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March 7, 2010
GigaOM
Do you feel that Internet access is a fundamental right? Four in five adults in more than 26 different countries agree with you, according to a new poll sponsored by the BBC World Service. The poll asked more than 27,000 adults about their attit...
GigaOM
The FCC will deliver its National Broadband Plan to Congress a day earlier than originally scheduled on March 16. Also on that day, the five FCC commissioners will vote on a mission statement intended to represent the spirit of the submitted docu...
March 1, 2010
GigaOM
Twitter today gave seven real-time search and discovery companies that range from funded startups to part-time, one-man operations access to 100 percent of its tweets. Twitters Firehose is a valuable asset; the company has made partners like Googl...
Its hard out there for a systems vendor that is, if the death of Liquid Computing, an Ottawa, Ontario-based startup that until last week was building a unified computing box to help manage the virtualization of the data center, is any indication....
GigaOM
The prepaid guys pummeled each other during the fourth quarter of 2009 while the nations two largest carriers enjoyed their view from the throne. Users continued to move toward prepaid thanks to an ultra-competitive prepaid market that encourages ...
Google today announced it has acquired the web photo editing tool Picnik. The Flash-based Picnik, which faces lots of competition from services like FotoFlexer, Snipshot and Photoshop Express, is perhaps the cutest of the bunch, and is also integr...
As in so many other cities that arent located in or near Silicon Valley, the startup scene in Toronto is a fairly small and close-knit community. It benefits from events such as Demo Camp and Bar Camp, where young entrepreneurs can come and bounc...
Today the news came out that Platial, a first-generation map mashup startup, was throwing in the towel on its product and encouraging users to export their data. The company actually ran out of money 18 months ago, said co-founder and former CEO D...
Rosum, a company that offers a way to use broadcast TV signals to derive location, today said its technology will be used (PDF) in a new chip from mobile TV chip maker Siano. The Alloy chip is aimed at providing location and timing information for...
Social networking startup Fabulis last week suddenly found its bank account locked and scheduled for termination, based on what several Citibank employees told founder and CEO Jason Goldberg was an issue of objectionable content on the companys bl...
Gift cards, as far as my friend Barry Ritholz is concerned, represent the end of civility, as with them the giver says: I put very little thought into buying this for you. But for me, lack of time or information about the recipient’s tastes pro...
If you work for the U.S. Army and spend all your spare time hacking the iPhone and Android or fooling around with HTML5, this is a contest for you: The Armys Chief Information Office is launching a competition aimed at mobile and web apps, with...
Mobile giving campaigns are already under way for relief efforts in Chile, which experienced a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake Saturday morning. Americans can text the word CHILE to one of several short codes to donate $10 to the American Red Cro...
Babelgum founder Silvio Scaglia was taken into custody by Italian police last Friday. Law enforcement officials had issued a warrant for Scaglias arrest earlier last week as the result of a wide-scale money laundering investigation, and he is e...
The rumors of an impending IPO for smart grid networking darling Silver Spring Networks are now…more detailed rumors. The latest comes from Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight, which reported Friday that Silver Spring has picked a banker for an IPO...
Do you catch up on the news in multiple ways during a typical day on a mobile phone, on the web, via a newspaper and get that news from more than one place (major news portal, TV broadcast channel)? And do you like to share that news through s...
Smartphones, including iPhones were all the rage at SxSW in 2009.
Last year, the hordes of South by Southwest-attending geeks toting iPhones blew out the AT&T network around the convention center in Austin, resulting in dropped calls and crap...
February 25, 2010
GigaOM
Music subscription service provider MOG has raised $9.5 million in a new round of venture funding, with UK-based Balderton Capital joining lead investor Menlo Ventures, an existing stakeholder, in the round. The new money builds on at least $12.5 ...
Facebook was on Tuesday granted a U.S. patent for aspects of its news feed, as was first reported by AllFacebook. The patent, which covers methods for dynamically parsing and distributing information about what users have done on a social network ...
February 24, 2010
GigaOM
Polyvore, a fast-growing fashion community site, is in the interesting position of pushing forward both search and user-generated content creation at the same time. The company this week announced it was bringing in a new high-profile CEO, Sukhind...
A few weeks ago, GigaOM contributor and veteran entrepreneur Allan Leinwand wrote a post entitled Cisco vs. All Comers. Well lets add Google to that list of all comers. The Financial Times reported today that Cisco is developing a new ultra-high-speed system for internet access in partnership with a number of U.S. service providers, according to people close to the company.
Cisco, it seems, is trying to counter the unease caused by Googles recent announcement that it will build Google Fiber, a fiber-based...
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In a ruling that could have broad implications for video hosting sites that operate in Italy, three Google executives were found guilty of violating privacy laws yesterday for a video that was uploaded to Google Video by one of its users. Although Google has already said it would appeal the decision, the ruling could set a negative precedent if not overturned.
The case centers around a cellphone video of a disabled teenager being bullied by classmates that was uploaded to Google Video in 2006. The EU and I...
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February 23, 2010
GigaOM
Spotify, one of my favorite new companies, is getting more money. Earlier today, Michael Arrington reported that he had heard from multiple sources that the Founders Fund has invested in the fast growing European start-up.
We do not know the size...
Yahoo, like Microsoft and Google before it, has struck a deal to get access Twitters to real-time firehose of tweets. Starting Tuesday, tweets will appear on Yahoos front-page search results in real time (Yahoo had previously included tweets but n...
Dr. Mohit Kaushaul
Intel, GE and the Mayo Clinic today said they would conduct a year-long study to find out if remotely monitoring patients via gear made by the two companies and hooked up to a home broadband connection can keep them out of emer...
February 17, 2010
GigaOM
Amazon delivered today a beta version of its free Kindle for BlackBerry e-book app, a quick download that provides access to more than 420,000 books. It marks just the latest example of how the publishing industry is facing seminal changes. Will t...
Like the aunt who always gave you underwear at Christmas, Comcast is offering an unwanted (although useful) service for customers. Its giving its users access to automatic online storage through a partnership with Mozy. Qwest and Verizon also have...
When it comes to cloud computing, the big discussion these days is around private clouds. Large companies are trying to figure out a way to build their own, sometimes seeking help from VMware, Cisco Systems and others. Even Microsoft views this as...
Facebook users along with the social networking sites advertisers will soon be able to pay for virtual goods and ads, respectively, using PayPal. The two companies strategic relationship is not exclusive, but it is significant, given the competi...
Since its launch two weeks ago, Googles new Buzz service has generated a flurry of privacy concerns concerns that have caused considerable anxiety and outrage in at least one high-profile case, and led to privacy complaints being lodged with bo...
Yahoo is now approved to be buddies with Microsoft.
More than two full years after Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, the two companies have gotten approval from the U.S. and the EU to proceed with a long-term partnership. They joi...
Theres been a lot of talk about privacy concerns when it comes to Googles Buzz, with both the Canadian Privacy Commissioners office and the Federal Trade Commission looking into the service, people complaining about their contacts being exposed ...
One e-book device can displace the buying of some 22.5 physical books a year, according to the Cleantech Group, which translates into an estimated savings of 370 pounds of CO2. Indeed, the Kindle, Nook and other e-reader devices are examples of de...
In one of the few multimillion-dollar donations to be disclosed via a tweet, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales confirmed late Tuesday that Google had donated $2-million to the Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit entity that runs Wikipedia and s...
Time Warner Cables super fast broadband roll out to the rest of its markets is happening although we have no idea how fast since the company has not responded to my questions about the deployment details. However, earlier this week it said it was ...
Motorola got a much-needed lift this morning with the news that AT&T will begin selling its Android -based Backflip handset next month. The carrier will finally join the crowded Android bandwagon March 7 with the release of the gadget, which r...
For Christmas this year, Liz Gannes, editor-at-large of NewTeeVee, keeping true to her affection for online video, gave me a subscription to Netflix. It came with an option to rent DVDs via mail and also stream videos directly over the Internet, e...
At least in terms of branding and industry recognition, Clicker is doing the best job so far of being a television guide for the web. The company which only launched three months ago at our NewTeeVee Live conference has been rewarded with an $11...
When I spoke to Skype CEO Josh Silverman yesterday regarding his partnership with Verizon, I asked him: When is Skype going to launch an upgrade to its iPhone app that would allow us to use the service over 3G networks? His answer: very soon.
Sky...
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week has produced some eye-catching developments, from Microsofts unveiling of its new mobile OS to the Skype/Verizon partnership to increasing tension between Google and network operators. But the shows ove...
What do collaboration toolmaker AppJet, social search manager Aardvark and email search appmaker reMail have in common? A trio of little startups, they were all recently acquired by Google after being founded by former Google employees. So now tho...
February 16, 2010
GigaOM
Google has acquired a small email search company called reMail, reMail founder Gabor Cselle posted today on his blog. reMail, which was part of the Y Combinator program and raised funding from FriendFeed and Gmail founders Paul Buchheit and Sanjee...
The demand for mobile broadband will surpass the spectrum available to meet it in mid-2013, according to Peter Rysavy, a wireless analyst. In a report on the looming spectrum crisis that was sponsored by Research in Motion for the Mobile World Con...
Just over six months have passed since Korean electronics giant Samsung unveiled a multibillion-dollar push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its factories and slash the amount of emissions resulting from its consumer products. But already t...
Android has quickly become a force to be reckoned with in mobile, as anyone following Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week can tell you. Google has recognized that the future growth engine of the Internet is the mobile web and the ad reve...
Companies like Facebook and Auttomatic regularly brag about their user-to-engineer ratio for instance, Facebooks was 1.2 million to 1 last fall. But employee-to-global-attention ratio? Thats where Twitter has everyone beat. The company celebrated...
Atimi Software is among the top 20 Vancouver-based wireless and digital media companies being showcased in the citys Robson Square during the Winter Olympics Games and Paralympic Games. The installation is part of VX short for Vancouver Experience which is aimed at highlighting the citys world-class wireless and new media industry. It is a great honor and opportunity for Atimi and its iPhone clients to be able to both demonstrate current applications and reveal two new ones that will soon hit the marketpl...
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Despite apologies from Google, and changes to the inner workings of its Buzz social networking service, a high-profile privacy group has taken its complaints to the Federal Trade Commission. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has urg...
Yapta today announced a partnership with travel search site Kayak that will make its highly useful flight-tracking service a lot more accessible. Yapta has a pretty awesome, consumer-friendly premise: Airlines mess with flight prices all the time,...
For a while the consensus has been that the mobile web is the same as the PC web, in that a person should be able to access whatever content they can via a wired PC connection on their phone, without suffering through WAP browsers or limits. I disagree. The mobile web is still different than the wired web, and its far more important.
Which means that developers shouldnt only think of the web in terms of a wired connection for a PC. Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said it best when he discussed the f...
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Rightly or wrongly, many people have a picture in their minds of the average online gamer, and it probably involves someone not old enough to vote yet, huddling in their parents basement killing dwarves with mystic powers in games like World of Wa...
With the web becoming more ubiquitous and companies getting used to outsourcing to online freelancers, the market for online work is increasing, one recent study says. According to online outsourcing firm Elance, the pool of online workers that th...
The benefits of the long tail may go beyond selling large quantities of niche items. Having a comprehensive inventory makes your customers more satisfied and more likely to patronize you again, according to a new paper from Yahoo presented earlier...
Global Crossing, the provider of bandwidth and IP-based services to corporations around the world, today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2009 results that included a 6 percent boost in revenue and lowered losses for the year. Still the compa...
February 11, 2010
GigaOM
Online video has largely succeeded at many of its goals: It is democratizing media and encouraging a culture of sharing and participation. Its pushing the television industry to modernize and become more interactive. Its freeing content from time ...
Amid the hubbub over the launch of Google Buzz, one aspect of the new Gmail social platform grew more and more contentious: the fact that many people wound up exposing their email and GTalk contacts to the outside world without realizing this wo...
Google yesterday announced Google Fiber, an experimental network that would connect between 50,000 and 500,000 people, or as many as 200,000 homes, to the Internet at speeds reaching 1 gigabits per second a truly jaw-dropping and envy-inspiring rate. Being big fans of broadband, weve been following the race to 1 Gbps and have come up with a list of places around the world where you can get 1 Gbps connections to your home.
Hong Kong: The Hong Kong broadband network currently offers a FTTH/FTTB 1 Gbps serv...
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Its a constant battle that entrepreneurs face when planning a new product or service: How do you know which features to include and which features to leave out? One of the hallmarks of a great design-oriented company like Apple is that it knows ...