Archive for the ‘Tech News’ Category

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?

U.S. and European regulators have cleared the long-discussed Internet search partnership between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., enabling the rivals to form a tag team as they try to mount a more serious challenge to Google Inc.

The government approvals announced Thursday anointed an alliance that Microsoft and Yahoo proposed nearly seven months ago after years of flirtation and often contentious negotiations.

Do they honestly think they will make more than a dent in Google’s market share? Seriously?

Have you heard about the scandal over at TechCrunch?

TechCrunch is covering its ass while continuing to sell YOU out and to sell out every company Daniel wrote about that did NOT offer him a Macbook Air for his troubles. You can accept that or you can demand better.

I stopped paying attention to TechCrunch a long time ago. This incident just solidifies my decision. Maybe everyone over there needs a good adult acne treatment, then they can start acting their age.

The Goole App Store is coming! I’d much prefer a new cigar app store though.

Google may open as early as March an online store to sell third-party software that complements its Google Apps collaboration and communication hosted suite, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Google would let customers purchase the software from its store and charge the third-party developers a commission, according to the Journal, whose article was based on anonymous sources.

A Google spokeswoman reached via e-mail declined to comment specifically on the Journal article, but she pointed out that Google already has a site called Solutions Marketplace where it features applications and professional services from third-party developers that complement Google Apps and other Google enterprise products.

Pardon me while I don’t get too terribly excited. I’ve heard the Nexus One is a nice “entry” model, but several people I know have ditched theirs because it’s too “entry”. If you know what I mean.

Yahoo knew about the attacks and didn’t want people to know they had been a target? Why not? It’s not like they had hemorrhoids or anything and needed some hemorrhoid creams to cure themselves. It was a public attack by a foreign government, people should have been told.

Yahoo Inc knew it had been a target to sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks on U.S. corporations before Google alerted the company to them, a source familiar with the matter said, but chose to remain silent after its bigger rival went public.

The two Internet search and email providers had discussed a highly coordinated attack originating in China prior to Google’s high-profile announcement on Tuesday, the person said.

Google said the hackers’ primary goal was to access Gmail accounts of human rights activists, and that at least 20 other large companies had been targeted. It was unclear whether the attacks on Yahoo were also aimed at grabbing information off emails, or if they had been successful.

I plan on getting a new laptop or MacBook in a few months, so this news couldn’t have come at a better time.

Earlier today, WD announced the latest (and fastest) member of its popular My Book external drives, the My Book 3.0. The drive is available now in a 1TB configuration.

As the name implies, this drive features the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface.

USB 3.0, just starting to appear in products aimed at PCs, offers transfer rates of up to 5 Gbps. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, but will operate at slower USB 2.0 speeds—rated at 480Mbps.

You watch, Microsoft is going to make a deal with News Corp. Microsoft couldn’t hide their flaws even if they tried. If they were bald and used hair supplements, we’d still see their bald spot.

Microsoft Corp has had talks with News Corp about a tie up, which would involve News Corp getting paid to take its news websites off Google Inc, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
News Corp, which owns such papers as the Wall Street Journal and the Sun, started the discussions, which were at an early stage, the source said.

Awesome news for Facebook, but since this affected our accounts, shouldn’t we be the ones who get the new tile flooring because of it? I would hate to see the powers that be at Facebook wasting that money on, well, donuts and bagels and such.

Social networking website Facebook was awarded $711.2 million in damages relating to an anti-spam case against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace, court documents show.

Wallace did not oppose the motion or appear at the hearing on September 18, 2009, according to a filing on Thursday in a San Jose, California federal court.

The site filed an anti-spamming case against Wallace in February for accessing people’s Facebook accounts without their permission and sending phony mail and posts to the individuals’ public message wall, the company said in a blog post.

Maybe they could paint my walls too?

Word has it that everything the French President does in Denmark this December will be Twittered. I wonder if his assigned “twitterer” will make it all the way through the summit or if he’ll surrender halfway through the proceedings?

Nicolas Sarkozy’s every move at the climate summit in Denmark will be tracked on Twitter, but the French president won’t be busy typing updates on the micro-blogging website himself, officials said.

I’d love to see Sarkozy and Obama both on their Blackberries at the same time, smoking Rocky Patel cigars. Now that would be worth seeing.

Does IBM really think many people will choose their new service over Google’s based solely on price?

To compete in today’s market you need a lot more than an “email in the cloud” service. What happened to search capabilities, archives, live chat software, and everything else out there?

IBM on Monday will begin offering businesses a basic “cloud computing” email service at a price that undercuts a plusher offering by Internet giant Google.

IBM unabashedly pitched its new LotusLive iNotes as an alternative to email service Google has been promoting as part of a campaign to win businesses over to using applications hosted as services on the Internet.

It will be interesting to see how well their service fares after a couple months.