A Message About CISPA
More than 845 million people trust Facebook with their information, and maintaining that trust is at the core of everything we do. Keeping the site secure to protect our users and their information r...
Google's evil stock split
Count me in with Robert Cyran: there's something a little evil about the way that Google is splitting its stock, and in so doing creating a whole new class of non-voting shares. — There's a long his...
Spotify Launches Brand Apps
Apps Coming Soon From AT&T, McDonald's, Intel and Reebok — Mega-brands will soon be able to recommend your next Spotify playlist. — The music-streaming service will add apps from the likes of AT&T...
Jeff Bezos: ‘Even Well-Meaning Gatekeepers Slow Innovation’
Jeff Bezos' annual letter to Amazon shareholders is a timely manifesto, unifying the company's expansive range of businesses, justifying its approach to established markets, and marking as a target an...
Apple looking to build ‘unibody’ earbuds through ultrasonic bonding
By using a process known as ultrasonic bonding, Apple could create new iPhone and iPod earbuds that would have a seamless, more aesthetically pleasing “unibody” appearance. — Headsets and earbuds in...
Facebook Offers rollout begins, delivers local deals direct to your news feed
Facebook has announced that its offers system has begun to roll out, having first been revealed at its marketing conference at the beginning of March. The system allows local businesses to use their ...
Lumia 900 data connectivity fix now available for download
Earlier this week Nokia admitted that AT&T's Lumia 900 was suffering from data dropouts apparently brought out by memory management issues, promising a firmware update by next Monday — but they've bea...
Apple releases Flashback removal tool
Coming on the heels of its Thursday Java update, Apple has released a separate program to remove the so-called Flashback trojan that has affected over 600,000 Macs worldwide. — Apple on Friday relea...
Amazon Massively Inflates Its Streaming Library Size
Amazon counts individual episodes, not whole series, as “TV shows,” which makes its Prime streaming catalog seem 10 times bigger than it actually is. — Amazon boasts that it has “more than 17,000 mo...
iCloud's First Six Months: The Developers Weigh In
On October 12th, 2011, iCloud launched to millions of iOS users impatiently waiting to start getting their devices to sync with Apple's new platform, which CEO Tim Cook went on to call the company's n...
Intel's Windows 8 tablet: Checklist goes public
Intel ‘Clover Trail’ Atom Z2760-based Windows 8 tablet. — (Credit: Brooke Crothers) — Intel is offering more specifics on the features of future Windows 8 tablet at a conference in Beijing. It's ...
Exclusive: Former RIM boss sought strategy shift before he quit
(Reuters) - Former Research In Motion co-chief executive Jim Balsillie sought to reinvent the BlackBerry smartphone maker with a radical shift in strategy before he stepped down, two sources with know...
Report: One In Five U.S. Adults Does Not Use The Internet
Internet adoption among U.S. adults increased rapidly from the mid-'90s to about 2005. Since then, though, the number of adult Internet users has remained almost stable at around 75 to 80%. The Pew ...
Netflix To Open Source Army of Cloud Monkeys
Netflix is getting ready to unleash its Simian Army. — The online movie rental company uses a troupe of cloud software — it calls the programs “monkeys” — that poke and prod its online applications ...
App developers, frustrated with bug reporting tools, call on Apple to ‘Fix Radar or GTFO’
If you're an iOS or Mac developer, then you've probably had an encounter with Apple's bug reporting tool called Radar. Although complaints have been voiced about Radar for years …
Japan's Sharp Begins Mass Production of IGZO Displays Amid Rumors of Apple Use
Sharp said Friday it has begun mass production of displays using IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc) technology, which analysts have said is a prime candidate for use in upcoming Apple products including its...
Amazon-owned Audible: Hey authors, want $20 million?
The Amazon-owned digital audiobooks site Audible.com is launching a new program, “Audible Author Services,” that pays audiobook authors $1 per sale through Audible.com, Audible.co.uk, and iTunes, out ...
Silicon Valley's Secret, Vicious Lust for Hollywood Fame
Motivations are supposed to be pure in Silicon Valley. Facebook, for example, was developed to make the world a better place; its billions of dollars in revenue are just a happy accident. And when a...
Google Drive integration leaked by Lucidchart
Google's widely rumored cloud storage service might be closer than we thought, with online diagramming tool Lucidchart adding (and then swiftly removing) a link to a Google Drive integration page to i...
Mozilla may make Flash click-to-play by default in future Firefox
Firefox developers are considering making Web plugins like Adobe Flash an opt-in feature. Although there is still a long way to go before it's ready for Firefox proper, switching to an opt-in, “click...
Icann: flaw may have revealed bid details
The internet naming company Icann has admitted that rival bidders for highly valuable new internet domains could have seen each others' secret bids because of flaws in its registration software. — T...
German Court Upholds Ban On Push Email In Apple's iCloud, MobileMe
FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)—A German regional court Friday backed a ban on push emails in Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iCloud and MobileMe services in Germany, granting Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) a victor...
Deal cut to give Menlo Park millions of dollars in exchange for Facebook expansion
To get Menlo Park's approval of its expansion plan, Facebook has agreed to pay the city millions of dollars in the coming years, seed a community fund with a $500,000 donation, sponsor internship and ...
Will Data Monopolies Paralyze the Internet?
Tim O'Reilly spoke with me last week about Internet companies acquiring massive proprietary data sets. “We're kind of heading toward data as a source of monopoly power in some cases,” he told me, com...
Facebook One-Ups Google With A Kind Of ‘Facebook+’: Your FB Email, Timeline Names Are Now Linked Up
Facebook today announced a change for how people can find you on its network — a move for more consistency, but also another route to getting people to use more email in Facebook, and secure its place...
Despite $889M In Revenue This Year, No IPO In Spotify's Cards, But Ek Wouldn't Say No To More Funding
Spotify's storming of the U.S. market last year has seen the company rack up a total of 13 million active users of its music streaming services — three million of them paying.
Google CEO: Android ecosystem is about more than just tablets
Summary: Google's top executives recognize the potential and success of lower-end Android tablets, but the bigger picture here is unifying the Android experience across multiple devices. — While we ...
Oracle thinks you can copyright a programming language, Google disagrees
Oracle's case against Google has evolved primarily into a copyright infringement suit over the past several months, and with the full trial scheduled to begin this coming Monday, the court is making a...
Marc Samwer out as Groupon's international boss
After enduring a torrid few months, Groupon has confirmed a shakeup of its international business, bringing in a new chief to oversee operations outside America. — Out goes Marc Samwer, the oldest o...
SAP sees Q1 stumble on North America execution issues
Summary: SAP indicated that its sales problems in North America “have been resolved” and reiterated its outlook for the year. — SAP said that its first quarter will be below its initial expectations...
Ooyala launches personalized video discovery platform
From mobile to desktop, Ooyala's new content discovery system aims to keep viewers glued longer — As the world of online video rockets in popularity, content producers and brands are searching for t...
Plot thickens in Apple “bait apps” case
Apple came under fire last year from parents whose children had racked up credit card charges on apps that were supposed to be “free.” Apple tried to throw out a law suit over the apps but has come u...
Fetchnotes Launches A Simple, Cloud-Based Note-Taking Service (That Twitter Users Will Love)
Fetchnotes is a promising, lightweight note-taking app for list makers and idea-havers which looks deceptively simple. But that simplicity is actually one of Fetchnotes' key selling points.
China's mysterious Internet outage; speculation over a ‘kill switch’
At approximately 11am local time yesterday, Internet users around China reported significant Internet blackouts. Not only were they unable to access some Chinese sites, but also many foreign Web site...
Crowdfunding's Next Frontier: Academic Research?
Crowdfunding has become increasingly popular lately. That is, those who are looking for funding for their various projects can now turn to the community at large, which makes small contributions that...
U.S. tries to silence MegaUpload lawyers on issue of user data
The U.S. government says that some of MegaUpload's lawyers have a conflict that should exclude them from representing the cyberlocker service. — (Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET) — ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The ...
IBM adds more analytics with Varicent buy
The desire for more, better, and increasingly specific analytics continues with IBM's acquisition of Varicent Software. Banks, insurance companies, and retailers use Varicent software to look at data...
Berlin Cracks the Startup Code
On a rainy day in March 2011, Ciarán O'Leary and two colleagues crammed into a Berlin taxi and raced for the station to catch a train back to Hamburg. While snaking through the city streets, it hit h...
Emirates wedges national ID cards inside NFC phones
ID-by-handset to become norm after gov inks deal with Etisalat — The United Arab Emirates has signed up local operator Etisalat with a view to getting the national ID card embedded into mobile phone...