By Laura Northrup
Assistant Editor, Consumerist
Unless you’ve just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn’t good for you.
Pick of the Day
Smoking Near Apple Computers Creates Biohazard, Voids Warranty
Thursday, November 19, 2009
China’s Cyberwars
By James T. Areddy
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
China’s military is under attack. At least its Web site is…from hackers.
In a sign that China’s Ministry of National Defense faces the same kind of Internet security challenges that militaries around the world have reported, its new Web site was attacked more than 2.3 million times within a month of its August launch. The state-run People’s Daily newspaper reported that revelation Wednesday in an interview with the editor-in-chief of the Chinese defense department’s site, Ji Guilin.
Liveblogging Dell Earnings
By Andrew LaVallee
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Dell’s fiscal third-quarter earnings fell 54 percent to $337 million, while revenue declined 15 percent to $12.9 billion.
The personal-computer maker saw revenue in its small and medium business unit slip 19 percent from the year-earlier period, while its consumer business was down 10 percent. In a statement, Michael Dell, its chief executive, said that the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7 has been “very well received” by consumers and businesses, and that the company will see those results more in the fourth quarter.
Protecting Offline Privacy
By Emily Steel
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Washington policy makers, long concerned about how marketers use consumers’ personal data to their guide sales pitches on the Internet, have stepped up scrutiny of the increasingly sophisticated ad-targeting techniques used in other media, ranging from mobile phones to TV commercials to the ads consumers get in their mail boxes.
Merrill Turns Cautious on Chips, Foundries; Many Downgrades; Stocks Swoon
By Eric Savitz
Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch chip analyst Sumit Dhanda this morning turned cautious on semiconductor stocks, downgrading a slew of stocks; his colleague Daniel Heyler made a comparable on the foundries, lower ratings on a number of stocks.
“We are downgrading our view on the sector given unfavorable indications from our cyclical framework,” he writes.
Congress Cracks Down on (Its Own) File-Sharing
By Marisa Taylor
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The use of peer-to-peer networks for sharing files has come under fire during recent months, including the dismantling of Swedish BitTorrent site Pirate Bay, but it turns out even members of Congress need to be kept in check over their file-sharing practices.
Norwest Venture Partners Goes Big
By Pui-Wing Tam
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Norwest Venture Partners on Wednesday announced that it had closed a new venture-capital fund sized at $1.2 billion. That’s nearly double the size of the Silicon Valley venture firm’s last fund in 2006, which closed at $650 million.
The new fund is unusual in this day and age amid a tough fundraising environment brought on by the recession.
New California Rules to Make TVs Greener
By Rebecca Smith
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
California created the nation’s first energy-efficiency standard for television sets, arguing that it needed to act because federal energy officials have been slow to confront the issue.
Under the standard adopted Wednesday by the California Energy Commission, no TV with a screen size less than 58 inches may be sold in the state after 2011 unless it meets limits on energy consumption.
Why It Matters That Pierre Omidyar Is Doing a News Start-Up
By Dan Gillmor
Blogger, Mediactive
Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, is launching a for-profit news startup in Hawaii, where he and his family live.
A Brave New Web Will Be Here Soon, but Browsers Must Improve
By Michael Calore
Editor, Webmonkey, Wired
The great promise of HTML5 is that it will turn the web into a full-fledged computing platform awash with video, animation and real-time interactions, yet free of the hacks and plug-ins common today.
Can the Law Keep Up With Technology?
By Manav Tanneeru
Contributor, CNN Tech
In a case that would have been impossible even five years ago, bad-girl rocker Courtney Love is being sued for libel by a fashion designer for allegedly slamming the woman on Twitter.
Library in a Pocket
By Motoko Rich and Brad Stone
Reporters, New York Times
With Amazon’s Kindle, readers can squeeze hundreds of books into a device that is smaller than most hardcovers.
Music: Too Expensive to Be Free, Too Free to Be Expensive
By Eliot Van Buskirk
Contributor, Epicenter, Wired.com
MySpace, rumored to be on the verge of purchasing the free music streaming site imeem, is struggling to keep up with its own payments to music copyright holders, according to a top News Corp executive–a problem that has plagued every other licensed free music service.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sony Says Some E-Reader Orders May Miss Christmas
By Don Clark
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Two high-profile electronic-book readers seeking to challenge Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle could be scarce under the Christmas tree.
Sony Corp. Wednesday said orders for its new Daily Edition Reader–which the company said in August would arrive in time for the holidays–are now expected to ship Dec. 18 through Jan. 8. It added that the actual delivery date can’t be guaranteed.
Ripoff Alert: Senate Probes “Post Transaction Marketing,” Other Dubious Web Sales Practices; UNTD, VPRT Slide
By Eric Savitz
Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Several Internet stocks are taking some heat this morning following the release yesterday of a Senate report on aggressive sales tactics on the Web–and in particular singling out for scorn a practice known as “post-transaction marketing.”
Cybercrime Capitalizes on Swine-Flu Fears
By Marisa Taylor
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Cybercriminals are capitalizing on swine-flu fears by pitching sales of fake Tamiflu, security firm Sophos said.
Networks of fraudsters use spam and malware to direct Web traffic to phony pharmaceutical sites, wrote Graham Cluley, a technology consultant for Sophos.
Start-Ups Linking TV to the Web Talk Business Models
By Scott Austin
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
I remember my brother showing off a new device in the late 1990s that let him navigate the Internet on the television. Back then, there were no dogs riding skateboards on YouTube or NBC dramas on Hulu, but the technology from WebTV appeared to be a breakthrough in the convergence of the two mediums.
Solar Panel Makers Seek Local Ties
By Jerry A. Dicolo
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Solar panel makers, taking cues from industrial products like Trane air-conditioners and Andersen windows, are racing to roll-out networks of installers across the U.S. and internationally as they try to establish their brands in the residential market.
Feds Mull Rules, Fees to Spur Net Access
By Amy Schatz
Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Federal regulators are considering whether the government should take greater control of the Internet and ask consumers to pay higher phone charges in order to provide all Americans with cheaper access to broadband Internet service.
Viacom’s Top Lawyer: Suing P2P Users “Felt Like Terrorism”
By Nate Anderson
Senior Editor, Ars Technica
Michael Fricklas is Viacom’s general counsel, and it’s his job to oversee the company’s legal efforts, including its $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube.
Featured Partner
Ballmer: Windows 7 selling like hotcakes
By Ina Fried
Writer, CNET
At Microsoft’s shareholder meeting, the CEO says the OS has sold twice as fast in its early days as any prior version of Windows. He also takes a few shots at Apple.
Tech in Pictures
Almost Famous
Elemental Technologies’ Sam Blackman
By Drake Martinet
Intern, All Things Digital
A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: We caught up with Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies at the San Francisco NewTeeVee Live conference. Elemental Technologies hopes to become a major player in the future of online and over-the-air video through its high-performance encoding technology.
Featured Video
Jackson vs Bean from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.
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