The fervor over March Madness is akin to the excitement over the Olympics: even if you’re not a typical sports fan, you can’t help but be interested. Me, I’ll watch maybe one college basketball game during the regular season, but come tournament time I can’t help but refresh scores and update my bracket like any other diehard. This year, two versions of CBS Sports Mobile’s March Madness iPhone app should make that easier than ever.

I don’t watch many basketball games, but even I get carried away during March Madness.

TextExpander from SmileOnMyMac is the ultimate macro tool. It lets you create snippets of frequently used text or images, then instantly paste said snippets into any app simply by typing an abbreviation. It’s like a rubber stamp for working on your Mac, and it just got a lot more…stampier—but in a good way.

TextExpander 3 offers a new snippet creation window accessible via a keyboard shortcut, which can save you time while you’re creating a snippet that can save you even more time.

If you don’t use a text expander, you should.

Internet giant Google is testing a new television programming search service with Dish Network Corp., The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The newspaper, citing “people familiar with the matter,” said the service runs on TV set-top boxes using Google’s Android operating system.

I do not want Google search on my DISH box, I do not want green eggs and ham. I don’t need Android in my life, I already feel like Sam I Am.

There are Android phones, Android phones, and more Android phones. How many Android phones do you need to compete? How many phones does any company need?

Motorola is placing two new bets on the open-source Android operating system with the release of its Backflip and Devour smartphones. The uniquely designed Backflip began selling through AT&T Wireless late last week, and the Detour is now available from Verizon Wireless.

The 3G/Wi-Fi Backflip, at $99 after rebate and with a two-year contract, is gaining a lot of attention for its unique flip-out QWERTY keyboard, which AT&T has described as “an original reverse flip design.”

People may not like it, but Apple did it right the first time.

Apple ran its first iPad commercial during the Academy Awards on Sunday night. The 30-second advertisement shows the tablet computer sitting on an unidentified man’s lap as he whisks through the features and functions in veteran style.

Apple’s latest computing innovation will hit store shelves on April 3, but the commercial offered a closer look at what Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls “something completely new” and “magical” and “revolutionary.” The iPad will start at $499 and lets users browse the web, read and send e-mail, view and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read books, and more.

“Is Apple cranking the marketing machine? Absolutely. Is this hype? I would say no,” said Avi Greengart, a senior analyst at Current Analysis. “The press release calls this a magical device. The commercial shows off what it can do. Apple believes they have created products that have unique value propositions, and then they create television advertising that shows off those value propositions.”

I can’t say I will be standing in line to buy an iPad on April 3, but I can say I will have one before the summer runs its course.

I’ve just started working on a Mac application as well as an iPhone app. This couldn’t have happened at a better time for me.

If you’ve been interested in becoming an official Mac developer but shied away from high membership fees, this might just be your lucky day.

On Thursday, Apple sharply cut the cost of its Mac Developer Program, dropping the price to just $99 a year. Previously, the only way into the program was by buying Apple Developer Connection Select or Premier memberships ($499 and $3499 respectively). Why the drop in cost? According to Apple, it’s in response to the success of the iPhone Developer Program ($99/year to join) and the potential crossover for those apps into the world of the Mac.

AT&T Inc expects users of Apple Inc’s iPad to mostly connect to the Internet using sort-range Wi-Fi networks rather than AT&T’s cellular network, the Chief Executive of AT&T said on Tuesday.

While AT&T has agreed to prove wireless connections to the iPad tablet computer, Randall Stephenson said he doesn’t expect the device to result in many new service subscriptions for AT&T as consumers will instead use Wi-Fi or prepaid services, where they do not subscribe to a service contract.

What do you think? Are people going to ue Wi-Fi the most?

A Google Inc. executive said Tuesday that the company is still considering its next step in China — seven weeks after it pledged to stop censoring search results there and threatened to pull out of the country altogether.

Why not do the right thing and just pull out? They never should have been in under those circumstances anyway.

Google has acquired Picnik, whose Web-based application lets people import and edit photos in a browser.

“We’re not announcing any significant changes to Picnik today, though we’ll be working hard on integration and new features,” wrote Brian Axe, a Google product management director, in an official blog on Monday.

I wonder if this is one of those acquisitions where they let the product die as they incorporate the technology into something else, or is this going to be one of those rare exceptions?

Somebody was really bored.

The Internet has become the third most popular news platform for American adults, trailing only local and national television stations, according to a survey released on Monday.

Seventy-eight percent of the 2,259 adults surveyed for the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism said that on a typical day they get news from a local TV station.

Statistic after statistic to tell us something we already knew. I bet the numbers are skewed though. I don’t know many people who trust mainstream media let alone watch it first everyday.