Fightin' words: What Web users searched and said during the debates
If you're tired of the election season, you "don't want to hear another word about it." The rest of the country, however, had words of its own to get out during the recent debates.
Google, which rarely misses a chance to show off a nifty search, has been tracking the popular search terms during the McCain-Obama face-offs and the Biden-Palin match. The site's Google Trends function doesn't offer sufficiently granular results as to see moment-to-moment trends (at least not to those of us outside the Googleplex), but the keepers of the official Google blog favored the Web with some stats.
Hands-on with Sprint's Xohm network in Baltimore: Does WiMAX deliver?
Sprint heralded the launch of its Xohm WiMax network in Baltimore last week by calling for the death of wireline broadband. But how does it stand up against cable and DSL, or wireless 3G services? BetaNews has been using Xohm for the past month in order to find out.
The promise of WiMax is nothing short of grand: blanket cities across the United States and around the world with 4Mbps wireless at a cost cheaper than existing services and with the simplicity of connecting to a Wi-Fi network. 4G wireless, Sprint proclaims, is an inevitable future. The company even offered a symbolic photo-op for journalists at its launch event: Xohm chief technology officer Barry West, joined by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and other WiMax partners snipping an Ethernet cable.
Green-vehicle manufacturer Tesla does dirty by its staff
Tesla, the buzzed-about clean-tech electric car maker, has delayed its S-model sedan, demoted its CEO, and closed its Michigan office -- the last action, via blog post.
Even in a world were romantic breakups via text messages aren't uncommon, the message from company chairman Elon Musk has stirred outrage. Meanwhile, the nature of the dismissals -- the Rochester Hill, Michigan office housed the engineering team working on the new midrange ($60,000) vehicle -- raised eyebrows among some observers who see a pattern in canning the tech employees rather than the money guys.
Hubble Space Telescope crashes again, and fix may not come until February
The 18-year-old Hubble Space Telescope hasn't sent any pictures for the past three weeks, and fixing the system in outer space hasn't exactly gone as smoothly as NASA officials hoped. Restoration of the telescope's operations fot hampered by a couple of unexplained problems -- or "anomalies," in NASA-speak -- earlier this week.
On Wednesday, flight controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD started to reinstate data transmsission for the telescope. To work around an inital failure that happened on September 27, the engineers began reconfiguring "six components of the Hubble Data Management System and five components in the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling (SIC &DH) system to use their redundant (or B) sides," says a Hubble status report.
Asus Eee PC celebrates first birthday with sub-$300 price
Just one year after the launch of the Eee PC, Asus is celebrating its surprise success -- and consumers are finding the device on sale in unlikely places for less than the cost of an iPhone.
Asus is largely responsible for the current "netbook" craze. It was not the first company to offer shrunken notebook computers, and it certainly does not offer the most elegantly designed, but through the proper balance of price, power, and availability, the Eee PC legitimized a form factor with an uncertain future.
Google CEO: Internet search is actually benefiting from recession
Google announced a 26 percent rise in third quarter profits on Thursday, while also dropping strong hints that even the phenomenally successful search engine giant has concerns about how to keep thriving during the tougher economic times ahead.
"Thanks to everybody's hard work. Google had a good quarter. Traffic and revenue were both solid and we kept tight control on costs," summed up Google CEO Eric Schmidt, during a conference call with analysts today.
Qwest sued by customers miffed over early termination fees
Qwest this week became the latest in a lengthening list of telcos sued by customers over early termination fees (EFTs), in a class action filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State.
Specifically, the suit by plaintiffs Rob Vernon and Rory Durkin challenges the practice of charging ETFs for broadband ISP services in so-called "price-for-life" plans.
US Treasury says IRS still hasn't fixed vulnerabilities in tax processing systems
Vulnerabilities in two IRS systems -- including the Customer Account Data Engine (CADE) developed to replace all existing tax processing systems at the agency -- were known and repeatedly raised during the nine-year development process but not addressed, according to an in-house report.
A statement from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which released the September report publicly on Thursday, says that "Security weaknesses in controls over sensitive data protection, system access, monitoring of system access, and disaster recovery have continued to exist even though key phases of the CADE and the AMS have been deployed. As a result, the IRS is jeopardizing the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of an increasing volume of tax information for millions of taxpayers as these systems are put into operation."
Yahoo launches new profiles aimed at making site more social
Yahoo has renewed its approach to making its site more social, rolling out a beta of its updated open profile system. The feature will enable Yahoo to better track and target ads to its users.
Yahoo has continually lagged behind the other "big four" search engines in the social networking space. Google owns Orkut and controls ads on MySpace, Microsoft has its own Windows Live Spaces and a minor stake in Facebook, and AOL owns Bebo.
Apple sells 200 millionth TV episode, over 1 million in HD
Although it didn't announce any new content for its iTunes Store, Apple reiterated that it is now carrying content from all four major television networks alongside news that it has sold 200 million TV episodes.
Apple began selling television shows via iTunes almost exactly three years ago, starting with a handful of programs from Disney's ABC. Since that time, Apple has expanded its library to over 30,000 episodes from most of the major TV networks.
Mac users flaming over FireWire; Jobs shrugs
Some Mac veterans are in an ecstasy of grief over the absence of Apple's own FireWire port from the new low-end MacBook. But what does it mean?
Mac support and discussion forums have been blazing away since Tuesday's announcements, with users of FireWire video gear, musical equipment, and peripherals bewailing the absence of FireWire from the lower-end MacBook. The port is still present in FireWire 800 form on the MacBook Pro; FireWire 400 is no longer offered.
Flash, DivX on Demand added to PS3; PSP gets App Store
This week, Sony updated the system software to both its PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. Finally, Sony's portable console received its own access to the PlayStation Store.
Sony's PS3 software version 2.5 was made available this week, adding a handful of new features in video and system settings as well as peripheral support. With this update, the PS3 now offers Scene Search, a feature that breaks videos into one, two, or five minute scenes for quicker location of individual parts.
T-Mobile: 50 Android applications to be available for G1 launch
During a pre-launch event for customers and the press in New York City last night, Randy Myerson, a T-Mobile senior product manager, told BetaNews that the Android-based G1 is still on track to ship on October 22 -- and that, by the time it does, the number of third-party apps in Google's Android Marketplace will amount to approximately 50.
T-Mobile demonstrated three of those Android apps -- BreadCrumbz, ShopSavvy, and Ecorio -- at last night's event.
DirecTV2PC beta software streams satellite TV content to PCs
Without the addition of any new hardware, DirecTV Plus HD DVR users will be able to stream recorded HD content from their DVR to local PCs, or watch live TV on their PC while recorded content is being watched on the DVR.
It's a far cry from Slingbox functionality, but the DirecTV2PC beta adds the ability for multi-user households to freely watch content on multiple screens without an extra device. Parents should note that the parental control settings on the DVR are not automatically ported over to the DirecTV2PC software.
YouTube and the DMCA: Ten years of takedowns
The irony of John McCain's tussles with YouTube over his campaign's video clips is rich stuff for techies who have been observing the mayhem the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has engendered over the years.
Recapping the uproar, the McCain-Palin campaign on Monday asked YouTube, a Google subsidiary, to stop taking down campaign videos that incorporated clips of news broadcasts. YouTube replied that it was doing so at the request of the broadcasters, who were objecting to use of their copyrighted footage. As per the DMCA, YouTube pulled down the videos and will not allow them to be reposted for at least 10-14 days.
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