Ngmoco, the company behind Rolando, Wordfu, Topple, and several other iPhone games is taking their company to the next level by raising $10 million in funding. The company has been around for about 9 months and this is their second round of funding. The funding was led by Norwest Venture Partners.
This investment further proves that iPhone game development is a good way to go. Ngmoco is based in San Francisco and was founded by former Electronic Arts executive Neil Young. “Everything in this market happens so quickly,” stated Young. “The iPhone is really the first wave of new phones that have the same capability to play games as the handheld game systems have.”
Ngmoco’s previous round of funding was about $5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers along with Maple Investments. The new round of funding will be used to expand Ngmoco’s premium games such as Rolando, which sells for $9.99. Ngmoco has made five top 10 games for iTunes thus far.
Sony is looking to compete with the Apple iPod Touch through the release of their X-Series OLED Walkman. The Walkman has a 3″ AMOLED touchscreen and has fully digital noise cancellation. The device is expected to arrive on Amazon.com UK by about May 10th.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez himself introduced the first phone to be produced in the country. It costs less than $14 and is called the C366 “El Vergatario.” The phone was put together by the Venezuelan government and outside investors such as Chinese manufacturing company ZTE. When the phone goes for sale, it will cost 30,000 bolivar. Mobile phone plans for this phone will be available in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Earlier this week I stumbled upon an interesting article on Wired. It was about how lawmakers in Michigan are considering to build a maglev rail line between Detroit and Lansing. The rail line would use special built cars, buses, and trucks. The project would be completely funded by private companies. The problem is that even talking about this initiative has sparked some controversy.
The hydrogen-powered rail line would use Stainless steel tracks and would run along I-96 that connects Detroit and Lansing. The speed would be about 200MPH.
Interstate Traveler Company LLC is the company behind the Superhighway system. Not only will this highway move people across the two cities at a fast pace, but it will also save energy, water, security, communication, fuel, etc. The costs are approximately $15 million per mile, but private investors are willing to put up the full $2 billion into the Detroit-Lansing line.
“This innovative rail system has tremendous potential for Michigan residents, and could be a major catalyst to strengthen our economy and create jobs,” stated Representative Bill Rogers. “Just as Michigan was the birthplace of the world’s first mile of concrete roadway, our state could usher in a new era of transportation with just as much impact as the automobile.” Rogers is leading the task force behind this project.
Here are some other ambitious numbers. Interstate Traveler believes that if the superhighway was implemented between 54,000 miles of the Eisenhower Interstate System, it would require 750 million tons of American made steel. About 2.1 million livable wage jobs would be created for staffing the traveler stations. It would also generate a carbon offset value of $650 million.
The Detroit-Lansing line could start as early as mid-2010.
Oops, you accidentally sent a nasty e-mail to an ex- that you didn’t mean and you want to take it back. Good news if you are using GMail and run into this type of problem. If you send an e-mail that you immediately regret, GMail will allow you to unsend it. Here’s how it works:
Click on Settings and go to GMail Labs. Enable “Undo Send” by Yuzo F and Save the Settings. After that is enabled, when you send out messages, you will notice the Undo button by the confirmation message.
If you click Undo, GMail will take back the message and return you to the compose part of the message. The message is held for only about 5 seconds so you have to react quickly if you regret sending the e-mail.
Earlier this week, Comedy Central’s South Park decided to use a viral video on YouTube to add to a joke on the show. South Park was making fun of the Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama video that has about 9.5 million views on YouTube. This video was also quite popular on EBaumsWorld.com before hitting YouTube.
The Motorola VE465 flip phone has been spotted on the AllTel website. That can only tell us that the phone will be available through the telecomm company soon enough. The VE465 has an EV-DO connection, 1.3 megapixel camera, and Celltop compatibility. The VE465 is also rumored to land Telus, Canada’s second largest telecomm company.
Keith Olbermann of MSNBC reported that Twitter is the “worst person in the world.” Apparently someone created a fake account of Olbermann and was able to fool 14,000 followers. Olbermann signed up for an account last year and then decided against using it. Twitter won’t be suspending the fake account so beware if you are following the fake Olbermann.
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