Here’s a rundown of what happened in the last week of tech and business news. First up, the five most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days. Despite all the speculation about Apple’s big event on Wednesday, it was our coverage of announcements from chip company AMD that interested the most readers:
Chip company AMD aims to simplify arcane PC-buying business — “Chip makers love to give their products arcane numbers and incomprehensible names. But this makes computer buying way too confusing for average people. Now Advanced Micro Devices says it’s going to simplify the process.”
Steve Jobs is going after the game market — “Apple chief executive Steve Jobs emphasized that Apple was going after the video game market, particularly with its iPod Touch gadget. That explains why there’s no camera in the iPod Touch.”
New AMD graphics chip can power six monitors at once — “On board an old World War II aircraft carrier, Advanced Micro Devices executives introduced new graphics chips meant to give consumers a killer entertainment experience and deliver a big blow to rivals Nvidia and Intel. The chip maker introduced a new generation of ATI graphics chips that will be part of desktops this fall and laptops early next year.”
Launching a start-up and having a family life: It’s possible! — “Raising our kids and being an entrepreneur wasn’t easy. Being in a startup and having a successful relationship and family was very hard work.”
How many vendors does it take to Microsoft’s Project Natal game control system? — “Microsoft took the wraps off its Project Natal — the controllerless, gesture-based game play system for the Xbox 360 — at the E3 show in June. But it never explained exactly how it was pulling off the image-recognition technology behind it.”
And here are five more stories that we thought were important, thought-provoking, or just fun:
Facebook Lite versus Facebook – how do they differ? — “Facebook today rolled out a very spare version of itself in the United States called Facebook Lite. … Let’s compare.”
Beatles or no Beatles? Apple rumor rundown for tomorrow’s event — “What else could Steve Jobs possibly be hiding just out of sight for tomorrow? Here’s the hot list of probable products, in decreasing order of believability.” [Oh, and here’s a rundown of what Jobs actually announced at Apple’s event.]
Outspark snares former Electronic Arts executive as CEO — “The brain drain from the old guard to the new continues in the video game business. Online game publisher Outspark is announcing it has hired former Electronic Arts executive Owen Mahoney as its chief executive today.”
WorkScore launches a professional network where recommendations actually mean something — “The web is littered with a ridiculous number of professional networking sites, yet none that I find particularly useful. … Now an Oakland, Calif., startup called Reputation Networks is launching a site called WorkScore that sounds pretty close to what I’m looking for.”
Obama’s “green jobs” advisor Van Jones resigns under attack from right-wing — “Van Jones, an activist and ‘green jobs’ advisor to President Obama respected by many for his work in pushing for environmental justice in low-income neighborhoods, has resigned after controversy over statements and actions that enraged the Republican right-wing.”