Roundup — Facebook’s notes, Box.net, and other news

Facebook continues to loosen up its once-rigid ways, and is now even letting its users blog — Well, not quite. It is letting them add “notes,” the preferred term, to their profile page, including text, photos, tags, and comments — something Liz over at GigaOm got an early look at. Members can also pull in the content from other blogs, too.

You can tag the notes with another user’s name, so the notes are delivered to them too. Notes can be posted by mobile phone. Techcrunch notes you are unable to embed videos, though, or to write in javascript for other programming needs

Amazon is about to get unveil video download store — See details here and here.

Storage company Box.Net raises $1.5M — The Berkeley online file storage service, which signaled in May it was ready to raise cash, has already raised $1.5 million in a first round of funding, according to a regulatory filing. It was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. We wrote about Box.net’s immigration to Silicon Valley here.

Don’t be fooled into buying a .mobi url for your mobile users — Techdirt suggests it is somewhat of a scam.

Palm will unveil the latest version of its Treo smart phone next month — Palm, the Silicon Valley smart-phone manufacturer, said last month the new version will operate Vodafone’s high-speed third generation (3G) network and be powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.

Why are the terms of the Google book deal with the University of California secret? — UC is backed in part by taxpayers, but Jeff Ubois (of Berkeley) notes the terms of the Google deal were arrived at with no public input:

The University of California’s secret agreement with Google for book digitization promises to improve access to parts of its library collections, but the contractual restrictions UC has accepted may enrich Google’s shareholders at public expense…

(Via Dave Winer)

In other news:

–San Jose’s wireless phone chip-maker GCT Semiconductor takes $5 million, much of it from Japanese phone carrier, DoCoMo. IT serves new 3G networks, such as cellular/WiFi convergence.

—SiBeam, of Sunnyvale, a developer of high-speed wireless communication platforms, has raised $21 million in a second round of funding. Foundation Capital led the deal, and was joined by exisiting backers New Enterprise Associates and U.S. Venture Partners.

—Matisse Networks, a Mountain View provider of “optical burst switching” technology, has raised $7.5 million of a $17.13 million second round, according to PE Week, citing a regulatory filing. Backers include Menlo Ventures, Walden International and Woodside Fund.

–Software company Salesforce has acquired San Francisco’s Kieden, a start-up that lets Salesforce users track their Google AdWords campaigns.