I took some photos yesterday afternoon, and didn’t get around to trying to move them from the camera to my laptop until later in the evening. What should have been a simple process — connect cable to camera, connect cable to laptop, import photos — was stymied by my complete inability to find the cable I needed! It’s not like I use a USB A-to-Mini-B cable every day. If only there were some way to wirelessly transfer photos from my camera into my computer. What’s that, Eye-Fi? You say there is? Do tell! → Read More
Creative makes MP3 players. They do a good job. I like Creative. Good people over there. A good company.
But I got this email today describing Creative’s plans with the new Zii handheld and I was immediately struck by a question: What the hell is this Plaszma Zii StemCell garbage? → Read More
Wow, this is impressive. An enterprising young man from a faraway land (the Czech Republic!) took an ordinary battery from an MSI Wind netbook and added a USB charging port to it. He can charge his iPhone twice over and the battery still works like normal in his MSI Wind. They should add USB charging ports to all batteries! → Read More
Vudu had a great run. The company made boxes you set up near your TV that could download stream HD video without glitches, a sort of Netflix On Demand, as it were, without the popularity. Well, Vudu is teaming up with LG to offer Vudu streaming in their new LH50 and PS80 TVs which puts their position as one of the better and more promising hardware providers and video streaming services in serious doubt. → Read More
My, my, what do we have here? Noise-canceling headphones for $8? That’s insanity in a box! → Read More
Here’s a new one: Star Trek cologne. Called Red Shirt, it carries the tagline “Because tomorrow may never come.” I guess if you’re gonna die out in deep space, you might as well smell terriffic. → Read More
Carol Bartz and Steve Ballmer are all smiles this morning with the signing of their long-awaited search deal, but the agreement isn’t going over so well on Wall Street. Shares of Yahoo took a plunge this morning on the announcement and are currently trading at $15.31, down 11 percent from yesterday’s close. Microsoft shares are flat.
Investors who were hoping for a large upfront payment and “boatloads of money” were disappointed by the terms of the deal, which includes no upfront payment. But that is short-sighted of investors because the actual deal ends up giving Yahoo a much bigger share of search revenues (88 percent) than the previous deal that was on the table last year. It is actually a much better deal for Yahoo long-term if it works, and aligns its incentives closer to Microsoft’s. → Read More
I don’t know why, but microSD seems to suddenly become an alternative for distributing digital content lately, at least in Japan.
Two weeks ago, a Japanese entertainment company was the first in the world to start selling digital content on a microSD card (a rock band sold its songs, videos and lyrics on PDF on a profesionally marketed microSD card). Last week, Disney Japan announced it will release selected movies on this medium in November. And today, Warner Bros. Japan said it wants to be part of MovieSD [JP], too (a new brand for movies stored on – you guessed it – microSD cards). → Read More
Google’s Marissa Mayer has discovered the ‘delete’ button on Twitter, but much like you can find deleted web pages using Google cache search, you can also uncover removed tweets by using Twitter Search. So what did she tweet that was so bad that it needed to be removed?
A link to a satirical article on BBspot about the whole Google Voice iPhone app removal brouhaha, titled “Google Pulls Apple from Search Results”. In it, an author of the comedy news site writes that Google has removed all search results leading to Apple.com from its index, and redirecting searches for “iPhone” and “app store” to the IMDb.com page for Payback. → Read More
We know it was coming but so soon! To recap it’s a WinMo 6.1 phon with WiFi, 3.6-inch touchscreen, and 3.2-megapixel camera. It will, as rumored, be available in mocha. T-Mobile USA Debuts HTC Touch Pro2 in the U.S. New Tilting Touchscreen Device Available to T-Mobile Customers in mid-August Bellevue, Wash. — July 29, 2009 — T-Mobile USA, Inc., and HTC Corp. today announced the upcoming availability of the HTC Touch Pro2™, a powerful, stylish device with an intuitive touch screen and user interface that enables customers to simplify their communication and mobile Internet experience while staying connected, informed and in control of work and life. The device will be available in a mocha finish to T-Mobile customers beginning Aug. 12. → Read More
Microsoft and Yahoo announced their search partnership this morning. In a nutshell, Microsoft will power search technology for both companies, while Yahoo will take over ad sales. Here are my notes from this morning’s Yahoo-Microsoft conference call:
Carol Bartz: This is a great day for Yahoo. A game changer. benefits for Yahoo. half of all Internet users come to us, but face a formidable competitor in search. share investment expense to scale the market. Our vision is to be center of people’s lives online. We must do that by working on our own properties or working with others like Microsoft.
Only covers search and search advertising business. Self-serve advertising will go through Ad Center. Yahoo will continue to integrate search in its properties but back-end technologies will be powered by Bing.
What this deal is really about is scale. Advertisers want an alternative that has scale. Everyone wants a real alternative and advertisers are no different. → Read More
Now that the search deal struck between Microsoft and Yahoo has been officially confirmed by both companies, by means of a press release and a website dubbed ChoiceValueInnovation.com, let’s take a step back and analyze the most important tidbits from the announcement:
As expected, Microsoft will power Yahoo Search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ advertisers.
This will have major repercussions for the online advertising industry, where both Microsoft and Yahoo are strongholds and carry a lot of weight. Likely, it will take months if not years to align these important businesses. As Carol Bartz indicated in the press release, on the flip side advertisers and publishers would benefit significantly from a unified platform and the promise of scalability allround. I believe this is indeed the core of being able to compete with both companies’ dominant rival, Google. → Read More
As we first reported yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo are on the verge of announcing a complicated search and search marketing alliance that will combine the no. 2 and no. 3 players in search into something that may have a chance of competing with Google (although combined they will still have less than half of Google’s 65% or so search market share). The deal will be announced shortly after signing, and could come as early as today (Wednesday).
If the deal is completed it will close the 18-month long negotiation that began with a $45 billion merger offer on February 1, 2008. The details of the deal will determine the bump in Yahoo’s share price, something investors really desperately desire.
Here’s what the deal may look like (from a Thomas Weisel Partners analyst report colorfully titled BingHoo! earlier this evening): → Read More
In another testament to the notion that Facebook is quietly turning into the internet on top of the Internet, online flower retailer 1-800-Flowers.com has launched an e-commerce store inside its Facebook Page.
Registered users can now order all kinds of floral products from the popular florist and gift shop without ever leaving the social network.
1-800-FLOWERS is a bit of a pioneer when it comes to initiatives like this. In 1992 (!), the company was already fiddling with selling goods via the Internet, and two years later it became the first merchant of any kind to transact on AOL. Now, at least according to the company, it’s the first online retailer to launch a fully functional commercial storefront inside Facebook. Somehow, I doubt that statement rings true, but I couldn’t immediately think of or find any other e-commerce outlets that can handle online orders from a to z inside Facebook. → Read More
