Reminder: the real smartphone war is against dumbphones

Will Android kill the iPhone? Or is it the other way around? It’s tempting to stick with the market share battle mindset when it comes to smartphones, but as Asymco’s Horace Dediu points out, the real question may be, who can tempt away users of dumbphones, or traditional cellphones?

Dediu compiled second quarter smartphone market figures for the past four years (see chart at right), which makes it easy to see just how much potential... Continue Reading

LinkedIn’s $8B IPO — Silicon Valley, get ready for housing recovery

LinkedIn, the professional social network, began trading its shares publicly today and immediately soared to a market value of more than $8 billion — almost double the value of the company’s pricing yesterday.

What’s more, it comes on a day when the overall stock market is down.

Silicon Valley has been waiting for years for the new crop of technology companies to go public, and LinkedIn has been years in the making (check out the... Continue Reading

Khosla Ventures raises $1B — just in time for the bubble

Venture capital firm Khosla Ventures is apparently raising another $1 billion fund, a huge amount of money for a firm that raised a similar sized fund just two years ago.

But then again, there are signs of a bubble, and venture firms need more cash if they’re going to hold their own in highly-valued rounds. The bubble comes in part because of the perception of real opportunity, however. Real money is being made from the... Continue Reading

A milestone for e-books: Amazon sells more Kindle books than print

It was bound to happen eventually. Amazon announced today that it’s now selling more Kindle e-books than both hardcover and paperback books combined.

That’s a major shift for Amazon, which has been selling physical books for more than 15 years but has only been offering e-books for less than four years. Amazon also made it clear that it wasn’t counting free Kindle book sales.

Now for the first time ever, the term “book store” can... Continue Reading

BilltoMobile expands mobile payments worldwide

BilltoMobile, a startup that makes it easy to pay for web purchases via your monthly mobile bill, is announcing today that it will make its service available to more than 200 carriers in 60 countries.

The service can be integrated into all sorts of web apps, where users pay for digital items such as virtual goods in social games. The expansion into international markets is a sign that BilltoMobile has a lot of momentum with... Continue Reading

Next Issue Media launches digital newsstand for Android tablet

Next Issue Media, a consortium of five major magazine and newspaper publishers, launched a preview of its digital storefront today with app versions of seven popular magazines. Available publications include The New Yorker , Esquire , Fortune , Time , Fitness , Parents and Popular Mechanics . For now, the publications will be available as single issues or monthly subscriptions to select users of the Samsung Galaxy tablet.

Next Issue, an independent venture formed in 2009 by Hearst, Meredith, Conde Nast,... Continue Reading

Twitter introduces new restrictions for third-party apps

Twitter today announced on its blog that it has implemented more control over the access third-party applications have on user’s profile information.

The update focused on two main areas of app permissions. The first gives users more control over the most private information on Twitter – direct messages. Apps that have access to your direct messages will have to ask for permission again. Any that don’t need that access will no longer have it, according... Continue Reading

RIM PlayBook is a surprise hit, outsells Motorola’s Xoom

The BlackBerry PlayBook by RIM has been performing extremely well by selling approximately 250,000 units during its first moth of sales, according to RBC Capital Markets Managing Director Mike Abramsky.

That’s way ahead of Motorola’s flagship Xoom tablet, which took two months to sell 250,000 units. Of course, they’re both far behind Apple’s iPad 2. Apple’s been selling every unit it can manufacture.

Abramsky said RIM could move 500,000 PlayBooks during its first fiscal quarter.... Continue Reading

Facebook defends the manquisition

It’s been pretty obvious for a while now that when Facebook acquires small startups, it’s usually just treating the deal as a way to hire the company’s founders and engineering team — what has become known as a “manquistion” or “acqhire” (ugh, what ugly words). But Facebook offered more details about the thinking behind these deals in a recent New York Times article about the trend.

Basically, it sounds like we should look at this... Continue Reading

Apple Store 2.0 plans: major overhaul with iPads everywhere

Apple is apparently planning to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its retail stores this month with a slew of improvements spearheaded by none other than Steve Jobs and design head Jon Ive, 9to5 Mac reports.

Among the improvements, a source tells the site that Apple will offer personal setup for new computers and devices in “Startup Sessions” areas in stores, and iPads will be everywhere serving as interactive signage. The improvements have been dubbed “Apple... Continue Reading

Aston Martin Cygnet Edges Towards Reality, Electrifies Spies

Every self-respecting spy need the latest gadgets to keep them safe, suave and sexy.

But while James Bond would be nothing without the technological prowess of Q, his favorite brand of automobiles looks to be turning its attention towards its own electric wizardry in the form of the all-electric?Aston Martin Cygnet EV.

According to a report by British-based?CAR Magazine, the?luxury sports car automaker best known for its iconic sports?coupes so familiar to fans of the... Continue Reading

Report suggests cost of electric cars matters little to buyers

Less than a fifth of electric car buyers listed the price tag of an electric car as the most important factor when deciding to make the purchase, according to a new report by management consulting firm Accenture.

Most of the concerns for electric car buyers center around how long it takes to charge the car and how far it is able to drive, according to the report. Electric cars are typically limited in how far... Continue Reading

Eventbrite aims big with $50M of new funding

Ticketing startup Eventbrite announced today that it has raised $50 million to finance its growing ambitions in the ticketing market.

The San Francisco company started out aiming for a different audience than existing ticketing giant Ticketmaster, offering an easy way for small event organizers to sell tickets. My most common usage of Eventbrite has been for tech conferences and meetups. But the company has turned its focus to larger events, and last summer it sold... Continue Reading

Bill Gates urged Microsoft to buy Skype, says the deal was strategic

Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates was pushing the software giant to acquire internet video chat company Skype. The $8.5 billion deal was announced last week.

The acquisition is the largest Microsoft has ever done. And it was a great deal, Bill Gates said in an interview with BBC. He added that the deal was a strategic move. Skype is not very profitable, but it has over 660 million users worldwide. It gives Microsoft a... Continue Reading

Zynga acquires DNA Games, 14th acquisition in 12 months

Zynga said today it is acquiring social game maker DNA Games. That’s the 14th acquisition Zynga has made in 12 months.

Zynga is in a race to acquire talent to make more social games for Facebook (where it has more than 250 million monthly active users) and other platforms such as mobile.

DNA Games was founded in 2009 by Jon Lee and Shaun Haase. They have created hits such as Casino City, Slot City and... Continue Reading

Don’t bet on an LTE 4G iPhone 5 this year

Eventually one of these iPhone 5 rumors will have to pan out, so let’s keep throwing them at the wall: Industry sources say that Apple was originally planning to add LTE 4G capabilities to this year’s iPhone, but chose to delay including the technology until next year, Digitimes reports.

It’s tough to take reports like this seriously, especially when citing nebulous “industry sources,” but Digitimes has proven that it has a knack for milking accurate... Continue Reading

Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play game phone moves to Verizon

Sony Ericsson said today that its Xperia Play game phone will be available on Verizon Wireless starting May 19.

The new smartphone combines a standard smartphone with PlayStation controls for a better gaming experience than a typical smartphone would offer.

The Xperia Play uses the 2.3 Gingerbread version of Google’s Android operating system and comes preloaded with seven games. You can download more than 50 more games via Verizon’s VCAST apps. You can slide out... Continue Reading

Motorola Droid X2 available online tomorrow, in stores next week

After months of speculation, Motorola and Verizon have confirmed the launch date for the Motorola Droid X2 smartphone. Priced at $200 with a new two-year plan, The Droid X2 will be available online May 19, and will hit Verizon Wireless stores May 26.

The phone is the successor to the very popular Droid X, which was launched in June 2010. As far as the technical specs go, the phone isn’t offering much in the way... Continue Reading