BUSINESSWEEK - GigaOm August 8, 2008, 12:01AM EST

They may have less to invest, but America’s startup backers are pooling their capital to do as many deals as ever

by Stacey Higginbotham

The grim economy has led not only to a drop in consumer spending and the foreclosure of more than a million homes, but to changes in the way angel capital is deployed. Angels, by definition, invest their own money, so downturns in the stock market and real estate values can mean they have less to invest and are more gun-shy about investing it.

While data for the first half of 2008 aren’t in yet, most angel investors with whom I’ve spoken tell me that rather than run from the lousy market, they’re adapting to it by doing more follow-on investments, syndicating deals among multiple angels, and in some cases, investing greater amounts of money into a startup to cover the bills during the dry spell for early-stage capital that they foresee.

“Two trends we’ve seen are: We’re investing in deals we’re already in and keeping them alive longer because conditions are not ripe for an exit,” said John May, founder of Washington-based Active Angel Investors. “We’re also giving more runway to portfolio companies. When times are tight, we want to overfund.” Read the rest of this entry »

CNNMoney - Last Updated: August 7, 2008: 12:15 PM EDT

With banks tightening their credit standards, many have to walk a fine line when it comes to lending to consumers.

By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Forget oil and gold. Credit might be the commodity that’s in the scarcest supply these days.

Saddled by soaring loan losses, banks have been drastically tightening their lending standards, effectively putting credit out of reach for many consumers in search of mortgages, credit cards or car loans.

“Like the tide, credit goes in and out,” said Jeff Davis, a bank analyst and managing director at FTN Midwest. “And right now it’s headed out.”

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AP - Sat Aug 9, 9:55 AM ET

BEIJING - Some Web sites remained inaccessible to reporters as competition got under way Saturday at the Beijing Olympics.

By STEPHEN WADE, AP Sports Writer

China’s communist government routinely filters its citizens’ access to the Internet, but in the runup to the Olympics Chinese officials and officials with the International Olympic Committee vowed there would be no censorship of the Internet for accredited journalists covering the games.

Some sites were unblocked 10 days ago after reporters arriving to cover the games found them blocked and complained to the IOC, but others remain inaccessible, including sites related to the Tiananmen Square protests, Tibet, Taiwan and the Dalai Lama.

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FORTUNE - Last Updated: August 8, 2008: 10:50 AM EDT

The latest personal navigation devices offer lots of bells and whistles, but are they really necessary in the iPhone era?

By Michal Lev-Ram, reporter

SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) — Garmin’s latest GPS device, the nuvi 880, says a lot about the state of the market for portable navigation devices. The gadget has it all: directions, MP3 player for listening to songs and books, a photo viewer - even an alarm clock.

Why all the bells and whistles? Because these are tough times for GPS makers. Demand is slowing and prices are falling fast, in part due to competition from cell phone manufacturers like BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM) and Apple.

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InformationWeek - August 8, 2008 12:15 AM

The latest scheme steals data by encoding a user’s password into audio data and concealing that data in the Windows startup tone for decoding later, researchers reveal.

By Thomas Claburn

Filiol’s work builds on what’s known as Tempest. Filiol said the term stands for Temporary Emanation and Spurious Transmission, though others suggest alternate terms to explain the acronym.

Tempest refers to research done by the NSA into the signals that emanate from electronic devices and how to prevent the interception of those signals. The reason is that those signals may reveal the information being processed by a device or may be altered to do so.

Programmer Eric Thiele has written a demonstration program called Tempest for Eliza that uses a computer monitor to send out AM radio signals.

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Vasanth Sridharan | August 8, 2008 9:42 PM

UPDATE: In many cases, your best bet for watching Olympics coverage will indeed be at NBCOlympics.com, which has excellent video quality and is showing a couple thousand hours worth of events. You need a Silverlight download, but then you should be good to go. But NBC isn’t picking up every event. And it is specifically keeping some glamour sports — like beach volleyball, swimming and gymnastics — on its TV channels. If you want to watch those online, you’ll need to try out the links listed below.

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Eric Krangel | August 8, 2008 8:00 PM

If you live in the USA (like us) and love the Olympics (also like us), by now you’ve probably heard — NBC (GE), which has exclusive broadcasting rights to the Olympics within the US, is keeping its best coverage  off the Internet. The company is doing so in the misguided belief that an embargo on the best online video will send people to their TVs, where NBC can command higher ad rates.

The easiest way to get around this, if you can’t find what you want to watch on nbcolympics.com, is to find someone who’s already figured out how to hijack a TV signal and stream the games on the Web. Check here and here for links we’ve found recently. The downside to depending on someone else’s work — you’ve got no idea what you’re getting, and you’re vulnerable to take downs (many of the links we’ve found have already been shut down).

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