Universal Music Takes on iTunes
Universal chief Doug Morris is enlisting other big music players for a service to challenge the Jobs juggernaut — Relationships in the entertainment world can be famously fraught. And few are more ...
Let's force people to take our music
It's hard to know where to start with Universal's rumoured TotalMusic plan, which Business Week has just written about (although as Techdirt points out, Digital Music News first had the story weeks ag...
BEA To Oracle: "Your Bid Is Too Low"; This Could Get Ugly
BEA (BEAS) has issued a statement in response to Oracle's (ORCL) unsolicited $17-a-share takeover bid: and they're asserting that the offer is too low. BEA notes that the letter was sent to Oracle ye...
Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Time Machine
Time Machine is one of the most visually prominent new features demonstrated in Mac OS X Leopard, even if the core idea of backups is as old — or perhaps older — than the concept of having any data wo...
More Gmail storage coming for all
When people ask me about my job, one of the common questions I get is, "Where does Gmail put all that mail?" I generally answer by pointing them to a web site like this one. While that's not exactly...
As Online Ad Revenue Remains Concentrated In Few Hands, Frustration Builds
With online ad spending growing more slowly, are internet ad dollars being spread too thin? Reuters put the question to a few media execs and digital agency heads who express concern about the heavy ...
Sen. Susan Collins' Web Ads Run Up Against Google, MoveOn.org
Google claims it was wasn't politics, just company policy that led to it rejecting campaign ads for Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the Internet giant told FOX News on Friday. — Adam Kovacevich, resp...
LinkedIn Plans to Open Up in a Closed Sort of Way
Dan Nye, the chief executive of LinkedIn, has looked closely at the frenzy around Facebook, and has made a crucial decision: There will be no food fights on LinkedIn. — Yes, he's rushing to copy the...
NYT Adds Reader Comments to Front Page! *
We're always impressed with the New York Times' (NYT) progressive use of its web site, but seeing reader comments above the fold on the Home page was still startling. Hats off to the company's web te...
Rumormonger: Snocap lays off 60 percent of its employees?
Snocap lays off 60 percent of its employees? — A tipster reports that Snocap, the once-hot digital music startup from Napster founder Shawn Fanning and Silicon Valley bad boy Jordan Mendelson, has l...
"Deep red" iPhone in the works for AT&T?
With iPod shuffles and nanos available in a variety of shades, it only makes sense to bring the love to the iPhone too, right? AT&T's internal inventory sheet is apparently now showing iPhones in "de...
Enterprise Software's Youth Drain
By M.R. Rangaswami, publisher of SandHill.com and co-founder of Sand Hill Group — They say that youth is fleeting. In the enterprise software industry, the youth are fleeing. — One need only look...
Costco.com Hits the Billion Dollar Sales Mark
Internet Retailer.com reports that Costco Wholesale has reached a billion in online sales. This year their online sales grew by about 39% to $1.22 billion. Last year they were at $880 million. They...
Interview: Henry Copeland, CEO, Founder of BlogAds: To Make Money At Blogging, Rein In Comments
BlogAds' CEO and founder Henry Copeland stirred up the audience at Wednesday's Networked Journalism Summit with two points about blogs and advertising. First, he told attendees of the conference …
X-Wing: What really happened
Those of you who recall the sadly shortened launch of the model X-Wing Fighter last week will be glad to know that we now have the truth. Carry on. — This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, ...
Windows Update automatically changing user settings (again)
After Patch Tuesday this week (October 9), some Windows Vista users noticed something strange: Windows Update had changed their Automatic Update settings and rebooted their machines automatically with...
Brain-computer interface for Second Life
While recent developments in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology have given humans the power to mentally control computers, nobody has used the technology in conjunction with the Second Life onl...
Updates to Windows Live SkyDrive!
These past couple of months since our last release, we asked ourselves, "What can we do to make SkyDrive even better?" The most obvious answer is something that our users have asked us to do: give ou...
The Clock is Ticking for Joost
There's a time bomb out there with Joost's name on it. Full-screen, broadcast-quality video streams—the main selling point of Joost's peer-to-peer Internet TV client software—is quickly coming to the...
Internet Recession Watch: Falling Ads, Taxes, Housing
New Items: The reprieve of the past 10 days is over. Yesterday, Nielsen reported that spending by the top 10 web customers dropped in September vs. August. Homebuilder Beazer said that a whopping 68...
Exclusive: MapQuest Plays Catch-Up With Launch of Beta
AOL's MapQuest may be the market-leading map site by a long shot (with 50 million monthly visitors versus 30 million for Google Maps), but it is still playing catch-up when it comes to features, funct...
ATA Airlines detains passenger for using iPhone in 'airplane mode'
Apparently putting your iPhone in airplane mode is not the digital equivalent of returning your seatback to the upright position. — A flight attendant for ATA Airlines recently asked a flier watchin...
Business Magazines' Issues: Ad Slump, Web, New Rival
For many decades, publishers of business magazines such as BusinessWeek, Fortune and Forbes thrived by following a simple formula: Target upscale executives and sell ad space to auto makers, financial...
Geek Throwdown: How to sync two or more Macs?
Enter the Octagon — Here's an experimental new feature: The Throwdown. Take a problem that lots of people face and tell us your personal favorite way to deal with it — in as much detail and with as...
More Gmail storage coming for all
When people ask me about my job, one of the common questions I get is, "Where does Gmail put all that mail?" I generally answer by pointing them to a web site like this one. While that's not exactly...
A Bruise on Apple's Reputation
Is the company's stellar service keeping up with its hypergrowth? Some customers don't think so — For Apple (AAPL ), there may be a downside to success. Sales of the Cupertino (Calif.) company's M...
Scoble Is So Right About Kara Being SSSSSOOOOO Right About Silly Facebook Apps!
You always have to get a little worried when someone opens a post like this: Kara! Kara! Kara! — Besides sounding like I am about to invade Pearl Harbor, I thought blogger Robert Scoble was going ...
Oracle makes bid for BEA
Oracle said Friday it offered to buy BEA Systems for about $6.66 billion, its latest effort to up the ante against Microsoft and Germany's SAP in the fiercely competitive market for business software....
Linux patent suit: In search of the Microsoft smoking gun
Now that the "first ever" suit for patent infringement has been lodged against two major Linux distributors, many Microsoft watchers are looking for the smoking gun that will somehow connect Microsoft...
'Transparent' gadget could trump iPhone interface
A touch-sensitive gadget with the sensing panel on its back, instead of the screen, is being developed by US researchers. Using your fingers behind the device allows a firmer grip and more accurate p...
ABC Reshapes the Evening News for the Web
Huddled with a producer in an editing suite on a recent Friday afternoon, the ABC News correspondent Bill Blakemore enthusiastically helped put the finishing touches on a video account of his recent t...
Google Maps Now Native S60 + GPS for N95!
Google Maps Mobile has FINALLY been updated to a native S60 application, and even supports the N95's internal GPS! You can see the white GPS dot on the screenshot. Other than that, it looks pretty s...
Your Duty to Read the Paper
One of the great autobiographies of the last 2,000 years is "The Confessions of St. Augustine." It's a work that must be taken seriously because its author offers such a full and candid description o...
Google Gives Some Hints About Social Network Plan
Just days ago, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive was warning that social networking may be a fad. — Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, is far less dismissive. — "People don't appr...