Silicon Valley Wire

Los Altos-Based FreeHand Systems Closes Second Round of Funding

Los Altos, Calif. -- FreeHand Systems, a Los Altos-based maker of a computer tablet for displaying and publishing digitally delivered sheet music, said on Friday that it has raised an undisclosed amount in its second round of funding from Vision Opportunity Master Fund. "With this additional capital, the company can continue the marketing and sales support required while FreeHand works toward its future goals and mainstream roll-out," said Kim Lorz, the company's CEO. FreeHand also operates a digital sheet music web site, offering more than 90,000 titles to download to its tablet.
http://www.freehandsystems.com/news/vision_2nd.html

San Francisco-Based Flixster Reportedly Raises Funds

San Francisco -- Flixster, a San Francisco-based online social network for movie fans, has raised around $2 million in a new round of venture capital financing from LightSpeed Ventures, TechCrunch reported. The site, which lets members rate and discuss movies, counted over 1 million unique users and 31 million page views in December. TechCrunch reported that there was heavy competition in the round, from firms including Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins, and added that there were rumors Hollywood studios also sought to invest in or possibly acquire the company. 
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/31/flixster-closes-very-competitive-financing-round/
http://www.flixster.com

South Asian Pop Culture Multimedia Site Desi Hits Raises $1 Million

San Francisco -- Desi Hits, a San Francisco-based multimedia entertainment portal focused on South Asian pop culture, announced that it has raised $1 million in its first round of venture capital financing, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Trident Capital. Desi Hits currently draws an average of 180,000 page views monthly, derived from 65 countries, for its mix of celebrity interviews, music videos, podcasts, blogs and other content. The funds will be used to accelerate the company's branding initiatives, enhance service offerings and add additional staff. The term "Desi" refers to people or products with origins in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/1/prweb501351.htm
http://www.desihits.com   

Palo Alto-Based HP to Remove Stock from Nasdaq, Remain on NYSE

Palo Alto, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard, the Palo Alto-based technology giant, said on Friday that it will remove its stock from the Nasdaq Global Select Market, but continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The company said that the move will reduce the costs of exchange listing fees and administrative burdens associated with a dual listing. HP said that it doesn't believe that withdrawing its listing will have any impact on the liquidity of its stock.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2007/070202b.html

Global Semiconductor Sales Hit Record $247.7 Billion in 2006

San Jose, Calif. -- Global sales of semiconductors reached a record $247.7 billion in 2006, an increase of 8.9% from the prior year, according to new statistics released on Friday by the San Jose-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Sales growth was largely driven by popular consumer products such as cell phones, MP3 players and HDTV sets. The SIA also said that favorable economic conditions in the major world markets contributed to the growth. "With generally healthy economic conditions in all of the world’s major semiconductor markets, we believe our forecast of 10% growth to $273.8 billion in worldwide sales in 2007 is aligned," said George Scalise, president of the SIA.
http://www.sia-online.org/pre_release.cfm?ID=426

Campbell-Based Brilliant Telecommunications Raises $7.1 Million in First Round

Campbell, Calif. -- Brilliant Telecommunications, a Campbell-based developer of network time protocol servers, said on Thursday that that it has secured $7.1 million in its first round of funding, led by ONSET Ventures. Other investors included Asset Management, Draper Associates, Draper Richards and Intellect Capital Ventures. Brilliant, which had initially closed the round in June, said that it will use the new financing to accelerate product development, streamline its operations and fund commercial deployments. Brilliant has developed a hardware-based technology that timestamps archived data, helping companies better comply with regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley.
http://www.brillianttelecom.com/pres3.html
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/News/022007/brilliant-telecommunications.htm

Santa Clara-Based Intevac Acquires Wyoming-Based DeltaNu

Santa Clara, Calif. -- Intevac, a Santa Clara-based supplier of magnetic media sputtering equipment for the hard disk drive industry, said on Thursday that it has acquired Wyoming-based DeltaNu, a maker of miniaturized, handheld Raman spectroscopy instruments. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. DeltaNu's instruments are used to identify chemicals in various laboratory and field applications, such as medical diagnostics, scientific research, forensics and industrial materials control Intevac said that it plans to create new products by combining DeltaNu's spectrometer designs with its own capabilities in near-infrared sensors. DeltaNu will be operated as a subsidiary of Intevac.
http://www.intevac.com/company/news/020107

Yahoo to Launch 100 Branded Entertainment Web Sites in 2007

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- Yahoo has announced plans to launch 100 new web sites this year that will showcase various entertainment brands, primarily focused on video games, TV shows and movies. The company introduced its "Brand Universe" initiative to reporters this week at its Sunnyvale headquarters. Initial sites will focus on the Nintendo Wii; game titles "The Sims" and "Halo"; TV shows "Lost" and "The Office"; and the "Harry Potter" and "Transformers" franchises, with the rest to be announced by the end of February and launched by year's end, the Associated Press reported. Features on the company's Nintendo Wii site will include news and reviews, photos from Flickr, message boards and a buyer's guide.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070131/techbit_yahoo_branding.html?.v=2
http://wii.yahoo.com

Survey: Most U.S. Households Still Unaware of Pending Digital TV Transition

Washington, DC -- The majority of U.S. households that receive only over-the-air TV signals (61%) are still unaware that these analog transmissions will be shut off in February 2009, according to a survey conducted by research firm ICR Media for the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS). The survey found that only 20% of U.S. analog TV households were somewhat or very aware of the upcoming transition to digital TV signals, while another 10% had limited awareness. Furthermore, 53% had no idea when the analog shut-off date is scheduled to occur. The APTS plans to lobby Congress for more funding to better inform consumers about the switch.
http://www.apts.org/news/DTVSURVEY.cfm

Bay Area Companies Post Low-Budget Super Bowl Ads on YouTube

Mountain View, Calif. -- Hoping to capitalize on the fervor surrounding Super Bowl XLI but unwilling and unable to shell out millions of dollars for network TV commercials, several Bay Area tech companies have decided to shoot their own low-budget ads and post them on YouTube, the video sharing site owned by Mountain View-based Google. The companies, working loosely as a group, include Mountain View-based meebo, San Francisco-based Meez, Mountain View-based Plaxo, San Mateo-based RockYou.com and San Francisco-based Technorati, as well as Florida-based Multiply. With marketing budgets a fraction of their bubble-era predecessors, the companies used handheld video cameras to shoot the ads, then posted them on the web for free. For most, the issue came down to spending a reported $2.6 million for one 30 second Super Bowl ad, or paying salaries, rent and utilities. "All told, I think we spent less than thirty bucks on our ad," said Jia Shen, the founder and CEO, RockYou.com. The ads can be viewed at the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperDotComAdsXLI