in a deal that involves a $5 million payout from Apple. Read more »
Verizon sold 4.2 million iPhone during the fourth quarter of 2011, CFO Fran Shammo said at a conference on Wednesday. That’s more than twice as many iPhone devices as it sold during the previous quarter, an increase do doubt spurred by the iPhone 4S. Read more »
When Twitter debuted its native photo-sharing feature earlier this year, some people worried that it would harm the existing ecosystem of third-party photo sharing apps. New data indicates that those concerns were well justified: Twitter now powers 45 percent of the photos shared on its site. Read more »
Apple has an immensely successful self-run retail arm, but it wasn’t always that way. Once, it depended heavily on the kindess of strangers, and some of those same strangers (namely third-party resellers) are now bristling at what they see as unfair business practices. Read more »
