Sony BMG's Costly Silence
The label was alerted to the secret, virus-vulnerable software on its CDs long before the scandal broke. Trouble is, it didn't act immediately to alert consumers — For Sony BMG Music Entertainment,...
What's the buzz? Teens can't stand it
BARRY, Wales—Though he did not know it at the time, the idea came to Howard Stapleton when he was 12 and visiting a factory with his father, a manufacturing executive in London. — Opening the door t...
New Orleans's New Connection
City-Owned WiFi System To Be Announced Today — Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans will deploy the nation's first municipally owned wireless Internet system that will be free for all users, part of an eff...
Newsmaker: Banking on a virtual economy
Late last month, Jon Jacobs, an independent filmmaker from Miami, became the first person in the history of online gaming to spend $100,000 on a single virtual item when he bought a space station in t...
Motion LE 1600 Tablet
I've long had a certain amount of lust for the Motion slate Tablet PC's. They are well balanced, have an incredible screen (if you go for the pricey view anywhere option). In fact, if computer manuf...
Blogging With a Wooden Tongue
The French call it la langue de bois, the "wooden tongue." It's the language of officialdom; of politics, power and propaganda. It's usually spoken by someone whose job is to speak, but whose real m...
Grand Central turning to Swivel
After co-founding and leading CNET (from which this blog issues forth) from obscurity to Web stardom, Halsey Minor started 12 Entrepreneuring, raising over $130 million to incubate Web services compan...
Firefox 1.5 released on Mozilla's FTP site
The much-anticipated release of Firefox 1.5 has finally been posted on Mozilla's FTP site. This is the full release, unlike the Release Candidates 1, 2 and 3 that were posted on the Mozilla.org websi...
Googlephobia
Google may be the giant asteroid that is going to make the old-media dinosaurs extinct—but the publishing industry is trying to head it off. — Pat Schroeder, the former Colorado congresswoman who's ...
PSP Update 2.6: Podcasting (RSS) and WMA Music Support!
Sony just released a new firmware update v2.6 for the PSP with RSS(!) and Windows Music support. I'm downloading it to try now, but I think this is a pretty cool update. I have to say, besides Sony'...
Dead Media Everywhere
I've had thoughts on dead media before but I never thought about a real solution. I've decided paper tape is the way to go. Everything needs to be transferred to paper tape. Can you image the piles...
ANIME EXPLOSION
It's... Profitmón! — From Pokémon to Full Metal Panic, the anime industry is doing everything the rest of show biz isn't: embracing technology, coddling fans—and making a killing. — It was 2 a.m. ...
Picking the cable channel you want
Report: FCC is expected to back 'a la carte' pricing in the industry, instead of bundled channels. — NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission is expected to suggest that cable comp...
Surprise! Computer scientists model the exclamation point
Two Southern California engineers have created a mathematical theory of surprise, working from first principles of probability theory applied to a digital environment — and the results of experiments ...
OK, let's stop the bubble machine right now
Om... you know I love you, but this is absurd. Like really, really crazy. Weblogs, Inc. was bought by AOL because of revenue and revenue growth. Eyeballs and pageviews had nothing to do with it—zer...
Road to Expo: Reborn Mac mini set to take over the living room
November 29, 2005 - Apple's Mac mini will be reborn as the digital hub centerpiece it was originally conceived to be, Think Secret sources have disclosed. The new Mac mini project, code-named Kaleido...
No Vista Beta 2 this year
The second beta of Windows Vista will not come until next year, Microsoft said Tuesday. — The software maker did not give a time frame for the release of Beta 2 of the operating system, and said onl...
Google, Microsoft to Go Hard After Classifieds
Google is preparing to make a hard push into the classified ad space, according to this job listing. The job opening seems to confirm earlier rumors around "Google Automat," a service that could tie ...
Cyber Monday, Marketing Myth
Despite a huge amount of hype, the Monday after Thanksgiving is historically only the12th-biggest online shopping day of the year — Do a Google search on "Cyber Monday," and you get as many as 779,0...
Trend Micro: RSS Is Worm Bot's Next Target
Security researchers at Trend Micro Inc. have pinpointed RSS (Really Simple Syndication) technology as a lucrative target for future bot worm attacks. — David Sancho, senior anti-virus research engi...
Thought Experiments
I see that Microsoft has posted a litigation covenant on the OfficeXML formats (also read Brian Jones' exegesis). In response, there's a bunch of legal poking and prodding here and here; I don't unde...
Windows Vista Beta 1 vs. Mac OS X "Tiger" (Part 2)
In part one of my comparison of Windows Vista Beta 1 and Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," I looked at three key aspects of each system: Look and feel, desktop search, and data visualization and organization. F...
New spyware could prevent drivers from speeding
Many motorists would balk at the idea of an electronic back-seat driver that forcefully prevents them from speeding. — But a new device being road-tested by Transport Canada could mean breaking the ...
Wall Street agog over Google
When search giant Google asked for $85 per share in its initial public offering on Aug. 19, 2004, more than a few people thought its wunderkind founders had perhaps drank a bit too much of their own K...
Spitzer Gets on Sony BMG's Case
New York's Attorney General has turned his attention to Sony BMG's copyright-protection fiasco — Sony BMG Music Entertainment is getting a lot of unwanted attention for its use of copyright-protecti...
Unpatched IE Flaw Is Worse Than Expected
Last week was shortened by the Thanksgiving holiday, and it seemed the malware guys took it off as well. There was not much going on of recent origin, and the biggest blip on the security radar was t...
Lockheed Martin Selects Concurrent's RedHawk Linux for THAAD Missile Defense Program; Concurrent's Real-Time Linux System Supports Mission-Critical Missile Defense Testing
DULUTH, Ga.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Nov. 28, 2005—Concurrent (NASDAQ: CCUR), a leading provider of integrated computer solutions …