Palm's Rubinstein Learning He's No Steve Jobs
Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein picked the wrong date to introduce Pixi because he was going up against Apple -- again.
Technology
Apple Flubs iPod Event, Marketing Changing?
Apple has been the greatest corporate master, perhaps, of the event: keep a tight lid on announcements before, invite the faithful, have Steve Jobs bring in the worship, and keep people on the edges of their seats until the end. But reaction to its announcement of new iPod models yesterday suggest that the master chef's knife slipped, nicking it rather than the market.
Microsoft's Past Comes Back To Haunt
In the patent battle between i4i and Microsoft, the briefs are flying fast and furious in the latter's appeal of its district court loss and the impending permanent injunction against selling infringing versions of Word. The latest filing from i4i sheds more light on the process, while raising additional questions, including whether the problems Microsoft currently sees are the result of its own long-term behavior.
Back to Normal: Prices Race Downwards
If there's one constant in the precarious consumer electronics industry, it's that prices get pushed downward continuously, and generally faster than vendors like. Some news shows that the trend is alive and well. First up, Apple, because the long term trend of average net sales per unit dropping isn't halting. The company is cutting prices on various iPods before its big iPod event today. As TUAW reported:
Twitter Announces Paid Services, Again. Will They Be Enough?
Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone said yesterday that that the company will officially add paid services for businesses to generate revenue in the fourth quarter. It's not the first time he's mentioned in. In fact, the announcement started breaking in the third week of August. Only when Stone spoke to VentureBeat, there were more details of what the company was considering:
How the Media Can Save Itself
Taking potshots at mainstream media -- or defending the old guard -- seems to have become an online mania. From what I can see, there are ways out of free-famish on one side and pay-poor on the other. It is possible for companies to look at what is happening online and realize that if you're going to survive on the Internet as a viable medium, you have to find ways to go native. Simply translating what existed in print isn't going to work any better than thinking you can take a novel and translate it, page for page, into a screenplay.
Salesforce Connects With Twitter, Facebook
Salesforce.com has added integrations with Twitter and Facebook to its call center management application, allowing to steal a further march on the likes of Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.
Can Apple Lose The App Race?
The iPhone App Store is so full that it's frustrating developers who want to make a name for themselves. Google's Android Market is more fertile, but technical issues create barriers of a different sort.
Tech Law: Germany Strikes Google TOS, TiVO Gets More from EchoStar, More
German consumer group successfully sues Google over terms of service; U.S. court finds terms of service violation to be no crime; TiVO gets more from EchoStar for patent infringement; Amazon objects to Google Books settlement; and Take-Two settles class action lawsuit over hidden sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto for $20 million.
The Illusion of Internet Speed
The term "Internet time" became so hackneyed so quickly that it virtually died out. A quick search on Google News suggests that an entire month -- surely at least a couple of years worth of that Internet time -- can pass without seeing the phrase in the press. Perhaps that is because the drive for speed has become such an assumption that it barely needs saying. But the desire to move ever faster makes the mistake that the tools which are supposed to move things quickly actually do. And often they don't.
Bose Trademark Win Good News for Tech
Last week, Bose Corp. won a two-year-old dispute over its Wave trademark, having lost that major piece of intellectual property at one point, which should be welcome news to most industries, including high tech. And the reason can be summed up in one word: Medinol.
What To Remember After Labor Day
It's been a busy summer, with tech companies doing their best to weather the storm or, in some cases, take advantage of their inherent strengths to batter their less fortunate competitors. So lots of noise, but how much of what happened in the past few months is worth remembering as we return to wor...
EU Has Oracle in Sights
Ever since the European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, said that it was delaying the Sun acquisition, Oracle must be sweating bullets. All that time and energy putting together the deal to buy Sun and courting US regulators could go for naught if things don't pass muster on the other side of the Atlantic.
Court Stay of Microsoft Word Injunction Is Minor News
There is a plethora of stories about the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit giving Microsoft a stay of the permanent injunction that would prevent sales of copies of Word that infringed the i4i patent. But forget about the breathless coverage, because this was to be expected. If a company...
Google Patents Its Homepage
It seems that in 2006, Google applied for a design patent on its home page that was just granted this week. (Via Patently-O.) Apparently copyright wasn't enough protection and Google wants to have a lever to deter those who would come up with a Google-like front end. And the patent apparently references another design patent that the company got on how it presents search results. But there are some problems here.
Trump congratulates Democrats in election night call with CBS News
Democrats win majority in the Senate, flipping control of upper chamber
Sherrod Brown wins Ohio Senate race, flipping seat for Democrats
Democrat Josh Turek wins Iowa Senate race
Democrat Annie Andrews wins South Carolina Senate race
Adam Hamilton wins Kansas Senate race in another Democratic upset
Trump says he could use "tremendous powers" if Democrats win
Gina Hinojosa wins Texas gubernatorial race against Greg Abbott
