Red Cross Honors Local Hero for Rescuing Man From Burning Building Patch.com At its annual event, the Silicon Valley chapter of the Red Cross acknowledges county residents for heroic acts. By Nicole Baldocchi | Email the author | 5:51pm Robert Bentson said that he wanted to share his award with fellow rescuer, James Carrillo, ... and more »

Modesto Bee

Metro Chamber's Mahood may be leaving Sacramento Business Journal Mahood is the leading candidate to become CEO of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. The chamber's board is expected to confirm the appointment next week. Mahood said part of the appeal of the job is getting back to the Bay Area, ... Matthew Mahood may make Sacramento-Silicon Valley chamber CEO moveBizjournals.com Pizarro: Sacramento chamber of commerce chief may be moving to Silicon ValleySan Jose Mercury News Mahood likely leaving metro chamberModesto Bee all 15 news articles »

This past November, the blogosphere was briefly set on fire when a comment Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made in passing stated that Apple had acquired the voice recognition company Nuance. Wozniak quickly came out and corrected that comment, and most believed that he had simply confused Nuance with the company he mentioned right afterwards, Siri — a company that Apple actually did acquire in April 2010. But as it turns out, Wozniak's comment, whether he knew it or not at the time, may not have been as off as it seemed. Apple has been negotiating a deal with Nuance in recent months, we've heard from multiple sources. What does that mean? Well, it could mean an acquisition, but that is looking fairly unlikely at this point, we hear. More likely, it means a partnership that will be vital to both companies and could shape the future of iOS.

With two online game services down and 100 million accounts possibly compromised, Sony is mulling a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the hackers, according to AllThingsDigital.

Sony hasn’t reached a final decision on whether to offer the reward. The options shows that the company is still taking a hard line on pursuing hackers, even as Anonymous, the hacktivist group, considers more attacks in the coming days against different Sony sites.

The PlayStation Networks, which has 77 million registered users, has been down fore more than two weeks as a result of a hacker attack. The Station, an online network for 24 million PC online gamers, has been down since Monday. Sony has apologized multiple times for the outage and says it is beefing up security.

If Sony moves forward on the reward, it will do so in cooperation with law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Sony is hoping to knock loose information about who carried out the attack on April 19. Our timeline on the sequence of events is here. Meanwhile, Sony said that accusations by computer security expert Gene Spafford during a Congressional hearing Thursday were wrong.

Spafford said that Sony was running outdated versions of Web server software and had not been using a firewall on its servers. In a statement, Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold, said the company was using updated software and had “multiple security measures in place,” including firewalls. Anonymous is rumored to be planning a new attack.

Tags: Anonymous, hacker attack

Companies: Sony

People: Patrick Seybold

A new document shows that Zynga is raising a new round of funding up to $490 million, according to Inside Social Games.

The filing shows that Zynga, the largest social gaming firm on Facebook, has authorized a new series of Series C preferred shares as of early March, according to financial analysis firm VC Experts.

In February, published reports suggested that Zynga was raising a round of $500 million at a valuation of $10 billion. But the round was never announced. The filing shows that the deal may still be in the works or has already been completed. VC Experts calculated that the post-investment value of Zynga after the new round could be $9.1 billion, assuming that all authorized shares have been issued.

AllThingsD previously said that Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Investments, venture firm Kleiner Perkins were participants, while the New York Times said in April that T.Rowe Price now owns $71.8 million in stock. The murky things about the filing is that Zynga doesn’t have to file these documents on a timely basis and they are somewhat vague as well.

Tags: social games

Companies: Zynga

A San Francisco company has won a contract worth nearly $7.3 million from the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority to do creek improvements in Fremont along the route of the BART extension project. According to VTA officials, Con-Quest Contractors Inc. will do construction work along the Agua Fria, Toroges and Agua Caliente creeks in preparation for the $2.1 billion, 10-mile Berryessa extension line connecting the future Warm Springs station in Fremont with North San Jose. That’s the first leg of the eventual $6 billion, 16-mile BART extension to downtown San...

Technorati

Julian Assange Lashes Out At Silicon Valley Kings Technorati The notoriously famous Julian Assange has now lashed out at Google, Facebook and Yahoo and has called them "tools for US Intelligence." In an interview to a Russian news site Julian says that Facebook "is the most appalling spying machine that has ever ... and more »

HireClix Hosts Free Digital Marketing Boot Camp for Recruiters in Silicon Valley San Francisco Chronicle (press release) What: Corporate recruiting teams, staffing firms and human resources professionals are invited to attend a free Digital Recruitment Boot Camp in Silicon Valley hosted by HireClix. The educational seminar will teach recruiters how to move beyond job ... and more »

Whoa there tipsters, slow down. We've just been bombarded with tips coming our way that Google has rolled out a new-look search results page. Scanning Twitter, it looks like there are in fact a lot of people seeing this. And boy is it ugly. I mean, it's great that Google appears to be trying to clean up the look of the results page, which has gotten pretty cluttered over the years as they add more and more types of information and snippets. But the new design is too sparse. And the colors are too soft. It looks like Bing on a bad day.

Notable developer Joe Hewitt has left Facebook to pursue independent projects. From his blog: "Today was my last day at Facebook. Normally when I leave a job I go out cursing the management and wishing I had left much sooner. In the case of Facebook, I sent heartfelt emails to all of my managers thanking them for the privilege of letting me work there, and I genuinely meant it. Facebook was the longest I ever worked at one company, and the best employer I've ever had." Updating.

Lenovo is backing a new video game system that is expected to launch in the second half of this year in China. The iSec system has Kinect-like motion controls and is aimed at a mass market consumer that doesn’t buy the current game consoles.

Beijing-based Eedoo Technology (spelled eedoo by the company) hopes to cash in on the fact that foreign companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are barred from direct sales in China. Eedoo is funded by Lenovo, China’s biggest PC manufacturer, and it unveiled the iSec (previously known as the eBox) on Friday. The name refers to Sports Entertainment Center.

The iSec uses a 3D depth camera, much like Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing system does, so that a user can control the system with hand gestures or body motions. The games that the company has talked about so far focuses on exercise or martial arts. The system also supports other kinds of entertainment such as movies and web surfing or karaoke.

China’s government hasn’t approved the game consoles in the past because they have been focused purely on fun, rather than entertainment. Eedoo has an edge in getting approval because it is locally made and it is family friendly, with a focus on health and entertainment.

Jack Luo, chief executive of the company, said the company will focus on the Chinese market first. He did not disclose the price. China’s online game market based on the PC is going through a boom right now, with overall revenues expected to hit $5.8 billion in 2011, according to Niko Partners. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are still trying to get approval to sell their machines in the country. Zeebo, another low-cost console maker, launched in China with a focus on education titles.

Tags: China, game console, iSec, online gaming, video games

Companies: eedoo Technology, Lenovo

People: Jack Luo

New York Daily News

With Budget Unveiling, Bloomberg Draws the Battle Lines WNYC "We are forced to do the best we can with what we've got. The state has shifted the burden from them to us." Following the unveiling of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's final budget, the battle lines are now drawn between the mayor and City ... Bloomberg to cut more than 6000 NYC teaching positionsCNN International Bloomberg's $65.7 Billion New York City Budget Proposes 6000 Teacher CutsBloomberg NYC Mayor's Budget Would Cut 1 Out Of 12 TeachersNPR Brooklyn Daily Eagle -Patch.com -The Associated Press all 331 news articles »

Veteran San Jose-based chipmaker Altera Corp. is preparing to open an Austin research and development center that will employ between 200 and 300 people, a spokesman said on Friday. Altera (Nasdaq:ALTR), founded in 1988, attributed the move to growth in the smart phone and mobile device market increasing the need for back-end communication infrastructure. The company develops customizable chips used most for equipment in communications, industrial, broadcast, computer and storage, medical and other...

Mohr Davidow on Friday named Paul Cleveland its first chief operating officer. The Menlo Park-based venture capital firm said Cleveland will be responsible for all finance, operations and administrative functions of the firm. Cleveland joins Mohr Davidow from Palo Alto-based pharmaceutical company Affymax Inc., where he was chief financial officer and executive vice president of corporate development. Prior to that he was a managing director at Integrated Finance Ltd., an investment bank. Earlier in his career he was managing director and head of West Coast mergers & acquisitions for JPMorgan (formerly Hambrecht &...

VantagePoint Venture Partners has changed its name to VantagePoint Capital Partners. The firm has offices in San Bruno, Hong Kong, and Beijing, with $4.5 billion of committed capital invested in cleantech, information technology, health care and Asia. “We will continue to support the VantagePoint Venture Partners name for some time to come,” said Gene Gable, the company’s vice president of marketing communications. Gable said the change better reflects the direction of the company’s business over the past decade as cleantech investing has become its principal...

LinkedIn Corp. on Friday announced one departure and five new additions to its global advertising sales group, along with the creation of new roles at the company. The personnel moves "will better position the company's Marketing Solutions team to meet the broad marketing and advertising goals of the world's leading BtoB and 'prosumer' brands," the Mountain View company said. Clive Punter, who will lead the organization, joined LinkedIn in September 2010 after nearly 15 years at CBS Outdoor. Jonathan Lister, vice president of North America Sales for Marketing Solutions, was formerly country manager at Google...

Yanni San Jose : San Jose Civic Auditorium 145 West San Carlos Street 95112 on 2011-05-06

Chris O'Brien at Freelancer.com sent me an interesting report that shows a massive drop in freelance writing jobs following Google's Panda algorithm update in February, which was designed to demote content farms in search rankings.

HireClix Hosts Free Digital Marketing Boot Camp for Recruiters in Silicon Valley Benzinga What: Corporate recruiting teams, staffing firms and human resources professionals are invited to attend a free Digital Recruitment Boot Camp in Silicon Valley hosted by HireClix. The educational seminar will teach recruiters how to move beyond job ... and more »

CTO Telecom Summit Partners with Telecom Council of Silicon Valley PR-USA.net (press release) The CTO Telecom Summit team announced today that it has formed a strategic partnership with the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley, a business tool that connects companies and individuals involved in the region's communications technology industry with ... and more »

Modesto Bee

Matthew Mahood may make Sacramento-Silicon Valley chamber CEO move Bizjournals.com Matthew Mahood is reportedly the top choice to become CEO of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, replacing Pat Dando. He now runs the Sacramento chamber. Mahood confirmed to reporters on Thursday that he is the top candidate for the job. ... Pizarro: Sacramento chamber of commerce chief may be moving to Silicon ValleySan Jose Mercury News Mahood likely leaving metro chamberModesto Bee all 14 news articles »

AM Alert: Educating Silicon Valley Sacramento Bee The Senate Budget Committee again takes its show on the road with a hearing in Silicon Valley about the economic and business impacts of cuts to California's public schools, colleges and universities. ... and more »

Salesforce.com, Cavium Networks Win 2011 GROW! Awards from ACG Silicon Valley Business Wire (press release) Awards from ACG Silicon Valley at a sold-out ceremony held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, on May 5, 2011. Salesforce.com received the GROW! Award for Oustanding Growth Company, while Cavium Networks, Inc., won the GROW! ... and more »

Brands may be pouring money back into online display advertising, but that doesn't mean that display advertising works or won't be replaced by something else in the next few years. Will it be social, mobile, or something else? At TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, we'll get into this debate with three of the best operators in online advertising: Facebook's new VP of Global Advertising Carolyn Everson, Medialets CEO Eric Litman, and Right Media founder Mike Walrath. Media companies and brands still don't understand the power of social advertising, and Everson is going to explain it to them.

The idea behind Grubwithus is an awesome yet simple one. You browse for a restaurant you'd like to go to in a certain city and buy a ticket for your meal at a set price. But the key is that others do this as well, all with the intention of meeting new people over dinner. And when you're buying your ticket, you can see who your dinner buddies will be. Yes, it's sort of like Groupon meets Meetup. And yes, it's brilliant. So it should be no surprise that a long list of prominent early-stage investors have decided they'd love to back Grubwithus. The service, which launched out of Y Combinator last year, has just raised a $1.6 million round. Who's at the funding table? Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, NEA, SV Angel, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, Vivi Nevo, Maynard Webb, Matt Cutts, Elad Gil, Paul Buchheit, Alexis Ohanian, Start Fund, and Y Combinator.

LAGOS, NIGERIA-- I'm in Lagos to speak at an event and decided to come a week early to check out the country's tech and entrepreneurship scene. Apparently Arrington thought I was kidding when I told him this. But he should know by now, I don't need a lot of arm twisting to visit a country of 150 million people chaotically surging into modernity. Where there's that much opportunity, there's always entrepreneurship. Nigeria has fascinated me for the last few years: It has the largest population of any country in Africa. It has abundant natural resources, most notably oil. And it has a ton of potential outside of oil. According to the World Bank the non-oil economy has grown at 8% per year for most of the last decade. The problem is employment hasn't budged, and the country has fifty million unemployed young people. Those are the official figures, but people in the country tell me it's actually much higher than that. That helps explain why Nigeria is more known in the West for 419 email scams than its vast economic potential.

Who needs another social network? Maybe you, friend. Admittedly, the social networking space is packed with so many players, it makes the mind reel. Across the Web, it seems like a new social network is born (and dies) every day. There are niche social networking sites for everything you can imagine. The knitting and crochet community has one, as do gamers, pet-lovers, and bowlers. Some of these specialized networks have significant traffic, and while Facebook Groups continues to evolve, it seems that there may still be room for social networks that revolve around shared interests, and specific groups and activities. It's also true that more and more companies are becoming interested in leveraging online activity and interaction to create meaningful connections, relationships, and services offline. The examples are endless. It's for these reasons that Zenergo, an activity-based social network that launches today, still believes there's room to succeed.

San Francisco-based JiWire, a provider of location-based information for the wireless market, announced Friday that it has raised $20M in a Series C funding round. The funding was led by Trident Capital, and also included prior investors Comcast Interactive Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Norwest Venture Partners and Panorama Capital. The firm said the funding brings its total raised to $45M. Trident's John Moragne joins the company's board of directors.

Menlo Park-based venture capital firm Mohr Davidow said Friday that it has named Paul Cleveland as its Chief Operating Officer. MDV said that Cleveland will be responsible for finance, operations, and administrative functions in the newly created role. Cleveland was most recently CFO and EVP of Corporate Development at Affymax; he has also seved at Integrated Finance, Ltd., JP Morgan, Cooley Godward, Sidley & Austin and Davis Polk & Wardwell.

T-Mobile had a hard time holding on to subscribers in the first quarter, despite the carrier’s cute Apple-esque TV ads and every-increasing 4G speeds.

The company announced today that it lost 471,000 contract customers in the first quarter, compared to a loss of 118,000 contract customers this time last year. T-Mobile lost 99,000 customers overall in the last quarter, ending with 33.63 million customers.

It’s not entirely surprising to see T-Mobile subscribers jumping ship — AT&T’s impending acquisition of the company isn’t helping to attract new subscribers, and it’s had a very limited (though high-quality) selection of Android smartphones. Still, it’s going to be interesting to see how long T-Mobile’s subscribers numbers continue to freefall.

T-Mobile’s earnings were $135 million for the quarter on $5.16 billion in revenue. That’s down from $362 million in earnings last year on $5.28 billion in revenue. Contract churn, or the number of subscribers who left the carrier, jumped to 2.4 percent in the quarter, up from 2.2 percent last year.

The company blamed “competitive pressures” for its contract customer loss. It certainly didn’t help that it was facing off with the Verizon iPhone and a slew of other Android smartphones on other carriers.

Tags: 4G, carriers, smartphones

Companies: Apple, AT&T, T Mobile

When Sprint announced it was working with Google to offer seamless integration of Google Voice for mobile phones on its network, it seemed like a win-win situation. But barely three days after integration support went live and its clear that everyone is losing — most of all, Sprint customers.

Everything that made Google Voice so appealing has become unavailable for some Sprint subscribers who have attempted to integrate their accounts.

Problems those subscribers have encountered include crippled Google Voice accounts, losing the ability to make or receive phone calls (and SMS messages), security breaches to voicemail and expensive international calling fees (that use Sprint’s rate instead of Google’s). Some can’t activate GV at all, but considering the mess integration is causing that seems more like a blessing than a problem.

What’s worse still is that if you are suffering from GV integration problems, Sprint customer service reps will direct you to the Google Voice Forum, which Google really isn’t acknowledging at this point in time. If you fall under one of these confirmed subscribers or are just someone who relies on their phone for more than just data, it’s probably best to hold off on any integration plans until things have been patched up.

According to Engadget, the problems stem from a failure to correctly issue unique access codes that grant your phone the authority to access things like voicemail and Google Voice. The blame seems to be shared by both human and computers at this point.

But regardless of how these problems are happening, it’s pretty clear that neither Google nor Sprint did enough error testing to ensure a successful launch.

The integration was intended to boost the number of Google Voice users, give Sprint an edge over other carriers and grant Sprint customers access to all the great benefits of using Google Voice without the drawback of having to reroute all calls through a Google utility number.

Instead, everything backfired and may even result in turning people off of Sprint and Google Voice in favor of something more reliable.

Tags: Google Voice integration, wireless

Companies: Google, sprint

Every year, as the weather improves in the spring, gasoline prices start to creep higher. But this year, could it be that the pattern is broken?

The recent run-up to record levels — California is now paying an average of $4.26 per gallon — might be halted, even reversed, if wholesale oil prices continue to fall as they did today. As of Monday, according to Department of Energy data, prices in New England, the Midwest, and the West Coast were over $4 a gallon.

In those states, a car that averages 25 mpg will cost you 16 cents per mile or more in gasoline cost alone. The lowest regional average price was in the Rocky Mountain states, at just $3.70. And the cheapest single state was Wyoming, at $3.61.

Today, briefly, the price of a barrel of light crude oil fell below $100 for the first time in several weeks. But why? There’s generally a lag of several weeks between oil-price declines and falling pump prices, as the cheaper oil has to work its way through the refining and distribution process.

And no decline in oil prices is ever particularly simple to explain. In aggregate, more expensive gasoline cuts consumption as car owners drive less. That reduction in demand, in theory, reduces the price over time. Poorer and more rural drivers, particularly in the Southeast and West–where driving distances are longest–have indeed cut back on driving in recent months as gas prices have risen.

Data from the Department of Energy and other sources suggests that gasoline consumption is 2 to 4 percent lower this year compared to a year ago, despite a slightly better economy this year. Last year at this time, gasoline was fully $1 per gallon cheaper.

Most analysts agree that continuing demand for energy in China will outstrip any reductions in gasoline use in the United States and Europe. China is the world’s largest vehicle market, at 18 million units last year against roughly 11 million in the States.

All those vehicles may travel shorter distances than do cars in the U.S., but they’re still burning gasoline. In other words, U.S. drivers are at the mercy of consumer behavior on the other side of the globe. At least among some analysts, the consensus is that the recent slide in oil prices may lead to a temporary cut in gas prices–but that won’t last.

In other words, gasoline will continue to be as expensive as it is now, or higher, over the long-term. So enjoy those cheaper gallons now, while you can. They may not last.

Written by John Voelcker, this article originally appeared on Green Car Reports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Tags: crude oil, Electric car, electric vehicle, gas prices, gasoline

The story of tech is largely about adoption, and adoption often comes into focus in the wake of cultural events. Last Friday's wedding of Prince William to Katharine Middleton was the epitome of an event, bringing together YouTube watchers, Facebookers, Flickrers, Twitterers and even Colorers in a mass collective online experience of the festivities. Taking place at 11 am London time (4 am SF time) the wedding itself was live streamed 72 million times, to people watching in 188 countries. With the addition of rebroadcasts that day, the streams reached 101 million by the end of April 29th.

The U.S. solar industry is banding together to fend off an onslaught of global competition, and to lower the cost of manufacturing solar technology domestically. To make it happen, the newly formed U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) secured a $57.5 million federal grant from the Department of Energy Sunshot Initiative, along with financial commitments totaling $400 million from various state and corporate entities. Today, the PVMC revealed (in an exclusive to TechCrunch) who its earliest members are, including cleantech businesses more often seen as competitors, not collaborators...

Popular commenting platform Disqus, which recently raised $10 million from North Bridge Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures, is adding support for a feature that's both nifty and familiar: mentions within comments. It may not sound particularly sexy, but it could actually help foster better discussions in comment threads (more on that in a bit). If you've ever mentioned someone on Twitter you'll be right at home with Disqus's implementation. Start typing a comment, then type the '@' symbol whenever you'd like to tag someone — this could be a user who has left another message in the comment thread, or a user who hasn't participated. The convention is very similar to the '@reply' system popularized by Twitter, and a small overlay will pop up with autocompleted names drawn from both Twitter and Disqus. Tagged names appear with a gray box around them in the published comment, which looks nice.

comScore's mobile subscriber stats are in for the month and Android continues to top U.S. smartphone share over Apple and RIM. Additionally, during the three month average period ending March 2011, Samsung was top handset manufacturer overall with 24.5 percent market share. Google Android led among smartphone platforms with 34.7 percent market share. The report shows that during the period, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices (this number remained steady from the previous month). But, in terms of smartphones, 72.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in March 2011, up 15 percent from the preceding three-month period.

Ze Frank wants to send us all back to kindergarten. Star.me, Ze’s soon-to-be fully public startup, which raised $500,000 from star-struck investors including Gary Vaynerchuk and Ron Conway, is an attempt to reinvent the kindergarten’s star system of rewards. As Ze told me when he came into the TechCrunchTV studio earlier this week, “stars are good.” They make us human, they allow us to display our emotions and become children again. But the funny thing about Ze is that, in building his new online kindergarten, he’s had to become an adult – fancying an idea, raising capital, developing a business model, leading a team. And, as he confessed to me, becoming the CEO of a funded start-up hasn’t always been as easy as he first imagined when he founded Star.me.

This week the Business Journal published a list of the top 100 Public Companies in the Silicon Valley, as ranked by most recently completed fiscal-year revenue. In order to be included on the list, companies had to be headquartered in the Silicon Valley and traded on a either the NASDAQ or NYSE. The list ran from about $130 billion in annual revenue on down to around $220 million. Most of the companies were either storage or networking companies or semiconductor companies, with the two categories taken together accounting for nearly half of the...

Clothing and accessories retailer Metropark said it is going out of business and closing all 69 of its stores. The company has two stores in Silicon Valley, at Valley Fair in Santa Clara and at Oakridge Mall in San Jose. The store carries brands such as True Religion, Diesel, Rock & Republic, BCBG, G-Star, Obey, 7-Diamonds and...

Solazyme announced a joint development agreement with Bunge to develop microbe-derived oils using Brazilian sugar cane feedstock. South San Francisco-based Solazyme is a renewable oils and bioproducts company. New York-based Bunge is an agribusiness and food company with approximately 32,000 employees in more than 30 countries. Financial terms of the deal were not...

Social network Zenergo announced its launch with an "Activate Your Life" slogan. The Mountain View company said it offers "a unique entry into the burgeoning niche social media category, providing an integrated platform that connects people both online and offline." CEO and founder Patrick Ferrell said that after "two years of planning and taking the pulse of how people use social media and, more importantly, how they want to use social media, Zenergo is ready for action. Our goal is to help people move from the interactive online experience to the more active pursuits that fulfill their social...

Fairchild Semiconductor named Terry A. Klebe to its board of directors. San Jose-based Fairchild is a supplier of high-performance power and mobile products. Klebe was most recently senior vice president and chief financial officer of Cooper Industries. Before that he held senior executive management roles at Cooper in information technology, operations and...

JiWire said it raised $20 million in a third round of funding. The round was led by Palo Alto-based Trident Capital. Also participating were Comcast Interactive Capital, Menlo Park-based Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Panorama Capital, and Palo Alto-based Norwest Venture Partners. With the current funding, San Francisco-based JiWire said it has raised a total of $45 million. The company said it connects advertisers to an on-the-go audience using "the world's largest location-based interactive media...

Palantir Technologies has raised $50 million from investors in a securities offering. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Palo Alto-based Palantir did not disclose the names of the investors. The company had also raised $125 million earlier, including a $90 million fourth round of funding that included San Francisco-based The Founders...

Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce CEO Matthew Mahood may be Pat Dando's replacement at the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. Mahood confirmed to reporters on Thursday that he is the top candidate for the job. He told the Sacramento Bee that there are several factors involved in his decision to move on from the job where, among other things, he has spearheaded the drive to keep the Kings NBA franchise from moving to...

The San Jose City Council decided against adding Silicon Valley to Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport's name. The council has been talking since February about adding the regional name and perhaps dropping other parts of the moniker at SJC. But in the end no strong consensus was found on what to call the recently updated...

The debut of Apple's iPad 2 kicked off Friday with long lines and sell-outs on the white version of the latest version of the popular tablet. Bloomberg reported that hundreds of people were waiting outside Apple’s store in Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district before the 8 a.m. opening time. Apple's stores in China are reported to be its highest-grossing in the world but it is facing increased competition in the country from local companies including Lenovo Group and...

“We reserve the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process.” — From the Wall Street Journal’s terms of use of SafeHouse,...

• As Sony CEO Howard Stringer was apologizing via blog post and promising to “reward” customers for their patience Thursday afternoon, CNet reported that a group of hackers is planning a third attack on Sony this weekend. Stringer, of course, was referring to the data breach that has...

To end the week, a roundup of tech news starring Apple, EA, Foxconn… and Mozilla? • Apple was the world’s No. 2 smartphone vendor in the first quarter, second only to Nokia, according to a report released today by research firm IDC. A year ago, BlackBerry maker RIM had the No. 2 spot in...