Microsoft to lure search users with cash
Microsoft isn't talking yet about the big search initiative it's expected to announce Wednesday, but I was able to figure out details with a little digging today. Here's an advance look at the story ...
iPhone 3G Launch Date Confirmed
We all suspected it, but now it is confirmed: someone very, very close to the 3G iPhone launch has told me that Apple will announce their new model at the WWDC Keynote on June 9th. The second-generat...
Look out, Apple TV: The $100 Netflix Player has arrived
The Netflix box is finally a reality. — The Netflix Player by Roku is the first product that allows subscribers to have movies and TV shows from the service's Instant Viewing feature (aka “Watch Now...
A Gamble, but What if He Wins?
About a month and a half ago, Carl Icahn and I went to dinner at Tse Yang, an upscale Chinese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. Mr. Icahn, the corporate raider turned activist investor, came blusterin...
DRM is dead, long live DRM
I've just had a fascinating conversation with Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter, on the subject of DRM and music. — His view, and one that might trouble some, is that DRM on music isn't going a...
IAC Acquires GirlSense.com Parent StarNet; Targeting Tweens
On path to break into five pieces, IAC (NSDQ: IACI) has announced the acquisition of StarNet Interactive, the parent company of the GirlSense.com community site. Basically the site offers a virtual w...
How to Make Facebook Useful Again
Oh the heels of some of Facebook's missteps (ahem, Beacon) and the proliferation of a myriad of useless, silly, and time-wasting apps, some former Facebook users decided to quit the site for good this...
Videos Taken Down From YouTube
YouTomb is an interesting project by MIT Free Culture that collects YouTube videos taken down because of copyright infringements. “More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular vid...
Google Backers Back Aster Data Systems. It's All About The Clusters.
Clusters are the way to go. Google and Yahoo run their Websites on distributed databases spread across vast clusters of servers. Now Aster Data Systems, a startup that is coming out of stealth mode ...
T-Mobile to keep iPhone exclusivity in Germany
PARIS (Reuters) - T-Mobile TMOG.UL expects to remain the only seller of Apple's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) coveted iPhone in Germany, T-Mobile Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan said on Tuesday. —...
‘Big Brother’ database for phones and e-mails
A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet serv...
Mobile IM to surpass SMS?
A recent Gartner study estimates that 189 billion mobile messages have been sent by U.S. mobile-phone subscribers in 2007. It forecasts 301 billion mobile messages sent in 2008. — If correct, those...
BBC's Sound Index is good, but we won't get the data
The BBC's SoundIndex, currently in beta, lists the top 1,000 artists based on discussions crawled from Bebo, Last.fm, Google Groups, iTunes, MySpace and YouTube. The top five bands according to Sound...
Sprint To Impose 5GB Monthly EVDO Cap - 300MB per month when you're off the network...
Yet Another Microsoft Memo. Satya Nadella, VP of Search Writes:
Well, like you I am finding that Microsoft memos are better at telling the story (or lack there off) than other people's voices. Today, we got our grubby paws on Microsoft VO of Search Satya Nadella'...