Apple may not be buying a high-design German home entertainment device maker, but that doesn’t mean investors in the rumoured target company won’t make a killing – and it doesn’t mean it won’t still have a part to play in Apple’s iTV. Read more at paidContent »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Has Pinterest created an entirely new way for users to share content? A survey conducted on GigaOM asked just that question, and a new GIgaOM Pro report delves into the various implications for the social network. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The emphasis by Comcast’s critics on the near-term regulatory implications of its Xbox strategy may be misplaced. Rather than challenging net neutrality rules directly, Comcast seems to be playing a long game against its over-the-top competitors based on quality of service and premised on the coming, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The cleantech sector is tricky when it comes to investments. We’re asking you to weigh in with your thoughts about cleantech investing — will you continue to invest in the space and what do you think will be the outlook for 2012? Read more »
Cisco hit the skids 18 months ago which led to a restructuring that was completed in record time. Now Cisco is ready to roll again, and to celebrate, CEO John Chambers discussed the company’s future. Here are 3 key takeaways. Read more »
Meet the new boss, Motorola employees: Google reportedly plans to name Dennis Woodside, a veteran Google sales executive overseeing the merger, as the new CEO, replacing current Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha. Read more »
Although the goal for most startup founders might be to build your company’s value, many companies are inadvertently taking steps to kill it. Marty Wolf, the founder of Martinwolf M&A advisors, explains the 5 things you need to avoid. Read more »
Social TV startup Loyalize has been acquired by Function(x), the company behind Viggle. According to former Loyalize CEO Todd Greene, the product will remain a white-label platform for networks and content providers to build their own apps to increase engagement with TV programming. Read more »
Netvibes, the San Francisco–based startup that allows people and brands to create personalized RSS feed dashboards, announced on Wednesday evening it has been acquired by French enterprise software firm Systèmes. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Read more »
It’s clear that Pinterest is really hot, but a new study shows just how powerful the virtual pinboard company has become. Pinterest is now driving more referral traffic on the web than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined, according to Shareaholic’s January 2012 Referral Traffic Report. Read more »
If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Los Angeles-based startup Causecast this week debuted its Employee Impact Platform, a web-based program that connects companies and their employees with non-profits and charitable causes. With Causecast, small businesses can compete with larger, more established companies when it comes to offering employees ways to give back. Read more »
One of the year’s largest smart grid conferences — DistribuTECH — closes today in San Antonio, Texas. It’s like the CES for utilities, power companies and the vendors that are trying to sell them stuff. Here are the top 10 trends I took away. Read more »
Apple’s iPad sold 15.4 million units during the final calendar quarter of 2011, representing a 111-percent year-over-year increase in tablet sales. Android tablets may have gained market share during the same period, but it’s PC makers that should fear that growth. Read more »
Ad-targeting company 33Across is acquiring link-tracking specialist Tynt Multimedia, resulting in a combined user graph spanning 1.25 billion users. Both are storing and analyzing billions of transactions daily, and they will use that data to help publishers compete on ad sales against mega sites like Google. 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 »
Summify’s sale to Twitter this week was good news for the startup, but bad news for many of its users, who expressed frustration that the news aggregation service would be mothballed post-deal. But startups News.me and Percolate are now vying to take on Summify’s users. Read more »
One of the difficulties with investing in cleantech startups is that investors sometimes need to take very long term views of the companies they back, despite that companies can be risky. Next-gen biofuel company KiOR is a prime example of this long term, high risk phenomenon. The reality is that the liquidity of KiOR’s IPO could be locked up for a long time, potentially many years down the road, until — and if — the company scales up and meets expectations. This research note examines KiOR’s place in the market and what it means for other early-stage companies when it comes to investment. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Amyris, BIOeCON and Range Fuels and Solazyme. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
The big buzz out of CES on Thursday is that Intel has been “talking” to Apple, among other manufacturers, about using its new line of Medfield chips in upcoming mobile devices. But the discussions are clearly very preliminary, and Apple has good reason to remain aloof. Read more »
Apple has finally confirmed its purchase of Israel-based Anobit, a company that makes digital signal processing tech to improve the performance of NAND flash used in the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air among other devices. It could help Apple extend its NAND flash empire further still. Read more »
People think of data centers as a big, clunky category, but in the cloud computing era it shouldn’t be a surprise that the sector has been hot, with more hotness to come. As more cloud services come online, demand for webscale data centers will keep growing. Read more »
It’s four days into the new year and IBM just made its first acquisition of 2012 — it is buying Green Hat, a company that simulates application testing in the cloud. The deal is all about IBM building its automated software testing portfolio. Read more »
Oil giant BP has invested in biofuel startup CoolPlanet BioFuels, according to an announcement on Thursday. CoolPlanet BioFuels is the biofuel startup you have never heard of but that has unusually famous investors like GE, Google, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips. Read more »
Solar tech companies have suffered in 2011, and a speedy recovery in 2012 doesn’t seem likely. But the market holds huge potential for growth, and this dark time shall pass. Here is our look at solar trends to watch for in 2012. Read more »
How does the cloud market for the next year look? There will be no silver linings or lemonade. This research note, part of GigaOM Pro’s outlook for 2012, examines startups’ chances to challenge traditional enterprise IT practices, cloud pricing models, the true state of federated clouds, and how IT jobs will change in the coming months. Expect plenty of defensive M&A, cloud lock-in, phantom data discovery, outages, availability headaches, pricing confusion and job displacement over the next 12 months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
AT&T said it will drop its planned acquisition of T-Mobile and take a $4 billion charge against its earnings. This paves the way for new partners to emerge for T-Mobile and means AT&T will have to build its LTE network without taking out a competitor. Read more »
Amazon’s successful 7-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire, is locked down more than people might think: browser requests to Google’s Android Market are redirected to the Amazon AppStore. Imagine buying a new car and then being told you that it can only be driven on certain roadways. Read more »
Between the collapse of AT&T’s proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile and the death throes of a proposed wholesale 4G network created by a satellite company and now-broke hedge fund, the wireless industry has generated a lot of stories but no real change in the past ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
On Friday morning the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany ruled in favor of Motorola Mobility in one of the patent infringement cases brought by the company against Apple. It’s a significant ruling that represents a major victory for the company Google is buying. Read more »
Unsubscribe.com, the Los Angeles–based startup that makes security and privacy tools for email and social networking applications, has been acquired by TrustedID, a Palo Alto, Calif.–based credit and identity protection technology firm. Financial terms of the deal have not been announced. Read more »
Salesforce.com on Monday announced its acquisition of Model Metrics, a company that provides mobile and social cloud consulting services. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The deal will “add mobile and social expertise” to Salesforce’s current offerings, the company says. Read more »
We’re hearing that Walmart Labs, the e-commerce arm of the American retail giant, has acquired an Sydney, Australia-based startup called Grabble, which makes point-of-sale technology that ties in with consumers’ mobile phones. Read more »
Facebook announced Tuesday its latest talent acquisition: Strobe Corp., a San Francisco-based mobile app development startup focused on HTML5 apps. Strobe was born out of SproutCore, an open-source JavaScript framework built by engineer Charles Jolley in 2007 while he was a full-time engineer at Apple Read more »
Venture capitalists have generally given semiconductor startups the cold shoulder for years now in favor of the web and software spaces. But LSI Corporation’s $400 acquisition of VC-backed chip startup Sandforce could encourage more VCs to warm up to chip technology once again. Read more »
Cardpool, the San Francisco-based startup that lets people buy, sell and trade unused gift cards, has been acquired by Blackhawk Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of grocery giant Safeway. Details about the deal are scarce, but Cardpool co-founder Anson Tsai says his investors “are quite happy.” Read more »
With all the buzz around Yahoo recently, its financial conference call with analysts and investors could have been a big event. But interim CEO Tim Morse made it clear that investors looking for answers about Yahoo’s CEO search and M&A options were out of luck. Read more »
LinkedIn has made its second small acquisition in as many weeks with the purchase of IndexTank, a San Francisco-based startup that makes a real-time, hosted search engine service. LinkedIn has thus far opted to spend the $352 million it pulled in from its IPO very slowly. Read more »
LinkedIn has finally started spending some of that cash it raised in its May 9 stock market debut. But given the company’s $7.3 billion market cap, its first post-IPO acquisition — of husband-and-wife startup “Connected” — is not quite as splashy as some might have expected. Read more »
