Study shows how spammers cash in
Spammers are turning a profit despite only getting one response for every 12.5m e-mails they send, finds a study. — By hijacking a working spam network, US researchers have uncovered some of the eco...
How To: Max Out Apple TV's Potential With Boxee
This is a guide that, if followed, will unchain your Apple TV from its cruel iTunes tether, turning it into the useful living room conduit of music, video and web-based content it should have been all...
Rock Band Creators Score $300 Million-Plus Payday (VIA)
When Harmonix founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy — the guys behind mega-hit games Guitar Hero and later, Rock Band — sold their company to Viacom's (VIA) MTV for a reported $175 million in 2006, t...
Is Your Web Truly World-Wide?
The Reader team is happy to announce that another 20% project has come to fruition: automatic translation in Reader! Post by 20% volunteer and glottology expert, Brett Bavar. — Believe it or not, t...
MacBook Nano Looks Like It Came from Cupertino
I don't know if these MacBook Nanos are a custom hack or if they come from some kind of shady outlet selling retrofitted MSI U100 laptops made to look like shiny—and fictional—Apple notebooks with Mac...
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1a hitting Best Buy next month
Thanks to our Best Buy ninjas, we've just got some screen shots showing that Sony Ericsson's X1a (North American model) will definitely be hitting best buy early next month. The actual in stock date ...
Study: new MacBooks likely 33% of US sales
Apple's recent MacBook lineup and the iPhone may make it one of the better-positioned companies to survive a likely steep drop in spending during the holidays, according to new data from ChangeWave. ...
The genius behind Steve
The CEO is the heart and soul of Apple Inc. yet he's got a deep management bench from which to choose his eventual successor. — (Fortune Magazine) — Let's start with some uncomfortable truths. We w...
Sun, Microsoft Search Deal Underscore Google's Growing Monopoly
Update: Funny how things evolve in high-tech, with some deals lasting what seems like ages and others, announced with so much enthusiasm, dying out. I want to talk about an example of the latter.
Bill Gates' New Career? Patent Troll For Nathan Myhrvold?
from the kinder-capitalism? dept — Plenty of folks have been wondering just what Bill Gates is up to now that he's left his full-time position at Microsoft. Longtime rabble-rouser theodp has alert...
A Rush for Mobile
When we recently added the ability to comment on your friends' status updates to the Facebook mobile site, we didn't expect that we would receive nearly a million status comments in the first 24 hours...
Spot.Us Experiments With Citizen-Funded Community Journalism
Newspapers are dying across the country. Local papers are shutting down, Gannett is laying off 3,000 people, the Christian Science Monitor will no longer put out a print edition, and even the New Yor...
Google Fixes Embarrassing Android Bug
Google has fixed an a potentially devastating bug in its newly released Android operating system. — Some users of T-Mobile's G1 phone found that typing any word on the phone's keyboard — in any appl...
Look Out Google Site Search, Lijit Says It's Right On Your Heels
Innovative search startup Lijit has done study of search widgets on pages around the web and says its widget is very close to becoming as popular as Google's own “site search”. We think Lijit is quit...
Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter
At 10:15 pm I discovered that I had not brought a Macbook power supply on the trip. I was in a hotel on Coronado Island, and early the next morning I was flying to an aircraft carrier off San Diego f...
Yahoo's BrowserPlus continues to dismantle wall between browser and desktop
BrowserPlus, Yahoo's Google Gears competitor for allowing web applications to work with your desktop, rolled out two cool new features today: Drag-and-drop file uploads and desktop notifications. — ...
Hulu, YouTube, iTunes take a walk on Sesame Street
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? Yes: on iTunes, Hulu and YouTube. — After almost four decades on Public Broadcasting Service-affiliated television stat...
Windows 7: faster or just smarter?
If you've been following the PC Pro blogs, you'll know that we recently received a preview build of Windows 7. Useful work has pretty much ground to a halt as we've all set about nuking our Vista ins...
Dapper MashupAds Turn Your Website Into Contextual, Display Ads
The most important ad for a company or brand is its Website. So why not use that Website to generate ads? Dapper, a startup that can create a feed from any Website, is applying its technology to gen...
The better part of Nokia's smartphone roadmap goes on display
Okay, so maybe the N96 isn't your cup of tea. Perhaps you're disappointed that Nokia didn't blow out its inaugural entry into the wide world of touch with something just a little more superphone-ish ...
Blinkx Boosts Revenues 115 Percent (But Is Still Losing Money)
A lot of hopes are being pinned on video search these days as the only remaining source of strong advertising growth. One of the few publicly traded pure-play Web video companies is blinkx, which tra...
Circuit City, Electronics Retailer, Seeks Bankruptcy
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Circuit City Stores Inc., the 59-year- old seller of televisions and computers, filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the biggest retail casualty of the slowing U.S. economy ...
Microsoft Does MSN Toolbar Distribution Deal With Java
Continuing on with its strategy to build search share by gaining distribution partners, Microsoft has landed a deal to have its MSN Toolbar offered to anyone in the United States who downloads Java fo...
Nortel cuts jobs, shakes up management
Nortel (NT) plans a major restructuring and another round of job cuts as demand for tech gear plunges. — The Toronto networking equipment giant said Monday it would trim 1,300 jobs on top 1,200 cuts...
VMware Wants to Bring Virtualization to Your Smart Phone
VMware is looking to bring its virtualization technology to smart phones and cell phones in 2009 through a new virtualization platform called the VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform, or MVP. The pl...
Keystream Inserts Ads Into Empty Spaces
Keystream, a Mountain View, Calif.-based startup whose technology automatically inserts ad placements unobtrusively into empty spaces within video streams, came out of stealth mode, announced its soft...
Cyber criminals target Facebook users
Facebook has been infiltrated by Nigerian scammers and other cyber criminals who use compromised accounts to con users out of cash. — Now that even non-tech savvy internet users know not to respond ...
Google, T-Mobile, Give AOL a Hand and a Big Check
Apple (AAPL), Research In Motion (RIMM) and Google (GOOG) are duking it out for consumers' smartphone dollars this fall. But here's an early winner: Time Warner's AOL (TWX), which has just landed a g...
Dell Lags in New Products
Michael Dell last year promised innovative new consumer products to generate “product lust” and spark his company's turnaround effort. But in the runup to the holiday sales season, Dell Inc. has been...
iPhone trumps RAZR as most purchased US consumer handset
Apple's iPhone 3G dethroned the top-ranked Motorola RAZR as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S. during the third quarter of the year, according to market research firm NPD.
Three Rings launches Whirled online games site
Banking on virtual fantasy, Three Rings is launching its Whirled virtual world and game platform today after months of beta testing. — It's the latest casual online gaming site to let players build ...
Netbooks: An opportunity for Windows, and a threat to Linux
The netbook revolution is upon us. Less than a year ago, the cheap, Atom-powered mini-laptops were a novelty. Now they are shaking up the regular laptop industry. Netbooks are taking marketshare an...
Agency.com Sues Rival Over Clients
Agency.com LLC sued rival digital-ad firm iCrossing Inc., alleging that it poached several of its top executives and clients. — Agency.com, a unit of Omnicom Group, filed suit in state court in Dall...
iPhone trounces BlackBerry, Treo in reliability
Man, not only is the iPhone beating BlackBerry in sales and customer satisfaction, but the latest study from SquareTrade is showing that BlackBerrys malfunction about twice as much as an iPhone. Ouch...
YouTube to post full-length MGM films
NEW YORK (Reuters) - YouTube, the largest video-sharing website, will show full-length television shows and films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's archives in its latest step to boost advertising revenue by...