Category: News

Nine venture-backed startups IPO'd in 2009, but just one of them was based in Silicon Valley: Sunnyvale security firm Fortinet Inc.

Close-by, San Francisco's Open Table IPO'd in May.

Otherwise, it was all Massachusets, Chicago, Seattle, and Texas.

The WSJ illustrated the point with the fine chart we've pasted to the right. (Read more at the WSJ)

2010 should look different as we wouldn't be surprised to see Silicon Valley-based startups Yelp, Zynga, Playdom, Tesla, Facebook and LiveOps IPO.

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See Also:

• Yelp's Rejection Of Google Heralds A Massive IPO Boom
• Why Zynga Didn't Just IPO
• Tesla Prepping Its IPO

A happy, healthy and prosperous new year from Enviromental Capital.

Thanks for joining us for the wild, bumpy ride through 2009.

See you in 2010.

In the meantime, a French court struck down a new tax on carbon emissions set to go into effect on Jan. 1, but Economy Minister Christine Lagarde promised to salvage the tax and close certain loopholes.

Meanwhile, an Environmental Capital favorite — natural gas producer and cheerleader Chesapeake Energy — has won a dubious award. The worst financial footnote of the year.

Photo credit.

Filed under: Etc., Toys/Games

The Top Gear Cool Wall ranks cars in four categories, from Seriously Uncool to Sub Zero (which is really, really cool), using a highly unscientific method that no one can get an exact grip on. If you’re hooked on trying to figure out whether a car is beyond uncool, like the Fiat Panda, or Sub Zero, like the Ford GT, then there’s an app for that.

It’s called “Cool Wall,” and you can get it over at Apple’s iTunes store. Looks like TG may have released the app before it was finished cooking, however: it’s $1.99 and so far, the reviews are mixed, with purchasers complaining about things like cropped pictures of cars. The app page claims updates are on the way, but buyer beware in the meantime. Thanks for the tip, Bryan!

[Source: Top Gear via iTunes]

Top Gear Cool Wall lands in iTunes app store originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Rumormill

Ralf Schumacher entered Formula One six years after his brother Michael, with the same Jordan team that introduced his sibling to the grid. That’s about where the similarities end. After an 11-year career with Williams, Jordan, and Toyota, Ralf retired in 2007 and ended up in the DTM series. He was a good driver and had a decent car early in his Williams tenure, but he simply didn’t have the edge. He ended up with fewer race wins, six, than his brother did World Championships.

Now that Michael has returned to the circus, it looks like Ralf wants his turn under the Big Top again. Ralf said, “I know that my reputation suffered during my time at Toyota but I left that behind me. I know what I can do and I feel ready to do it again.” Having turned down a race seat with one of the new teams, other rumors suggest that he’s talking to Toro Rosso, where he would replace Jaime Alguersuari and partner Sebastien Buemi. Toro Rosso and Renault – and Sauber, depending – are essentially the only teams who have openings and a chance of giving Ralf a car he can do something with.

[Source: GP Update | Image: Alex Grimm/Bongarts/Getty]

Is the other Schumacher pondering a F1 comeback too? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Marketing/Advertising, Motorcycle

Does the classic rumble of V-Twin appeal to you, but find full-dresser’s not your style? Buy a Buell. Now. There will be no more, and stocks are dwindling. Despite that, they’re not emptying the tank fast enough for Harley Davidson. With the very last Buell ever produced now taking up residence at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum – an unfortunate fate for something that’s so glorious to actually use – it’s fire-sale time on the 1,300 or so new Buells left. To froth sales, Harley has set up a bike finder to put you on the two-wheeler of your dreams and get your money in its pocket.

Further sweetening the pot are aggressive incentives from H-D to dealers, meaning you’re not likely to get a bad deal. Unless you’re a chump.

[Source: Hell for Leather]

Buells, getcher Buells! Harley-Davidson implements a bike-finder originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will fast-track nearly three dozen qualified renewable energy projects , including wind energy projects. The BLM is guaranteeing a full environmental analysis and public review for the 31 renewable energy projects …

The best that can be said for 2009 is that it could have been worse, that we pulled back from the precipice on which we seemed to be perched in late 2008, and that 2010 will almost surely be better for most countries around the world. The world has also learned some valuable lessons, though at great cost both to current and future prosperity – costs that were unnecessarily high given that we should already have learned them.

The first lesson is that markets are not self-correcting. Indeed, without adequate regulation, they are prone to excess. In 2009, we again saw why Adam Smith’s invisible hand often appeared invisible: it is not there. The bankers’ pursuit of self-interest (greed) did not lead to the well-being of society; it did not even serve their shareholders and bondholders well. It certainly did not serve homeowners who are losing their homes, workers who have lost their jobs, retirees who have seen their retirement funds vanish, or taxpayers who paid hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks.

Read the rest at China Daily –>

 

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See Also:

• Stiglitz: The U.S. Will Crash Again Unless We Pass Even More Stimulus
• How Joseph Stiglitz Blew It On Fannie And Freddie
• Stiglitz: Banking Industry In Worse Shape Than Ever

A new video emerged this week which supposedly showcases an individual playing Half Life 2 using Project Natal, Microsoft’s upcoming motion control platform for the Xbox 360. The video is blurry and crudely recorded but you can see places where the player is moving objects in the game by gesturing with his hands. This Half Life 2 video is eerily similar to another rumored Project Natal video which surfaced late last week. In this other, earlier video, the same person in what looks to be the same environment is reportedly demoing Geometry Wars. Check out both videos and let us know what you think of these potentially early demos of Project Natal.

[Via GossipGamer and Destructoid]

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Here we go again with another dual interface flash drive, but this time USB 3.0 is no where to be found. The Team X092 comes sporting both a USB 2.0 and eSATA interface. Of course with the eSATA interface, the drive should be rather quick and it is thanks to four data channels feeding separate flash memory modules.

The eSATA interface can see read speeds of 110MB/s and write speeds of 40MB/s. That’s not nearly as quick as the USB 3.0 flash drive from yesterday, but it’s still faster than standard ol’ USB 2.0. Team says it will only take 42 seconds to move a 4.5GB file. There will be 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB flavors available shortly at yet-to-be-announced prices. [Team via SlashGear]

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Nice fix, fella, but did you know that most of the time you can tighten the lid’s hinge? Oh, you wanted to be part of the steampunk movement. Well, you fail.

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It might have looked a bit awkward from the first official pictures we saw last month, but here is the first video of the 2011 Volvo S60 showing off all its angles.

The Volvo S60 sedan will enter production in early summer of 2010 at Volvo’s Ghent, Belgium plant after it makes its debut at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show.

We don’t expect any delays in the arrival of the S60 since China’s Geely said it will leave Volvo untouched (in terms of production, R&D facilities, union agreements and dealer networks) when it acquires it early next year.

Click through for the video.

2011 Volvo S60:

– By: Kap Shah

Think your Michael Phleps? Well prove it! The Freestyle Series from Liquid Image is the first swim goggle with an integrated digital camera. They are a slim design perfect for guys and gals who want to show of their breast strokes. The goggle contains a 62 degree lens to action while swimming and playing in the water. The built-in camera has a 1.3 MP camera mode and a video mode that records VGA video at a rate up to 30 frames per second with audio.   To operate just press On/Off/Mode and another button for the shutter. To record a photo or a video, simply turn on the camera, choose the mode, then press the shutter button.  The memory is not expandable so you better capture worthwhile footage with the internal memory of only 4GB.  The Freestyle Series Swim Camera Goggle is estimated to ship in April 2010, in time for the summer and will be available in the colors blue, black, and red.

North Dakota to sue Minnesota for even thinking about a carbon tax True/Slant … climate science may be offset by his political naiveté. If cap and trade can't squeak through Congress, one might ask, how could a carbon tax ever pass? … and more »

The New York Times’ ebullient tech columnist David Pogue handed out his awards for the best tech ideas of the year. Some of them I’ve covered already — like Bing’s pop-up previews, Droid and the Verizon MiFi wireless card — and some of them are very cameras that I just don’t care much about. But here are two very cool ideas that passed under my radar.

1) iType2Go
I don’t have an iPhone, but if I did I’d buy this app pronto. When
you’re texting, iType2Go superimposes your words over a live camera
view of where you’re walking. So rather than looking like a
half-klutz/half-jerk running into trees, cars, families with strollers
and so on, you can see exactly where you’re going as you text your
friend. For Droid phones, a similar function is called the Text’n’Walk.

2) Readability
Pogue calls Readability — a free button for your browser that renders
any online article as an ad-free, novel-esque page — “the single best
tech idea of 2009.” That was enough for me! So I downloaded the
function by visiting the Readability site here,
selecting my reading preferences (Novel-style text; Medium sized print;
Wide margins) and dragging the Readability button to my bookmark
Toolbar. Voila. Every article I read can now be rendered as a ad-free,
clutter-free page of crystal clear text on a sepia background. I urge
you to try it out.

You just did the meanest snowboard flip and wish you could have recorded it from your point of view. Well Liquid Image, the people behind those underwater scuba goggles, now announces their newest product, Tthe Liquid Image Summit Series Snow Goggle with an integrated digital camera. The goggle contains a wide angle lens to capture all the action while skiing, boarding, sledding or snowmobiling built-in to the goggles. The camera has a 5.0 MP camera mode and a video mode that records D1 video (720×480) at a rate up to 30 frames per second with audio.  The internal memory has 16 MB NAND Flash but can be expanded by adding a Micro SD/SDHC Card up to 16 GB. To operate the goggles there is a button for On/Off/Mode and another button for the shutter.  The Summit Series Snow Camera Goggle model will be announced next week at CES and will retail for $149.00.

As 2009 draws to a close, we can look back over a decade of good and bad for American the criminal justice system and our prison policy. But one thing is clear: we’re at a moment of great opportunity for reform.

There is more awareness among the American public now than ever before about our failed years of criminal justice policy and the lives and money we’ve wasted on the drug war, the death penalty and the explosion of the prison state. The system could see change real change in 2010, and a good start would be a stronger Second Chance Act.

(more…)

Google won’t officially unveil its “Nexus One” smartphone until Tuesday, when it has scheduled an “Android Press Gathering“. There are plenty of descriptions and images of the phone floating around the Web, though — a result of Google’s decision to “dogfood” the device with employees.

And now, some video. Yesterday a 10-minute clip of what appears to be someone taking the phone through its paces popped up on the Web. There’s no sound, and the device appears to be configured for French speakers, so if you’re an American with a short attention span, I’m not sure what the appeal would be. But some of you are going to want to watch it, anyway.

This would normally be the place where I’d embed the relevant YouTube video. But this one video that Google (GOOG) doesn’t want appearing on its video site, and it is pulling the footage down as quickly as it can. (This is where I imagine the Viacom guys chortling and rubbing their hands).

That said, you can find the clip without much effort, particularly if you search other video sites that aren’t owned by Google. Have at it, if that floats your boat.

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The year is winding down and the time for reflection is on us once again. I like to end the year by thinking back on all the gadgets I purchased (far too many) and designating one as the best one of the lot. This year determining which was the best was easier than usual, due to the game-breaking nature of the selected gadget. I should be no surprise that my best gadget purchase this year was the MiFi. This little 3G modem/ Wi-Fi router literally changed the way I use mobile broadband for the better, and it is still a magical device for me.

So how about you? What was your very best gadget purchase this year, and why do you feel it is the best? I am interested to hear about your gadgets and why that one special device was the best. Let’s talk gadgets for a bit, it’s always fun.

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Filed under: Hardware, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, Mods

This is great, and highly appropriate for the tick-tocking away of the year — Japanese modder Nobon had an old Power Mac G5 (case, it looks like, though this would be cool on a working Mac as well) sitting around, and he wanted to know what time it was, so he installed a little clock in there. As mods go, it’s pretty simple, but man that looks great. Like most users, I usually hide my actual boxes under the desk or in a cabinet, but if any of my computer cases were as beautiful and functional as that, I’d put them out front and center.

There’s a sequence of pictures on his site showing how he did it. It’s all in Japanese, so you’ll only be able to read it if you happen to be fluent. But it looks pretty simple — drill a hole in the side of the case, install a battery operated clock, shine a light on it, and voila, instant Mac centerpiece. Apple products don’t die, they just change function!

[Via Cult of Mac]

TUAWPower Mac G5 turned time-teller originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A member of the PistonHeads forum community spotted this convertible version of the Bentley Continental Supersports during what looks like a photo shoot for the vehicle. Bentley has yet to confirm a convertible version of the Continental Supersports supercar, but this should be enough evidence for you guys.

No idea when Bentley will officially release the model.

Refresher: Power for the Bentley Continental Supersports comes from a 6.0L W12 twin-turbocharged engine making 621-hp with a maximum torque of 590 lb-ft. 0 – 60 mph comes in 3.7 seconds with a top speed of 204 mph. The engine is capable of running on gasoline and E85 biofuel or any combination of the two.

Bentley Continental Supersports Coupe:

– By: Kap Shah

Source: PistonHeads (via WCF)