Apple on Thursday released a developer edition of Mountain Lion, the next upgrade of it’s operating system that will go on sale sometime in summer this year. As part of the news, the company shared some metrics about OS X Lion (version 10.7). For instance, the […] Read more »
European Union’s decision to approve the Microsoft & Skype merger without any objection isn’t sitting well with Cisco, the unified communications giant who is worried that Microsoft will use Skype to dominate the video calling industry. Sour grapes for a company caught in it own business-model. Read more »
HTC, one of the earliest champions of smartphones seems to have fallen on hard times. But the Taiwanese phone maker isn’t ready to call it quits and is said to be working on a slew of new products including a music streaming service – relatively soon. Read more »
These days it is fairly easy to use a general rule of thumb to come up with the valuation a startup is likely to get from investors. However when it comes to hiring employees, no one really has a clue about how they should be compensated. Read more »
For the past week or so, the Internet has been abuzz with news of mobile apps uploading iPhone address books without asking us. The controversy highlights the fact that social and web apps need to have the moral imperative to do the right thing. Read more »
Don’t get mad at me for not finding seven stories for you to read. I have been distracted and as a result I have not been able to spend as much time reading as I normally do. Regardless, here is an abbreviated recommendation list. Read more »
Today happens to be the 8th birthday of Flickr, a groundbreaking photo-sharing service that introduced to the world the founding principles of the social web: community, sharing, openness and social connections. Flickr today languishes in the shadow of newer photo-sharing services. Sad, really! Read more »
Google is making an Android-powered entertainment system and will design and sell it under its own brand, according to the Wall Street Journal. When I read the news, the word that came to mind: amazing! Read more »
Google is rumored to be launching an online storage drive, long after companies like Dropbox and Microsoft have launched their own offerings. The late rollout is a sign that Google is devoting too much energy to being social and less focus on enhancing Android OS. Read more »
First the news: Yes, the rumors are true. We are indeed buying the assets of ContentNext Media from Guardian News & Media Limited. And no, we are not disclosing the terms of the deal. Here are the reasons why we are acquiring paidContent and its sister sites. Read more »
Data, I believe is like plastic. You can use it to make wonderful things. However, like plastic, it can be a great polluter and create havoc on the environment. Or as I like to say, data without context is dirt. Read more »
What a week! Most of the world was obsessing over the mother of all IPOs — Facebook. So no surprise, I had to include some good writing on the subject. I have already started looking beyond the social internet and got some good pointers for that. Read more »
Like you and millions of others, I find myself trapped inside notification hell. Emails, notifications, tweets, text and instant Messages, Facebook Alerts — are part of our over-notified self. Here is a video that does a great job of capturing this notification hell we live in. Read more »
Zynga has been trying its very best to diversify its business away from Facebook and it doesn’t have much of a choice. Ben Schachter, Internet analyst with Macquarie Securities went through the Facebook S-1. His take: Zynga’s fourth quarter 2011 isn’t going to be pretty. Read more »
Get ready for a blockbuster — and almost nuts — year of technology in 2012. Why? Because Facebook is doing the mother of all initial public offerings. And like Netscape and Google before, the Facebook IPO is going to change not only the company but also Silicon Valley. Read more »
Skype, which is now part of Microsoft has lost one of its key executives. Jonathan Christensen has left the company and has not disclosed his plans on what he will do next. Christensen till recently the vice president of emerging opportunities at Skype . Read more »
Did you know that Bulgaria has the highest level of broadband adoption, at 96 percent? Or that the average connection speed in South Korea is 16.7 Mbps versus the global average connection speed of 2.7 Mbps? Some findings from Akamai’s latest “State of the Internet” report. Read more »
ESPN is seeing huge traffic and engagement from its mobile offerings — enough for the sports giant to think about its design and products from a “mobile-first” perspective. And it is not alone, as we have pointed out many times before. Read more »
Diabetes is one of the fastest spreading diseases in modern society. Medication solves only half the problem – the trick is to constantly monitor sugar levels and one’s lifestyle. Now a group of startups are finding ways to make those tasks simpler and easier. Read more »
When Apple announced blockbuster earnings earlier this month, we were all shocked. A few days later, when comScore announced that little-known startup Pinterest had cracked the social network top ten, we were surprised. We shouldn’t be: This is the new normal for our technology-driven society. Read more »
There is a lot of talk about data, 3D printing, innovation, design, user interaction and curation. So this week’s theme is a collection of writing that questions conventional wisdom about these aforementioned themes. Most of them are long — so better get a cup of tea now. Read more »
From 1990s through 2011, DSL, a broadband technology, had a strong run at large phone companies in America. Now it is falling behind cable broadband and fiber. The latest data from Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable points to its declining fortunes. Read more »
Earlier today a Facebook staffer released a browser extension called “Don’t Be Evil,” a not-so-subtle dig at Google’s corporate motto. Unfortunately, both Facebook and Google are two companies who don’t quite understand that “don’t be evil” is more than just words. Read more »
It is not a surprise that when you walk and text, you see a massive drop in viewing your surroundings, but did you know that when walking and texting or talking on the phone at the same time, your speed of walking declines by 16 percent? Read more »
What a week! Web took to activism and pushed back SOPA & PIPA; Kodak filed for bankruptcy & MegaUpload got busted. With the week wrapped up, here are some of the posts from our team that I highly recommend you give a read. Read more »
It is a rainy and soggy weekend in San Francisco. The gloomy skies make me want to go in the opposite direction and offer up some lighter fare for the readers while I return to my brooding. Have a great weekend, everyone. Read more »
After 132 years in business, photo film maker Kodak filed for bankruptcy and in the process becoming yet another fallen corporate giant. The company’s failure has lessons for others such as Yahoo and Nokia who might meet a fate similar to the photo company. Read more »
The Internet seems to have gone mad over comments by Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Facebook. I applaud Zuckerberg for finally taking a stand on this important issue but the company and Zuckerberg need to take actions that speak louder than words. Read more »
Apigee, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based API management platform and services company is buying San Francisco-based Usergrid, as part of its increasing focus on the mobile app business as the web shifts to a mobile-first development model. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read more »
We love to dress up our wrists with cool watches, smart watches and of course, the best of them all, iPod nano watches. And that is why we are constantly writing about iPod nano straps. Here is another one from Ireland-based Curve Creative — Nanolet. Read more »
O3b Networks, a Google-backed, satellite-based telecom company, says it will launch its revolutionary new satellite-broadband service next year. It launched with fanfare in 2008 and in 2010 raised a whopping $1.18 billion but had to limit its size and scope because of the global credit squeeze. Read more »
Sarah Lacy, a book author and a veteran journalist (and most recently with TechCrunch) is launching PandoDaily, a daily technology news blog focused on startups and the startup ecosystem. The company is being funded by a $2.5 million investment from Silicon Valley elite. Read more »
Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable company, was the fastest broadband service provider in the U.S., according to Ookla, a broadband speed test company. In fact, Comcast and its cable industry peers trounced the phone companies when it came to download speeds. Read more »
The Internet seems to have put 2011 and the holidays behind it. This was an unusually busy week, and the content that flows to me saw a big jump. Here are some stories for you to read. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did. Read more »
The total number of global broadband subscribers is inching toward 600 million, according to data released by industry group Broadband Forum. They estimate that at the end of the third quarter of 2011, there were about 581 million broadband subscribers. Read more »
Diane Greene has joined the board of directors of Google announced today. Greene was the CEO of VMware but was replaced by current CEO Paul Maritz a few years ago. Green, who was the co-founder of VMWare is quite plugged in to the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Read more »
MySpace, the grand daddy of social is still wheezing along, comScore says. In fact it is bigger than Tumblr and Google Plus. Infact, people spend more time on MySpace, a dying platform than on Google Plus. Pinterest just cracked the top ten list! Read more »
Amazon’s Kindle Fire was one of the most popular devices on sale this holiday season. The tablet, which is based on a version of Android OS, is expected to rival iPad. Data from Read It Later, a time-shifted reading app, only proves that point. Read more »
Apple is expected to have a great holiday quarter, which some believe would be company’s best ever. New data from an Apple supplier- Multi-Fineline Electronix which makes printed circuit boards for iPhone and iPads – is only bolstering that argument, according to UBS analyst Maynard Um. Read more »
Skype is killing long-distance phone calls, minutes at a time. In fact, the growing popularity of the service has seen it steal minutes away from the phone companies. And for consumers that is good news. What’s more, the idea of free voice is only gaining traction. Read more »
