Wikipedia has a pretty useful list of countries by number of mobile phones in use, which shows that Japan (with around 100 million users) is the No. 7 in the world. The market is largely controlled by mobile carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI au and SoftBank Mobile but seemed big enough to offer enough room for a number of smaller competitors, too.
Yesterday, however, a company called Willcom (one of said… → Read More
Ah OQO. You basically made us all want you. You teased, you upgraded, and now, in the middle of this downturn and, in the face of massive competition by far inferior netbooks, you might be dying.
JKOntheRun is reporting that the OQO Model 02+ won’t be sold, the company is in grave financial trouble, and eXpansys, an OQO reseller, has pulled the new product off the shelves. → Read More
This Sirius XM bankruptcy story is starting to read like some trashy novel. There’s now word that DirecTV is getting involved, with the CEO of its parent company Liberty Media, one John C. Malone, offering to bail out the troubled satellite radio company. Some see it as a genuine offer, while others see it merely as a ploy to jack up the price for Malone’s rival at EchoStar (Dish Network), Charles… → Read More
Hope you aren’t a Sirius XM shareholder. When word broke last night that the company had retained the services of some fancy bankruptcy lawyers—the worst, that bankruptcy could be filed “within days”—fans of the service, naturally, started to freak. There’s a few more details today that may be worth your time, such as the water cooler talk that this could all be a ploy by CEO Mel… → Read More
Polaroid isn’t do so well and just filed for bankruptcy. The once-hipster brand hasn’t found its footing in the digital age and has fallen by the wayside, recently announcing instant film is being discontinued. → Read More
Adios, Circuit City. You will be remembered forever as a not-good-enough version of Best Buy (even though Best Buy is pretty suspect, too.) Yes, Circuit City has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It did so last week, when we were busy talking about store closings and fake sales. It is, I think, the biggest tech-realted failure (if that’s the right word to use) of the… → Read More
Olevia! O-le-via! Hard-hearted harbinger of TVs! Apparently it’s bad when a company’s stock loses more than 90% of its value within a single year. That’s what happened to Tempe, Arizona-based TV brand Olevia, who you might remember from such stores as “Sam’s Club” and “Costco,” among others. The Olevia brand was the property of Syntax-Brillian. The company filed for Chapter 11… → Read More
[photopress:the_sharper_image_gift_cards.jpg,full,left]That Sharper Image gift card you got for Xmas that you’ve been holding on to, waiting for the newest version of the Spider-man ionizing foot-massaging Teflon ashtray? It’s bunk. Due to its current bankruptcy, Sharper Image is suspending gift cards, at least for now. When they’re done with their restructuring, they’ll… → Read More
With Amp’d Mobile filing for Chapter 11 protection and owing Verizon a lot of cash, things in the future could not get any worse for the dying MVNO. But I suppose Verizon threatening to shut off your network, effectively slowing your business to a grinding halt, is a bit worse. Verizon recently asked Amp’d to cough up $4.5 million within 10 days or face a shut off. When your company… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
