Hey, docs: Someone stole your data.
The Blue Cross Blue and Blue Shield Association is warning about 800,000 doctors (nearly every practicing physician in the country) that a laptop containing some of their personal information was stolen, the Chicago Tribune reports.
We have covered what you can do if your laptop has been stolen, but with the proliferation of other portable gadgets–cameras, cell phones, e-book readers–theft recovery applies to more than just your computer.
David Lin is traveling lighter for business lately.
Is this the year that location-based applications, already popular among mobile users, migrate to desktops and laptops as well?
Ryan Sarver, director of consumer products at Skyhook Wireless, which operates a Wi-Fi-based positioning system, is betting so. “It feels like 2009 is a huge year for location on laptops,” he told the crowd of techies at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Wednesday.
In a report combining consumer electronics, semiconductors, and infrastructure software analysis, Pacific Crest Securities equity researchers today write that Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 7 is “a dramatic improvement over Vista” and that it has “implications for the technology sector” beyond just what it will do for Microsoft.
The year of hope and change is certainly off to a grim start in the tech world. Last week alone saw layoff announcements from stalwarts like Intel and Microsoft, as well as Web 2.0 companies like Digg, just to name a few.
Dell called a bunch of reporters to a room at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas and gave them a sneak peek at a widely rumored laptop called Adamo. It was literally just a peek; the stylish, thin notebook PC was held up briefly by a stylish, thin fashion model who goes by the single name Hollis. A small mob of photographers was allowed to snap away for a minute or two, and then the Adamo was hustled out of the room.
So here I am. In a hotel room in New York. The writing desk and its view of xth Avenue are all but obscured by: 7 x Mini USB cables. Two of them are the new Micro type that Blackberry has switched to for the Storm only, the rest are standard. 1 x Ethernet cable. Into wall-socket of hotel room. 8 bucks a day.
New laptops that boot up in 30 seconds? Too slow for me. Five seconds? Better, but what I want is a machine that’s ready in about a second, just like my smartphone.
In my last article I described what it feels like to have your house struck by lightning. Luckily there were no injuries or structural damage (thanks for your kind words in the comments), but our gadgets and other electronics inside the house weren’t so lucky. This is their tale.
The One Laptop Per Child project, which developed the low-cost XO education laptop for developing countries, has revealed plans for its next-generation mobile computing device. The new system, which will have a clamshell form-factor with two 16:9 touch-screen displays and no hardware keyboard, is expected to sell for $75 per unit and will be available in 2010. That’s the hope, at least. The reality is likely to be quite different, given the project’s troubled history.
I was so excited when my new MacBook Air arrived the other day. When I opened the box and examined this laptop, I was amazed by how razor thin and how light it is–just .76 of an inch and only 3 pounds. It has a full-size illuminated keyboard, which is terrific for working in a dimly lit car or on an airplane. And I really love the trackpad, which works in much the same way as the Apple iPhone, giving you many more options by simply moving your fingers. I also use an HP laptop on a regular basis because I like to be well versed on both platforms and be able to multitask. Both computers sit side by side on my desk in my kitchen and having them right there together is very convenient for me.
Apple is widely regarded as one of the most effective companies at launching products today, but some people chalk this up solely to Steve Jobs’s star power.
As a launch consultant, I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing Apple’s product introductions and I have seen that while there is no denying that Jobs is a very powerful element in Apple’s launches, there are plenty of things that Apple does that can be learned and emulated by other companies, small or large.
Having seen Apple’s MacBook Air notebook computer up close, I’m as dazzled as everyone else who’s had a chance to examine this delicious piece of industrial design. Dazzled doesn’t translate to handing over a credit card, however–at least not yet, and not solely because it’s almost never a good idea to buy Apple’s (or anyone else’s) hardware immediately after its initial release.
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