The latest numbers from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association show third-quarter investment in New York rose 22 percent over the last year to $335 million. More than 60 percent of those deals were early or seed stage investments, which came from the city’s active Angel community and a new generation of VC firms like Betaworks and Union Square Ventures.

Many of New York’s hottest companies have also seen their latest rounds led by outside investors. Last month advertising platform AppNexus secured a $50 million round led by Microsoft, and in June the location-based service Foursquare received $20 million in Series B funding from the California-based Andreessen Horowitz. Boston VCs have been especially active with Matrix Partners, Spark Capital and General Catalyst, aggressively adding New York companies to their portfolios.

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How can BoomTown put this as delicately as Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz would?

How about this: Her actions in regard to the Internet giant’s Asian relationships are about as bad as it gets these days.

After losing Yahoo Japan’s search and online advertising business to Google (GOOG) last month, followed by the loss of a major South Korean site’s search business, Yahoo is poised for a third strike with its partner in China, the Alibaba Group.

Sources close to the company said it is likely Alibaba will either partner with another search technology for sites that are now powered by Yahoo (YHOO) or build it internally.

That inevitability became crystal clear after Bartz gave an interview to Reuters that was posted yesterday.

In it, she claimed that the Alibaba Group “constantly” was asking Yahoo about repurchasing its 40 percent stake in the company and she was always putting its execs off with a big, fat no.

Alibaba, which has been in several word wars with Yahoo since Bartz took over, begged to differ, noting there was only one legitimate offer and that Yahoo engaged in discussions over it.

So, not exactly a no.

Said an Alibaba PR spokesman in a statement:

“We made an offer that included a partial sale and a specific plan to maximize the value of their remaining stake. That offer was rejected, and they countered with a very different proposal, which we found unjustifiable, and we terminated the discussions.”

Bartz then stuck the knife in deeper in an interview in The Wall Street Journal, published today, noting, “I personally think what is happening is [Alibaba CEO] Jack Ma would like to go public and like some of his stock back.”

That’s probably true, given that the eventual IPO of Alibaba’s Taobao online retail unit will boost value of Yahoo’s stake.

Still, Bartz’s words were as impolitic as a public company CEO could make, especially after a series of gaffes related to its ally in China.

Alibaba has made no bones about wanting it and Yahoo to go their own separate ways, with one exec saying in an interview last week, “Why do we need a financial investor with no business synergy or technology?”

While such noise has all the signs of a negotiating tactic, the growing tensions between Yahoo and Alibaba are quite real, and born from a series of uncomfortable encounters between Bartz and Ma.

Remember, this is the same exec who sold off a piece of Alibaba to former Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang, and with whom he had, and continues to have, a cordial relationship.

Yang is on the board of Alibaba, which is about to become another point of conflict after Bartz also said in the Journal interview that she “probably” would join it.

Said an Alibaba spokesman about that:

“Regarding reports of Carol Bartz seeking a board seat, we have no notice of that and also no notice of whether she intends to replace Jerry or seek an additional board seat.”

Now, that’s a nice welcome!

While sources said Alibaba is loath to have Bartz as a director, Yahoo does have the right to another seat on the four-person board, which also includes Masayoshi Son, the powerful Asian investor who was apparently behind the ending of Yahoo Japan’s search technology partnership with Yahoo.

It was Son himself, one of Yahoo’s earliest investors, several sources said, who jump-started the deal with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Why? According to numerous sources, the SoftBank founder had also soured on Yahoo management and its ability to monetize the very successful Yahoo Japan site.

While it might seem unusual that Yahoo Japan will be using Google’s search, it is not actually owned by Yahoo, which holds a 35 percent stake in the publicly traded company. SoftBank, the giant Japan-based Internet service provider and cell phone provider, has a stake of around 40 percent in Yahoo Japan.

As for NHN, which is South Korea’s largest Internet search engine, with a 65 percent share, it said in late August it would dump Yahoo technology and use its own after its deal ends later this year.

“We desperately need an advertising platform that’s more flexible and effective, with closer ties to the local market to respond to advertisers’ expectations promptly,” said NHN CEO Kim Sang Hun about ending its Yahoo relationship.

While each of these Asian situations are different, as Bartz will surely point out, it all adds up to trouble, given Yahoo has signed a deal with Microsoft (MSFT) to take over its search technology going forward globally.

Sources at Microsoft said management is exasperated at the turn of events, especially in Japan, which seemed a certainty for Yahoo to maintain as a partner.

The software giant has been trying to see if there are any ways to block the Google-Yahoo Japan deal via regulators there, which is a very long shot.

“Not ideal,” said one source close to the situation. “That would be an understatement.”

In this noisy war in Asia, perhaps understatement might be a good strategy going forward for Yahoo.

Until all the tension clears up, though, have a laugh at at this classic battle-of-wits scene from the movie “The Princess Bride,” which has the single best use of the classic land-war-in-Asia line:

It’s worth checking out an article in the New York Times today that points to a very questionable, but–as it turned out–politically savvy angel investment made by former eBay CEO and now Republican candidate for California governor Meg Whitman.

The piece, by Michael Luo, alleges that Whitman’s $1 million investment in late 2008 in a Hollywood entertainment company called Tools Down! Productions was made to ease a prominent Republican strategist away from working for her rival for the GOP nod.

That would be Steve Poizner, who lost to Whitman in the recent primary and who was close to working with Mike Murphy. Instead, with a little help from the piles of cash Whitman made from eBay (EBAY) stock, Murphy never took the job.

Well, not the Poizner job, at least. After telling people he was sick of politics and then getting the Whitman money days later for his still credit-free movie production company, Murphy became an adviser to Whitman a year later.

The bigger story the Times is touting, but does not quite deliver, is the advent of super-rich candidates in races this round, including another tech exec, former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina. She won the California GOP Senate primary.

This kind of thing has happened before, of course.

But what’s interesting is to see Silicon Valley’s digitally enabled moneybags step up to the very stained political table and jump right into the game.

What’s next? Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin buying everyone in San Francisco lattes for life to become mayor? Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s bid for president of the United States, via the leveraging of embarrassing photos from the social networking site?

And thank goodness Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) never wanted to run for office.

The Whitman campaign told the Times that the investment was disclosed and justified in that she had ample entertainment interest from her days as a strategic planning exec at Disney (DIS) and also as a board member of DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA).

Which is exactly what they would say, of course.

Thus, perhaps it is time to take a moment with Jimmy Stewart in a video clip from the classic film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” of his most potent “Lost Causes” scene:

The next logical category of camera after basic point-and-shoots (and before digital single-lens reflex, SLR, cameras) are the so-called megazoom cameras, capable of zeroing in on a subject with around 20x optical zoom strength. They also have fairly high megapixel counts, capturing about 10 to 12 MP each, and offer several automatic and manual settings for capturing photos.

The Nikon Coolpix P90

Most of the cameras in this category resemble SLRs, with bulkier builds and protruding zoom lenses. But they cost somewhere in the $400 range—significantly less expensive than SLRs, which often cost over $1,000 for the camera body alone (lenses are typically sold separately). If you don’t want to spend the money or you aren’t completely sure you want to commit to learning the ins and outs of an SLR, this midrange model is a sound compromise.

Of course, these cameras have some downsides. Serious photographers who have grown accustomed to the high-quality photos of SLRs will point out the comparatively poorer photo quality of megazooms. But for average users like me, the quality of photos captured using a megazoom digital camera is a welcome upgrade from a point-and-shoot.

Another significant difference for point-and-shoot users will be adjusting to the size and overall bulk of megazoom cameras. Users can’t toss them into a small purse or pocket on the way out the door like they do with compact point-and-shoots. Instead, megazooms are usually seen hanging from neck straps or stowed away in camera shoulder bags.

Canon's PowerShot SX20 IS

Some smaller cameras are categorized as megazooms, including the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1K and Casio Exilim EX-H10BK, though both look more like thick point-and-shoot cameras. These Panasonic (PC) and Casio models cost between $250 and $300 and offer 12x and 10x optical zooms, respectively. But they aren’t capable of some of the more advanced features found on expensive megazooms—like 24x optical zoom or some manual settings and shooting modes.

This Christmas, I was fortunate to receive one such megazoom camera, the Nikon Coolpix P90, which costs around $400. Though I’ve used other cameras in this category, I was especially struck by how the capabilities of this megazoom altered my photo-capturing behavior.

In the Snow

Granted, not everyone will react as I did, but I took my camera and set out on photography jaunts around my neighborhood in Washington, D.C., scaling piles of snow to capture just the right angle, and using tree branches to frame shots of the Capitol in the distance.

The details and colors in the photos that my camera captured were so much more vivid than those on my admittedly older point-and-shoot that I wondered what took me so long to make the upgrade.

I spent the first week with this camera using it in its Auto setting—an old habit that carried over from my point-and-shoot days (also because I didn’t have time to read through the manual).

But even in the automatic mode, photos looked astonishingly good—prompting compliments from family and friends. A week later, I delved into the camera’s user manual and learned how to use many more features.

A Downside

One big downside: Though the Nikon Coolpix P90 weighs only 16.2 ounces, its bulky shape prohibits it from being carried along on a whim.

I brought the camera on a family vacation, but left it in my room rather than trying to fit it in my bag during a trip to the beach and on a zip line ride through the rain forest. A compact point-and-shoot would’ve easily fit into a pocket.

But then I have my BlackBerry Curve 8900′s camera—with 3.2 megapixels, auto focus and a built-in flash—for snapping photos on the go. (Plus, I can instantly share the shots via email, Facebook or Twitter.)

As more mobile devices include good quality cameras, like Google’s (GOOG) new $179 (with T-Mobile) Nexus One super-smart phone with five megapixels and a flash, fewer people will need to carry point-and-shoots for quickly capturing digital memories.

A Pleasure to Edit

Editing photos captured by a megazoom is a real pleasure. I cropped and zoomed to my heart’s content, noticing more details in photos after looking at them on my computer than when I initially took the pictures. When I needed to trim someone or something out of a shot, I didn’t worry about degrading the photo’s overall quality. And because of their high resolution, my photos can be enlarged with very little quality or color compromise.

The Casio Exilim EX-H10BK

In addition to Nikon, many other companies make cameras for the megazoom category. Some examples are Canon’s $400 PowerShot SX20 IS, Sony’s (SNE) $480 Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 and Casio’s $400 EX-FH20. These offer several shooting modes, as well as scene modes for common settings like sunsets, backlight, night portraits, burst mode and panoramas. They have optical and/or digital-image stabilization to thwart shaky hands, settings for focusing in on a subject manually or automatically, and ways to save frequently used manual settings.

Flash Features

Some megazooms have built-in flashes, while others use an external mount so that a flash can be snapped on or off for use. (My Nikon came with a built-in flash.) They often have more than one flash that fits in the mount, leaving users with the choice of which one to use.

The digital cameras include LCD viewing screens as well as optical viewfinders. (The latter is commonly left off of many small point-and-shoot cameras, but it’s really helpful for people who want to hold the camera up to one eye for steadier shooting.)

Some LCD screens, like the Canon’s, swing out and swivel around. The Nikon’s can be adjusted up 90 degrees or down 45 degrees for shooting below or above a subject.

No matter which model, the megazoom category of digital cameras offers a combination of advanced features and affordability that could entice people who are ready to take the next step into a world of more serious digital photography.

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Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

At the top of a VideoSurf results page for ‘Mad Men,’ users can search for clips featuring specific characters.

This week I tested VideoSurf.com, a site that claims to be the first to search videos by “seeing” images that appear in these videos. The company says its technology can analyze a clip’s visual content, as well as its metadata — especially when searching for people. VideoSurf has analyzed and categorized more than 12 billion visual moments on the Web to understand who the most important characters and scenes are in a video, and it uses this knowledge to sort clips according to relevancy.

Search results on VideoSurf spread out videos in a filmstrip-like format, distinguishing one scene from the next. Users can choose an option to show only faces, which helps if you’re looking for a specific person in a long video or movie. And when looking at videos from certain sources, you can select a scene from the filmstrip and jump ahead to that scene rather than sit through the entire clip.

When it works, VideoSurf is one of those technologies that make you wonder why someone didn’t think of it sooner. The site aggregates content from about 60 sources, including YouTube, CNN Video, Hulu, ESPN and Comedy Central, and a sorting tool weeds out unwanted results like the irksome slideshows that are labeled as videos. VideoSurf can find videos on all kinds of subjects, but it really shines when it finds well-known people.

But VideoSurf has some rough edges and doesn’t always work as it should. In its defense, the site is still in its public beta, or trial, stage, and plans to be full-blown by early next year. Right now, one of its best features, the ability to jump ahead to specific scenes, works with video from only a handful of sources including YouTube, MetaCafe, DailyMotion and Google (GOOG) Video. Videos from Hulu.com confusingly allow jumping ahead only from certain screens.

Additionally, I came across a couple of videos that were no longer available, though they were listed in search results. And a customizable VideoSurf home page for users with accounts on the site saves searches but not specific clips; VideoSurf plans to fix this next week by adding a favorites page where users can store and share favorite videos with others.

Still, I really grew to like VideoSurf’s clear way of displaying content that would be otherwise buried within videos. Rather than trying to guess a video’s contents by looking at a single representative image, VideoSurf’s filmstrip views showed me exactly what I’d be watching. In many cases, I viewed a video I might not have otherwise watched because its filmstrip showed shots of scenes that looked interesting.

On the left-hand side of the search-results page, VideoSurf users can narrow results according to Content Type, Categories and Video Sources to see just what they’re looking for — or, often more important, what they’re not looking for. Content Type, for example, includes slideshows, Web series, full television episodes and full movies; a search can include only videos in a particular category (say, slideshows) or exclude that category altogether by unmarking the box beside it.

Most search-results pages include tiled still images at the top representing the characters in the videos. By selecting one of these characters, users can refine search results to show only videos with that character. For example, I typed the title of a favorite television show, “Brothers and Sisters,” into the search box and saw the names and images of seven actors on the show at the top of the screen. I selected Sally Field and was redirected to results of videos featuring only the mother she plays on the show.

I used VideoSurf to search for Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” music video, and then changed the date parameters to find only videos posted this week. This retrieved a Saturday Night Live skit in which the pop singer spoofs her own video with help from three men in tights — including Justin Timberlake. While the SNL skit ran, a list of related videos appeared in a column on the right, including clips of J.T.’s past SNL skits.

Occasionally, annotations appear on videos, but these come from the source — not VideoSurf. If overlaid text appears on YouTube videos, it can be turned off using an icon in the bottom right of the YouTube screen. Video-sharing sites that use introductory pages such as pre-rolls before each video will still show those pages.

VideoSurf makes it easy to send specific clips of videos to friends. I did so by selecting a Share option and adjusting slide bars to trim the clip to start and end at scenes I preferred. Clips shared with friends via email are sent with the VideoSurf filmstrip, giving others the ability to also know what the video will include so that they, too, can discern whether or not they want to watch it.

Clips can be shared on social-networking sites like del.icio.us, MySpace and Facebook, though VideoSurf’s helpful filmstrip didn’t show up on these sites like it did in emails.

I also tested an add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser called Greasemonkey that works with VideoSurf. When installed, this displays VideoSurf’s helpful filmstrip beneath search results from Google Video, YouTube, Yahoo (YHOO) or CBS.com (CBS). Once installed, filmstrips illustrating important scenes appear along with the normal text results for videos, and some of the filmstrips enable jumping ahead to specific scenes. This somewhat techie Greasemonkey extension can save people the extra step of making a separate visit to VideoSurf.com to watch a specific clip.

VideoSurf uses smart technology that can save people the aggravation of watching videos that aren’t what they appear to be. Since so much Web content now includes videos, a visual search tool that can better assess videos like VideoSurf is a good idea. When this site improves its now-flaky ability to jump ahead to specific scenes in videos, it will be even more valuable.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com