For a company whose business is built on the recession-brutalized fine-dining industry, OpenTable’s IPO last week was impressive. Must have made for quite a windfall for the company’s larger investors. Especially those who took the opportunity to dump their stakes in their entirety.
Palm’s too-long-in-coming smartphone, the Pre, seems on track for an early June launch. People briefed on the company’s plans tell the New York Times that Sprint will begin peddling the device the first week of June. That gibes with what I’ve been hearing as well, so it’s perhaps reasonable to assume that the June 5 street date batted around these past few weeks is a solid one.
About the best thing to be said for Sony’s grotesque financial results is that they came in smaller than expected. The company’s 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion) loss for the fiscal year ended March–its first net loss in 14 years–wasn’t nearly as bad as the 150.0 billion yen ($1.57 billion) figure it had predicted in January or even close to the 173.8 billion yen ($1.8 billion) analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been forecasting.
He had a good run of it, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s stint as an Apple director may be coming to an end. Now that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the close ties between Apple’s and Google’s boards of directors violate antitrust laws, Schmidt’s seat on the former’s board, which he has held since August 2006, seems more trouble than its worth.
Earlier this year, Apple COO Tim Cook said the company would use “whatever weapons we have at our disposal” to pursue anyone who “rips off” Apple’s iPhone intellectual property. He’d better hope those weapons are as effective a defense as offense because the company may soon need them. Elan Microelectronics has slapped Apple with a lawsuit claiming the MacBook, iPhone and iPod touch infringe upon touchscreen patents it holds.
Time was, there was a Silicon Graphics workstation on every desk in computationally-intense industries like chemistry and film production. No longer. This morning, SGI, which recently endured a brace of layoffs, filed for bankruptcy protection for a second time and sold itself to Rackable Systems, which makes server and storage products for midsize and large data centers, for $25 million in cash.
Guess AC/DC and Garth Brooks have something in common after all. They’re both Wal-Mart-only artists. When AC/DC’s new album, “Black Ice,” arrives at market on Oct. 20, it will be sold exclusively in the U.S. at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.
About the best thing to be said about Amazon Unbox, the mediocre, odiously restrictive, video download service the retailer launched last year, is that it was … er … Windows-only, I guess. Which, obviously isn’t saying much.
How will Rupert Murdoch, head of the world’s largest media empire and soon-to-be-owner of Dow Jones improve The Wall Street Journal?
Make it better in what it does now. Financial news.
Add more national and international news.
Kill the New York Times? “Yes, that would be nice.”
Expand the culture section.
How will he improve MySpace?
Renew co-founder Chris [...]
U.S. officials fretting over the potential national-security risks that might accompany the foreign acquisition of disk-drive maker Seagate Technology can rest easy. The company’s not for sale.
Three days after the New York Times reported that an unnamed Chinese technology company was intent on acquiring Seagate, the hard-drive maker said that wasn’t really the case. “Seagate [...]
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.
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.
Includes “Pigs in a Polka,” “Rabbit of Seville” and, of course, “What’s Opera, Doc?”
Take the famous ballads and duets of West Side Story, insert a dozen mentions of famous social media sites like twitter and facebook, and this is what you get.
An iPod mini rebuilt with a wooden case
Star Wars meets Magnum, P.I.
Music videos recreated with new lyrics based on what’s actually happening in them. Daydream Believer and Total Eclipse of the Heart are particularly good.
In response to numerous e-mails, I have no idea what planet the giant alien creature is from. Judging from its enormous gills, I’d have to guess it’s from a watery planet. Reminder: please let me know if you plan to be in the office on Memorial Day so I can request HVAC for your floor.
For those of you who mock the wolf shirt beware. There is an old Navajo story about a young man who made fun of another man for wearing a wolf trio shirt. Legend has it that in his sleep, the wolves on the other man’s shirt came to life and tore his body to shreds. They never found any part of that man’s body. The Wolf is something to be respected and feared, not treated like a novelty.
Hands down the most inexplicably bizarre game for Wii I’ve ever seen
Yo mama is so attractive she could be on the cover of Prevention.
The inspiration for this project was to determine who could generate the worst flatulence measurable in a personally unbiased manner.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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