Some 740 billion text messages were sent in the first half of 2009 in the U.S. This according to the CTIA’s semiannual wireless industry survey, which helpfully breaks down that astonishing figure to an even more astonishing 4.1 billion texts per day. That’s about double the number sent during the same period last year.
Verizon Wireless is reportedly working with Microsoft to develop a new smart-phone. Plus, layoffs at Nokia and Microsoft’s “societal network.”
Think of it as Facebook for the people you actually know and like, those whose health and safety you’d worry about in a natural disaster. It’s called Microsoft Vine and it’s not so much a social network as it is a “societal” one–or at least, Redmond likes to bill it as such.
Apparently, fear of a deepening recession alone isn’t enough to maintain tech worker loyalty these days–mounting job losses be damned. This week, Google repriced millions of employee stock options that had gone underwater as the company’s share price declined. Now eBay hopes to do the same. The reason: employee retention.
The financial turmoil beating the United States economy into submission has finally begun to beat Google, the Great and Powerful, down as well. Which must come as something of a shock to CEO Eric Schmidt who earlier this month claimed the financial meltdown was unlikely to affect Google.
Finally, some reassuring news amid all this economic woe. The United States financial system is suffering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The Treasury is planning to buy up to $700 billion in bad debt. But things are looking up for the long-suffering employees of investment bank Lehman Brothers. They’ve got a bonus pool.
Well, it’s about time. With 48 billion text messages sent every month in the United States and one of every eight American households using only mobile phones for communications, it’s finally occurred to the federal government that a nationwide cellphone alert system might be a good idea.
And so yesterday the Federal Communications Commission announced plans [...]
Well, the champagne bottles must be popping over at SkyMall today. The gadget vendor’s rival, The Sharper Image (SHRP), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late yesterday and announced plans to shutter 90 of its 184 stores as soon as it’s able to sell off their inventories.
Seems increased competition and diminishing margins–not to mention that [...]
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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