Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's venture capital firm Maveron has invested in peerTransfer, a Boston startup that helps students make international education payments. The $7.5 million round was led by Boston VC firm Spark Capital, with participation from Maveron and others.

Schultz's firm has invested heavily in online education in the past; in recent months, Maveron has backed Groupon and invested in baby clothing site Zulily.

The latest version of Swype, the keyboard that lets you text with a swipe of a finger, is now available on the Sprint Nexus S 4G. There are some handy new features in the latest version, including Swype Gestures, which lets you send Tweets or map a location with ease. Users can highlight the text they just typed, then "swype" a path from the letters T to W and their Twitter app will open. The same is true for mapping -- after swyping from G to M, the Google Maps app pops up with a user's location, as well as directions.

Other features, including shortcuts for cutting, pasting and highlighting text and a personal dictionary, are also loaded in the new version. Check out the video demo here.

In other Starbucks news, the coffee retailer is planning to serve up free iPhone apps. Starbucks has already paired with Apple to offer a new song for free each day -- now it plans to do the same with apps for the iPhone. Customers can pick up a free card with an iTunes code on the back and download the app.

The first free app is Shazam Encore, an app that identifies music and displays lyrics for the song you're listening to. It sells for $5.99 on iTunes.

IID, a Tacoma internet security company, announced that the Federal Communications Commission has named IID President and CTO Rod Rasumussen to the Communications Security, Reliablity and Interoperable Council.

ZINO Society's sixth annual ZILLIONAIRE Investment Forum will take place Sept. 13 at the Museum of History and Industry. Attendees can hear 35 companies make their pitch and $150,000 in angel funding.