June, 2009 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for June 2009

The energy bill passed the House on Friday, but the proposed cap and trade system and new incentives for renewable energy are still a long way from going into law as the Senate needs to pass its own version. As we transition to the next … Read More »

Slowly but surely, push notification apps are trickling into the App Store, as you can see from this handy little list by AppAdvice.com. Some of them are less than impressive, since they offer strange niche functions that I could never picture myself actually using. … Read More »

 
 

Being a reporter takes more than a video camera and the willingness to put yourself in harm’s way. There are skills and techniques that every good news gatherer should know, and to help out, YouTube launched its new Reporters’ Center over the weekend. The new section … Read More »

Europe Gets Handset Makers to Agree to Universal Charger

Nokia, Motorola, Research in Motion, Apple (yes, even Apple) and six other cell phone makers have agreed to a European Commission request to develop a universal charger. The agreement was announced today by the the EC. The new handsets will use Micro-USB … Read More »

So how’s the build quality on your Palm Pre? My particular unit is solid, but I’m reading more and more accounts of people complaining about their Pre handsets. Some folks have experienced cracked screens. Others see issues with the sliding hinge mechanism. Here are just … Read More »

Germans Get Cheaper Cell Phone Service In Exchange for Ads

Alcatel-Lucent said today that it’s begun providing German carrier E-Plus with equipment that inserts advertisements onto mobile devices based on demographic information provided by a subsidiary of the carrier. Customers opt in to the service and in exchange get extra minutes or texts … Read More »

Using Spaces to Manage Information Overload

Everyone has their favorite tricks to keep focused while working at the computer. Mine can be summarized as “out of sight, out of mind…but easily accessible.” The Spaces function is one of the nicer features that I discovered in OS X when I started using … Read More »

The companion notebook, or netbook, has made clear how important it can be to have a simple method to keep data on two computers in sync. There are ways to do this manually, but a simple method is always a better way to ensure that users … Read More »

Apple is once again making an inventory tool available for prospective iPhone 3GS buyers. U.S. residents can check Apple Store stock by state, with availability updated hourly. Unlike last year, when the iPhone 3G was in chronic short supply for weeks, by the end of business … Read More »

Algenol, Dow Chemical Team Up on Algae Fuel Plant

The demise of a well-funded algae fuel company earlier this year doesn’t seem to be deterring startups, or oil and plastics companies, from working on new algae fuel tech. This morning Algenol Biofuels, a Naples, Fla.-based company that uses carbon dioxide from power plants … Read More »

Companies like Clearleap, ActiveVideo Networks and AnySource have been pretty hush-hush about which customers are using their particular brand of video-to-TV services. But today, Clearleap broke its code of silence to announce that Atlantic Broadband has deployed Clearleap’s Internet-based TV technology. Atlantic Broadband is … Read More »

Selling software as a service through the web has helped make software more affordable and distribution more efficient. Now a startup called Scientific Conservation, which officially launched today after several years in relative stealth mode, wants to bring the software-as-a-service model to the commercial building … Read More »

More Must Reads

Updated: The almost moribund market for technology initial public offerings might make a comeback if Woburn, Mass.-based software maker LogMeIn has a successful debut on the public market. The company is looking to raise $107.2 million, and the deal will be priced this coming Tuesday. … Read More »

Microsoft’s energy management tool, Hohm, which launched this week, is a clear play to help consumers save energy. Log into the Hohm web site, enter your ZIP code and other details about your residence, and the service predicts your home energy use (or links to … Read More »

The recent post about smartphone hacking and the active community supporting it struck a vein with readers, according to the commentary. It seems that some folks believe that jail-breaking or hacking the phone they own is allowed under any circumstances. Others feel that hacking is … Read More »

The only reason I don’t have a dog yet is the prospect of morning walks in Paris winters. But I’ve survived three of those now, and have decided I’m going to get the dog anyway. So I’ve been trolling local animal shelter sites regularly. I thought … Read More »

When EQAL told us earlier this month that it was getting out of the original webisodic entertainment game to focus on creating digital experiences for established brands, we took note. These were, after all, the guys behind Lonelygirl15, arguably the most successful original web series … Read More »

Starting next week, all construction projects seeking certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, must use a new version of the green building standard. One of the biggest changes to LEED with the new version has to do with energy reporting … Read More »

One of the key concepts at the core of traditional marketing is the 80-20 rule — that some 80 percent of the effects (or in this case, profits) are the result of 20 percent of the causes (here, customers). Indeed, if you’re … Read More »

The smartphone has gone mainstream, but that is only a recent phenomenon. For years, smartphones were the realm of the techie enthusiast who was willing to spend the money and time needed to fully exploit the capabilities of these mini-computers. What many smartphone owners today may … Read More »

It’s the weekend, people, so prime your downloading finger and get ready to make good use of it as I guide you through the latest picks from the App Store. Thanks to the release of OS 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS, there’s been a constant stream of … Read More »

I’ll admit, I haven’t always tracked my time when it comes to my clients and their projects. Although I always knew roughly how long things took me to complete, until recently, I never kept up with a more detailed view of my time. The longer I … Read More »

Dominating the Android world this week was the announcement by handset giant HTC that it will be releasing the most innovative phone to date using the OS by Google, the HTC Hero. This thin, curvy handset shares some of the features of the Android-powered HTC … Read More »

There’s a long list of YouTubers poking fun at tech and social media, but with February’s viral hit 25 Things I Hate About Facebook, Julian Smith proved he’s one of the few doing it well.  (So well, in fact, that he was invited to … Read More »

Nuance is now offering TALKS&ZOOMS v4 for Symbian S60 handsets. The software is geared for blind or visually impaired mobile phone owners. Using Nuance’s text-to-speech technology, TALKS&ZOOMS can read aloud contact info, CallerID data, text messages, help files, web pages and other information. The … Read More »

Can the folks at Netflix actually see the future or something? Because it’s seriously impressive how narrowly out of reach they made the margin of improvement for their recommendation algorithm contest. Established in late 2006, the Netflix Prize promises $1 million to the first entrant that … Read More »

Netvibes, a Paris-based web startup that lets users create personalized start pages, is rolling out a new feature called Talk to Me that recommends widgets to users based on their personal preferences, the latest example of the company’s goal of hyper-personalizing web content. “People … Read More »

The iPhone 3GS has a few new features that the older models lack. One of those features is the compass, which is pretty useful in mapping apps. Compasses use magnets to point out where the heck north is and it only makes sense that cases with … Read More »

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 has just cleared its biggest hurdle yet, winning approval from the House of Representatives in a close 219-212 vote late on Friday. The bill has already had a long and bumpy ride since a draft began circulating … Read More »

YouTube has doubled the size of standard uploads for regular-Joe account holders to 2 GB from 1 GB. The company told us this afternoon the move was in order to accommodate users’ HD uploads. But despite the size increase, non-partner videos are still limited to … Read More »

I’m in the middle of moving to new computers. Two of them. The laptop is easy. The desktop, well, that’s a story for another post. New and faster computers with a fresh install can compel a person to look up applications, plugins and other tools to … Read More »

Free Trade and Climate Change: Making trade more free could lead to more carbon dioxide emissions as a result of increased economic activity, but more trade could also help to curb climate change by increasing the availability of clean technologies, according to a new report from … Read More »

Gateway may have been sold, but the name lives on in the netbook market. DigiTimes makes note of the LT3100, which isn’t your typical 10-inch Intel Atom device. The LT3100 offers an 11.6-inch display capable of 1366×768 resolution. An AMD single-core Athlon CPU powers … Read More »

Totally Sketch, a weekly series of comedy videos running on YouTube, lives by one creed: making comedy that’s funny. Which honestly is a tall order for a series producing a new sketch weekly — after all, it’s hard enough to make one good sketch, … Read More »

The Android news this week isn’t all about the HTC Hero, although it feels that way. A rumor has appeared that has Sprint planning to release an Android phone this year or next that is CDMA/WiMAX-capable. This is certainly an interesting proposition but given the … Read More »

How do you sell $109,000 electric sports cars in a recession? Slowly, according to a Green Fuels Forecast analysis this week of the sales and backlog numbers for the Tesla Roadster. Green Fuels Forecast crunched the numbers Tesla has revealed so far — the company … Read More »

I’m not going to debate the merits of upgrading with you, since I’m sure you’ve already wrestled with that particular demon yourself, but I did want to take a look at the gaming side of Apple’s new 3GS, and the amazing potential it boasts for bringing … Read More »

We haven’t written about Seesmic on NewTeeVee in a long time, and it sounds like this may well be the last time. The company is deemphasizing — though at this point not removing — its video conversation service in favor of supporting its social … Read More »

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