High Technology News and Information for the Pacific Northwest Region
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High Technology News and Information for the Pacific Northwest Region |
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 Friday, July 30, 2010 Yapta Partners With Booking.com Seattle-based airfare and hotel rate tracking firm Yapta announced today that it has inked a partnership with Booking.com, an online hotel reservations firm. Yapta said that it will use the partnership to track hotel prices on a much broader selection of properties. Yapta said the move will allow travelers to monitor pricing on over 196,000 domestic and international properties. Yapta is headed by Tom Romary, and has been tracking hotel rates on the service since March of 2009. (More info...) posted on Friday, July 30, 2010(Full story) Total Living Choices Gets $2.2M Seattle-based Total Living Choices, which operates an online guide to nursing, assisted living, and other senior living facilities, has raised $2.2M in a funding, according to a regulatory filing by the firm Thursday. According to the filing, the funds are part of an ongoing $3.5M fundraising effort. Source of the new funding was not disclosed by the firm, which is also known as TwilightLiving. posted on Friday, July 30, 2010 (More)(Full story) Thursday, July 29, 2010 Bing, Windows Live Messenger Link Microsoft has linked its Bing search engine and instant messaging software Windows Live Messenger. According to the teams working on the two projects, Windows Live Messenger Beta now includes contextual linking of terms in the latest version of Messenger, linking such things as brands, famous movies and people, bands and singers, and places to the Bing search engine. Microsoft's Bing team said the features is available on the current version of Messenger Beta for Windows 7 and Windows Vista. (More info...) posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010(Full story) Vertafore Acquisition Completes Bothell, Washington-based Vertafore said Thursday that the acquisition of the firm by private equity firm TPG Capital has completed. The deal, which was first announced on June 10th, was worth $1.4 billion. Vertafore was previously owned by Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity. Vertafore is a provider of software and services for the insurance industry. TPG Capital's financing for the deal came from Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and RBC Capital Markets. (More info...) posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010(Full story) Itron Gets Win In France Liberty Lake-based Itron has scored another smart metering win in Europe, saying today that Gaz reseau Distribution France (GrDF), the main gas utility in France, has selected its EverBlu fixed data collection system. Itron said the deployment includes 5,000 residential customers in Saint-Omer, France. The deployment is part of a pilot program being run by GrDF to study the use of smart meters for future mass deployment. (More info...) posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010(Full story) Clearwire, Best Buy Ink Wholesale Deal Kirkland-based Clearwire and electronics retailer Best Buy Co. said today that the two are in a strategic wholesale relationship, which will allow Best Buy to use Clearwire's 4G network for its own branded, 4G mobile service. According to the two, the deal with Best Buy subsidiary Best Buy Connect will allow users to access Clearwire's 4G network starting in 2011. Financial details of the deal between the companies was not disclosed. (More info...) posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010(Full story) UC4 Names Exec Bellevue-based UC4 Software, a developer of IT service automation software, announced today that it has named Siddharth (Sidd) Mallannagari as its Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development. Mallannagari joins the firm from CA, where he was VP of Strategy & Product Management in that firm's Software-as-a-Service unit. Mallannagari has also served at Dell and Johnson Controls. (More info...) posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010(Full story) Gist Gets $4.0M Seattle-based Gist, the provider of software which helps users pull more information about their contacts into their email software, has raised another $4.0M in funding from Vulcan Capital and the Foundry Group. The funding had been widely reported through a number of sources this week. Gist is headed by T.A. McCann. posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 (More)(Full story) Amazon Rolls Out New Kindle For $139 Seattle-based Amazon.com announced this morning that it has created a new, $139 Kindle, the Kindle Wi-Fi-only, and updated its line of electronic book readers. According to Amazon, its new Kindle Wi-Fi only includes Wi-Fi support, instead of the former 3G wireless built into the original Kindle. (More info...) posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010(Full story)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Bing Releases Safari Extension Microsoft's search engine, Bing.com, said today that it has released its first extension for Apple's Safari browser. According to Bing, its new Bing Highlights extension allow users to highlight text on any web page, and get additional information about that highlighted text. The extension will pull up a Bing map when a U.S. address is highlighted, translate foreign text, pull up airline flight status, and more. (More info...) posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010(Full story) Bezos Gets Exit In Kongregate Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment firm of Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, has seen an exit out of its investment portfolio this week, with the acquisition of San Francisco-based Kongregate. Videogame retailer GameStop acquired Kongregate on Tuesday, but did not disclose financial terms of the deal. Kongregate operates an online social gaming site and community. The company was venture backed by Greylock Partners, Bezos Expeditions, and other angel investors. (More info...) posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010(Full story) doxo Names Marketing Head Seattle-based Doxo, which is developing a paperless billing service, said today that it has hired Kevin Frisch as Vice President of Marketing. Frisch joins the firm from Blue Nile, where he was Senior Vice President of Marketing. He also has served at Snapfish, Proflowers, and PacketVideo/NextWave Wireless. Doxo is venture backed by Mohr Davidow Ventures and Bezos Expeditions. (More info...) posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010(Full story) Hemaquest Raises $4M Seattle-based HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals, a firm developing small molecule therapeutic treatments for sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, and cancer, said today that it has raised and additional $4M in its Series B round, bringing the total in the round to $16M. The new investment was led by Latterell Venture Partners. Other investors in the firm are Aberdare Ventures, De Novo Ventures, Forward Ventures and Lilly Ventures. (More info...) posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 (More)(Full story) DocuSign Partners With Financial Software Firm Seattle-based DocuSign, which provides an online electronic signature service, reported today that it is in a partnership with MeridianLink, a software-as-a-service provider for consumer loan origination and account opening for financial institutions. According to DocuSign, MeridianLink is using its electronic signature management service as part of its offerings. Financial details of the partnership were not announced by the firms. (More info...) posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010(Full story) F5 Integrates With Oracle Seattle-based F5 Networks, a developer of load balancing and other network control devices, said this morning that it has integrated its F4 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) product with Oracle's Identity Management tools. The firm said the move gives its customers a centralized point of enforcement to simplify access control and auditing. The integration specifically helps secure access to Oracle's application by remote users on a network. posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010(Full story) Itron Wins New Mexico Utility Liberty Lake, Washington-based smart meter provider Itron said today that it has signed a contract with the New Mexico Gas Company. According to Itron, the contract calls for the firm to install approximately 345,000 natural gas modules for the utility. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. Itron said the upgrade to the New Mexico Gas Company's meters will allow the firm to remotely read those meters, eliminating errors that can occur with manual readings. (More info...) posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010(Full story) Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Kindle Sells Out Amazon's original Kindle book reader appears to have sold out, according to Amazon.com's site Tuesday afternoon. According to the site--which has been pushing the Kindle with free two day shipping and a lowered price in recent weeks--is now "Temporarily out of stock." No restock date was given for the device. Amazon just announced last week that the recent lowering of the Kindle price had tripled sales of the Kindle. (More info...) posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010(Full story) Author Sells One Million Kindle Books On Amazon Seattle-based Amazon.com said Tuesday that it has added the first author to the "Kindle Million Club" -- the list of authors who have sold more than a million Kindle books. According to Amazon, Steig Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, is the first to sell over a million copies through the Kindle store. Larsson is the deceased author of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010(Full story) Microsoft Connects Hohm With Energy Monitoring Device Microsoft Hohm, Microsoft's online energy monitoring service, has rolled out a new device which helps consumers monitor their energy use. Microsoft has linked up with Blue Line, a developer of electronic devices, to connect real time energy information to the service. According to Microsoft, Blue Line's PowerCost Monitor can show its users home much electricity they are using, and connects to the service via a new wireless hardware product. (More info...) posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010(Full story) Virtensys Bolsters Board Beaverton, Oregon-based Virtensys, a developer of I/O virtualization products for the data center market, said today that it has named Mark Christensen to its board of directors. Christensen has previously been at Intel, including managing Intel Capital's investments in mobile devices and communications infrastructure. The firm said that Christensen is the founder of Global Capital Management, which provides consulting for technology startups. posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010(Full story) Marchex Adds Telemarketing Blocker Seattle-based Marchex said today that it has added a new product feature to block calls by telemarketers. Marchex, which said the feature is now standard on its call tracking numbers, said the feature will help customers only pay for calls by actual customers, and uses a list of known telemarketers to prevent those calls. Marchex provides both online and pay-per-call advertising and marketing products, where businesses pay for the calls received from the firm's marketing efforts. (More info...) posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010(Full story) Daptiv Acquired By Investment Firm Seattle-based Daptiv, a developer of software-as-a-service for project and portfolio management, has been acquired by Parallax Capital Partners. According to California-based Parallax Capital, it has appointed John Baldwin as Daptiv's new CEO. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Parallax said that Daptiv was profitable, and has recurring revenues of nearly $20M. Daptiv was backed by Bay Partners, Genevest, Kennet Venture Partners, and others, and was formerly known as eProject. (More info...) posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010(Full story) Elemental Technologies Raises $7.5M Portland-based Elemental Technologies, a developer of massively parallel video processing products, announced today that it has raised $7.5M in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Steamboat Ventures, the venture capital arm of Walt Disney Company, and also included General Catalyst and Voyager Capital. Steamboat's Scott Hilleboe joins Elemental's board as part of the funding. (More info...) posted on Tuesday, July 27, 2010 (More)(Full story)
Monday, July 26, 2010 Delve Adds YouTube Publishing Seattle-based Delve Networks, the video publishing firm run by Alex Castro, said today that it has added direct connects to YouTube, the online video site owned by Google. Delve said it has added a new "External Publishing to YouTube" feature which allows Delve users to publish their channels directly to a YouTube account. The firm said the feature means that any change in a user's Delve account will automatically be reflected on YouTube, including new videos and removal of old videos. posted on Monday, July 26, 2010(Full story) Widevine Wins Spanish Firm Seattle-based Widevine reported today that it has been selected by mgMEDIA, a digital content distribution technology firm based in Spain. Widevine said that mgMEDIA will use the firm for its adaptive streaming, virtual DVD controls and digital rights management. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. mgMEDIA provides software for distributing music, movies, and e-books to Internet connected consumer electronics devices. Widevine is a provider of digital rights management (DRM) software. (More info...) posted on Monday, July 26, 2010(Full story) |
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