Job gains and losses in IT: The latest numbers
Although the telecom industry lost 3,400 jobs from August through September of this year, the computer manufacturing business lost virtually none, and "computer systems design and related services" picked up 8,500 more employees.
With more workers from a lot of fields already hitting the unemployment lines in September, how are jobs at computer companies doing? Although it's too early to tell about the future fallout from the current global economic crisis, results were decidedly mixed in September, with some types of computer businesses losing jobs and others actually gaining, say the latest numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday.
Despite an announcement, 'Kilimanjaro' may not be the next SQL Server
There's a difference between building a new database engine, and building tools that are bundled with an existing database engine for a new product. So even analysts may be surprised to learn the next SQL Server is not two years away.
At a conference in Seattle yesterday that was apparently accompanied by at least one demo that was not on its original schedule, Microsoft made mention of a product with the code-name "Kilimanjaro," in association with SQL Server.
CEA: Holiday TV, game machine sales to rise this year, despite economy
With consumers suffering huge losses on investments in their homes and retirement funds, will they really spend more on CE products this holiday season than last? Two categories should do well, a CEA analyst predicted today.
Regardless of the admittedly massive impact of the financial crisis, this year's holiday sales will increase 4.7 percent for flat panel TVs and other A/V equipment, and 3.5 percent for gaming hardware, an analyst for the Consumer Electronics Association said during an industry webcast today.
Is the US fast becoming a 'third world' for smartphones?
What do the Blackberry Bold, Nokia 5800, and the HTC Touch HD have in common? They're all 3G smartphones that have no US release date.
Research in Motion's latest BlackBerry, the 3G Bold, was released in Canada in August, but continues to be delayed in the US due to extensive testing of AT&T's HSPA network.
Mail Goggles a lot of $(@)!# fun, but safety net has holes
It's not April Fools Day, but if you're online at odd hours and perhaps a bit inebriated, Google's got a plan to keep you from making a fool of yourself.
Straight from the Gmail Labs (and, one might imagine, at least one in-house episode of tipsy oversharing), Google on Tuesday unveiled Mail Goggles, an e-mail option designed to keep you from doing online what a good wingman keeps you from doing if you're wearing beer goggles after too much fun at the club. (Technically, in that case, the function should be called Mail Wingman. Not that we'd know anything about that.)
Verizon loses in jury trial against Cox, two patent claims invalidated
In a costly loss in US District Court in Alexandria yesterday, a jury found all of Verizon's claims that Cox Communications infringed upon its VoIP-related patents to be without basis, and even invalidated two of eight patent claims.
Back in January, Verizon filed a patent infringement suit against a Virginia division of Cox Communications, which was establishing VoIP service in that state. It was a boilerplate case that asserted its claims to eight US patents in the field of Internet-related voice telephony. Those patents were mostly acquired by Verizon on account of mergers and acquisitions, having been originally issued to such one-time giants as MCI and Bell Atlantic.
Real suspends RealDVD in wake of MPAA lawsuit
11:45 am EDT October 7, 2008 - Developments in Universal City Studios Productions LLP v. RealNetworks Inc. published online yesterday reveal that Real made its RealDVD product unavailable over the weekend because of a temporary restraining order issued by District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel.
The text of the filing begins: "Defendants have already caused significant irreparable harm to Real by prevailing upon this court to institute a temporary halt to sales of RealDVD since the evening of October 3, 2008..."
Rambus wins again as Supreme Court denies Samsung's appeal
In an effort to avoid embarrassment, Rambus sought to end a high-profile patent infringement squabble with competitor Samsung. A district court judge ruled Samsung couldn't let it go, but today the highest court says it must.
The US Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear memory maker Samsung's appeal in a case involving competitor Rambus -- an appeal which would have had wider ramifications on the market at large had it been heard.
AMD's huge gamble: Foreign investors will co-own new foundries
Two Abu Dhabi investment firms, both arms of the Emirate's government, have helped the AMD in its "Asset Light/Asset Smart" stragegy, and with their investments, may have changed the path of the struggling company.
Mubadala Development Company, which took an eight percent stake in AMD last year, now holds almost 20 percent of AMD, and the Government of Abu Dhabi (as ATIC) has become a 50/50 partner in AMD's spun-off fabrication company.
Samsung releases 22X SATA and PATA DVD burners
The Samsung DVD formula has been high speed with reduced noise and lowered power consumption, according to a high-ranking official. Three new 22X internal DVD burners, which start shipping today, join an external model in the same series.
Samsung is today adding three new internal 22X DVD burners to the Super-WriteMaster S223 series first launched with the SH-223F external DVD burner released earlier this year.
E-voting issues stir in advance of November elections
With US elections four weeks away, visions of glitches past and present are dancing in the heads of tech observers bracing for November 4. It may not help that one judge is suppressing the results of an e-voting machines test.
A New Jersey judge has ruled that testing results from Sequoia e-voting machines used in that state are not to be released until further notice.
Down for the count: Dish to pay TiVo $104 million
The nation's highest court today shut the door on EchoStar's and Dish Network's petitions for a final appeal of their patent infringement case. Now all they can hope is for mercy from TiVo, if they are to continue producing DVRs in the US.
After the US Supreme Court declined this afternoon to hear the appeal of Dish Network and its former parent EchoStar in a long-running patent infringement case, EchoStar decided it had no other option: It's paying TiVo $104 million, in hopes that this will settle the companies' disputes over whether Dish Network software infringed on TiVo patents.
World Golf Tour goes a fair way toward great play
Stock market news got you down? Perhaps smacking small round objects in a beautiful setting would soothe your nerves.
World Golf Tour, which enters beta today, is so well-behaved that this reviewer felt like breaking her clubs over her abominable skills rather than the gameplay, and the high-def graphics made me appreciate that she was not on lovely Kiawah Island stinking up a course that gorgeous.
NSA edges into the open source realm with Tokeneer
Components of a National Security Agency case study designed to demonstrate that open source, high security and cost effectiveness can all co-exist have been turned over to the open source community.
Tokeneer manages access control for a biometric ID verification tool. It's based on the SPARK subset of Ada developed by the UK's Praxis and was funded by the US National Security Agency, which chose to make information on the development and research available.
Netflix, eBay help trigger a further NASDAQ plunge
Sometimes when investors get the feeling in advance that it's going to be a bad day in the markets, it doesn't take too much bad news to validate their fears. This morning, some relatively minor bad news had a magnified market impact.
Early this morning, Netflix made some admissions that, on a normal business day, would be viewed as a minor downtick in an otherwise healthy company. It missed its nationwide subscriber goal for the past quarter by 3,000. No, not three million -- three thousand, with 8.672 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter.
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