Zune Apps
In my brief comments yesterday on the new touchscreen Zune HD that is set to debut September 15, I noted: … I mean, why not? The software platform has quickly become a major driving force behind the ...
A Sad Day. Goodbye, Riya
Facial recognition service Riya will shut down on August 21, 2009, says founder Munjal Shah in an email to users this morning. We are adding it to the TechCrunch DeadPool. — This was one of the ori...
Google Points At WebFinger. Your Gmail Address Could Soon Be Your ID.
There's some excitement around the web today among a certain group of high profile techies. What are they so excited about? Something called WebFinger, and the fact that Google is apparently getting...
The Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009
I love seeing people start new companies, especially in the tech world. But I've probably gotten a little bit jaded about new startups, especially when the story seems to be more about who's funding ...
Google Chrome 4.0: Fastest OS X browser by 34 per cent
Safari, eat Google's dust — its Chrome Web browser — under its developmental title Chromium — has hit version 4.0 on the Mac, and our tests confirm it's the fastest browser in the world on both PC and...
Google's Varian: Search scale is ‘bogus’
Google's Hal Varian would likely have raised an eyebrow at a term paper submitted by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the search market. — Varian, currently on leave from the University of California ...
Major Carriers Shun Broadband Stimulus
The Obama administration made a national priority of spreading high-speed Internet access to every American home and offered stimulus money to help companies pay for it, but the biggest network operat...
Picasa photos in Street View
Earlier this year, we launched a new Google Maps feature embedding user-contributed photos into Street View. The new way of browsing photos has recently been enhanced with photo-to-photo zooming, whi...
PSPgo games will be as cheap as iPhone games
Between 1 - 5 Euros — With the rumour mill speeding up prior to Sony's press conference at the Gamescom show in Cologne, Germany, next week, news has been leaked concerning the price of PSP games fo...
Verizon Wireless Completes Successful LTE 4G Data Calls In Boston And Seattle
Trials Include First Field-Level Tests Integrating Network Vendors' 4G Technology Over 700 MHz Spectrum — BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless today completed its first successful Long Term Evolutio...
‘Take Back the Beep’ Campaign: An Update
It's been two weeks since I started “Take Back the Beep,” a campaign to flood the four big wireless companies with complaints. I want them to eliminate (or make optional) those time-wasting, redundan...
What's your social mojo?
As Twitter becomes more mainstream, everyone and their mother (and grandmother... and mayor... and daytime TV host) is trying their hand at the tweet. But what they might not realize is that how you ...
India launches Bhuvan, rival to Google Earth
India has launched a rival to Google Earth, the search engine's hugely popular satellite imagery service. — The online tool, dubbed Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), has been developed by the Indian Spac...
On-screen Virtual Keyboard a Possibility for Pre
It was just about two months ago that we pointed your eyes towards WebShell and its on-screen software keyboard. The browser-based SSH input served more as a tease for our desperate eyes than an actu...
The Gap Between Google and Rivals May Be Smaller Than You Think
It's no secret that even with their recently-announced alliance, Yahoo and Microsoft will lag well behind Google in the hugely profitable search and search advertising business. How far behind?
YouTube to show Sony's “Ghostbusters” this week for film's 25th anniversary
YouTube and Sony are crossing the streams. — Starting tonight at 9 p.m. PDT, YouTube will host a weeklong showing of Sony's comedy classic “Ghostbusters” in honor of the film's 25th anniversary.
Apple's Snow Leopard: A flurry of changes
According to rumors, the release of Mac OS X 10.6, Apple's operating system also known as Snow Leopard, might arrive a bit early. Though Apple announced at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June ...
Video game sales in free fall
In a stark reversal of the trend on display just a few short months ago—when general retail sales were plummeting even as the video games industry was still showing growth—cautious optimism in retail ...
Format War Clouds E-Book Horizon
Thinking about making the leap to digital books? First, you'll need to add a jumble of new lingo to your dictionary: .epub, pdb, BeBB, and Adobe Content Server 4, just to name a few. — Sony — Son...
MTA blogger defends iPhone app
New Haven (WTNH) - A blogger that created an application for the iPhone has been asked to cease and desist by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) because they say he is distributing their train s...
Massive AOL Layoffs? Not Imminent-But Top-to-Bottom Cost Exam Definitely in Process
After a while-in a BoomTown mangling of the old cliché-if you are a nail, everything begins to look like a hammer. — So, it is probably inevitable that the next thing for much-beleaguered AOL staffe...
iPhone 3GS Camera Pre-Caches Images Before You Take Them?
Does the iPhone 3GS camera constantly buffer live video data, in effect pre-caching the images you want before you take them? Birdhouse developer Adam Lisagore thinks so, and says so via his Lonely S...
First Samsung Android phone out next week
Exclusive Samsung's first Android-based mobile phone - the Galaxy i7500 - will be launched next week, Register Hardware has discovered. — Samsung's Galaxy: out next week on O2 — Staff at a handful...
iPhone vs. Pre: Satisfaction bakeoff
Palm Pre owners love their smartphones, but not as much as owners of Apple's new 3GS iPhone love theirs. — In a survey of 200 3GS users conducted Aug. 4-11 by RBC Capital and ChangeWave Research, 99...
Gnip, Betaworks create short URL seed bank
In light of the near-shutdown of Tr.im—and the actual closing of URL shortening services like URLTea, Shurl.net, and Qurl.net—users of the URL shorteners still standing may wonder what's going to happ...
Facebook privacy: a guide
Everywhere you look (even here at Ars), there are articles about people making poor decisions about what kinds of info and how much to share on sites like Facebook. The Internet is no longer a place ...
Verizon again clearing BlackBerries via promo
Verizon has launched a second and more ambitious Buy One Get One promo to help move BlackBerries in what's likely a sign of a new wave of devices, a tip today reveals. Now called BOGA (possibly Buy O...
Bug exposes eight years of Linux kernel
Passes it's-not-crying-wolf test — Free whitepaper - Avoiding 7 common mistakes of IT security compliance — Linux developers have issued a critical update for the open-source OS after researchers ...
Apple's Cash Hoard: It Just Keeps on Growing
Remember when Wall Street was obsessed with Microsoft's bulging bank account? Now it's Apple that is awash in cash, the latest symbol of the company's stunning ascendance over the past decade. — Ap...
Consumer Reports at it again
Back in May, I criticized a review Consumer Reports magazine did of netbook computers (What Consumer Reports didn't tell you about netbooks). It was a fairly long critique. — Many computer articles...
HTC patents magnetic stylus for capacitive screens
Capacitive screens have received a great reception for their sensitivity to touch, but has left many stylus affectionados who appreciate the precision and other advantages of a stand-off pointing dev...