Google Buzz and Kids - Parental Control Nightmare
Like many parents, I try to take steps to keep my kids safe online, making sure that they understand not to share personal information online, or even to use their real names. They know how to write ...
Measuring Tweets
As a member of the Twitter analytics team, part of my job is to measure and understand growth. The graph above tells a story of how we've grown over the past three years in terms of number of tweets ...
Why You Can't Pry IE6 Out Of Their Cold Dead Hands
Among the barriers to Windows 7 deployment is the need to upgrade users (and their applications) from IE 6 to IE 8. But too many of those users apparently refuse to give up the older Microsoft web br...
iPhone Game House ngmoco Raises $25 Million Series C, Buys Freeverse
Neil Young, the CEO of iPhone game startup ngmoco, wants to “amass enough scale” to accelerate “away from the pack.” He just raised a $25 million series C round and acquired Freeverse, another top iP...
Networks Wary of Apple's Push to Cut Show Prices
If Apple cut the price of each TV episode in half — to 99 cents, from $1.99 — would sales on iTunes increase enough to offset the price drop? — Experiments are under way to find out, and the head of...
Microsoft, Amazon strike patent deal covering Kindle and Linux
Microsoft and Amazon.com say they've reached a wide-ranging agreement in which each company has granted the other a license to its patent portfolio. Microsoft says the agreement covers technologies i...
For Chip Makers, the Next Battle Is in Smartphones
The semiconductor industry has long been a game for titans. — The going rate for a state-of-the-art chip factory is about $3 billion. The plants typically take years to build. And the microscopic ...
Vudu Convinces Wal-Mart to Pay Up: Why an Also-Ran Web Movie Service Sold For More Than $100 Million
As I wrote in January, Wal-Mart was indeed interested in buying Vudu, the online movie service. I was off about one thing, though — the price. — Wal-Mart (WMT) will be paying …
Hey Apple! Workout Clothes Are Overtly Sexual and PlayBoy Is Not?
Apple has been constantly criticized for their app store's policies by developers and bloggers alike. Earlier it was the mysterious process of rejecting apps for almost stupid reasons and now it is t...
How Random Is Microsoft's Random Browser Choice Screen In Europe?
After a lengthy legal face-off, Microsoft and European antitrust officials recently agreed on the implementation of a so-called ballot screen that will give European Windows users a chance to download...
Microsoft's Challenge With Windows Phone 7 Is Wooing Developers
Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. Recruiting a ton of them to create a rich app experience for Windows Phone 7 Series is going to be Microsoft's toughest challen...
The Spy at Harriton High
This investigation into the remote spying allegedly being conducted against students at Lower Merion represents an attempt to find proof of spying and a look into the toolchain used to accomplish spyi...
EU Data Protection Chief Slams Secret ACTA Talks
The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) being negotiated in secret by the U.S., E.U. and others potentially runs roughshod over European data protection requirements, European data protection s...
The Truth about Mobile Application Stores
At the recent Mobile World Congress 2010, Dutch app store analytics firm Distimo presented their findings on the six largest mobile application stores in existence today: the iTunes App Store, BlackBe...
Broadband Fans, We Have an Innovation Problem
Google last week said it plans to build an experimental fiber-to-the-home network that would deliver speeds of up to 1 Gbps. And this week FCC chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a goal of deliverin...
Yuri Milner: DST Has $1 Billion for Social Media
Digital Sky Technologies, investor in Facebook and Zynga, intends to make big investments in social Web startups over the next five years — In early 2009, as Russian investor Yuri Milner scoured the...
webOS 1.4 to Arrive Feb 25th?
While Sprint may have been ready for webOS 1.4 since the 15th, actual roll-out of the OS hasn't happened yet. That's not too surprising - we've seen internal dates from Sprint slip in the past. But ...