Technology Industry Archive

The curtain has been officially raised on Facebook Connect, a feature that links partner Web sites with the profiles of Facebook members.(Techmeme) Everyday, Facebook looks more and more like a platform instead of just another social networking site. Now, using Facebook Connect, members can share information about the things they’re doing outside of Facebook with the friends they’re...

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Microsoft has hired former Yahoo executive Qi Lu to run its online services business. Lu will start on January 5 and report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, according to a CNET report. The company also announced that Brian McAndrews, the former CEO of Aquantive and a Microsoft advertising executive considered to be the leading internal candidate for the online job, would be leaving...

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday said it will publish data sets such as the Human Genome, U.S. Census and labor statistics to its cloud to make the information easier to access for researchers. For starters, Amazon will publish various U.S. Census databases from the U.S. Census Bureau, 3-D chemical structures provided by Indiana University and an annotated form of the Human Genome from...

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Maybe Cyber Monday should be Black Ink Monday– According to comScore, the analyst firm that most everyone quotes on such matters, e-commerce spending on Monday jumped by 15 percent over last year to hit $847 million. It does raise questions, however, whether some of this is simply cannibalization of sales that would otherwise have gone to stores. In fact, it’s hard to see that it...

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It’s time for the U.S. to step up to the broadband plate. A coalition of companies that includes Google, Cisco, AT&T and Verizon, among others, has sent an open letter (PDF), asking President-elect Obama and Congress to make broadband deployment a high priority for 2009, according to a CNET report. The group - which also includes public interest groups and other organizations - has issued...

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Can Apple, specifically its iPhone, save an entire industry? The iPhone - now ranked the second most popular smartphone - saw strong enough adoption in the quarter ending Sept. 30 to mask the sluggishness of the overall smartphone market this past summer, according to a report by Needham & Co. research analyst Charlie Wolf. The iPhone now accounts for 16.6 percent of the smartphone market...

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Former AOL Chief Jonathan Miller is looking in the couch cushions to raise enough money to buy a part–if not all of Yahoo. According to the Wall Street Journal, Miller has been talking to private equity folks and sovereign wealth funds to buy Yahoo for about $20 to $22 a share. Miller would have to raise about $28 billion to $30 billion. This report has trial balloon written all over it. And...

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Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry predicts Google’s revenue will fall in the next two years and the company is about to hit its adolescent stage with board conflicts and layoffs. In a research note, Chowdhry lays out the case. The gist: The economy is putting pressure on Google ads; users are tuning out sponsored text on the right and competition from Microsoft is increasing. As...

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Microsoft loses Internet gateway ground — The number of people using Internet Explorer dropped to below 70 percent as both Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox made gains. [Source: ZDNet's Between the Lines] CES to feel the spending heat — January’s Consumer Electronics Show is feeling consumer pain. The trade show expects to be smaller than in 2008 or even 2007....

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If Black Friday is supposed to be the stomping grounds — unfortunately literal in some cases — of the average consumer, then Cyber Monday should test the spending mettle of the more techno-savvy that head online. It actually doesn’t, as the freewheeling spending online generally comes later in the year, but it’s worthwhile continuing to see how things are shaping up,...

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