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A sad chapter in the history of one of the computing industry's most storied companies is about to begin.

When you report earnings in March, madness is not exactly the term you would like associated with your announcement. However, that's exactly what is surrounding Palm a day after it reported that its comeback hopes are dwindling as consumers fail to respond to the Palm Pre, Pixi, and its WebOS operating system in general.

Palm sold just 408,000 smartphones to consumers in its last quarter. But it shipped 960,000 smartphones to its retail partners, meaning there were … Read more

Elevation Partners, the Silicon Valley private equity firm that counts U2's Bono among its investors, announced Wednesday that it has committed up to $100 million in funding for reviews site Yelp.

It's initially investing $25 million in the Series E round, and plans to increase the investment to up to $100 million through the purchase of stock from employees whose stock has vested, as well as other eligible shareholders. Elevation co-founder Marc Bodnick will join Yelp's board of directors.

The funding round comes just a month after Yelp was reportedly close to a $500 million acquisition by Google, … Read more

Apple's former software chief was pretty happy in retirement. But the opportunity to again influence the next generation of consumer technology lured Avie Tevanian back to work, this time on the money side.

Private equity firm Elevation Partners announced on Tuesday that Tevanian is joining its ranks. Shortly after the announcement, I had a chance to talk with Tevanian about a wide range of technology topics including his former employer, the biggest trends in technology, as well as whether he'll have to trade in his iPhone for a Palm Pre.

Here's an edited transcript of our conversation: … Read more

Former Apple software chief Avie Tevanian is becoming a venture capitalist, joining former Apple CFO Fred Anderson at Silicon Valley's Elevation Partners.

Tevanian, who helped lead Mac OS X's development at Apple, was also a board member at Tellme Networks when that company was acquired by Microsoft and currently serves as a director for Dolby Laboratories. At Elevation Partners, Tevanian will serve as a managing director aiming to spot new investment possibilities and help guide the firm's investment companies and strategy.

"Elevation Partners has put together an impressive investment team with the technological expertise and operational … Read more

Star 6 is a fun beat-making iPhone and iPod Touch app from Agile Partners--makers of the incredibly useful Guitar Toolkit and Tab Toolkit for guitarists. First introduced last August, Star 6 offers five families of electronic drum beats in categories like Drum and Bass and Electro. You can also download many more free beats from the Star 6 Web site, or upload your own through your Web browser. (Your device has to be on the same wireless network as the computer you're uploading through.)

Once you've picked a family of beats, you can switch among six individual … Read more

MB Numerology Compatibility Software is a simple piece of freeware that uses the principles of numerology to assess the compatibility of a couple. The user enters the full names and birthdays of both partners, and the software generates a few reports on how compatible they are.

The interface is extremely basic, and offers no graphics and an outdated, late '90s feel. Users can choose to get a report on "Destiny Compatability" or "LifePath Compatibility" (although there's no explanation of the difference), or a "Comprehensive Reading" that is simply a combination of the other … Read more

Federal prosecutors have charged a prominent hedge-fund manager and five others with securities fraud resulting from insider trading involving some of the tech industry's best-known companies, including Intel, Google, and IBM.

Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon Group was arrested Friday in New York according to various reports and charged with 13 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy following a FBI investigation into Galleon Group's trading patterns. Also charged in the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, were co-conspirators Rajiv Goel of Intel and Anil Kumar of McKinsey, which provided consulting services … Read more

MB Compatibility provides users with compatibility evaluations based on their and their partner's date of birth. The program uses several different methods for evaluating compatibility, allowing users to compare the readings.

Like all programs from Mystic Board, MB Compatibility's interface is cluttered with advertising for Mystic Board, so-called home business opportunities, and so on. If you're looking for something visually pleasing, this isn't it, but the program is at least fairly intuitive. The program's features are separated into sections for Chinese Zodiac, Moon Sign, Numerology, and Zodiac. Users enter the required information for each--mostly just … Read more

SAN DIEGO--It's been very clear for a long time that the American patent system is deeply flawed.

According to information provided on stage at DemoFall 09 here Wednesday by a company called Article One Partners, as much as 45 percent of all litigated patents are eventually found to be invalid. But the U.S. Patent Office is obviously overwhelmed by the sheer workload it faces, and its investigators' inability to keep up with the research that would help them reject many applications.

There are some solutions in the works, including Peer-to-Patent, a nonprofit system that would spread out the … Read more