Technology News

Online Video Usage Exploding, Study Says

Source: PC Magazine
July 30, 2009

Hold on to your bandwidth – online video is growing in popularity, according to Wednesday data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. About 62 percent of adults who use the Internet have watched video online, up from 33 percent in December 2006. Not surprisingly, online video is most popular among those aged 18 to 29, where viewership is at a “near-universal" 89 percent, Pew said. About 36 percent of those people watch online video on a daily basis, ...

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Barnes and Noble Stores to Provide Free WI-Fi

Source: PC Magazine
July 30, 2009

Barnes & Noble customers have had access to paid Wi-Fi hotspots at individual outlets of the popular nationwide bookseller since 2005. The company announced Tuesday, however, that it has signed a strategic agreement with AT&T to implement free and unlimited access to all of its 777 stores' wireless networks. This move seems to be intended, at least in part, to help support the Barnes & Noble's ever-expanding eBook initiative. We reviewed Barnes & Noble's new eReader application last week, and ...

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Time Warner Buys Google's Stake in AOL For $283m

Source: PC Magazine
July 29, 2009

Time Warner Inc paid $283 million for Google Inc's 5 percent stake in AOL, the Internet company said in a U.S. regulatory filing on Monday. Time Warner, which plans to spin off AOL by the end of the year, bought the stake from Google on July 8, AOL said in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The price that the company paid for Google's stake implies that AOL has a total value of about $5.7 billion. The ...

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Should U.S. Govt. Track You with Cookies?

Source: PC Magazine
July 29, 2009

Should the government allow federal Web sites to use web-tracking technologies like cookies? The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) within the White House is pondering that question and wants your input. Federal agencies have been banned from using web-tracking technologies since 2000, but a lot has happened in nine years, and OMB is now looking into whether government Web sites should accept cookies. “The goal of this review is to develop a new policy that allows the Federal Government ...

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Digital Music Market: Evolving Business Models, New Challenges and the Future

Source: HypeBot
July 28, 2009

A new Digital Market Outlook study says that the increasing adoption of broadband and mobile technologies and the widespread adoption of smartphones and portable music devices continue to drive the digital music marketplace. Key findings: The global digital music market will grow from $4.81bn in 2009 to $13.74bn by 2013 The industry is characterized by rapidly changing structure and an evolving value chain. New players are entering the market for digital music distribution and rapidly expanding their revenue streams to ...

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Could an Apple "Cocktail" Bring New Life to the Album and the Music Inudstry?

Source: HypeBot
July 28, 2009

Apple and the four major label groups are reportedly collaborating on an interactive album bundle that would add additional content like liner notes, lyrics, videos and more to every album download.

Code named Cocktail, “It's all about recreating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork while you listened to the music," one executive familiar with the initiative told the Financial Times. “It's not just a bunch of PDFs. There's real ...

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How an Apple Tablet Could Pit iTunes Against Amazon.com

Source: All About Jazz
July 27, 2009

With rumors piling up about a forthcoming Apple tablet, it appears more and more likely that such a device will emerge soon.

But whats still unclear is how this gadget will set itself apart from Apples multimedia-savvy product line, including the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the scores of failed tablet PCs that have come and gone. Judging from the companys past moves, were betting that Apples tablet will be a media-centric device, focused at least in part ...

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Can Technology Save Us from the Recession?

Source: PC Magazine
July 25, 2009

At an afternoon panel at Fortune Brainstorm Tech, there was a lot of discussion of technology and its role in the recession, and the reverse. Moderator Stephanie Mehta brought up a Fortune story that suggested that there was no big idea as important as the semiconductor or the browser. John Chen, CEO of Sybase disagreed, talking about the importance of mobile and green tech, while eSolar CEO Bill Gross said he thought we were on the brink of a new ...

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