Week in review: Professor says Square took his technology, Facebook readies Game Dashboard
Here’s our rundown of the week’s business and tech news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
Professor claims Square took his credit card reading technology — Square is a promising startup offering a small device that lets anyone make a credit card payment from their mobile phone. But an associate professor at Washington University says there’s a big hitch: He built Square’s credit card reading technology and has filed a patent for it, so the San Francisco company doesn’t own a key part of its tech.
Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft (Q&A) — Now that Dodge has spent a month in his new job at Google, where he moved after being laid off from Microsoft, I got a chance to interview him about how Microsoft compares to Google, how he’s enjoying Google products like Gmail, and what’s coming in 2010.
Google phone could upend telecoms, says Forrester analyst — There’s been no shortage of rumors, some more substantiated than others, that Google’s coming out with a new, game-changing phone, and everyone’s itching for a chance to weigh in. We rounded up what’s known about the phone, focusing on an analyst’s explanation of why this could shake up the status quo.
Microsoft and Bungie release scenes from Halo: Reach game — It’s still about a year away from release, but Microsoft and Bungie teased the release of their next big game, Halo: Reach with a 2.5-minute trailer.
Social game maker Zynga raises $180M from Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies — The new funding for the fast-growing company comes from the same Russian investor that bought a $200 million stake in Facebook.
And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or fun:
Facebook readies its Game Dashboard to organize your social gaming life — Facebook is in the midst of redesigning how users find, interact with, and keep track of games on the social network. The new dashboard is Facebook’s attempt to play nice with social game developers, serve the interests of gamers, and at the same time stop games from ruining the experience for everybody else.
Twitter starts experimenting with its first real business feature — Twitter just began giving business users a small extra, by letting professional accounts give bylines for individual tweets. That way if several employees handle a single account for a big brand, it will be easier to tell who did what and provide more of a personal touch to interaction with customers.
iPhone beats Droid in Manhattan speed tests — A new report from mid-market investment banking firm Piper Jaffray rebuts the notion that the new Verizon Droid phone gives better service than AT&T’s iPhones. The main point: “While there were certainly locations where the iPhone was bested by the Droid, two-thirds of the time the iPhone had much better throughput.”
SunRun snags $90M more from Bancorp to expedite residential solar — This funding boost will allow the San Franciscocompany to make its solar power even more affordable for average people, which is the key to its business model.
Is Google about to gobble up Yelp? — Google is in the advanced stages of a bid to acquire popular review site Yelp for more than half a billion dollars, according to several reports (though the companies aren’t commenting).
