Power Assure Gets $11.25 million Jolt of Funding

Power Assure , a Santa Clara green IT company, today announced that it scored $11.25 million in venture funding. The round was led by energy efficiency-focused investors Good Energies , and joined by Point Judith Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson . Power Assure’s chief technology officer Clemens Pfeiffer said the company will use this capital to take its technology to a broader market. Its software cuts data centers’ power consumption by half, on average, the company claims. Palo Alto Research Center (formerly known as Xerox PARC) uses Power Assure, but Pfeiffer declined to name other major customers. Founded in 2007, Power Assure took a $2.5 million series A round from DFJ in 2009. It also previously won non-dilutive grant funding including a $5 million grant from the Department of Energy, and a $50,000 cash prize at the 2008 California Clean Tech Open . (In total, the company has raised $18.75 million.) Power Assure’s software works like “automatic lights out” in homes, Pfeiffer says. “If you have a lot of traffic on your site or a lot of users on your app, then you need to keep a lot of servers in your data center running. During low utilization times  you don’t need them all running. You can use them for other purposes, or in an extreme case sleep or shut them down to save energy and money. That’s just as long as you can adjust the capacity dynamically.” Companies that have expressed the most interest in using Power Assure’s solutions in 2010 have been government organizations “trying to follow the  mandates of the Obama administration, ” financial services companies “because of the pressure that they are under to cut costs,” and companies that operate “data centers in the ten- to two-hundred-thousand square feet range,” but may not have achieved the efficiencies of an Amazon or Google yet, according to Pfeiffer. Jonathan Koomey , a consulting professor at Stanford University whose research focuses in part on the growth and environmental impact of data centers , said it’s a good time to be in the business of green IT services: “Climate change is becoming a bigger more important part of companies’ risk profiles and planning. And the cost of IT has gone up a lot in the last five years. Computers have gotten cheaper, but things like cooling and power distribution have gotten more expensive to the point where the cost of buying the cooling and backup power is comparable to the cost of a data center’s IT equipment itself. Companies like [Power Assure] can save a lot of money for businesses that use data centers while reducing emissions. That’s a good thing, and a reminder that the net effect of using data centers in a rational, sustainable way — moving bits not atoms — is actually a positive for the environment.” CrunchBase Information Information provided by CrunchBase CrunchBase Information Good Energies Information provided by CrunchBase

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Power Assure Gets $11.25 million Jolt of Funding

Hey Brian (Guy Behind iPhone Vs. EVO Videos), Paramount Wants To Talk!

Remember those awesome iPhone 4 versus EVO 4G videos? Hopefully you do, it has only been a few weeks since we

Video: Does iOS 4.1 fix the iPhone 4′s death grip antenna issue?

The first software update for iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 is here! And now, to answer the question that seems to be on just about everyone’s mind: Does it fix the iPhone 4′s death grip issue — or at least make an effort to appear to? Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

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Video: Does iOS 4.1 fix the iPhone 4′s death grip antenna issue?

Foursquare Founders Pull Out $4.6 Million For Themselves From Last $20 Million Round

Dennis Crowley didn’t get the big personal payday he would have if he had sold Foursquare to Facebook, which he almost did. But Crowley and co-founder Naveen Selvadurai did okay with the $20 million Series B funding they raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square, and O’Reilly AlphaTech. According to an SEC filing (first spotted by Dan Frommer at SAI ), the two founders personally took home $4,636,688 from that round, or 23 percent of the total amount raised. Under a part of the filing titled “Use of Proceeds,” the company had to disclose “the amount of the gross proceeds of the offering that has been or is proposed to be used for payments to any of the persons required to be named as executive officers, directors or promoters in response to Item 3 above.” There are only three people listed as “executive officers, directors or promoters”: Crowley, Selvadurai, and board director Albert Wenger of Union Square. It would be highly unusual for one of the VCs on the board to take personal liquidity out of a deal before his firm does. And Union Square put more money into this round. No wonder Crowley flew to South Africa to watch some of the World Cup games right after the round closed. With the IPO markets not as attractive as they once were and companies staying private longer, it is becoming increasingly common for founders to take some money off the table during later venture rounds. (Other recent venture rounds saw much bigger sums going to founders). As long as the company does well, nobody will blame them. But if the company hits on hard times when that cash could be helpful, well . . . then a different story will be told. Update : Foursquare says the founders sold shares essentially so that investors could buy more. Spokesperson Erin Gleason sent me the following statement: As is common in Series B financings, Dennis and Naveen sold a small portion of their personal equity as a secondary offering to allow our investors to achieve their ownership objectives. CrunchBase Information Dennis Crowley Naveen Selvadurai Foursquare Information provided by CrunchBase

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Foursquare Founders Pull Out $4.6 Million For Themselves From Last $20 Million Round

Foursquare Tidies Up Venue Pages To Emphasize Tips

Foursquare , freshly flush with cash , is in the process of altering its service. They realize that the check-in model can only go so far, and they have to build utility on top of it. Part of that is changing the game aspect . Another part is the user-generated “Tips.” Today, those have been made a clear area of emphasis on Foursquare’s website. On the newly redesigned venue pages (here’s TechCrunch , for example), there is now a big text input box for Tips. You type in what you want, and hit the share button and the tip immediately appears. This is much more seamless (and obvious) than the previous process. And tips are hugely important to Foursquare. They’re the things that pop up every time a contact checks-in to a place. You can also mark tips so you remember to do them later (and note what you have done). This is all about adding value on top of Foursquare’s fast growing social and place graph. These new pages also make it more obvious how the owner of a venue can claim the place as theirs (something Foursquare hinted was coming soon ). And it more prominently shows “Total check-ins,” “Total people,” and “Your check-ins.” And, of course, the Mayor of the venue is displayed prominently. Foursquare, which is a mobile application, is in the process of gearing up for the launch of the 2.0 release of its service. You can bet that tips will be a big part of that as well. CrunchBase Information Foursquare Information provided by CrunchBase

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Foursquare Tidies Up Venue Pages To Emphasize Tips

Eve Online, The interview: The Space-Themed MMO’s Philosophy On Game Design, User Communities, & Online Anonymity

Online gamers received quite the scare last week when Blizzard announced it would require message board posters to use their real names. This was to be done in order to fight the scourge of online anonymity. The Internet freaked out, of course, so much so that Blizzard eventually changed its mind . I mention this up to not open old wounds, but to take the time to remind you of this: there are other MMOs in the world besides World of Warcraft . In fact, I’ve been playing one such MMO, the outer space-themed Eve Online (developed by Iceland’s CCP Games), for several days now. Come, let us enter a world (universe, really) of spaceships, cross-galaxy pirate raids, and Astronomical Units!

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Eve Online, The interview: The Space-Themed MMO’s Philosophy On Game Design, User Communities, & Online Anonymity

Prediction: This Statement Is Going To Come Back To Bite Microsoft In The Ass

“ It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that. “ That was Microsoft COO Kevin Turner during his keynote speech at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington today. I’m going to go out on a (not very big) limb and predict that this comment is going to come back to bite Microsoft in the ass. Microsoft has a long, illustrious history of putting its foot in its own mouth with comments like this. But usually it’s CEO Steve Ballmer making the comments . Ballmer’s most famous remarks are also about the iPhone. After it was announced in 2007 (but before it launched) Ballmer seemed willing to tell anyone who would listen that the device would fail. Who can forget this video ? And then there’s his comment to USA Today : “ There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. ” He went on, “ But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get. “ The iPhone is now Apple’s most successful product in its history. Microsoft, meanwhile, is in the process of completely pivoting its mobile product offering after bleeding market share in the years after the iPhone’s release. Of course, this comment by Turner is a bit different. He’s commenting on the antenna issues with the iPhone 4 — a problem which is very real . But comparing the problem to Windows Vista, Microsoft’s operating system in between Windows XP and Windows 7 that is generally considered to be a failure (even by many inside Microsoft), and a massive misstep by Microsoft, is foolish. The iPhone 4 antenna issue is a scar on a beautiful woman. You don’t break up with the woman because of it, you work around it because of her other attributes. She might even put on some coverup (the bumper) so you don’t even notice it. And some may not even notice it at all. Windows Vista is Kathy Bates in Misery . Turner’s assumption is that the antenna issue is going to damage Apple’s brand to the point where people start jumping ship. And he hopes to have Windows Phone 7 waiting with open arms. “ One of the things I want to make sure you know today is that you’re going to be able to use a Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a phone call ,” Turner said. But all indications right now is that this exodus is not and will not happen. Engadget did a nice roundup of writers and experts all around the country to get their reaction to the iPhone 4 antenna issue. The consensus? No big deal. Either all of them are brainwashed fanboys on Apple’s payroll — see, I saved you a comment right there, commenters — or they’re just giving their honest

Domestic Design Exhibits – 'Bent Out of Shape' Explores Canada's …

bent out of shape – ‘Bent Out of Shape’ is an exhibit at the Design Exchange in Toronto that explores Canada’s post-war contribution to industrial de…

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Domestic Design Exhibits – 'Bent Out of Shape' Explores Canada's …

GM: Chevy Volt Battery Warranty Is Eight Years/100k Miles

The Chevy Volt is finally coming together. GM just went public with the details surrounding its battery warranty and it’s on the same level as the Prius’s. The auto maker will cover the Volt’s LG Chem lithium-manganese pack for eight years or 100,000 miles. This comes after extensive testing over a three-year period in which testers logged over 1 million miles of driving and 4 million hours on the battery packs. Needless to say that GM tested the entire system thoroughly.

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GM: Chevy Volt Battery Warranty Is Eight Years/100k Miles

Roseanne Colletti: Gossip Gram: Celebrity Hair Trends

Ever wonder how celebs manage to pull off perfect hair ALL the time, even in the midst of the summer humidity? Watch this segment of Gossip Gram, and you’ll learn how they do it!

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Roseanne Colletti: Gossip Gram: Celebrity Hair Trends