The Labor Day holiday made for a short week of technology news, but we’ve labored to pull it all together for you here.
—Underscoring the growing importance of mobile video, San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) said it’s acquiring video processing technologies and other assets from Integrated Device Technology (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IDTI]]) of San Jose, CA, for $60 million in cash.
—California Gov. Jerry Brown won support from San Diego innovation leaders last week for a legislative package to raise $1 billion in taxes on out-of-state companies, and to use the proceeds to provide tax breaks for small and innovative businesses. Local business leaders in the audience included Camille Sobrian Saltman, president and COO of Connect, Ruben Barrales, CEO of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, and Bill Geppert, interim CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. The California Assembly passed the measure, but the state Senate blocked Brown’s plan late Friday.
—Carlsbad, CA-based ViaSat (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VSAT]]) said the launch of its ViaSat-1 high-capacity Internet satellite has been pushed back another couple of weeks. The ViaSat-1 launch, which originally was set for May, has now been postponed several times. The Ka-band satellite now is set for launch in Mid-October.
—San Diego’s Wildcat Discovery Technologies, founded in 2006 to develop advanced materials for clean-energy technologies, increased its recent financing round from $8.7 million to $11 million, according to a regulatory filing. As we reported in July, Wildcat is using high-throughput screening to identify and develop new materials for batteries, hydrogen storage, and other technology applications. The startup’s investors include CMEA, 5AM Ventures, and the Virgin Green Fund.
—San Diego-based Verimatrix, which provides encrypted software and related technologies that enable pay-TV networks to for transmit their digital TV programming over the Internet, said it has formed a broad partnership with South Korea’s LG Electronics. The new partners said a range of LG “Smart TV” devices will offer Verimatrix’s embedded security technologies. Verimatrix raised $7.5 million from investors earlier this year.