File syncing and storage startup Zumodrive has raised $1.5 million in funding led by Sherpalo Ventures with Tandem Entrepreneur s and VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron participating. We initially reviewed Zumodrive here. While there are a plethora of syncing and storage services available to users, Zumodrive, which spawned from Y Combinator startup Zecter, has a different take on file syncing. Similar to other services, Zumodrive creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But service has a different twist-the service tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them. ZumoDrive, which currently has 300,000 users, recently launched a new version which lets users to access their music playlists, photo albums and document folders on any device. ZumoDrive mimics a standard hard drive but saves content in the cloud and then streams it to each device instead of saving local copies, making it the killer app for the netbook and other devices with limited storage. Zumo now plays nice with the iPhone, with an new app that lets users sync their content to their phone without having todeal with local storage capacity issues. And ZumoDrive released a new version of its system that wirelessly syncs playlists between devices, auto-detects content, and lets users link file folders on their devices to ZumoDrive only once so that changes in that folder will always be linked to ZumoDrive. The service has also been upgraded to integrate well with media applications, like iTunes, so users can play entire music libraries saved in ZumoDrive on multiple devices without manually syncing content. ZumoDrive will use the new funding for product development. Zecter previously launched a product called Versionate , an office-wiki product, that we first covered in July 2007. We wrote about them again a year ago. ZumoDrive faces competition from Dropbox, SugarSync, and Box.net. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Earlier today we covered rumors that Apple was in talks to acquire streaming music service Lala . Now New York Times tech reporter Brad Stone has tweeted that it’s a done deal. He writes, “Apple has acquired digital music startup Lala. Now updating our story”. You can find the NYT story here . This could be bad news for Lala users. It’s unlikely that the innovative deals negotiated by Lala will survive through the acquisition. For over a year, Lala users have been purchasing the rights to stream their music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song. If the deals with the music labels go up in smoke, Lala may lose the right to stream those songs. In other words, all the money users have been spending on web songs may go down the drain. If the deals are nullified, hopefully Apple will renegotiate them to at least cover existing purchases until it releases its own streaming music service. We’ve reached out to Lala but have yet to hear back. Likewise, this may well affect the Lala music gifts that have been recently offered by Facebook, and it could also harm the Music OneBox service Google recently launched (though Google can still rely on MySpace/iLike for its song streams). Stone writes that Apple is interested in Lala because of its engineering talent and technology, and that it was Lala that initiated the discussions. From the Times: One person with knowledge of the deal, but who was not authorized to discuss it, said that the negotiations originated when Lala executives concluded that their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim and initiated discussions with Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes. This person said Apple would primarily be buying Lala’s engineers, including its energetic co-founder Bill Nguyen, and their experience with cloud-based music services. The deal makes sense. It seems inevitable that Apple will eventually launch its own cloud-based streaming music service. And that’s exactly what Lala is — an iTunes in the cloud, with some interesting pricing mechanics. A few other interesting things to note. This acquisition comes a little more than a month after Lala was integrated into Google’s OneBox and Facebook’s gift store . Lala may well have been viewing these launches as last-chance efforts to find a path to profitability. Given these reports that Lala’s “prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim”, it looks like those launches may not have gone as well as Lala hoped. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

It’s the announcement Steve Jobs has been waiting to make for years: that one of his favorite bands, and perhaps the greatest of all time, will finally be available on the music store that he created. Now he may have just had his thunder stolen. Two hours ago, Sky News reported that the Fab Four are finally coming to iTunes, attributing the news to John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono , who is in charge of managing the music legend’s estate. The story kicked off with the headline: “The whole of the Beatles back catalogue will be made available to buy on iTunes, Yoko Ono has told Sky News.” But almost immediately after publishing the story Sky News killed it, leaving nothing but a blank page in its wake. Google News had a cache of it for a brief time, but that too has apparently disappeared in record time. 9to5mac spotted the article and reached Sky News for more information, only to be told that the news organization was unable to comment. At this point there are two possibilities: Sky either made a major blunder and posted something that was untrue, or Apple has unleashed its hounds on the news network. My guess is the latter. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that The Beatles on iTunes will be announced tomorrow (the Sky report, or what’s left of it, doesn’t make a release date clear). In fact, a report in the Financial Times today quotes EMI global catalog president Ernesto Schmitt as explicitly ruling out a 9/9/09 release, stating, “Conversations between Apple and EMI are ongoing and we look forward to the day when we can make the music available digitally. But it’s not tomorrow.” Another interesting point from the FT article: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison want to sell the Beatles catalog on iTunes, but EMI has objected because of concerns over piracy, of all things (according to McCartney, EMI is worried about being held liable if any tracks leak to the web). Of course, the only way to obtain digital versions of The Beatles catalog online at this point is through piracy. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

This happens every year. Rumors begin to swirl that Apple is holding a music-related event, and after the talk dies down of what new iPods are in store, the focus shifts to iTunes. And from there, it shifts to The Beatles. You know, the most popular band of all time that happens to have no songs from its catalog available for legal purchase anywhere online. Yeah, those Beatles. So anyway, every year there are rumors of The Beatles coming to iTunes. The rumors seem to start from just about everywhere: From Steve Jobs’ love of The Beatles, to EMI removing DRM on music, to the settlement of lawsuits with Apple Corp, to the appearance of Beatles’ album covers on Apple event promotions. There have even been quotes from Paul McCartney saying he thought such a deal would happen soon. The only problem is that it never ends up happening. But this year could actually be different. Well, maybe. First of all, The Beatles are definitely releasing their music in video game form for a new Rock Band game. That’s a first for them, branching out of traditional music distribution. This game is launching on 9/9/09, which happens to be the same day as the rumored next Apple event. That, in and of itself, doesn’t really mean much, but there are reports today that on the same day, The Beatles are releasing their entire catalog, digitally re-mastered for the first time, on CD, as Cult of Mac points out . Wait, CD? People still buy those? Yes, they do, though they’re increasingly going digital and choosing iTunes as their store. So it stands to reason that EMI and Apple Corps (The Beatles’ label, not to be confused with the other Apple we’re talking about here) have looked at the numbers and seen the trends, and realize that if they really want the catalog to explode in sales, they’re going to have to release it online, and preferably through iTunes. But there’s more. In the press release for The Beatles re-mastered release there’s this nugget: Each of the CDs is packaged with replicated original UK album art, including expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited period, each CD will also be embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. What does that sound like? It sounds like the perfect type of album for Apple to try out its new “Cocktail” music format , also set to be unveiled at the September event. While not all the details are known about Cocktail, it is believe that it’s a format that places emphasis on album purchases by giving downloaders all types of goodies like, yes, artwork, booklets, liner notes, photos and films. The press release says nothing of online versions of the albums, but it’s entirely possible that those are being kept as a surprise, and possibly even for Apple’s event. Or maybe not. But at the very least, you know that while the engineers were remastering the recordings, they were thinking about how the catalog would be dispersed over the web eventually too. It’s not a matter of “if”, but a question of “when”. And 9/9/09 sounds like the perfect date for a full-on assault of Beatles music on the masses. This is of course all just speculation, that history suggests will be wrong. But if we find out that the Apple event is at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco on 9/9/09, and that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr both happen to be in town…I’m just saying. And how would that be for a Steve Jobs return to the limelight after months away on medical leave? Boom ! Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0