January, 2008 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for January 2008

The cult hit series Sanctuary will make the leap from the web to TV, as it was picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel today. The network greenlit the production of 13 episodes based on the award-winning drama, and will shoot a new two-hour premiere … Read More »

Does Portal's Success Presage Game Industry Shift?

The developers of Portal, the bestselling multiplatform game released last year, have confirmed they will be adding to it — though no details were provided because the details are still being worked out. A tremendously popular title with hardcore gamers, such an announcement … Read More »

 
 

Web 2.0 darling Twitter has long struggled with stability, a problem which came to a head when millions of users were faced with an error screen that lasted late into the morning today as the startup moved its system off Joyent’s hardware starting at 10 … Read More »

The Daily Sprout

The State of Green Business 2008: Joel Makower and the editors of GreenBiz have put together a report, the first of an ongoing study, indexing how businesses are “greening” their operation models – StateOfGreenBusiness. Chinese Solar IPOs. Yawn: RenaSola, a Zhejiang province-based maker of the solar … Read More »

MarsEdit Update Kicks Your Blogging Up A Notch

I’m not one to get excited about dot-update releases from a software vendor, but a tool that was mentioned in my “must have” postMarsEdit – has just updated from version 2.0 to 2.1, with that “0.1″ adding far more than a tenth … Read More »

Are the Markets Getting Too Heavy for Google to Lift?

Ever since Google’s stock-withering earnings report, I’ve had the Flaming Lips’ “Waiting for a Superman” stuck in my head. Things are indeed getting heavy, and everyone was waiting for Google to lift the sun into the sky. That didn’t happen, and Google’s stock was … Read More »

Macs are not like Windows machines and anyone who switches immediately runs into a few things that are different that take some getting used to.  Dwight Silverman is a true bi geek who knows both platforms as well as anyone on the planet and he’s written … Read More »

No Way Are We Getting a G-Phone from Dell

The rumors of computer giant Dell teaming up with Google to produce an Android-powered mobile phone are a nice break from all the iPhone hooplah, but folks, it’s not going to happen. Thanks to its hiring of Ron Garriques, the former head of … Read More »

Regular Checkups to Keep Your Wi-Fi Signal Spiffy

If your home Wi-Fi network is like most people’s, you’re probably not getting the very best performance you can out of it. Easy and inexpensive enhancements, such as adding an access point or a simple cycled reboot, can make a world of difference. Also, even small … Read More »

Not only does Nokia get a pat on the back for licensing ActiveSync, but kudos to them for getting another Mail for Exchange update out. Not much in this update that … Read More »

Motorola said today it’s exploring strategic options that include selling its handset business. The news comes on the heels of the company announcing a terrible fourth quarter, thanks to continued weakness in the handset business. Any buyer should look carefully at Motorola’s handset business. By … Read More »

Yahoo buys Maven Networks

NewTeeVee is reporting that Yahoo is paying $160-to-$170 million. Read More »

More Must Reads

Yahoo is close to acquiring enterprise video startup Maven Networks for between $160 million and $170 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. TechCrunch was first to print word of the acquisition. Maven provides video hosting and distribution services for Gannett, Hearst, Fox … Read More »

How do you decide what you should do from your to do list? You have a free hour: should you write a blog post? Prospect for clients? Code a new feature? Instant message your boss? Take a nap? In other words, what are your priorities? … Read More »

Silicon Alley Insider has notes from a speech by David Eun, Google VP of content partnerships, at the SIIA Information Industry Summit in New York. My comments in parentheses. - Most traffic to YouTube comes from outside the U.S.; there are now 19 localized versions … Read More »

Putting a video on YouTube almost guarantees you an audience, right? In many cases that’s true. Fifty percent of videos get at least 100 views in the first month they’re on the site, according to a survey by ViralManager (via Data Mining). Read More »

Kingston just boosted the capacity of their SDHC card family by doubling the storage over their 8GB SD memory card. MSRP is $231 for the Class … Read More »

Even if you’ve followed the ballooning costs of the clean coal project FutureGen over the past few years, the news out this week that the Bush Administration has basically cut its support for the project is still a shocker. The DOE issued a press release … Read More »

A three-day conference dedicated to everything telecom — from the future of telephony and SMS in the era of social media to Android to the GSMA’s IPX private network — will be held in Mountain View, Calif., next month, from March 12-14. Kicking off … Read More »

Challengers Nip at Nielsen’s Heels; TNS jumps into the ratings game, taking on the stalwart by collecting data from 10,000 DirecTV set top boxes, and TiVo signs up CBS for its research services. (TNS: The Wall Street Journal; TiVo: release) MTV to Use Flixwagon for … Read More »

There are reasons why user interfaces like Apple’s “Cover Flow” are popular. Most people are pretty good at pattern recognition, so having little pictures of things to recognize makes sense; it’s easier to find what you’re looking for by flipping through pictures than by scanning … Read More »

Amazon is buying Audible for $300 million in cash. It’s a smart move by the Seattle-based e-tailer that is spending nearly 20 percent of its fourth-quarter end net cash. Why do I like this deal? So far, Amazon has made a living out of distributing … Read More »

I’ve held off on buying an Eye-Fi SD card for my Panasonic Lumix because there were a few first-generation compromises to deal with. One of those looks to be … Read More »

Solar stocks have largely cooled in the month of January, thanks to a chilly combo of a short silicon supply and fears over losing an important investment tax credit. But this week solar stock watchers got a much-needed bout of sun from the earnings of thin-film … Read More »

Amazon.com sees where the future of media is heading, and is slowly amassing the properties and contracts it needs to make sure its retail empire is at the forefront. Today’s $300 million agreement to buy digital audio book reseller Audible.com is just another … Read More »

I wish I could tell you more but sometimes Palm makes it a bit challenging. There’s a new update available today for Treo 755p owners on the Sprint network running … Read More »

Showtime won’t be mailing out the usual stack of DVD screeners of its programs to Emmy voters this year. Instead, the pay cable network is partnering with Brightcove to stream 82 full-length episodes of shows like Weeds and Dexter to members of the Academy … Read More »

What does 120 mph on land, 45 knots on water and runs on natural gas?  Why the Rinspeed Splash, of course.  The Daily Mail has a cool look at this amphibian car that is produced in Switzerland and has been wowing visitors to the Geneva … Read More »

Including Windows XP drivers with the Asus Eee PC has been a big hit, so I’m not completely surprised that Everex will be following suit. CloudBooker has confirmation from Paul … Read More »

CBS Mobile chief Cyriac Roeding speaking at a conference in New York lamented about the utter complexity of the mobile ecosystem and the problems facing mobile advertising. His quotes are just money: “How do we expect anyone to take this seriously as an … Read More »

One of the CES highlights we previously mentioned has a nice follow up today. James and I had the pleasure of sitting down in the Press Room with Ian … Read More »

If web site bookmarking is something you do day in and day out, there’s a new bookmarking tool you need to add to your browser – Instapaper (via TechCrunch). The side project of Marco Arment, creator of the very cool micro-blogging service Read More »

We know we’ve given cleantech venture investor Vinod Khosla a lot of ink this week, with our 5-questions interview. But, hey, we just follow where the money flows. According to a regulatory filing picked up by PeHub.com, Khosla Ventures is leading a Series … Read More »

There exist a lot of practical reasons for carriers to embrace flat-rate calling, but it remains to be seen if any of the current plans will be expanded to the point of Internet-like, flat-rate levels. Indeed, the Internet’s 300 million consumer broadband connections remain the best … Read More »

The Worldwatch Institute released a report today singing the praises of carbon trading and carbon markets. The report puts the global carbon trading business up 80 percent from 2006 to $59.2 billion in traded credits. While this growth is extremely encouraging, these numbers need … Read More »

The other day I had coffee with an entrepreneur whom we’ll call Shai. Shai was entertaining me with good, and not-so-good, stories about his experiences learning the ropes in the new media business in the U.K. One pearl of wisdom stuck out. Shai recalled a period at … Read More »

DEMO REPORT: Watching TV clips on the Internet is like listening to the radio on your TV: Sure, you can do it, but you’re really missing the point. At least, that’s what Perry Wu, BitGravity’s co-founder and CEO, thinks. BitGravity runs a high-capacity content delivery … Read More »

DOE Scraps FutureGen: Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman announced that the DOE will be spreading its eggs across several baskets, investing in carbon capture and sequestration at multiple integrated gasification combined cycle power plants – Department of Energy. Who Will Profit at the Hawaii Climate Talks?: … Read More »

If there’s one thing gamers love more than pwning their opponents, it’s publicly bragging about it afterward. That’s the dynamic that should help popularize GameStrata, a new social network for gamers launching this week that’s backed by seed money from “top-tier venture firms … Read More »

LogMeIn and GoToMyPC have been remote desktop access staples for some time, but there’s a new kid in town. Rove Mobile is showing off their PCMobilizr product … Read More »

A new report ranking broadband connectivity argues that it’s not how much you have but what you do with it. And according to the Connectivity Scorecard, no one is doing enough. Instead of measuring bandwidth speed or how much people pay to get connected, the … Read More »

If you’re reading this, then you probably aren’t in Miami Beach right now attending the 3rd Annual Mobile Adult Content Congress where porn business folks are gathered to discuss how to get their naughty bits (literally) onto mobile devices. But unless topics like “How To … Read More »

It’s easy to invest in the growing number of cleantech startups — open wallet, toss money out onto the eco-friendly craps table. But it’s proving a lot harder to get returns from the companies, which often have longer exit cycles, and can require more capital than … Read More »

After a recent post I did on miniature Mac applications small enough to store on a USB thumb drive, I got a lot of suggestions for alternatives. I’ve tried several of them and found them useful. In this post I’ll round up more small-footprint applications … Read More »

If Steve Jobs’ promise of a new direct-download rental service prompted you to buy an Apple TV, you may be wondering why, after plugging it in, there aren’t any rentals available yet. That’s because the Apple TV firmware update has yet to be released, … Read More »

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