Five tech industry predictions for 2012

The past year in technology was pretty wild.

The really big Internet IPO returned and the massive venture capital funding bubble inflated, which seems difficult considering that the venture capital industry is far smaller than it was three years ago. But look at some of the crazy valuations on revenue-less photo-sharing startups like Color and Path. And there is clearly another bubble inflating in the cloud computing sector, with every company that uses a distributed … Continue Reading

Sir Jony: Apple design guru Jonathan Ive gets knighted

Apple senior vice president of industrial design Jonathan Ive — a.k.a. the guy who has designed most of Apple’s most popular and iconic devices — was awarded knighthood today by the Queen of England as part of her annual list of honors.

Ive is responsible for designing hit products like the iPod, iPhone, iPad and many of Apple’s line of laptop computers. The knighthood, “for services to design and enterprise”, means Ive will be addressed … Continue Reading

Week in review: SOPA, PR nightmares and Twinkie-eating zombies

Usually, we see a pretty slow news cycle in the last full week of the year, since most people in the business world are taking advantage of vacation days before they expire.

However, 2011′s final week kept us on our toes with a number of good stories. We had a wonderful feature about a Left 4 Dead fan film as well as a report on Ocean Marketing’s ridiculous string of emails. We sat down with … Continue Reading

Wii U likely to implement a full app store upon release

The upcoming Nintendo console Wii U may include a full app store, much larger and more robust than the current stores Nintendo has implemented on the Wii and the portable systems, according to a report from The Daily.

NIntendo hasn’t confirmed the report. There was never much doubt Nintendo would have some kind of store on the next-generation console. Ever since the Wii’s launch in 2006, every major console release has included an online store, … Continue Reading

Atari’s latest legal actions “appear to be putting the squeeze on hundreds of apps”

A project update for iOS game Vector Tanks 3 on crowd-sourcing platform Kickstarter revealed that Atari has started threatening legal action against indie game developers whose creations resemble the company’s ancient arcade titles.

“Anything that has even a passing resemblance to an Atari classic has been issued a copyright infringement claim,” claims Vector Tanks production company Black Powder Media. ”So – thanks to their special relationship with Apple – Atari has successfully scrubbed the app … Continue Reading

Orangutan Outreach wants Apple’s help popularizing apes using iPads

The next time you head to the zoo, you might see more than just a monkey and his uncle. One organization is giving iPads to primates and hopes Apple will lend its support.

Yep, that’s right. According to Extreme Tech, Orangutan Outreach, an organization focused on saving the world’s orangutan population, is setting up zoos with iPads especially for our monkey kin. The project is called Apps for Apes and the organization isn’t just monkeying … Continue Reading

Electric-car maker Fisker recalling Karmas due to battery issue

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has issued a recall for 239 of its Karma vehicles, fewer than 50 of which have been sold to customers. The $96,000 luxury electric sedans have an issue with a hose clip in their battery units that could result in a coolant leak and possibly a fire.

All Karma owners have already been contacted by Fisker, and the company aims to have all the batteries replaced in customer cars before … Continue Reading

The Apple collection: Secret Stanford warehouse houses company history

Thirty-five years of Apple memorabilia make up a museum-like collection of company archives that are hidden away in an off-campus Stanford University warehouse.

Stanford’s Apple Collection takes up more than 600 feet of shelf space in a climate-controlled facility at a location kept secret from the public, said the Associated Press, which paid a visit to the archives.

Should you ever be let in — and one can only dream at this point — you … Continue Reading

Updated: Nintendo, Sony and EA quietly drop SOPA support

[Update: EA says this story is incorrect, as it never specifically voiced its support for the Senate version of SOPA, and so hasn't withdrawn it either. Here's a link explaining the inaccuracy.]

Major game companies Nintendo, Sony and Electronic Arts have quietly removed themselves from the official list of organizations that support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

For anyone who’s unfamiliar with it, the proposed SOPA legislation gives both the U.S. government and … Continue Reading

Intel’s first Android smartphone will be made by LG, shown off at CES

Intel has already hinted at its smartphone and tablet processor plans for next year, but it seems that LG will hold the title of the first company to create a modern smartphone with Intel inside.

Intel will be showing off an LG smartphone running Android and its Medfield mobile processor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is only a few weeks away, reports the Korea Times.

Intel Korea head Lee Hee-sung confirmed … Continue Reading

No Facebook Timeline for Internet Explorer 7 users

Facebook’s new Timeline feature recently went live for everyone – well, almost everyone. The social network shipped its shinny new scrapbook feature without support for Internet Explorer 7.

“IE7 users visiting profile pages that would otherwise be Timeline-enabled are presented with the old Facebook profile design, complete with a number of very evident styling issues,” The Sociable is reporting.

Before you cry foul, keep in mind that IE7, like IE6, is going the way of … Continue Reading

Law firm threatens to shut Twitter down for allowing terrorist groups to tweet

Israeli legal center Shurat HaDin has threatened to sue Twitter for allowing alleged terrorist groups to use the service.

In a letter to Twitter, Shurat HaDin executive director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner called Twitter’s allowing Hezbollah and Al-Shabaab (a group affiliated with Al Quaeda) to use the service “illegal” and threatened both the company and its executives with civil and criminal lawsuits.

Hezbollah is a Shi’a Muslim militant group and political party based in Lebanon. Many Western … Continue Reading

Updated: Verizon reverses $2 fee after FCC inquiry, customer outrage

Update, 12:31pm PST: Verizon wireless has reversed its decision to institute a $2 fee on customers paying their bills online. The company released a statement confirming the about-face on Friday, a couple hours after the Federal Communications Commission decided to look into the fee. The statement reads:

Verizon Wireless has decided it will not institute the fee for online or telephone single payments that was announced earlier this week.

The company made the decision in … Continue Reading

Verizon convenience fee sparks Change.org petition

A petition on Change.org sprouted up in response to U.S. wireless carrier Verizon’s announcement that it would begin charging a $2 “convenience fee” for people who pay their bill online or by phone.

Change.org is the same site that was effective in getting Bank of America to reverse its decision to implement a debit card fee to customers. The Verizon convenience fee petition already has 33,465 signatures — roughly half of the 75,000 it seeks.… Continue Reading

How Washington went social in 2011

Politicos have been warming to social media since the 2008 Obama campaign, and 2011 saw more online activity than ever before from U.S. government leaders.

On Facebook specifically, the past year has brought us quite a few memorable highlights — especially as Republican candidates were put through their primary paces and the country geared up for another election year.

But it wasn’t all about political campaigning and self-promotion. Facebook was also a strong platform for … Continue Reading

Facebook gains on Google with 30% increase in unique U.S. visitors in 2 years

New evidence suggests that Facebook is inching closer and closer to overthrowing Google as the most-visited web brand in the U.S.

Facebook’s unique U.S. visitor count has increased by 29.5 percent since Oct. 2009, according to Nielsen data shared exclusively with VentureBeat.

Compare that to the 5.4 percent increase in U.S. visitors to Google sites in the same two-year period, and you have the makings of a Facebook coming-of-age story that could end with the … Continue Reading

Google+ traffic & users jumped in final months of 2011

Google+ has seen a steady surge of new signups and user activity over the final quarter of 2011.

While more than a few doubters have wondered whether, after several failures, Google can succeed in the fickle world of social networks, new reports from analytics firm Chitika show the service has as many as 62 million users.

Google’s suite of social tools started out with strong user curiosity and great initial user statistics. Just three weeks … Continue Reading

Dump Go Daddy Day results: 27K domains transfer in, only 14K out

Results from yesterday’s Dump Go Daddy Domain Day boycott show that almost twice as many domains transferred into Go Daddy than out. These results come despite the fact that Go Daddy reported this morning that it was hemorrhaging customers.

The boycott day was organized by users of community news sharing site Reddit last week after Go Daddy appeared on an official congressional list of companies that publicly supported the recently proposed piece of legislation called … Continue Reading