08/21/2008

GameStop 2Q earnings blow away analysts' estimates 11:18 AM CT
The video game retailer said revenue hit $1.8 billion in the quarter, up from $1.34 billion in the same time a year ago. Profit jumped to $57.2 million, or 34 cents per share, compared to $21.8 million, or 13 cents per share, last year.

08/19/2008

American Airlines launches in-flight broadband service

SUZANNE MARTA/DMN

American Airlines launched its GoGo in-flight broadband service on Wednesday. For $12.95 per flight, passengers can get online from the air.

For $12.95 per flight, passengers on AA flights using its Boeing 767-200 will be able to surf the Net, check e-mail, instant message and access corporate VPN accounts using the system by Aircell LLC.
Blog: Aviation Biz

Analysts: U.S. consumers buying fewer cellphones, paying more
The NPD Group said in a report Tuesday that 28 million cell phones were sold in the United States in the second quarter, a decline of 13 percent from the same period a year ago.

Cellphone firms adding to the wait
Wireless companies seem not to have gotten the memo. According to a recent J.D. Power and Associates study, the average time customers waited to speak to a representative at their wireless phone company in early 2008 was 4.4 minutes, up 34 percent from the none-too-brief 3.3 minutes in 2003.

Japan reports 2 iPods overheating, suspects defect
Japan is investigating a possible battery defect in the popular iPod Nano music player after reports that two overheated in Tokyo, scorching nearby paper and a woven straw mat, a government official said Tuesday.

08/18/2008

U.S. is lagging on free cell TV
Picture whipping out your cellphone and catching up with Lost or Jeopardy , or watching the local 11 o'clock news, all for free. You can do this with an imported Chinese phone, but you can't with any phone sold in the U.S. – at least not without monthly charges.

Saysme.tv streamlines process for getting homemade ads on TV
Saysme.tv didn't invent the loudmouth, but, as the company's logo indicates, it sure hopes to sell him a megaphone.

08/15/2008

New BlackBerry expected within month in N. America
The first major new BlackBerry model in more than a year, the Bold is a high-end BlackBerry that has twice the screen resolution of current models made by RIM.

Tech review: Three kinds of external batteries keep iPhones ringing and singing
If there's one gripe about the iPhone 3G, it's the battery life. Apple chose not to make the iPhone battery user-replaceable, so keeping the single internal battery running is your first priority.

Court says copyrights apply even for free software
People are free to use that material in their own products, but they must credit the original authors of the programming code and release their modifications into the wild as well, a cycle that's critical for free software to continue improving.

08/14/2008

Is a manufacturing glitch slowing down iPhone 3g?
The report said the most likely cause of the 3G problems is defective adjustments between the antenna and an amplifier that captures very weak signals from the antenna. This could lead to poor 3G connectivity and slower data speeds.

New Yahoo service helps users share their location
So far, Yahoo has spotted about 50 applications using Fire Eagle, including one that a user built to track himself and another meant to add locations to blog posts.

New chips to let computers wake up to take a phone call
Current computers have to be fully on to receive a call, making them impractical and energy-wasters as replacements for the telephone.

08/13/2008

Kwiry service lets users text to remember tidbits
After signing up on kwiry's Web site, you can start sending text messages to "kwiry," or "59479" on a phone's keypad. When you're back at a computer, you can visit kwiry's Web site to see items displayed.

Motorists turn to carpool sites as gas prices rise

AP

The number of daily visitors to eRideShare has jumped about threefold since February.. A rival site, Carpoolworld.com, had about 4,400 new U.S. registrations in both June and July, compared with some 800 in February.

Best Buy to sell iPhones
Wednesday's announcement by Best Buy expands the availability of Apple's vaunted phone to 970 full-size stores and 16 smaller Best Buy Mobile stores. It's also a coup for the Minneapolis-based chain, which has been upgrading its cell-phone departments.

08/12/2008

Dell upgrades Latitude business notebook line
In addition to routine improvements like faster chips, the fourth-generation Latitudes come with built-in encryption, fingerprint readers, back-lit keys and batteries that last 10 hours or more on a single charge. Many will last 19 hours, Dell announced during a Web cast Tuesday.

Review: Online Olympics is ambitious, but not TV
The video isn't full-screen, but it is crisp, with little stuttering. But the Internet won't be replacing television anytime soon. At most, it's good for sneaking in some tennis at work or watching events that are not likely to get more than highlights on TV.

Tiffany appeals eBay counterfeiting decision
EBay has removed listings when Tiffany notified it of suspected counterfeit goods, but it has refused to go further and preemptively take down suspicious listings before any such notification.

08/11/2008

Court blocks MIT students from showing subway hack
The temporary restraining order prevented the Massachusetts Institute of Technology students from demonstrating at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas how to use the vulnerabilities to get free rides.

Broadband growth plummets in 2Q
The 20 largest cable and telephone companies added a net 887,000 high-speed Internet subscribers in the three months ending June 30.

Card-counting whiz eyes Facebook football fantasy
Ma and Kerns, who run Citizen Sports Inc., reason that fantasy sports are ideally suited for online social networks like Facebook because the leagues are typically formed by groups of friends looking to deepen their bonds.

08/08/2008

Study finds Net search becoming far more prevalent
Search is approaching e-mail as the most popular thing to do on the Internet. About half of Internet users perform a search on any given day, while about 60 percent use e-mail.

Tech review: Eos' speakers for the iPod pump high-quality audio

Eos

It's hard to stick out amidst the glut of iPod speakers out there. Yet if you need to pump audio to your back yard, bathroom or any other room in your home, you should consider the high-quality – and pricey – Eos wireless system.

Even computer security pros vulnerable to scams
A relatively simple ruse persuaded dozens of prominent security analysts to connect on their social networking Web pages with people who weren't friends at all.