Consumers should soon be getting a more of a price break on electronic books following approval of a settlement between the US Department of Justice and three publishers who, along with Apple, stand accused of price-fixing eBooks to compete with Amazon.com. The publishers had agreed to the settlement in April. When the court publicized the [...]
Minecraft Partners With United Nations For Urban Planning
Minecraft changed the video game industry by selling millions of downloads of an indie game. Now the free-form building game is inviting players to help redesign real-world locations around the world. Minecraft creator Mojang announced yesterday in a blog post that it is teaming up with United Nations Habitat to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016. [...]
A Close-Up Look At Amazon’s New Kindles
In a Santa Monica Airport hangar on Thursday, Amazon announced its latest round of Kindles and related services. Overall, they look pretty impressive. After a big corporate self-hug as CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage, Amazon focused on three key items: new Kindle Readers, new Kindle Fires, and enhancements to the Amazon ecosystem tying them [...]
Amazon’s Renaissance Of Reading
“The only thing more perfect than reading is more reading,” declared Amazon in a TV advert for its new Kindle eReader device. At a self-hosted event in Santa Monica today, Amazon launched new versions of its eReader and tablet products. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos spent over an hour on stage, extolling the virtues of [...]
[Photos] Highlights Of The New Nokia Lumia 820 and 920
Nokia announced its new Lumia smartphones today at an event in New York City. There are a lot of things to like, including a variety of colors, innovative NFC speakers and wireless charging. We got hands-on time with some Lumia devices and took pictures that show off a few strengths of these distinctive devices. The [...]
Cloud Computing Makes Software Piracy Obsolete
The fight against file sharing has reached a new pitch as industry organizations battle file sharing as though their lives depended on it. As, in fact, they do. The foundations of the antipiracy crusade are evaporating as the cloud undermines the very notion of software piracy. Two cross-Atlantic trade organizations with strong antipiracy arms joined [...]
How To Filter The Social Web, Part 2: Reddit
This week I’m exploring tools that help filter your Social Web experience. Yesterday I checked out Webicina, a medical news curation service. Today I’m re-visiting a service that has a much broader appeal, at least in terms of topics covered: reddit. The Condé Nast owned social news aggregator has become so popular that even the [...]
How To Filter The Social Web, Part 1: Webicina
This week I’m going to be exploring filtering tools on the Web, with a particular focus on general interest topics like health, politics and sports. The Web is often an overwhelmingly noisy environment. Even the best social media services – like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ – can quickly drown you in a deluge of real-time [...]
Does Windows 8 Need Add-On Security Protection? And What Are Your Choices?
Security vendors say add-on security products will be needed for Windows 8 – and they’re rolling out suites of solutions to enhance whatever Microsoft offers with its new operating system. According to Gerry Egan, a senior director of product management for the Security Technology and Response Group at security vendor Symantec, the new Windows 8 [...]
Is Microsoft Blocking Antivirus Apps from Windows RT?
If you’re looking to buy a Windows RT tablet, security vendors said, don’t expect to be able to protect it with third- party antivirus or other security software. In fact, it seems that Microsoft may block third-party antivirus vendors from developing security solutions for Windows RT. Microsoft won’t allow such software to be sold on [...]
Apple And Google Might Be Negotiating Patents
Apple reportedly is wasting no time in consolidating the market power it won in its patent case against Samsung. Citing an unnamed source “familiar with the dealings,” CNET is reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Larry Page have met at least once already to discuss potential infringements by Google on Apple patents. CNET says [...]
New Google+ Features Target Businesses
In an effort to boost adoption of its Google+ social network, Google this week announced a slew of new features aimed at enticing business customers to use the service and “go Google.” Citing the success other Web-based Google Apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Drive have found amongst employers and their workers, [...]