BlablaCar, a European carpooling marketplace that connects any driver who has empty seats with paying passengers, has raised $10 million from Accel Partners and existing investors ISAI and Cabiedes & Partners. This brings BlablaCar’s total funding to $12.5 million. On BlablaCar, drivers can register, publish their trips and contact other members who are making the same trip as you by sending them a message or calling them directly by telephone

i/o Ventures , the SF startup incubator that lives on the top floor of The Summit space in the Mission, is accepting applications for its February 2012 cohort. Are you a master procrastinator? Well, you’re in luck, because the deadline to apply is today! (Don’t worry, they won’t judge you for it.) Becoming an i/o company means a 4-6 month stint in the i/o Ventures 7,000 square foor loft/coffee shop and $25,000 in capital.

Facebook is making significantly more money per ad now, charging 23% more per 1000 impressions than at the start of 2011. There are still cheap ad clicks to be had on Facebook — you just have to keep traffic bouncing around within the social network.

Remember when  Microsoft rolled out Photo Fuse , the crazy feature in its Windows Live Photos product that let you swap people’s heads around in in your photos order to get the perfect shot? Well, now there’s an app that does the same thing, and it’s not from Microsoft. It’s from an Israeli-based startup called Macadamia Apps , makers of the new app  GroupShot

Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales wanted to send a “big message” to the U.S. government regarding the two heinous internet censorship bills currently being considered, and after a brief period of debate the world’s encyclopedia will soon do just that. The Wikipedia founder announced on Twitter today that starting at midnight on Wednesday, January 18, the English language version of the world’s encyclopedia will go dark for 24 hours in protest of SOPA and PIPA.

If you’re wondering why we didn’t stop by to test out the Samsung SUR40 touch-table, AKA the Surface 2.0, during CES, there’s a good reason: we did that last year . The device, while impressive, isn’t exactly new. But as it has little in the way of competition — the Surface is the nonpareil of touch tables — they probably didn’t feel they needed to get it out in any kind of hurry.

Flying a kite to produce power may conjure up images of Ben Franklin, who sought to prove lightning was electric. Makani Power releases turbine blades into the air, seeking to harness wind energy at higher altitudes.

We’ve all seen the Kinect, or at least heard about its wonders .

This may seem a bit of inside baseball, but it’s a fairly interesting fact for folks looking forward to thin-and-light Win8 devices running ARM chips rather than Intel. According Computer World , devices running ARM versions of Win8 will not be able to run other OSes, like Android, thanks to something called Secure Boot. A version of Secure Boot is built into many mobile devices – namely phones and tablets – in order to avoid bootloader mobile attacks and, obviously, to keep things locked down.

Imo.im , which you probably know as the multi-platform free instant messaging product for the web and mobile devices is launching its own real-time social network today. For now, the network is only accessible online , but the company says it will soon integrate the new features into its mobile app lineup, which currently includes apps for the iPhone / iPad , Android , BlackBerry and Nokia devices