Tech Biz

2402 articles on Tech Biz

• Facebook Files Evidence It Says Proves Half-Ownership Suit is a Sham
  Facebook says it has found the original contract between Mark Zuckerberg and purported half-owner Paul Ceglia -- and it doesn't mention Facebook at all. That, Facebook says, proves that Ceglia's evidence is an "outright fabrication" and means that his suit seeking half-ownership of the social networking giant should be immediately tossed. Both parties agree that Mark Zuckerberg signed ...
  08.15.11

• Google's Motorola Play Could Alienate Android Teammates
  Google's always been happy to stay in the software business, which has suited gadget companies just fine. They've all benefited from Google's willingness to license Android to anyone. But today's announcement that the tech titan plans to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings will make them wonder if Google is about to start playing favorites. A lot of ...
  08.15.11

• Judge Says Facebook Can Get 'Smoking Gun' Contract
  A federal judge has ordered that Facebook should get access to what it calls the "smoking gun" in the strange saga of a New Yorker who claims to own more than half of the social networking giant based on a contract that Facebook says is a forgery. Both parties agree that Mark Zuckerberg signed a contract ...
  08.15.11

• Did Google Just Turn Motorola Into the New Super-TiVo?
  The best-case scenario for consumers if the proposed Google-Motorola deal goes through might be that cable TV gets a whole lot better. Earlier, we touched on Motorola's sizable patent portfolio and its position as a leading maker of TV set-top boxes. Now, let's put the two together, add Google TV's promising software interface and utter failure ...
  08.15.11

• Apple Reportedly Testing 4G LTE iPhone
  Mobile carriers reportedly are testing 4G versions of Apple's smartphone. But before you get all excited, it may not necessarily be the iPhone 5. BGR says iPhone carriers are testing models with 4G LTE capability. It discovered evidence of a property list file (.plist) within the firmware, which definitively revealed Apple is developing the technology. Whether ...
  08.15.11

• Google + Motorola = Android Patent-Troll Repellent
  Google's proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility is another one of those big "should have seen it coming" moments the search giant seems to delight in springing.
  08.15.11

• New Roku Streaming Box Gets Smaller, Angrier
  Roku's latest shrink-rayed media streamer comes with a gaming remote for playing -- you guessed it -- Angry Birds.
  08.15.11

• Google To Acquire Motorola Mobility
  Google will acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings, the company announced Monday, in a surprise move that for the first time puts the company squarely in the smartphone hardware -- rather than solely software -- business. "The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, ...
  08.15.11

• Trying Out Digital Storybooks With a 4-Year-Old, Part 3: Arthur Reads Series
  My 4 year old son is getting quite spoiled when it comes to bedtime -- since introducing him to the Jack and the Beanstalk story app and the Berenstain Bears app, he's now asking me which new story I'll have for him tonight. I can see that he's enjoying the narrated stories and the interactivity ...
  08.15.11

• Prototype MacBook Pro with Rabbit-Ear Antenna Shows Up on Ebay
  Remember your first cellphone? If you're old enough, that memory will include a pull-out antenna of some kind, a vestigial RF tail whose genes were passed down from walkie-talkies and field radios of old. And it seems that Apple, presumably before building its multi-zillion-dollar antenna lab, was also experimenting with pop-up antennae on its old ...
  08.15.11

• A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Monday, August 15th
  As we've reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day's puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they've decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm... Google a Day? GD? GeekDad?), ...
  08.15.11

• A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Sunday, August 14th
  As we've reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day's puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they've decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm... Google a Day? GD? GeekDad?), ...
  08.14.11

• If We're Turning Off Social Media, I Want News Channels Shut Down, Too
  Why aren't politicians demanding that news channels, with their greater reach and potential to panic the public, be turned off during exceptional circumstances, too? After all, it's all for the safety of the public. Right?
  08.13.11

• Google Steps Up to Defend Android Developers From Patent Lawsuit
  Google has intervened in an ongoing intellectual property dispute between smartphone application developers and a patent-holding firm, Wired.com has learned, marking the Mountain View company's first public move to defend Android coders from a patent troll lawsuit that's cast a pall on the community. The company says it filed a request with the United States Patent ...
  08.13.11

• A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Saturday, August 13th
  As we've reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day's puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they've decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm... Google a Day? GD? GeekDad?), ...
  08.13.11

• Patent App Shows How Apple Makes Touch Displays Fingerprint-Proof
  All that swiping and tapping on your iPhone takes a heavy toll on the screen, leaving it a streaked and grimy mess. Apple's been battling our greasy fingers for years, and a recently discovered patent application describes a new way of making sure our oily fingers don't mar future generations of gadgets from Cupertino. In the application, ...
  08.12.11

• Google+ Punts on Kafkaesque Name Policy
  One of my favorite moments in Franz Kafka's The Trial is shortly after the protagonist Josef K is placed under arrest for an unnamed offense. The men notifying him of his arrest don't cuff him or take him to jail. They just tell him proceedings are underway and that he'll learn everything in due course. ...
  08.12.11

• Pics of New Android Operating System Leak into the Wild
  Images surfaced late Thursday afternoon that purport to show an unreleased new version of the Android operating system, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. The leaks first surfaced on Android enthusiast sites Android Police and RootzWiki. From what we're seeing, the images aren't a radical departure from the most current release of Android for phones, version 2.3.4, code-named ...
  08.12.11

• Bernie Madoff's Pants Can Clothe Your iPad
  While Bernie Madoff spends the next 150 years in prison blues for securities fraud, iPad owners can buy his clothes to protect their iPads in style. iPad cover manufacturer Frederick James is selling sleeves made from Bernie Madoff¿s pants. The collection comes from Madoff¿s summer attire, taken from his beach house in the Hamptons. Last November, the ...
  08.12.11

• iPad App Review: Roads of Rome
  With my recent move, I had to pack up all of my board games and nearly all of my books (along with my computer), so my iPad was my primary source of entertainment for a few weeks. (Plus most of my board games are still in boxes as I type this.) Roads of Rome HD ...
  08.12.11

• Paper Notebook With Built-In iPhone Hole
  I have tried to use the iPad 2 as a classroom tool. In my ongoing quest to learn to speak Spanish at least as well as the average Spanish three-year-old, I go to classes a couple nights a week. I have used both iPads one and two (the 2 was bought to snap photos of ...
  08.12.11

• Trying Out Digital Storybooks With a 4-Year-Old, Part 2: The Berenstain Bears' Bedtime Battle
  Previously I wrote about my 4-year-old son's enjoyment of the "Jack and the Beanstalk" story via the app version of the digital story. He really doesn't seem to have any concerns about whether his stories come from a book he can hold in his hands or via a narrated story on my iPad. Last night, I ...
  08.12.11

• Stubby iPad Stylus Lives In Dock-Connector Port
  Imagine a stylus barely longer than the first knuckle of your thumb. A stylus as tricky to grip and use as the worn-down stubby pencils you were too cheap (or too poor) to replace back in school. Now imagine that, instead of being comfortably cylindrical, these styluses instead are a sharp-edged lozenge shape, complete with ...
  08.12.11

• The Modern PC Turns 30
  The revolutionary IBM 5150 landed 30 years ago today. This gallery celebrates the IBM 5150 and nine other major milestones that helped the personal computer achieve its invaluable, and ubiquitous, place in society.
  08.12.11

• Elements 2 For iPad. Markdown Gets Prettier
  You may remember Elements from last August, a time when new Dropbox-enabled text editors were popping up like mushrooms after a fall rain. Elements, from Second Gear software, distinguished itself by including a handy, popover scratchpad for taking notes, and with its Markdown-powered text editor. Now, Elements has been updated to version 2. The new Elements, ...
  08.12.11

• A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Friday, August 12th
  As we've reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day's puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they've decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm... Google a Day? GD? GeekDad?), ...
  08.12.11

• Google's Nerds Bring Angry Birds -- and More -- to Google+
  Google upped the ante in its challenge to Facebook Thursday by introducing games into its nascent social network Google+. Just as in Facebook, Google+ users will now be able to play games such as Angry Birds, Zynga Poker, and Crime City -- and bug their friends with notices of their latest achievements and high scores. But Google ...
  08.11.11