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Asked about the DirecTV deal, a Microsoft representative said the two companies are still actively working together but declined further comment on what the two might be doing or when anyone might be able to get their hands on it. Does anyone in Microsoftland want to share more?

So what has come to market? Absolutely nothing.

Update: Well, in this case my readers know more than I do. See the comments section for what DirecTV is apparently up to. I’ll check into it and post more info when I get it.

First up is a deal that Microsoft and DirecTV announced two years ago at the Consumer Electronics Show. According to the press release, the two companies were forming a long-term agreement that would allow digital content to flow between Windows-based PCs, DirecTV set-top boxes,
Xbox consoles, and portable media players.

In fairness, Microsoft has been working even longer to try to get CableCard support into Vista PCs.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered a glowing forecast of what the arrangement would mean for consumers. “This agreement is a significant milestone for consumers and content owners, since it will greatly extend the reach and flexibility of digital entertainment in the home,” Ballmer said in a statement at the time. “By integrating our Windows Media platform technologies with the DirecTV service, we have created a pipeline for an incredible variety of premium digital entertainment to move seamlessly and securely throughout the home to anywhere a DirecTV customer wants to enjoy it.”

It happens all the time.

Then they go back to their respective cities, little comes of the deal, and everyone forgets it ever happened. Well, in our immense spare time, we’re going to look back at some of those deals and try to figure out where things stand.

Also, give us your thoughts on what deal should be featured in the next edition of “Whatever happened.” There are a lot of deals that come to mind: Sun Microsystems’ big partnership with Google. Sun’s partnership with Microsoft. Heck, even Sun’s deal with Enron–or maybe we should pick on someone other than Sun.

Company X and Company Y get together and announce a broad partnership to do a whole bunch of things. Executives smile, shake hands, and talk about all the great things they are going to do together.

Big mistake. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I’m sure Yang and the rest of Yahoo management wished they had a do-over. Flickr was always the more valuable franchise. But Yahoo’s made no secret about its intentions to gussy it up with a video makeover. Now it’s apparently about to happen. (If the Microsoft deal goes through, Flickr would be one heck of a brand. Let’s remember that if YouTube has 34 percent of the market, then that leaves 66 percent up for grabs. The challenge is that time’s a wasting and YouTube has a huge lead.) Too bad for Yahoo that their developers failed to pull this off sooner. Kakul Srivastava, director of product management at Flickr, explained to Dan that the company wanted to guarantee that any move into video would be received as “authentic” by the community.

After Yahoo bought Flickr three years ago (this month, actually), management was rightly enamored of its new crown jewel. Flickr was a terrific property. Unfortunately for Yahoo, it blew a big opportunity. When Google bought YouTube in October 2006, the concept of video sharing was about to go viral. I don’t know if that qualifies as one of Clayton Christensen’s “disruptive technologies,” but it comes close. While Yahoo’s own video site was going nowhere fast, Yahoo decided to leave Flickr as a pure photo site.

Jerry Yang

Move carefully, I can understand. But move at a snail’s pace? Come on.

Fantastic idea. Makes all the sense in the world. But where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio, or in this case, Jerry Yang? Flickr fans around the world–yours truly, included–will welcome word of a Flickr face-lift. Great, but why has it taken forever?

My partner-in-crime Dan Farber was clubbing with assorted Yahoos Saturday night at a celebration of Flickr’s fourth anniversary. That’s where he got word that a Flickr video beta will debut next month. (Here’s more from TechCrunch. )

Earlier last week, we broke news of the thaw in merger negotiations between Yahoo and Microsoft. If two sides ultimately decide to tie the knot, get ready for months–maybe years–of furious debate about the wisdom of this deal. But the latest rumblings concerning Flickr speaks volumes about the problems Microsoft may be about to inherit.

CEO Jerry Yang: I'm still the decider.

For a good take on the episode, check out this post by Kara Swisher on All Things Digital.

“It’s hard for me to believe (the rumor),” Larcker said. “Part of this will be related to legal issues. The chairman of the board would normally be the spokesperson for this kind of thing. Obviously, the text would generally speaking be very much to the point and not say too much except the acknowledgment of what happened. The fact that it went out under (Bostock’s) signature is what you’d expect. Obviously, Jerry Yang is still a player in this and a key shareholder. I don’t think you want to read too much into all this.”

A late afternoon report in TechCrunch reports on a rumor that Yahoo’s board of directors has given Chairman Roy Bostock the go-ahead to restart negotiations with Microsoft. If the report turns out to be true, kudos to Erick Schonfeld for the big scoop.

What would we do with ourselves if the spigot of Yahoo rumors ran dry? Not to fear, boys and girls. Maybe we just can’t imagine that “Microhoo” is dead and done and pray that it’s ready to stage a Lazarus-like revival.

In fairness to Schonfeld, he acknowledges not being sure about this one. (“Whether or not Yahoo’s board actually met today and authorized Bostock to restart negotiations is entirely speculation at this point, say our sources.”) And the Monday apology tour by Yang & Co. with the major business news outlets was certainly a major factor in Yahoo’s surprising share price jump.

But let’s take a minute to ask who benefits from the rumor-mongering? It’s not coincidental that shares of Yahoo enjoyed a small rally Tuesday. Considering the absence of scruples in some quarters of Wall Street, nobody should be shocked to learn that some operator might try to goose Yahoo’s stock price by planting a false rumor.

How much should we read into Yahoo’s decision to let Bostock issue the primary statement from the company? Not too much. We’re talking form over substance where the company selects a single point of contact. Truth be told, however, I was struck by the wording of the Yahoo statement. So I called up David Larcker, who directs the Corporate Governance Research Program at Stanford, to get his take.

The post also mentions that Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau failed to show for a panel in New York and was replaced by another venture capitalist from SoftBank. When Schonfeld asked what happened to Hippeau, “someone else at the conference who would have known” said he was in Sunnyvale, Calif., so maybe the board did meet today, after all.

Then again, maybe he had an ingrown toenail.

While only a quarter of the U.S. population lives in a rural area, roughly 75 percent of our country’s geography is rural. And the mobile nature of cell phones means that improving rural cell phone coverage is not just important for people living in remote areas of the country, but for anyone traveling through those areas as well. There have been many stories over the past several years where people have gotten lost or stranded in remote parts of the country and were not able to get help because their cell phones couldn’t get a signal.

In many ways, the USF has been a great success. Over 80 percent of the U.S. population subscribes to a cell phone service. But there are still significant gaps in coverage, where service is not available, because it is simply too expensive for operators to put up cell towers.

“Consumers will be happy to hear the FCC is taking control of the fund’s growth,” Tom Tauke, Verizon’s executive vice president of public affairs, said in a statement. “This is a responsible first step. The next step is comprehensive reform of the universal service high-cost fund to make it more efficient and targeted to consumers who need it.”

The Federal Communications Commission capped a subsidy program that helps fund cell phone coverage in rural areas.

Regulators hope capping the fund now will help slow the increase of charges being added to consumers’ phone bills. The fund was created by Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which essentially overhauled telecommunication law and regulations. The purpose of the fund was to ensure that all Americans had access to telecommunications services at comparable rates.

In a 3-2 vote on Thursday, the FCC said it would limit payments to wireless carriers seeking funds from the Universal Service Fund to help subsidize the cost of providing cell phone service in rural areas. The USF, which is supported by a tax on long-distance and regular subscriber line charges paid by wireless, Internet, and traditional phone customers, has been temporarily capped after the program paid nearly $1.12 billion last year to phone companies operating in rural areas. In 2001, the fund paid out only $15 million. The increase in funding has led to higher taxes on phone bills for consumers.

While AT&T’s customers, like Verizon’s subscribers, pay a huge chunk of the USF, it also happens to be a major recipient of these wireless subsidies, according to a story by the Associated Press. But the company had already agreed to a cap as a condition of its acquisition of Dobson Communications last year. Alltel, another major wireless operator that relies on USF funds, also agreed to a cap on the fund as a condition of its deal to be bought out by a private investment group.

But in order to achieve this goal, funds had to be made available to subsidize service in rural parts of the country.

Still, regulators and large phone companies complain that the burden to fund USF has gotten too great as too many consumers have seen dramatic increases in fees tacked onto their cell phone bills. And they say that the money is not always spent on carriers that are in the most need of subsidy. Phone companies such Verizon Communications, whose customers contribute to the bulk of the fund, were pleased to see the cap in place.

Congress is currently working on reforming the USF. And the cap ensures that rates remain at March 2008 levels until the reform package is complete.

It also comes with a one-year warranty and a reasonable price tag of $99. Unfortunately, it doesn’t ship with any LCDs. If you want something like that, look for the Mimo 740, which is a lot more expensive and only works with Windows.

Other World Computing announced on Tuesday its USB 2.0 display adapter that helps you easily add additional monitors to your computer. The adapter is basically a bus-powered USB external video card. All you need to do is plug it into an available USB 2.0 port and then plug a monitor (not included) to it, just like you would to the regular built-in display output of the computer.

The adapter comes with software drivers for both Windows and
Mac computers. You can add up to six additional monitors to a Windows machine and up to four to a Mac. Once done, you can use all these displays, plus the main one simultaneously.

The device comes with all you need out of the box, including: USB to DVI adapter, DVI to VGA adapter, DVI to HDMI swivel adapter, a 4-foot USB 2.0 cable, and a software CD.

The OWC USB 2.0 display adapter supports all HDMI-, DVI-, and VGA-equipped displays, be them LCDs, plasmas, projectors, or legacy CRTs. It can display full 32-bit color at the max resolution of 1,600×1,200. It’s unclear but you probably won’t be able to play 3D games with it.

Having a second monitor doesn’t just make your office space look more serious, it also helps you boost your productivity. Unfortunately, most computers don’t come with a video card that can handle more than one display at a time. This is when you need to resort to one of the USB ports for the second display.

(Credit:
OWC)

So is this outpouring of venture dollars all good news for energy and environment entrepreneurs? Not entirely.

“The biggest factor driving investment in clean tech today is the huge consumer outcry for change,” contends Canning from Dow Jones VentureSource, who projects more favorable policies for renewable energy after the fall national election.

There is ongoing concern that certain areas within clean tech, notably solar and biofuels, are becoming an over-heated financial bubble that cannot sustain the influx of new companies.

Europe, led by Spain and Germany, saw a 27 percent increase to $360 million in venture capital. China, meanwhile, saw venture investing fall nearly 70 percent to $129 million, although four venture-backed companies went public.

The median deal size in the U.S went up slightly to $8 million, which is a bit higher than all industries.

U.S.-based firms caught the lion’s share of the money, with 83 percent of the global total. The total in the U.S. was $2.52 billion in 2007, a 79 percent increase.

Ernst & Young recommends looking to government sources of money, reducing technology risk, and using debt selectively for financing.

Dow Jones VentureSource on Friday said that venture capitalists plowed a record $3 billion last year in clean-tech companies, a 43 percent jump from the year before. The number of deals rose from 173 in 2006 to 221 last year.

This is a typical pattern of large investment waves, which are often followed by consolidation among companies and company failures.

More specific to clean tech is a funding gap, sometimes referred to as the “Valley of Death.”

“Our data shows that 59 percent of all U.S. investment in the sector is going toward companies in the product development phase, which suggests that funding for clean technologies is likely to continue as these companies continue to develop and start generating revenues,” said Jessica Canning, director of global research, in a statement.

The numbers are in on clean-tech investing in 2007 and, once again, the direction is way up.

The biggest raising last year was $200 million for Project Better Place, the Shai Agassi-led company to set up a network of services stations with batteries for electric
cars.

Unlike software or medical devices, energy-related companies require large amounts of capital to prove out their technology as cost-effective. A biofuels plant, for example, can cost more than $100 million–beyond the funding venture capitalists are able to do. Project financiers typically back only well proven technologies, as a report by Ernst & Young noted. Click here for PDF.

Despite this funding challenge and regulatory hurdles, Dow Jones VentureSource sees significant potential. Both consumers and businesses are interested in buying eco-conscious products and, because the energy business is so big, gaining a small amount of market share from incumbents can be very profitable.