Six Degrees Group, a cloud-based data management company, launched with 37M euro ($50.4M) in funding from Penta Capital.

Six Degrees Group
Website: http://www.6dg.co.uk/
Twitter: @6degreesgroup  

Alastair Mills, founder and CEO...

It has long been known that cleavage and bikinis receive a 25x click-through rate on YouTube. Advertisers have finally realized this and put together a super-clever advertisement that you probably saw on YouTube today.

Called "HOT girl, TINY bikini!" or "Girl in tiny bikini," the video was prominently placed in the featured videos section...

For a $78 pledge on Kickstarter, Romotive will provide backers with their very own smartphone-controlled robot, called Romo, that lets you see where it's going by using the phone's camera. You can control Romo--  the same size as a small remote-controlled car -- with a computer, iPod touch, tablet or another smartphone as long as you have a wifi connection.

Romo allows owners to use a variety of Android or iOS apps to make their robots do fun stuff like spy on co-workers and draw pictures [ check this out ].

When we saw this we thought, "This is awesome, a smartphone-controlled robot!" followed immediately by, "My god, we hope terrorists don't get their hands on this..."

LinkedIn members now see updates from companies they follow -- including job opportunities, employee moves and breaking news -- when they sign on to the professional networking service.

The updates are limited to 500 characters. LinkedIn says "tens of millions of professionals" have followed more than 2M company profiles since the feature was added in April 2010.

In contrast, Facebook's Pages let companies post up to 5K characters, and businesses have been able to post updates that appear in follower's news feeds since Pages launched in November 2007...

Groupon's latest venture into the product deal space, Groupon Goods, offers daily deals on products, much like Amazon's Woot, at an amazing discount of $2 less than Amazon.

Today's offer features a Fujifilm JV100 camera -- which has been discontinued -- for $68 while Amazon is charging $69.99. Big deal, right?

The other deals aren't that great either...

Yelp reviews drive customers to independent restaurants over chains, according to a study conducted by a Harvard Business School professor.

"There is a shift in revenue share toward independent restaurants and away from chains as Yelp penetrates a market," Michael Luca, assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, writes in the study.

The study, "Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com", analyzed information collected by the Washington State Department of Revenue for all restaurants in Seattle between 2003 and 2009...

Already partnered with 30 startup accelerators worldwide, the TechStars Network has added its first program in Australia, Innovyz Start.

Innovyz Start is a four-month program operated by SME Growth Capital, which is rebranding itself as Innovyz. The program will launch in March 2012 and expects to begin accepting applications in November, StartupSmart reported.

Like its TechStars counterparts in the U.S., SME will offer $18K in funding to the initial 10 startups but may look to increase that amount as it gathers potential investors...

Apple has released the video from its "Let's Talk iPhone" event in Cupertino, CA today. We've time stamped vital moments from the video so you can easily find each announcement [ Watch the video here ].

[ 0:25 ] Tim Cook welcomes guests to "Let's Talk iPhone" Event.

[ 4:50 ] Tim tells the audience about the opening of the Apple Store in Hong Kong, which sold more Macs on opening day in that store than any other in the world. One of the best opening days in Apple's retail history.

[ 6:45 ] Tim briefs the audience on the status of Apple's four main products starting with the Macintosh and OS X operating system.

[ 10:40 ] Tim talks about iTunes and iPods, which have held a 70% market share or greater for a "very long time." Apple has sold more than 300M iPods -- it took Sony 30 years to sell 220K Walkman cassette players...

Greeting card and postcard services may suffer from the upcoming launch of Apple's new Cards app, which will let users send postcards by mail from their own photo catalogues, following the announcement of the iPhone 4S at the "Let's Talk iPhone" event in Cupertino, CA.

Scott Forstall, Apple SVP of iOS software, announced the release of the Cards app this morning at Apple's Infinite Loop campus [ Watch the video here ].

The Cards app lets users create custom physical cards from their photos that are printed on high-quality paper, and can be delivered anywhere in the U.S. for $2.99 and anywhere in the world for $4.99. The United States Postal Service will confirm the delivery of the cards through text message.

But will Apple's entry into this space be the death of companies in the greeting card space?...