A few weeks ago, I was hearing rumors about Facebook opening a new email service. Looks like Google beat them to the punch, though, because Gmail just opened up a new Facebook service. Maybe not technically -- Facebook plays absolutely no role in "Buzz," which is what Google named its creation. Buzz...

The E-Book Empire Strikes

February 5, 2010

Apple held most of the music industry virtually at knifepoint for years, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you were a consumer who wanted a legal way to get popular music at a fairly reasonable price. It was only about a year ago that iTunes let go of its dollar-store policy and...

Google and the Freedom Business

January 22, 2010

We're now in week two of Google's high-profile battle with China, and the stakes have risen high enough to catch the attention of no less than the U.S. Secretary of State herself, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She cheered on Google's stance in a speech Thursday, saying, "Censorship should not be in any wa...

Facebook's Bossy, Cagey Privacy Maneuvers

December 11, 2009

In making a move meant to enhance user privacy, Facebook went about things in a kind of intrusive way this week. As you know, the site started out as a college-kids-only social network, and the content you'd find on Facebook at that time reflected the demographic in all its boozy glory. But now Face...

Google's Strange and Shiny New OS

November 20, 2009

Google just keeps invading new territories, and its latest target is your computer's operating system. It's officially released the open source code for its Chrome OS, an operating system that will turn up in third-party vendors' netbooks. Those devices should start selling next year. With Chrome, G...

Droid Lurches to Life

November 6, 2009

Today is the day of the Droid. The Motorola smartphone touches down today in what's shaping up to be one of the biggest handset launches in recent memory. Of course Verizon is going all-in as far as advertising is concerned, but there's more to the Droid's story than a marketing campaign. First, the...

The Audacity of Droid

October 30, 2009

The Android mobile operating system is graduating soon to 2.0 status, and Google gave it a pretty nice present to celebrate: a free turn-by-turn navigation app called "Google Maps Navigation." It'll run on Android 2.0 phones with GPS, and it'll use the phone's cellular Internet connection to get liv...

Weighing Windows 7's Wallop

October 23, 2009

So how's your head after that wild Windows 7 launch party with the Stepford crew? Still got the spins? OK, if you really did throw or attend an official Windows 7 launch party, then that's ... interesting. I sincerely hope you had a good time. For the rest of us, the official introduction of Windows...

Sidekick Snafu: The Data Saved and the Damage Done

October 16, 2009

T-Mobile's Sidekick users had a pretty rough time this week thanks to a mistake that first looked enormous but eventually was pretty much fixed, though with no small amount of worry and strife in between. An unfortunate series of events caused a major inconvenience for users of the smartphone, and i...

Attack of the Droids

October 9, 2009

AT&T has its iPhone, Sprint has its Pre, T-Mobile has its myTouch, and Verizon has ... what? A BlackBerry or something? Even though Verizon is the biggest network in the land -- and even though iPhone users think about Verizon longingly every time a call goes dead -- the company is not generally...

ICANN Cuts the Apron Strings

October 2, 2009

According to ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, nobody but nobody controls the Internet. Not China, not Comcast, not your IT guy, not Clippy, nobody. The Final Boss of the Internet does not exist. But there does exist a nonprofit that governs Web addresses, and that's Dengate Thrush's organization...

HP Launched the Craziest DreamScreen Last Night

September 18, 2009

HP has just made either the most hyperactive digital picture frame on the market or the lamest tablet PC ever. The DreamScreen looks sort of like what you'd have if someone tore an HP Mini in two and handed you the monitor side. It's a device that can run video, show pictures and play music with bui...

Sprint Gives Android a Hero's Welcome

September 4, 2009

Android is finally getting a little more wardrobe variety. It's also moving out into new U.S. carriers. Sprint is the latest wireless company to jump in with the Android crowd; it'll start selling the HTC Hero this October. The Hero looks to be a pretty capable handset. It's loaded with Google apps,...

A Last Call for Snarkers Anonymous?

August 21, 2009

The old saying used to be, "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all." Then the Internet came along, and the saying changed to, "If you can't say anything nice, then invent a fake user name and go to town." The Web has allowed us to get away with saying some pretty awful things...

Security, Sanity and Social Networking in the Ranks

August 7, 2009

U.S. military service members who want to keep up with friends and family back home have often turned to social networking Web sites to stay in touch. But the Department of Defense hasn't quite made up its mind whether these kinds of sites are friends or enemies. It definitely loves social networkin...

How do you primarily follow the FIFA World Cup?

TV broadcast
Streaming apps
Social media
Radio
I'm not following the World Cup

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