General Motors subsidiary GM Ventures announced recently that they are investing $7 million into lithium ion battery company Envia Systems. GM’s goal is to reduce the high cost of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. Envia Systems researches lithium-ion cathods, which is material where electricity flows. Envia plans on using the funding to research cost-reducing technology for creating batteries that stores energy at a greater density. GM also bought the rights to use Envia cathode materials in their future electric vehicles. “Skeptics have suggested it would probably be many years before lithium-ion batteries with significantly lower cost and higher capability are available, potentially limiting sales of electric vehicles for the foreseeable future,” stated GM Ventures President Jon Lauckner. “In fact, our announcement today demonstrates that major improvements are already on the horizon.”

Last year Toyota had a record number of recalls in 2010. Its only the beginning of 2011 and now Toyota is recalling 1.7 million vehicles across the globe. The reason of the recall is because there are defects in the fuel system caused by insufficient tightening of a fuel pressure sensor that connects to an engine fuel delivery pipe. Over time, the pressure sensor may loosen and leak fuel out of a gasket used to connect the sensor and the pipe. The recalls include the Avensis sedan, station wagon models across Europe, and a dozen different models in Japan. The U.S. models affected by the recalled include the 2006 through 2007 Lexus GS300 and GS350 models, 2006 through early 2009 IS250 models, and 2006 through early 2008 IS350 sedans. Dealers will determine whether a leak has developed.

Co-founding partner Marc Bodnick is quitting from Elevation Partners to join Quora, a Q&A website, according to multiple sources. This is the second co-founder to step down from Elevation since John Riccitiello became the CEO of Electronic Arts. Bodnick is associated with Elevation’s investments in Facebook and Yelp. Elevation invested $100 million in Yelp and Bodnick is on their board of directors. Elevation put in about $210 million in Facebook stock. Interestingly Bodnick is the sister-in-law of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Facebook is testing out a new calling service. This past September, there was news about Skype integrating Facebook into their VoIP service. Skype 5.0 has Facebook contacts built in, but this new feature has no indication that they are working with Skype on it. The Daily What has a screenshot that shows voice calling integrated in Facebook. I’m assuming that it would pull up a video conference with your IM contacts and possibly have the option to call their mobile phones. A tipster on The Daily What wrote “So I was just chatting on Facebook chat and I got the option to ‘call’ my friend. it swiftly disappeared.” Below is a screenshot:

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has shipped about 2 million copies of the Windows Phone 7 operating system last quarter. It turns out that customer satisfaction for Windows Phone 7 is at 93% and the brand awareness jumped to 66%. This is based on the company’s internal measures. “Sales are an important measure, but for a new platform we think customer satisfaction and active developer support are more important indicators of how sales will be over the long term,” said Microsoft senior product manager Greg Sullivan. Windows Phone 7 has about 6,500 applications as of now.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) surpassed 20 million users by the end of 2010. That means that they added 7.7 million in 2010 alone according to the Q4 2010 earnings that the company announced earlier this week. Of the 7.7 million subscribers that joined Netflix in 2010, about 3.1 million arrived in the fourth quarter. Netflix expanded in Canada recently and it is doing very well there too.

Osama Bedier, an executive at eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) subsidiary PayPal has resigned after being at the company for 8 years. He is now taking a job at Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). The new head of the platform team is Matthew Mengerink. Bedier was the VP of platform at PayPal and worked on global payments and mobile at the company. Mengerink helped build the architecture, infrastructure, payments development, core technologies, international development, customer quality and engineering services teams according to AllThingsD.

Measurement and analytics company The Nielsen Company has announced recently that they are issuing about 71.4 million shares of common stock at $23 per share as part of an upcoming IPO. The company will hit a total value of $1.8 billion based on $1.5 billion of the common stock and a $240 million bond offering after paying commissions. Nielsen will use the shares it receives to repay some of its outstanding debt and to pay a termination agreement fee to Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts, and Thomas H. Lee Partners. Nielsen Holdings NV (NYSE:NLSN) now has a $6.88 billion market cap.