Verve Wireless is a mobile startup company that serves as an advertising platform for local media companies. Verve has raised $7 million in a funding round led by BlueRun Ventures.

Last year billionaire Alki David launched the service FilmOn.com in beta. Now he is bringing the service to the U.S. FilmOn.com lets you watch HD TV on the PC or mobile devices.

CBS has signed up another Twitter account for a TV deal. The first show was called S#*! My Dad Says. The next Twitter-inspired TV show is for the account @shhdontellsteve. The @shhdontellsteve account has over 13,000 followers.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has invested $1 million in a human-powered monorail transportation system company called Shweeb. The investment was made through Google’s Project 10^100 initiative.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) has bought Blade Network Technologies. Blade makes server software, blade servers, and rack switches. The two companies have already been partners and IBM will add more Blade technology to their servers. [ZDNet]

On September 30, Verizon is going to start selling the Motorola Droid R2-D2. The limited edition device is rumored to have a 1.2GHz processor. The frame of the phone resembles the R2-D2 robot character from Star Wars. The Droid R2-D2 phone also will include ringtones, wallpapers, an R2-D2 clock widget, notifications, and a binoculars application related to the Star Wars character. The in-store price is $350 with a $100 MIR, bringing the total to $250. One of the reasons why I find this new phone interesting is because Motorola pays Lucasfilm Ltd. royalties for using the Droid name since they own the trademark. I would not be surprised if Lucasfilm is letting Motorola off the hook for this limited edition device. [Mashable]

Jimi Heselden was a businessman that served as the Chairman of Hesco Bastion and was an investor in Segway. It turns out that Segway Inc. was acquired by a UK-based firm that was backed by Heselden. Unfortunately Heselden drove off of a cliff while riding on a ruggedized version of a Segway. He was found early Sunday morning in the River Wharfe while touring his estate. Heselden was 62 years old and made a lot of his fortune by designing wire cage walls used by NATO, American, and British forces. [Engadget]

Twitter is selling promoted tweets for $100,000 each and higher. However marketing companies are pondering whether the investment has been worth it. Currently advertising on Twitter is considered as an “experiment.” Best Buy and Pepsi tested out the ads already, but have not bought ads again and about 80% of the companies that bought an ad have not bought any more.