Thursday, August 20, 2009Report: Slacker Loses CEOSan Diego-based music startup Slacker has apparently lost its CEO, according to a report from VentureWire. VentureWire said it confirmed the departure of Dennis Mudd with an investor in the company. Slacker is venture backed by Austin Ventures, Centennial Ventures, Mission Ventures, Rho Ventures, and Sevin Rosen Funds. The firm has raised around $70M in funding. The firm operates a personalized Internet radio service, which is tied to both a Web-based music player and a hardware device tied to S (More info...)
posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009(Full story)
Edmunds.com: GM eBay Cars Not Such A Great DealSanta Monica-based Edmunds.com, which offers an online site for automotive information and analysis, has taken a close look at GM's new online eBay store for its autos, and concludes that buyers will be better off making an offer than accepting the "Buy It Now" price on the site. Edmunds.com estimates that "Buy It Now" prices are, on average, two percent higher than the average market price on vehicles purchase on the market. The firm said, for example, that buyers of a 2009 Pontiac G6 are payin (More info...)
posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009(Full story)
Microsemi Settles DOJ Suit Over SemicoaIrvine-based Microsemi is reporting this afternoon that it has settled a civil lawsuit against the firm by the U.S. Department of Justice, after the firm sold the assets of semiconductor firm Semicoa to an unnamed, third party. The DOJ had sued Microsemi in December, after the July acquisition of the assets of Semicoa, a provider of semiconductors for the military and commercial market. Microsemi said there would not be a material impact on its current quarterly results. Microsemi had paid $25M (More info...)
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Callwave's Saga Ends, As Firm RebrandsThe long saga of Callwave has ended, as the firm said this morning that it has officially changed its name to Fuze Box. The firm--which was for years one of Santa Barbara's most prominent technology firms--moved its headquarters to the Bay Area nearly a year ago, and recently went private, delisting from the NASDAQ. The firm went IPO in 2004. Fuze Box said it is now focused on online meetings and mobile collaboration; the firm said it still has offices in Santa Barbara.
posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009(Full story)
Qualcomm M2M Joint Venture Becomes nPhaseSan Diego-based Qualcommm said today that it has named its join venture with Verizon Wireless, as nPhase. Qualcomm had said at the end of July that it was entering into a joint venture with Verizon Wireless focused on wireless communications for smart devices, with the new venture to be headed by Steve Pazol. Verizon and Qualcomm said at the time they would be joint owners in the new venture, but said they had not yet named the venture. Qualcomm acquired the name nPhase back in 2006, when it bou (More info...)
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Stamps.com Ties Into HP Creative StudioLos Angeles-based Stamps.com is in a distribution deal with HP, through HP's Creative Studio for Business service. According to Stamps, users of HP's online service--which allows users to create print-ready projects--can test the firm's PC Postage software through a four-week trial. No financial details of the deal were disclosed.
posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009(Full story)
World of Warcraft Launches MagazineIrvine-based Blizzard Entertainment has inked a deal with games media publisher Future, where Future will publish a magazine focused on Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The firm ssaid the magazine will be a quarterly publication, covering "all aspects" of the massively multiplayer, online role playing game. The publication will be published simultaneously in English, French, German, and Spanish.
posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009(Full story)
Lawdate.com Looks To Match Up LawyersA new, online social network and dating site, Lawdate.com, based in Los Angeles, said today that it is hoping to match up lawyers with dates with its new web service. The site, the first niche dating site of firm The Dolce Network, calls itself the "attorney dating system," and gives singles opportunities to connect not only based on traditional interests and personality traits--but also practice specialty. The Dolce Network said the service is the first in a series of nice dating sites, includi (More info...)
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Integrien Expands Advisory BoardIrvine-based Integrien, a developer of IT performance analysis tools, said Thursday that it has added a new advisor, Ian Dodd, to its technology advisory board. The firm said that Ian Dodd heads Global Operations & Enterprise Automation for IBM, supporting Kaiser Permanente from IBM's Global Delivery centers. The firm also said that Dodd was in charge of United Health Group's Enterprise Command Center, in addition to holding roles of CTO, Chief Architect, Operations Director and Executive Progra (More info...)
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YouMail Adds VoIP, PBX Mailbox SupportIrvine-based YouMail, a developer of enhanced voicemail services, said today that it has added support for voice-over-IP services Vonage, Google Voice, Magicjack, OOMA, Pack 8, eVoice, and others, through a new service called YouMail DropBox. the firm said that the new service consolidates voicemails from both online, VoIP services as well as PBX services such as RingCentral, Phone.com, Adomo, Nortel, Cisco, and Avaya. The new service handles email voicemail alerts sent by those systems, allowin (More info...)
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Interview with Sherry Gunther, Masher MediaLast Week, Calabasas-based Masher Media announced it had received a round of angel funding from the Tech Coast Angels to fund its development of MyMiniPeeps (www.myminipeeps.com), a virtual world for children. We spoke with Sherry Gunther, CEO and founder of the firm, earlier this week to get a better look at the company and the dynamics behind the virtual world market nowadays--as well as why Sherry decided to make the jump from the world of entertainment media to online. Sherry has previously (More info...)
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Apricorn Rolls Out Secure Hard DriveIn response to the worries of companies about data theft, Poway-based Apricorn, a developer of personal storage products, has released another product in its line of encrypted hard drives. Apricorn said its new Aegis Padlock Secure Hard Drive requires its customers to type in a personal identification number, before users can access data on an encrypted hard drive. The hard drive's data is encrypted using either AES-128 or 256 bit hardware encryption, to ensure that the data can't be read off th (More info...)
posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009(Full story)