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The New York Times is reporting that several bloggers who use Google's hosted Blogger platform for their blogs were unable to update over the weekend after having their accounts frozen for possible...

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It's rather surprising to find out that, for the first time in about thirty years, not a single venture-backed company went public last quarter. Even in the worst of the various downturns that have happened over the past thirty years, there were always at least a few venture-backed companies that were able to make it out. This news has some folks fretting about what it means for the VC community -- with many pointing out that a bunch of VCs have moved away from "quick flip" internet investments into more long-term alternative energy bets.

I'd also guess that Sarbanes-Oxley has a lot to do with this. Going public is a lot less appealing these days thanks to the expenses required under that law. Rather than "cleaning up" the market, it's basically made going public a toxic process, so that everyone stays private and looks for acquisition opportunities. That said, it was obvious during the boom years that companies were going public way too quickly -- and being a public company is no picnic, with the required short-term thinking it demands.

So, what happens instead? There's been some talk of creating some sort of middle road. Rather than taking companies fully public, or selling them off to big players, what about a limited market of private equity investors who would let some of the original VCs and founders cash out, while keeping the company away from public market reporting requirements? This could potentially make a lot more sense for all involved. It basically adds another layer between VCs and the public markets where the private equity guys could either eventually take the company public or sell it off themselves. Even if this doesn't really work out, one thing is pretty clear: VCs will find a way to get money out of investing in startups, even if it's not in taking companies public.

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Filed under: Desktops

AMD just pranced out its latest trio of desktop processors including its new 2.6GHz quad-core Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition ($235) -- AMD's top o' the line desktop proc. The Black Edition branding makes this processor ideal for tweakers and overclockers. HotHardware's already done the job of putting the procs through their respective paces. As you'd hope from AMD's flagship desktop CPU, the X4 9950 is faster across the board than the previous AMD title holder, the X4 9850, albeit, just 5%. That puts it about level with Intel's Quad Q6600 processor but no match for Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX9650. AMD continues to lag Intel in terms of performance per watt as well. Hit up the read link when you're ready to sprinkle a little silicon speak onto your morning ritual.

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Adobe Systems is helping Google and Yahoo to uncover Web content that was previously "invisible" to Web searches.

Both companies have been given optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to help them better index dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications that include the Flash file format, or Shockwave Flash, Adobe said in a statement. Search engines already index static text and links within Shockwave Flash files, but rich Internet applications and dynamic Web content are elusive to search engines because of their changing states, Adobe noted.

Adobe's technology means that millions of pre-existing RIAs that use Flash technology, including content that loads at runtime, are immediately searchable without alteration by companies or developers, Adobe said. Google has already added the optimized Flash Player to its search engine, while Yahoo plans to add the technology to a future update of Yahoo Search.

"Designers and Web developers have long been frustrated that search engines couldn't better access the information within their content created with Flash technology. It's great to see Adobe and the search engines working directly together to improve the situation," Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of SearchEngineLand.com, said in a statement. "The changes should help unlock information that's previously been 'invisible' and will likely result in a better experience for searchers."

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An anonymous reader writes "Just a week after Mozilla shipped Firefox 3.0, the open-source developer has proposed ship dates for the next version that, if approved, would produce an alpha release next month and a final no later than early 2009. According to a draft schedule discussed at a recent meeting, Mozilla wants to have the first Firefox 3.1 developer preview ready by July, then move to a beta by August. The schedule slates final code delivery in the last quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2009. A month ago, when Mozilla first started discussing Firefox 3.1 internally, Mike Schroepfer, the company's vice president of engineering, said the upgrade's target ship date was the end of 2008. If Mozilla holds to that plan, Firefox 3.1 would be its first fast-track update. Firefox 3.0, for instance, launched approximately 20 months after its predecessor, Firefox 2.0."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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on AIR is a blog run by the platform evangelism team at Adobe that focuses on discussions around the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Rich Internet Application Development.

Recent posts from on AIR:
Ethan Malasky on Developing Secure AIR Applications
Lots of Excitement for Adobe AIR in Europe
On AIR Tour Europe Almost Sold Out

Channels 9, 10, and TechNet Edge are social media communities brought to you by the Evangelism team at Microsoft. Channel 9 is a Developer community that features interviews with the people behind Microsoft Products and Technologies, a wiki and an active general discussion forum. Channel 10 is a community for the Power User that in addition to highlighting relevant Microsoft Products and Technologies profiles those people who are using technology to change our world. TechNet Edge is where IT professionals go to get the inside story on the latest Microsoft technologies, watch screencasts and learn more from the insiders.

Recent posts from Channel 9:
Charles Teague: Building Windows Live Writer Plug-ins
TechEd Amanda Silver on Visual Basic 2008 and VB in the future
This Week on C9: Jeff Sandquist and Bill Gates stories

questionpro (blog) aims to deliver the most advanced features that the online survey market demands while maintaining a balance between flexibility and ease-of-use. Customer satisfaction is our #1 priority and our software constantly improves by taking customer feedback to heart. The success of our company depends entirely on the success of our clients. Our single goal is to deliver a service that makes conducting online research easy.

Recent posts from The QuestionPro Blog:
Ironman Nice Update
Notes from CASRO Technology Conference: SMS Research
13th Annual CASRO Technology Conference

OSCON (blog) is happening July 21-25 in Portland, Oregon. OSCON is the crossroads of all things open source, bringing together the best, brightest, and most interesting people to explore what's new, and to champion the cause of open principles and open source adoption across the computing industry.

Recent posts from OSCON:
Brian Aker's Vision for a Livable Design, Looking at MySQL as OSCON Approaches
Open Mobile Exchange to Debut at OSCON
O'Reilly Radar: Call For Open Source Awards 2008 Nominations

Zoho (blog): Zoho does online office. Zoho offers a wide range of online office and productivity applications ranging from word processors, spreadsheets, presentation apps to CRM, project management, wikis and more. Zoho aims to provide an affordable suite of online applications.

Recent posts from Zoho Blogs:
Syncplicity Integrates Zoho
Zoho Business : Scheduled Maintenance on Jun 29, 2008
Zoho Show Update : Export as PPT/PDF/ODF, UI in 9 New Languages, Undo/Redo & more

Compete.com (blog) is the only online competitive intelligence service that combines web wide site metrics and search analytics in one site to help you quickly master online marketing. Our goal is to make it easy for you to keep your finger on the pulse of the whole online landscape and get the most out of your search investments to effectively drive brand awareness, drive site traffic and increase sales.

Recent posts from Compete Blog:
What You Have Been Asking For... Today We Are Launching Compete PRO …
E*Trade: The Right Stuff “Baby”?
May Online Video Market Share: ABC Signs Up With Veoh; Fancast and Hulu Tango

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Everex Systems will launch a new mini-laptop with a 10.2-inch screen in November, the company's Taiwan partner said.The company will also launch new 8.9-inch mini-laptops by the end of August, along...

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More than 22,000 Canadians revolt against monopolistic iPhone rates — Rogers, the telecommunications company that holds a near-monopoly in the Canadian mobile market, is facing a revolt from...

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Well, we can finally put the D700 rumors to bed. The beast that houses Nikon's newest monster (near) full-frame FX format 12.1 megapixel CMOS (not dissimilar from that found in the D3) is officially announced tonight, and it takes UDMA CompactFlash, and comes packing with a live view 3-inch display, 51 point autofocus (with 3D tracking), scene recognition, four-speed active dust reduction, ISO up to 6400, 5 or 8 fps full-res shooting, HDMI out, and a whole lot more. Expect it in July for $3,000 US (for the body).

Also being released are the SB-900 speedlight (August, $500), and the PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8D ED and PC-E Micro NIKKOR 85mm f/2.8D lenses (August, $1,800 and $1,740, respectively).

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The lucky and meticulous bastards at DP Review have gotten a hands on preview of the D700, and nicely round up the differences between it and the 20 percent beefier D3 besides the ones we already...

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Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
New deal makes “invisible” Flash content visible to search  —  Adobe, Google and Yahoo are about to make it easier to build rich multimedia websites in the Flash file format (SWF) without sacrificing any “Google juice” (and, um, whatever the Yahoo equivalent is).

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Filed under: Transportation

Man, Tesla's been busy today -- in addition to the announcement of the Model S and Elon Musk's promise of a sub-$30K electric car in four years, word on the street is that the company's inked a deal with Daimler AG to supply it with lithium-ion batteries for upcoming electric cars. Daimler's CEO has said the company was open to leasing battery tech to get out an electric Smart by 2010 and it's rumored that the German marque is looking to ditch gas entirely by 2015, so going to Tesla, which has been working on battery tech for some time, isn't a totally out there proposition. Just a rumor for now -- given Tesla's generally-prickly relationships with others, we'd wait for an official announcement before getting too excited about a Roadster-powered SLR, but it's certainly intriguing.

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You may recall that eBay execs were trying to require the use of subsidiary PayPal for payments in Australia -- which resulted in a bunch of protests. That, in turn, resulted in the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) saying that this probably broke the law. Not surprisingly, eBay has now agreed to indefinitely delay the plans to require PayPal, saying that it would wait for a final ruling from the ACCC. Of course, it still seems like a situation where this would present another opportunity for eBay competitors to try to steal customers away from eBay.

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The U.S. is regularly stereotyped as a country of gadget-gluttons, but a recent study by Ipsos MediaCT shows that Americans aren't the only ones in a techno-buying frenzy. According to the study, the...

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It's real. The mid-range DSLR you've been waiting for: Nikon's D700 DSLR packs the D3's supernaturally low-noise 12.1-megapixel full-frame image sensor into a smaller, lighter body, for only $2999. ...

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