BARCELONA, Spain — If the wildest dreams of Intel and Nokia come true, we’ll be talking about themarket-shaping might of NokTel for years to come.The technology heavyweights joined forces on Monday at the MobileWorld Congress inBarcelona to unveil MeeGo, a software platform designed to run on just aboutany computing device you can imagine, from cars and home phones to computersand cellphones. MeeGo represents an attempt to merge two flavors of the Linuxoperating system — Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo — into one.And, if you didn’t catch it, MeeGo also stands as a primarycompetitor toGoogle’sLinux-based Android software and as a rival to Apple’siPhone software and Microsoft’sWindows Mobile.“I think it’s important that there are alternatives that aretruly ope...
If online shoppers do not get a deal and free shipping, they are unlikely to make a purchase.That was one conclusion made by comScore, the online measurement firm, when it analyzed e-commerce data for 2009.Online shops know what their customers are looking for. Over the holidays, they offered more deals than ever before, though the discounts were smaller than last year. They used social networks like Facebook and Twitter to publicize deals. They also adjusted to free shipping becoming “another fact of life,” in the words of Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore.Thirty six million people visited coupon sites in December to get discount codes for e-commerce sites. Private, limited-time sale sites, led byHauteLook and Gilt, had huge increases in traffic and attracted a surprisingly...
The iPad is Apple's new tablet computer.Steven P. Jobs positioned the iPad as a device that sits between the laptop and the smart phone - and which does certain things better than both of them, like browsing the Web, reading e-books and playing video. There was enormous anticipation leading up to its release on Jan. 27, 2010. Media companies hoped that the device would finally lead to a viable way for them to charge for news, books and other material.The iPad's features and specifications, once the stuff of Internet myth, are now sharply in focus: The half-inch thick, 1.5-pound device will feature a 9.7-inch multi-touch screen and is powered by a customized Apple microchip, which it has dubbed A4. The iPad will have the same operating system as the iPhone and access to its 140,000 applications.The price ...
Perhaps you, like me, have a friend who is always fond of the obvious. Perhaps that friend doesn't work at Google.Having launched its new Buzz service last week, melding some mimicry of Twitter and Facebook, Google seemed to take a page straight from the latter's Beacon of customer service by creating start-up settings that were anything other than comfortable, anything other than private.This seemed obvious to many. Now, having been buzzed by feedback from annoyed users and commentators, Google announced on its blog Saturday that it will make radical changes to the Buzz start-up experience over the next few days.In a post by Gmail and Google Buzz Product Manager Todd Jackson, Google says that it has been listening "loud and clear."Firstly, and really quite importantly, Google confesses to being taken aback t...
