Podcasts

Can Nokia Find a New Niche?
September 19, 2012

Hello, and welcome to a TechNewsWorld podcast. My name is David Vranicar, I'm a reporter for TechNewsWorld, and today we're going to be talking with Jessica Dolcourt, a senior technology editor. We have enlisted Jessica today to talk about Nokia, a company that she has written about extensively and whose products she has reviewed extensively.

Combatants Getting Down and Dirty in Chinese Search Wars
September 12, 2012

Today we're going to be talking with Tech In Asia Editor Charlie Custer about the ongoing spat between a pair of Chinese search engines -- the dominant incumbent, Baidu, and a newer search engine, Qihoo, which has launched recently and which has caused some waves in the Chinese search engine world.

Apple's Television Vision
August 18, 2012

Apple has been sizing up the world of television for a long time now with very hungry eyes. The company almost never reveals its plans out loud, of course, but if you test the PH level of the rumor pool, it's starting to look a lot like it did about six years ago, just before the first iPhone came along.

Apple v. Samsung: The Trial and the Tribulations
August 04, 2012

Samsung and Apple have been battling it out in courtrooms all over the world for months, if not years, with the worldwide conflict becoming kind of a dull hum in the background. This motion goes that way, that one goes this way, lawyers keep lawyering, whatever. But what's going on in California this week is supposed to be the case that's actually exciting, because it's come to the point of a real trial.

Marissa Explains It All
July 21, 2012

Given its lousy financial performance, periodic bouts of layoffs, questionable patent litigation strategy and security lapses, Yahoo appears to be adrift, listing, off course, capsizing. Name any unfavorable nautical condition, and it probably applies to Yahoo.

Yahoo Stuck Without SQL Injection Antidote
July 14, 2012

The term "SQL injection" sounds pretty scary -- kind of medical, painful, maybe even lethal. And it can be, for websites that fall victim to it. It involves tricking a site into forming a rogue SQL command that prompts a database to deliver its contents right into the hands of the attacker. If it's successful, a hacker can gain access to a ton of sensitive information.

Google Flexes Nexus' Tablet Muscles
June 30, 2012

Everyone in the tech world now suddenly wants to make their own hardware. Apple's been doing it for years, but Microsoft jumped on recently with the Surface tablet, and now Google's sort of making its own tablet too. I say "sort of" because the new Nexus 7 tablet isn't really made by Google. Like everything else in the Nexus line, it's made by a name-brand hardware builder -- in this case Asus.

Microsoft Gives Hardware Partners Some Hard Knocks
June 23, 2012

Microsoft's slow crawl to the tablet market is nearly at an end. It's designed the interface of its next operating system, Windows 8, to be easy to use on tablets as well as desktops. It's created a special version, Windows 8 RT, especially for mobile ARM-based devices. It's even shoved out multiple free preview versions of the upcoming OS.

MacBookius Superior: Apple's New Super-Powered Mutant
June 16, 2012

The bulk of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference basically amounts to a massive teach-in for makers of Apple software. But each year the event is kicked off with a traditional big-production Apple keynote, and ever since the company kicked MacWorld to the curb, that keynote has often served as an occasion to roll out some major new hardware upgrades.

LinkedIn: Unsalted, Assaulted and Faulted
June 09, 2012

An extremely determined and talented digital intruder can find a way to break through the security of just about any website. So when you hear about a site getting hacked, the fact that there was a break-in doesn't necessarily mean that anyone was incredibly lazy or inept or asleep at the switch. Sometimes a site just gets outplayed by a criminal genius.

FaceBlech
May 26, 2012

Facebook's big debut on Wall Street turned out to be a milestone the company probably wants to forget as soon as it can, though that won't be possible for a pretty long time. By most accounts, Facebook's IPO was a disaster. Market glitches, bad decisions and allegations of shady dealings marred the social network's first day out

Verizon Lets the Sun Go Down on Unlimited Data
May 19, 2012

Wireless carriers have begun to realize that when you offer flat-rate, all-you-can-eat deals, it tends to bring out the pig in people. Whether it's food or beer or cellular data, customers will gorge themselves on it, and the buffet arrangement can quickly turn into a money-losing proposition if you don't plan it out just right.

The Thompson Crisis: Sloppy Whopper or Poor Career Personal Hygiene?
May 11, 2012

It's been more than a week since Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson's resume blew up in his face, and by the looks of things, the Yahoo board isn't bothered by it. They're not bothered enough to fire the guy, anyway. Thompson's still in charge at Yahoo, and a week's worth of morale-melting embarrassment and haranguing from Dan Loeb haven't been enough to change that.

The Samsung Galactic Empire
May 05, 2012

This past week has been especially kind to Samsung. Big sales numbers were followed by the unveiling of the Galaxy S III, the company's latest flagship phone and one that could very well own the market this summer. The S III runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google's operating system and one that up to this point hasn't taken residence on a very large number of phones.

Would You Let Your Data Sleep Over at Google's House?
April 28, 2012

A lingering cloud of Google vaporware finally condensed recently into an actual product. Google Drive has been a subject of speculation for years, but now the company's own cloud storage service is here for real. Google Drive lets anyone store a few gigabytes worth of data on Google's servers.

Larry vs. Larry
April 21, 2012

A San Francisco courtroom is presently the center ring in the worldwide tech IP litigation circus. While other legal battles over mobile device patents and copyrights are as down and dirty as ever in places like Germany, Australia, and elsewhere in the U.S., the fight between Oracle and Google over the alleged theft of Java technologies stands out due to its cast of characters.

The People vs. Apple
April 14, 2012

Apple has been accused of acting as ringleader of a price-fixing racket, enlisting half a dozen market-dominating companies in a conspiracy to profiteer through anticompetitive practices and artificial price inflation. The market: e-books. The U.S. DoJ sued Apple along with a handful publishers, accusing them of orchestrating a sales agreement that effectively changed the business model under which e-books were sold.

Google Gazes Into the Looking Glass
April 07, 2012

A while back we started hearing rumors about some kind of secret project Google was working on involving eyeglasses -- smart eyeglasses. You'd wear them like a normal pair of specs, but they'd somehow be connected to the Web, possibly through the Android phone in your pocket. And the lenses would display all kinds of information -- text and images relating to whatever it is you're looking at.

Another iThing, Another iTempest
March 24, 2012

The debut of the latest iPad was once again an orgy of revenue for Apple. The company claims 3 million were sold in the opening weekend, and that certainly does sound like a lot. But just as iPad sales are running hot, apparently so are the iPads themselves. Some users claim the devices are growing alarmingly warm in their hands during heavy use.

AT&T Flails in the Quicksand
March 17, 2012

The name of AT&T's pain, for this month anyway, is Matthew Spaccarelli. He's a customer that gave the carrier a small thumping in court, and that would have left AT&T with a very minor scab. But it seems the company just couldn't resist picking at it. It all started when Spaccarelli took AT&T to small-claims court over his smartphone data rate being throttled.