HP and Oracle bury the hatchet over Mark Hurd hiring

Hewlett-Packard and Oracle settled their lawsuit over the hiring of Mark Hurd as Oracle’s new co-president. HP sued Hurd and Oracle after the big database giant said it would hire Hurd, who quit his job as chief executive of HP under pressure as a result of his failure to disclose a close personal relationship with a former HP marketing contractor.

The terms of the deal are confidential, but Hurd will stick to his obligation to … Continue Reading

Nokia delays N8 smartphone until October for "final amends"

Ouch. Nokia confirmed today that its upcoming N8 smartphone is going to be delayed for several weeks — moving from a late September release to some time in October, Engadget reports.

In a statement, the company said that N8 pre-orders have far exceeded its expectations, and it’s holding off on shipments to “make some final amends.” The company might be rushing to resolve a global software issue with the phones, Dutch site All About Phones … Continue Reading

Yahoo's new facility shows growing importance of green data centers

Yahoo unveiled a new data center in Lockport, New York today, boasting one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world – and exemplifying the push among big Internet companies to green data storage.

The new data center boasts some nice stats — the company says it will use 40 percent less energy and 95 percent less water than conventional data centers. Yahoo says its power-use effectiveness (PUE) for the facility is 1.08, which … Continue Reading

Nintendo loses its top U.S. sales and marketing exec

Nintendo of America said today that its top sales and marketing executive will leave the company to accept a position outside of the video game industry.

Cammie Dunaway, a former Yahoo executive, joined Nintendo’s U.S. division in November, 2007, replacing Reggie Fils-Aime, who is now the U.S. division’s president and chief operating officer. During Dunaway’s tenure, Nintendo rode the success of its Wii game console and the Nintendo DS portable to the No. 1 position … Continue Reading

Credit Suisse: Verizon iPhone will get 1.4M users from AT&T in 2011

An estimated 1.4 million AT&T subscribers will shift to Verizon with the advent of a Verizon iPhone in early 2011, according to a report released today by Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse’s report relies on a supposed February 15 launch of the Verizon iPhone (based on a Bloomberg report) and other mounting evidence that Verizon will soon get its hands on Apple’s goods.

A survey conducted by Credit Suisse indicated that 23 percent of AT&T iPhone … Continue Reading

Gamers go crazy on Halo: Reach multiplayer matches

Engagement is the name of the game these days. The more time people spend with a game, the more you know it is a must-have product. Clearly, fans of Halo: Reach are pretty engaged in their game.

Game developer Bungie said today that, six days after the game went on sale, more than 31 million multiplayer games have been played. Bungie said that Halo: Reach has had more concurrent players (or simultaneous game players) than … Continue Reading

Analyst: Apple may show size doesn't matter with 7-inch iPad

Rumors of a 7-inch iPad from Apple just won’t die. Now it’s Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, who’s fanning the rumor flames based on conversations with Apple suppliers, Bloomberg reports.

We reported on the possibility of a 7-inch iPad in September, based on information from an iLounge inside source. Apple has apparently been developing prototype devices in that size for some time, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the company … Continue Reading

HP sticks an Android tablet into a printer

In an odd gadget combo, Hewlett-Packard announced a printer with a detachable Android tablet computer in it. The device is part of the company’s strategy of integrating the internet into its core printing business.

The printer is called the HP Photosmart eStation All-in-One and will sell for $399; the Android tablet has a 7-inch screen. It will be released later this year. HP also said it has partnered with Barnes & Noble to give the … Continue Reading

On the GreenBeat: Wal-Mart turns to First Solar and MiaSolé, Yahoo creates green data center

Yahoo unveiled its new energy-efficient data center in Lockport, New York today. The company’s green data center design uses the cool air from outside the building to chill servers and was built in part with a government grant of $9.9 million. Its design takes inspiration from the long, narrow build of chicken coops that allows cool winds to enter the building. The company says this data center will use 40 percent less energy and 95 … Continue Reading

Alibaba and eBay: More competition than cooperation, despite a show of friendship

The seventh annual AliFest featured Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group‘s global ambitions and its complicated relationships with eBay and Yahoo. By far the most intriguing speaker was eBay chief executive John Donahue, whose company was previously vanquished by Alibaba’s Taobao in China.

As he took the stage, Jack Ma, CEO of the Alibaba Group, said, “I got an SMS (text message) from a friend before going up: ‘Jack, what’s up? Why is he [eBay CEO … Continue Reading

Verizon names Lowell McAdam COO in preparation for CEO spot

Verizon today announced several changes to its executive roster in preparation for CEO Ivan Seidenberg’s retirement. The company named Lowell McAdam (pictured to the right alongside Google CEO Eric Schmidt), current president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, as Verizon’s new president and COO.

The move puts McAdam in charge of operations for Verizon Wireless, Verizon Telecom and Business, and Verizon Services Operations.

The company also named Francis Shammo, president of Verizon Telecom and Business, as … Continue Reading

Apple acquires face-recognition firm Polar Rose

Apple has reportedly bought Swedish face-recognition firm Polar Rose.

I met with Polar Rose in its early days when it was talking about a unique approach to recognizing faces. Some inefficient recognition engines would compare pixels in pictures to determine whether one face matched another. That consumed a lot of processing power. But Polar Rose would take the highlights of someone’s face and reconstruct them as a 3D graphics image. That image would contain all … Continue Reading

IBM buys data analytics company Netezza for $1.7B

IBM announced this morning that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Netezza, a company that focuses on data warehousing and business analytics, for approximately $1.7 billion.

The deal is still subject to Netezza shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. IBM will pay $27 a share for the company, which closed at $24.60 a share on Friday.

Netezza provides analytics inside of a data … Continue Reading

HP launches fancy touch-based desktops and an app store for touch apps

Hewlett-Packard is launching a new version of its TouchSmart desktop computers today with new software that makes computing more intuitive. The company is also unveiling its new HP TouchSmart Apps Center to access free and subscription-based applications that take advantage of the touchscreen interface.

The launch of the app store by the world’s biggest computer maker shows just how pervasive and influential the concept of the app — popularized by Apple’s iPhone and its App … Continue Reading

Cirtas raises $10M and soars into cloud storage

Cirtas Systems, a cloud storage hardware company, is coming out of stealth mode today and announcing that it has raised a $10 million first round of funding.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company is announcing its Bluejet Cloud Storage Controller, a piece of storage equipment that sits in cloud-based data centers. Cirtas deploys Bluejet controllers in a customer’s data center.  Bluejet functions just like an on-site storage array, and our technology is seamlessly connecting to and … Continue Reading

Google beefs up Apps security to win cloud customers

In any conversation about how applications and data are moving online, security is one of the first concerns to come up. That’s definitely something Google has had to address as its tries to sell Google Apps, its bundle of work tools like Gmail and Google Docs, to businesses and other organizations. Today, it’s taking big step to reduce the risk.

Product manager Travis McCoy said Google Apps’ main security issue is the same one facing … Continue Reading

Sony PlayStation Move could get squeezed between Nintendo and Microsoft (review)

Sony has launched the PlayStation Move, a handheld, cable-free gadget which detects a video-game player’s movements. Can a more accurate motion-sensing device succeed in getting both casual and hardcore gamers off the couch?

The system for the PlayStation 3 game console uses the existing PlayStation Eye camera to sense the position of a new device, the Sony PlayStation Move controller, which has an LED-lit ball on top of a stick that is shaped like the … Continue Reading