Michael Santo
Recent posts
A requirement for a new residence has always been, in our opinion, broadband of some type, either DSL or cable modem service. Rural America is still pretty broadband-less, and may stay that way, because of the forever mighty profit margin. As population density drops outside of metropolitan areas, it's impossible for telecommunications...
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You may recall that the UniquePhones software unlocking solution has been delayed by a threat by AT&T. Meanwhile, iPhoneSIMFree has been pretty quiet. Yesterday, however, they released a FAQ which not only gives additional information about their unlocking solution, but also gives hope for a release — soon. 1. Would all the...
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Bluetooth and normal Wi-Fi, such as Draft-N, aren't too good for transferring large files, because of interference and other issues. Scientists are looking into using very high frequencies to develop nwe technologies for short-range wireless data transfer of large amounts of data. While Wi-Fi and Bluetooth have emerged as efficient...
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Some Easter Egg! It's not going to make you want to quit Microsoft Flight Simulator, but there's a hidden flight simulator inside Google Earth. You can even use a joystick with it. Though it’s nowhere close in features to the competition, Marco Gallotta found a hidden flight simulator feature inside the newest version of Google Earth —...
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Last month Nokia issued a massive battery recall. Unfortunately for this pregnant Indian woman, it didn't include her battery, which was of a different series, though still manufactured by Matsushita. The battery exploded 10 minutes after she plugged it into the charger. A pregnant woman was injured at her south Kolkata residence on...
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YouTube wanna-be users in Thailand felt a weight lift yesterday as the government lifted a 5-month ban of the video service. The ban was instituted when an anonymous user posted a clip deemed insulting to the king. The ban was imposed five months ago, after an anonymous user posted a clip showing digitally-altered images of revered...
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If you've used Google News, you know typically it carries a headline and a few snippets of text but sends readers to publishers' sites for the full story. This means that you might end up at the Seattle Times for an AP story. Now, however, Google will host wire service stories on its own site, instead of redirecting users to other sites....
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NBC Universal is the number one supplier of digital video that is distributed on iTunes, with 40% of the downloads, yet it was unable to come to terms with Apple - over what else, money. Because of this, and perhaps more, it will not be renewing its distribution contract with Apple. The company’s contract to sell more than 1,500 hours...
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In the spring Amazon.com said it would unveil a digital music store by year's-end. It looks like they are going to beat their timeline. Sources indicate that Amazon.com will launch an MP3-based music service in mid-September. However, it's also indicated that the date is somewhat fluid, as it has been pushed back several times already (shades...
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Ho-hum, it’s been nearly two weeks since the last Apple iPhone battery lawsuit. How time flies when lawyers are preparing briefs. Here we go with the third iPhone battery lawsuit. Interestingly, one of the attorneys representing the latest plaintiffs is Oakland-based lawyer H. Tim Hoffman, who also represents Sydney Leung, who...
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When will people learn? If you have a laptop with sensitive data on it, you should encrypt it. So many laptops or hard drives have been lost or stolen. And here we go again. A laptop containing unencrypted personal data on current and former employees of the AT&T Corp. was stolen recently from the car of an employee of a professional...
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Dell reported a 46% profit increase in its latest results Thursday, topping estimates - but it also indicated that future cost declines would slow, which could indicate problems to come for the beleaguered company. Dell, like competitors Hewlett-Packard Co and Apple Inc, profited from lower costs for computer components amid...
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Just two days ago Earthlink announced a layoff of 50% of its workforce Additionally, they announced that they felt they were going to re-evaluate their municipal wi-fi plans, which included (among other cities) citywide services in San Francisco. It seems re-evaluation has already taken place, as the San Francisco wi-fi plan, three years...
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You can bet Palm, Motorola, and any other smartphone makers broke out in a cold sweat today. This is just speculation still, but RIM shares are up $1 (at the time of this writing) over rumors that Microsoft is interested in buying the Blackberry manufacturer. "Microsoft has been mentioned as a possible buyer," said Frederic Ruffy,...
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Poor Windows XP. Vista gets all the attention, including focus on its service pack. But hey, there is going to be a Windows XP SP3 - however, it's just a rollup of all the fixes since SP2. Although Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is the big news of the day, Microsoft is concurrently preparing the third service pack for Windows...
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Six million miles, into space no less. The lightsaber used by Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker will be flown into space on the space shuttle, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. And let's be honest, when we talk about Star Wars, despite the "episodes," there is only one Star Wars movie. Doug Mattice, a spokesman...
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A few days ago Ageia announced a mobile physics processor. At the time we speculated that a good first match for it would be one of the laptops in Dell's lineup. It looks like we were right. Though apparently as yet unofficial, we received word today from sources at Dell that the company will soon begin to offer...
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After a lot of speculation, leaked builds and closed beta testing - without specific public details about SP1 - Microsoft today posted an announcement on their official Windows Vista blog detailing SP1 and their plans for it. Now is the time and the time is now: let's talk about Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). Much has been made...
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802.11n has taken forever to come to market - and it's still in Draft status, not even fully ratified. Interoperability between chipsets is still a problem, as is the "bad neighbor" effect. Yet the Burton Group today issued a report saying that businesses should plan on moving from gigabit LAN to wi-fi. In a report comparing gigabit...
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Some of you may never have heard of AutoPatcher. Well, how many of you have received a new computer with Windows XP SP2, and immediately hooked it up to the Internet to download all the post-SP2 hotfixes? What a pain, right? AutoPatcher was the fix for that. It was a freeware project that put all the fixes into one downloadable image, that...
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The latest build of Windows Vista SP1 was distributed to its beta testers last week. Naturally it was also distributed to the likes of BitTorrent and other P2P file-sharing networks, though of course without Microsoft's permission. Unlike the first build that was released, this was a .EXE file, not an ISO image. Build 6.0.6001.16633 (longhorn.070803-1655)...
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Earthlink has won a number of municipal wi-fi contracts, including San Francisco (!), but it still needs to find ways to balance its ISP business, which is struggling, with the high cost of building its municipal Wi-Fi and cellular phone businesses. The solution, at least for now, is a layoff. On Tuesday, EarthLink announced that it would...
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