Over the last decade we have generated new names for hundreds of companies, products and services. Here are some of the shortcuts, thought-starters and mental prods we’ve observed along the way.
In a ruling that could fuel debate about online privacy, a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personal information. “In order for ‘personally identifiable information’ to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones said in a written decision.
(tags: security)
Young kids are getting online at a faster rate than their parents and older siblings. A new study from Nielsen Online found that nearly 16 million U.S. children ages 2 to 11 were online in May. They made up about 9.5 percent of Internet users. The youngest of the set – 2, 3, and 4-year-olds – probably aren’t yet updating their Twitter accounts with 140-character messages, or posting quiz results to Facebook. Rather, they are sitting in a parent’s lap in front of a computer, being exposed to the Internet that way, said Peter Grunwald, president of Grunwald Associates LLC, which specializes in researching kids and technology.
(tags: kids)
Research In Motion (NSDQ: RIMM)’s over-the-air application store may not get as much attention as Apple’s App Store, but the App World has quietly reached more than 2,000 programs. The application store is mainly aimed at non-enterprise users, and it gives multiple BlackBerry owners a way to browse, buy, download, and install programs over the air. Launched in March, RIM said App World will soon be available in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and India.
(tags: blackberry Mobile apps)
Google Inc. is working on a new operating system for inexpensive computers in a daring attempt to wrest away Microsoft Corp.’s long-running control over people’s computing experience. The new operating system, announced late Tuesday night on Google’s Web site, will be based on the company’s nine-month-old Web browser, Chrome. Google intends to rely on help from the community of open-source programmers to develop the Chrome operating system, which is expected to begin running computers in the second half of 2010. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company disclosed its plans for the operating system shortly after an online technology news service, Ars Technica, and The New York Times telegraphed the news on their Web sites.
Here’s a scenario you’re probably all too familiar with: Create document. Send to other party. Wait. Get back revisions. Edit. Send back. Wait. Get back other revisions. Edit. And so on. Given that you’ve both got network connections, wouldn’t it make sense to find some way to collaborate on the same document, either in real time or as close to it as possible? In this article I’ll look at several Web services that let you and others edit and revise different kinds of documents collaboratively directly online. (I didn’t include services such as Microsoft Office Live Workspace, where you have to edit the file in your local application and re-post it to the service.)
(tags: Google collaboration)
Mark Cuban has a way of making people listen even if what he says turns them off. This definitely applies to a blog post he made over the weekend: people who live by free are gonna die that way, too. The first couple of sentences in his article tell the story: The problem with companies who have built their business around free is that it is far from free to remain successful. The more success you have in delivering free, the more expensive it is to stay at the top. [*]
(tags: Entrepreneurship)
Even if you didn’t get a new iPhone recently, you did. In addition to rolling out new the new iPhone 3GS hardware last month, Apple introduced its iPhone 3.0 firmware update for free for all iPhone users, and at a nominal cost for users of the iPod Touch. Version 3.0 has so many new features, it’s like getting a new iPhone. Watch this video for some tips and tricks on getting the most from the new software. In this video, I show you some tricks for using and customizing the new Spotlight search feature, getting the most from the clipboard, using push notifications, navigation using the home button, opening links in a new browser window, fancy keyboard tricks, and more.
A Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) official said Monday that the software maker is preparing for “one of the biggest launch waves” in its history with a flurry of new product releases that will kick off with the Oct. 22nd release of Windows 7 and the shipping of Windows Server 2008 R2.
(tags: microsoft)
Netscape founder Marc Andreessen has teamed up with long-time partner Ben Horowitz to launch an investment firm that will focus on technology startups. Andreessen Horowitz will begin with an initial capitalization of $300 million, Andreessen said in a blog post Sunday. The fund, said Andreessen, is “aimed purely at investing in the best new entrepreneurs, products, and companies in the technology industry.” Andreessen said the venture would not affect his current roles as chairman of social networking hub Ning and board member at Facebook and eBay (NSDQ: EBAY). Andreessen Horowitz will start out by making investments of between $50,000 and $50 million in individual companies.
(tags: Entrepreneurship vc)
In its ongoing effort to attract corporate customers, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) took the beta tag off Google Apps Tuesday, hoping business users will now see the software as solid enough to use. One component, Gmail, has been in beta for over five years, wrote Google director of product management Matthew Glotzbach in Google’s blog, although he noted that the Google App suite of applications — which include Calendar, Docs and Talk — has always had a service-level agreement and 24-hour, 7-day-a-week support.
(tags: Google)
Twitter is at the heart of yet another controversy, this one involving Internet viruses and spam. In the span of just a few fascinating months, Twitter has evolved from a meaningless chirp in the woods, to canary in a coal mine, to alarmist, to champion of democracy. One member of the Obama Administration would like it to receive the ultimate in secular sanctification, while others would like to see it quarantined as a disease vector in itself. Talk about the Perils of Pauline; if Twitter were a person, it would have signed a Hollywood deal by now, with Ashton Kucher in the lead role (or Demi Moore for that matter).
(tags: security)
Researchers have found that it is possible to guess many — if not all — of the nine digits in an individual’s Social Security number using publicly available information, a finding they say compromises the security of one of the most widely used consumer identifiers in the United States. Many numbers could be guessed at by simply knowing a person’s birth data, the researchers from Carnegie Mellon University said. The results come as concern grows over identity theft and lawmakers in Washington push legislation that would bar businesses from requiring people to supply their Social Security number when purchasing a good or service.
(tags: security)
Never mind landing the job. Now people on the lookout for employment have another cause for worry: identity theft. As the joblessness rate soars, scammers are ginning up fake Web sites or posing as recruiters to trick job seekers into giving up sensitive personal information. Corneilus Allison became a potential target after he applied for a position at Aetna (AET) in January, court documents show. In hopes of securing a position at the insurer, he entered required personal information into Aetna’s job Web site. In May he received a response—but it wasn’t an offer of employment. Aetna instead told him that his personal information, including his Social Security number, might have been compromised. Hackers had found their way into Aetna’s job application site, managed by an outside vendor, nabbed e-mail addresses of job seekers, and sent correspondence as if from Aetna asking for additional personal information.
(tags: security)
Here’s a scenario you’re probably all too familiar with: Create document. Send to other party. Wait. Get back revisions. Edit. Send back. Wait. Get back other revisions. Edit. And so on. Given that you’ve both got network connections, wouldn’t it make sense to find some way to collaborate on the same document, either in real time or as close to it as possible? In this article I’ll look at several Web services that let you and others edit and revise different kinds of documents collaboratively directly online. (I didn’t include services such as Microsoft Office Live Workspace, where you have to edit the file in your local application and re-post it to the service.)