Consumer Products

Glympse: The Coolest Thing Your Smartphone Can Do

BY Chris DannenTue May 19, 2009 at 3:36 PM

That's not a title I toss out lightly, but Glympse deserves it. Since smartphones first made Google maps mobile, no single application has offered so much practical functionality. Not only that--Glympse might be the only one that ...READ»

FACEBOOK | Comment

Update: The Facebook Phishing Scam Continues

BY Chris DannenMon May 18, 2009 at 5:25 PM

Last week I wrote about a phishing and malware scam that has plagued Facebook for weeks. It wasn't quite a virus, because it affected Mac users--but it wasn't entirely Web-based either, because some of the links it hawked were ...READ»

SCRIBD | Comment

Scribd Launches User-Gen Bookstore

BY Chris DannenMon May 18, 2009 at 12:07 PM

The Scribd Store, which opened this morning in beta, is the latest online venture that could change the way the ailing publishing industry staggers into the 21st century. Scribd has been live for two years now, and until today, has ...READ»

YOUTUBE | 1 comment

YouTomb Shows Music Labels Stepping Up YouTube Copyright Crackdowns

BY Chris DannenMon May 18, 2009 at 11:40 AM

Every month, thousands of videos are pulled off YouTube for copyright infringement and other user-flagged violations. A student organization at MIT called Free Culture has compiled a kind of online eulogizer for videos lost to ...READ»

ELECTIONS | 2 comments

The Site With 8.64 Trillion Hits in One Day

BY Chris DannenMon May 18, 2009 at 11:00 AM

The day before India's Lok Sabha elections, the country's election commission made a new Web site live to provide election results in real-time. The commisson overbuilt the site, so it thought, readying it for almost 3,000 hits per ...READ»

FACEBOOK | 4 comments

10 Questions About the Facebook Hack Attacks

BY Chris DannenFri May 15, 2009 at 12:30 PM

On Thursday night, Facebook was attacked by hackers for the fourth time this month. Who is behind the attacks isn't known, but the malefactors appear to be using several old tricks--phishing, malware downloads, and other ...READ»

CALLS | 5 comments

Five Brilliant Ways to Use Google Voice

BY Chris DannenThu May 14, 2009 at 4:38 PM

The public launch of Google's new Voice service is imminent, and it's going to change the way you use the Web (to sign up for an invitation, click here). If you're currently a beta user, you already know how flexible and robust the ...READ»

TUMBLR | 9 comments

What the Hell is Tumblr? And Other Worthwhile Questions

BY Chris DannenWed May 13, 2009 at 3:09 PM

If you're a nerd, you have spent the last year explaining to your friends the virtue (or downfall) of Twitter and Facebook. In another year, you'll have a third prong to your presentation: Tumblr. Tumblr is a little bit the ...READ»

APPLE TAX | 1 comment

How to Beat the Apple Tax

BY Chris DannenMon May 11, 2009 at 4:06 PM

So you're thinking about getting a Mac, but you don't want to pay the "Apple tax" that Microsoft's latest ads are always prattling on about. Here's how. Forget eBay The days of deal-having on eBay are gone, ...READ»

BIG Y | 2 comments

StopLift's Grocery Cameras Peg "Sweethearting" Cashiers

BY Chris DannenMon May 11, 2009 at 1:31 PM

Smart cameras at Big Y, a New England supermarket chain, are learning how to identify "sweethearting"--when cashiers and their confederates pass free goods past the till by obscuring the bar code, passing two items at ...READ»

HD VIDEO | Comment

Why HD? Watch This

BY Chris DannenMon May 11, 2009 at 11:25 AM

If you're like a lot of amateur home-movie buffs, you might have an older camcorder--say, Mini DV--and you're probably debating about whether the upgrade to HD is worth it. A video that's gone viral this week demonstrates the ...READ»

SEVEN THINGS | 3 comments

Seven Entertaining Things Online This Week

BY Chris DannenFri May 8, 2009 at 2:39 PM

While kids in Harlem free their minds, kids in Britain are getting prosecuted for politically incorrect jokes. If that makes you lose all hope for the world, well, there's always the prospect of a long, isolated trip to the moon. On second thought, just go surfing, dream of 3G MacBooks, and kick back to some of the Internet's finest viral cat videos.READ»

MICROSOFT SURFACE | 16 comments

11 Killer Apps for Microsoft Surface [Video]

BY Chris DannenFri May 8, 2009 at 1:07 PM

Microsoft's interactive table, dubbed Surface, brings the heady dream of interactive computing closer reality. As developers find ways to make Surface's gorgeous multi-user interface shine, more and more companies are turning ...READ»

WIRELESS | 5 comments

Boost Mobile's Streetfight for Prepaid Dominance

BY Chris DannenThu May 7, 2009 at 11:24 AM

In January, Boost Mobile began offering a flat-fee $50 wireless plan for unlimited minutes, texting, Internet, and push-to-talk. Consumers flocked: the little division of Sprint added almost 700,000 subscribers in Q1, after a net ...READ»

KINDLE DX | 4 comments

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Unveils Kindle DX in New York

BY Chris DannenWed May 6, 2009 at 11:14 AM

At an event in New York City today, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos introduced Kindle DX, a large-screen version of the popular e-reader device priced at $489. It will ship this summer, and is available for pre-order today. ...READ»

APPLE | Comment

Google, Apple May Suffer Anti-Trust Action for Sharing Board Members

BY Chris DannenTue May 5, 2009 at 2:17 PM

Apple and Google may have more in common than the Federal Trade Commission would like. The companies share two members of their board of directors, Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levinson. According to antitrust laws, the presence of ...READ»

APPLE | 2 comments

iPhone 3.0 May Allow XXX Apps

BY Chris DannenTue May 5, 2009 at 1:59 PM

Apple isn't usually very elaborate when it comes to App Store rejections. But according to Gigaom, one developer was recently led to believe that while Apple wouldn't approve his overly-risque app right now, it might allow the app ...READ»

GOOGLE | 1 comment

Google Maps Incite Racial Unrest in Tokyo

BY Chris DannenMon May 4, 2009 at 4:22 PM

The folks at Google Maps decided it'd be fun if they added a historical map of Tokyo onto the site's existing map and satellite layers. They were wrong. The centuries-old woodblock maps, which are already available online, show ...READ»

IRAQ | Comment

Mining Data to Predict Attacks in Iraq

BY Chris DannenMon May 4, 2009 at 3:45 PM

Physicist Sean Gourley thinks he may be able to model and predict violence in Iraq. And it's not just Iraq; Gourley, who works for the San Fransisco-based startup YouNoodle, has used his military side project to map the ...READ»

WHITE HOUSE | Comment

The Trouble With Friending the White House

BY Chris DannenMon May 4, 2009 at 3:34 PM

In the great wired tradition of his campaign, President Obama has opened White House accounts on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr (which delivered this photo, an instant classic). The accounts are part of the President's ...READ»

SEVEN THINGS | 1 comment

Seven Curious Things Online this Week

BY Chris DannenFri May 1, 2009 at 3:23 PM

The future is scary: hadron colliders, HD-video iPhones and nanotube lightbulbs are as bizarre as they are promising. Thankfully, this week on the Web shows us that not all that much has changed; we're still the same gawkers we were ...READ»

GOOGLE | Comment

Google Brings Location-Based Search to Your PC

BY Chris DannenThu Apr 30, 2009 at 3:32 PM

Google has made GPS-based search for mobile phones a reality, but what if you want to search near the location of your computer? Just last week, the company's Toolbar team answered the question by announcing a "My ...READ»

AUDIO | Comment

How to Build Plasma Arc Speakers

BY Chris DannenThu Apr 30, 2009 at 3:21 PM

You've never seen speakers like these. Instead of a traditional speaker diaphragm, plasma arc speakers use a modified carbon arc lamp to produce sound. The best part? You can build them yourself, and they make an intense purplish glow ...READ»

DISNEY | 2 comments

Hulu Gets 'Lost' With Disney's Equity Stake

BY Chris DannenThu Apr 30, 2009 at 2:40 PM

Walt Disney Company is taking an equity stake in Hulu.com, the Web's third most popular pit stop for video, according to the AP. The site, originally a joint venture between NBC Universal and Fox parent News Corp, will now have ...READ»

FLICKR | Comment

Flickr Lays Off Engineering Talent

BY Chris DannenThu Apr 30, 2009 at 5:17 AM

After posting some ugly first-quarter results last week, Yahoo was due for change. CEO Caol Bartz announced that the company would be cutting around 700 jobs, and the layoffs have begun already. First on the docket: a number ...READ»

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