Beyond the Rack, a members-only sample sale site, has raised another round of funding today. The startup has just announced a $12 million round of funding from Highland Capital Partners and BDC Venture Capital. This brings the Beyond The Rack’s total funding to $16.5 million. Similar to Gilt Groupe, HauteLook and Ideeli, Beyond the Rack is a members-only shopping site that offers steeply discounted (from 50 to...

Perhaps you recall that late last year, Google was in discussions to buy Yelp. Despite a supposed offer of $550 million plus earn-outs, Yelp walked away from the deal. But that isn’t stopping Google for entering Yelp’s business. Today, Google continues their fast-moving assault on local and location with a revamped Google Maps for mobile. Central to Maps for mobile 4.4 is Google Places, the newer ...

Intel has just announced that it will acquire Texas Instruments’ cable modem product line. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2010, were not disclosed. Unsurprisingly, Intel says the acquisition will help further its foray into providing chips to the cable and consumer electronics industries. Intel wants to be able to provide products that provide on foundation for consumer e...

Best Buy is rolling out an in-store mobile couponing system in conjunction with a startup called shopkick. The system will be in place in 187 stores by tomorrow and 257 stores by October 1. Earlier this month, we got a preview of how the system works (see video below). Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the shopkick...

Want an ebook reader in the states? You have two choices: the Kindle or the Nook. That’s about it. Either other manufacturers are pulling out of the US market or they’re avoiding it altogether. Samsung introduced its ebook reader with much fanfare at CES 2010, but now it’s not going to be released here. This isn’t exactly a bad thing as both the Kindle and Nook are well-polished devices and are about as g...