July, 2009 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for July 2009

We’re trying a little something different here, so bear with us. A lot of stuff happened this week, and rather than putting it all in a blog post, Liz and I decided to sit down for a video chat to wrap up the biggest stories. … Read More »

Judge Orders Facebook to Release Source Code

Facebook was ordered by a judge in the District of Delaware’s District Court this week to release its entire source code to Leader Technologies Inc., a web-based collaboration platform developer. Leader, based in Columbus, Ohio, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook … Read More »

 
 

Will TV Everywhere Swamp Cable Networks?

Comcast may take on more than its network can handle by offering its cable TV via the web under its TV Everywhere program, which has me wondering if cable providers will weather the influx of TV content delivered over their data network as opposed … Read More »

The unofficially official iPhone for China moved a little closer to being real…or at least some nicely faked images were made real and posted at Sina.com.cn. Of course, lending credibility to the pictures, they were later pulled and replaced with a less revealing one. The iPhone … Read More »

How to Give Back When You're Strapped for Time

Many times, we want to find ways to give back, be more socially responsible, or make our lives more about service, but running a business can make it seem impossible to find the time to do anything other than the task immediately in front of us. How … Read More »

Where is JK working today with the Viliv S5 UMPC? Read More »

5 Most Popular Posts on WebWorkerDaily This Week

Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week: Multiple-Monitor Setups: Are Two Enough? We’re looked at the productivity benefits of using more than one screen before, but Sam asks: are two enough? Building a Team With … Read More »

Nissan unleashed teaser images this week of its upcoming electric vehicle, slated to launch in 2010. But this weekend we’ll see the real deal. Tomorrow night (9:30 Eastern, 6:30 Pacific), photos of the final version and more details about the model are scheduled to go … Read More »

More Must Reads

You know you’re getting old when TV personalities start getting nostalgic for the same stuff you are. Which is a good reason to resent Jimmy Fallon (if you’re looking for one). His fascination with the iconic NBC sitcom, Saved by the Bell, which ran … Read More »

“Carousel Fraud” Strikes Carbon Markets: Carbon credit fraudsters are increasingly “setting up complicated import and export schemes between EU member countries, charging buyers for value-added tax in the country of destination, and then absconding with the tax rather than handing it over to the governments.” — … Read More »

Earlier this week, TheAppleBlog turned me on to the Zii EGG from Creative. I didn’t have much interest at the time because the EGG isn’t yet a consumer device. It’s available to developers and OEMs — meaning it’s more of a working concept than … Read More »

Days after the SMS vulnerability was reported, in which a single character could be used to crash or even take over an iPhone, Apple has released a single-purpose update. The Knowledgebase Article makes it sound as potentially bad as it is. Impact: Receiving a maliciously crafted … Read More »

The iPhone got plenty of press earlier this summer when Apple finally added video recording features to the phone. Many of Nokia’s smartphones, though, have had video recording (and even video calling) features for years. And in Nokia’s Ovi Store, you’ll find plenty of apps that take … Read More »

“There’s an app for just about anything…only on the iPhone.” Words we’re all accustomed to hearing at the end of Apple’s iPhone commercials. Here in the UK, those words got Apple into hot water (again) with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), who have slapped Apple’s wrists … Read More »

Up until yesterday, one of the really annoying things about Gmail was that if you wanted to use it to send email from an address other than your Gmail address (a company email address, say), it would add your Gmail address into the Sender header in … Read More »

The FCC’s probe of cell phone contracts and exclusivity deals will reportedly focus on markets where the iPhone and the Palm Pre aren’t available — that is, where AT&T and Sprint don’t have service. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski told Bloomberg, “There are markets in the … Read More »

These days, there seems to be a new product aimed at managing projects every week. Just in the last month or so, WWD has reviewed MissingLink Project Center, Zen, Zoho Projects and EasyProjects.net. Joining this parade is WizeHive, which has just … Read More »

Video management platform Delve Networks today announced a non-exclusive partnership with leading content delivery network Akamai in which the two companies will combine forces to provide turn-key high-quality video services to video publishers. Akamai may not get a lot of love in the financial … Read More »

Iger Talks Authentication; during Disney earnings call CEO expressed concern over TV Everywhere ideas that deliver content at no extra cost to subscribers. (paidContent) RealDVD Lawsuit Drags Down Real Earnings; company spent $4.3 million on litigation in the second quarter defending the controversial DVD ripping software; … Read More »

UPDATED So much for the estimate that the government’s cash for clunkers coffers would last for four months — they’re just about empty after less than a week. When Congress allocated nearly a billion dollars for the program, which provides vouchers to help … Read More »

Going behind-the-scenes of a real iPhone app’s development, the latest installment takes a candid look at the economics of the App Store. In my previous entry for the App Developer Diary, I was … Read More »

WiMAX is only now getting some traction in the U.S., thanks to rollouts by Clearwire, but overseas the wireless broadband technology is actually growing at a rapid clip. According to Infonetics, a market research company, WiMAX is gaining traction in India, Russia and Brazil, … Read More »

All you Palm Pre owners out there who’ve been wishing you could use Skype on your handset can stand down. A web-based app has been released that allows full use of Skype on the handset. The program, IM+, has been around for a good while … Read More »

While my first impressions of the next version of Microsoft Office, Office 2010, were quite positive, I did have one major disappointment. Why didn’t Microsoft make Outlook 2010 more social? I was hoping that the venerable email application would gain support for social media. While email … Read More »

The folks over at NewsGator have seemingly given up on consumer news feed syncing and have ceded to the superiority of Google Reader. First it was NewsGator’s Windows syncing feed reader Feed Demon that got the switch from NewsGator syncing to Google Reader syncing. … Read More »

Microsoft recently held its annual Financial Analyst meeting at which Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices division, laid out the company’s strategy in the smartphone space. His presentation acknowledged that Windows Mobile is not faring well in the consumer space, and the plan … Read More »

In an effort to make GigaOM even better, we want to hear from you! Take our super-quick survey and be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com. Thanks for participating and for providing valuable feedback. var host = (("https:" … Read More »

Jonathan Ive wasn’t always the Grand Overlord designer and demi-God at Apple. Before Ive re-imagined the Macintosh, other talented souls attempted to shape the next generation of Apple products with the clean industrial design for which the company is famous. In the 1980s, Frog Design was … Read More »

Facebook continued to crack down on ad networks this week by updating its advertising guidelines. Starting August 3, ad networks must receive authorization from Facebook to run ads that contain user data, such as names and profile pictures, the company said in … Read More »

For a utility that’s in the process of installing smart meters, there are probably few things more terrifying than the simulation of a smart meter worm that IOActive’s Mike Davis showed off at the annual security conference Black Hat on Thursday. During Davis’ presentation, he … Read More »

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has an unimpressive track record at predictions, which is why his latest comments should be of concern to Apple and, especially, MacBook Air fans: Those new ultra-thin PCs, the first of which will be coming later this year and, presumably running Windows … Read More »

Behold, the power of our colleague Michael Wolf to sway communications giants! Well, that might be overstating it, but earlier this week, Michael wrote a piece about how lame Verizon’s FiOS Twitter app for the TV was (it was just a public stream of tweets … Read More »

Like Simon, I use Google tools to manage just about everything I do. I keep most of my files saved as Google Docs. I use Google Calendar to schedule my time. I rely on Gmail to manage the several emails addresses I have. Having a … Read More »

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to share the busy happenings at Mobile Tech Manor, my home office. It’s called MTM because there isn’t a form of mobile technology that hasn’t crossed over the threshold. This is column number 50, a huge milestone as … Read More »

Just a few months after the Obama administration set aside $400 million for high-risk clean energy research projects, the Department of Energy has narrowed the pool of some 3,500 applicants down to about a couple hundred. This week, the DOE completed its evaluation of the … Read More »

Earlier this morning, I got a chance to catch up with Dr. Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola, soon after his company reported earnings (they met Wall Street’s modest expectations) to talk about everything from the state of the mobile market to prospects for Motorola. I will … Read More »

Parkour and freerunning, the incredibly athletic urban speed gymnastics sports, are perhaps 15 years old. They are individualistic, grassroots and often non-competitive. But they are unquestionably awesome to watch. And so YouTube has actually done a lot for parkour — introducing the world to … Read More »

You know you’re at a hacker convention when the word Pwned is used in numerous speeches and conference literature. I spent a couple hours on Thursday at the annual Black Hat security convention in Las Vegas — not to learn about the newest ways … Read More »

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