Casino giant IGT goes social, launches Vegas slot machine favorite on Facebook

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International Game Technologies — which purchased Seattle social game maker Double Down Interactive for up to $500 million in January — is bringing its popular Da Vinci Diamonds slot machine to Facebook. But this won’t be the full Vegas experience. After all, in the Facebook version, only virtual coins are at stake (for now). The game will be… Read More…

Facebook buys facial recognition startup Face.com

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In a deal that was widely anticipated, Facebook announced today that it has acquired facial recognition upstart Face.com. TechCrunch reports that the price tag was in the $100 million ballpark. “Our mission is and has always been to find new and exciting ways to make face recognition a fun, engaging part of people’s lives, and… Read More…

PopCap Games cancels Bejeweled Blitz on Google+

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PopCap Games is pulling its popular Bejeweled Blitz puzzle game from Google+, saying that it wants to focus efforts on other areas. The company issued this statement on the decision: “PopCap has decided to suspend Bejeweled Blitz on Google+ to redeploy our resources to other adaptations of Bejeweled. Certainly, Google is a valuable gaming partner… Read More…

Evri spins out SportStream with $3.5M from Paul Allen

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Seattle startup Evri was founded in 2007, designed to help people make better sense of news and information. A lot has changed since then, especially given the rise of tablets and mobile computers. Now, the company is evolving, announcing today that it has spun off a new social sports startup called SportStream with $3.5 million from… Read More…

LinkedIn: No accounts hacked as result of stolen passwords

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LinkedIn today updated its users on the stolen password fiasco that arose last week in which 6.4 million passwords were illegally obtained and posted on a Russian Web site. According to a blog post from LinkedIn’s Vicente Silveira the company has received no reports that member accounts have been breached as a result of the… Read More…

Social network for gun lovers moving to South Dakota, can’t hit funding target on West Coast

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Internet entrepreneur Dan Hall’s 2-year-old social networking company attracts more than two million unique visitors per month; counts some big-name clients as advertisers; and has already generated its first profits. But despite that success, Hall just couldn’t line up the investment capital that he needed when pitching the idea up-and-down the West Coast, including in… Read More…

Facebook’s first 8 days: One of the worst tech debuts we’ve seen

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Just how bad has Facebook’s stock performance been since its IPO? Well, consider the visualization below from Tableau Software’s Daniel Hom who compared the social networking giant’s first eight days to other recent technology IPOs. As you can see, Facebook’s debut has been pretty rough, with the stock losing more than 25 percent of its… Read More…

Voicepic: Add 5-second audio captions to your favorite photos

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A picture may often be worth a thousand words.  But for those instances when images alone can’t tell the story, there’s Voicepic. That’s the name of a new photo sharing app from Bellevue’s UIEvolution which allows users to easily add 5-second audio captions to personal photos. UIEvolution CEO Chris Ruff said the goal with the… Read More…

Another bad day: Facebook shares tumble nearly 10%

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Investors are continuing to hammer Facebook just 11 days after its initial public offering, sending the stock of the social networking powerhouse down 9.6 percent in trading Tuesday. The stock closed at $28.84, the first time it has finished below the $30 mark. Facebook went public at $38 per share earlier this month, with many… Read More…