A look back at the week during which approximately 40 percent of the posts were about Twitter. Or at least it seemed that way.
BoomTown got the ball rolling by making a visit to Twitter HQ bearing pies. During a video tour of the premises, Biz Stone discussed rock stars and booze, and spilled the secret of the strange green deer.
American Airlines domestic passenger jets are fast becoming a fleet of airborne Wi-Fi hotspots. After a successful six-month pilot program on 15 planes, the airline will expand its in-flight Wi-Fi service to 300 more over the next two years.
What spreads faster than economic gloom and doom, and is more infectious than professional anxiety? That phenomenon known as “25 Things.” Just in time for Facebook’s fifth birthday, the record-breaking waste of time may have reached critical mass this week. Elsewhere this week…
Perhaps Macworld Expo 2009 will have its “one more thing” after all. In a note to clients this morning, Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research speculates that Apple will indeed launch a new product category at Macworld in early January. A netbook.
“Apple’s iPhone 3G, introduced in July, is the only reason smartphone growth did not slow in September.” This according to Needham analyst Charles Wolf, who in a research note today points out that the nearly seven million iPhones Apple shipped during the three-month period ending September account for all of the sequential shipment growth in the quarter. Astonishing.
Not that there’s any reason to think otherwise, but the spam network business is not one that’s dependent on sales conversion rates. You’ve got to send a hell of a lot of spam to make a living at it.
The first Android-powered handset debuted this morning at a T-Mobile launch event in New York. Manufactured by HTC, the G1 is largely as anticipated. Peter Chou, CEO of HTC describes it as “iconic,” but that’s being a bit generous, I think. In design, the device seems to borrow quite a bit from the T-Mobile Sidekick, and its touchscreen GUI clearly owes a thing or two to Apple’s iPhone.
Apple released iPhone 2.1 this morning, and as CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this week, it does appear to “fix lots of bugs.” 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, according to Apple, including a decrease in call set-up failures and call drops, significantly improved battery life for most users, dramatically reduced time to back up to iTunes, and improved email reliability. It definitely feels snappier.
Google’s new Chrome browser hasn’t been available for a week yet and already, privacy advocates are sounding alarms. Over the weekend, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security warned against using the browser, which it fears collects and centralizes a bit too much user data with Google.
Apple may soon regret the “twice as fast, half the price” slogan it chose for iPhone 3G. A first lawsuit has been filed against the company over the device’s performance and reliability, and it seeks class-action status.
If, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently said, the launch of MobileMe was not Apple’s finest hour, then what can be said of the more than 800 hours that followed? Because they haven’t exactly been Apple’s finest hours either. So, how about a “60-day extension to MobileMe subscriptions free of charge”?
Airline passengers will soon have a new option for getting wired at 30,000 feet. This morning, Delta Air Lines said it will offer wireless Internet access across its entire domestic fleet by mid-2009. Provided by Aircell’s Gogo, Delta’s in-flight broadband will offer 3.1Mbps connectivity for $9.95 on flights three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.
Add Lenovo to the ever-lengthening list of PC makers turning their attention to the ultra-mobile PC market, that new category of extraneous mobile computing devices the electronics industry seems so determined to create.
Google’s facing another billion dollar lawsuit–and, whaddaya know, it’s not from Viacom. It’s from LimitNone, a small software developer that claims Google’s Email Uploader tool copies the look, feel, functionality and distribution model of its gMove application.
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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