This year was a pretty amazing one in technology: Many startups were funded and acquired, and there were some real advancements made in the way that we communicate on a daily basis. I’d definitely call 2012 a major win, but it’s been interesting to watch how companies operate to reach their goals and hit moving targets.
Sure, it’s not new that companies have to completely shift directions when… → Read More
Pinterest could turn into an absolute monster for e-commerce, and we’ve been waiting to see what it would do to push that forward. We found out today with the company’s announcement of new tools for the business community. Previously, businesses weren’t all that welcome on the service, since its terms of service prohibited it. For reasons. → 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
Yahoo! FinanceQuote for AAPL/ Apple’s stock is about 4% lower (as of 3:45 PM on the east coast) than it started today after Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference. Trading opened at $184.92 per share this morning and is currently floating around $178 per share, with a daily high of $184.94 and a daily low of $175.75, according to Yahoo! Finance. Apple’s… → Read More
Remember Akimbo? It’s gone now. The company launched an internet-connected hardware box for your TV a few years ago and charged about $10 a month for a handful of channels, some mainstream. After a while, Akimbo abandoned the hardware aspect and made itself into a software service that you could use with, say, Windows Media Center. I tried it for a very brief period of time and found the… → Read More
A recent study of 2,259 people aged 18 to 64 (1,502 straight and 757 gay) found Apple to be the second most gay-friendly company behind the Bravo television network, according to MacNN. Apparently “23 percent of the general population and 39 percent of the gay/lesbian group [called] the company ‘strongly’ gay-friendly.” The survey was administered by an ad agency called… → Read More
Just wanted to update everyone on the awkward slow-dance going on between Yahoo! and Microsoft. According to the New York Times, Microsoft apparently upped its offer to buy Yahoo! from the initial $31 per share to an undisclosed amount. Yahoo! believes itself to be worth at least $37 per share and The Times is reporting that “Microsoft suggested it was willing to pay more than $33 a… → Read More
[Please see the update at the end of this post.] According to VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, the US division of Virgin Mobile is considering the layoffs in the face of poor stock performance. Those affected would come mostly from the Northern California offices in Walnut Creek along with some marketing and sales people in New Jersey. → Read More
Farewell, Jerry Levin. You recently resigned from the board of directors at the Sharper Image and now you’re trying to put together enough cash to buy the entire company. Good for you! That takes gigantic brass balls, by the way, since the stock price was hovering at around $40 three years ago and now it’s worth about 25 cents. I like your moxie, though, so the next time I start… → Read More
Well how do you like that? Lenovo has cell phones — another reminder that the United States isn’t the only country in the universe (or world, for that matter). Lenovo had cell phones, I should say, as its recently announced that it’ll sell off the mobile phone unit for $100 million in order to concentrate on computers. Good for you, Lenovo. It’s hard enough having a job… → Read More
Let’s be honest and say that 2007 wasn’t a breakout year for Motorola. Ed Zander got the axe and the company lost about $1.2 billion, for starters. That’s a pretty big pile in new CEO Greg Brown’s lap. From Motorola’s Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Sales and Earnings report: “For the full year 2007, sales were $19.0 billion, a 33 percent decrease compared to 2006… → Read More
I don’t want to play the “peace on Earth, goodwill towards men” card but I would like the following five things, which I think would benefit other people besides just me. 1. Mandatory Online Cancellation Policies If a company lets you sign up for service and manage your account online without talking to anybody, it should be mandatory that they let you cancel the service online… → Read More
go to advertising a shiny mouse, but who are we to judge? This sucker has 2000 DPI resolution, has 7 programmable buttons, and an always-on mode so the mouse doesn’t go to sleep just as you’re trying to turn over that last important card in FreeCell. No price, but it will be available in October. Product Page [NotforNoobs via Gizmodo via RazerZone] → Read More
and includes a wall wart as well as a car charger and an adapter for in-flight charging. Very basic and at $79.95 it’s fairly inexpensive. The InCharge Traveler is available now for pre-order. Product Page [XtremeMac] → Read More
iLounge has some hot dope on the Zune including a description of the UI and some of its fancy wireless features. Here’s some pithy info: Wi-Fi: Eh. Apparently you can use the Wi-fi feature to “loan” other Zune owners music for some short period (a day), giving them the opportunity to buy the tracks themselves from the Zune music store. While this is a cool idea, and could work well for… → Read More
With all the buzz lately about exploding laptops and excruciatingly hot MacBooks, I suspect we’re going to start seeing a lot more products like this. The Lapinator is composed of the heat resistant 3M Thinsulate fiber and a comfy cross-linked molded foam bottom. Though it might not be too successful against the shrapnel of an exploding Dell battery, it looks like it should effectively… → Read More
QuickerTek has released a WiFi Transceiver that will allegedly double the signal strength of a MacBook Pro. Although that is a respectable gain, the transceiver utilizes an AC adapter which effectively limits portability. Adapters are the bane of laptop users, and the fact that this device utilizes one makes it a bit undesirable. Now if you thought that the fact that it’s powered by a clunky… → Read More
As legions of iPod users complain they’ve filled their music players’ hard drives to the brim— 60MB 60GB being the current maximum—there may be relief in sight. Seagate insists there’s still life left in hard drives, vowing to produce 60GB and 120GB drives, maybe for the next generation of iPods. A tantalizing tidbit from a BusinessWeek interview with Seagate CEO… → Read More
Itronix makes military grade hardware for heavy-duty missions and the GoBook XR-1 is no exception. This monster has up to three wireless systems including WWAN, built-in GPS, and “meets MIL STD 810F (military standard) ratings for drop/shock and vibration and the IP54 (ingress protection),” which I suspect means it’s hard to break unless the military does something with their… → Read More
The folks at Mobileread asked the “Sony Reader Team” to talk about their as-of-yet-unavailable handheld ebook system. He was pretty straightforward in answering the questions and there are some hot features including MP3 and AAC playback as well as some sort of DRM-sharing system so you and six of your closest friends can share books. Best of all? It uses Sony’s excellent (cough)… → Read More
This doesn’t effect us peons on the front end, but enterprise customers who were planning to purchase – or already purchased – bulk licenses for Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 are getting discounts and sales incentives in order to keep them quiet while Vista runs through its endless development phase. Computer manufacturers and even some businesses were on track to receive Vista… → Read More
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