Voices on All Things Digital

Susquehanna: Microsoft Bing Success Unclear

Tiernan Ray | Blogger, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:00:24 +0000

By Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily

Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Marriane Wolk has scoured the Internet for intelligence on Microsoft’s (MSFT) new search engine Bing, and come up with the conclusion that the appeal of the new service, and its staying power, is uncertain. “The long term verdict for Bing and its ability to drive sustainable share gains (post Microsoft’s ~$100 million advertising spree) is still a long way from being determined,” she writes. Wolk quotes market share data from StatCounter showing that Bing has gained half a percentage point of share in Internet search since it appeared. She also found 13,000 news articles on Google news since the service came out.

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Startup Aims to Be the Kayak.Com of Ticketing

Marisa Taylor | Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:30:32 +0000

By Marisa Taylor, Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

About a year ago, Canadian Internet entrepreneur Justin Hartzman was planning to visit Las Vegas with some friends, and was trying to decide which shows and concerts the group should see. “After about 400 or 500 emails back and forth,” he says, he realized he needed a Web site that would aggregate all of the events in a certain area and during a specific set of dates. And thus the idea for TicketFlow was born.

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TiVo Off; Appeals Court Stays Ruling Vs. EchoStar, DISH

Eric Savitz | Blogger and Columnist, Barron's — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:50:47 +0000

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's

TiVo (TIVO) shares this morning are heading lower after the company said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has granted a request by EchoStar (SATS) to stay a contempt order imposed by a lower court pending the outcome of EchoStar’s appeal in the the patent dispute between the two companies.

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Listening to Mr. iPhone

Rory Cellan-Jones | Technology Correspondent, BBC — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:01:19 +0000

By Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent, BBC

By any measure, he is among the most important figures in technology of the last decade, a major influence on the way we use and interact with computers and mobile phones, a British designer who ranks with the Conrans and the Dysons. But have you ever heard Jonathan Ive, the Apple (AAPL) designer behind the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone, talk about his work?

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Life at Parc: Organic Food, Unix Parties, Coyotes and Geeks

Lisa Katayama | Contributing Writer, BoingBoing — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:30 +0000

By Lisa Katayama, Contributing Writer, BoingBoing

What’s everyday life like at Silicon Valley’s most famous research center? To find out, I talked to YF Juan, a director of business develpment at PARC, and communications manager Linda Jacobson.

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Keeping the Fizz in the Journalism Biz

Jack Shafer | Editor, Press Box, Slate — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:22 +0000

By Jack Shafer, Editor, Press Box, Slate

Your average journalist usually begins his career with a pop, like a big bottle of champagne. He effervesces about his profession, intoxicating all who encounter him. The party goes on for years as the young journalist conquers deadlines, corrupt politicians, and hidebound editors.

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Crap Detection 101

Howard Rheingold | Contributing Writer, City Brights, San Francisco Chronicle — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:21 +0000

By Howard Rheingold, Contributing Writer, City Brights, San Francisco Chronicle

The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge–the search engine. Materializing answers from the air turns out to be the easy part–the part a machine can do.

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How Things Played Out for Some Other File-Sharing Firms That Were Bought

Joseph Tartakoff | Reporter, ContentNext — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:00:15 +0000

By Joseph Tartakoff, Reporter, ContentNext

If the stories of other file-sharing firms that sold out are any indication, Pirate Bay’s move to sell itself and go legit might not play out so well. Here’s what happened to some of its peer-to-peer predecessors that were put up for sale.

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Rise and Flaw of Internet’s Election-Fraud Hunters

Carl Bialik | Blogger, The Numbers Guy, The Wall Street Journal — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:00:47 +0000

By Carl Bialik, Blogger, The Numbers Guy, The Wall Street Journal

Protesters on the streets of Tehran questioning the recent Iranian presidential election results have gotten support from a new breed of election watchers: Internet-enabled anomaly hounds who say the numbers don’t add up.

Fraud hunters are no newer to elections than conspiracy theorists are to the Internet. But unlike election monitors seeking voter tampering or intimidation, or local experts who critique faulty ballot design or study pre-election polling data, these statistical analysts don’t need to know anything about the dynamics of an individual race. Their toolkit is primarily statistical and can be applied to any numbers, voting or otherwise. The Internet provides quick access to election numbers and speedy dissemination of findings.

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Palm: Kaufman Sets Hold Rating; Many Possible Suitors

Eric Savitz | Blogger and Columnist, Barron's — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:00:22 +0000

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's

Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu this morning launched coverage of Palm (PALM) with a Hold rating and a $16 price target. He writes in a research note that the company is well-positioned in the smart phone sector with its WebOS software, but that the valuation is expensive; he also is concerned about ongoing operating losses and a weak balance sheet. “While we believe PALM is well-positioned with its webOS software and highly integrated hardware,” he writes, “we are concerned about its balance sheet and continued operating losses over the next four quarters as we don’t model profitability until the August 2010 quarter.”

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YouTwitFace Goes From Late-Night Joke to New Site Idea

Andrew LaVallee | Reporter, The Wall Street Journal — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:30:29 +0000

By Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Remember “YouTwitFace,” the Conan O’Brien joke that took on a life of its own online? It could be a real Web site soon. On June 3, Mr. O’Brien brought back a popular sketch on “The Tonight Show” called “In the Year 2000,” in which he muses on the future. In one premonition, he said, “YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to form one super time-wasting Web site called YouTwitFace.”

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Palm Claimed CFO Is A CPA; But License Expired In 1984

Eric Savitz | Blogger and Columnist, Barron's — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:06:24 +0000

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's

Contrary to previous public statements by the company, Palm CFO Douglas C. Jeffries has not been registered as a certified public accountant in the state of California since 1984, records from the California Board of Accountancy show.

In an 8-K filing announcing his appointment last December, Palm stated that Jefferies “is a certified public accountant.” Likewise, the company until this week stated in a bio on its Web site that “Douglas is a CPA.” The company on Tuesday changed the wording of bio following a query on the issue this week from Tech Trader Daily; the new language reads “Douglas was formerly a CPA.”

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Steve Jobs’s First Day Back at Apple

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:06:42 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)

Future of the Web: Location, Location, Location

Clive Thompson | Contributing Writer, Wired — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:01:03 +0000

By Clive Thompson, Contributing Writer, Wired

When Sam Altman visits New York, he’s never alone for very long. Altman is the 24-year-old CEO of Loopt, a company that makes a “location-aware” app for mobile phones that tracks where all of your friends are and what they’re doing.

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Twitter-Addled CNN Refers to Tweets as a ‘Source’

John Cook | Investigations Editor, Gawker — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:00:45 +0000

By John Cook, Investigations Editor, Gawker

Everyone’s coverage of the uprising in Iran has been Twitter-centric, for obvious reasons. But CNN, in an apparent attempt to look like they have real, non-Twitter newsgathering capabilities, has been regurgitating Twitter posts and attributing them to unnamed “sources.”

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