Category: Internet

Even More Gphone News: Google in Advanced Talks with Verizon & Sprint

October 30, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 4 Comments

Gphone The latest info from our good friends those “people familiar with the matter” is that Google is in advanced talks with two U.S. cellphone operators: Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel. The talks, of course, are revolving around the two companies offering new Google-powered mobile phones. Google has to get some major wireless operators to sign on to this project if it’s to reach its rumor-generated goal of getting Gphones in front of consumers by the middle of next year.

Gadgets, Internet, Microsoft, Tech News, Web 2.0

FriendFeed: A Solution to Fragmented Social Networking?

October 5, 2007July 13, 2008 Bob Caswell 9 Comments

Anyone familiar with digg, Netflix, del.icio.us, flickr, Picasa, LinkedIn, Last.fm, StumbleUpon, reddit, etc. knows that any sort of social networking at any of these sites (that is, sharing / commenting / befriending) happens in isolation. Want to see what your friends are up to in terms of music listening, picture uploading, movie watching, career changing, or Internet bookmarking? Well, clear your schedule because you’ll need the time to log in to your dozen or so favorite social networks. Being social has never been so fragmented and time consuming.

Amazon, Internet, Tech News, Tech Reviews, Web 2.0

Seven Companies Decide Open Source Is the Future of Cellphone Technology

October 4, 2007July 14, 2008 Bob Caswell 28 Comments

ARM is a British company best known for designing chips for cellphones and licensing them to semiconductor companies. The company’s technology is the most widely used in cellphones, though any company implementing the technology modifies it however it deems best. But now a new effort is under way to exploit this chip technology by creating a standard layer of software.

The collaboration was announced at the fourth annual ARM Developers’ Conference being held this week in Santa Clara, California. The idea is to address the rise in consumer demand for Internet access and advanced applications on cellphones. The seven companies are ARM, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Mozilla, Marvell, MontaVista, and Movial. The new standard chosen: a Linux-based open source platform to be designed for next-generation mobile applications.

Gadgets, Internet, Tech News

Amazon MP3 Gets It Right: Cheaper, DRM-Free, Higher Quality, and No Switching Costs

September 25, 2007July 16, 2008 Bob Caswell 18 Comments

Amazon MP3 So everyone and their dog is talking about Amazon’s announcement today to offer MP3 downloads. In brief, Amazon MP3 songs are DRM-free and start at $0.89/track with the top 100 best-selling albums priced no higher than $8.99. The store opened with 2 million songs from 80,000 artists. EMI and Universal are the two big labels on board. Song quality is even very high – 256 kbps. All of this, of course, is available via iTunes for $1.29/track or $9.99/album.

Amazon, Apple, Internet, Music, Tech Reviews

The Irony of the Most Popular Anti-Virus Having the Worst Customer Service

August 3, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 4 Comments

Symantec Computerworld has an interview with Symantec CEO John Thompson, which discusses, among other things, the poor customer service the company has been dishing out lately. Apparently, it took hold times of over an hour for the anti-virus giant to realize something had to be done.

In answer to the question, “Have you sufficiently addressed related customer service issues and long telephone waits?” Thompson replies: “We think we have by overstaffing, but that’s not a sustainable model, so we have to fix the technology underpinnings… Wait times from their peak of well over an hour are down to now under two minutes.”

Internet, Privacy, Tech News

Erasing or Changing Emails Even After They’re Delivered: Good Idea?

July 24, 2007 Bob Caswell No Comments

BigString is a company set on eliminating “email sender remorse” by allowing you as the email sender to control emails even after they’ve landed in the recipient’s inbox. I was intrigued both from a technical perspective (i.e., how does it work?) and from a sociological perspective (i.e., what does potentially needing this technology tell us about ourselves?). The company even hosts a weekly contest where it asks for your worst emails (sent to wrong person, reply all mistakes, email while drunk, etc.) and awards the most embarrassing ones with cash prizes. So, first off, here’s how it works:

Internet, Privacy, Tech News, Web 2.0

Is Google Still the Best Option for Search?

July 20, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 6 Comments

Switching from one search engine to another is simple, right?

Well, I thought I’d try a couple new options, but it was difficult. I had to consciously remind myself that I was going to use new (for me) search engines. If I didn’t think about it, Google is always where I ended up.

First on the list, the other two of the big three: Yahoo and Microsoft / MSN / Live (come on, Microsoft, I still don’t know what you want to be called here).

Internet, Microsoft, Tech Reviews, Web 2.0, Yahoo

Report: For Every $2 Spent on Legit Software, $1 Goes To Pirates

May 15, 2007August 20, 2008 Bob Caswell 2 Comments

A new study / survey results conducted by the U.S. Business Software Alliance (BSA) claims that the rate of global software piracy has been static for three years even if the cost to businesses is still rising. The conclusion is that for every $2 spent on legitimate software, $1 goes to pirates.

BSA CEO Robert Holleyman explains how static isn’t necessarily a good thing: “The bad news is that overall global piracy rates have remained stagnant… Overall dollar losses have gone up because the overall market is growing.”

Internet, Privacy, Tech News