Thursday, October 22, 2009


Solarmer Ups Solar Efficiency
Los Angeles-based Solarmer Energy, a developer of plastic solar panels, said Thursday that it has upped its solar efficiency, to 7.6%. The firm said the efficiency breaks the world record for plastic solar cell efficiency. The firm had previously reported a 6.77 percent efficiency in its cells. Solarmer develops flexible, plastic-based solar cells, and is based on technology spun out of UCLA. The firm said the efficiency was tested by Newport Corporation's TAC-PV Lab.
posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009(Full story)

Stamps.com: PC Postage Up, PhotoStamps Down
Los Angeles-based Stamps.com, a provider of online postage, reported its quarterly results Thursday, saying that PhotoStamps revenue was down 6% versus the same period last year, but PC Postage revenue was up 5%. The firm said it earned $1.7M on revenues of $20.2M. The firm attributed the drop in PhotoStamps revenue to a 46% cut in its overall level of sales and marketing costs versus Q3 of 2008.
posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009(Full story)

CFX Battery Raises $15M More
Azusa-based CFX Battery, a developer of advanced battery technology, said today at Los Angeles Technology Week that the firm has just closed a $15M, Series B funding round. CFX, a spinout of Caltech, is developing both primary and secondary batteries. Joseph Fisher, the firm's CEO, said on a panel that the investment was led by an unnamed strategic investor.
posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009(Full story)

Mattel Launches Online Shopping Site
El Segundo-based toy maker Mattel has jumped into the online shopping market, saying today that the firm has launched MattelShop.com, an online site offering the firm's products. According to Mattel, the new ecommerce site includes a complete catalog of its brands, which include Barbie and Hot Wheels, along with social shopping tools, links to Facebook, videos of products, and more. The site also includes a Twitter account and YouTube videos.
posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009(Full story)

LiveOffice Adds Encryption
Torrance-based LiveOffice, a provider of email archiving and hosting services, said this week that the firm has added new, encryption support for the firm's software-as-a-service. According to LiveOffice, it will provide policy-based encyprtion to organizations, offering end-to-end protection for messages and attachments sent by its customers. The firm said the new support will use corporate policy to determine which email to encrypt prior to transmission, and encode those in 256-bit, AES within (More info...)
posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009(Full story)

MySpace Rolls Out Music Videos, Artist Tools
Los Angeles-based MySpace said Wednesday evening that it has rolled out a new phase of the firm's music site, adding new music videos to the site, as well as tools targeted at artists. According to MySpace, its MySpace Music Videos feature provides an online collection of music videos, recommendation, and sharing tools for music fans. Additionally, the site said that it has created a MySpace Artist Dashboard, a tool which provides additional information and analytics about music content on the s (More info...)
posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009(Full story)