May 30, 2007 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for May 30, 2007

Web Do-Gooders Win Cash

We almost skipped the NetSquared convention this week, given the 21 web-based projects presenting are all not-for profit organizations. But hey, GigaTeam needs to feel all warm and fuzzy sometimes too. So we spent a few hours watching pitches from social organizations that used the conference … Read More »

iTunes Plus=Increased album sales (to me)

With the release of iTunes Plus (Geez, Apple, could you have waited much later in May?) iTunes users can now decide whether they’re interested in DRM-free single tracks for an additional 30¢. But it’s DRM-free albums that are far more interesting to me. When the iTunes … Read More »

 
 

Google just made mobile computers quite a bit more useful when offline with their new Google Gears beta. The official Google description is: A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server A … Read More »

Quick reminder in case you’re just "tuning in": James has a guest spot on the radio in less than 10 minutes. From 9 pm EDT to 11 pm, James … Read More »

Google Goes Offline, on Purpose

Google is looking to help web applications get offline, releasing a new Gears open source project. At a demonstration, today it is releasing a version of Google Reader that works offline via a manual sync. Google Gears is a developer release with new JavaScript APIs … Read More »

Big Job Cuts at Big Tech Companies

There might be a lot of money flowing in Silicon Valley right now — four startups announced that they’ve been acquired just today. But for some of the big tech companies, and their employees, times aren’t so good. Motorola said today its going to cut another … Read More »

FoneLink from Nova Media bridges your Nokia S60 phone with your Mac; not just for PIM synching, but for media conversion as well. I have a Mac but … Read More »

Synergy is My New Favorite Thing

This is by no means a new bit of software, but I’ve finally had a reason to use it, and I couldn’t be more blown away. Synergy (not to be confused with the iTunes control app by Wincent) is more or less a … Read More »

YouTube Comes to Apple TV

Speaking at the D Conference, Steve Jobs today announced YouTube videos will be included on the Apple TV. Holy user-generated validation! Om was live-blogging the speech for GigaOM when Jobs announced that YouTube had made its way to the living room: “We got this working, and we … Read More »

Open Thread: Have You Started Mobile Browsing?

Mobile phones are not ideal for surfing the web and yet they have their advantages. They’re portable and cheap plus most of us carry them with us all the time. Might we be looking towards a world where lightweight devices with small screens provide our default … Read More »

Diluting The Genius Brand

When I first read through this marketing program from Microsoft, I didn’t quite get it. The fact that Microsoft has a Mac Business Unit threw me there for a moment – why would they be touting Geniuses…? Then it dawned on me that … Read More »

The speculation on Palm’s new device has come to an end now that Read More »

More Must Reads

I am going to try and live blog Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ interview at the D Conference. Steve Jobs comes on stage, wearing the all familiar turtle neck and jeans. Apple is in two businesses today and we will be the three busienss soon. We love our … Read More »

You can tell the Apple iPhone launch is imminent: we’re starting to see handset availability announcements nearly every day. Earlier in the week it was RIM’s BlackBerry 8830 … Read More »

Telepresence World is next week. Telepresence, for those who haven’t experienced it, refers to videoconferencing that renders the “remote participants life-size, with fluid motion, accurate flesh-tones and flawless audio.” This isn’t the rinky-dink stuff that you do with a webcam and a copy of your … Read More »

In search of: An engineering ninja who wants to help keep pirates’ hands off Pirates of the Caribbean. Motion Pictures Laboratories, Inc. (MovieLabs) is a non-profit startup based in Palo Alto funded by the six major Hollywood studios to advance research in areas the movie … Read More »

Fresh off the NewTeeVee news ticker, headlines from the world of online video: ABC News Does User-Gen, i-Caught show won’t have focus beyond user video contributions (Variety) iJustine Debuts in Justin.tv Network, with the camera pointing at her head rather than on her head. (site, Read More »

Update: So, it’s official, eBay has bought StumbleUpon for $75 million. Here’s the release. eBay, the San Jose, Calif.-based auction giant is likely to announce its acquisition of Stumble Upon after the close to markets today, according to informed sources. The news of a pending … Read More »

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/271552687 If the official Microsoft video of Surface Computing didn’t whet your appetite, perhaps this one from Popular Mechanics will. I think that most mainstream folks are missing the concept of object interaction with this platform; there’s a great example of it in this video … Read More »

Sometimes we get so focused on UMPCs and ultra-portables, we inadvertently forget about the ‘standard’ portable devices. Lenovo is here to remind us now that … Read More »

Bud.tv, that undead “entertainment” channel that tried to lure you in with attractive women, chimps, and Chris Farley’s brother will be back, but edgier. And you know it’s bad when the Wall Street Journal article reporting it uses the word “edgy,” … Read More »

iLounge is reporting that some iTunes music store customers have had problems listening to purchased audio books on their iPods.  Some of the titles will play in iTunes but not play on the iPod.  Apple’s response to those affected by this problem is pretty strange: “Our … Read More »

It’s a good morning to be a social media web startup. First Fox Interactive Media sends out a release officially announcing it’s buying both photo sharing site Photobucket and slide show widget creator Flektor. Then CBS announces that it’s bought music … Read More »

The big Microsoft news today is surface computing and as a nearly full-time touch computer user, I couldn’t be happier. The last year of using a touchscreen Tablet … Read More »

MetroPCS (PCS), a Dallas, Texas-based regional wireless carrier, that went public recently and raised a billion dollars is looking to jump into the fray for the 700 MHz spectrum, and is preparing to participate in the upcoming auctions. The company said this morning that … Read More »

Holidays are great but they are usually followed by the dreaded short week.  Why dreaded?  Because there are only 4 work days this week here’s my schedule today: 8:00    Drive across town to first meeting (using TomTom One)9:00    Project review meeting (actually 3 projects reviewed … Read More »

Marc Orchant is learning to think small and it’s about time (and space, and battery life).  His recent trip to NYC was done using this setup as his mobile office: This … Read More »

Microsoft and Palm both have big announcements coming at the D conference today.  Speculation was rampant as word leaked out that both of these companies would announce innovative new hardware that would revolutionize the way we compute.  Pretty heady stuff and had the entire web wagging.  … Read More »

Britanyj Crimson earned 34,000 dollars last month online through the sale of jewelry she designed and created herself. That doesn’t include what her shop took in as donations for Relay For Life. Not bad for a business that didn’t exist before February 2007. Britanyj is selling … Read More »

If you’ve heard of Michael Cera, it’s probably because you (like me) were an obsessive fan of the canceled FOX series Arrested Development. Just 15 when the documentary-style comedy started airing in 2003, Cera showed incredible maturity as a comedian in the role of George-Michael Bluth, … Read More »

<cue music> Wuh-oh, on the radio, oh-oh, on the radio.</cue music> Technology Bytes is a two hour weekly radio show on Wednesdays, 8 – 10 pm (CDT) on 90.1 FM KPFT in Houston and today I am going to be a guest on the … Read More »

While Jon Stewart does it nightly with razor wit and Steven Colbert does it with truthiness, James Kotecki does political media revue with pencil puppets and a webcam. The Economist cites Kotecki, who posts as “EmergencyCheese” on YouTube, as “probably the … Read More »

Yesterday we wrote about Click to See Media and its fresh $8 million in second-round funding from Steamboat Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Sequoia Capital China. We had a chance to speak with one of the company founders Tuesday, who declined to be named … Read More »

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