[WEB2] Hot deal: Boston Acoustics tower speakers, $250 apiece
[WEB2] As expected, Time Warner CEO Parsons to resign
A correction was made to this blog. Read below for details. Following weeks of rumors that his ousting was on the way, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons announced his resignation effective January 1. On Monday, the media giant's board of directors announced that it has elected Jeffrey Bewkes, currently the company's president and chief operating officer, to Parsons' post. "Dick Parsons has done an outstanding job during his tenure as chief executive officer," said Robert C. Clark, the board'...
[WEB2] The Kickstart hangover
Last night, Yahoo's quasi-independent technology incubator, Brickhouse, launched a new social network for college students and college alumni: Kickstart. It is a professional network for the college crowd: it's supposed to help students, alumni, and recruiters all connect to share job information. It looks like the strict Venn intersection of Facebook and LinkedIn. (News story: Yahoo Kickstarts a social service aimed at college grads.) It's a good idea, but only in a vacuum. If there w...
[WEB2] Improving on Walter Mossberg's PC-buying advice
A few days ago in The Wall Street Journal someone with a 5-year-old PC asked Walter Mossberg how to determine when to buy a new PC. The response in the paper was short. Fortunately, this blog lets me offer a longer, more detailed answer. The first thing Mossberg said in his response was "There's no universal answer to your question." I disagree. The simple answer is that a computer needs to be replaced only when it no longer does something you want or need it to do. This has nothing to do ...
[WEB2] T-Mobile and Sprint embrace open source
Traditionally, cell phone carriers in the United States have liked to control not only what goes into their phones but also how those phones are used. So when we learned today that T-Mobile and Sprint have signed onto the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), the group that will develop applications for Google's new Android mobile phone platform, immediately I was intrigued. Could a U.S. carrier really be joining a group that will encourage free and open use of a mobile phone? Yes Virgina, it is true...
[WEB2] Cubicles that crush the soul
And you thought your dark, cramped, dusty workspace was depressing. Have a look at the winners of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest, and get ready to appreciate your own scrappy little cube anew. David Gunnells toils away in a windowless conference room, his desk hemmed in by heavily used filing cabinets. (Credit: David Gunnells, courtesy of Wired News) After all, it doesn't get too much worse than David Gunnells' cubicle (or does it?). The first-place winner of the contest, an ...
[WEB2] Join a complaint collective on The Point
Complaining about an injustice is rarely enough to effect change. But when dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people kvetch in an organized and forceful manner, things can happen. Boycotts change companies. Unions end up controlling the direction of industries. Protests overthrow governments. The Point is a new site to help instigators collect the wishes of the masses and to get participants to pledge to take action when a "tipping point" of participation is reached. Fill...
[WEB2] In New York, anticipating an afternoon with Zuckerberg and pals
The details of Facebook's "SocialAds" initiative, set to debut on Tuesday, have leaked through enough channels so that we have a pretty good idea of what we'll be hearing. SocialAds will not only serve up uber-targeted ads based on your Facebook profile information, there will allegedly be some sponsored vertical categories involved, as well as e-commerce tie-ins that will tell your friends what you've been buying, preferably with an opt-out clause. Facebook rival MySpace, meanwhile, has rece...
[WEB2] Best phone ever: A Google phone wishlist
Will Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance result in the perfect phone?(Credit: Open Handset Alliance)One of the promises made with Google's new Android platform and the Open Handset Alliance is that we as consumers will finally be free from the tyranny of cell phone carriers. Thanks to Sprint and T-Mobile's agreement with the OHA philosophy of open and free cell phone usage, maybe we can finally truly find the perfect phone that'll match all our needs and be affordable at the same time...
[WEB2] Will Google fracture or unify mobile Linux?
Forgive me if I appear a little skeptical here about Google's Open Handset Alliance. By my count, it's the fifth consortium so far to attempt to craft something useful for mobile phones out of Linux and open-source software. OHA has by far the highest profile, it's got the most persuasive list of members, and its timing is the best. What's not yet clear is whether the "Android" work of Google and its allies will unify or further fragment work in the area. Rallying programmers beh...
[WEB2] Marvell chip puts more power into your PC
Marvell has released chips for PC and notebook power bricks that can will substantially cut down the amount of electricity required to run these machines. The chips, a type of power factor correction (PFC) controller based around a digital signal processor, effectively determine the amount of power an application will need and optimize accordingly. The chips also try to keep peak current at the lowest level. The chips, which will be included in power supplies, are made to comply with new E...
[WEB2] 'Pac-Man,' meet 'Zork'
"You have been attacked by a cyan ghost! You pass out and awake minutes later back where you began." You might not remember it this way, but you--and probably everyone you know--has almost certainly had this experience, though in a different manifestation. It's Pac-Man. Except instead of controlling your little yellow iconic character around a maze of dots and colored ghosts, this is Pac-Txt, a text version of the famous video game that recalls the old glory days of Infocom games like Zork...
[WEB2] Red Hat, Sun finally buddy up on Java
Sun Microsystems' move to make its core Java software a true open-source project may still be a project in its early stages, but on Monday the effort produced some concrete results: a partnership with long-time holdout Red Hat. The top Linux seller announced Monday that it's signed an OpenJDK Community agreement, a move that gives it access to the Sun compatibility kit that can be used to ensure a Java software foundation meets requirements to properly run Java software. Although Java has...
[WEB2] Topfer, former Dell vice chair, bugs out at EEStor
EEStor: You truly are the company that keeps on giving. Mort Topfer, the former vice chair of Dell and one of the execs credited in helping turn it from a local phenomenon to a global PC powerhouse, has left the board of EEStor, according to Tyler Hamilton. Hamilton is not the disgraced bike racer but a reporter for the Toronto Star. It's just one more bit of baffling news out of the Texas-based manufacturer of ultracapacitors, a device that stores electricity, and no doubt another factoid...
[WEB2] Feds want Net snooping limits overturned
The Bush administration plans to fight a recent court decision that threatens to curb its powers to obtain logs of Americans' Internet activities without court approval. As expected, the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday filed a notice that it plans to appeal a September federal court ruling that declared the surveillance tactic, known as a national security letter, to be unconstitutional. The government's filing was one paragraph long and came with no additional comment, according t...
[WEB2] Making music in a world of freeloaders
OK, so we're a nation of cheapskates after all. Tell me something I didn't know. The latest album release from the band Radiohead tested whether the public would support a scout's honor arrangement. If enough people would pay to download the band's music, that might serve as the harbinger for a different sort of distribution and sales model. Until now, consumers could do little but bitch about the rip-off prices they were charged for music. After years of grumbling about greedy retailers a...
[WEB2] Google's Android not an iPhone
The only real thing that the iPhone and the Gphone have in common at the moment are five letters. Google's plans for the mobile phone market have caused quite the stir Monday, even though the company's press conference Monday morning didn't add much to what we already knew about Android, a collection of software that could be a catalyst for Linux on mobile phones over the next few years. Still, when any company the size of Google makes noise about steering its ship in a certain direction, peo...
[WEB2] Another great year for consumer electronics, says Sony president
Despite intense competition, price cuts and a shaky economy, it's going to be another good year for the electronics industry, predicts Sony's Stan Glasgow. Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics, said that orders from retailers are strong once again this year. Consumers are snapping up high-definition TVs, but also digital cameras and video cameras. Sony's gaining ground in notebooks too: shipments are up by double digits, he said. Sony lost seven days of production out of its San Diego area ...
[WEB2] Give Reddit some credit: they know how to pack a bar full
(Credit: Reddit) FREE BEER!!!! That was the rallying cry for the Reddit party in New York's East Village on Saturday night, the latest stop on the social news site's "Drankkit World Tour 2007"--an event series that has made it to San Francisco and Boston so far, with Toronto, Chicago, D.C., and a few others still to come. The Gotham installment took place in a woefully undersized Alphabet City dive called The Hanger Bar, and was not-so-woefully under-publicized. Reddit had reason to keep t...
[WEB2] CMU wins $2 million in urban robot race
Carnegie Mellon University won the $2 million first place prize in DARPA's urban robot race this weekend, stealing the thunder from 2005's Grand Challenge leader, Stanford University. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge awarded a total of $3.5 million in prizes on Sunday, a day after the race. Stanford University took second place, with a $1 million cash prize, and Virginia Tech won $500,000 for third place. CMU's robot, Boss, finished the Urban Grand Chal...