The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint, the nation’s third largest wireless carrier, has agreed “to purchase at least 30.5 million iPhones over the next four years—a commitment of $20 billion at current rates—whether or not it could find people to buy them.” That’s according to oft-quoted “people familiar with the matter,” …
Business
Move Over, Twitter: ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Activists Feel the ‘Vibe’
It’s the classic good news/bad news situation for Twitter. The good news: It’s looking less likely that the company is going to face accusations that its platform is being used by activists such as the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters to organize, and therefore face legal action as a result. The bad news: It’s because activists seem to be …
Facebook’s ‘Open Graph’ Needs New Approaches to Privacy
I touched on the privacy implications of Facebook’s new Open Graph share-everything-forever platform in my latest Technologizer column over at TIME.com—but I didn’t dwell on them. For one thing, neither feature is fully available yet, making it hard to judge them. For another, use of Facebook in general and the Open Graph in particular …
New U.S. Post Office Ads Warn Us About the Dangers of Email
The U.S. Postal Service, near bankruptcy and losing billions of dollars every quarter pushing a product no one wants, unveiled today its new strategy to regain some relevance. That strategy involves scaring consumers about the dangers of email and online bill payment in several new 30-second TV commercials.
The ads tell consumers that …
BlackBerry PlayBook Sees Amazon Kindle Fire, Drops in Price $200
BlackBerry PlayBook price, come on down, you’re the next—or actually, first—contestant on The Price Wasn’t Right, But We’ll Fix That, in view of the Android-based Kindle Fire, which Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled Wednesday for just $199.
RIM’s PlayBook had been going for between $299 and $499, depending on model, but retailer Best …
Can Devices like the Kindle Fire Finally Pave the Way for a la Carte Cable?
Pundits asking whether the new Kindle Fire will be an “iPad killer” are way off the mark. It’s a killer alright, but the victim is not who you think it is. “We don’t think of the Kindle Fire as a tablet. We think of it as a service,” says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
And the main competing service in his sights is cable …
Hackers Turned Journalists? Anonymous Launches ‘Analytics’ Site
It’s the career move no-one was expecting from Anonymous: going from faceless hackers to investigative journalists exposing corporate corruption via a specially-created website. Okay, alright…maybe it’s not that unexpected from a headless collective with a propensity for resetting expectations.
The site, Anonymous Analytics, …
Yahoo Releases Memo to Reassure, Confuse Employees
With all kinds of uncertainty surrounding the future of Yahoo, it’s not surprising that the bosses want to send a message to everyone that everything is in hand, that there is a plan, and that everyone should just relax and everything will be fine. What is surprising is just how confusing that message ended up being.
A leaked memo …
Shock Drop in iPad 2 Demand? Not So Fast, Say Analysts
Word is the iPad 2 may be selling less, shall we say vigorously, than Apple hoped, that Cupertino is cutting orders by an astonishing 25% to compensate and that, yep, we could be looking at our first iPad 2 price drop.
The folks claiming as much have a name for a change: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. told investors that Apple has slashed …
Netflix Signs on DreamWorks, but Is It Enough?
Netflix, in an effort to minimize its exodus of customers, has inked a deal with DreamWorks Animation over the weekend. While you won’t be able to get your Toy Story 3 fix, you can probably console yourself with a little Shrek.
It’s unclear how long the deal, which is valued at $30 million per film to DreamWorks, would last between …
Dish-Blockbuster Deal a ‘Stream Come True’ Only for Existing Customers
For those expecting Dish Network to roll out a Netflix competitor during today’s “A Stream Come True” press conference, the announcement of the company’s “Blockbuster Movie Pass” offering will come as a disappointment.
Instead of being a streaming or rental service for the general public, the new offering is available only to Dish …
Report: Yahoo to Be Broken Up, Sold for Parts?
If you’ve been wondering who’s going to replace Carol Bartz as CEO of Yahoo after she was fired by phone at the beginning of the month, the answer may be “no one.”
In fact, following on from rumors that Yahoo was “open to selling itself to the right bidder,” now there are rumors that the company may be broken down and sold off in …