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AT&T to Link U-Verse, iPhone
REUTERS
U.S. phone company AT&T Inc plans to eventually link Apple Inc’s iPhone to its high-speed Internet and video service called U-verse, and introduce new features like using the phone as a remote control. At an event on Monday to showcase some recently developed technologies that are not yet being marketed, AT&T emphasized that in the future, consumers should be able to use their phones, computer and television in more interesting ways.
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Social Gaming Network Acquires (fluff) Friends
TECHCRUNCH
Social Gaming Network Tuesday announced that it has completed its acquisition of (fluff) Friends, a Facebook game that lets people adopt virtual furry friends and interact with friends who also have virtual pets. (fluff) Friends users can choose from a group of “fluff” pets that can be personalized to match the user’s personality. Once created, the pet can interact with other users and the game’s currency exchange system (which is probably the main reason why Social Gaming Network wanted this title, considering it turns into revenue for the game) has grown by an astounding 192 percent since January per spender.
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Imdb.com Allows Free Film, TV Viewing
MASHABLE
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is, hands down, one of the most useful sites on the Internet. Think of any movie – ANY movie – and it has all the information about it you’ll ever need. There’s a pro version of the site that offers even more info, but the regular IMDB is so good that most users won’t ever need to go pro.
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Firefox 3.1 to Gain Modicum of Privacy
CNET
Of the two big browsing features of 2008, one seems to run counter to where developers are driving their browsers. The melding of the location bar to the search bar was expected in Firefox and Opera. Chrome has it, too, calling it the Omnibar. What seems to have caught developers off-guard has been the clamor for a universal switch to stop the cache and browsing history from recording anything at all. Microsoft’s InPrivate debuted in Internet Explorer 8 beta 2, and Google Chrome’s version is the well-received Incognito feature.
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Twitter will come to Current TV for Debate
THE SOCIAL
Current, the edgy news and culture channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, has come up with a new way to broadcast the presidential debates: show Twitter commentary on what people are saying. Through an official partnership with the microblogging service, Current will broadcast “Hack the Debate,” which will live-stream on Current.com as well as air on the network. Twitter updates, or “tweets,” will be shown in real time for all four debates (three with the presidential candidates and one with the vice presidential candidates), which begin on September 26. It makes a whole lot of sense, given Current’s slant toward young and tech-savvy news hounds (i.e., the people who use Twitter) and heavy focus on user-submitted content.
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Intel Launches Six-Core Xeon Monster Chip
ARS TECHNICA
Intel formally launched its new six-core Xeon 7400 processor, codenamed “Dunnington.” The new chip is basically three dual-core Penryn processors packed onto a single processor die, along with a large pool of shared L3 cache and interconnect logic. With six cores and three levels of cache on one die, Dunnington is a 1.9-billion-transistor monster. This is almost as big as the company’s latest 2-billion-transistor Itanium chip (launched in February), and it’s quite a milestone for the x86 instruction set.
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European Commission Inspecting Google/Yahoo Ad Tie-Up
CLICKZ NEWS
The European Commission has announced it is conducting a preliminary investigation into Google’s and Yahoo’s proposed ad tie-up. The deal, should it go ahead, will allow Google to run its ads against Yahoo search results. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes’ spokesperson, Jonathan Todd, told Reuters yesterday it has begun a “preliminary investigation” into the agreement’s potential effects on competition within the European Economic Area (EEA). The investigation began in mid-July, Todd said, and has no official deadline.
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Travel Ad Network Adds Maps.com
ONLINE MEDIA DAILY
The Travel Ad Network (TAN) has added Maps.com, a provider of mapping products and solutions to business, education and consumer markets and the largest online U.S. map store. With the addition of Map.com’s nearly 2 million monthly unique visitors, New York-based TAN has a global audience reach approaching 25 million, according to the company. Per August comScore numbers, the TAN has passed Travelocity in reach in the U.S., with 10.4 million unique users.
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Anagran Raises $8.6 Million for Network Traffic Management
VENTUREBEAT
Anagran, a Sunnyvale, Calif. company that builds “flow management” products to help handle traffic on Internet service provider and corporate networks, has taken $8.6 million in a fourth funding round. Fairly often, flow management simply means handling peer to peer (P2P) traffic between users. The company’s first product, the FR-1000 Flow Router, is well known for being one of the tools companies like Comcast use to slow down P2P – a contentious issue, but profitable for the company. The investors in this round were Advanced Technology Ventures, ArrowPath Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
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MyPunchbowl Raises $2.1 Million Series A
CENTER NETWORKS
Boston-based MyPunchbowl has announced they have raised a $2.1 million Series A round of venture capital funding. The funding was led by NY-based Contour Venture Partners and included participating from current investors Intel Capital and eCoast Angels. Punchbowl Software notes that the funding will be used to pursue strategic opportunities and grow the Punchbowl Software development team. MyPunchbowl is an end-to-end party planning tool rather than just an invite service such as eVite.
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