Startup Colorado, an initiative aimed at company creation along the Front Range, publicly launches tonight in Boulder.

It is affiliated with the Startup America Partnership, an effort announced earlier this year to bring together entrepreneurs, investors, top-level executives and educators to foster the growth of innovative companies.

Startup Colorado is chaired by Brad Feld and Phil Weiser in Boulder and Jan Horsfall in Colorado Springs. It is “supported” Read more…

Screen grab

BrightNest is currently under private beta, with plans to open its service to the public during the holidays.

Denver-based BrightNest is the first Colorado company accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator program in Silicon Valley.

It is a member of the Fall 2011 class that runs through January. The company describes itself as the “Mint.com for home maintenance.”

Here’s how it works: after homeowners enter their address, BrightNest sends them customized maintenance reminders, weekly tips and step-by-step instructions. Read more…

Bloomberg News

Ergen said a pay-TV service without sports programming could be viable.

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen said approval of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile could lead to more mergers and open the door for a deal between the nation’s No. 2 satellite-TV provider and rival DirecTV.

“If that merger is allowed to go forward, then I don’t think there’d be any problem with us merging with DirecTV,” Ergen said today during a conference call with analysts. “There’d probably be a lot of mergers that could happen that people never thought could happen. If that merger is not allowed to go through, then I think that a merger with DirecTV would be problematic.”

Ergen was responding to an analyst’s question about the prospects of such a deal given the growth of video offerings from phone companies such as Verizon Communications. Regulators blocked Read more…

(Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post file photo)

Workers install a pipe earlier this year for a fiber network in the metro area.

Longmont residents this week approved a ballot referendum that will allow the city to light up a 17-mile fiber-optic ring that has sat mostly dark for nearly 15 years.

More specifically, the city can now tap into the network to offer residents broadband, phone and video services. Since the passage of Senate Bill 152 in 2005, municipalities have been restricted from using city-owned infrastructure to offer such services to its residents without voter approval. Qwest, Comcast and others pushed for the bill by arguing that it is “unfair to let tax-supported Read more…

(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

The Kindle Fire is shown at a news conference, Sept. 28, 2011 in New York.

The tablet war is heating up, just in time for the holidays.

Book retail chain Barnes & Noble is expected to unveil a new tablet computer Monday.

Amazon.com’s entry into a market dominated by Apple’s iPad will be available Nov. 15. At $200, Amazon’s Kindle Fire costs less than half as much as the lowest-priced iPad 2, which retails for $500.

“There is Read more…

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

A biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is on display at a bookstore in New York, October 24, 2011.

Walter Isaacson’s much-anticipated biography on Apple cofounder Steve Jobs gives us an amazing look into the life of one of the greatest innovators of our time.

It is worth the read perhaps as much for its insight into Jobs (early in his adult life, he often walked barefoot, even to interviews and sales meetings) as it is for the history on some of the technology that has shaped our lives.

The tech giants and their founders that played a key role in Jobs’ rise to greatness ranged from Hewlett Packard to Atari to Microsoft.

It has been noted elsewhere that Jobs Read more…

Connecting America with broadband service means another fee tacked onto the phone bill.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing to create a “Connect America Fund” to extend high-speed Internet service over the next six years to 18 million Americans who don’t have access to it.

The plan will reform the Universal Service Fund, established years ago to help provide affordable phone service to consumers in rural or high cost areas and supported by a small monthly surcharge on landline and cellphone bills. A new fee will come from proposed changes to so-called inter-carrier compensation, or rates carriers pay each other to access their networks. Read more…

Verizon Wireless

The super-thin Motorola Droid Razr.

The Motorola Droid RAZR has a 4.3-inch touchscreen and access to a high-speed 4G network – two clear advantages over the record-breaking iPhone 4S. But those are advantages other devices already have over the iPhone.

Here are five more reasons to be excited about the latest Android-based gadget, which was unveiled today:

1. It’s a smartphone that’s RAZR thin at 7.1 mm (the iPhone 4S is 9.3 mm thick).

2. Even with that thin form factor, the RAZR will pack a high-capacity 1780 mAh battery. For any Droid owner, battery life is a serious issue. The Droid X2 comes standard with a 1540 mAh battery.

3. It includes “water repellent nanocoating,” which protects the phone and inside components against everyday spills. Read more…

Screen grab

MapQuest Vibe doesn't think too highly of Aurora, Co.

MapQuest Vibe is a new feature from the Denver-based online mapping service that gives users hyper-local information, such as the best Sushi restaurant in Cherry Creek rather than just the best restaurant in Denver.

The site assigns cities, and neighborhoods within cities, a “Vibe Score,” which is based on a secret sauce “VibeRank” algorithm that includes factors such as historical searches on MapQuest. It also ranks restaurants, stores and activities within a city or neighborhood.

It gives downtown Denver a perfect 10, while Cheesman Park is near the bottom with 1.8. Aurora garnered a default score of just Read more…

MapQuest

MapQuest will roll out a new product Thursday.

Denver-based MapQuest will roll out a new product Thursday called MQ Vibe, which the company says will “pivot and repackage the local space.”

I’m guessing that means the company believes the new service will have a big impact.

Fusible noted last month that AOL, MapQuest’s parent company, purchased a social networking site called NVIBE.

Visit NVIBE.com and you’ll be redirected to a MapQuest page, with this message: “Something cool is coming to your neighborhood.”

MapQuest moved Read more…