Carnegie Mellon wins the robotic Urban Challenge
Carnegie Mellon University has redeemed itself by winning the $2m first place prize in the DARPA Urban Challenge. Stanford University took second and $1m, while Virginia Tech took $500k for third. —...
An Open Facebook API vs Google OpenSocial
Probably about 5 months ago I had a conversation with someone at Facebook about licensing their API. — The beauty of Facebook, as opposed to Myspace and other social networks is that the people on t...
Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal
One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was "blabbing away" into her phone. —...
LCD, Plasma TVs Found Highly Reliable
LCD and plasma TVs require few repairs during the first three years of use, and buyers would be wasting their money during the holiday shopping season if they bought extended warranties on the highly ...
Google Goes Globe-Trotting
To train a new generation of leaders, the search giant sends young brainiacs on a worldwide mission. — Photos for Newsweek (from left): Z. Koren / Polaris; J. Silberberg / Panos; P. Blakely — Summ...
Windows Live Calendar first impressions: We do some "testing" of our own
While it isn't out "officially" yet, Windows Live Calendar popped up for the first time on Friday evening and it's been up steadily here ever since (but only on some accounts). Some of our readers ha...
Microsoft delivers first test build of its online-offline sync platform
Microsoft posted for download on November 4 a first test build of what it's calling the Microsoft Sync Framework, technology that will allow developers to take their Web services and databases offline...
Saturday Subscriber Count Drop?
If you saw your subscriber count drop precipitously in your Saturday, November 3rd summary from FeedBurner, the reason is that specific subscriber stats from Google Feedfetcher were offline because th...
Britons sending 1bn texts weekly
Britons are now sending more than one billion text messages per week according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA). — The figure is 25% higher than a year ago and is set to ...
SNL's Take On The iPhone Ads
Remember the new iPhone ads that left us puzzled? Saturday Night Live has a funny spoof on them that, frankly, tells a much more believable story. No man purses in this ad. — Sphere It -
Prism Prototype Now Available on Mac and Linux
We're happy to announce the Prism prototype is now available for Mac and Linux! We're also releasing an updated version for Windows that resolves some of the issues users have encountered. — Downlo...
It's official: iPhone 1.1.2
We get some hands-on time with version 1.1.2 of the Apple iPhone firmware, courtesy of our UK iPhone. — In the UK, November 9th is D-day for everything iPhone. One detail about this date strikes th...
Vindu's View: Wireless Silicon Valley getting little support
The fate of Silicon Valley's ambitious but troubled project to blanket the community with wireless Internet services now rests on a single question: Does anyone believe in the vision enough to invest ...
Why Google Turned Into a Social Butterfly
FACEBOOK is an island. A most convivial island, with one's classmates, friends, workmates and family members close at hand. An island that since May has been enlivened with entertaining fauna and fl...
PCs being pushed aside in Japan
TOKYO - Masaya Igarashi wants $200 headphones for his new iPod Touch, and he's torn between Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles. When he has saved up again, he plans to splurge ...
NYTimes Blogrunner v. TechMeme
On Thursday we covered the official launch of the NY Times Blogrunner product. Blogrunner was specifically positioned as a Techmeme-like blog news aggregator, albeit with a human touch to help pick g...
VAIO UX490 (finally) announced and on sale
More than a month after Amazon debunked rumors surrounding the release of a new UX, Sony has finally put the much awaited UX490 up on their site for sale. It actually looks like a great deal too. As...
Google OpenSocial: Technical Overview and Critique
Disclaimer: This post does not reflect the opinions, thoughts, strategies or future intentions of my employer. These are solely my personal opinions. If you are seeking official position statements ...