Category: Tech news

Qriously, a service that lets brands measure location-based public opinion, has raised $1.6m in a new funding round led by Accel Partners. Amalfi Capital also participated, while the London-based startup is originally backed by Pacific Tiger Group.

Through its SDK offered to mobile app developers, Qriously lets advertisers display questions instead of traditional mobile ads so that they can measure sentiment in realtime but also based on a user’s location. Those advertisers could be ad agencies, marketers, research companies and eventually small businesses – Qriously wants to “democratize mass insight”, says Christopher Kahler, CEO and co-founder – while app developers get a kick back via a pay-per-answer model rather than pay-per-click or transaction.

As the company prepares for a public offering in the next year, Skype released an updated S-1 filing that includes several new revenue, income and usage numbers. As you may have heard, Skype initially filed for an IPO registration statement with the SEC, with the maximum proposed offering amount listed as $100 million (that is a placeholder amount.) It was thought that the IPO would take place early this year, but apparently the company’s newly appointed CEO Tony Bates is looking for more time to get Skype “in better shape.”

Skype says that it has grown its average monthly connected users by 38% (to 145 million average monthly connected users) and has grown average monthly paying users by 19%, from the three months ended December 31, 2009 to the three months ended December 31, 2010. Average monthly paying users have increased from 7.3 million to 8.8 million users, and Skype is seeing an average of $97 in revenue per paying user. From December 31, 2009 to December 31, 2010, Skype has grown registered users from 474 million to 663 million users.

Net revenues increased by 20% from $719 million in pro forma 2009 to $860 million in 2010, and Adjusted EBITDA increased by 43% from $185 million in pro forma 2009 to $264 million in 2010. Skype’s net loss in 2010 was $7 million, compared to a net loss of $418 million on a pro forma basis in 2009 (which includes a $344 million charge incurred the settlement in the Joltid Transaction).

Skype ended 2010 with 911 employees, up from 733 in December 2009. Skype acquired mobile video startup Qik in January for $121 million in cash with $29 million in additional payments. As part of the acquisition, Skype added 63 employees from Qik.

In 2010, Skype users made 207 billion minutes of voice and video calls. In the fourth quarter alone, video calls accounted for approximately 42% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes, and in 2010, users sent over 176 million SMS text messages through Skype.

Another interesting tidbit from the filing—Skype’s primary source of revenue has been from the purchase of credit (on a pay-as-you-go or subscription basis) for the company’s SkypeOut product, which provides calling to landlines and mobile devices.

There are four contributing factors that Skype says will help increase revenue. First, the company’s userbase is rapidly growing as mobile broadband access increased. Skype also plans to increase awareness and adoption of its paid products and premium features. And Skype will continue to develop monetization models and revenue streams for its user base, and expects to grow revenue via marketing services (such as advertising) and licensing. Lastly, Skype will look to add more enterprise users to its user base.

Risk factors for the company include the fact that Skype has taken a loss in income in both 2009 and 2010 and may not achieve profitability in the next few years. Profitability, says Skype, will depend on the company’s ability to increase revenue, manage business costs, maintain tax positions and keep up with competitors (Skype specifically calls out Google has a growing competitor with Google Voice).

We have seen many green projects around these parts and wind up energy products like flashlights are nothing new, but why not wind up batteries to power any gadget?

Designers Yeon Kyeong Hwang & Mieong Ho Kang have come up with this concept design for a battery that can be recharged by twisting the battery itself. By using a built-in spiral spring wrapped around a generator, friction is created which in turn is converted to energy for the built in Ni-mH battery.

While the idea of free energy is great, you would have to twist this thing a whole lot to build up enough juice, not really practical. Maybe if there was a kick-out crank for leverage, but until then I’ll stick with my solar charger.

Wind Up Batteries originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2011/02/22.

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I have spent many hours playing Super Mario Kart on my kids DS. This French dude has taken it to the next level by playing the game in real life. French humorist Rémi Gaillard drove a real go-cart through city traffic while dressed as Mario.

As you can see from the video, Mario tosses banana peels at the cars following him and collects power-ups. He even stopped at a grocery store to pick up some extra bananas.

If your considering giving this a try, don’t. Super Mario had a run in with some local traffic cops who weren’t too happy, not to mention, bumping a car in real life with a go-cart will get you killed.

Dude Plays Super Mario Kart In Real Life originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2011/02/21.

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It doesn’t matter if you are a Jedi Knight or a Sith Lord, you still need a Lightsaber. This “Build it yourself” Lightsaber will detect which side of the force you sit on. Perfect for those of you who are sitting on the preverbal Force fence.

As you start to assemble your Lightsaber, place the saber in your hand. If it glows blue you are a member of the Jedi order and if it glows red you must bow to the emperor. I’m not sure how it decides what side of the force you are on, but I’m willing to bet it’s just the luck of the draw. I wonder if it would glow pink if you have no force at all.

If your interested, head on over to the Star Wars Shop and pick one up for $14.99

Lightsaber Knows What Side Of The Force You Are On originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2011/02/17.

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Cycling experts will tell you there’s no substitute for actual time in the saddle in the great outdoors to prepare you for the season ahead.

But if long work hours, short winter days or inclement weather drive you inside, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more suitable stand-in for the asphalt of the open road than the LeMond Fitness Revolution.

The Revolution is manufactured by the company founded by three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond. But even if your skill level is more lanterne rouge than maillot jaune, you’ll still get a massive workout. You can spin on it. You can hammer on it. You can grind huge gears and do awesome spin-ups. You can work up a gigantic pool of sweat on the garage floor.

To use the Revolution, you take off your back wheel and clamp your bike down onto it. It’s more complicated to set up than a mag roller, but even I — someone who lacks the mechanical intuition required to assemble a proper burrito — was able to manage it with ease. I did have to go through directions a few times to get the trainer in line with the bike’s rear dropouts, but I still made it from box cutter to the first turn of the pedals in less than 20 minutes.

One note here: our Revolution came with a Shimano 10-speed cassette installed. If you are using multiple bicycles or running something other than SRAM or a Shimano 10-speed, you may have to buy the appropriate cassette body to make it work for you.

There are only two caveats stopping this from being the world champion of trainers. First, it’s heavy and awkward. Moving the Revolution is a two-handed job, making it less than perfect for throwing it in the back of the car and running off to the races. Second, it’s a noisy beast. After a few minutes in the guest room, I felt compelled to dismount and head for the garage. It doesn’t produce a clanging racket or anything, but more of whirring whip-up. Still, the flywheel is noisy enough that I can’t recommend this for apartment dwellers.

Those issues aside — and the garage is the better place to blast my appropriately angry music, anyway — it appears Mr. LeMond has a product here to match his winning ways.

Wireless music systems like the Sonos, Apple TV and Squeezebox have made it easier than ever to get music streaming wirelessly across your home or office. British hi-fi maker Naim built its UnitiQute to do just that, accepting audio from a variety of sources both wired and unwired, and producing clear, sharp sound in any setting.

This all-in-one music hub is heavy — around 13 pounds — but it’s small enough to easily fit on a desktop or bookshelf. The UnitiQute has an integrated 30 watt-per-channel amp that pumps out tunes from a slew of sources: FM and web radio, CD players, flash drives, iPods, iPhones and networked music from laptops and storage drives.

Naim has been building amps for 40 years, and its experience shows. The UnitiQute produces a balanced, open sound that provides punch where it’s needed, but also brings out the nuance and detail in complex recordings. I hooked the system into my Definitive tower speakers with built-in subwoofers, and it proved plenty powerful, with an impressive soundstage and well-defined sound.

The UnitiQute has a bright bluish-green display which can be read clearly from about six to eight feet away. Other than a headphone jack, an input jack and USB port, that’s it for the front panel. You’ll need to pick up the remote even for the most basic functions. The remote does everything, though: it lets you change the settings (networking, inputs, etc.), as well as view and select album, track, artist and other music data.

A better option, though, is using your iPod touch or iPhone to control the action. To do so, you need to install a Universal Plug and Play server (in this case, EyeConnect) on your computer, and you need to install NAIM’s “n-Stream” app. Surprisingly, when you go to download it in the iTunes store, you’ll find yourself short $36 — a tough swallow after dropping $2,000 on the hardware unit.

The app lets you browse and select tracks from your music libraries to be streamed through the UnitiQute right there on your Apple touchscreen. Once these two apps are up and running, the UnitiQute can read all the music and radio stations in iTunes, or from any NAS drive on your network. The performance is surprisingly smooth and snappy — a one- or two-second delay when switching tracks, and no dropped connections in our testing. When you touch the top of the screen, the bit rate, sample rate and other track info appears. All in all, pretty slick.

If you want to hook in a CD player or another component, the UnitiQute has a number of analog and digital inputs, and a preamp to connect to an external amp — although with 30 watts per channel, it will do a fine job with most speakers. If you want to play tunes from your iPod, you can connect it via the USB slot on the front of the UnitiQute, and since it flows through a digital connection, you can control playback with the remote. You can also use a flash drive loaded with music, and pop it into a USB slot on the face of the UnitiQute. The albums show up on the display, and the response is quick, so you can flip through the tracks in a snap.

At $2,000, the UnitiQute isn’t for the DIY crowd — U.K.-built hi-fi has never been for budget-minded buyers. But if you want a compact high-performance, plug-and-play, all-in-one music player, it’s tough to beat.

WIRED Multiple inputs and network connectivity give you lots of music options. Low-key looks, but built like a tank. Big, balanced sound.

TIRED $2,000 and they charge extra for the n-Stream app?

Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired

I’m not always sure where HTC draws its inspiration from. But the new Inspire, the latest top-tier Android phone offered by AT&T, definitely filled me with a sense of déjà vu.

Like HTC’s EVO 4G and HD2 before it, the Inspire is a hefty, slate-style smartphone. Below the huge 4.3-inch 480 x 800 WVGA touchscreen lies the usual strip of capacitive navigation keys. Centered on the upper portion of the phone’s back is the standard protruding camera lens. Everything else — from the brushed aluminum body to the recessed volume and power buttons — follows the same pragmatically drab blueprint. Snore.

Though my inner phone fashionista was a little deflated, there’s actually very little to knock. Save for eyesores like a finicky battery door and an oddly placed headphone jack, the Inspire is extremely responsive, easy to use, and, even with the exceedingly large screen, it’s comfortable in the hand. Like most slate phones, its overall looks are designed to take a back seat to the big screen, where all the e-mailing, browsing, YouTubing and sexting happen, so we can’t fault it too much for being a wallflower.

On a similarly predictable note, the Inspire’s vitals are what we’ve come to expect from modern Android devices: a 1-GHz Snapdragon processor, 4 GB of onboard memory (with an 8-GB card included), a sharp 8-megapixel camera, and even a little Dolby sound.

So the main differentiating factor here is the software, and HTC has wisely overhauled its Sense UI for the device. The response when switching between tasks is noticeably faster, and even boot times are speedier. Pinch-to-zoom is snappy and web pages scroll smoothly. It’s still a bit of a nightmare for the widget-averse, but otherwise everything works swimmingly.

Of course, the other big draw is the Inspire’s speedy 4G data and hotspot capabilities. (For those keeping score, the Inspire cruises on AT&T’s HSPA+ flavor of 4G and not LTE. Be sure to check out our primer on the fundamental differences over at Gadget Lab.)

Though it isn’t bleeding-edge fast, the Inspire’s connection speed is a noticeable improvement from what we’re used to seeing on AT&T’s network in the San Francisco Bay Area. Paired with the Inspire’s ability to spread the love with up to five other Wi-Fi-enabled devices, I was pretty much sold on the whole package.

To be fair, I did have a few complaints. It was a struggle to get the phone to last for an entire day without a recharge. And Android’s weak video chops — in this case, I used Blockbuster and a live TV app — are made painfully apparent by the phone’s gorgeous, sharp screen.

Despite these minor quibbles, I can’t really dis a serviceable, feature-filled, sub-$100 smartphone of this caliber. Would I brave a snowpocalypse full of wolverines to get one? Absolutely not. But with its balance of value and power, you can’t deny the Inspire’s appeal.

WIRED Powerful phone at a great price. Lookit that screen! Dual mic noise canceling keeps calls clear. Overhauled Sense UI is snappy. Finally, a camera worth using. Built in DLNA for streaming media to home theaters.

TIRED Accessing the battery results in broken fingernails. Hotspot occasionally drops devices (like they’re hot) and tethering service will cost you extra. Headphone jack is woefully located at the bottom of the phone.

Photo by Jim Merithew/Wired

A new version of Rdio’s iPhone app is available, and if you’re a fan of the music streaming service, you should download it immediately. If you haven’t yet turned the corner on subscription-based streaming, this update makes it worth a look.

Some of Rdio’s best tools for discovering new music were previously only available on the website, but the new app now includes these tools, vastly improving the mobile experience. It’s also more stable and easier to use.

For those of you new to Rdio (“ar-dee-o”), here’s the deal: It’s an on-demand, cloud-based jukebox. You search for an artist, an album name or a song title, and you can click on one of the results and start listening immediately. The service has around 8 million songs available for streaming. Sure, there are some holes in Rdio’s library, and other services go deeper. But no service has everything, and Rdio is deep enough for almost everyone. You can hook up with your Facebook and Twitter friends and see what they’re listening to, and you can share playlists with each other.

For $5 a month, you can listen through your desktop browser. For $10 a month, you can also listen through your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android phone, Windows 7 phone, a desktop client or a Sonos system if you have one. The $10 plan also enables you sync tracks to your mobile phone for offline listening. Whether Apple’s new subscription policy will change Rdio’s pricing is still a question mark.

Full disclosure: I’ve been an Rdiohead for the last six months or so. I have the website pinned as an App Tab in my browser at the office and at home, and I log at least two or three hours of streaming per day. I also have the app installed on my old iPhone 3G, which is Velcroed to the wall in the kitchen. I stream through my Jambox while flambéing my crêpe suzette.

This level of devotion comes from the same guy who only a year ago was constantly arguing that subscription-based streaming, rental, and other cloud-based jukebox horse pucky would never, ever work. I was strictly a “if I can’t download the files, I won’t pay a dime” person.

I tried them all. To me, MOG is meh, though others love it. Spotify is interesting, but it’s too flaky for me here in the states. Too many hoops.

Now, I give Rdio $10 a month. The things that really turned me around were Rdio’s discovery tools on its website — the social aspect lets me see what my friends are listening to, the recommendations are surprisingly decent, and the New Releases tab in the web app lets me stream just about every new album the same day it hits the stores. Yes, calling up your faves instantly from the search box is a big draw, but these little darkened corners — browsing the automated recommendations and checking out new releases — are where I spend the bulk of my time on Rdio. For me, it takes all the pain out of discovery and all the risk out of buying new music.

And this is why I’m excited about the new iPhone update — Rdio has finally baked those extra features into the app.

The old iPhone app, which the company launched with, wasn’t much to talk about. It was difficult to navigate and it was buggy. It did let me see what my friends were listening to, but the recommendations weren’t there and the new releases were harder to dig out.

This week’s update, which appeared in the iTunes Store on Wednesday, changes all that. There’s a new dashboard that looks like the Facebook app’s dashboard. It lets you jump into New Releases or Recommendations with a tap. There’s a big search box at the top. Icons can be trashed or re-arranged. There’s also a new icon to browse Top Charts, but (surprise!) the wider Rdio community has the same terrible taste in music as the general populace. I’ll stick to my friends, thank you.

I was given the opportunity to test the app on my iPhone 4, and I spent the last couple of days listening to full albums both over Wi-Fi and over AT&T’s 3G network in San Francisco. The sound quality on 3G is still good — a little crunchy during the delicate bits, but overall quite decent. Wi-Fi sounds stellar.

General usability is better too. The coolest new item is the persistent player widget at the bottom of the app. If you wanted to get to your current selection in the old app, you’d have to dance through the menus. Now, you just drag the player up from the bottom of the screen from anywhere within the app.

Lastly, the update is iPhone only, so if you’re a Droid or a Dell Venue Pro user, you’re stuck with the old code for now.

So if you’re not yet an Rdio person, strike while the iron is hot. And if you’re a fan — and an iPhone user — this update will make you happy.

WIRED New interface puts the best of the website’s discovery tools into the app. Not nearly as buggy as the old app. Persistent player is a plus. All those jams beamed from space, instantly.

TIRED New app is iPhone only. The library is deep but don’t have everything, so you’ll have to be adventurous. Only works in the U.S. and Canada for now. Some think $10 a month is steep.

Photos by Jim Merithew/Wired.com

The security screening procedure at the airport typically provides about as much enjoyment as a graduate-level macroeconomics lecture, so it was comforting to know I had one less hassle when I approached the conveyor belt at the TSA checkpoint the last time I flew: I didn’t have to remove my 15-inch MacBook from my backpack.

My notebook was stowed inside a Big Ben backpack, which is made by Victorinox Swiss Army, the same folks who make the knives, watches and other assorted travel gear. The Big Ben has a separate Security Fast Pass sleeve — basically, a laptop compartment inside the bag that has been pre-approved by the TSA. They’re still going to X-ray the computer pouch, but it doesn’t need to be opened and the laptop doesn’t need to be removed. In fact, it glided through the luggage scanners at every airport I traveled through with absolutely no suspicious looks or barked orders from the agents.

There’s a little drill you have to learn: Unbutton the clasp at the top, peel the Velcro, and pull the laptop pocket away from main body. The bag butterflies into two sections on the conveyor belt: the main pack and the padded computer sleeve. It provides small comfort — you still have to put your shoes back on, get your belt, your jacket and your plastic bag of 3-oz. liquids, but at least you’re not also fumbling with a couple thousand dollars’ worth of aluminum-encased delicateness at the same time.

Until recently, the only TSA-approved luggage you could use to fly through security were the more staid and traditional laptop briefcases. But the Big Ben leads an ever-increasing bevy of security-friendly travel backpacks. As with their Swiss Army knives, the Victorinox folks have taken the more-is-better approach to appointments. There are interior pockets for paperwork, pens, business car holders, a cell phone and other travel musts. Even with the storage panels fully loaded with gadgets, there’s still room for an overnight change of clothes in the main compartment. The computer compartment can fit up to a 15.6-inch notebook with room for the power supply. A clever zip-away water bottle pocket on the side is a nice touch — except when a burly TSA guard demands you throw the bottle away.

Like Victorinox’s other TSA-ready laptop bags, the Big Ben isn’t very exciting to look at, and other pack makers offer similar designs. But this one does have an extra goodie: the Swiss Tracker lost and found service. Each bag has a 9-digit tracking ID and a phone line to call if the bag is lost or misplaced. It’s as a piece of baggage that clears security and offers security as well.

WIRED Lightweight (3.3 pounds), sturdy and comfortable backpack aces airport security with a TSA-OK’d breakaway computer pouch. Has room for a change of clothes and all your stashables. Unique ID number for the free lost-and-found service is a welcome value-add.

TIRED Kinda (really) boring-looking. Legal-size fan file is permanently sewed in and can’t be removed when not carrying paperwork. Uneven bottom prevents pack from standing upright.

Photo courtesy of Victorinox Swiss Army

No, the FTC hasn’t taken on Apple over its controversial 30% fee for subscription-based apps on the App Store. But, according to Cecilia Kang at the Washington Post, it is investigating whether the feature makes it too easy for children to purchase digital goods without realizing they’re spending real money (and without their parents’ permission).

According to the report, Representative Ed Markey (D, Mass.) sent a letter to the FTC earlier this month about the issue, after reading a previous article in the Washington Post describing the trend. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz responded that they would be looking into the matter:

“We fully share your concern that consumers, particularly children, are unlikely to understand the ramifications of these types of purchases,” Leibowitz wrote. “Let me assure you we will look closely at the current industry practice with respect to the marketing and delivery of these types of applications.”

The issue stems in part from the fact that Apple only asks for your password once every 15 minutes when you’re purchasing items using in-app purchases. Which means if you buy a game, then hand the phone to a child to play with it, they could wind up racking up the charges. Apple is rumored to be considering shortening this window.

The original Washington Post  article also discusses purchases made by children who have guessed their parents’ password — which doesn’t seem like something Apple can really protect against.

The Apple rumor economy has always been fascinating. More so than any other company, people obsess over little tidbits of information which may be true, may be half true, may be half false, or may be totally made up. And despite pretty much no one outside of the company ever knowing anything concrete, the rumors get talked about to death.

I probably do this as much as anyone. Apple is arguably the most important and inarguably the most valuable tech company right now. Speculation is fun, and can even be thought-provoking. But today things got taken to a whole new level.

This morning saw not one, but two reports come out that looked pretty bad for Apple. One, first published by Bloomberg, stated that the new iPad may be delayed until June. The second, published by Business Insider, stated that the new iPhone may be delayed until September. Both reports represented awful news for Apple since everyone was assuming the iPad 2 would be on the same schedule as last year: a March/April launch. Likewise, everyone was assuming that the iPhone 5 would be released in the regular June/July timeframe.

And considering that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is out on medical leave, some undoubtedly would interpret this as Apple’s normally well-oiled machine starting to slip. Sure enough, the stock started to tank based on the reports.

The only problem? Neither of these reports are true.

Frankly, it’s a little surprising that anyone bought them in the first place. Both stories were based on statements from analysts. Bloomberg’s story came by way of Vincent Chen and Alison Chen, analysts at Yuanta Securities. Business Insider’s info came by way of FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger. As anyone who has covered Apple news for any extended period of time will know: you never trust an analyst when it comes to Apple information. Never.

Let’s say the top tier Apple bloggers bat around .500 with regard to Apple rumors — Apple analysts are probably batting .050. Maybe less. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s far less. Their “checks” and “reports” are usually nothing more that complete and utter crap. If you simply said the opposite of what Apple “professional” analysts said every single time they said anything, you’d look like a genius. Bloomberg and Business Insider should know better.

But increasingly, the game now goes both ways.

When the rumors today started to spread and the stock started to tank, word started coming out that these rumors were simply not true. Shortly thereafter, we got the news that in fact, Apple would be holding an event to unveil the iPad 2 next week. I’ll let you put two and two together about where that very timely and very accurate information came from.

If you’ve been following Apple news closely over the past several weeks, you’ll notice several counter-rumors run by a couple of large publications that directly debunk other rumors.

Increasingly, the situation is now that we have weak rumors followed by strong counter-rumors. And, to be clear, these counter-rumors aren’t so much “rumors” as information given by the ever-present but nowhere to be found “people familiar with the matter”. Actually, I know exactly where to find them.

We’re watching the Apple rumor economy change before our very eyes. But it makes sense. There’s simply too much at stake for too many people when you’re talking about the most valuable tech company on the planet.

[photo: flickr/takomabibelot]

If Chrome’s best feature is its speed, it’s second best feature has to be the Omnibox. I’m still not sure why every browser doesn’t simply offer one box for both searching and typing in URLs. But the Omnibox is about to get even more powerful, as developers have started fleshing out extensions to take advantage of it.

Google first talked about the Omnibox API back in August of last year, but at that time, it was experimental. But today they’ve done a new post on the Chromium Blog to highlight the option. And developers are wasting little time getting extensions working for it.

In their post, Google highlights an extension called Switch to Tab. It’s a neat little extension that allows you to use the Omnibox to easily switch between tabs. All you have to do is type “sw” and then hit <tab>, and you can start typing the letters of the tab you want to switch to. Why do this instead of clicking on a tab with the mouse? Well, perhaps you have a zillion tabs open and you can’t find what you’re looking for with a quick visual scan. Or maybe you have a ton of Amazon tabs open that all look the same, but are all different products.

Anyway, the extension itself seems a bit more like a proof-of-concept as it was apparently developed by Aaron Boodman, a key member of Google’s Chrome team, and Frank Yan, a member of Mozilla’s Firefox team (it’s a built-in feature of Firefox 4).

A cooler extension made outside the browser company ecosystem is > Quora Search. This Chrome extension allows you to yep, search Quora. We covered a simple extension that did this back in December, but this one is better because again, it just uses the Chrome Omnibox — no extra buttons or boxes needed.

With > Quora Search, you simply type whatever you want to search for on Quora into the Omnibox followed by “>quora”. Quora will load immediately with the search results.

AddonFactory, the team behind this extension, is planning similar extensions for other services as well. And they’d like to make an extension that allows you to Tweet or update you Facebook status from the Omnibox as well.

Game developer Digital Chocolate has just announced a $12 million Series D funding round led by Intel Capital, with prior investors Sutter Hill Ventures and Bridgescale Partners participating in the round. This brings the gaming company’s total funding up to $54 million.

Digital Chocolate publishes a number of popular casual games for the iPhone (and a bunch of other mobile phones), the Web, Facebook and Xbox LIVE. Game titles include Millionaire City, Island God and Vegas City. The company says that it is now one of the top five global games publishers on Facebook and has also achieved more than 100 million mobile downloads. The new funding will be used to expand Digital Chocolate’s scale, cross-platform capabilities, and geographic reach.

Most recently, Digital Chocolate sued gaming giant Zynga over the “Mafia Wars” trademark. Zynga ended up settling the law suit a few weeks ago.

This isn’t the first gaming investment for Intel Capital; the company recently put $3 million into social gaming platform OpenFeint.

We’ve had a few weeks off for Ask a VC, but we’re back this week with Tony Conrad of True Ventures. Conrad is an interesting guy, because he’s a mix  between an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, going back and forth between investing in companies, starting them and then selling them to AOL. His latest win was About.Me, which AOL bought for an undisclosed amount just nine months into its existence.

In a previous life Conrad did business development deals in the wild west of South East Asia, so those emerging market questions are fair game too. But whatever you want to know, get your questions in quickly to askaVC(at)TechCrunch(dot)com, because we tape this afternoon.