Five O’Clock Roundup: Mossberg blesses Windows 7, DOJ curses IBM, Miley Cyrus dumps Twitter
Barnes & Noble plans its own doomed e-reader to compete with other doomed e-readers — Sources have told the Wall Street Journal that Barnes & Noble’s doomed device will feature a six-inch screen made by E-Ink, who would really rather be making screens for Apple’s tablet computer, which will bury Barnes & Noble’s devices in a private ceremony unattended by buyers.
Walt Mossberg: “A Windows to Help You Forget” — The Sage of Potomac published his influential review two weeks before the release of Windows 7 to the masses. I think he’s trying to beat the bloggers, none of whom tested on 11 machines the way Walt did. His summary:
Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features.
It removes a lot of clutter. And it mostly banishes Vista’s main flaws—sluggishness; incompatibility with third-party software and hardware; heavy hardware requirements; and constant, annoying security warnings.
IBM is the latest Department of Justice target — The Associated Press reports that members of the Computer & Communications Industry Association recently received civil investigative demands from the Justice Department seeking information related to IBM.
The Department of Justice believes IBM may have abused its enormous dominance of the mainframe computer market. ”The last administration was not focused on competition,” CCIA chief Ed Black told the Associated Press, “but with the Obama administration there is a recognition that overconcentration in the economy can have unhealthy consequences.”
Cisco turns routers in the field into servers – AXP, or Application Extension Platform, is software that Cisco customers can install onto their Cisco routers to turn them into servers, with more than enough processing power for many Web-based operations. The company has given out awards to software developers who come up with marketable uses for a router that thinks its a server.
Miley Cyrus quits Twitter for boyfriend — Cyrus’ co-star in the upcoming movie Last Song, Liam Hemsworth, is the reason Cyrus deleted her account earlier today. One of her final tweets: “FYI Liam doesn’t have a Twitter and he wants me to delete mine with good reason.” One of those reasons may be the arrival of Tracy Morgan, who
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About the Author, Paul Boutin
Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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