eBay Inc. Announces Plan for 2010 Initial Public Offering of Skype
eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced that it plans to separate Skype from the company, beginning with an initial public offering that is intended to be completed in the first half of 2010. Specif...
Boston College Campus Police: “Using Prompt Commands” May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity
On Friday, EFF and the law firm of Fish and Richardson filed an emergency motion to quash [pdf] and for the return of seized property on behalf of a Boston College computer science student whose compu...
Yahoo Is Said to Plan More Layoffs
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo is planning a new round of layoffs, the first since Carol Bartz became chief executive in January, according to several people with knowledge of the situation. — The layoffs co...
Netflix expanding to other game console platforms
Let's not jump the gun here and claim that Netflix will be hitting the Wii and PlayStation 3 anytime soon, but they are looking for an experienced engineer to lead the gaming platforms team. — From ...
Intel: The bottom is in for PC demand
updated: Intel reported a first quarter profit of $647 million, or 11 cents per share, on revenue of $7.1 billion, beating Wall Street's estimates and suggesting that the sluggish PC industry may have...
AT&T Chief Pushes to Keep iPhone
When Randall Stephenson became AT&T Inc.'s chief executive, the company had just started offering the iPhone. The blockbuster device has since reeled in millions of new customers and helped revitaliz...
Zune phone ad campaign coming?
I was vacationing last week, so I missed my chance to comment on the Zune HD rumors. Microsoft had already told me that it is planning one more iteration of the Zune hardware, and given the iPhone's ...
Apple posts third iPhone OS 3.0 beta with minor API changes
The third beta of the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 is now available to official registered members of Apple's iPhone Developer Program. The biggest change is an improvement to the push notification impleme...
It's Official, Twitter is a Cult
I've been “tweeting” for about a year now. As many of my friends know, I joined fairly reluctantly, but felt it was one of those things I just “had” to do professionally. Over time my use of the ser...
AmazonFail Shows Data Matters Too
No software company in their right mind would change code and move it to production without extensive testing to make sure the new code wasn't broken. It's a tried and true business process supported...
Brill, Crovitz, Hindery Launch E-Commerce Venture For News Business
The news business has problems and entrepreneur Steve Brill, former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz and cable guy-turned-investor Leo Hindery, Jr. think they have the answers.
EMC launches cloud storage for VMware first, Microsoft's Hyper-V later
Built on an entirely new architecture known as the Symmetrix Virtual Matrix Architecture, EMC's new VMax departs from more customary data center storage arrays such as its own DMX-4 through its unprec...
Confirmed: Office 2010 will come in 32-bit, 64-bit flavors (Updated)
Microsoft has confirmed that Office 2010 will indeed be shipping in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. — Last month, a very believable rumor started flying around in regard to Office 2010 shipping in 32-bi...
Dominos Pranksters Done In By Crowdsourcing
Teens have long used YouTube to post videos of themselves doing gags, but in the case of some Dominos employees from North Carolina, uploading clips cost them their jobs in less than a day thanks to t...
Google.org exec leaves to tackle urgent threats
Updated 5:38 p.m. PDT to clarify relationship between the Skoll Foundation and the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund. — Dr. Larry Brilliant, who in February stepped down as leader of the search giant's Goog...
First non-Apple monitors to feature Mini Display Port announced
Want to play with Apple's new video connection standard, but don't want to shell out $800? Collins America has announced the first new line of LCD monitors to utilize Apple's new Mini Display Port st...
Silicon Valley CEOs braced for tough year
The normally upbeat chief executives of Silicon Valley are worrying about the economic damage and job loss this year could bring, according to a survey by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. — The ...
AT&T launches FamilyMap service, lets you spy on anyone, anywhere
So check this: AT&T just launched a service called FamilyMap. It basically let's you locate any number on your AT&T account for a monthly fee. Here's the thing though... besides the first notificati...
Service Pack 2 for 2007 Microsoft Office System due April 28th
Our friends over in the Office Sustained Engineering team asked us to post this info. You should be sure to check out their blog for updated information on service releases for our supported versions...
Next Exchange features e-mail ‘mute’ button
The next version of Microsoft's corporate e-mail server will not only offer the ability to view e-mail by conversations, but also the option of “muting” any thread that a user would rather not take pa...
EC starts legal action over Phorm
The European Commission has started legal action against Britain over the online advertising technology Phorm. — It follows complaints to the EC over how the behavioural advertising service was test...
How to take screenshots on the Palm Pre
Sure, none of us have the Palm Pre yet - but once you get it, won't you want to take a ton of screenshots to show off to your friends document the experience? — On the iPhone, taking a screenshot re...
Researchers: Databases still beat Google's MapReduce
Speed, efficiency of parallel SQL databases superior, paper shows — Computerworld) A team of researchers will release on Tuesday a paper showing that parallel SQL databases perform up to 6.5 times f...
Yahoo Could Save $1+ Billion Per Year Outsourcing Search To Microsoft
Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali runs the numbers on Yahoo's (YHOO) potential search/display ad deal with Microsoft (MSFT) in a report today. His notes: — Outsourcing search infrastructure to Micros...
Symantec: Security holes, malware spike in 2008
If you worry that the Internet is a scary place full of digital pickpockets and online identity thieves, your fears will be bolstered by the latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report released on...
Late to the iPhone, Trip Hawkins' Digital Chocolate falls in love with it
We've written about how new developers are enamored with the iPhone. But Trip Hawkins (founder of Electronic Arts) admits that his mobile game company, Digital Chocolate, was late to the iPhone.
Fully functional Office 2008 for Mac trial is now available
Those who want to try out Office 2008 for Mac but don't want to fork over hundreds of dollars just yet can now use a 30-day trial of the software. Microsoft's Mac BU made the fully-functional trial a...
Twitter Co-Founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone Speak!
BoomTown visited Twitter's San Francisco HQ for a pie-filled tour yesterday. — But I also got a chance to sit down to have a chat with two of its founders, CEO Evan Williams and Biz Stone (pictured ...
Description of the E74 error message warranty extension
View products that this article applies to. — MORE INFORMATION — While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percen...
Will Windows 7 be panned by enterprise IT?
Randall C. Kennedy mulls over the most recent survey numbers, which show a tepid response from IT shops — Windows 7 will change the world! It will right the wrongs of Vista in the enterprise space ...
AmazonFail: An inside look at what happened
I've spoken to an Amazon.com employee who works closely with the systems involved in the glitch. The employee asked me not to share his name because of company policies on talking with the media. — ...
TSMC and subsidiaries to benefit from launch of next-generation iPhone
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and two of its subsidiaries - packaging and testing house Xintec and color filer (CF) maker VisEra Technologies - are likely to benefit from their rol...
Simple backup service Backblaze now available to all Mac users
Backblaze, which remains a strong candidate for the easiest tool out there for backing up your hard drive, is taking the Mac version of its service out of beta testing today, which means it's now avai...
Part-timer Bechtolsheim Still a Big-Time Influence in Sun's Product Development
Sun on April 14 officially launched its next-generation set of Intel-based servers, storage packages and networking components in a widespread product refresh. Virtually all the new products feature ...
StumbleUpon, A Case Study In The Efficient Allocation Of Resources
So StumbleUpon, a social bookmarking site that lets users browse and discover new websites by clicking a button, was a subsidiary of eBay for just less than two years. The acquisition made the startu...
E-book reader market gets crowded as Amazon eyes big screen
Publishers, booksellers, and wireless companies are all looking at getting in on the e-book market, all while the company that enables it all, E Ink, is getting ready to roll out a much larger screen ...
Tech Rumor of the Day: Cisco Layoffs
On a conference call with analysts in February, Chambers said the company's cost management was “in pretty good shape.” He summarized by saying: “I would read into it more a level of confidence of no...
HD Cloud: Video Transcoding Gets Hip
Been able to make out facial expressions on YouTube lately? Noticed yourself rubbing your eyes less? Thought that show looked just about as good on your laptop as your TV? Given the rapid ascent of...
Hands on With Sony's New X-series Walkman
Sony is refreshing its Walkman line with new flagship models that pack noise cancelling, a bright touchscreen display, mobile TV, and the ability to surf the Internet and watch YouTube videos. — The...
The Problem with URL Shorteners: ow.ly Server Errors
If you currently click on a ow.ly shortened URL you will be shown a server error page at ow.ly - not the URL you or the publisher intended you to see. Proponents of these services have so far ignored...
Shop opening times searches: an SEO opportunity?
While perusing this week's fast moving search terms (i.e. the search terms in each category that experienced the biggest increase in volume between last week and the week before), the list for our Sho...
Can Widgets Save the Television Industry?
With Internet Connected television, Yahoo and Samsung try to take a leaf out of Apple's design playbook — Convergence has been the buzzword of the media world for years now. But while mobile might ...
Quantcast Shifts Focus Of Audience Measurement From Users To Brands
At a time when the online advertising world seems to be shifting from an era of measuring content to one that tracks the audiences that consume it, Quantcast is making a play to shift the focus again ...
Windows XP Mainstream Support retired, but no need to worry
Microsoft today retired Mainstream Support for Windows XP and Office 2003. Both products are now under Extended Support and will continue to be until April 8, 2014. — As planned, Microsoft today re...
How Publishers Can Get Advertisers To Spend In A Recession
How can a Web publisher or ad agencies get advertisers to loosen to their purse strings in the midst of a frightful recession? Simple: copy and paste the rest of this post into email. — The secret ...
OQO Rumored to Be Looking for Buyer: Expansys Pulls New Model Off Web Site
The title of the smallest full-featured Windows PC is still held by OQO, the tiny pocketable computer that has been around for a few years. I spent a good half hour with the newly announced Model 02+...
Study: Facebook use linked to lower grades
SAN DIEGO - College students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grade point averages than students who have not signed up for the social networking website, according to a pilot ...
IBM launches business analytics services unit; Eyes predictive modeling
IBM on Tuesday unveiled a new services unit focused on business analytics and optimization and stumped for the need to use data to make better predictions. — At an event in its Hawthorne, NY researc...