For all Steve Jobs’ grousing about rivals trying to pinch his thunder, you know what they say: only run-of-the-mill creators borrow—great ones swipe ideas wholesale. That includes Apple’s iPhone 4S-dwelling Siri, by the way, which is just Apple’s take on much older (and, some might say, smarter) natural language chatbots like …
How Google Can Keep the Android Momentum Going
Ben Bajarin is the Director of Consumer Technology Analysis and Research at Creative Strategies, Inc, a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm located in Silicon Valley.
What Google has been able to accomplish with Android has been impressive to watch. Good timing played a key role in their success, as the handset …
25 Facebook Profiles You Should Subscribe to Right Now
Facebook’s new subscribe feature has been live for a few weeks. Take a look as we honor our favorites from Facebook, from the savvy digitalists to the up-and-coming social scamps.
DVR, Mobile Video Usage Up More than 30% over Last Year
It looks like all of those people scooping up new iPhones and Androids are embracing video in a big way—a new Nielsen poll reports that 36% more mobile subscribers watched video on their phones this year than last year. Also popular: watching TV without commercials, which would explain the 31% jump in DVR usage over the last two …
Two Minute Video: MacBook Air Style, PC Price with the Acer ‘S3’ Ultrabook
MacBook Air style with a more PC-like pricetag: That’s the promise of Acer’s new S3 ultrabook. At $900, it beats Apple’s lowest-priced 13-inch MacBook Air by a full $400 while measuring up almost identically in weight and …
New Gmail Accidentally Revealed in Video
It looks like Gmail is getting a makeover. The brand-new version of Google’s popular, free email service features plenty of user-friendly upgrades: a cleaner design, improved search functions, high-resolution themes and more.
All of this was revealed in a new video that wasn’t meant to be seen yet. Google produced a slick presentation …
Online Campaign Aims to Stop Congress from Jailing Justin Bieber
An anti-piracy bill currently in Congress could, if passed, put Justin Bieber in jail for five years, according to a new online campaign against the bill. Clearly, this campaign has not considered that the idea may cause all manner of conflict for those who are pro-electronic freedom but anti-Bieber.
The bill, S.978, is one that …
TechnologizerSmartphones
BlackBerry: Vision Needed
I don’t mean to be painfully Pollyannaish, but I’m almost glad that RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis didn’t announce any new products or other major news at the keynote during its DevCon conference in San Francisco, which I attended on Tuesday morning. A year ago, at the 2010 edition of the event, he unveiled the PlayBook tablet. I got all …
Beware User Agreements: Who Actually Owns the Reddit Movie Pitch?
Earlier this week, I mentioned that Warner Bros. had purchased a movie pitch from a writer called James Erwin that had started life as a post on Reddit. Ignoring my cynicism over whether or not social media can ever make good movies or television, there’s one problem: What if Erwin didn’t actually own his idea?
The problem seems to be …
Diabetic? Cloud-Connected Ford Could Someday Save Your Life
Ford’s Microsoft-powered Sync system offers voice-activated control of music and navigation services, but the technology will be expanding to include health and wellness services in the not-too-distant future. On a rainy October day outside MIT’s Media Lab, I hopped in a cloud-connected Ford Explorer for a demonstration by Ford’s …
Asus: Quad-Core Tablet Incoming, Padfone Still Happening
A wave of quad-core Android tablets is nearly upon us, and Asus wants to be leading the charge.
At the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong, Asus Chairman Jonney Shih said the company is working on a sequel to its Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet, called the Transformer Prime. The Prime will be powered by Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor, …
European Businesses Attacked by Son of ‘Stuxnet’ Virus
The idea of European comebacks is one long familiar to most people; we joke about David Hasselhoff being massive in Germany, or the ongoing French love affair with Jerry Lewis, long after America has finished with both men. Well, now there’s a new name we can add to that list: The Stuxnet virus.
In case you don’t remember Stuxnet, it …