Archive for the ‘In The News’ Category

Last week the iPhone 4 made a well known entrance into the world, with 1.5 million devices being sold on the first day of its availability. But almost immediately after the release, consumers began to report problems with the device, relating to the loss of cellular reception when holding the bottom left corner of the phone in a certain way. As more users began to report this issue… Continue reading

Remember when IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in May 1997? IBM is ready to challenge human knowledge again with their supercomputer named “Watson”. Watson will complete against human players in the game of Jeopardy, although it does have a tendency to crash or answer a series of questions incorrectly. The supercomputer has already completed against humans in IBM’s development environment, but there are… Continue reading

AT&T has removed their older iPhone data plans and replaced them with lower-priced but lower-capacity plans. iPhone users, as well as smartphone users, now have the option between two data plans: A 200MB plan for $15 per month or a 2GB plan for $25 per month. AT&T stated that they introduced these lower data plans because a vast majority of their smartphone users fit into these… Continue reading

Google TV: Late last week, Google announced their new upcoming product: Google TV. Google TV will be a platform which combines television and the Internet, allowing you to quickly access your favorite websites from the comfort of your couch, view content from YouTube and other media websites on your television, and also navigate and schedule your cable television channels. Google TV will be built using Android and Google… Continue reading

Google will discontinue selling the Nexus One, their Google Android Phone, on their website; instead opting to partner with cell phone carriers in order to sell their phones inside brick and mortar stores. Google had originally planned to sell the Nexus One through their web store without a service plan, however, the search engine giant stated that customers want hands-on experience before buying a phone, and the ability… Continue reading

As many Internet users may know, Russia is one of the hotspots for spammers and fraud online. Well, beginning on April 1st, the Russian government has plans to change that. From that date forward, those who register a .ru domain, which is the top-level domain allocated to the country of Russia, will be required to provide a copy of their password for verification of their identity. Russia hopes… Continue reading

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has released a Internet speed test service to assist customers in comparing their actual Internet speeds to the speeds advertised by their broadband Internet provider. In preparation for the National Broadband Plan, a program by the FCC to ensure that all Americans, including those in rural regions of the country, have access to broadband Internet. The Internet speed test and information… Continue reading

Apple announced on Friday that customers will be able to purchase the Apple iPad on April 3, with pre-orders beginning on March 12. However, it was also noted that the 3G model may not be available until the end of April. Steve Jobs announced the device on January 27 during his keynote speech, but has since stated that the iPad will not support tethering, even though the iPhone… Continue reading

The European Union’s Data Protection Directive has ordered Google to delete their Street View pictures after six months, because retaining the images for a year may violate privacy laws in the European Union. The Directive also ordered the search engine giant to give United Kingdom citizens more information and lead time regarding when its Street View cars would be in certain areas of the country to take photos… Continue reading

Google has entered into another unexpected industry: electric utilities. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the search engine’s application to become a electricity utility, since according to the FERC, there were no real reasons to deny the application. Google Energy will be the brand used to develop opportunities to contain and manage the cost of energy for Google, which hints that the company will be using… Continue reading

A hard drive the size of a postage stamp? Sounds like science fiction, but according to a report from technology firm, Toshiba, it may soon become new technology. The company, through a partnership with Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, has developed the ability to create a Solid State Drive (SSD) the size of a postage stamp. Toshiba stated in the report that it expects to have a proof… Continue reading

Paypal Holds India Payments
In a recent post on the Paypal Blog, the online payment processing firm announced that it has suspended personal payments to and from India, as well as transfers to local banks in India. The company has not provided an official reason for the suspension, but did state that their business partners and stakeholders had questions regarding their services to India users… Continue reading

The announcement of Apple’s iPad by Steve Jobs has caused a major buzz in the computer world. Rumors regarding this device have been circulating for at least a year. However, you will be unable to purchase a iPad for at least three more months, mostly because Apple has yet to obtain authorization from the Federal Communication Commission. The iPad device looks like a large-scale iPhone, but… Continue reading

Kodak and Nokia have filed separate lawsuits against Apple, the maker of the iPhone, claiming that the iPhone infringes on separate patents. In an announcement by Eastman Kodak last Thursday, the company stated that it had filed a lawsuit against the iPhone maker due to what it believed was an “infringement on a patent related to the previewing of images”. Kodak also filed a similar suit against Research… Continue reading

This year, when walking into CES, the first thing you see is Microsoft. The Microsoft “booth” was the size of a small warehouse showing off all of their new technology that will be front and center this year. Since there was so much of it, I decided to cover many of the technologies that MS showed off this year.

Microsoft Surface

MS Surface is… Continue reading

Since the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) of 2010 concluded on January 10th, I wanted to use this article to cover some of the interesting gadgets that you might see hit the market this year.

Television technology has quickly expanded in the past few years to provide a better viewing quality and picture. Blue-ray is better than DVD and HDTV is better than basic TV. So… Continue reading

How secure and private is Facebook? Recently, Facebook implemented it’s new privacy settings to all of its 350 million users. Those who log in for the first time since these settings have been added will go through a quick wizard to confirm the privacy settings that you would like to use. However, many are asking “How private is Facebook?” as the default settings for user’s accounts set personal… Continue reading

Windows 7 has arrived, and after only two weeks it is apparently selling better than Mac OS X 10.6. According to tech-website Ars Technica, Windows currently holds 92.52% of the market, Mac OS X holding 5.27 and Linux is growing with a 0.96 percent of the market. Even though Mac OS X 10.6 was released roughly three months ago and Ubuntu 9.10, the popular Linux distro, arrived last… Continue reading

CAPTCHA:

A Captcha is a type of test used in computing wherein the response is not generated by a computer. The process involves a server asking a user to complete a simple test. It is described as a reverse Turning test, since it is administered by a machine to a human.

The image above is a CAPTCHA. Users can interpret… Continue reading

GeoCities, the popular free web hosting service which has been in existence since 1994, was officially shuttered on October 26th. Yahoo bought the service in 1999, allowing early web surfers to publish their own websites for free, causing the service to become a hit in the early Internet age when most other hosting options were expensive. All of the files and data on GeoCities will be deleted as… Continue reading

Just as a fun aside from your regularly scheduled programming. I was browsing around last night and came across an ad for Burger King Japan. Turns out that the world-famous restaurant chain is all excited about last week’s release of Windows 7 and are offering their special “Windows 7 Whopper”, which is comprised of seven 1/4lb beef patties totaling 1.75 pounds altogether.

Don’t… Continue reading

This week will be an important one for many Windows users as Microsoft officially releases their new version of the popular operating system, Windows 7, on Thursday, October 22nd. A rumor is also spreading about the possibility of Microsoft branded retail stores, which will sell Microsoft products such as Windows, Zune and Xbox. This is alluded to by an advertisement in the Arizona Republic that indicates a Microsoft… Continue reading

The Apple App Store downloads have hit two billion according to the computer company known for their Mac and iPod products. There are around 85,000 apps available on the Apple App Store; a number that could be higher if not for Apple’s strict app application process, which has prevented other companies like Google from publishing their “Google Voice” iPhone app in the Apple App Store. The firm also… Continue reading

For those of you who have seen the fake anti-virus programs, with names such as AntiVirus 2009, Vista AntiVirus, AntiVirus 360, you know they are definitely annoying and conniving. They pretend to find multiple “infections” on your computer and then prompt or require you to pay for an “upgrade” in order to remove the “infections”.The software is a complete scam. Instead of improving and updating its security software… Continue reading

The IEEE, an international professional organization that is known to set standards for computers and communications, has finally unofficially approved the 802.11n wireless LAN standard. Bruce Kraemer, the Chairman of the 802.11n Task Group, stated in an email, sent to task group members, that the 802.11n would become an approved standard by the IEEE. The Wi-Fi Alliance stated that it would be updating it’s Wi-Fi certification on September… Continue reading