January, 2009 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for January 2009

We’ve been hearing about “pico projectors” for a good while, those tiny pocketable projectors that are far easier to travel with than the bigger standard projectors in the big bags.  Pico projectors are the size of small gadgets but have promised to deliver a good presentation … Read More »

MyFolio: A Network That Showcases Artists

Working as a freelance artist or musician can be a trying experience, at best. It’s still a field where, in general, the work speaks volumes and can more than make up for a relatively shallow C.V. But how best to show off your work, and make … Read More »

 
 

Barrett Out, Jane Shaw In As Intel Chair

Intel’s Chairman Craig Barrett said today that he will step down in May. After 35 years with the company, seven of them as the CEO and almost almost four as chair, Barrett is announcing his departure at a time when the chipmaker is slashing … Read More »

Net Sucks Up More Power, But Also More Energy Efficient

With a record number of viewers watching video streams of the presidential inauguration this week, it’s not hard to see why energy consumption of the Internet has doubled between 2000 and 2006. And it’s just going to consume more energy as greater numbers turn to … Read More »

How to Learn From Unfulfilled Goals

The key to achieving your goals is setting reasonable targets in the first place. Learn from my mistakes and pick up some great tips about goal-setting. Read More »

Senate OKs DTV Delay, Still Needs Money for Coupons

The Senate late Thursday night agreed on a bill that would delay the transition from broadcasting analog to digital television signals by four months. It will vote on that bill next week. Meanwhile, the House this week approved the $6 billion in broadband funding offered … Read More »

Boxee is telling their Mac users to get LOST — that is, they are telling them that they can watch the hit show on their Mac. Boxee is releasing a new update for their Mac version today that allows users to stream content from ABC. The … Read More »

White House Flip-Flops on YouTube Privacy Exemption; Obama’s administration had exempted the video-sharing site from federal rules relating to cookies and privacy, but later backpedaled and implemented a fix that limited YouTube’s ability to track visitors to the White House web site. (CNET) Senate Closer to … Read More »

http://www.youtube.com/v/Sxz7kkXsivw&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01 Today I’m offering a short video look at a free application called Switcher. It’s for Windows Vista devices and only those with Aero functionality enabled. Switcher adds another useful way to navigate around through your active applications. There’s a Tiled view that reminds … Read More »

Up to now, Acer has only had a smaller, 8.9-inch display netbook available. With that single form factor, they’ve actually become the number one netbook brand on the planet in 2008. ASUS, HP, Dell and others won’t want to hear today’s news then: Acer UK … Read More »

The Vatican officially launched its own YouTube channel today. Updated daily, the channel’s description says its mission is to offer “news coverage of the main activities of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and of relevant Vatican events.” The site offers translations in Italian, English, … Read More »

Startup Shortcuts: An App for Misbehaving Macs

You own an iPhone. You probably own a Mac as well. We all know that there are startup keyboard shortcuts for every troubleshooting procedure a user can follow when his or her Mac misbehaves. Some are easier to remember than others. Some are truly arcane. If … Read More »

More Must Reads

Last.fm, a division of CBS, has launched a mobile version of its social music service for Google’s Android platform. (Download it here.) I am trying it out, and so far, no surprises. It offers functionality similar to that of the … Read More »

I am happy to be back home again from the traveling that I’ve done the past two weeks.  I’ve missed doing this column that chronicles my week at Mobile Tech Manor (MTM) but there is no need to do one when I’m not here.  That changed … Read More »

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday approved $20 billion in incentives for wind and solar energy projects and efficiency improvements to existing homes. Part of the economic stimulus package we covered earlier in the day, the vote came late in the afternoon. House Democrats … Read More »

Updated: Samsung today reported a fourth-quarter loss of 937 billion won ($682 million), due, in part, by its squeezed DRAM operations. This is unfortunate because up until this point, Samsung had the honor of being the last profitable maker of DRAM chips. Too much … Read More »

As President Barack Obama begins his new job, industry insiders are working to bring their favorite cleantech policy ideas to the top of the new administration’s agenda. A wide variety of options are competing for attention, with perhaps the most talked-about being a national renewable portfolio standard, … Read More »

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere — in your phone, laptop, and by this time next year, maybe your car. The technology is slated for GM’s Chevy Volt, Toyota’s plug-in Prius, and electric versions of the Daimler Smart and BMW Mini. Until recently, lithium went … Read More »

The Obama administration’s $825 billion economic recovery package, nicknamed the “Green New Deal,” is packed with references to doubling renewable energy generation, funding public transportation and energy-efficiency projects, and investing in clean water and environmental restoration. But it’s not just a present for the cleantech … Read More »

The Obama administration’s $825 billion economic recovery package, nicknamed the “Green New Deal,” is packed with references to doubling renewable energy generation, funding public transportation and energy-efficiency projects, and investing in clean water and environmental restoration. But it’s not just a present for the cleantech … Read More »

Don’t Pirate That iWork, And Not Just For Morality’s Sake – It might be tempting to go around abusing Apple’s decision to remove the installation key requirement from their recently updated iWork ’09 suite, but it could also get you in more than just … Read More »

It’s understandably difficult for many people to embrace Google’s Chrome browser since it’s a little too bare-bones for most. For basic browsing or for productivity efforts in Google Docs, it’s great. I also enjoy using Chrome with FriendFeed and other JavaScript-heavy sites due to the … Read More »

Amid the discussion of universal broadband access, those without broadband get all of the attention. But what about the 17 percent of Americans who regardless of cost or access simply don’t want to go online? Or the 1.7 percent who think dial-up is just fine? … Read More »

Things are looking up for renewable energy, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The agency just released “Electric Power Industry 2007: Year in Review,” and for the first time, renewables (not … Read More »

Google today announced its financial results for the fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 periods. It was an impressive performance, except: Google said net income for the quarter that ended on Dec. 31 was $382 million, or $1.21 a share, compared with $1.2 billion, or $3.79 a share … Read More »

Microsoft’s earnings announcement and its unprecedented decision to cut around 5,000 employees has dominated the news today. Experts have already weighed in on the reasons and the ramifications (Mary-Jo Foley, for example, has information about which divisions might see job cuts). As the … Read More »

One thing I can state for certain, the Lenovo W700ds instills a sense of wonder when it’s first unboxed and set up on a table.  There is just so much to this massive notebook that I feel a lot like a kid in a candy store.  … Read More »

In promoting his upcoming film, Objectified, a documentary maker published a photo (above) of Jony Ive from “inside Apple’s design facilities.” Naturally, tech bloggers the world over will examine the photo in detail in the hope that Apple slipped up and left something in the photograph … Read More »

The folks from the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) have just published a beta preview to Miro 2.0. The upcoming version of the video client is going to have a more streamlined interface that will make it possible to integrate streaming video sites like … Read More »

Quizzing the Car Czar: With the U.S. auto industry hanging in the balance, an expected federal “car czar” faces ten fundamental questions, from whether the SUV is dead (or close to retirement) to how close we really are to having mass-market electric cars. — Wall … Read More »

DownloadSquad has a short item today on QTWeb, an open source Windows browser based on the WebKit rendering engine (also found in Safari and Google Chrome). I’ve used the browser before, but decided to try out the newest version, which has quite a … Read More »

As a recent (sort-of) switcher, I’ve been exploring iWork 08 a fair bit, and, with the launch of iWork 09, I’ve really thrown myself into Pages, Numbers and Keynote. For someone who has used Microsoft Office almost exclusively for the last twenty-odd years, that’s a huge … Read More »

It looks like the National Security Agency added some security software to a BlackBerry phone to satisfy President Barack Obama’s need for his Research in Motion smartphone. This means Obama can continue emailing routine and personal messages that will become part of the public record. … Read More »

Sprint’s new Sierra Wireless 598U 3G adapter doesn’t offer much new in the way of features, but it’s fairly small (2.9 x 0.9 x 0.4 in.) and it’s currently free. Well, free with a standard two-year data commitment of course. The 598U retails for $249.99 … Read More »

According to research from Instat, ZigBee may be following in the footsteps of now-ubiquitous Wi-Fi, thanks to the growth of the “smart energy” marketplace. Earth2Tech reports that chips and nodes used to build wireless networks based on the leading standard, 802.15.4, (the one the … Read More »

Making buildings more energy-efficient has started to move into the national spotlight with President Obama’s green portion of the stimulus package. And it might be geeky, but wireless networks that will monitor energy consumption will play a significant role in efficient buildings. How significant? According … Read More »

Running QuickBooks for Windows in a virtual machine (VM) on your Mac is often the best way to get all the advanced features of QuickBooks that are only available in the Windows version and still have fun using your Mac the way nature intended, running OS … Read More »

I’m late to the game on this news, but recently the StyleTap folks announced full support for Symbian S60 devices. StyleTap is basically an emulator that allows you to run older Palm OS applications on a non-Palm device. The S60 version joins the Windows Mobile … Read More »

Sling.com Getting Viacom Content; video from MTVN, BET and Paramount pictures coming to the video portal, deal was struck separately from distribution agreement with Sling’s parent company EchoStar. (paidContent) Extreme Reach Gets $1.5 Million; video ad firm’s first round led by Village Ventures and Long … Read More »

At the Clean-Tech Investor Summit in Indian Wells, Calif., this week, Peter Gleick, co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute and one of Wired magazine’s 15 people President Obama should listen to, compared the global water situation to that of oil and said that … Read More »

The impact of declining desktop and laptop demand on the PC industry became that much clearer this morning, as Microsoft reported lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings driven, in part, by a deterioration of its client PC business (sever software sales are flat) and said it would cut … Read More »

Oh, admit it. Some of you are here solely because the phrase “young lesbian love” caught your eye. But this isn’t about that sort of Internet clip. Anyone But Me is a coming-of-age lesbian drama in which teen protagonists in NYC dare to live … Read More »

We have been warning everyone for months that the mass appeal of low-cost netbooks was going to hit the major players hard.  You’ve probably heard today that Microsoft plans to lay off 5,000 employees over the next 18 months due to the hard times.  Details are … Read More »

For quite a while (heck, pretty much forever), the knock on Apple has been that it’s overpriced, that the same thing can be had for much less elsewhere. A much more recent complaint is that somehow Apple never gets any critical reviews, it’s all just shoddy reporting. … Read More »

In a rare change of pace, this piece will deal with software you actually download and install on your computer, instead of a web or cloud-based solution. The tool is Collanos Workplace, and it allows you to set up different Workplaces (note the key … Read More »

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