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<title>Haaze.com / ulrseballe / Published News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 07:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Inside the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=inside-the-fukushima-nuclear-exclusion-zone</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=inside-the-fukushima-nuclear-exclusion-zone</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 07:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=inside-the-fukushima-nuclear-exclusion-zone</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The duo went as far as a mile from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. (Credit:Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)TOKYO--As Japan's government prepares regulations to punish those who violate the 20km (12.4 mile) exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a Japanese journalist drove into the area and recorded scenes of desolation.  Armed with only filtration masks, a Geiger counter, and dosimeter, Tetsuo Jimbo of the Web site Videonews and a colleague drove into the voluntary evacuation zone at 30 km (18.6 miles) from the plant and began recording.  As the 12-minute annotated video shows, the pair come across roads shattered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami damage in coastal towns that seem totally abandoned save for stray dogs and cattle.  The men mostly speak about how to negotiate roads or remark on what they see along the way. They note there's no checkpoint at the 20 km mark. When they reach 17 km (10.5 miles) from the plant, the radiation level hits 2.5 microsieverts per hour, triggering the Gieger counter alarm. The radiation level rises as the Japanesecar navigation system guides the duo closer to the nuclear plant. Greenpeace has reported high levels of radiation outside the evacuation zone from its own testing.  Along the wreckage-strewn coast near the Daiichi and Daini Fukushima plants, they hear birdsong while filming a crushed police car in the rubble of the disaster. It's an ironic note amid the devastation.  At one mile from the Daiichi plant, the dosimeter records radiation of 112 microsieverts per hour, which is significantly higher than average background radiation. &quot;This looks a little dangerous,&quot; one of the men says before they leave the area. Workers at the plant, which was hit by 50-foot tsunami waves, are trying to move 60,000 tons of highly radioactive water into storage tanks so that efforts to restore the cooling functions can proceed. The government and operator Tokyo Electric Power Company have girded themselves for a long fight. Meanwhile, 140 miles to the south in Tokyo, some 17,500 people demonstrated against nuclear plants at two rallies on Sunday, calling for Chubu Electric Power Company to halt operations at the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture south of the capital. Some believe the Hamaoka plant sits on the epicenter of a projected earthquake that could devastate central Japan. The Tokai earthquake has a history of occurring every 100 to 150 years. If Fukushima is any indication, the mix of nuclear power and frequent natural disasters here could turn more communities in Japan into ghost towns. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Governments to debate Kyoto climate dilemma]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=governments-to-debate-kyoto-climate-dilemma</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=governments-to-debate-kyoto-climate-dilemma</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:10:51 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=governments-to-debate-kyoto-climate-dilemma</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Governments are looking at ways to keep the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol going beyond 2012 in some form to defuse a standoff between rich and poor nations that threatens efforts to tackle global warming. Negotiators from almost 200 nations will meet in Bangkok from March 3-8, after side-stepping the Kyoto issue at their last meeting in Mexico in December. &quot;There is some creative thinking going on&quot; about Kyoto's future, said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program of the Washington-based World Resources Institute. The Kyoto Protocol obliges almost 40 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and is meant to underpin carbon trading, but existing curbs expire on December 31, 2012, and developed and developing nations are at odds over its future. The U.N.'s climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said early this month the world needed an &quot;intermediate solution&quot; for Kyoto--whose text says it will be extended beyond 2012--since demands by rich and poor nations are diametrically opposed. Japan, Russia, and Canada insist they will not extend cuts in greenhouse gases under Kyoto and want all top emitters, led by China and the United States, to agree to a new treaty beyond 2012. Emerging nations, led by China and India, say rich nations must extend Kyoto to show leadership in combating climate change and averting what the U.N. panel of climate scientists says will be more floods, heat waves, droughts, and rising sea levels. Kyoto obliges cuts in greenhouse gas emissions averaging at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the period 2008-12. The United States is the only rich nation outside Kyoto and emerging nations have no binding goals.SolutionsExperts say all intermediate solutions have drawbacks. One option is to preserve elements of Kyoto, such as a mechanism that promotes carbon-cutting investments in developing nations, while allowing each rich nation to set its own cuts in greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012. Another is to extend existing emissions cuts under Kyoto, perhaps until 2015, by when it may be clearer if a legally binding treaty is possible. But prospects for a binding deal have faded since a U.N. summit in 2009 fell short. A radical idea is to revive an &quot;Article 10,&quot; rejected by developing nations in 1997 when Kyoto was agreed, that would let developing nations list &quot;voluntary commitments&quot; to curb their rising greenhouse gas emissions as part of the text. Or the European Union and other backers of Kyoto might push ahead and persuade Japan and others to commit to new, tougher emissions goals under an extended protocol. A continued small Kyoto group is likely to face calls to impose trade barriers on cheaper energy-intensive imports. Or Kyoto might be abandoned and replaced by a new deal, as urged by Japan and others. That looks an unlikely outcome. Story Copyright (c) 2010 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nokia files more patent complaints against Apple]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-files-more-patent-complaints-against-apple</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-files-more-patent-complaints-against-apple</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:10:30 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-files-more-patent-complaints-against-apple</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Nokia won't give Apple a break.The company filed patent-infringement claims against Apple in the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands today. A total of 13 patents were included in the company's filings, bringing the total to 37 total claims against Apple.In the U.K. High Court, Nokia charged that Apple violates four patents related to the use of a &quot;touch user interface&quot; and &quot;on-device app stores,&quot; among others. The company filed a total of seven patent-infringement claims in two German district courts, charging that in addition to its use of the touch user interface, Apple allegedly violated patents related to messaging, caller ID services, and &quot;display illumination.&quot; The company's Netherlands claims cover two patents &quot;related to signal noise suppression and data card functionality,&quot; Nokia said.&quot;The Nokia inventions protected by these patents include several which enable compelling user experiences,&quot; Nokia vice president of intellectual property, Paul Melin, said in a statement. &quot;For example, using a wiping gesture on a touch screen to navigate content, or enabling access to constantly changing services with an on-device app store, both filed more than ten years before the launch of theiPhone.&quot;Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment.Nokia's latest filings add yet another chapter in the ongoing saga between the two companies.Nokia filed its first patent-infringement claim against Apple in 2009, alleging the company violated patents related to the use of GSM, 3G, and Wi-Fi. Apple then countersued Nokia last December, saying that the handset maker infringed 13 of its own patents, including signal processing and touch-screen display rotation.Nokia filed a new suit earlier this year alleging patent infringements inApple's iPad. It then followed that up with more patent-infringement claims in the U.K. in September.Apple doesn't only find itself in legal battle with Nokia. The company fired off a slew of patent-infringement charges against HTC earlier this year, prompting that company to respond with patent-infringement claims of its own. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen also brought a patent lawsuit against Apple, Google, and other tech companies earlier this year, but that suit was thrown out earlier this week for being too vague.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Interest in iPad 2 far outstrips interest in rival tablets]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=interest-in-ipad-2-far-outstrips-interest-in-rival-tablets</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=interest-in-ipad-2-far-outstrips-interest-in-rival-tablets</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=interest-in-ipad-2-far-outstrips-interest-in-rival-tablets</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The iPad 2 is far outrunning its rivals in terms of worldwide awareness, according to Google Trends. As you can see from the chart below, people are Googling the iPad 2 far more than they are the Motorola Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The same holds true for rivals such as the Amazon Kindle, the HP TouchPad, and the RIM PlayBook.If this kind of awareness is a good harbinger of sales, then Apple may be poised to dominate the market for tablets in 2011, as Apple Steve Jobs predicted at the iPad 2 debut event and as we mostly agreed in our own analysis.Google Trends isn&amp;'t a perfect measure of how well a product will sell. But it does show that people are searching for information about the iPad 2 far more than they are the rival products in the past 30 days.As we noted earlier this week, the iPad 2 won praises among key reviewers because it is thinner, lighter, and faster than the original iPad that debuted 11 months ago. Those positive reviews, which started appearing on Thursday, likely helped boost the awareness of the iPad 2. As you can see from the Google Trends chart, iPad 2 awareness rose dramatically on March 2 when Apple fully described the product.We&amp;'ll get some concrete information if Apple announces sales results for the weekend, as it usually does after a major launch. It isn&amp;'t clear just yet whether the stores are selling out of their supplies or not, but the crowds certainly came out on Friday night for the launch. Analysts are predicting that Apple could sell 600,000 iPad 2s this weekend. The original iPad sold 300,000 in its first 24 hours, but analysts such as Gleacher&amp;'s Brian Marshall and Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies think that Apple will blow those numbers away this time.I saw a huge crowd at the Palo Alto, Calif., store on Friday afternoon, but the Los Gatos, Calif., store (pictured at top) was kind of sparse on the chilly Saturday evening tonight. Meanwhile, VentureBeat&amp;'s Owen Thomas saw a big crowd (pictured below) lined up to buy iPad 2s at the store on Saturday, in Austin, Texas, where the South By Southwest (SXSW) show was being held. These snippets don&amp;'t mean much, as they&amp;'re just a tiny sampling of the 10,000 stores &amp;8212' including 236 Apple stores &amp;8212' selling the iPad 2. A year ago, Apple sold the iPad in 221 Apple stores and 1,100 other stores at launch. So it&amp;'s understandable that the lines would be smaller at this year&amp;'s launch events.Awareness of other tablets may change once they hit the market. The Motorola Xoom is the only contemporary tablet on the market, but at $829 it has disadvantages compared to Apple&amp;'s $499 to $829 prices across multiple models with varying memory sizes.But even after the others draw attention to themselves with launch events, it will be tough to beat Apple. ChangeWave Research said a survey conducted last month in the U.S. showed 82 percent of those planning to buy a tablet in the next three months said they would buy an iPad. The Xoom got just 4 percent of the vote, while the RIM PlayBook and the first-generation Samsung Galaxy Tab got 3 percent each.During the fourth quarter, Apple snagged 73 percent of the tablet market, according to market researcher IDC. (Apple said it had 90 percent of the market worldwide). For all of 2010, Apple had 83 percent of the market. Through the end of December, Apple said it sold nearly 15 million iPads, making it one of the fastest-growing products ever. Samsung claimed that it shipped 2 million tablets out to stores, but the actually sell-through rate to customers was reportedly very low.Forrester Research predicted that Apple&amp;'s Android rivals would falter in the market because of &amp;''fatally flawed product strategies.&amp;'' The rivals are too expensive and they can&amp;'t match the upscale Apple Stores as great sales channels. Forrester said that consumers attribute more value to Apple products because of the great in-store service.So Forrester is predicting that Apple will have at least 80 percent of the U.S. consumer tablet market in 2011. It said Amazon, maker of the Kindle eBook reader, might have a chance to disrupt Apple if it comes out with a clever Android or Linux-based tablet. But Amazon has not yet made its move into the tablet space.Mike Rayfield, general manager of mobile chips for Nvidia, is in the rival camp, as his company&amp;'s Tegra 2 is in the Motorola Xoom and other tablets. He said last week that he thinks the market will change as soon as more of the rivals get their products out into the market by the middle of the year. Some of those tablets will have very competitive features.Previous Story: Just how pretty are the graphics in the iPad 2 The Infinity Blade test showsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: HP Touch Pad, iPad 2, kindle, Motorola Xoom, RIM Play BookCompanies: Amazon, Apple, HP, motorola, RIM, Samsung          Tags: HP Touch Pad, iPad 2, kindle, Motorola Xoom, RIM Play BookCompanies: Amazon, Apple, HP, motorola, RIM, SamsungDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple may sell 600K iPad 2s at launch, online orders face huge delays]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-may-sell-600k-ipad-2s-at-launch-online-orders-face-huge-delays</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-may-sell-600k-ipad-2s-at-launch-online-orders-face-huge-delays</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-may-sell-600k-ipad-2s-at-launch-online-orders-face-huge-delays</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple may sell 600,000 iPad 2s this weekend, Bloomberg reports based on information from several analysts.The  original iPad sold 300,000 units in 24 hours, but analysts seem to  agree that the iPad 2 will blow those numbers out of the water. Gleacher  analyst Brian Marshall expects Apple to sell over 500,000 iPad 2s this  weekend, while Tim Bajarin, a Creative Strategies analyst, expects Apple  to hit that figure in the iPad 2a4a4s first two days.Analysts  point to the iPad 2a4a4s wider availability as a major reason for the  increased sales. The tablet will be available today at AT&amp;amp'T,  Verizon, Wal-Mart and Target stores. Altogether, more than 10,000 stores  will offer the tablet, including 236 Apple stores. Last year, Apple had  only 221 Apple stores and 1,100 other stores to push the original iPad  at launch.But  it also looks like Apple may be paying the price for rushing out the  tablet to consumers so early. Customers who now order the iPad 2 online  will have to wait weeks for it to ship. Typically, Apple lets consumers  preorder its new devices weeks in advance and has enough stock to  deliver them on their release day. But the iPad 2 was clearly a rushed  affair &amp;8212' Apple only announced it last week, and online orders just opened early this morning (4 a.m. Eastern, 1 a.m. Pacific).Early online orders saw a shipment date of two to three days, and that was quickly increased to a wait of up to a week, AppleInsider reports. Apple is also limiting online purchases to two iPads per person, just like it did last year.So  if you want an iPad 2 without waiting several weeks, you better get  yourself to an Apple Store right now. Apple will begin selling the iPad 2  in stores at 5 p.m. this afternoon.Next Story: After popular demand, Rdio announces an API at SXSW Previous Story: Disqus CEO not worried about Facebook comment threatPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: iOS, iPad 2, tabletsCompanies: Apple          Tags: iOS, iPad 2, tabletsCompanies: AppleDevindra Hardawar is VentureBeat's lead mobile writer and East Coast correspondent. He studied philosophy at Amherst College, worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing about technology since 2004. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at devindra@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @Devindra. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The curious story of electric cars and Texas]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-curious-story-of-electric-cars-and-texas</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-curious-story-of-electric-cars-and-texas</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-curious-story-of-electric-cars-and-texas</guid>
<description><![CDATA[When people think of Texas, there are always certain stereotypes that come up &amp;8212' cowboys, twangs, conservative politics, boots, guns, and big, gas-guzzling trucks.While some stereotypes are rooted in truth, Texas can surprise you. Like when people actually visit a major city and realize that most Texans are neither cowboys nor all heavily accented. Or when a former Texas oilman becomes a champion for clean energy.Even with these things in mind, I&amp;'m still sometimes surprised by how much Texas differs from my idea of it. The latest surprise involves electric cars. According to a Pike Research report, Dallas and Houston are expected to be in the top six &amp;''early adopter&amp;'' cities for electric cars in the U.S. by 2017 (see chart below).They&amp;'re joined by two obvious contenders, the Los Angeles and New York areas, which are expected to lead the nation in electric car adoption. Coming in at a distant third is the Chicago area, and Philadelphia is also on the list.The projects are based in part on hybrid ownership and manufacturer rollouts. While you do see Priuses around here, Texas isn&amp;'t on the initial release list for the Nissan Leaf, though it will be one of the first cities in which the Ford Focus Electric will be launched later this year.Power plant company NRG, which owns major Texas electricity retailers Green Mountain Energy and Reliant, is investing $10 million in a privately funded electric car charging network in Houston called evGO, which offers monthly plans that allow drivers to charge at stations that will be placed all over the city. CEO David Crane made the argument to VentureBeat last year about why Texas is a good market for electric cars, even despite the urban sprawl and gas prices that are usually on the low side of the national average.As our editorial partners at Green Car Reports pointed out, though, Texas has two faces: On one hand, it could be a leader in electric car adoption. On the other hand, as John Voelcker&amp;nbsp'writes, &amp;''There&amp;'ll always be Texas&amp;'' when he argues that gas guzzlers will never go away. He points out that Chevrolet Suburbans used to sell half their annual production in Texas alone.Still, if reports are right, times are a-changing. And if electric cars can catch on in places like Texas and Pennsylvania, then there&amp;'s a good chance they can eventually be embraced in other places too.In fact, I&amp;'m writing this from the patio of a coffee shop in Houston, which faces a small parking lot. In this lot right now, I count three compact to mid-size sedans, four SUVs (and whaddya know, one of them&amp;'s a Suburban) and one big, honkin&amp;' truck.But &amp;8230' a white Toyota Prius just whizzed down the street. One of the SUVs just left. And in its place parked another Prius.[Top image via Flickr/aechempati]Next Story: Google debuts Delicious bookmark importer to tempt away users Previous Story: Twitter shows UberMedia whoa4a4s boss with UberTwitter suspensionPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: electric car adoption, electric cars, electric vehicles, TexasCompanies: ford, Nissan, Pike Research, Toyota          Tags: electric car adoption, electric cars, electric vehicles, TexasCompanies: ford, Nissan, Pike Research, ToyotaIris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you  pronounce her last name). Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Two cleantech behemoths team up to tackle clean coal: GE and China]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=two-cleantech-behemoths-team-up-to-tackle-clean-coal-ge-and-china</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=two-cleantech-behemoths-team-up-to-tackle-clean-coal-ge-and-china</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=two-cleantech-behemoths-team-up-to-tackle-clean-coal-ge-and-china</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Perhaps no major company has pursued opportunities in cleantech the way GE has. And perhaps no country has pursued clean energy the way smog-choked, fast-growing China has.So it makes sense that the two have teamed up.Today, GE announced that it will form a clean coal technology joint venture in China with Shenhua, a state-owned coal mining and energy company.The joint venture company will sell industrial coal gasification technology licenses, conduct research and development and build facilities &amp;8212' all around what&amp;'s called integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), a technology that turns coal into gas that results in fewer emissions.This announcement is apparently one of many timed to coincide with this week&amp;'s state visit by China&amp;'s President Hu Jintao with President Barack Obama. GE plans to announce over $2 billion in rail, locomotives and other deals in China this week, Bloomberg reports, pointing out that GE&amp;'s sales to China are growing at 20 percent a year.a4ACoal plays an important role in the economies of the U.S. and China, and gasification technology allows us to use this abundant and low cost resource in a much cleaner way,a4 said Keith White, general manager, gasification, GE Power &amp;amp' Water, said in a statement.There&amp;'s been a growing interest in clean coal. Coal is a cheap and very common way to create electricity, but also bad for the environment and air quality. While some startups have pursued 100-percent zero-emissions technologies like electric cars, solar plants and wind farms, others have tried to tackle clean energy by accepting the ubiquitous use of coal.Khosla Ventures recently invested in clean coal startup Ciris Energy &amp;8212' which GE also backs. Cirismakes a technology it claims is more efficient than gasification processes. The U.S. Department of Energy previously invested $27.6 million in clean coal projects.Last week, GE announced it spent $520 million to acquire a company that makes green data center technology, a hot segment in energy efficiency.Next Story: By the numbers: Apple&amp;'s fourth quarter results Previous Story: Apple sells massive 7M iPads, 16M iPhones in Q1 2011PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: China, clean coal, gasification, IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycleCompanies: Ciris Energy, GE, Khosla Ventures, ShenhuaPeople: Barack Obama, Hu Jintao          Tags: China, clean coal, gasification, IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycleCompanies: Ciris Energy, GE, Khosla Ventures, ShenhuaPeople: Barack Obama, Hu JintaoIris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you  pronounce her last name).VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Greylock Partners signs up a new enterprise investment champ]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=greylock-partners-signs-up-a-new-enterprise-investment-champ</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=greylock-partners-signs-up-a-new-enterprise-investment-champ</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=greylock-partners-signs-up-a-new-enterprise-investment-champ</guid>
<description><![CDATA[As CEO of enterprise-storage provider Data Domain,Frank Slootman saw a handsome $2.1 billion exit for his investors after EMC and NetApp conducted a bidding war for his company. Now he&amp;'s joining the team at Greylock Partners as a full-time partner and will be bidding for a piece of the next hot enterprise startup.Slootman will mainly focus on companies that sell tech to businesses, based on his experience in bringing Data Domain up from a venture-backed company starting with $27 million in funding. Data Domain was ultimately acquired by information-management powerhouse EMC in 2009. Since that deal was hard to top, he decided to go into venture capital.a4AIa4a4m sort of in a situation where I&amp;'m looking for the next challenge to put my hair on fire,a4 Slootman said. a4A(Venture capital funding) has historically been a game for people who had elite Ivy-League education, but not with a whole lot of operational experience a4&quot;Ia4a4m hoping to change that and bring others like [myself].a4Part of that is because some startups in the enterprise space, like Yammer and Zendesk, are regularly oversubscribedin their fundraising rounds and have to be a little more selective in which venture firms they take financing from. Slootman was brought on board to offer portfolio companies a little more security in terms of having someone with experience in the field as an advisor or board member.Slootman said he wants to focus on companies that are working with increasing virtualization. That means pulling applications away from standard computers and running them on remote servers that have more computing firepower. The best model of that today is cloud computing, which can run anywhere from one to thousands of web-based applications and stream the results through the Internet.a4AThe enterprise data center is still very much where the industry is going a4&quot; we want to focus on mass standardization of the infrastructure,a4 he said. a4AWea4a4re trying to fundamentally separate the application from its underlying physical infrastructure.a4But Slootman is not necessarily a believer in the consumerization of the enterprise, a belief held by some companies that new enterprise ideas should come from consumer powerhouses like Facebook. Yammer, for example, took its cues from Facebook when it created an enterprise social network and has racked up $40 million to date. Slootman said it was a niche market that probably wouldn&amp;'t take off as quickly as other types of enterprise companies.a4ATherea4a4s nothing standardized about it, ita4a4s like they just built it for themselves, but for some companies that might be a very reasonable way to go,a4 he said. a4AIn the lower marketplace where people don&amp;'t have the critical mass to run their infrastructure, thata4a4s probably the safest bet.a4This post was sponsored by WatchMouse, a service which monitors websites, Web applications, and web API&amp;'s for availability and performance from an external perspective. WatchMouse delivers a self-service monitoring solution utilizing an infrastructure of over 50 monitoring stations in 30 countries. Multi-step monitoring, Real Browser Monitoring and Public Status Pages are included in all plans. Learn more here. As always, VentureBeat maintains strict adherence to its principles of editorial integrity and WatchMouse had no input into the content of this post.Next Story: Five trends for the future of radio Previous Story: Skype founder develops a passion for fashion via FashiolistaPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: enterprise, enterprise consumerization, virtualizationCompanies: Greylock PartnersPeople: Frank Slootman          Tags: enterprise, enterprise consumerization, virtualizationCompanies: Greylock PartnersPeople: Frank SlootmanMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Ex-Voodoo PC chief Rahul Sood joins Microsoft to design cool stuff]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-voodoo-pc-chief-rahul-sood-joins-microsoft-to-design-cool-stuff</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-voodoo-pc-chief-rahul-sood-joins-microsoft-to-design-cool-stuff</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-voodoo-pc-chief-rahul-sood-joins-microsoft-to-design-cool-stuff</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Rahul Sood, a product wunderkind at Hewlett-Packard, left his job last month and has reappeared as the general manager of &amp;''system experience&amp;'' within the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. He announced the new gig on his blog today.His hire is sure to set off speculation. Is he working on a new game console to replace the five-year-old Xbox 360 Will he replace product design wizard J Allard, who left Microsoft this year It&amp;'s a reminder to me that, for all the vast number of employees at big tech companies, one or two key people can make all the difference in the world.One thing is for sure. Microsoft wouldn&amp;'t hire a guy like Sood and put him on something unimportant, like making sure a fan fits inside a game box. Whenever Sood showed a new HP product to me, he held the thing like it was his own baby.Sood has had a storied career as a computer designer. At a time when everyone was designing beige box PCs, he started Voodoo PC in Calgary, Canada, in 1991. Joined much later by his brother Ravi, the Sood business created screaming-fast computers for gamers with liquid cooling, the fastest graphics cards, and custom paint jobs. Voodoo PC made a hundred or so a month and sold them for $5,000 to $10,000 each.The company caught the eye of Mark Hurd, chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, who wanted to bring in the right people to revamp HP&amp;'s product design and create magical technology experiences that rivaled Apple&amp;'s. For a time, it worked. HP designed the Blackbird gaming PC and created the Envy laptop, which was HP&amp;'s answer to the MacBook Air.But somehow, HP didn&amp;'t seem to make the best use of Voodoo&amp;'s crew. It pretty much dropped out of the gaming PC business and focused on trying to make its mainstream products sexy and edgy. Designing good products may come easy for Steve Jobs at Apple. But doing that at HP can&amp;'t be easy. As former CEO Carly Fiorina once said, if HP marketed sushi, it would call it &amp;''cold dead fish.&amp;''Sood left not long after Hurd went out the door this fall. At Microsoft, Sood said, &amp;''Ia4a4ll be working on some really&amp;8230' really &amp;8230' really cool stuff come  January 2011. If you need to get in touch with me feel free to find me  on Facebook or Twitter. I may or may not attend CES, but if you have  something really cool to show let me know soon!&amp;''It&amp;'s exciting to see that Sood has gone to Microsoft. He may very well be working as a janitor, for all I know. But I get the feeling that Microsoft is working on something important.Next Story: Fancy &amp;''iOne&amp;'' camera chips will enable Android photo-sharing devices Previous Story: Facebook testing new filters for News FeedPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: HP, Microsoft, VoodooPeople: Rahul Sood, Ravi Sood          Companies: HP, Microsoft, VoodooPeople: Rahul Sood, Ravi SoodDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Groupon looks for additional funding after striking Google&'s $6B offer]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=groupon-looks-for-additional-funding-after-striking-googlersquos-6b-offer</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=groupon-looks-for-additional-funding-after-striking-googlersquos-6b-offer</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=groupon-looks-for-additional-funding-after-striking-googlersquos-6b-offer</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Groupon, the daily deal site that has risen to infamy after rejecting a buyout offer from Google worth $6 billion,is on top of the world a4&quot; for now.To make sure things stay that way, the daily deal company is looking to raise more than $100 million in venture capital funding to fight off newcomers like LivingSocial, according to a report by Bloomberg News.Groupon is the king of the hill, based on arecent Experian Hitwise blog post that showed that it received 79 percent of U.S. visits among 81 group-buying sites last week. But LivingSocial, another daily deal site, has been creeping up on Groupon and recentlyconfirmed an earlier VentureBeat report that it wasreceiving an investment from Amazon worth $175 million.Both Groupon and LivingSocial, as well as a host of imitators, now offer deeply discounted offers for services, meals, and group activities from local merchants that have previously struggled to reach new customers online. The sites make money by convincing businesses to offer steep discounts, then selling those discounts directly to consumers and picking up the difference. The biggest opening for daily deal sites, though, is a $133 billion market for local business advertising that they can make their own.The newest round of funding would place Groupon&amp;'s valuation at less than $6 billion, according to the Bloomberg report. It was valued at over $1 billionfollowing a large round of funding in April. Recent valuations peg the company as worth around $3 billion with around $500 million revenue.Next Story: iPad social magazine Flipboard adds Google Reader, Flickr and more Previous Story: Is Yahoo about to kill DeliciousPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: daily deals, fundingCompanies: Groupon, Livingsocial          Tags: daily deals, fundingCompanies: Groupon, LivingsocialMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google Acquires Phonetic Arts To Make Robo-Voices Sound&nbsp'Human]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-acquires-phonetic-arts-to-make-robo-voices-soundnbsphuman</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-acquires-phonetic-arts-to-make-robo-voices-soundnbsphuman</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-acquires-phonetic-arts-to-make-robo-voices-soundnbsphuman</guid>
<description><![CDATA[No, Google hasn&amp;'t acquired Groupon (yet). But it does have a smaller, though very interesting acquisition to announce: it&amp;'s just acquired Phonetic Arts, a company based in the UK that works on speech synthesis in games.Phonetic Arts makes technology that can convert lines of recorded dialog into a &amp;8216'speech library&amp;' a4&quot;a4sfeed it a few hundred lines of recordings using your voice, and it can then piece together those sounds to generate new sentences that sound surprisingly realistic. Up until now Phonetic Arts has primarily been focused on using this technology for games, but Google intends to use it more broadly to make its own automated voices sound more fluid and human.In case you haven&amp;'t noticed, Google has been paying a huge amount of attention to its voice recognition and transcription technologies over the last few years (they&amp;'ve been researching it much longer, but now the tech is making it into products). YouTube now includes automatic voice transcription captions for millions of videos' Android has voice recognition integrated throughout the OS' and Google has voice search apps for other mobile platforms, like the iPhone.But while these voice recognition apps are getting much better, whenever they need to read something back to you (for example, for language translation or GPS navigation) it&amp;'s quite obvious that you&amp;'re listening to a computer. Which is where Google is planning to start applying Phonetic Arts&amp;' technology.Also worth pointing out: in its official blog post, Google specifically talks about the growing tech scene in London:Therea4a4s a particular focus right now in the U.K. on technology and innovation, and wea4a4re delighted to be deepening our investment in the country with this acquisition. We already have a strong engineering center in London and look forward to welcoming Phonetic Arts to the team. We are excited about their technology, and while we dona4a4t have plans to share yet, wea4a4re confident that together wea4a4ll move a little faster towards that Star Trek future.CrunchBase InformationGooglePhonetic ArtsInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Foursquare Testing Version 2 Of Their API. &''It&'s 1000x&nbsp'Faster&'']]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=foursquare-testing-version-2-of-their-api--8220itrsquos-1000xnbspfaster8221</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=foursquare-testing-version-2-of-their-api--8220itrsquos-1000xnbspfaster8221</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ulrseballe</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=foursquare-testing-version-2-of-their-api--8220itrsquos-1000xnbspfaster8221</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The geolocation wars are well underway. If you need any proof of that, simply look at this thread in Quora. A startup posted a question wondering which place database they should use for their new check-in app. The responses Foursquare: Us. Gowalla: Us. SimpleGeo: Us. Factual: Us. Locationary: Us.Each of these companies, along with a few other big ones not practicing the art of self-promotion on Quora (Google, Facebook, Skyhook) are all in the midst of what is sure to be a drawn-out battle to become the underlying location layer that lets a thousand other startups bloom on top of it.For the past several months, it seems as if Foursquare has been doing really well in this regard. Several other hot startups (like Instagram and Foodspotting) are actually using Foursquare&amp;'s Place database as a key component of their app. But then came Facebook Places. Now startups seem to be rushing to implement that so they can leverage the social network&amp;'s 400 million plus users and ability to scale. But Foursquare isn&amp;'t sitting there quietly watching this happen.As Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai revealed in his answer on the Quora thread, the company is currently alpha testing a second version of their API. While it hasn&amp;'t yet launched publicly, Selvadurai notes that you can email their team to get access to it.So what&amp;'s new in the latest version I asked co-founder Dennis Crowley and he said that it&amp;'s a complete re-write of the initial API. It&amp;'s now 1,000 times faster and more flexible, he says. He also notes that it foreshadows some new features that are upcoming and has tighter integration with things like specials. The Google Group for the API has a bit more about what to expect with v2.CrunchBase InformationFoursquareInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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