Monday, August 4, 2008


CraveOnline Buys Anime/Manga Site
Los Angeles-based CraveOnline.com, a operator of a number of online male-focused web sites, said Monday that it has acquired MyAnimeList, a anime and manga social networking web site. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. MyAnimeList is focused on allowing users to catalog their anime or manga collections, and socialize with other users. According to MyAnimeList, it has around 79,500 users. CraveOnline is a unit of AtomicOnline, which operates a stable of online media sites.
posted on Monday, August 4, 2008(Full story)

Qualcomm COO Leaves For Motorola
San Diego-based Qualcomm has lost executive Sanjay Jha, the firm's COO, to Motorola. Motorola said today that it has hired on Jha as its Co-Chief Executive Officer of Motorola and Chief Executive Officer of Motorola's Mobile Devices Business. Jha was most recently chief operating officer of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies; he had been at Qualcomm for over fourteen years. Qualcomm said that Len Lauer, the firm's executive vice president of Qualcomm and group president, has be (More info...)
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SpaceX Loses Rocket, Gets Investment
SpaceX, the Hawthorne, California-based space rocket startup funded by former PayPal founder Elon Musk, has suffered a major loss as the firm's Falcon 1 rocket failed in a test launch Saturday night. According to SpaceX, a problem with the firm's rocket occurred at stage separation, causing a failure two minutes after launch of the rocket. The loss of the rocket marked the third failure for SpaceX, which has seen two earlier failures in test launches. In a statement about the failure, Musk said (More info...)
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Zogenix Calls Off IPO
San Diego-based Zogenix has called off the firm's IPO, according to a filing with the SEC by the company late Friday. According to Zogenix, it is withdrawing its IPO, which it had originally filed for in March, due to "general market conditions." Zogenix had been looking to raise up to $86.25M on the Nasdaq Global Market. The firm's IPO had been underwritten by Banc of America Securities, Leerink Swann, Thomas Weisel Partners, and Susquehanna Financial Group. Zogenix is backed by Domain Associa (More info...)
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Interview with Kelly Perdew, RotoHog.com
Kelly Perdew is the chief executive officer of RotoHog.com (www.rotohog.com), which provides online fantasy sports platforms with a twist. RotoHog's branded and white-label offerings combine traditional scoring systems with a novel, stock market-style trading feature. Perdew's name should ring a bell with die-hard reality TV fans. As the winner of the second season of NBC's "The Apprentice," Perdew is one of the few people to work for Donald Trump and not have the words, "You're fired!" dire (More info...)
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Experian Launches GreenUmbrella.com
Irvine-based Experian Interactive, the parent company of PriceGrabber.com and Lowermybills.com, said today that it has launched a new service called GreenUmbrella.com. According to Experian, the new service will provide all-in-one extended service plans for home electronics, computer, and appliances. GreenUmbrella said that it will offer unlimited extended service warranties for $9.95 a month for an unlimited number of products. The new service is targeted at eliminating retail extended service (More info...)
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Jacked, Versus Ink Sports Deal
Santa Monica-based Jacked, which provides a "second screen" information service focused on sports, has inked a partnership with cable sports channel VERSUS. According to Jacked, it will integrate its SportsTop product within the live sports telecasts on VERSUS. Financial impact of the deal was not disclosed. According to Jacked, the deal covers live telecasts of regular season NHL games, as well as Stanley Cup Playoffs; college football games in the Pac-10, Big 12 and Mountain West conferences; (More info...)
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Energy Innovations Gets UL Certification, Looks For More Funding
Pasadena-based solar power concentrator firm Energy Innovations, one of the solar power startups out of Idealab, said Monday that it has received a UL Certification from Underwriters Laboratories, and also said that it is looking for more funding to deploy its products. According to Energy Innovations, the firm's Sunflower Solar Concentrator received the certification, which is required for commercial PV installations and to qualify for most U.S. state incentive programs for solar power systems. (More info...)
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Solarflare Samples New Ethernet Chip
Irvine-based Solarflare Communications, a developer of semiconductors for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet market, said today that it has begun sampling its next generation 10GBASE-T PHY. The chip, which is used to connect to 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking hardware, allows hardware designers to create Ethernet network interface cards that support sending Ethernet over copper cabling. According to Solarflare, the chips is now sampling to unnamed, Tier 1 switch and server origial equipment and design manuf (More info...)
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Illumina Names CTO
San Diego-based Illumina, a developer of life sciences tools and services, said Monday that it has appointed Dr. Mostafa Ronaghi as the firm's Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Ronaghi joined Illumina last year as part of its acquisition of Avantome, Inc. Ronaghi also has previously served as a co-founder of Pyrosequencing AB, ParAllele Bioscience, and NextBio. Illumina's scientific testing equipment is used for DNA analysis, sequencing, and related areas.
posted on Monday, August 4, 2008(Full story)