February, 2007 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for February 2007

Launchpad: Voice, Innovation and Beer

BURLINGAME, Calif. — For too long, innovation in the Voice over IP world has simply meant cheaper calling plans. But Tuesday night at the inaugural Launch Pad event, a short list of innovators showed that era may be at an end, as truly interesting voice-enabled applications … Read More »

Allfreecalls.net: We Will Return

BURLINGAME, Calif. — We get knocked down, but we get up again — so promises Pat Phelan, CEO of Allfreecalls.net, which is offline now but working hard to reappear. One of the casualties of the legal pressure brought by AT&T against the Iowa-based free-calling operations, … Read More »

 
 

I have been using a T-Mobile Dash Windows Mobile 5 smartphone for almost a week now and enjoying the seamless web integration that T-Mobile has put into the Dash.  Push email, the T-Zones connectivity, even web browsing on the Dash has been a real joy.  I … Read More »

Blockbuster is again in talks to acquire studio-owned online movie service Movielink for less than $50 million in cash and stock, according to the Wall Street Journal. Blockbuster, having worked its tail off to compete with Netflix in the mail-order DVD business, is looking for … Read More »

What’s on GigaNet

WebWorkerDaily: Five ways to be nice to your eyes WebWorkerDaily: Seriosity, Seriously? GigaGamez: Next up, Ad-supported mobile gaming GigaGamez: MMOs meet MySpace NewTeeVee: Blockbuster to get VOD, via Movielink NewTeeVee: Sex, lies and videotape- Reality NewTeeVee GigaOm Jobs: HTML Production Engineer at Zimbra Read More »

News Corp is pooling its efforts to show FOX television programming on more than 200 broadcast affiliate web sites, according to a press release sent to us by Fox Interactive Media. In general, local stations have been less than happy with networks selling programs on demand and … Read More »

Introducing the GigaGamez Stock Tracker

Since GigaGamez is all about the business of games, it just makes sense that we would want to take a look at what’s happening when it comes to gaming technology in the stock market. We’re going to be following the market closely and keeping an eye … Read More »

Medion’s UMPC looks delayed

That’s what Steve over at Carrypad found out after an e-mail conversation with the UMPC product manager. Obviously, Steve carries more weight than I do as I shot a note to the PM … Read More »

Five ways to be nice to your eyes

Your eyes are the products of millions of years of evolution. Unfortunately, this means that they’re optimized for spotting prey across the savanna, not for peering at letters built up of little dots on tiny screens. In recent years, optometrists have come to recognize a complex … Read More »

Web Word Processing Gets Upgrade

Web-based word processors add collaboration and remote access to Microsoft Word, but little else. Often, their makers claim stripping down Word for the web is a selling point — they say complicated functions would be better left to a desktop app. But Boston-based startup Virtual … Read More »

Google Maps Traffic: not just for mobiles

More Must Reads

It’s all fun and games until somebody gets their eye poked out — or caught on camera, uploaded, cached and mirrored across the internets. Maria Puenta in the USA Today article “Hello to less privacy” draws some rather dire conclusions from the countless crotch … Read More »

Mobile video startup MobiTV says it’s passed 2 million paying subscribers, which is double what the company had a year ago. I’m not much of a fan of the mobile video over 3G viewing experience right now, but it looks like more people are signing … Read More »

Three words: "It’s about time!". At this point, I wonder why most, if not all relatively new digital cameras don’t have a way to connect to a high-definition television set. Here’s why: … Read More »

If you sat through the too-long, too-boring narcissist display of Hollywood’s utter lack of creative imagination this past Sunday, aka the Oscars 2007, you know there is no way you want to watch the self congratulatory drivel ever again. All you want to do is watch the … Read More »

This is either a ridiculously silly idea, or it will revolutionize how we deal with business email. SecondLife and similar virtual reality worlds have taken our work lives and turned it into a game. But can we take a game and turn it into a new … Read More »

Google today added traffic details for more than 30 U.S. cities to Google Maps, showing whether a route is clear or congested. Yahoo Maps, of course, already has this feature. Google has included traffic in its mobile mapping apps, such as the one I … Read More »

Verizon Wireless is getting all set to launch a new mobile television service based on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network. The service is going to launch in select markets on March 1. RCR Wireless first reported the news of the planned launch date, and we … Read More »

In a recent interview with N’Gai Croal of Newsweek, Phil Harrison, President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, admits that there have been some problems with the way Sony has gone about the PS3 launch. “We did a very bad job between E3 2006 and the … Read More »

Two interesting BIOS updates have recently appeared for Origami specified UMPCs. One for the Samsung Q1 and one for the Asus R2H: Rory left a comment on our last post indicating … Read More »

Despite not offering equivalents on its own site, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has gotten YouTube to take down all its clips of the Oscars, reports Variety. Ric Robertson, exec administrator for the Academy, said the organization had its content pulled “to help … Read More »

The lack of HID drivers on the Samsung Q1 series of UMPC has plagued us for a while; early Vista builds had few issues, but the final … Read More »

Just a quick tidbit of info to pass along, although this is an odd Zune issue, and an even odder solution. I actually lost the ability to sign in to … Read More »

I spoke with Steve Woolf and Zadi Diaz today about their plans for an online video film festival, Pixelodeon, which will be hosted at the American Film Institute‘s screening rooms in Los Angeles on June 9th and 10th. Blip.tv recently held their … Read More »

Netvibes, the customized portal / RSS reader / nerve center of many fans, is no longer chained to the desktop. If you have a Netvibes account, try pointing your mobile device browser over … Read More »

Recently LifeHacker posed the question to readers, Mac or PC for Business? It’s been a somewhat common theme in recent months as Apple gains more and more momentum. Execs are being seen (and heard-of) toting MacBook Pro laptops around, in meetings, etc. … Read More »

How far can you push a widget? YouTube video embeds, quite possibly the most successful widgets of all time, are seriously failing these days. Click on most any embedded clip, it seems, and you’ll get a “This video is no longer available” warning. Perhaps this is … Read More »

I drive around town most days and almost every time I see a motorist do something stupid (and dangerous) I see the ever-present cell phone stuck to the side of the idiot’s head.  I wish we’d do something like the Scots who are now using speed … Read More »

A driver in Los Angeles had plugged his laptop into the cigarette lighter and was apparently working while driving when he swerved into oncoming traffic and was killed when he plowed into a Hummer.  Police found his laptop still running (wonder what brand that was?) but … Read More »

Apologies for a rather quick and dirty screencast this week. I’m headed out of town and wanted to make sure to get something out. So today’s is a quickie, but something you can easily build on to become more efficient with Quicksilver. Watch the screencast, … Read More »

The internet is a transitory place, but you can generally rely on web pages hanging around for a while. Text and photos don’t start disappearing from online articles at random. Google is aggravatingly good at storing every little bit of information about you that’s ever made … Read More »

Hovr is a new mobile gaming company that has capitalized on something that we haven’t really seen in the mobile space so far: ad-based gaming. With a new web portal that has been in a soft-beta since January, Hovr, without the help of advertising, has … Read More »

We know we’ve been a little too post-happy today, but there’s a few more things we’d like to mention. Below, news about Revver, Pixsy, the latest YouTube hoax, and Brightcove. Remember all the hubbub about Revver being blocked on MySpace? We were surprised when the ban wasn’t … Read More »

YouTube, Joost and dozens of online video start-ups have done something many thought impossible: they have gotten the telecom executives excited. So excited that some of them are sponsoring Web 2.0 cocktail parties and cutting deals with little companies, hoping that Internet … Read More »

Infinera, one of the shining stars amongst new telecom start-ups has filed an S-1, hoping to go public sometime in the near future. It is not the only optical/networking related start-up looking to tap the public markets. BigBand Networks is another IPO … Read More »

Come and join the GigaTeam tonight! The GigaOM ETel Reception will kick off at 8pm at the San Francisco Airport Marriott, right after the GigaOM/ETel LaunchPad event San Francisco Airport Marriott 1800 Old Bayshore Highway Burlingame, CA 94010 USA Read More »

In what could only be called a great coup for Dynamism, today the cool gadget emporium announced that a lot of the high tech gadgetry they sell online will be available on the Best Buy Escape online store.  Current offerings: • Asus Ultra Mobile PC with … Read More »

Heh, I guess the very title of this post is a blanket statement now that I read it. That’s OK, if Jason Busch can summarily make the following statements, I suppose it’s only fair that I make one too. At the beginning of an Outlook2007 … Read More »

What a terrible day for Microsoft Vista! It is getting a lot of negative reviews, with some reviewers urging people to stick to the old XP-Office 2003 combination. Chris Pirillo, the biggest Microsoft Windows proponent out there says he is breaking up with Vista. … Read More »

Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt is part of a team looking to build a new national public-safety wireless network, which they say would be combined with a open-access, commercial 4G offering that would offer wholesale services to carrier customers. While similar in theory to the idea floated … Read More »

Last month we featured measurement from Compete.com of the top 20 online video sites, according to its panel. Compete ranks according to “sessions” spent on a site, but it’s interesting to note that the number of unique visitors to one or more of the top … Read More »

… or if that doesn’t grab you, how about World of MyCraft, or even Third Life? A new start-up called Kaneva is gunning for the market somewhere between online worlds and social networks with an avatar-based space now in closed Beta. Not so much a … Read More »

After reading this post by Matt Miller, I’m starting to think maybe so! Since I’ve used Pocket PC / Windows Mobile devices almost exclusively for seven years, I realize … Read More »

If you’re a fan of Quicksilver or Launchbar, undoubtedly you’ve had the debate over which is king. If this has ever been the case, you may be interested to check out the blog dedicated to Quicksilver or Launchbar being the better launcher apps for … Read More »

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