CNBC: Sprint board rejects $8b MetroPCS acquisition ‘hours’ before announcement
CNBC is reporting that Sprint and regional carrier MetroPCS were literally hours from announcing an $8 billion merger when Sprint's executive board rejected it — even after it had CEO Dan Hesse's sign...
Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — When AT&T started slowing down the data service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver and student, took the country's largest telecommunications compa...
Flickr disables Pinterest pins on all copyrighted images (exclusive)
As the third most popular source of content on digital pin-board site Pinterest, Flickr and its photographers are subject to frequent acts of copyright infringement. But a site-wide update to Flickr ...
How Microsoft is killing off the Zune and Windows Live brands in Windows 8
Microsoft appears to be killing off two of its key user-facing brands with the upcoming Consumer Preview release of Windows 8. Windows Live applications have been rolled into preinstalled apps that w...
David Pogue Is Only Competent To Review Gadgets
David Pogue weighed in yesterday about the Nightline piece. — I have been trying to engage with Mr. Pogue, but it hasn't gone well. — I hate to take the gloves off, but I feel like there's little ...
Google Invents an Original Search Gesture for Future Devices
Google has invented an original search based gesture for future Android devices. In some cases, the new “continuous gestures” will allow a user to simply and quickly draw a circle around what they wa...
Sony Music Boss: Censored YouTube Videos Cost Us Millions
For years the music industry has blamed Internet piracy for all their troubles. — Slowly, however, the record labels are starting to realize that the Internet is the future and it will ultimately do...
Facebook resuscitates Digg, traffic up 35%
Think Digg is deader than a doornail? Think again. The news aggregation site is showing new signs of life and has Facebook to thank for its recent resuscitation. — Digg's pageviews jumped 35 perce...
Selecting a Seatmate to Make Skies Friendlier
PARIS — On his eight-hour flight to New York from Switzerland last month, Jeff Jarvis, a well-known blogger and journalism professor, found himself seated next to a woman eager to discuss the finer po...
Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA
NEW YORK — Kickstarter is having an amazing year, even by the standards of other white hot Web startup companies, and more is yet to come. — One of the company's three co-founders, Yancey Strickler ...
A Law Apple Would Like to Break
These days, it's hard to find a superlative that adequately describes Apple. But maybe simplest is best: biggest. — Measured by market capitalization, Apple is the world's biggest company. This we...
TiVo transcoder and IP-based set top box coming ‘by the end of summer’
Nestled within TiVo's surprisingly decent fourth quarter results was a statement from CEO Tom Rogers, who said that “By the end of the summer, we'll further that lead with the addition of the four-str...
Judge dismisses lawsuit over Google privacy changes
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that sought to force the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block Google's planned privacy changes. ...
Caterina Fake: Fast Growth for a New Social App Is a Very Bad Thing
Social Web entrepreneurs with successful careers just can't seem to find their way to a happy and boring retirement. Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake just announced Pinwheel, joining Ev Williams and B...
Should All Web Traffic Be Encrypted?
The prevalence of free, open WiFi has made it rather easy for a WiFi eavesdropper to steal your identity cookie for the websites you visit while you're connected to that WiFi access point. This is so...
Microsoft Invents New Kinect Feature Called the “Seekbar”
At this year's CES, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that Kinect was coming to the PC - and on February one they introduced Kinect for Windows. Even though we're not quite sure what Kinect for ...
We're not paying enough for apps
Rafe Needleman tries to convince a developer he's charging too much for his utility, ends up convincing himself that a lot of software is underpriced instead. — If the cool automatic monitor and com...
Apple getting ready to ditch the traditional iPhone, iPad, and iPod dock connector
An updated “micro dock” would make room for bigger batteries, 4G radios, and other components far more important to the iPhone and iPad in a PC free world. — We've heard that Apple is getting ready ...
Google to sell stake in Clearwire for $47m, a tenth of the price it originally paid
Google has filed documents with the SEC today in preparation for the sale of its entire stake in the troubled Clearwire Corporation. Having spent $500 million to acquire a 6.5 percent share back in 2...
Microsoft Office 15 apps to include ‘touch mode’
Summary: The coming Office 15 client apps all seem to be getting a new ‘touch mode’ button that will enable them to work better on touch-centric devices. — It looks like Office 15 client apps are go...
Flashback Mac Trojan Horse Infections Increasing with New Variant
We recently reported about a new variant of the Flashback Trojan horse which is using novel techniques to infect Macs. Since then, we have discovered a number of samples of this latest variant, Flash...
Feature: If Android is a “stolen product,” then so was the iPhone
According to his official biographer, Steve Jobs went ballistic in January 2010 when he saw HTC's newest Android phones. “I want you to stop using our ideas in Android,” Jobs reportedly told Eric Sch...
Dropbox Can Now Automatically Sync Your Android Photos (And It Has More Up Its Sleeve)
Last year, Dropbox raised a whopping $250 million funding round at a valuation in the ballpark of $4 billion. The raise had been rumored for months so it didn't come as a huge surprise, but it still ...
Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device
At Mobile World Congress, which begins in three days, Mozilla will finally take the wraps off the Mozilla Marketplace and allow developers to submit their open web technology (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) ...
Apple's iPhone TV Ads: The Complete Campaign
Apple's “Get a Mac” campaign for the Macintosh computer, starring Justin Long and John Hodgman, set the bar for creativity in tech advertising. Created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, it was simply the best ...
Pseudonymous Mobile Messaging App Vibe Acquired By Betaworks
Back during the heyday of #OccupyWallStreet in New York City (before winter dispersed most of the protestors there), an iPhone app called Vibe became popular among that community. It allows people to...
Votizen Gets a Celebrity Round of Funding to Connect Social Media and Politics
American politics in the age of the Super PAC is all about money. But meanwhile over on the Internet, connecting and mobilizing networks of people is easier than ever. — (See: the SOPA and PIPA onl...
iCloud and MobileMe push email disabled on iOS devices in Germany due to Motorola lawsuit
Following a German court ruling earlier this month that deemed Apple's email sync services were in breach of a Motorola patent, the Cupertino company has decided to disable the offending functionality...
MPAA's Chris Dodd Extends SOPA Olive Branch to Silicon Valley
MPAA Chief Chris Dodd made a peace overture to Silicon Valley Wednesday, telling an audience that “Hollywood is pro-technology and pro-Internet.” — But he also made clear the legislative battle agai...
The Book of Jobs
Steve Jobs smelled so foul that none of his co-workers at Atari in the seventies would work with him. Entreating him to shower was usually futile; he'd inevitably claim that his strict vegan diet had...
Tech media misconceptions
Journalism is rife with conflict. Get over it. — The tech media wars continued yesterday, with LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik basically accusing certain tech bloggers of being “influence peddle...
Nvidia Announces LTE Partnership with Renesas Mobile and GCT Semiconductor
Nvidia's announcement today is a bit interesting, as it seems to head-off one of the most commonly perpetuated rumors that I read online in the SoC space. Namely, that certain SoCs are “incompatible”...
Chinese developer Hoolai on how half its iOS revenue got eaten by virtual currency scams last fall
After bringing its hit social game Three Kingdoms to the iPhone last fall, everything was looking up for Beijing-based developer Hoolai. The game had climbed to the top of the grossing charts in Chin...