Venture capital firm DFJ Frontier has established an office in Portland, joining Voyager Capital and Madrona Venture Group that have also set up operations in the city in the past 12 months, reports The Oregonian.

Madrona Venture Group’s Tom Alberg tells Xconomy that print newspapers should eliminate daily delivery and possibly work with Amazon.com to deliver the news through the Kindle, ideas that we’ve suggested in the past. The venture capitalist and angel investor in Crosscut also says newspapers should charge for their online product. 

Seattle’s Pacific Biometrics today named Amar Sethi to the position of vice president of science and technology. Sethi previously worked with the National Institutes of Health.

Motricity, the Bellevue mobile data company, has named Allyn Hebner as chief financial officer. He previously served as chief accounting officer at T-Mobile USA.

Clearwire customers are suing the Kirkland provider of wireless broadband service, alleging that the pre-WIMAX service is slow and unreliable, reports Fierce Broadband Wireless. The suit also is seeking an injunction against the company’s policy related to early termination fees.

The Personal Genome Project has begun using the digital storage technology from Isilon Systems to store genetic information for as many as 100,000 volunteers.

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and Amazon buys maker of iPhone electronic book app, Stanza  

Amazon.com may have the Kindle. But the giant online retailer doesn’t think that’s the only portable device where people will read books. Looking to bolster its position in e-books, Amazon.com today purchased the maker of the free iPhone application Stanza. The company behind Stanza — Lexcycle — announced the news in a blog post today.

"It has been an amazing experience to see Stanza grow out of our brainstormed ideas into one of the most downloaded iPhone applications," the company wrote. "Throughout this period we have attempted to listen to and innovate for our customers to provide a great ebook reading experience."

Amazon representatives could not be immediately reached for comment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed in the blog post.

With offices in Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon, Stanza allows readers to choose from among 100,000 books and periodicals. Users of Stanza also can save copies of their books to the Kindle. 

As of mid-February, Lexcycle said that it had more than 1.3 million users in 60 countries using Stanza. The e-book reader was first launched last July. 

Amazon.com introduced its own free iPhone electronic book application in early March.

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and Linden leaving; Countdown to Kumo; more Microsoft news  

Seattle entrepreneur Greg Linden is leaving Microsoft this week, he wrote on his blog over the weekend. Linden, who previously built the Findory personalized search engine, says he had fun working at the company but decided to leave after "the dissolution of much of Live Labs." Microsoft this month moved about half the people from the applied research group into product teams. Linden, also an Amazon.com veteran, writes that he "will be taking some time before settling into anything new."

Is Kumo launching in 40 days? LiveSide.net points to a post on the Neowin forums about a clock on Microsoft’s campus that appears to be counting down to the launch of Microsoft’s revamped Live Search engine, currently being tested under the "Kumo" name. The timing would make sense: LiveSide points out that the countdown would end the afternoon before Xi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Business, speaks at the SMX Advanced 2009 conference in Seattle.

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Twitter in Kindergarten  

A Seattle elementary school is embracing Twitter. A few weeks ago, teachers and administrators at the Meridian School in Wallingford started broadcasting the short, concise 140 character messages on Twitter to talk about everything from ice cream socials to library books to what happened in class that day.

"Right now we are exploring the concept of weight- we are testing how many pennies and paper-clips it will take to sink a boat," wrote first grade teacher Ramiza Saheed in a recent Tweet.

Reagan Jackson, a Spanish teacher at the school, said the idea is to keep parents informed on what is happening in the classroom as well as create a conversation starter once kids return home.

"Sometimes when kids come home they don’t talk to their family about what they are doing," said Jackson, adding that most parents have embraced the idea.

About 30 teachers and administrators are now Twittering from Kindergarten to the fifth grade, a new experience that hasn’t totally caught on.

"Like everything some people don’t want to do it because it is too new," she said. Still, Jackson said she has found it to be a valuable communication tool, not only between teachers and parents but among teachers themselves.

Since Jackson works in the north annex, she often is unaware of what is happening in other parts of the private school.

"It is a community connecter," said Jackson, who has attracted 15 followers.

Ted Holmes, Director of Admissions and Marketing for the Meridian School, agreed.

“The people who have young, school age kids today are becoming more interested in communicating through social media,” said Holmes. “We want to show that we are not being left behind.”

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