What you need to know - 9/28/2011

SlideShare dumps Flash; Klum most dangerous celebs on the web; Amazon launches Kindle Fire

Amazon announced Wednesday morning the launch of the new Kindle Fire 7-inch Tablet at a live event in New York City. And that is all CEO Jeff Bezos had to say about the launch at this time. But he did say that in addition to the Kindle Fire tablet, he also announced the launch of three new Kindle models, all under the $149 price-point. The Kindle has been the best-selling e-reader on the market for the past four years.

Ocean Group, announced the creation of of a new digital media and technology subsidiary called Black Oceana. Ocean Group also has committed to a $100 million investment in Black Oceana massive private holding company. It is founded by entrepreneurs Timur Sardarov and Oliver Ripley. Sardarov and Ripley will lead Black Ocean’s investments in video, social, mobile, and e-commerce technologies.

San Francisco-based SlideShare ,the world's largest community for sharing presentation announced Tuesday at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference that it has turned all-together its back on Adobe Flash and now embraces  HTML5. SlideShare will now run 30% faster, files will take 40 percent less space than they used to, and presentations are viewable on all mobile devices, from iPad to iPhone to Android devices.

Fundy, a non-profit fundraising platform founded in 2009 raises $5M in a round of funding led by Morgenthaler, with help from other seed investors Kapor Capital, Correlation Ventures, Seraph Group, and Accelerator Ventures. The new capital brings Fundly’s total raised to $7.5 million.

Rumour has it that Dish Network has a good chance of becoming Hulu's next owner. It is reported to be the bidder with the most potential—not the highest bidder, interestingly, but the one with the least amount of conditions, according to sources who spoke with Business Insider.

Project Runway and Victoria's Secret supermodel Heidi Klum, is this year’s most dangerous celebrity to search for on the Web, according to the security software company McAfee, a unit of Intel. Searching online for her name comes with a nearly one-in-10 chance of contractinga spyware, adware, phishing scams or other malware. Not nearly as lovely as she is. 

It's been a good day for Yammer. The corporate social networking website Yammer secured a $17 million Series D funding round, bringing its total funding to $57 million since launching in 2008. This latest round was led by Social+Capital Partnership, a new fund created by a former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya, with help from Charles River Ventures, Emergence Capital, U.S. Venture Partners, as well as 15 anonymous Silicon Valley technologists and philanthropists.

Achievers announced Wednesday that it has raised $24.5 million in a Series C round of funding led by Sequoia, with help from  JLA Ventures, GrandBanks Capital, and the Ontario Venture Capital Fund (Managed by NorthLeaf Capital). 

The new round brings Achievers’ total raised to $38 million. Achievers is a HR platform that can customized to any brand or business’s liking to reward its employees for achievements and work well-done. 

Santa-Clara-based Power Assure, a data center power-saving software company announced a $13.5 million round yesterday. It is led by strategic partner ABB in addition to previous investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson. 

The company has  raised  so far a total of $28.75 from investors ABB Technology Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Good Energies, Point Judith Capital. The United States Department of Energy also awarded Power Assure with a $5 million match-funding grant.

(Image source: Hollywoodwallpedia)