Tech Buzz

The technology market is a graveyard of companies that had potential and lost their way either to fail or be gobbled up and lose their identity. Netscape, Novell, DEC/Digital, Palm, Transmeta, ATI, ROLM, Northern Telecom, and FLIP are all names of companies that have left us as independents or compl...

The hacker group Anonymous posted a YouTube video vowing that Friday, Oct. 5, will be "the biggest thing we have ever done." The video does not get into specifics, but the threat comes amid several DDoS attacks against various Swedish agencies, including the National Board of Health and Welfare, whi...

Google-owned Motorola Mobility is acquiring Viewdle, a Ukrainian firm that makes facial recognition technology. Motorola had been in talks with Viewdle before it was acquired by Google. The acquisition of Viewdle, a pioneer in technology that recognizes and tags people in photos, figures to be a boo...

Apple's Asian component suppliers reportedly have begun mass-producing parts for a new tablet, which is believed to be smaller, and with a lower resolution, than the latest iPad that went on sale last March. Last month, South Korean LG Display and Taiwanese AU Optronics reportedly began mass-produci...

The Iranian government is reportedly reopening access to Gmail agter taking flak for its decision to block Google's email service. Even members of parliament have complained about the Gmail block. A member of parliament was quoted in Iranian media saying that the minister of telecommunications would...

OPINION

The United States of Google

I was watching "The Daily Show" the other night and Jon Stewart walked through the failures of the Obama administration, concluding that anyone who did this badly couldn't be reelected if not for the Democrats' secret weapon. He then showed Mitt Romney as that secret weapon, along with a number of t...

Despite government-imposed bans, Facebook and Twitter have tens of millions of users in China. Facebook use in China has reportedly swelled to 63.5 million people, a roughly eightfold increase over the 7.9 million who used the site two years ago. Twitter, meanwhile, has nearly 36 million users in Ch...

TECH TREK

Report: The Internet Is a Language Killer

A number of European languages could eventually vanish from the Internet, suggests a new study conducted by European nonprofit META-NET. Languages such as Icelandic, Latvian and Lithuanian don't have enough speakers to gain traction as popular languages on the Web. The report goes so far as to say ...

TECH TREK

Google Goes to Great Depths for Watery Maps

Having already mapped Antarctica and the North Pole, Google has added panoramic images of coral reefs on Google Street View. Google gathered the materials through the Catlin Seaview Survey, a project designed to study the health of coral reefs. Scientists with the Catlin Group, based in Bermuda, use...

Foxconn Technology, the Taiwanese electronics maker typically linked with Apple products and workers' rights violations, said it closed a Chinese plant Monday following a fight between factory employees. Foxconn said that several people from the Taiyuan plant, which employs nearly 80,000 people, wer...

OPINION

Microsoft's Perfect Wave

Sometimes if you stand back a moment, which is what I have to do, you suddenly see broader trends, and what I'm seeing now is that the planets seem to be aligning for a Microsoft decade. However, I'm reminded that the difference between chance and luck is the difference between a hundred bucks landi...

OPINION

Mrs. Jobs' Smartphone

Last week at Intel's Developer Forum, I was on a panel of folks -- led by renowned futurist Briand David Johnson -- who are trying to make sure future products are better at taking into account the people they are designed for. This purpose was connected to one of the major points made by Dr. Genevi...

OPINION

How Amazon Stole the Tablet Market

As Apple demonstrated itself with the iPod and iPad, the way to take control of a market is to redefine it around a model that favors your products. Last week, Amazon took a page from Steve Jobs' book, both in how it presented the new Kindle line and in how this line shifts the market dynamic from o...

The Windows 8 launch in October promises to be like no other launch. I think it will drive home several points that many of us don't seem to understand, like the fact that we both whine there isn't enough innovation and run for the hills when someone innovates in a mature market. I think Microsoft w...

Whether it's on a piece of paper in a typewriter or a word processor on the desktop, writers typically begin with a blank white page. This white page has been the look of books for... ever. And beginning next week, Amazon's new Kindle should be presenting words -- perhaps jumping off the page to eng...

Technewsworld Channels