flight search interface, unveiled a hotel search service aimed at helping prospective hotel guests find hotels that best suit their price, quality, and geographical preferences.
—Curt reported on two Bay Area companies expanding operations in the Seattle area. San Francisco’s Salesforce.com opened an 11,000-square-foot office in Seattle in order to draw on the big pool of software talent in the Puget Sound area, and said it plans to hire aggressively. And Palo Alto, CA-based Facebook, which opened an outpost in Seattle in May 2010, said it has already hired at least 30 people for the space and intends to keep growing.
—Cupertino, CA-based Apple put on a big show to ring in the iPad 2, which hits stores March 11 and is thinner and faster than the original iPad, with front- and rear-facing cameras that allow users to make video calls. I compared the actual specs for the iPad 2 to my January list of features I’d like to see in the new device, and found that Apple had delivered on at least a couple of them.
—In my March 4 column, I shared the specs for an as-yet-unbuilt iPad 2 application that I’d like to see someone create. It’s a consumer-oriented app called “Leonardo’s Notebook” that would allow users to emulate the Renaissance master by collecting and curating multimedia materials in digital journals. If you’re a mobile developer in search of a project, have at it!
—In acquisitions news, parallel computing leader Aster Data Systems of San Carlos, CA, was acquired by Teradata (NYSE: [[ticker:TDC]]) for a whopping $263 million, as Bruce reported. Also, Santa Clara, CA-based Rovi bought online TV directory Sidereel, and San Francisco rental property management service Rentjuice bought Kahoots. Terms of those deals weren’t disclosed.
—In other deals news, Clickatell raised $12 million, Guardian Analystics raised $11 million, Funium raised $1.2 million, Tibion raised $10.2 million, and MyBuys raised $20 million.
