Next year, GM cars will be controllable by mobile phone
Today, OnStar and General Motors announced a plan to bring mobile phone-based controls to 2011 Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC automobiles.
The service will be included in OnStar's subscription package at no extra charge, and users will be able to download an OnStar app onto their mobile device that grants remote access to their vehicle.
Microsoft reports record quarterly earnings, remains ahead of Apple
Microsoft published its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2010, and the software company reported revenue of $16.04 billion, a 22% increase over the same period last year, and $340 million ahead of Apple which also had a record-setting quarter.
Apple exceeded Wall Street's estimates and primed suspicion that the company may finally overtake Microsoft in revenue, but Microsoft also beat Wall Street expectations this quarter, so Microsoft remains the leader.
Safari AutoFill flaw opens up Mac OS X address book to hackers
WhiteHat Security said Wednesday that it had found an issue in how Safari's AutoFill feature handles personal information, which could open up the personal information of a web surfer simply by visiting a malicious website.
Using a few lines of code, the hacker would be able to obtain the information without the user even knowing it occurred. The "Using info from my Address Book card" option would need to be checked in AutoFill preferences in order for the hack to work.
Fail Whale Endangered? Twitter adding new dedicated data center this year
Twitter on Wednesday announced that it is relocating its technical operations infrastructure to a custom-built data center in the vicinity of Salt Lake City, Utah later this year. The move is expected to help the site's reliability and availability.
Popular microblogging site Twitter is estimated to have over 75 million users, and to be growing at a rate of about 6.2 million new accounts per month.
Internet has less than a year's worth of IP addresses left, say experts
The Internet is about to face one of its most serious issues in its history: experts have warned that the Internet is running out of addresses, and may run out by 2011. At issue is slow adoption of a new system intended to vastly increase the available pool, further complicating matters.
Currently, the web uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). 32-bit numbers are used, meaning about 4 billion addresses are available. About 94 percent of them have already been allocated. There is a new system, however, called IPv6. That uses 128-bit numbers, and the number of available addresses skyrocket.
Samsung Galaxy S' not-so-secret weapon: TouchWiz 3.0
Samsung's custom Android user interface is the first thing we see on Galaxy S family of phones, but seems to be the last thing anyone is talking about.
Walt Mossberg from The Wall Street Journal recently reviewed the two available Galaxy S devices and seemed hung up on comparing them to the Apple iPhone 4, going so far as to call them "an appealing alternative to the iPhone," as if the iPhone is the standard first choice when it comes to buying new phones.
Flipboard launches 'social magazine' for iPad, struggles with demand
Palo Alto, Calif. based Flipboard launched what it called the "first social magazine" for the iPad Wednesday, however it quickly found out that a much-hyped launch can lead to trouble in keeping the service online for its users.
Tech luminary Robert Scoble twittered incessantly in the hours leading up to the launch, giving few details on the product other than calling it the "killer app" for the iPad and "revolutionary."
A frank conversation about the futures of Apple and Microsoft
The day following blow-out Apple earnings, my attention turns to Microsoft, which announces fiscal 2010 fourth quarter and year results tomorrow. I'm not the only person thinking about Apple, Microsoft, other tech companies and the future direction of computing.
Overnight, I got an email from Mark Reschke, who clearly is a Mac fan. Reschke is excited about Apple's fiscal 2010 third quarter results, where iPad and iPhone combined accounted for nearly half of revenues. In this post I share Reschke's e-mail and my e-mail response to him.
'Facebook Stories' launches to prove site is not just for stalking, advertising, and Farmville
Today, to celebrate the 500 million user milestone, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Facebook Stories, a new application dedicated to all the stories of people using Facebook in unique and inspirational ways.
These stories are arranged either by geographic location (as shown on a Bing Map) or by theme. The themes include: Crime Fighting, Movements, Causes, Grief, Rescues, Small Business, Support Groups, and many more.
Most Android devices are running Eclair, but FroYo is approaching fast
The fact that there are two main Android development tracks often gets lost in the shuffle.
Google's retirement of the Nexus One reminded consumers that, hey, that's the only Android phone out there right now running FroYo (Android 2.2,) and cutting its availability is stifling the bleeding edge of Android technology, isn't it?
Google updates image search to eliminate clutter, improve results
Google's image search service will be getting a revamp this week, aimed at making the search function easier to use, and to provide more relevant results. The redesign is essentially the service's first major makeover since Google Images went live in 2001.
At that time, only 250 million images had been catalogued by the Mountain View, Calif. search company. Now over 10 billion images are indexed. With such an increase in volume, obviously the search functionality will need to improve, as does the way the site displays ever larger results.
ISP Launches in Sweden, aims to create safe haven for pirates
Sweden's copyright and telecommunications reform party, officially known as the Pirate Party, has been involved with a lot of drama in the last year, mostly surrounding its involvement with The Pirate Bay torrent tracking site and its related legal fallout.
Now, the Pirate Party is getting behind a startup ISP called, appropriately, PirateISP, which provides broadband Internet connections that are regulated according to the party's politics: private, secure connections where no logs are retained, and no user data is available to the Swedish Government.
Apple Q3 2010 by the numbers: Record quarterly revenue tops $15.7 billion
Today, Apple set the stage for a historical competitive upset: Exceeding Microsoft revenue during the same quarter. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple's quarterly earnings again blew past Wall Street consensus, which already were $1.55 billion to $1.75 billion higher than company guidance. Apple also exceed quarterly revenue consensus estimates for Microsoft, which announces fiscal 2010 results on Thursday. I first posted about Apple revenue exceeding Microsoft revenue in April and again in June, not once but twice.
After the bell, Apple reported $15.7 billion revenue and net profits of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 a share. A year earlier, Apple reported revenue of $9.73 billion and $1.83 billion net quarterly profit, or $2.01 per share. Revenue rose 61 percent year over year and earnings by 78 percent. Fiscal 2010 third quarter ended June 26, 2010. By the way, analyst revenue consensus for Microsoft is $15.27 billion.
Microsoft's Kinect gets pricing, holiday season release date
Microsoft announced pricing and availability on Tuesday for its Kinect motion sensing controller for the Xbox 360, saying the device would be available November 4 at a price of $149.99. The release of the Kinect means that Microsoft would square off this holiday season against Sony, who also plans to release its own system.
Microsoft would bundle the Kinect controller and an Xbox 360 console with 4GB of internal memory for $299.99. The console itself would begin selling on its own for $199.99 on August 3, however.
Microsoft releases beta of latest free anti-malware service Security Essentials
Today, Microsoft has released the next version of Microsoft Security Essentials in beta. The free anti-malware service was first debuted in 2009 after Microsoft discontinued Windows Live OneCare.
The beta, available on Microsoft Connect today, includes a number of new features: a new protection engine and network inspection system, integration with Windows Firewall, and integration with Internet Explorer for web-based malware protection.
BetaNews, your source for breaking tech news, reviews, and in-depth reporting since 1998.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.