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From CNNmoney: Playboy magazine is offering galleries of photographs that can be viewed on digital media players such as the Apple iPod. The magazine said it will offer galleries of both non-nude and nude models, using the name ‘iBod.’ I highly doubt that Apple was thinking of this sort of thing when they created the …
From NYT: Try to reach customer service at Amazon.com to fix a problem with an order and you will encounter one of the most prominent and frustrating aspects of the Internet era: a world devoid of humans. Not only is there no telephone number on Amazon’s Web site, but the company makes a point of …
From eWeek: Many travelers by now are accustomed to getting maps and driving directions on the Internet. A new offering from Yahoo Inc. will now provide real-time traffic conditions as well. Using information from radio traffic reports, police scanners, embedded road sensors and traffic helicopters, Yahoo will warn motorists of construction and other delays along …
A nice review from MSNBC: Technology proved a mixed blessing in 2004, taking three steps forward and two steps back –maybe even two and a half steps back. Biometrics were supposed to make our borders safer; but chip-enabled visas and the US-VISIT fingerprinting program raised just as many questions as they answered. Online banking soared …
From NewsFactor: The U.S. has maintained its dubious distinction of being the world’s top producer of spam, leading the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list compiled by security Latest News about Security authority Sophos by a wide margin. After scanning all spam messages received at a global network of traps throughout the past year, Sophos researchers determined that …
From NewsFactor: As December comes to a close, the group that launched the upstart Web browser application Firefox can look back on 2004 with satisfaction. Mozilla has seen the Firefox browser downloaded over 13 million times since its release in November. A companion e-mail program — Thunderbird — was released in December. And the nonprofit …
From the NYT: Ten years ago, Kodak manufactured the first digital camera aimed for sale to retail consumers, the $749 QuickTake 100, sold by Apple Computer. But by 2000, Sony had muscled in as the leading digital camera maker and Kodak was hovering near 5 percent of the market, a dire position, while the film …
From BBC: Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in ‘weight’. Music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras laptops and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), a Toshiba study found. It found that more than 60% kept 1,000 to 2,000 music …
From USA Today: A federal judge has awarded an Internet service provider more than $1 billion in what is believed to be the largest judgment ever against spammers. Robert Kramer, whose company provides e-mail service for about 5,000 subscribers in eastern Iowa, filed suit against 300 spammers after his inbound mail servers received up to …
This is from Michael’s Minutes. Michael Robertson is the CEO of Linspire, and he is determined to get Linux out there to the masses. Linspire has been working for months on a project that will have a profound impact on consumers and on the Linux market – a sub-$500 laptop from a major retailer. This …