Video: How to surf faster with Internet Explorer
A few enterprising Microsoft employees have produced a low-cost video that shows how accelerators, a feature of the Internet Explorer 8 browser, reduce the number of steps to perform common tasks.
What Microsoft’s doing is attempting to beat Google by changing the game. Instead of… Continue Reading
Facebook debuts live chat pages, Ustream live video
Facebook’s new Live Stream Box is a cut-and-paste HTML widget that can be added to a website to let Facebook users chat alongside a live event. Updates to the stream post quickly and then wash off the screen, to maximize the live-event feel.
In the… Continue Reading
HTC Hero phone will have a Flash player
If you’ve got an iPhone in your pocket, you know what’s most conspicuously missing from it (besides a keyboard): a Flash player.
Adobe’s Flash technology has evolved in the past four years from being hated for the proliferation of “Skip Intro” website home pages, to… Continue Reading
New York Times appoints a “social media editor”
How’s this for a dream job? America’s paper of record has reassigned one of its editors to be the in-house expert on Facebook and Twitter.
You can read up on Jennifer Preston’s background in this morning’s entertainingly cruel Gawker post. More important is that the New… Continue Reading
TiVo’s still watching you, but by region now
It’s no secret TiVo has been watching its subscribers. But now the DVR company has announced it’s giving advertisers up-to-the-minute info on what users are watching (and fast-forwarding through) based on specific geographic regions.
As a web-enabled DVR/TV guide service, TiVo already collects a wealth… Continue Reading
SoundCloud raises $3.3 million for audiophile file-sharing
SoundCloud, an audio file sharing site for music professionals, has raised €2.5 million ($3.3 million) in its first round of funding. The Berlin-based startup entered the crowded file-sharing market last year with a private beta, but its executives say the service has since grown to… Continue Reading
Survey: iPhone has biggest potential for games
Apple’s iPhone will be the games industry’s favorite platform going forward, according to a survey just conducted of industry executives and interested readers.
The survey also found that micro-transactions, such as purchases of virtual goods in online games, are expected to have the highest impact… Continue Reading
Intel’s Mark Bohr: Look to biology for the future of computing
Intel Fellow Mark Bohr told attendees at an engineering conference in San Francisco this morning to look to biological systems to figure out how to engineer the future of computing.
Bohr said that the human brain is far better at computing because it operates on… Continue Reading
AMD launches Yukon platform for ultraportable computers
Advanced Micro Devices is introducing technology today that can make notebook computers lighter, faster, and more versatile.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker’s Yukon platform is a collection of chips aimed at the ultraportable notebook computer market. Such laptops will likely blur the line between full-fledged… Continue Reading
Square Connect turns your iPhone into a remote control
Maybe the iPhone should be called the “Jesus Phone” after all. SquareConnect is creating an application that turns your iPhone (or iPod touch) into a remote control for all of the consumer electronics gadgets in your home.
SquareConnect chief executive Mat Henshall said that the… Continue Reading
Intel Developer Forum: Chairman Craig Barrett takes us on a world tech tour
Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel, travels to 30 countries a year. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this morning, he took his audience of thousands on a tour of how tech is changing the places he visits. While Barrett didn’t make much… Continue Reading
Black Hat: An interview with Dan Kaminsky, the DNS dude who saved the Internet
Dan Kaminsky showed up at the Black Hat conference in a Pac-Man T-shirt and jeans. But he was the man of the hour at a presentation yesterday that held 1,000 people spellbound during his ninth talk in 10 years. The 29-year-old self-described DNS guy talked… Continue Reading
Delta loves to fly and it shows (in the form of Wi-Fi)
The promise of Wi-Fi on planes continues to creep closer to reality. Today, Delta Air Lines announced that its entire fleet of over 330 planes traveling throughout the continental U.S. will be equipped with wireless Internet.
The service will be provided using Aircell’s Gogo system… Continue Reading
Cloud company Elastra gets $12M from Amazon
Elastra, a company that helps manage applications in the Internet cloud, has raised $12 million in new funding.
This is Elastra’s second venture round, and it was led by Bay Partners, with Amazon.com and existing investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners also participating. Amazon’s backing is… Continue Reading
Google creates a mashup of Omnisio and YouTube
We thought pretty highly of the online video mashup site Omnisio at this year’s Y Combinator Demo Day, and liked it even more after it launched back in March. Apparently, so did Google. Its YouTube property purchased Ominisio today as a way to expand how… Continue Reading
Could a big geothermal energy play be next for Google.org?
Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, has taken a number of stakes in solar and wind startups over the past year, most recently joining a $115 million investment in solar thermal firm BrightSource Energy. It now seems to be focusing its attention on the bustling geothermal energy… Continue Reading
Live blogging: Conversation with Ning’s Marc Andreessen at Web 2.0
(This is a continuation of live blogging from the Web 2.0 Expo at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco) On the second day of the Web 2.0 keynotes, John Battelle of Federated Media is interviewing Internet wunderkind Marc Andreessen, the CEO of Ning,… Continue Reading
Nurien Software raises $15 million for Asian social networking and gaming service
Nurien Software, a Korean social networking and online gaming company, has raised $15 million in a first round of venture capital from investors in the U.S. and China.
The company lets users create their own avatars and then socialize in a variety of topic areas…. Continue Reading
In a first, China removes profit repatriation tax for U.S. investor
For the first time, the Chinese government has exempted a U.S. venture firm from having to pay a hefty 10 percent withholding tax for repatriating profits, in a major move that could spur another major wave of U.S. investment in China.Patrick McGovern (pictured here), head… Continue Reading
Hi5’s developer platform growing, worth a closer look
With more than 35 million monthly active users around the world, Hi5 is one of the largest social networks behind social network leaders MySpace and Facebook. It never seems to get much attention in the tech press, for whatever reason, but that may change if… Continue Reading