Author: Serkadis

Ford, after having been not so much in news for some time, has now come up with a bang. Their Taurus SHO has been awarded the Urban Automobile of the Year 2010 by On Wheels Media. Ford Taurus SHO’s EcoBoost V6 engine delivers V8 power with V6 fuel economy. Sporty, chic, world class and appealing are what describes Ford’s Taurus and make it worthy of getting the award. But this year, Fords Fusion Hybrid is also a taker of the same award. The most fuel efficient midsize sedan in America at 41 city, 36 highway earned the trophy, giving the Blue Oval a total sweep of the ceremony. Truly the vehicles chosen are cost and fuel-efficient and have performance and safety characteristics.
[GreenAutoblog]

Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Toyota, Fiat, South America

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez – notable Fidel Castro wannabe, loudmouthed buffoon of the first order and apparent Cadillac aficionado – has given an ultimatum to General Motors, Fiat (i.e. Chrysler), Toyota and Ford: Share your technology with us or get out of the country. (In Toyota’s case, it sounds as if Chavez wants them to hit some arbitrary quotas, as well.) The affected parties, all of which maintain production facilities in the country, kept mum in response to Chavez’s demand, according to the Associated Press, which reported the story on Wednesday.

If the automakers don’t comply, Chavez basically stated that he will eject them from his socialist utopia in favor of automakers from countries he’s more friendly with. AP quotes him as saying, “I invite you to pack up your belongings and leave. I’ll bring in the Russians, the Belorusians, the Chinese.”

At least he didn’t openly threaten to nationalize them (yet), as he’s wont to do with pretty much any other private enterprise he thinks he could run better. Yeah, this’ll definitely end well. Thanks to Roy for the tip.

[Source: AP via Yahoo! News | Image: AFP/Getty]

Hugo Chavez gives ultimatum to automakers: Share tech or get out of Venezuela originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Guardian, UK (Helena Smith)

A team of Greek marine archaeologists who have spent years conducting underwater excavations off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt have unearthed a giant granite threshold to a door that they believe was once the entrance to a magnificent mausoleum that Cleopatra VII, queen of the Egyptians, had built for herself shortly before her death.

They believe the 15-tonne antiquity would have held a seven metre-high door so heavy that it would have prevented the queen from consoling her Roman lover before he died, reputedly in 30BC.

“As soon as I saw it, I thought we are in the presence of a very special piece of a very special door,” Harry Tzalas, the historian who heads the Greek mission, said. “There was no way that such a heavy piece, with fittings for double hinges and double doors, could have moved with the waves so there was no doubt in my mind that it belonged to the mausoleum. Like Macedonian tomb doors, when it closed, it closed for good.”

Tzalas believes the discovery of the threshold sheds new light on an element of the couple’s dying hours which has long eluded historians.

In the first century AD the Greek historian Plutarch wrote that Mark Antony, after being wrongly informed that Cleopatra had killed herself, had tried to take his own life. When the dying general expressed his wish to pass away alongside his mistress, who was hiding inside the mausoleum with her ladies-in-waiting, he was “hoisted with chains and ropes” to the building’s upper floor so that he could be brought in to the building through a window.

Plutarch wrote, “when closed the [mausoleum’s] door mechanism could not open again”. The discovery in the Mediterranean Sea of such huge pieces of masonry at the entrance to what is believed to be the mausoleum would explain the historian’s line. Tzalas said: “For years, archaeologists have wondered what Plutarch, a very reliable historian, meant by that. And now, finally, I think we have the answer.

“Allowing a dying man to be hoisted on ropes was not a very nice, or comforting thing to do, but Cleopatra couldn’t do otherwise. She was there only with females and they simply couldn’t open such a heavy door.”

The threshold, part of the sunken palace complex in which Cleopatra is believed to have died, was discovered recently at a depth of eight metres but only revealed this week. It has yet to be brought to the surface.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Monsters and Critics (Shabtai Gold)

Egypt’s antiquities chief announced plans on Wednesday for a conference to help coordinate the strategy of African and Asian countries who had artifacts ‘stolen’ from them.

‘At the end of March we will hold a conference to meet with others who suffered like us from stolen artifacts and to discuss how to help all of us in efforts to return the stolen artifacts,’ said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

This came via email, not on a Blog Comment but I thought it a useful point so here it is:

Everyone makes the same assumption that we stole it from the French and the Egyptians had no say in it.

Your latest post mentions the treaty of Alexandria, which was indeed signed by the British and the French commanders, but no one seems to mention, or want to, or indeed even know, it was also signed by the OTTOMAN commanders. It was an Ottoman Govenrment in Egypt at the time, which was the recognised legitimate government at the time (regardless of if the modern Egyptians don’t like that). Peace treaties are invariably signed by Army commanders, who represent their respective governments.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Monsters and Critics

New tests show the limestone and plaster bust of Queen Nefertiti is too fragile to fly home to Egypt for a temporary exhibition, the Berlin museum that owns the disputed artwork said Tuesday.

It issued the statement two days after the Egyptian Museum’s director, Friederike Seyfried, met in Cairo with Egypt’s antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass. She said she did not negotiate over the 3,500-year-old bust with Hawass.

‘An examination in 2007 of the state of preservation of the bust ruled it unsuitable for transport or loans,’ said the Prussian Heritage Foundation, the parent corporation of the museum. ‘Further tests which have not yet been completed only confirm this.’

The future of the exquisite head is highly political, as underlined by the fresh assessment of the bust in recent days.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s top culture aide, Bernd Neumann, said Tuesday through a spokesman that a loan was now ‘absolutely out of the question on conservation grounds alone.’

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Ceramic nanocoating is the new big thing in the green world. With the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) having thought about moving beyond just ceramic coatings on metal surfaces, the ceramic nanocoating idea is going to be applauded by many in the near future. Their more efficient process will replace toxic chemicals, heavy metals and other hazardous materials with much more sustainable anti-corrosion nanomaterials. Nano technology, as they prove is fast emerging as an important element even in solar power technology that enable to help keep solar panels clean with less amount of water, which in a way boosts the solar cell efficiency.
[Cleantechnica]

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It’s been a long drought for IPOs, but venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs are hopeful that 2010 will be the year they rain down on the Valley once gain. Earlier this year, a handful of IPOs trickled out, such as OpenTable, Rackspace, and A123Systems. But what people are really waiting for is another Netscape moment—an iconic IPO which will whet investor’s appetites and open the floodgates for others to follow.

Below is our list of the top ten IPO candidates for 2010 in the technology industry (and, no, it doesn’t include Twitter). I conducted an informal survey of some top VCs and angel investors. These are the names whispered about the most in the Valley and other tech circles. The hope is that the economy will swing back and the public markets will become receptive to IPOs, especially towards the second half of the year.  The stock market in general is finding its legs already.  The S&P 500 is up 24 percent this year. If the bull market continues, that will be good for the prospects of seeing these potential IPOs.  And if it doesn’t, there’s always M&A.

1. Facebook. Total raised: $716 million.

If there is one company which everyone is looking towards for a new Netscape moment, it is Facebook.  The company can pretty much go public any time it wants.  It is already the fourth largest site in the U.S. and the world.  Its last private common stock sale valued the company at $11 billion, which may or may not be rational.  The key to a large public valuation will be whether Facebook can figure out how to turn all of that attention into advertising dollars.  So far it is said to be on track to beat its $550 million revenue projections from earlier this year.  A Facebook IPO would certainly create a halo effect for other tech offerings.  Even if it doesn’t go out in 2010, the prospect that it might could still help other companies go public as hungry investors grab what they can get.

2. Zynga. Total raised: $219 million.

Social game developer Zynga is on a tear, with more than 230 million people a month actively playing its games such as FarmVille, PetVille, and Texas HoldeEm Poker.  The company just raised a whopping $180 million round.  It is believed to be Facebook’s largest advertiser and pulling in at least $250 million in revenues on its own.  But it is also at the center of the Scamville controversy over how it makes some of its money from scammy offers.  If it can convince investors it has cleaned up its act, they will gobble up an IPO.

3. LinkedIn. Total raised: $103 million.

The other social network, LinkedIn is like the enterprise version of Facebook. It is where business gets done and people find jobs.  LAst year alone it raised about $75 million at a $1 billion valuation. Founder Reid Hoffman has spoken repeatedly about LinkedIn’s ability  to IPO.  Earlier this year, he recruited former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner to be CEO and is spending more time himself as a venture capitalist, which has always been his sideline.

4. Glam Media. Total raised: $125 million.

Glam Media is one of the fastest growing ad networks and collection of fashion- and women-oriented sites.  At a time when traditional media and women’s magazines are suffering, Glam is saw display advertising revenues across its network up more than 50 percent in 2009.  CEO Samir Arora expects the company to be profitable in the fourth quarter, and is recruiting executives with big-company experience.  Ad networks which dominate their niche are an easy lay-up for investors.

5. Demand Media. Total raised: $355 million.

Demand Media is another LA-based company, started by former MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt.  Demand Media owns a collection of sites such as eHow, Livestrong, and countless niche sites.  It also owns domain name registrar eNom, which generates a lot of its cash.  Demand Media is a content mill, churning out articles and videos for its niche sites like Golflink.com and Trails.com  cheaply and quickly in response to what people are searching for.  It may not be sexy, but it is lucrative enough that potential acquirers are sniffing around and AOL’s Tim Armstrong is looking to copy and improve on the niche content model.

6. Gilt Groupe. Total raised: $48 million.

Gilt is a private online shopping club for luxury goods.  Its revenues are reportedly around $200 million this year, and expected to more than double next year.  IPO talk is already in the air.  Gilt’s counterpart in Europe, Ventee-Privée, is rumored to be in acquisition talks with Amazon for around $3 billion.  And Kleiner Perkins just invested in One Kings Lane, another private shopping club based in England.

7. Etsy. Total raised: $31.6 million.

Another niche e-commerce play could be Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for handcrafted goods.  Sellers on Etsy are on track to trade $200 million worth of goods on the maretplace this year, double from last year.  Founder Rob Kalin recently took over again as CEO and says the company is now profitable.  Etsy will never be as big as eBay, but its focus means that can become a the alternative eBay for buyers and sellers of high-quality, custom-designed apparel, furniture, and other goods.

8. Yelp. Total raised: $31 million.

Yelp was nearly acquired by Google for around $500 million before the deal broke down last week.  The fast-rising local reviews site now might try the public markets instead.  The company already has 300 employees and is becoming a powerhouse in the online advertising for local businesses, which is an area of growth every major Web company wants to participate in.  Already the IPO filings are starting to come in, with ReachLocal filing to raise $100 million for its local ad network.

9. Tesla Motors Total raised: $783 million.

Why would you invest in GM IPO if you could invest in Tesla instead?  Silicon Valley’s electric car company is expected to hit the public markets.  Building a car company takes massive amounts of capital, and Tesla has raised nearly $800 million so far.  Most of that comes in the form of government loans, such as the $465 million it received as part of the government’s $25 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry.  A lot of the capital also comes from partner Daimler, and billionaire founder Elon Musk.  But, hey, at least Tesla is profitable, which is saying a lot for a car maker.

10. Skype Total raised: $69 million

Despite all the drama surrounding eBay’s recent sale of Skype to a group of private investors including Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz for $2.75 billion, the deal got done.  Skype is already a major Internet brand, with more than 500 million users of its Internet calling, IM, and video communications service, and $185 million in quarterly revenues.  Before eBay found its buyers, it was very publicly pursuing the IPO route.  And given that eBay retains a 30 percent stake in Skype, that is still an option if its growth continues apace.

Runner’s Up:  The ten names above are the most likely to go public if the markets open up.  Other companies which might tap the public markets include Associated Content, Brightcove, Digg, StumbleUpon, LiveOps, Workday, MerchantCircle, ExactTarget, Chegg, and Rearden Commerce.  Most informed observers do not expect a Twitter IPO next year.  It is too early.  The company just raised $100 million, and still needs to figures out its business model.  Maybe in 2011.

Which of these companies do you think is most likely to IPO?  Which ones would you invest in?

Photo credit: Flickr/David Paul Ohmer

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Coldway’s containers to play it cool at Medica

Coldway of France, a specialist in thermochemical solutions, has presented its range of cooling containers, which use an innovative closed-circuit thermochemical process, at the Medica trade fair, from 18 to 21 November 2009.

Coldway’s cooling containers ensure that a regulated internal temperature prevails with no need for an electrical connection. The containers are recharged via a temporary electrical connection, while there is full traceability for both the temperature and for the lid openings and closings.

Thanks to a patented, reversible thermochemical process that requires no consumables, Coldway’s temperature-controlled containers ensure cold production when the user requires it and maintains the products at the required temperature for up to 24 hours (depending on the model). The reversible process can be recharged by plugging into the power supply for four to five hours, depending on the model.

This process is more economical than using refrigerated vehicles. It is also environmentally friendly as no consumables are required, nor any fluids that damage the ozone layer, such as CFCs, HCFCs or other substitutes banned by international agreements. As it has neither a motor nor a compressor, the cooling container is silent, requires little maintenance, and is not subject to wear and tear. A variety of ranges provide controlled temperatures ranging from 30°C to +37°C, for volumes ranging from 7 litres to 1,000 litres. Every unit is certified to EFS standards (NFX15-140).

About Coldway

Coldway, which is headquartered in Pia (near Perpignan, in southern France), was founded in 2001 by two engineers from CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), who are experts in the thermochemical process and in refrigeration engineering.

Coldway offers several ranges of stand-alone containers for the handling and transport of thermo-sensitive products. The company’s R&D department also develops customised products and can integrate its technology into industrial solutions. Coldway’s products are used in hospitals, blood-donor centres and medical laboratories, and are also used by specialists in the transport of medical products.

For further information, please go to: www.coldway.fr

This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Back in May, we wrote about an effort in the EU to make software developers liable for buggy software. As with earlier discussions on this topic there are a variety of opinions. Obviously, people don’t like buggy software, and it’s natural to feel that developers should be liable for software that doesn’t work properly. At the same time, however, software is incredibly complex, and it’s impossible to be entirely bug free. Adding liability, then, could have significant downsides in terms of scaring many developers off from developing, especially for more complex software.

It appears that some of this debate is moving on to video games as well. JohnForDummies alerts us to a story discussing how complex video games are almost always quite buggy (found via Slashdot) and questioning if proposed liability laws in Europe might have an impact on the gaming community.

This isn’t a simple issue, of course. If a company is selling a product, buyers have every right to expect the product to work as advertised. But that doesn’t mean that adding direct liability really makes sense. If a company constantly produces extremely buggy software, it should have incentives to fix those bugs directly — not from the government — such as the fact that people will be less interested in ever buying their products again in the future. It seems like laws for buggy software would be extreme overkill.

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You don’t need booming sales figures to tell you that netbooks have taken over the world — the mobile computing world, at least. Their screenless and battery-free brethren, however, have yet to find quite the same success. Nettops are great tiny little machines but in general they’ve been under-powered and, while people love eking out another hour or two of battery life on the road, few sadly care whether their desktop computers pull down 17 or 71 watts of juice. Still, it’s hard to deny the appeal of a fully-functional computer that’s half the size of a Wii — especially when it can manage 1080p output over HDMI. Viewsonic’s VOT132, with its Ion graphics and trick magnetic DVD drive, is tiny, efficient, and powerful. The perfect media PC? Read on to find out.

Continue reading Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review

Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC’s H1 line up for T-Mobile is pretty uninspiring, except for the HTC Trophy, which would be HTC’s first Windows Mobile Professional device with a front-facing QWERTY keyboard.

The Windows Mobile 6.5 is set to sport a 3 inch VGA capacitive touch, Qualcomm 600 Mhz MSM7227 processor, massive 1400 mAh battery and still only a a svelte 11 mm thin form factor.  

The device will still also feature consumer features such as a 3.5 mm  headphone jack, FM radio and 5 megapixel camera.

On the business side it will have Straight talk lite, HTC’s new People software, Super Search and Business card scanner.

The device is the answer to many people’s prayers, who have been asking for a front facing QWERTY device with a large high resolution touch screen, and should find immediate popularity amongst Windows Mobile fans who have not bought into the iPhone back slab phenomena. As can be seen from the mock-up above, the smartphone is considerably narrower but taller than similar devices, but feature a much larger screen.

The HTC Trophy is set to arrive some time in May 2010.

Are you excited about this smartphone?  If so, let us know why in the comments below.

Several months back, a major study comparing the nutritional value of organic food to conventional food made the rounds. Organic food, it found, was “no healthier” than ordinary food. There were no significant “differences in nutrient content,” and the study’s authors found “no evidence to support the selection of organic over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.” Hmm, so there were “differences,” but they were “unlikely to be of any public health relevance.” Okay – even if I accept that the differences were unimportant, there was a major, glaring qualifier: “nutritional superiority.” Going organic, then, doesn’t suddenly change the essential composition of a plant. A grape remains a grape (small differences aside), whether you use artificial pesticides or “natural” pesticides. I buy that, and I don’t think many people who support organic are arguing that industrial organic farms produce purer, more “appley” apples than conventional farms. They’re simply wary of ingesting the artificial chemical cocktails applied to conventional crops.

If you’re interested in just how many pesticides you may be ingesting, the PAN Pesticides Database deserves a look. It’s limited to California data, but you can obtain full listings of what pesticides were used on which crops. Go to “Tomatoes for Processing,” (soups, sauces, etc) for example, and you’ll see that over 10 million gross pounds of chemicals were applied to tomatoes intended for processing. The data is raw and admittedly incomplete (and perhaps even under-reported), but it gives you a general idea of the scale. And that’s just a single crop, in a single state, using only “reported tomato acreage.” There are hundreds more, and each one is – apparently – drenched in chemicals. Organic, then, is about much more than small micronutrient differences. It’s about avoiding the flood of artificial chemicals, which the study did not address.

The real issue is the industrialization of farming. You see, the organic label has become a big money maker. Sales of organics increase annually, and most major producers have at least one organic division. Up until the last decade or so, organic produce inhabited a tiny niche in the market. If you wanted organic, you’d probably have to grow it yourself or visit a farmers’ market that featured small, local organic family farm produce. Now, certified organic farms exist on massive scales rivaling the biggest conventional growing operations. Places like Costco carry organic produce: enormous tubs of lettuce, ten-pound bags of carrots, and drums of onions. You can’t expect Costco to get their organic produce from small, local hobby farmers who get intimate with their crops and fine tune the soil composition, take chances and try new methods; they have to rely on the enormous industrial organic farms, operations that use proven organic methods on a huge scale. These guys aren’t necessarily concerned with growing the perfect, richest, best tasting peach. They want something that satisfies the organic certification requirements, can be produced on a major scale, and can travel long distances without damage or spoilage. They aren’t handing out samples and beaming proudly like a parent.

The larger the scale, the more impersonal the relationship between farmer and food, regardless of organic status. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it’s unavoidable with the increasing consumer demand for organics – but it does mean the organic apple you get from Costco will differ qualitatively from the apple you get from Joe down at the farmer’s market. And yes, I’d even bet there would be nutritional differences between Joe’s produce and the organic produce at Costco. The study’s authors certainly weren’t looking at farmers’ market stuff, because most organic produce is purchased in grocery stores, not farmers’ markets. For most people, “organic” means the slightly more expensive lettuce next to the cheaper, conventional lettuce in the grocery store, so that’s what they examined. Only a small subset of the population shops locally.

Despite all that, the Primal stance is generally pro-organic, the reasoning being that a plant, fruit, or animal grown without the administration of artificial pesticides, herbicides, or insecticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics or growth hormones (in the case of animal products), most closely replicates wild or untampered-with growing conditions. If we’re trying to eat like our ancestors, going organic might be our best shot at approximating their dietary environment. An organic, locally grown blackberry might not be identical to the berries Grok stumbled upon, but at least its producers tried to replicate the “wild” growing environment by minimizing or even eliminating the manmade chemical load.

I think we have to consider the role of organics as existing on a continuum. This is not a binary, black-and-white situation. Ideally, we’d all have access to time-traveling, foraging food merchants making weekly trips back to the Paleolithic for berries, roots, tubers, and other vegetation (and maybe the occasional auroch, or mammoth, cargo space permitting), but in reality we have to make do with the best we’ve got.

Homegrown reigns supreme, of course. You ever eat a big, plump juicy tomato that’s been showered with love and daily attention as it’s allowed to ripen on the vine by a home gardener? There is simply no comparison. It practically becomes a different organism altogether. But few people have the time or the space to produce enough vegetables and fruit to sustain a Primal diet.

Local farmers’ market fare is next. Big cities pretty much always have them, and they’re beginning to pop up in smaller markets, too. If it’s environmental impact you’re worried about, local apples trounce those organic Fujis from Chile. If it’s better taste you want, you’re better off buying spinach from the farmer who lives with her crops and takes personal pride in their quality. She earns her living based on a small, committed cadre of customers who intensely care about taste. They could hit up Whole Foods for bagged spinach, but they go to the small, local farmers’ markets for the experience and the superior quality. The farmers, then, have an obligation and a powerful financial motivation to improve the taste of their products. Take the local Santa Monica Wednseday farmers’ market, for example – all the local chefs stock up there. You’ll see their carts piled high with fruits, veggies, and local meats. These guys’ primary (perhaps only) concern is quality, but you don’t see them prowling Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. They know quality and where to find it, sort of like when you’re stuck in the wilderness and follow an animal trail to a watering hole. Wild animals know the wilderness, and chefs know food quality.

After homegrown and local, regular store-bought organic is best. They may not have any appreciable advantage when it comes to vitamins or phytonutrients, but they will be cleaner, and organic produce generally tastes better than conventional produce.

Organic meat, eggs, and dairy (if you eat it) should absolutely take precedence, if that even needs to be said. We already know the qualitative differences between pastured and grain-fed beef, and between pastured chickens and “cage free” chickens (let alone chickens in battery cages). We also know that dairy and animal fat can concentrate environmental chemicals, just as it can be a source of fat-soluble vitamins. When it comes to animal products, organic (and pastured, free-range in an ideal world) is absolutely essential.

All that said, people have to eat. And if we can’t eat organic, local, or pastured, going with conventional produce is our only option. If you’re in that position, you can mitigate your chemical load by avoiding certain choices and going with others. Grain-fed, antibiotic-pumped meat can be trimmed of visible fat (boring, I know, but probably worth it).

So, is organic worth it? Yeah, it’s worth the trouble, but buying locally is best – often for your wallet, for the environment, and for your taste buds. Just don’t beat yourself up over the question of organic versus conventional. Your ability to put food on the table and pay the rent takes ultimate precedence over the amount of pesticides in said food. It’s sad and unfortunate that we often have to make that choice, but that’s the world we live in. And, like Grok did before us, we’ve gotta make the best with what we’ve got.

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Related posts:

1. On the Problems of Cultivated Fruit
2. Is Living Primal Good for the Environment?
3. How to Shop a Farmers’ Market

The movie studies have won another major legal victory in the ongoing war against file sharing, this one against an individual (Gary Fung) who ran a number of torrent search sites, including the popular isoHunt. Although the defendant had argued he was providing just another search engine, the judge has ruled that Fung’s legal team had neglected to rebut the studio’s primary arguments, and Fung himself had a history of statements showing that he encouraged copyright infringement. Although the ruling establishes liability, there’s no word yet on the sanctions that Fung will face.

Granting a summary judgement requires that the judge interpret all the arguments in favor of the losing party, and still find that their opponents have made a winning case, so it’s a pretty difficult standard to meet. Fung and his lawyers, however, seem to have made the job a bit easier.

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Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

ViaSat (NASDAQ: VSAT), the Carlsbad, CA-based satellite communications company raised $133 million in equity funding in December, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. ViaSat spokesman Bruce Rowe tells me the company issued about 4.3 million shares for the stock component of the company’s $568 million stock-and-cash purchase of Colorado’s WildBlue Communications, the high-speed Internet service provider. That deal was announced in October and closed Dec. 15.

In an interesting reprise of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” ViaSat named senior vice president Tom Moore to head the company’s new WildBlue subsidiary. Moore co-founded WildBlue in 1998 and served as the company’s CEO until 2005 and as a director until 2008.

ViaSat, founded in 1986, specializes in satellite-based communications and other digital communication products. The company has 2,100 employees and reported sales of $628 million in the fiscal year that ended in April. ViaSat CEO Mark Dankberg has said the company’s acquisition of WildBlue, a longtime business partner, is key to helping ViaSat reduce the business risk of its planned satellite venture. ViaSat said last year it planned to build and launch its own $450 million communications satellite to provide high-speed Internet service.

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