TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Is ecommerce giant Amazon.com making plans for a new refund feature? In a filing this month, Amazon is seeking to trademark the term "Unpay" under the category of "Financial services; credit card services; debit card services; charge card services; clearing and reconciling financial transactions via a global computer network."

Amazon previously had an Unpay feature but I can't find any recent mention of it. The last reference I can find is in a 2001 press release about the now-defunct Amazon Honor System for donating money to websites: "Customers can also take advantage of a full and unconditional money-back guarantee up to 30 days after payment by using Amazon.com's innovative Unpay feature, which provides no-questions-asked refunds."

With months to go before their expected release, there's no telling at this point which new motion-sensing video-game control system will be best, or which will prevail in the market. But Sony is taking the gloves off with a new video promoting its upcoming PlayStation Move system and, without mentioning them by name, spoofing Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's planned Project Natal control system for Xbox 360.

It's extremely funny, and it's getting a lot of attention today on video-game and tech blogs, but in the process of implicity poking fun at Project Natal, it overlooks an important aspect of the Microsoft system.

Aviel Ginzburg

Our decision to pursue funding started with a simple realization, jumping startup to startup, we didn’t have enough cash personally to fund the company and our basic living expenses of rent and Ramen. From Damon’s experience at his last startup, we also knew that we didn’t want to get sucked into the full time consulting mouse-wheel (we got REALLY close). So, we decided to raise a little capital to focus on doing what we do best: building social media products that make people’s lives better and easier.

Informed by Damon’s 6 months at Madrona Venture Group, we knew that we had no business looking for VC money (wrong scale) and my experience raising an angel round, I knew that we’d have challenges completing it because we didn’t have a complete beta product.

So we turned to the several options we saw in the market of incubators and seed stage funds: YCombinator/TechStars and seed-stage investment funds like Founder’s Co-op. The next question of course, was how much money we needed, and how much of the company we were willing to give away to get it.

Seattle 2.0's latest tabulation of the top Web startups in the Seattle area had a big change over the past month as longtime top 10 performer Picnik was gobbled up by Google. (List creator Marcelo Calbucci removes startups once they've been acquired).

Other than that, the list looks pretty much the same at the top with Cheezburger Network, Zillow.com, BuddyTV and Survey Analytics in the top five. SEOMoz gained four spots, rising to number seven, perhaps using some of its own search engine optimization techniques to drive traffic to the site.

It seems that every month there's a new story out about the future of T-Mobile USA, the fourth biggest mobile operator in the U.S. Last month, BusinessWeek reported that Deutsche Telekom -- the parent company of T-Mobile -- was contemplating an initial public offering.

Now, Reuters reports that Bellevue-based T-Mobile is considering a joint venture with its neighbor, Kirkland-based Clearwire. Those rumors have circulated before.

Today's your last chance to sign up for the first TechFlash Live event of 2010, taking place Tuesday March 23 at the Showbox Sodo. We've got a fantastic panel on hand to discuss how to make money online and the future of advertising. If that's not enough to whet your appetite, we're also rolling in some ping pong tables so folks can warm-up, scout the competition and challenge your tech rivals in advance of the big TechFlash pong tourney later this summer.

Registration will close later this afternoon. So if you haven't signed up yet, now is the time to pull the trigger. Tickets here.

2201 Westlake, Photo via Vulcan Real Estate/ Benjamin Benschneider

Earlier this year we reported that Amazon.com was on the hunt for additional office space in Seattle, and had signed a letter of intent with Paul Allen's Vulcan for the new 2201 Westlake complex in South Lake Union. Now Vulcan is making it official. The developer is announcing that Amazon has leased 180,000 square feet of office space at 2201 Westlake and expects to begin moving into the building in mid-2010

That's in addition to Amazon's new 1.7 million square foot headquarters campus now under construction by Vulcan in South Lake Union. Amazon's growing footprint in the neighborhood reflects its continuing growth during the recession.

Seattle online attorney rating service Avvo has scored $10 million, a significant financing round that CEO Mark Britton said comes at a significant uptick in valuation over the previous round. Total financing in the four-year-old company now stands at $23 million.

The new funds -- led by Silicon Valley-based DAG Ventures and including participation from Ignition Partners and Benchmark Capital -- will be used to bankroll new offerings from the company. Britton declined to disclose what those projects are, saying he didn't want to tip off the competition.

HTC says that the T-Mobile Pocket PC was the first 3.5 inch touchscreen device released in the U.S.

HTC no longer wants to get kicked around by Apple, which earlier this month broadsided the mobile handset maker with a patent infringement suit alleging the HTC violated some 20 patents related to the iPhone's basic functionality. Today, HTC -- maker of the Nexus One and several Windows Mobile and T-Mobile devices -- issued a statement on Apple's suit.

Peter Chou, chief executive officer HTC, noted in the release that the company was out in front of Apple when it comes to touch-screen capabilities. The company unveiled the first color screen touch device in 2002, well ahead of Apple's introduction of the iPhone. Here's a portion of Chou's statement:

Koester

Learn That Name is not your typical entrepreneurial success story. Conceived on a whim at Startup Weekend last August, the mobile application was built by a group of 14 co-founders during the 54-hour coding marathon. But the iPhone app -- which won top honors at the event for a quiz game that tests one's memory on LinkedIn contacts -- has already achieved a big success.

Tonight, one of the key creators of the idea confirmed that the startup (if you can even call it that) has been acquired by Seattle-based Gist. Terms weren't disclosed. But co-creator Eric Koester tells us that all 14 co-founders who played a role in the development of the project will get a "nice little payday" as a result of the acquisition.

It's probably a good thing Koester spends his days working as a corporate attorney at Cooley Godward, since managing the expectations of 14 people during acquisition talks sounds like a potential nightmare. In fact, Koester said that many of the people who participated in the creation of the idea went their separate ways after Startup Weekend concluded.

Amazon.com continues to extend its Kindle ecosystem to other devices. The company just announced a new free Kindle application for Mac computers, allowing Mac users to browse, buy and read Kindle electronic books. Amazon already offers Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, and Windows PCs (and promises one for Apple's new iPad too).

Meantime, the New York Times reports Amazon is playing more hardball with publishers in negotiations over electronic books. The online retail giant is threatening to stop selling books by publishers "unless they agree to a detailed list of concessions regarding the sale of electronic books" including that "that they lock into three-year contracts and guarantee that no other competitor will get lower prices or better terms," the Times reports.

Zillow.com's iPhone app has quickly grown into one of the most popular in the real estate category, with close to one million downloads to date. Now, the Seattle startup is looking to expand its reach, today unveiling an Android App that allows user to browse some 95 million properties across the U.S. Here's a quick look:

The free Android app has some of the same functionality as the iPhone app, including the ability to pull up Zestimates on nearby homes. However, it has some new features which are specific to Android. Those include voice search in which a potential home buyer can say the address, city or neighborhood in order to find specific properties. The app also includes street view images courtesy of Google.

Astronomy geeks will get a kick out of a new Bing Maps application that was introduced today in conjunction with Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope. The Microsoft search engine already is used by consumers to find their way to the grocery store or dentist, but now Chris Pendleton explains in a blog post how it can be used to locate the stars and planets overhead.

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has led a $28.8 million venture round in UpWind Solutions, a Medford, Oregon-based company specializing in operations and maintenance services for the wind generation industry. The company -- founded in 2007 by former GE employee Bo Thisted-- currently manages hundreds of megawatts of wind generation on behalf of utilities.

Bellevue. Flickr photo/Rutio

Seattle's doing it. So are Renton and Bellingham and Portland. Now, Bellevue -- the Seattle suburb located just a few miles from Microsoft's headquarters -- is the latest city to bid for Google's high-speed Internet network.

We've been tracking some of the unusual PR stunts that politicians are pulling out in order to lure the search giant to their communities. And Bellevue is calling on its citizens to fill out surveys, upload videos to YouTube or comment on the city's Facebook page in order to show support for the effort.

When is this going to stop? Thankfully the deadline for community submissions is March 26, so there's about a week left for communities to make their best pitch or change their names as was the case in Topeka, Kansas.