SiliconBeat

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker, speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit, posted her slides online.

Tuesday is OneWebDay, the fourth annual celebration dedicated to broadening participation in the Web and highlighting issues related to its use. You can read more about the event at the official Web site here.

If you get a chance, try to catch one of the local events in your area. The most promising Bay Area gathering will be in Berkeley hosted by the Media Alliance and The Berkeley Center for New Media. According to the agenda: Read the rest of this entry »

After two interviews last week, Kris got got an update on one of them. It wasn’t what he was hoping for: Read the rest of this entry »

Last week this blog offered a bulletin on the runway debut of Hewlett-Packard’s latest “digital clutch,” a chic netbook marketed toward women, featuring a butterfly motif from designer Vivienne Tam. This week we have a little update on footwear.

Miguel Helft at the NYTimes was first to report this one, but we also noticed the unusual shoes that Google co-founder Sergey Brin was wearing when he popped over to NASA’s Ames Research Center, next door to Google’s Mountain View campus, for a discussion on cloud computing yesterday.

Brin, who’s been seen wearing Crocs at other company events, was sporting high-tech Vibram FiveFinger moccasins — thin-soled sports shoes with a design that fits around each toe, the way a glove fits around each finger. (Vibram’s Website promises “the same physical and visceral sensation” as going barefoot.)

Brin was wearing standard Silicon Valley khakis and a short-sleeved shirt. But the more traditionally dressed government officials who flew out from Washington to attend the event — at which Google announced plans for a dedicated “government cloud” to host software applications for public agencies — would undoubtedly have been reassured to see that Google product manager Matthew Glotzbach wore a dark business suit.

Kris updated me this morning on the first of his two interviews. Still up in the air: Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend at home, my wife received just about the last thing I ever expected to get from Google: A coupon in the mail. I’ve posted photos of it above. The envelope also contained a helpful brochure explaining how Google AdWords works. Pictures of that are also above.

We were both surprised and amused. Google using snail mail to send me a discount? Huh?

Here’s a couple thoughts on why I find this so odd. And I’ve submitted questions about the offer to the Google press office and will include any response I get here. Read the rest of this entry »

After Sunday’s piece ran on the three Pink Slip 2.0 folks, now members of that ill-fated and burgeoning group of the “long-term unemployed,” Kris got a call. Check it out: Read the rest of this entry »

Another local semiconductor company that appears to be showing signs of life is Nvidia, the Santa Clara maker of graphics-oriented chips - known as GPUs - that are highly valued by computer gamers and other folks.

This week the company reported it lost $105 million, its fourth such plunge into the red in the past five quarters. But it forecast improved sales for the next quarter and Wall Street seemed pleased, according to analysts whose notes are routinely checked by SiliconBeat.

Craig Berger of FBR Capital markets called Nvidia “an interesting story with many potential revenue growth drivers.”

And Hans Mosesmann of Raymond James had especially nice things to say about Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s co-founder and CEO, saying he has “done an excellent job over the past year.”