tech5

Spam King Makes Prison Escape!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:19:53 -0700

Scrabble sues Scrabulous. Why not buy them? Facebook opening the architecture for others to take advantage of its system. Google activates KNOL, its Wikipedia clone. The Northern Lights are actually explosions. Intel gets serious about SOC – systems on a chip – AGAIN. Sony modernizes its e-book reader. Alien formats now work. Yahoo announced a rollout of Zimbra e-mail consolidation software. Spammer walks out of jail and is now an escaped convict.

Digg to be Sold to Google?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:03:50 -0700

I wonder what to do with the sound effects. Will Microsoft change the interface on the Xbox360? Child Online Protection Act has been over-turned. New law needed. Looks like Google may buy Digg for$200 million. CherryPal announces terminal calls it something else. Wiis selling like hotcakes down under. Spam King gets nearly 4 years in jail. GigaOm buying other blogs. Microsoft going to go after Apple with advertising. Finally! The DNS flaw is out in the wild. Look for exploits coming your way.

GM Gearing Up for Electric Car Era

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:32:48 -0700

Apple looking better and better but margin cuts may hurt the stock price. I like the way Apple does updates for the Mac. TiVO and Amazon doing a deal where you can watch live TV and then buy a product that you see on the show out-of-the blue. People do not watch entertainment just to buy something. General Motors wants electric stations to be set up all over the country by the utilities companies. Esquire Magazine is going to use e-Ink for fancy 75^th anniversary edition. Should be fascinating. iPhone selling for $1000 on eBAY. IBM selling off Lenovo shares. AMD is on the road to recovery. The ASUS eeePC become hot in the EU.

The Mouse is Dead. Long Live the Mouse.

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:41:54 -0700

Intel cuts chip prices. This means cheaper computers for everyone. Interesting lawsuits over Facebook clones. iPhone 3G sold oil. Mac now number three in the race to make the most computers. They passed Acer. One-fifth of all retail spending now online. Total Internet reaches 1.5 billion users. Amazon S3 outage questions the cloud. Computer mouse not dying. CNET harping on email. Carl Icahn saga continues.

PC Sales Skyrocket

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:29:22 -0700

Google buys another contextual ad firm. It's out of Russia. AMD in the news as the company gets rid of CEO. Symantec screws its distributors. Interesting strategy. Cold fusion results rigged. Psystar selling HQ. PC shipments on the increase. Microsoft online keeps losing money. Web ad business rocky. Sun hopes to do well in Africa. gPhone back in the news. A new worm transcodes MP3's in an effort to infect PC's Computer mouse heading for extinction.

Microsoft Stock Falls on Good News

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:34:10 -0700

Microsoft's huge revenue gain and increased profits push the stock lower. Maybe the company should figure out why. Microsoft is doing something wrong. I know what. Xbox360 best of show at E3. Who is NebuAd? They are talking to Congress whoever they are. Psystar goes back into business despite what Apple does. Tivo to put YouTube vids on TV. Wowie. EU going after Intel. White LED's getting better.

Will Microsoft Buy AOL?

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:41:57 -0700

Looks like Microsoft may want to buy AOL now. Perhaps this is another attempt to screw Yahoo. Apple demands recall of Psystar. Apple drops cost of manufacturing for iPhone 3G. Dish Network Echostar IX should add more HD to the system. 400GB 2.5-inch drive for notebooks coming from Toshiba. AOL Spammer jailed. Calculations indicate he got one minute behind bars for each piece of junk mail sent out.

Intel Centrino in the News

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:22:09 -0700

Microsoft is actually after a patent from Yahoo. Viacom and Google decide to mask 12TB of data if Viacom actually cares. E3 the main news source. Everyone trying to get into the act. I'm distressed by GTA going on the DS machine. I don't like the idea. Kidney stones in the news. An IT guy in San Francisco locked down a database to prevent police snooping. How common is this possibility? Ton of PR about Intel rolling out new Centrino.

Apple Sells One Million Phones Instantly

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:28:20 -0700

Blackberry and Palm release new phones. Apple says it bought 1 million iPhones already. EU to regulate SMS roaming charges. Netflix looks like it is going on the Xbox360. It may never work out if the Net clogs up as predicted by at least one study. Load expected to be 100X worse. Icahn and Ballmer on Yahoo deal. But it's not their company. Yahoo will reject any offer. Xbox360 to go to 60GB. IBM reveals 8-core Power 7 chip.

Microsoft in Bed With Icahn

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:34:03 -0700

pple iPhone 3G makes all the news. Big deal. Comcast getting grief from the FCC over throttling BitTorrent. Microsoft decides to get in bed with Carl Icahn. Great partner or bad idea? Xbox360 down to $299. Look for that vibrating controller too. Misleading solar panel article floating around. Apple MobileMe cloud craps out. That’s just peachy, yes? Konami sues Viacom over theft of intellectual property.

Comcast Helping Vonage?

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:07:41 -0700

The trouble over the DNS poisoning continues. Will hackers take over the whole Internet? Maybe. I reminisce about Alternic from the olden days. Google working on a Second Life clone. Why not go the way of Microsoft and copy what other people do. New earthquake predictor coming? Comcast decides to work with Vonage to make VOIP work better. Good for them. Why is everyone worked up about the Dreamworks-Intel deal? Crazy people lined up for new Apple phone. Why? Why? Why? Sony does another fix for PS3. What is the Xbox360 Elite?

Blame the Boys for Pirac

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:26:54 -0700

Congress looking at online advertising, it may take action. Samsung rolls 128GB solid-state drive. They may be overrated. Getty Images to buy good photos from Flickr. Wish list for mobile phones turns them into laptops. Boys are to blame for downloading DVD. Horror stories beginning to appear. Microsoft launches Vista compatibility checker. It's about time. Microsoft patch stopped Zone Alarm from working. Is CEO of SUN on the way out? Cisco says spending in doldrums. Jerry Yang says Microsoft destabilizing Yahoo intentionally. Botnets seem to be winning the SPAM wars.

Fanboy Now an Official Word in the Dictionary!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:08:47 -0700

Pioneer entering the Blu-ray disc market. Good. New words added to the dictionary including FANBOYS and MALWARE. Sony keeps updating PS3 software. They had better get the PS4 going fast! New canon camera upstaged by Hasselblad 50 Megapixel camera. Huge Kodak sensor inside. Latest Yahoo-Microsoft news getting weird. IBM will be paid by state of NY to keep employees. Huh? Orkut fabulous in India. Nokia wastes money on research. Guess what they found out? Listen and find out.

Should Yahoo Buy AOL?

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:17:53 -0700

Yahoo working on buying AOL. Pioneer makes 400 GB blu-ray disc. Nice. TSA may stop making everyone remove their laptops. But some people may have their laptops confiscated or the files looked into. Linux going nowhere? WiMAX getting some tests finally. Mobile WiMAX too. CRM becoming a huge market. Hooray.

Repair a Computer, Go to Jail!

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:56:15 -0700

In Texas you have to be a licensed Private Detective to repair computers. And any consumer using anyone other than a licensed PI to fix his or her computer can be thrown in jail. Firefox users more secure on the Internet. Microsoft beginning to rent software starting in mid-July. Rhapsody going to put a dent in iTunes. Mac OS-X surges 32-percent. Microsoft officially retires XP. Say it's not so: Micro-hoo back in play? Feds looking into Google-Yahoo deal. HP rolling out a $599 hotrod computer. Meanwhile, Dell buying back stock for personal account. Netgear doing an Open Source Router.

Ballmer Says Bill Gates Designed the IBM PC. Huh?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:56:58 -0700

Did Steve Ballmer say Bill Gates created the IBM PC? Is he high?. Meanwhile the company is battling VM-ware, Orbitz to replace Expedia on MSN. IPO's in the doldrums. When did the full-frame camera become hot? The semantic search is a dead-end, says I. Adobe gives Yahoo and Google special flash search code. Samsung Instinct handset is hot. Smart phones now catching on with new implementations. Family Guy creator does deal with Google.

600,000 Laptops Stolen in Airports a Year

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:14:26 -0700

Norway probling Microsoft. Everyone has to get into the act. Lo-Jack for laptops? More than 600,000 laptops stolen in airports yearly. How does this happen in these "secure" airports? AD blockers worry advertisers. Why does Sun Microsystems have a chief gaming officer? EBay burned for allowing sales of fakes. Samsung pushing OLED. Look for Rhapsody to attack iTunes. No more Bill Gates stories.

Slow PS3 Sales in the News

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:57:03 -0700

Bill Gates coverage delivers 1109 articles today alone. This has to hurt the stock. Susan Decker in the news for unknown reason. Intel sticking with XP, hates Vista. Microsoft to buy Powerset. Slow PS3 sales being blamed on thing or another. Should Microsoft be busted up? Rethinking the old idea. Oracle may get $1 billion over SAP suit. Virgin Mobile buying Helios.

Will Bill Gates Please Leave the Building!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:56:37 -0700

New top level domains still in play. Look for dot.porn among other names. A land rush projected. 700 redundant news stories today about Bill Gates and how he's retiring. Cripes. When will it end? Dell adding colorful laptops. What took them so long? Microsoft indeed going on a buying spree. Intuit does layoffs. This is all the news they can manage. Yahoo reorg news also clogging up the news channels. Susan Decker is now the boss it seems to me. Should the US nationalize the Internet? Symbian versus Android? What can Sarbanes-Oxley do for you? Nothing.

Fiji Government Outraged over Microsoft

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:35:13 -0700

T-Mobile pushes home service for $10 a month unlimited. Texas Size-asteroid hit Mars. How do they know? Charter Communications does good deed, stock falls. Gates stories keep coming and they are killing us. Averaging 200-300 stories a day! California doomed if it gets hotter. XP may be available past June 30. Media goes back and forth on facts. Windows Fiji coming. Lobbyists not spending enough. Users personal information battles beginning.

16 Core Processor from Sun

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:51:25 -0700

167 redundant news articles about Bill Gates quitting Microsoft. Cripes, how boring. Comscore tumbles on Google news. ICANN fooling around with the TLD's again. Contradictory stories abound. I check out a few. Microsoft pledges XP support through 2014. SUN doing a nifty 16-core processor. Larry Lessig pushing broadband initiative. Germans ban the G-mail name. You have to do a workaround. Yahoo-Google deal triggering hearings. Kodak buying back its shares.

Google Android Delayed

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:21:46 -0700

Google Android delayed. Bill Gates getting ink everywhere. It's ridiculous. The Mac finally gets hit with a couple of Trojan Horse programs. Welcome to the club boys! MPAA thinks evidence is over-rated. What? Toshiba uses Cell chip in a laptop. Prediction: dead-end. Chinese ripping off themselves. Chinese brand-name phones being copied by Chinese. One billion computers now in use.

Cell Phone to Be Used as Boarding Pass

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:17:37 -0700

Hot weather in California means no good news. Ballmer making more noise than ever. He mentions that MSFT blundered in the search business. Microsoft says no buying spree. China says its not investigating Microsoft story continues. All this means is that they ARE investigating. Delta to use cell phone as boarding passes. Firefox up to 14 million downloads. Its started to crash on me and give me weird errors. FCC tells Sprint-Nextel to get out of 800 MHz band in 30 days, or else. I recommend my own column in Marketwatch.

Verizon Goes to 50Mbps Download speed

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:45:05 -0700

Yahoo adding ymail.com and rocketmail.com. Apple sold 5 billion songs and wants to top itself with movie downloads. China says no, we have no plans to bust Microsoft. Verizon upping speeds of FiOS to 50 down and 20 up. Nice! Should be perfect for peer-to-peer. Suddenly propaganda machine cranks up the noise to develop car mileage benchmark called gallons per 10,000 miles. Why? ATI forces nVidia to cut prices. One in three IT people are spying on each other. Kids busted for changing grades. May do 38 years in prison. Peachy.

Save Your Phone Books

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:35:09 -0700

Microsoft getting deeper into the ad business by buying a TV advertising specialty company. Meanwhile they are unaware of potential China action. LinkedIn now worth $1 billion meaning the users are worth $50 each! Seems high to me. Firefox 3 getting mixed reviews, but I like it. Old phone books worth a fortune. Google dominates mobile search. So? GPU versus CPU debate begins.

Save Your Phone Books

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:33:04 -0700

WiMAX in Amsterdam Now!

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:09:18 -0700

Philly municipal Wi-fi on again after being off again. Toshiba steps up and promotes its R500 laptop. Bumper stickers on your car could indicate you are unbalanced. Microsoft having various issues in Europe. Jon Shirley leaves MSFT board. Google Apps suffer outages. Good news for people pushing cloud computing. Firefox wants 5 million downloads. It's a publicity stunt all the way. Samsung suing TV makers. Amsterdam to run mobile WiMAX. How did they get into the act?

DB2 to Go Open Source

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:04:51 -0700

XM-Sirius deal on track to go through now that the FCC is on board. AP wants to set guidelines for bloggers. Unsure exactly what the guidelines should be though. Apple will do anything to not use Flash. I wonder why. I went to see the new teraflop GPU from AMD. Nice product. NetGear and Cisco about to start a price war. Cisco says Internet video will swamp the net. TOP story: IBM may make DB2 open source.

Facebook Matches MySpace

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:31:20 -0700

God no! Now Barron's is keeping the Microsoft-Yahoo deal alive. Apparently Icahn has been clobbered by Yahoo deal. He should listen to Tech5. Video game sales soaring. Eric Schmidt unaware of router-level information restrictions. Is he not paying attention. He needs to listen to Tech5 too! AT&T coming close to metering the Internet. Sergey Brin going to space in 2011. Facebook catches up with MySpace. IBM advises staff to opt out for an Msft-Office-free world. Har. Our sponsor this week: Drobostore.com -- use the secret code "Scene."

Plutoid -- Curiously Refreshing

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:00:00 -0700

Microsoft out of the hunt for Yahoo, but wait..there's more. They're still kind of back in. Meanwhile Google may be doing something with Yahoo. Steve Jobs was sick at WWDC, now everyone is freaked. Pluto is now named a plutoid. Canada copyrights becoming more onerous than anything. Not allowed to backup a CD. Clearwire has high hopes. In fact they are ridiculously optimistic. Intel pushing Congress for WiMAX. Microsoft Surface showing up as a gambling device. Get the newest Firefox early. My tips. Intel developing a programming language for multi-core chips. Foreign attacks on US computers blamed on Chinese. I think not.

A Quadrillion Operations per Second?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:35:21 -0700

iPhone 3G gets more and more ridiculous publicity. This is a classic. Google co-founder decides to go into space on a Russian rocket. Big story beginning: TV viewers do not know to switch from analog to digital. HP new machine takes on MacBook Air. Some guy take 13,000 cell processors with 7000 dual core AMD chips and makes machine to do a quadrillion calculation a second. YouTube scandal over punks doing YouTube video. Carl Icahn won't go away. My thoughts on Microsoft Office. Employees said they would take a pay cut to work at home.

iPhone Games

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:32:44 -0700

Apple iPhone to become the great game platform. Sense Network’s “Citysense” monitors cell phones to map social hotspots. Hulu finally getting Colbert and Stewart. Ballmer anecdotes. Ransomware virus resurfaced. Child porn to be blocked by ISPs. John Gage quits Sun Microsystems to become a boring VC. Is Twitter dying from popularity?

Is iPhone Sex Next?

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:04:56 -0700

Steve Ballmer says all content within 10 year will be IP-based. Laughable prediction. I mock thee! Apple new iPhone may be designed for video phonesex. iPhonesex? No Zune phone. Look for Snow Leopard as the latest for the Mac. Microsoft meanwhile working on a very bloated embedded OS. Yoikes! IBM does petaflop machine. WiMAX folks decide to share patents, finally! Carl Icahn becoming a pest.

Carl Icahn Has His nerve

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:32:40 -0700

Carl Icahn demands Yahoo sell for $49.5 billion. Intel Anti-Trust woes spread as FTC takes a look. S. Korea already on the case. This was bound to happen eventually. CC free wireless Internet plan doomed to fail? I wonder. Creeping featurism to hit Gmail? Perhaps. My airplane anecdote tells of giant cloud. Comcast looking to deliver 100 Mbps sooner than later. I'm predicting metered service. Lame survey describes the obvious.

Apple Mobile Me?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:50:56 -0700

AMD begins to push the Puma. PS3 finds a way to do in-game targeted advertising. The PS3 is also accused of chewing up too much electricity when not being used but still plugged in. Acer decides to go after the eeePC with its Aspire 1. New Adobe Acrobat overdoes it, they say. Social networkers don’t think telling all online is necessarily bad, but could be! Look for Apple to introduce the Mobile Me. Gak.

Metering the Internet -- Coming Soon

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:48:02 -0700

Comcast may meter the Internet too. This I can guarantee. Someday the Internet will be metered just like water. Intel is pumping the Atom chip. Microsoft LIVE seems to be dead. Or at least it is a bad brand. Look for IE8 beta 2 in August. Bill Gates refuses to leave company. Walmart is going to revive and promote Blu-ray. Someone has to do it. Microsoft offered Yahoo $40 in Jan. of 2007. What?? Russians are behind the bot attacks coming from china.

Pound Cake Computer Coming

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:06:59 -0700

HP does deal with Microsoft to embed toolbar on desktop. nVidia takes on the Intel Atom chip with its own processors. The line is called Tegra. Windows 7 GUI to be designed by Office 2007 interface? That cannot be good. Time-Warner experimenting with metering the Internet. Venezuela appealing OOXML. ASUS now doing a Shuttle-killer. A computer the size of a pound cake. Gphone delayed until 2009? Computex underway. One hot topic is Wi-Fi replacing Bluetooth. Lots of stories about Windows 7.

Ethernet to the Home Afoot?

Fri, 30 May 2008 17:18:40 -0700

Revision3 website attacked with denial of service attack by for doing nothing more than using BitTorrent And it was MediaDefender behind the attack. This can't be good. These people are supposed to protect legit content makers, not attack them. Stonehenge turns out to be a cemetery. Slew of stories about using coax to deliver Ethernet. I suspect that there is a movement afoot to create Ethernet to the home based on the cable network. Brazil has jumped in with South Africa to condemn OOXML. I'm suspicious. Sony is in the news for developing a glass speaker. Alien will be revealed on TV. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth will become an Opera in Italy? What?

Interactive TV Returns! Gak.

Thu, 29 May 2008 16:34:28 -0700

Sony getting back into Interactive TV. What are they thinking? Also the company is going to roll out a 27-inch OLED set. Will Disney buy Tivo? Maybe! The Belgian news story keeps chugging. Google Gears becomes Gears. Ok, whatever. Yahoo suing Nigerian scammers? How do they find them? How about blocking the spam? Norcal man uses cartoon character names to open online brokerage accounts. Ha. Blogger breaks news! Stop the presses. New Dell laptop. Intel getting into flash business.

Belgian Newsmen are Apparent Dolts

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:23:14 -0700

Belgian newspaper people have got to be the dumbest in the world. Suing Google for getting them links and attention. Apparently the Belgians want no links or attention and cannot figure out how to prevent it. PC Magazine says Windows 7 is a threat to Vista. Windows 7 is still hot air. It will not be out until 2011. Some think that AMD has an opportunity. Look for the Norwegians to try to usurp the Nobel Prize with the Kavli awards. Geez. Tivo fails to keep up with Cranky Geeks. HP gets too much PR, I know why. Look for 8 MP on a cell phone? Agh. 8 MB of blur.

Dell Engaged in Fraud Says Judge

Tue, 27 May 2008 17:37:01 -0700

Holiday blues. Dell busted in NYC -- found guilty of misleading advertising, abuse debt collection, etc. Terrible. No new kernel for Windows 7. Also it will not be out until at least the end of 2010 NOT next year as Gates promised. Creative Suite 4 on track. Centrino 2 delayed. Bad radios and bad graphics to blame. FiOS coming to NYC meaning Verizon is now in the TV business.

Microsoft Says it Will Spend All its Money Anyway

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:43:34 -0700

It's snowing in California? Ballmer says MSFT is going to spend $50 billion one way or the other. Yahoo is not a strategy. Carl Icahn worried a deal will never happen. Vista user account control are confusing says MSFT exec. XP SP3 corrupting the registry says Symantec. HP is now taking over the server business from IBM and Dell. RedHat software is greener. So what? Google slaps Microsoft. I'm just joking when I say the oceans are being carbonated by the CO2 in the air. I suspect the iPhone will have GPS built-in or have a bluetooth gizmo nearby.

Google gah-gah over white space spectrum

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:58:40 -0700

Nine hurricanes coming. Sugar OS may be spread to other systems besides OLPC. Meanwhile the OLPC folks say the next XO 2.0 will $75? Har. Twitter gets $15 million. How to beat jet lag? Don't eat? The Netflix box is a streaming box not download and play. This is not the way to go. Google now trying to get that weird white space spectrum.

The Revenge of Mighty Mouse

Wed, 21 May 2008 16:30:29 -0700

Microsoft is now in the news too much. Gates still chattering about one thing or another. The company decides to bribe users to use their search engine. Microsoft Office not adding support for its own Open XML until Office 14. Apple and CBS sued over stealing Mighty Mouse name. Is Comcast irked over the set top boxes? GTA IV actor irked over only making $200,000 for doing voice work.University of TN prof. sending secret docs to enemies? Xbox360 copying the Wii style controller.

Napster Rolls Out 6 Million MP3's

Tue, 20 May 2008 16:13:41 -0700

Microhoo story of the day. Now Yahoo will bust itself up for the benefit of Microsoft. Yeah, um, OK! Is the OLPC dead. One columnist besides myself thinks so, maybe. Asterdata shows up on the scene. I go over their odd bios on the website. Napster rolls out 6 million unprotected MP3's. Netflix reveals set top box for download and play. YouTube told by Senator to take down terrorist videos.

Pew Survey Gets Dubious

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:15:32 -0700

Steve Ballmer over the news after man throws eggs at him. He also says advertising is the new bedrock of Microsoft. And now we are hearing more and more about the cloud. Cripes. Microhoo gets back on track with alternative deals suggested. Child porn laws affirmed by the Supreme Court. Latest Pew survey about the Internet and American Life has to be totally wrong.

Comcastic Speed

Fri, 16 May 2008 15:03:33 -0700

Comcast upgrade works. Now I get as high as 22 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. The numbers fall off when you go overseas. Apple rolling out 4 more non-exclusive iPhone deals. Yahoo being sued. It decided to conceal details for some unknown reason. Missouri woman now indicted for cyberbullying. Comcast still being accused of throttling bit-torrent. Sprint says 2008 WiMax. Yeah, right. I like the Aliph Jawbone. ASUS making all its motherboards "instant on!" Wow.

Laggards Unite!

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:49:21 -0700

Hot weather in California. Icahn tells the public who he wants on the Yahoo board. CBS buys CNet. More content for Sumner Redstone. Funny NYT headline. EU raises privacy issues about street view. Verizon goes with LiMo and not Android. Microsoft getting lots of PR for the online telescope. Bill Gates shows off the touch-wall. Gates still blabbering on and on about Windows 7.

Cark Icahn Meddling with Yahoo

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:57:16 -0700

Very hot weather in California. GTA in the news with its trigger of more online subscriptions. Xbox the big winner. Comcast to buy Plaxo. I found the Plaxo messages annoying. MySpace gets $225 million from spammers who got sued by MySpace. Hooray. Google to blur faces. The FCC to re-auction the 700Mhz spectrum. Carl Icahn in the news meddling with Yahoo. Om Malik on today's Cranky Geeks. I'm irked by Powerset news.

Philly Muni Wi-Fi Shutting Down

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:13:57 -0700

HP going to buy EDS for $13.2 billion (or whatever) to compete with IBM. Sales of Office for Mac highest in 20 years. Dubious stories. Earthlink bails out on the Philadephia citywide WiFi. This is a disaster.In Europe complaining about Office not using open doc formats. AMD loses two more top AMD guys. Sat delivers 1.2 Gbps. Yow!

XP SP3 Causing Endless Reboots on AMD Chips

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:28:17 -0700

Windows XP SP3 10-percent faster but causing endless reboots on AMD chips. Powerset semantic search all over the news. FBI worried about counterfeit chips with backdoors.Wii rolls out 6 downloadable games. Hackers create social network. My thoughts on Geotagging. Cigarette machine to do face recognition to check age of person.

GTA-IV Mostly Pumping Xbox360

Fri, 09 May 2008 18:40:42 -0700

I apologize for the quality of Sumner Redstone tape. I'll do a column on Redstone on Monday for PC Magazine. Facebook connect will expand the platform. Microsoft says that 60-percent of GTA-IV sales going to Xbox360. Norovirus hits JavaOne conference. Apple to bring out a Wii type TV controller for the AppleTV box. Bill Gates says Microsoft didn't need Yahoo. Al Alcorn irked over Gates comments.

Content is King

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:16:47 -0700

The second part of the Sumner Redstone talk. Here he talks about content being the "once and future" king and his discussion of intellectual property. The sound could be better, sorry. It's still worth listening to.

The Consumer is in Control

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:54:51 -0700

An excerpt from Sumner Redstone's keynote address at Seoul Digital Forum.

Did Bill Gates Invent the PC?

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:36:56 -0700

Bill Gates implies he invented the PC. Interesting speech in Korea. I chatted with Sumner Redstone. He is one tough cookie. Microhoo story continues. Yahoo teaming up with McAfee. Silicon wafers pushing to 450mm. Consumer Reports gives Apple top ranking. Neil Young is a fan of Java?

Yahoo Report

Mon, 05 May 2008 15:59:17 -0700

Microsoft Yahoo deal falls apart over the weekend. Now confirmed. My commentary on the matter. AT&T shuts down free Wi-fi. It was apparently never meant to be free. Battery shortage a continuing problem. Anniversary of SPAM -- it's 30 years old. Blu-ray continues to get bad press for unknown reasons.

AT&T Testing TV on the Cell Phone

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:28:28 -0700

Sony thinks GTA IV will drive PS3 sales? PC World calls it GTA Bore. AT&T to launch cell phone TV. Testing in 58 USA markets. Abobe now pushing flash on mobile phones. Starting to see the story about Blu-ray sales falling of over and over. Three days of this so far. Safari usage tripled. Look for lots of blocking patents in and around the memrister. Sezmi gettting a lot of dubious ink.

Downloadable movies to become available with DVD release

Thu, 01 May 2008 18:41:11 -0700

Apple iTunes get to sell films on the day of the DVD release. Why is everyone in such a hurry? Yahoo could owe songwriters $100 million in royalties. Ocean dead zones growing fast. Sun Micro losing money, again. Ballmer gets closer to final offer. I see code word.

Apple to Sell Unlocked Phone?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:21:56 -0700

GTA IV sells over 600,000 in one day in the UK. LSD developer dies at 102. Theoretical circuit made whole. AT&T may cut iPhone price with subsidy. Apple may sell unlocked phone. Blu-ray sales down? Cripes. Work your brain more. Home networking standard again? Mac 7 messenger adding video. Microsoft may up the ante on Yahoo. Teams of researchers trying to get dual cores to do something.

Download Movies Over Mobile Phone = Go Broke Fast

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:41:38 -0700

Microsoft finds new bug in XP SP3 so they delay once again. iMAC getting the first shot at the new Intel chip. Giant Squid tells scientists that there are bigger ones out there. Ballmer should stay at Microsoft? Or not? Movie rentals via cell phone. Can you imagine the bill? Microsoft setting up shop as a police department. IBM makes divident 50-cents a share. Microsoft get closer to Linux.

Coming Soon: the Intel-Cray Computer

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:29:05 -0700

I visited Xerox PARC today. Intel is doing a deal with Cray to make some sort of supercomputer. Google announced "page rank for product image search." Partners want Microsoft to stop bashing Vista. India sending up nano-satellites. Games reduce stress. FCC keeping people away from the 700 Mhz spectrum. I have a theory. Microsoft-Yahoo analysis to begin.

When does LOL become part of the normal lexicon?

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:01:02 -0700

All the talk is about Microsoft stock. Yahoo expects social network domination with Y!Open. Yeah, right. Meanwhile I think Microsoft has no idea about the porn on Yahoo as they keep the bid in play. LOL getting into schoolwork and teachers do no know what to do about it. Nintendo getting more bad headlines. The Murdoch and the hacker story keeps rolling. Now I need to follow it. I plug my Marketwatch column. Microsoft also getting bad headlines too. I hate the new term Blogebrity. Bloggger being pounded by spammers.

Microsoft Mesh n the News

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:44:39 -0700

All the talk is about Microsoft Mesh. I see it as Lotus Notes, Microsoft edititon. Replication awaits. I lament unfulfilled promises. Dell will keep XP until 2010/Rmor that Dell may buy Radio Shack? Interesting idea. Google getting into the burrito business? What? ASIMO will conduct symphony in May. China tied with the USA regarding total internet users. Samsung releases 3D compatible plasma display. Cloud computing indefinable.

When you Enter USA your Notebook is Subject to File by File Inspection

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:00:23 -0700

FBI and Congress want all online activity monitored by ISP for two years. Apple buying a processor company. Why? GTA4 reviewed on Cranky Geeks, PETA offering a million dollars for test tube meat, Dell building a bookshelf computer. Acer sees 5-7 million netbooks. Now they can stop you at the border and look inside your laptop files when you enter country.

What's a Malicious BMP file?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:04:23 -0700

Nokia "Comes with Music" group signs up Sony-BMG. Samsung goes for OLED in a big way. Microsoft new online CRM system seems risky to me. Weird stories emerge about AMD-ATi history. Samsung going big into OLED. Warning about Adobe bugs. OLPC management getting threadbare.

Stories Being Twisted to Hurt the Wii

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:51:00 -0700

Western Digital 10,000 RPM SATA drive said to be the fastest available. Microsoft testing its Office subscription service. Who needs it? PayPal freaked out over Safari flaws. AMD racing to 45nm and 12 cores. IBM dumped rest of Lenovo shares. IBM wants to do mobile apps. Intel to drop $500 million for WiMAX in Japan. Lexmark dropped by Best Buy. Wii being "slandered" the way I see it.

Big Brains Mean Longer Life

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:13:09 -0700

The tech buzz is over. I blame Sarbanes-Oxley. Get rid of it. USA doing a poor job of tech recycling. Google discussion. The company has a lot of free food. Google also has a campus clothing store. What the hell is nerdic? I'm distracted by the fact that big brains mean longer life. AT&T lays off thousands. AT&T says Internet is going to be "full" by 2010. Ballmer says Vista is a work in progress. JFK and LAX getting see-through scanners.

SUn About to Screw MySQL Users

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:16:21 -0700

Gizmodo busts Psystar. Says hoax. What did tell you here on Tech5 from the beginning? Red Hat drops plan for desktop Linux. I cimplain about Windows and the registry. Mark Zukerberg under fire once again. New research group recommends Vista. Law would ban US in-flight cell phone use. Sun shutting down features to screw MySQL users. AMD adds to layoffs. Laptop desktop crossover coming sooner than expected. Novell deluded. Google to look at deep web.

Women Will Sell Out Passwords for Chocolate

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:22:55 -0700

MacClone back in action II. Questions arise. Women more likely than men to surrender a password for chocolate. Broadband up 300-percent in USA. SF Bay Areas leads the way. tech stocks up. Comcast looking for P2P apps and proposing a P2P Bill of Rights. Wha?? Does Seagate hold the patents to the flash hard drive? Maybe! E-Paper back in the news. Har. Wii Fit selling like crazy. New ASUS eee-PC. Pro-Tibet rootkit out and about. Twitter user saved from Eqyption Police by using Twitter. Wow.

Mac Clone Back! Or not?

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:28:17 -0700

MacClone back in action. Mac clone to be $804.99. Now called the Open computer. Licensing issues still abound. Google to sift through porn to identify individuals shown in child porn. Earthquake coming say experts. Duh! XP SP3 coming out in two weeks. Tesla Motors suing and being sued. Microsoft to shrink XP? Har. Linux sales growing on Dell. Google's cookies being stolen.

Dvorak Joins Twitter

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:22:49 -0700

File taxes people! More blather about Microsoft-Yahoo. I've joined twitter. Follow me at www.twitter.com/therealdvorak. Salesforce and Google apps joining forces. The sub-$400 Leopard PC/Mac-clone disappears. China Mobile not in talks with Apple. Rocket racing leaque is launching. Yeah. right. More negative articles about Microsoft Vista. People begging Microsoft to keep selling XP forever. New Nintendo DS coming. Adobe proposing new open raw movie format. I'm dubious about a standardized "RAW" anything.

New Safer Batteries in the Works

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:02:52 -0700

Gartner and others trashing Windows and Microsoft incessently. Phile Hester quits AMD. FCC fining big boxes stores for selling analog TV's without warning the consumer that the sets will not work in the future. Blockbuster working to change business model. I discuss the latest bogus announcemnt from IBM. Supposedly it has something better than flash memory. New Lithium-Ion formulation around the corner. The key: not explosive. I discuss the Microsoft-Yahoo deal in Marketwatch.

Yahoo and Google both Freaked

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:58:39 -0700

Frank Quattrone working with Google to scheme against Microhoo. Yahoo looking for help to keep it from happening. Im so confused. Stolen military equipment found on eBay and Craigslist. MySpaceTV to do TV shows, aka original programming. Why did Windows Server 2008 get no attention from the Microsoft marketing department? Microsoft Clearflow announced, a traffic aid. Google has been there and done that. Flickr users up in arms over videos clogging up the system. I make some commentary about the downturn.