Recent posts and comments

• TripAdvisor Takes FlipKey Majority Stake

  Newton, MA-based travel media network TripAdvisor said yesterday that it has acquired a majority stake in FlipKey, a Boston-based consumer review site for rental vacation homes. FlipKey was launched in... Read more »

• Coskata Refutes Energy Analyst’s Critique, Says It’s On Track to Make Ethanol for Under $1 Per Gallon

  The idea that a strain of bacteria discovered at the bottom of a lagoon on the campus of Oklahoma State University could hold an answer to U.S. dependence on foreign oil... Read more »

• Terrafugia On Track for First Flight This Year

  The idea of a drivable vehicle that also flies has a firm grip on the public imagination. Woburn, MA-based Terrafugia, the subject of two highly popular Xconomy stories back in... Read more »

• Microsoft, Novell Continue Unlikely Windows-Linux Partnership

  In November 2006, Redmond, WA-based Microsoft and Waltham, MA-based Novell surprised the software world by announcing that Microsoft would market Novell’s version of the Linux operating system to its own customers,... Read more »

• With uTest, U Find Software Bugs, U Save

  There’s no such thing as a flawless software application: the only question is how many bugs its developers had time to catch and fix before release, and how many will be... Read more »

• Remember Palm, Symbian, Java, and Blackberry? AT&T Dangles Incentives for Non-iPhone, Non-Android Mobile Apps

  Perhaps eager to remind software developers that the Apple iPhone isn’t the only game in town—or even its only game in town— AT&T is sponsoring a contest for New England-based makers... Read more »

• Skyhook Gets Neighborhood Data from Urban Mapping

  So, you’re at the corner of Harrison Street and Union Park Street in Boston. Are you in the South End, or in the trendier but less widely recognized SoWa (South of... Read more »

• Canada’s Zi Corporation Hopes to Fend Off Nuance Takeover; Companies Issue Dueling Statements

  Zi Corporation (NASDAQ: ZICA), a struggling Calgary, Alberta-based company whose software is designed to speed text entry on mobile devices, today rejected a takeover offer from Burlington, MA-based speech recognition... Read more »

• GameLogic Doubles Down with $8 Million in Series C Funding

  Waltham, MA-based GameLogic, which manages online games that double as customer loyalty programs for patrons of bricks-and-mortar casinos, has collected $8 million of a $10 million Series C funding round,... Read more »

• The Boston and Seattle iPhone Apps Catalog

  It’s been one month to the day since Apple simultaneously released the iPhone 3G, pushed the 2.0 version of the iPhone firmware to all iPhone owners, started distributing native iPhone applications... Read more »

• NEC Snaps Up Netcracker

  Netcracker Technology, a Waltham, MA, company that makes software used by telecom companies to manage order fulfillment and other operations, announced today that it will be acquired by Tokyo-based electronics and... Read more »

• In Defense of the Endangered Tree Octopus, and Other Web Myths

  This March marked the 10th anniversary of the campaign to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus from extinction. If you’re not familiar with the elusive tree octopus, it’s an arboreal cephalopod... Read more »

• Will Popcuts Out-Surrge Surrge with Music Rewards Program?

  The news in TechCrunch last night about the public beta launch of Popcuts, a startup founded by Cambridge, MA- and Mountain View, CA-based Y Combinator that proposes to reward music... Read more »

• If You Can Beat BeatThat.com’s Prices, They’ll Pay You

  For many online shoppers, no sooner have they hit the “buy” button than they’re struck by angst over whether they missed out on a better deal at another site. But at... Read more »

• Verenium, BP in $90 Million Ethanol Deal

  Verenium (NASDAQ: VRNM), a Cambridge, MA-based biofuel firm, and BP, the United States’ largest oil and gas producer, announced a strategic partnership today under which Verenium will receive up to... Read more »

• In Coda to Robotic FX Lawsuit, iRobot Introduces Its Own Version of Negotiator Robot

  The last time I saw a Negotiator robot was in a federal courtroom in Boston, where Jameel Ahed—the founder and CEO of Robotic FX and the defendant in an intellectual-property-theft lawsuit... Read more »

• DynaTrace Takes $12.9 Million

  Waltham, MA-based DynaTrace Software, whose products diagnose performance problems in large, distributed enterprise systems from companies like SAP, Microsoft, and IBM, announced today that it has closed a second round... Read more »

• RFID Kits Go On Sale at ThingMagic Store

  Last week we wrote about ThingMagic’s compact new RFID reader, Astra, which is designed to fit into small spaces such as office ceilings, allowing more kinds of organizations to use... Read more »

• Core Security Brings Penetration Testing to Broader Market

  If you’re a typical homeowner, it would probably be overkill to have a live-in plumber who spends all his time checking the pipes for leaks. But if your plumbing system were... Read more »

• $8.5 Million for InstallFree

  InstallFree, a Stamford, CT, startup that sells software used by corporate IT departments to deliver virtualized applications to Windows desktops, said today that it has raised $8.5 million in Series... Read more »