David Simon: Dead-Wrong Dinosaur
The creator of the brilliant television series The Wire today asked Congress to legalize monopolistic collusion by newspapers. Only they can really cover City Hall, he said. Apparently he hasn't bee...
AT&T Considering $10 Drop in iPhone Monthly Plan Rates?
TheStreet.com reports on comments from analyst Michael Cote suggesting that AT&T is considering reducing the basic monthly iPhone plan from $69 to $59 alongside an announcement of the next-generation ...
3 Reasons Why Twitter Will NOT Index the Links You Share (Updated)
Techmeme is on fire this morning with discussion of Rafe Needleman's CNet post about Twitter's supposed plans to index the content of links shared over the microblogging service. Ex-Googler turned Tw...
Free web news era over, says Murdoch
Current days of free internet will soon be over, says media mogul — Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a...
Internal Palm memo may reveal Pre launch timing
We're prefacing this by saying we're definitely not 100%, but it looks like Palm could be gearing up for a round of meetings that will lead up to the day we've all been waiting for — Palm Pre launch d...
The 2008 Founders' Letter
Every year our founders take turns writing a letter that is included in our annual report. We originally published the 2008 Founders' Letter on our Investor Relations site. Since today is the annual...
Snow Leopard to support native 3G Wireless WAN hardware
Building on evidence that Apple is seeking to hire engineers to test new Macs with 3G Wireless WAN support, people familiar with the company's plans say Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will incorporate new...
Facebook Adds New Feed And Friend Filters
Want to view which of your friends recently updated their profile? It is a feature that was lost with the new Facebook redesign, but as of last night, there are new filters which give you greater acc...
Hulu agrees international TV deals
Hulu, the US online video service owned by NBC Universal, Fox and Walt Disney, has signed its first batch of content deals with international television producers, the first step towards a full global...
Microsoft tweaks antipiracy tech for Windows 7
With Windows 7, Microsoft is making some subtle changes to the ways it tries to thwart piracy. — As has been the case for some time, Microsoft's strategy hinges on requiring a user to electronically...
BlackBerry 8520's hitting T-Mobile in Q4
We just got some hands on time with the now infamous BlackBerry 8520 (code-named Gemini). Optical trackball? Ooooh yeah. While there hasn't been too much time to play with them, early impressions a...
Microsoft buys game developer BigPark to beef up Xbox 360 offering
Microsoft has been scaling back its internal staff across the board and in games. But the software giant showed today that it's still willing to invest in the game business by buying BigPark, a game ...
Speed Test: Windows 7 May Not Be Much Faster Than Vista
Though Windows 7 edged out Vista in our lab tests, you may not notice much of a difference. — Recommends — Improving performance is one of Microsoft's design goals with Windows 7, and many early r...
iPhone Beta 5 Odds and Ends: No More MMS, Better YouTube?
The official script may have minimized it as a maintenance release, but some users are finding out that iPhone Beta 5 contains more than bugfixes. So far: YouTube's improved, and hacked MMS is no mor...
MPAA suggests teachers videotape TVs instead of ripping DVDs. Seriously.
So the Copyright Office is currently in the middle reviewing proposed exceptions to the DMCA, and one of the proposals on the table would allow teachers and students to rip DVDs and edit them for use ...
Warner Music Group Walks Away From Digital Start-Ups Lala and Imeem, Loses $33 Million
It's par for the course for big music labels to boast about their digital music sales as their CD sales tank. And that's just what Warner Music Group (WMG) did that this morning …
Google: Schmidt Hasn't Considered Quitting AAPL Board
Speaking to reporters at a press briefing ahead of the company's annual meeting taking place this afternoon, Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt said he hadn't considered resigning from the Apple (AAPL) bo...
Intel, Novell stump for Moblin netbook OS
Intel and Novell on Thursday announced a deal to push Moblin, the open source Linux platform designed to work with the chip giant's Atom chip. Intel cooked up Moblin and then handed it off to the ope...
Skype Cofounders Aim to Raise $266M Venture Fund
Atomico Ventures is ready for blast-off, according to a new regulatory filing. The early-stage venture capital fund spearheaded by Skype cofounders Niklas Zennström, and Janus Friis is looking to rai...
Microsoft Photosynth Goes to Work: Integrates With Virtual Earth
Microsoft announced today that it will now give its commerical partners the option to mash up Virtual Earth and Photosynth to create immersive 3D photo experiences. In order to facilitate this, Micro...
Magnetometer in next iPhone confirmed?
We just got a couple images from one of our Apple ninjas and it appears to show a compass option in one of the debugging menus. Our source says this is obviously for a built-in magnetometer in the up...
Cool changes coming to Twitter Search
Twitter Search is going to get a lot more interesting soon, I learned tonight from Twitter's new VP of Operations, Santosh Jayaram. Until recently, Jayaram was VP of Search Quality for Google. — Sp...
Google: A ‘natural monopoly’?
The search giant says competition is “a click away.” So what if it hasn't materialized? — NEW YORK (Fortune) — For the second week in a row, reports have surfaced that government regulators are clo...
Nokia's Gigantic App Store
Nokia is preparing an app store second in size only to Apple's. — Nokia is about to shake up the app store world. — The Finnish company is planning to roll out an online store for mobile applicati...
Revisiting the ROI of the Kindle DX: Why is Amazon blind to Wi-Fi?
Amazon unveiled its much hyped Kindle DX, an e-book with a 9.7-inch screen designed to raise a ruckus in the textbook market, but delivered a $489 curve ball that seriously alters the return on invest...
Sirius XM Ups Full Year Outlook; But Subs Are Shrinking
Sirius XM (SIRI) this morning raised its full year outlook - but it nonetheless appears to be shrinking. — For the first quarter, the satellite radio company posted pro forma revenue of $605.5 milli...
Tech Rumor of the Day: Apple
AT&T (T Quote) is considering a $10 price cut for the iPhone's monthly service plan when Apple (AAPL Quote) introduces the newest version of the phone next month. — There is a “strong possibility” t...
iPhone Beta 5 Odds and Ends: No More MMS, Better YouTube?
The official script may have minimized it as a maintenance release, but some users are finding out that iPhone Beta 5 contains more than bugfixes. So far: YouTube's improved, and hacked MMS is no mor...
IFPI Using Disputed Pirate Bay Verdict To Claim Web Hosting Companies Are Liable
After the entertainment industry partially won its Supreme Court decision against Grokster, it didn't take long at all for the RIAA to start claiming the ruling said stuff it didn't.
Garmin launches Oregon 550 and Oregon 550t outdoor navigators
Did you seriously shell out to have ARGONAUT plastered on your license plate? Oh, yeah? Listen up. Garmin has just pushed out a new duo of navigators aimed squarely at you, the Oregon 550 and Orego...
Ning: The Latest Platform For App-Makers Wanting To Get Rich
Add one more platform to the ranks of Facebook, MySpace and the iPhone for developers wanting to cash in on the app trend: Ning. The D-I-Y social network-creation service is rolling out “Ning Apps,” ...
Asus Eee Box B206
FriendFeed is absorbing more Twitter users, and that's good for Twitter
FriendFeed, the service that culls your activities on various social networks into a single stream, is seeing a surge in new users, at least from anecdotal evidence (including signups that VentureBeat...
Rogers announces HTC Dream (G1) and Magic coming in June
It's Android time, Canadians. Mark your calendars for June 2nd as Rogers Wireless has just announced the exclusive arrival of both the HTC Dream (aka G1) and HTC Magic (aka QWERTY-less G1) next month...
Gist's New Funding Began With A Twitter Message
Sometimes a personal connection - really getting to know a venture capitalist - can be as important as any other factor in leading to venture funding. — T.A. McCann, chief executive of email managem...
Historical Perspective: At Least This Time Around We Don't Have Incubators For Incubators
Silicon Valley and the Internet community in general gets a lot of criticism and jeering over some of the absurd ideas that turn into venture funded startups. People make fun of the business plans …
Growing Pains for Online Video Chat
Seesmic, TokBox, and other startups in this area of social media must contend with issues of personality and, especially, privacy — Turns out, even the most outgoing social media animals get shy onc...
FAA's Air-Traffic Computer Systems Penetrated by Hackers
WASHINGTON — Civilian air-traffic computer networks have been penetrated multiple times in recent years, including an attack that partially shut down air-traffic data systems in Alaska, according to a...
Microsoft to turn .Net Micro Framework code, support over to the community
Microsoft is turning the source code for its embedded .Net Micro Framework over to the community and slowly withdrawing from that business, company officials are confirming. — On the rumored list of...
Google: American phenomenon and antitrust target
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google is more than a fabulously successful company — it is a cultural phenomenon facing increasing U.S. government scrutiny despite its chief executive's campaign support for P...