March, 2009 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for March 2009

Everyone knows that following a top TV show is no longer just about watching the show. Some of our favorites, like Lost, have enhanced the draw of their stories through online games, interactive back stories, and tons of extra content like podcasts. The Interactive Media Peer Group … Read More »

Saul Griffith was the bearer of bad news at our Green:Net conference today. A nicer way to put it would be to say he gave us a reality check — and you have to admit his pretty charts and loads of data were tremendously informative and … Read More »

 
 

Can OnLive Really Overturn the Gaming Industry?

Today everyone who follows the gaming industry is talking about OnLive, an upcoming service incubated by Rearden, the venture company of Web TV Founder Steve Perlman. The system, which streams high-end video games to pretty much any PC, Mac, … Read More »

Moblin v2 Alpha 2 Arrives for Netbooks

I’ve only just downloaded the latest Moblin image, so I’m simply passing the news and not passing judgment yet. ;) Alpha 2 of Moblin v2 for netbooks just became available with a number of fixes and new features since I last looked at … Read More »

The Game Developers Conference for 2009 is just underway, and already there’s some big news which has particular relevance for that rare and frustrated breed, the Mac gamer. I’m a Mac gamer myself, and have pretty much given up the OS X side of things … Read More »

freckle Offers Hassle-Free Time Tracking

Based on the number of time tracking applications we’ve covered here on WebWorkerDaily, and the frequency with which new ones are being introduced, it’s obviously an area that’s in high demand. Even among the team here we all seem … Read More »

Matt Miller, our podcast co-host, just kicked off a must-read series on his ZDNet blog. He calls it the “Clash of the Touch Titans” and it’s expected to be a five-part series: one part devoted to each major touch-based mobile operating system, the hardware, … Read More »

The greatest odd couples are the most unlikely ones, and the newest one currently circulating the YouTubes definitely wins some points for oddness. Our introduction to Duffy and the Crab is as follows: Patrick Duffy, 80s icon and star of the long ago-canceled Dallas and … Read More »

We’ve wondered if the explosion of smartphone app stores has created a dilemma for developers. It’s easy to imagine that with limited resources, app developers are going to make a choice as to which platform will make them the most money and then go solely … Read More »

Keep Productive Away From Home

Last week, I wrote about dealing with the typical home office distractions like loud neighbors, household chores, family members and more by using a few techniques: music, embracing the chaos, and relocation. This week, I’m dealing with a different type of distraction. While I work … Read More »

Green:Net: State of CA Open for Green Business

California might be broke, but it still spends $2 billion on IT (not including salaries) each year. If cleantech companies can find ways to both save money and reduce emissions, they may have a golden opportunity to help the state government, said two State of California … Read More »

Green:Net Power Grid 2.0 Panel

We need a two-way communication between our utilities and our homes that can be delivered via a smart grid, according to a panel of experts speaking today at the Green:Net conference today in San Francisco. Andrew Tang of PG&E, highlighted the issue facing the utilities by … Read More »

More Must Reads

Yup, it sort of seems like an Android day for some reason; don’t ask me why. We got news on two new software applications for the handset and now we have monthly numbers from AdMob showing that Android’s marketshare has jumped in the U.S. Bear … Read More »

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, now that it is possible to unlock the iPhone for use on any GSM carrier, but Play.com is now officially offering a sim-free version of the 16GB iPhone for sale on their website without … Read More »

Jonathan Koomey, project scientist and professor with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University called for data center operators to focus on the overall costs of their computing in terms of finances and energy today at the Green:Net conference in San Francisco. He offers cloud computing … Read More »

Newsiness was the name of the game in this week’s list of the most-Twittered TV shows, according to Trendrr. The Battlestar Galactica series finale enjoyed a nice bump after that opaque ending (probably with most fans tweeting: “What the frak? Angels?”). Elsewhere, President Obama’s historic … Read More »

Bob Metcalfe, general partner with Polaris Ventures and the inventor of Ethernet, got on stage today at the Green:Net conference in San Francisco to call for “a squanderable abundance of cheap and clean energy,” that will crib from the development of the Internet. Read More »

Bob Metcalfe, general partner with Polaris Ventures and the inventor of Ethernet, got on stage today at the Green:Net conference in San Francisco to call for “a squanderable abundance of cheap and clean energy,” that will crib from the development of the Internet. Among his points: Don’t let … Read More »

It seems that every smartphone platform is rushing to create an App Store to compete with Apple’s, as its success with the App Store is unquestioned and everyone wants to get in on that action. Microsoft recently unveiled plans for its own store, the Windows Marketplace … Read More »

Today we’re covering our first Green:Net conference, currently under way at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco’s beautiful Presidio. It’s a sold-out event, and we’ve already had some smart presentations, including one from our own mayor, Gavin Newsom. And Bob Metcalfe rocked the house with … Read More »

A panel of energy measurement entrepreneurs speaking at Green:Net had surprisingly fuzzy thoughts towards terms like accuracy, precision, and standards. It wasn’t that they think perfect measurement is impossible, just that they have a very nuanced view of what’s currently possible. “We have to look at data … Read More »

The Android platform continues to grow with the release of a new app almost every day, or at least that what’s it seems like.  The folks behind Palringo, an IM app that handles virtually all major IM services, have released a free version for the … Read More »

Let’s say you’re trying to take over the world and bring all governments under your control. You have to keep records of all this stuff on your computer, of course. Now what if your plan is almost foiled because you chose a stupid password like the … Read More »

Michael Robertson, founder of Gizmo5, which recently released a service that enables free calls to Skype called OpenSky, calls the new Skype-for SIP service vaporware. It’s great to see Skype inching towards a more interoperable world with their Skype for SIP service. Even … Read More »

Gavin Starks, CEO of AMEE, a web services platform that helps track and measure carbon consumption, scared the heck out of the audience this morning at the Green:Net conference here in San Francisco. He started off by pointing out that a 2.5-kilogram MacBook costs the equivalent … Read More »

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom welcomed a full house of Green IT entrepreneurs at GigaOM’s first-ever Green:Net conference by proclaiming: “If you have an idea, let me know. We are a laboratory for innovation.” Newsom said his first environmental initiatives were fairly easy. “It didn’t take … Read More »

Clicks just aren’t what they used to be. In fact, they’re pretty much meaningless for the online advertising business, said Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of comScore, during a keynote speech at the OMMA Hollywood conference in Los Angeles on Monday. In their place, advertisers and Web … Read More »

Right about the time T-Mobile initially offered the G1 handset, we mentioned a useful free application from Wrike. The software synchronized contacts on your Microsoft Exchange server with the Android handset. Useful, to be sure, but that left out any appointments in your calendar. … Read More »

If you’ve taken to full-time web working as your sole source of income, one of the challenges you may have already encountered is that there is no clear or pre-determined career path to follow. In other words, it can be hard to see the next rung … Read More »

We’ve heard rumors of a new device from Peek for a good month or two. Peek, if you don’t recall, is an email only device that runs on T-Mobile’s EDGE data network: You buy the small device outright and pay a monthly fee for the … Read More »

A cell phone with the ability to have dual SIM cards in place is a very useful tool. You can have two carriers, making sure the cheapest option is always at hand for every call. Throw in the ability to get rid of that five … Read More »

WeatherCal may be a one-trick pony, but it is one nice looking pony all the same. This $10 release from Bare Bones Software marries weather data and iCal in a very elegant utility. In a nutshell, WeatherCal creates calendar events in iCal with the five-day forecast … Read More »

As I was leaving a bar late one night while at South by Southwest last week, someone handed me a Blellow sticker. “Pretty cool, funny name,” I thought. It turns out that Blellow is more than just a name. In fact, it’s an ambitious microblogging … Read More »

It’s always refreshing when a CEO owns up to mistakes their company makes. That was the case when I spoke with Vic Odryna, CEO of ZeeVee, who admitted that his company misjudged the market for its Zv100 set-top box. Rather than throwing good money after … Read More »

TeleGeography says that cross-border telephone traffic grew 14 percent in 2007 and is estimated to have grown 12 percent in 2008, to 384 billion minutes. Falling prices and rising popularity have flattened the revenues (see graph below the fold). The big bump in minutes (and … Read More »

We are very excited to let everyone know that Green:Net, the first green conference for the Internet industry, kicks off today! If you aren’t one of the registered attendees of our sold-out conference, there are still a variety of ways you can get the news: Live … Read More »

Netflix tonight is announcing integration with Facebook Connect, meaning users can link their accounts and relationships across the two services. Netflix members’ ratings for a movie will show up on their Facebook profiles, where friends can comment and click back to Netflix to add … Read More »

We knew that Apple wouldn’t sit around without giving the faithful a brand new iPhone this summer and rumors are flying about that very thing.  BoyGeniusReport is claiming that an executive rather high in the AT&T food chain is laying it on thick that this … Read More »

Nissan Motor Co. and the Renault-Nissan Alliance, which signed on last year to supply cars and batteries for the Better Place network planned for Israel, has made yet another move to electrify the vehicle market. But if Nissan’s latest play — a partnership with Sempra Energy … Read More »

A week from now at this time, my feet will be hitting the ground in Vegas again. We normally don’t cover the CTIA Wireless show since we’re still catching up from the CES rat-race. In fact, we’ve never gone to the show. James is … Read More »

President Barack Obama isn’t the only one who thinks cleantech entrepreneurs have a big role to play in rebuilding the U.S. economy. Redpoint Ventures seems to agree — and it’s betting that a deeper understanding of technologies for clean energy generation, storage and efficiency will … Read More »

Earlier today, Kara Swisher reported that Satish Dharmraj, co-founder of Zimbra, an open-source email service that was acquired by Yahoo for $350 million, was joining Menlo Park, Calif.-based RedPoint Ventures as a partner. He isn’t the only one. We’ve also learned that that Read More »

[appreview] title=Daniel X image=http://gigapple.wordpress.com/files/2009/03/picture-118.png price=$9.99 url=http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=305402305&mt=8 rating=avoid [/appreview] Increasingly, geeky pasttimes are seeping into the mainstream. Like creatures in a Neil Gaiman story, the boundary between the dimension of the fantastical and the land of the normal is blurring. And with that blur, faithful adaptations of heroes and villains have made the leap … Read More »

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