Employee alleges Belkin review scam
Belkin has been receiving a lot of unfavorable attention recently for reportedly offering to pay for favorable Amazon product reviews. The company's president, Mark Reynoso, posted a letter confirming the behavior, but attributing it to a single employee.
"It was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk Web site inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment," Reynoso wrote.
Will Microsoft cost cuts spare coffee and other perks?
Microsoft's earnings report on Thursday is expected to go hand-in-hand with delays in building construction, plus possible job layoffs. But employee perks (including a Starbucks hot coffee program) look likely to survive.
Times are getting tougher, even at Microsoft. In a recent review of its financial costs, Microsoft figured out it could save $88 million in fiscal year 2010 by getting rid of perks such as a Starbucks hot beverage program ($1 million), food subsidies ($8 million), and a campus shuttle ($14 million), wrote Jeff Tartakoff, a blogger for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
iGoogle for iPhone and G1 browsers down
The Google Support forum over the weekend was clogged with users complaining that their iPhone-optimized iGoogle page (google.com/ig/i) was redirecting to the standard Google mobile page (google.com/m/ig).
An iGoogle team member addressed the complaints by saying, "We've decided to direct iPhone users to the standard mobile iGoogle page. We've found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones -- we want to ensure you'll all see the same version. Most or all of your existing content should translate over to the standard mobile version. The only exception would be any gadgets that aren't compatible with most mobile browsers."
Android leader leaves Google for Coupons.com
Steve Horowitz, one of Google's team leaders on Android mobile OS development, has been appointed Chief Technology Officer of Coupons Inc., online promotions company responsible for Coupons.com
Online retail has been seen as a growth channel for many years, but has not proven to be immune to recession spending cutbacks. ComScore showed 2008 online holiday spending to have dropped around 2% against 2007. Analysts expected the drop in sales to be much steeper, were it not for the discounts that major online retailers offered.
No time wasted for change to Whitehouse.gov
While President Obama and several million of his fellow Americans were shivering on the National Mall this morning, Macon Phillips and his team were swapping out files and posting the all-new whitehouse.gov.
Phillips is the Director of New Media for the White House and had the signal honor of f1srt p0st!!!1 on the new White House blog.
The Web marches on, on Inauguration Day
The Web's usual gridlock spots appear to have had a busy but smooth day. Twitter, which said it would double its capacity for the day, had no Fail Whale incidents. And the CNN/Facebook streaming-video partnership announced some numbers today too. As reported by Mashable, CNN served up 13.9 million video streams by noon EST, shattering its previous one-day record of 5.3 million (set on Election Day). At one point, Facebook users made over 3,000 comments per minute on the feed, and over 200,000 status updates were posted over the course of the morning.
For 'the makers of things:' An inaugural moment
There are days when the attitude of a nation is reflected by the one in charge, and this day -- like so many others, even recently -- is one of them.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
Qualcomm acquires AMD's handheld assets
Processor giant AMD's continued restructuring has helped wireless specialist Qualcomm increase its intellectual property portfolio today with the acquisition of AMD's former handheld business for $65 million.
Many of the technologies Qualcomm will acquire are ones the company already licenses from AMD, including graphics, audio/video, display, and architecture-related products. As part of the acquisition, design and development teams working under AMD have been offered jobs under Qualcomm.
Telenav Shotgun gets feature upgrades
Telenav, which introduced its Shotgun connected PND in November has unveiled new mileage tracking and business review features which can be downloaded directly to the device over its wireless connection.
The Shotgun quickly found a home in the automobiles of business travelers, and as such, the ability to track mileage is a crucial feature upgrade. Tracking can be turned on and off mid-trip so only billable miles are recorded, and the data can then be attributed to a client, job, or other title and then be exported as Excel or .PDF files through the My Telenav portal or toolbar.
Accessories maker Logitech posts 70 percent loss, cuts 550 jobs
As the PC market continues to slide, it's carrying the peripherals market downhill, too, with major accessibility components maker Logitech reporting a 70% drop in net income for the quarter ending December 31.
In posting its dismal financial results, Logitech pointed to sales slumps in PC speakers and keyboards as well. It announced intentions to cut 550 to 600 salaried positions -- apparently the company's most extensive job cuts since the mid-1990s, when it moved production facilities from Asia to Ireland.
RIAA takes a stand against viral video
In RIAA v. Tenenbaum last week, Massachusetts District Court Judge Nancy Gertner approved the motion to allow the January 22 hearing to be webcast live this upcoming Thursday, against recent objections by the record labels.
The labels participating in the suit -- Sony BMG, Warner, Atlantic, Arista, and Universal Music Group -- elevated the affair to the US Court of Appeals (PDF available here) seeking a writ of mandamus against the District Court's allowance. Mandamus is the use of a higher court's discretion to block a lower court's action.
Rumor: Windows Mobile 6.5 to be unveiled next month
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made "candid" comments in November that Windows Mobile 6.5 would be available in the first half of 2009, and reports are speculating that the update will be rolled out at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 16-19.
Ballmer is scheduled to give a keynote speech at the conference, where the revamped Mobile OS and associated services are expected to be unveiled.
Ad-Aware, at 10, rolls out its leaner, meaner Anniversary Editions
Download AdAware Anniversary Edition Free 8.0.0.0 from Fileforum now
What is most likely the first stand-alone anti-adware program in the business is celebrating its tenth anniversary this week with the unveiling of a new set of rollouts this morning. Added to Lavasoft's Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition are new features that the company claims will detect malware not just by its signature but by its behavior.
Tracing the memory leak: Is it Firefox 3?
Yesterday, we mentioned that we've been noticing recent versions of Firefox, including 3.0.5, have exhibited the memory leak problems that used to plague Firefox 2. We are noticing this on both Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1.
We'd also noticed that systems where the add-on Tab Mix Plus was installed, did not appear to exhibit the same memory leak. Today, we uninstalled Tab Mix Plus (reluctantly, because we like it) from one system. On that system, the memory use pattern has changed, perhaps moderated, though we're not sure the leak has gone away. It now appears to be slower than in our tests yesterday, and from time to time, something in Firefox does clean up parts of memory from time to time. In one test, we had two Firefox windows open with seven tabs open in one of them, a dozen in the other -- a pretty full slate. Task Manager is showing us that Firefox grabs memory in one-megabyte chunks per second, for about a minute at a time, and then leveling back out to about 300,000 KB.
Sprint Nextel's iDEN wireless gets $50-per-month plan
All of a sudden, iDEN is showing a surge in activity with the rollout of a $50-per-month unlimited calling plan from Sprint-owned Boost Mobile and the revelation of a $2 billion US government funding bid by Sprint.
First developed by Motorola back in the mid-1990s, later supported by Nextel, and then inherited by Sprint, iDEN is still used by emergency responders, along with dwindling numbers of other subscribers. The technology combines cell phones with trunked radios.
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