AT&T improves iPhone pricing: Maybe I'll buy the 3G S after all

AT&T is trying to soothe cranky iPhone owners today with an announcement that the new iPhone 3G S may not be as expensive as you think — specifically, iPhone 3G owners who are eligible for cheaper, “upgrade” pricing in the next few months (through September) will be able to pay the lowest upgrade price starting this Friday, when the 3G S goes on sale.

The original pricing announcement spurred lots of complaints from existing customers, … Continue Reading

Search: Another way for Facebook to steal Twitter's thunder?

Facebook’s search feature, to date, has let you search for friends’ names, or use Microsoft’s search engine to search the web. Now, it’s beginning to test out ways of searching information from your friends, from Pages you’re a fan of, and from anyone who has made their content publicly available. In the company’s example, you could search for “Iran” and see the latest from your friends and from anyone else using Facebook to publicly discuss … Continue Reading

First iPhone 3G S video: The auto-focus is cool

Attention iPhone fans: While you’re installing the 3.0 software, watch the clip below. The video was shot with a new iPhone 3G S, which has improved what was already an exceptional camera for a mobile phone.

In this clip, the auto-focus is surprisingly good at keeping the image sharp as the phone’s owner swing its eye across a desktop. Why do people love Apple? Besides everything Apple makes is pretty, and the company has good … Continue Reading

Mobile gold-rush continues: Qualcomm offers $550,000 in mobile startup competition

Qualcomm, the largest wireless chip supplier, has announced it will offer $550,000 to four companies in a business plan competition.

Called the QPrize, the competition comes at a time when Qualcomm is seeking to maintain its spot as the mobile industry’s biggest player (ahead of folks like Texas Instruments, STM and Infineon), now that a whole range of new smartphones and devices have emerged.

Every mobile player, it seems is, developing a “platform,” and Qualcomm … Continue Reading

Apple hints that Palm's ability to sync with iTunes may be short-lived

At a recent conference, Palm executives proudly proclaimed the recently launched Pre smartphone’s ability to synchronize with Apple’s iTunes media. But the technical achievement may turn out to be temporary.

Apple hinted that future versions of iTunes may break compatibility with third-party media players. That’s one interpretation of a cryptic post that Apple made on its web site about how it’s not able to guarantee claims by third parties that their devices will be able … Continue Reading

How Nvidia plans to get its mojo back

Last year was a terrible year for Nvidia. The company had a ton of inventory going into the fourth quarter, just as the demand for its graphics chips evaporated. Today, the company’s executives talked about how they plan to get their momentum back.

In 2008, Nvidia let Advanced Micro Devices get ahead in the graphics chip race. Nvidia’s partners also ran into reliability problems attaching its graphics chips to laptop system boards. And then the … Continue Reading

iPhone envy? IBM launches $100 million mobile research intiative

Maybe Big Blue has a bad case of iPhone envy. IBM said today it is launching a $100 million major research initiative to take mobile technology for businesses and consumers to new heights over the next five years.

The company said it wants to deliver simple, easy-to-use services to the millions of people who have bypassed using the personal computer as their primary method of accessing the Internet.

IBM notes that 83 percent of the … Continue Reading

YouMail's free iPhone app adds to Apple's voicemail

Apple’s built-in voicemail app gets raves for allowing users to pick and choose messages from a list, like email rather than being forced to listen to them in order like a 1980′s tape-cassette answering machine. But there are extra steps still to be taken to make voicemail as powerful as email.

YouMail‘s free iPhone app is, business-wise, a loss leader for the company’s transcription service, a subscription that starts at $3.99 a month. The app … Continue Reading

iPhone 3.0: A guide to what doesn't work yet

Apple’s third-generation iPhone software makes its debut on Wednesday. But read the fine print before you blow $299 on a new iPhone 3G S. You won’t be able to send videos until “late summer.” You won’t be able to tether your phone to your laptop for use as a wireless modem.

AT&T, whose support of these features is required for them to work, is behind schedule on MMS support. The company is not supporting tethering … Continue Reading

Social network console TweetDeck now syncs with your iPhone

TweetDeck is one of the most popular desktop applications that serves as a social network console. Its multi-column layout, based on a drawing that developer Iain Dodsworth discovered tacked to the wall at a Starbucks, has proven popular with social networkers who want a full-screen console for their Twitter and Facebook chats. Dodsworth’s design is both attractive and efficient. It places the user’s tweets, direct messages, replies, and public timeline side by side in parallel … Continue Reading

IRS commissioner wants to repeal federal cell phone tax

Employers, employees, and mobile industry executives (wow, that covers just about everyone, doesn’t it?) who were worried about stricter taxation on the personal use of business cell phones may be able to relax. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman released a statement today asking Congress to repeal the tax, and he said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also supports that move, according to Reuters.

The federal tax in question was approved in 1989, and says that … Continue Reading

Investor virtually sneaks into Second Life's equity pool

Second Life, the sometimes-mocked yet formative and still-popular virtual world, has a new investor: Private equity firm Stratim Capital, according to peHUB. The firm wanted in because the company is, it seems, making good money from its mix of virtual currency and virtual goods.

In the first quarter of this year, Second Life users engaged in transactions that added up to $120 million, an increase of 65 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, peak concurrent … Continue Reading

Google: Calm down, scientists, we're totally making Gmail more secure

Most of my life revolves around Google services — I check my email in Gmail, I write articles in Google Docs, and I schedule appointments in Google Calendar. Of course, sending sensitive information back-and-forth from my computer to Google’s servers has its risks. In fact, a group of experts recently wrote a letter (click here to download the PDF) to the search giant saying it isn’t doing enough to keep its applications secure. Now Google … Continue Reading

AdWhirl raises $1M for ad platform

One problem iPhone app developers wrestle with is which ad network to sign up with. It can take a couple of weeks to switch ad providers because the app needs to be re-approved by Apple.

AdWhirl is what computer programmers would call a meta-network. Through AdWhirl, app makers can choose and change ad networks on the fly. They can even let AdWhirl auto-switch among networks, like a load balancer, to maximize the return on their … Continue Reading

Digg developer upgrade includes better search, story-finding tools

Social news aggregator Digg just expanded its set of application programming interfaces — the services that allow third-party developers to build software using information from the site. Changes in the APIs include better search and article discovery. Digg has been working to make more of its data available to third parties, as part of its plan to be the largest news aggregator on the web.

From the company blog post:

One of the most requested … Continue Reading

Graphics chip rivals race to deliver next-generation chips

The next-generation of graphics chips is due to arrive in PCs sometime this year. Both Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are  expected to deliver these chips for the personal computer market this year, but no one knows exactly when.

This change is so important that, depending on which way the rumors swing, it’s bound to drive the stock prices of the rivals involved either up or down through the rest of the year. Because the … Continue Reading

MySpace layoff email, the complete message

MySpace CEO Owen van Natta did what everyone knew he was brought in to do: pull the trigger on 420 of the company’s 1,420 employees.

Nowadays smart companies don’t put out press releases on layoffs. Instead, they send an email to staff that’s guaranteed to be leaked onto the Internet.

Here’s van Natta’s after-the-firings message to the remaining staff. Nice of them to include an exact headcount. The best line is, “Becoming more innovative is … Continue Reading

Stitcher channels $100K for personalized radio

Stitcher, a San Francisco company that provides personalized radio channels via users’ computers and cell phones, has secured $100,000 in equity. It was backed by New Atlantic Ventures in the past. So far, the service only works on the Apple iPhone and various Blackberry models.

While its offering might sound similar to Pandora Radio, Stitcher allows users to handpick the radio programs they like best, so they are consistently fed preferred content (in an order … Continue Reading

SkinMedica scratches up $9.4M for anti-aging pharmaceuticals

SkinMedica, maker of specialized anti-aging treatments, has raised $9.4 million in equity and rights. It adds this amount to the $103.4 million in venture capital it previously brought in from a bevy of investors including Aisling Capital, Apax Partners, Domain Associates, EuclidSR Partners, HealthCare Ventures, Montagu Newhall Associates, Montreux Equity Partners, Split Rock Partners, St. Paul Venture Capital and Windamere Venture Partners.

Based in Carlsbad, Calif., the company last raised capital in 2006, bringing in … Continue Reading