If NRG Energy starts offering solar leasing options to home owners and small businesses, it would represent the mainstreaming of solar roofs and also likely disrupt the current sector filled with a variety of smaller players. Read more »
The smart TV market will grow from 67 million units shipped in 2012 to 134 million shipped in 2015. As it expands, a simultaneous transition to higher-speed Wi-Fi connections based on a new standard — 802.11ac — will translate to fast growth for the new wireless technology in the TV space. Read more »
Google Drive and LinkedIn suffered snafus this week; and Amazon will reportedly build a not-so-secret cloud for the Central Intelligence Agency. Read more »
Many of the first apps for Google Glass will be about consuming and sharing content on the go. But what if Google Glass could unlock control over the world of the Internet of Things both inside and outside the home? Read more »
Publishers’ lack of strategic focus on licensing and syndication today is matched by nearly equal indifference from software developers, entrepreneurs, and investors. To change this, they must structure their repositories of content so it can be searched, sorted, customized, repackaged, and accessed in real time via standardized APIs. Read more »
At the Google Big Tent Summit in India, Eric Schmidt wouldn’t give a straight answer about whether his company’s well-received contextual search app for Android would be coming to iOS soon. Read more »
Do you remember Apple’s rounded rectangles patent? Well, this week Motorola obtained a patent for eight-sided smartphones. Read more »
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Google may think it can waltz into a market that Evernote and others have staked out, but I’m not going to dance. Read more »
What can a pair of Google engineers do with their technical prowess at home? Create an Android app that controls a lawn watering system through an Arduino board and the web! Read more »
Today’s most successful companies are the ones with the ability to capture and analyze all data available to them. Enter SQL-on-Hadoop solutions, which increase the accessibility of Hadoop and allow organizations to reuse their investment learning in SQL. Read more »
Fjord IT opens its first data center space in Oslo and is banking on a air cooling technology and cheap hydropower to attract European customers who want low-carbon cloud services. Read more »
Former VMware CEO and current Pivotal Initiative leader Paul Maritz shares his thoughts on how the future of enterprise IT must mirror the practices of consumer web companies. Read more »
Chromebooks are now on sale in Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands, while in the U.S. the devices can now be bought in 1,000 more Best Buy stores. Read more »
Using machine language smarts to screen for a much wider array of fraudulent online behavior, startup Sift Science now has $5.5 million to broaden its beta test beyond a few select companies. Read more »
Mega data centers’ innovations in serviceability, automatically detecting and recovering from failures, procurement practices, and so forth will become standard practice in all modern data centers. Read more »
Though Google Reader addicts are in mourning, they should have seen it coming. It’s not the kind of product that makes sense for Google in the longer run. Read more »
Google has acquired stealthy startup Talaria, in what looks like a deal that will help the search giant compete for cloud business with Amazon. Read more »
Google’s startup division, Niantic Labs, is launching a line of ebooks that tie into its augmented-reality mobile game Ingress. Read more at paidContent »
Google is continuing its effort to punish sites that manipulate outside links in order to increase their search visibility. The move means websites should be careful that their SEO strategies doesn’t lead to a penalty. Read more at paidContent »
A lot of die-hard RSS users are upset that Google has decided to kill off its Google Reader service, but for me Twitter and other platforms based on social news are far superior to any RSS reader and have been for some time. Read more »
On this week’s show we look at the new Galaxy S 4, do a pre-post-mortem on Google Reader and learn how to get better seats at a ballgame. Read more »
Google now allows joins within its BigQuery analytics service, as well as support for timestamped data and massive aggregations. Valuable stuff if you use BigQuery. Read more »
Mourning the demise of Google Reader? Digg announced Thursday that it’s already planning a revamped reader, and will speed up production in light of Google’s announced spring cleaning. Read more »
Using location-based information, notifications and an optional Bluetooth connection, Field Trip turns your phone into the ultimate tour guide. Read more »
The folks at YouTube are aware that filming with an iPad can be physically and socially awkward — it reminded users of the iPad app to “film wisely so your iPad isn’t blocking everyone’s view.” Read more »
Devices like Google Glass are going to change the way that we consume the news and other information — how will media companies have to change the way they think about the news and how it is constructed? Read more at paidContent »
Google is shutting down more projects it considers distracting to core business. So far it has shut down 70 such apps and services, but it is Google Reader whose loss I bemoan. Read more »
Google’s Chromebook Pixel with touchsceen is to some, “just a browser” but no real apps. Now that Google has replaced the leader of Android with Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome and Apps for Google, Android apps on Chrome OS could become reality. Read more »
Sundar Pichai, SVP of Google Chrome and Apps, will now head up the company’s mobile operating system, the company announced unexpectedly on Wednesday. Rubin will take on a new yet-to-be-explained role within Google. Read more »
How could Acer improve its $199 C7 Chromebook? More battery life please! That’s what the new C7 model gets you: 6 hours versus 3.5 hours. You’ll pay $279.99 for the new model, but it also comes with twice as much memory. Read more »
Nearly five months after it launched, Samsung’s $249 Chromebook gets Netflix. We knew this was coming but the surprising thing is that Microsoft helped out. Read more »
Worldwide IT spending finished out 2012 with a growth rate of 3.8 percent over 2011, the lowest growth rate since 2009. Fourth-quarter 2012 earnings reports and guidance were notable in their lack of any decisively positive news to raise 2013 spending expectations much. Those optimistic about […] Read more »
A flood of new website addresses with endings like “.book” and “.movie” are set to arrive in coming months. Companies like Amazon and Google are set to control the names but the terms under which they will do so are still undefined. Read more at paidContent »
The controversy over writer Nate Thayer’s failure to credit his sources, which some alleged amounted to plagiarism, is just part of an ongoing debate over how we use — and give credit for — information in a digital age. Read more at paidContent »
Twitter users reported that Justin Bieber’s YouTube channel got hacked, and YouTube apparently fixed the problem, potentially preventing a riot of Bieber fans. Read more »
First the New York Times rankles Facebook and then they release a new feed redesign; technology is making people richer, though not as many billionaires; Time runs out for Time Inc.; some VCs have problems & Spotify has more new competition; and a few stories we recommend. Read more »
HTC did not infringe on two of Nokia’s patents, a Mannheim court has found. Nokia had claimed that one of the patents covered app store functionality found in Google Play. Read more »
Google turned on data compression features this week, helping Chrome Beta for Android surf the web faster while cutting down on wireless use. How much is it saving you? This little command will show you. Read more »
Nexus 7 owners paying attention to Google Play may have scored the official tablet dock for $30 … if they were quick. The dock is already sold out; another sign that Google needs to up its sales and inventory game. Read more »
If Google really did set off the process that led to Microsoft’s mammoth fine, then this was in a way just another episode in an increasingly nasty war between the two companies. Read more »
