Michael Santo
Recent posts
They are still quite expensive, and not large enough for our tastes, but Seagate is still jumping into the flash-based hard drive market. Their first entry will most likely be in the enterprise market, according to CEO Bill Watkins. "We are going to have a solid state drive, probably for enterprise first," Watkins said on Wednesday....
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Showing it is indeed possible for us to all "just get along," Microsoft and Nokia have made nice. Nokia phones will be getting mobile versions of Windows Live services on its handhelds, starting today. Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, it's Europe and the Middle East only for now. Nokia and Microsoft said Thursday they...
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After a flurry of stories, and even a YouTube video showing the huge iPhone bills some users were getting - not in terms of money, but in terms of pages - AT&T has put an end to them. This is likely to be a great relief to mail carriers, some of whom were totiing bills so big that they numbered in the hundreds of pages, and were too large...
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In an attempt to capitalize on the name recognition of Java, which is more well-known to the general public than Sun Microsystems itself, Sun will be changing its stock ticker symbol next week from SUNW to JAVA. "The number of people who know Java swamps the number of people who know Sun," Schwartz wrote. "JAVA is a technology...
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Microsoft Hardware’s Got Game: SideWinder Line Is Back With a Mouse That Defines Customized Gaming Control LEIPZIG, Germany, Aug. 22, 2007 Today at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, Microsoft Hardware debuts the revival of its SideWinder™ line with its first gaming mouse built from the ground up...
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is expected to announce the resignation of Henri Richard, Chief Sales Officer, later today. The resignation comes not long after the latest quarterly results were announced, with AMD suffering a third straight quarterly loss. Richard has led AMD's marketing efforts since 2002, spanning an era when the company...
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That is definitely an impressive percentage, especially when you consider that desktop sales are dropping while notebook sales are rising. According to NPD, Apple’s U.S. retail notebook market share for June 2007 rose 2.2% from last year's 15.4% mark. As well as the notebooks are doing, Apple’s overall standing among computer makers is...
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Contracts with the carriers and Apple were signed in the last few days. Of particular interest, however, is that the contract requires the carriers to give Apple 10% of iPhone revenues derived from phone and data calls. This is something the carriers have strongly resisted in the past, and shows just how much they wanted the latest must-have...
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It's been less than two months, and already we've seen two iPhone software updates. This second one, like the first, focuses on bug fixes. Much like the first, there aren't many details available. This one weighs in at 92MB.It's pretty amazing how Apple continues to do this, as experience has shown that carrier certifications of these types...
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Google says it has devised an ad format for YouTube that - and here's the unbelievable part - is not annoying. Now how could they possibly arrange that, since in this age of Tivo and other PVRs, as well as banner blocking software for your web browser, ads are almost by nature, annoying? TV viewers have grown accustomed to watching a show...
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Today Comcast today responded to reports by the blog Torrentfreak, which we posted a few days ago. In that article, it was reported that users were experiencing slowdowns and even dropped transfers, and that Comcast was the culprit. Over the past few days, these claims have been widely circulated throughout the Web. But when I spoke...
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MTV has decided to shut down its URGE service, while joining RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless together in a joint venture, centered around RealNetworks' Rhapsody. URGE users will be able to migrate their accounts from URGE to Rhapsody. As part of this alliance, MTV Networks and Real are forming a new company, Rhapsody America,...
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Wal-Mart has joined the likes of Amazon.com and iTunes today - it is offering MP3 downloads, free of DRM. Much as it's hard to applaud anything Wal-Mart does, it is a major step when the world's largest retailer signs up. Wal-Mart announces the launch of "DRM-free" MP3 music downloads, now available online at http://www.walmart.com. At...
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Google's GrandCentral has promised its clients a single phone number "for life." Unfortunately, after local carriers dropped out, Grandcentral had to change the numbers of 400 clients. GrandCentral, which Google acquired last month, had to change about 400 of the supposedly perpetual numbers it had assigned to clients. By doing so,...
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Lucky and Flo (pictured) were the first dogs trained to sniff out optical discs by their chemical composition. They were loaned to the Malaysian government in March by the Motion Picture Association. They were so good at their job, in fact, that a bounty of $29,000 was put out on them. They've finished their 6-month assignment in Malaysia...
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Rumors of the death of HD-DVD have been - well, you know the old saying. Recent moves by retailers like Blockbuster have led to speculation about the demise of HD-DVD. Today, however, Paramount gave HD-DVD a needed boost, by saying, rather than releasing titles on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, as they had decided in 2005, they were switching...
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Besides the obvious breaches in personal information we all hear about - lost laptops, stolen hard drives, lost CDs - there is the less obvious. An example would be accidental or intentional sending of sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, via email. Or even, as has happened fairly recently, sending denigrating comments...
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No, it wasn't a bad Windows Update patch that caused the massive Skype outage that started last Thursday and continued into the weekend. It was the semi-synchronized massive reboot across the globe, which exposed a bug in the Skype Code. On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical...
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All cell phones have the ability to make a 911 call even if the service on the phone is disconnected. This is a requirement of the Federal Comunications Commission, and while this is an obvious safety measure, it's also being mis-used by some to make prank calls to 911. Emergency dispatch operators say they're getting an increasing number...
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In Coral Gables, Florida, an enterprising pastor wants to bribe (his words) new people into attending its iSermons. This is the same church, Church of the Glades, that in January drew 50,000 hits to its website with a billboard proclaiming "The Bare Naked Truth on Sex." Anyone who comes to its iThemed services for the first...
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I know that it's crazyI know that it's nowhereBut there is no denying thatIt's hip to be square(Huey Lewis & the News)Admit it: Silicon Valley is the land of the Geek. For startups, this generally translates to things like video games, foosball and table tennis. Now the latest "stress reliever" in Silicon Valley is that old schoolyard...
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About a year ago we decided our living room furniture was on its last legs. It had been a cheap sectional set, and it was badly in need of replacement. We had never tried buying furniture online before, except for small items such as TV stands or footstools. With the trend toward lower prices on the Internet, and looking at a retail price...
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