Business Tech

iPhone 5 so far: One road warrior's two-week test

Two weeks in, I've got a better feel for the iPhone 5, both good and bad.

After upgrading from the iPhone 4S to the 5 two weeks ago yesterday, I've been on the road -- bouncing between the east and west coasts. That's plenty of opportunity to test the iPhone 5's mettle.

The good, the bad, the meh:

Wi-Fi: This was the first gotcha. After arriving at my destination in Philadelphia, a Wi-Fi network I needed to access didn't take -- despite working fine with a host of other devices, including an iPhone 3GS and … Read more

Firefox makes a Metro move

With only a few weeks to go before Microsoft's big Windows overhaul, Mozilla puts forward its first version of Firefox preview optimized for Windows 8's touch interface.

How to install it Once you download and run the Firefox Metro Preview (download installer) in Windows 8, you must close Firefox in Metro and Desktop if you already have them installed, then open the Control Panel and set Internet Explorer as the default browser.

From there, run in Desktop mode the Firefox Nightly EXE that you just downloaded and set it as the Default when prompted. A Windows 8 prompt … Read more

Amazon plunks down $1.16B on Seattle office buildings

Amazon is extending its roots in Seattle.

Regulatory filings made public today show that the e-commerce giant and gadget maker entered into an $1.16 billion agreement with Paul Allen's Vulcan Real Estate to purchase the 11 office buildings in Seattle's Lake Union neighborhood that it previously held under lease.

Vulcan Real Estate put the set of buildings on the market at the end of August. Last month the group announced plans to build and lease two more buildings for Amazon, as part of a $160 million project to give the company an extra 380,000 square feet … Read more

Big brouhaha over Big Bird

Mitt Romney ruffled a few feathers during the first presidential debate with suggestions that days may be numbered for Big Bird of "Sesame Street" fame, hatching a social media backlash and in turn illustrating the power of sites like Twitter in politics.

A number of satirical Big Bird accounts popped up on Twitter after the Republican presidential nominee implied the famed yellow bird would meet an untimely demise, along with PBS subsidies, if he were elected president.

"100 Retweets and I'm going to make my nest outside Romney's bedroom window," read one tweet from … Read more

Intel shows off personal cloud for consumers, small business

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel is getting into the personal cloud storage game with the introduction of its own Atom processor-based storage solutions aimed towards both consumers and small businesses.

Essentially, these are network-attached storage appliances powered by either the Intel Atom D2550 or D2500 processors for securing, backing up and sharing content through the cloud. The cloud technology comes in through an exposed HTML IP address (with a secure log-in), and the end user can access that IP address either through a regular desktop browser or it can look like a drive.

Intel said it has been focused on developing reference architectures … Read more

Huawei mulls initial public offering, report says

Huawei, the embattled Chinese mobile company looking to expand its footprint internationally, is now eyeing an initial public offering, according to a new report.

Huawei has contacted investment banks to learn more about the process that would eventually take its shares public, The Wall Street Journal is reporting today, citing sources. The company isn't sure yet where it might list its stock and doesn't know how that process might go, according to the Journal's sources.

Over the last several months, Huawei, which derives much of its business activity from telecommunications equipment, has come under fire in the … Read more

Ultraslim PC shipments to hit 65 million by 2015, researcher says

The ultraslim PC market, which includes ultrabooks and the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina display, is set for explosive growth in the coming years, according to one researcher.

Last year, just 3.4 million ultraslim PCs were shipped worldwide. By 2015, that figure will grow to 65 million, according to new data from NPD DisplaySearch. By then, ultraslim PCs will account for a quarter of all mobile PC shipments.

As NPD DisplaySearch notes, ultraslim PC adoption has been quite slow. According to the researchers, that has been due to high prices across the line and "a lack … Read more

Microsoft acquires security authentication provider

Microsoft announced today that it has bought PhoneFactor, a provider of multi-factor authentication.

PhoneFactor offers organizations different ways for their employees to access key software and services without relying just on passwords or security tokens. The company's specialty is phone authentication, but it also provides authentication through text messages.

Timothy Sutton, PhoneFactor CEO, described the concept in a blog, saying that "when we initially launched PhoneFactor, we had a vision to deliver strong authentication as a seamless part of almost every process where an individual needs to access confidential or proprietary data." He added that "phones … Read more

Google widens cuts at Motorola, expects $340 million charge

Google has further evaluated Motorola Mobility's business and has found more parts that it wants to dump.

The company said today in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has identified additional areas in which it plans to cut staff and restructure the mobile firm. Google says that those actions will occur outside of the U.S. and include $300 million in costs related to employee severance. Google also expects to incur $90 million in charges for "facility and market exits," though it will pay only $40 million of that this quarter.

"Google … Read more