Silicon Valley entrepreneurial billionaire Marc Andreessen -- who co-authored the Mosaic Web browser and co-founded Netscape some 15 years ago -- has now joined Facebook's board of directors, though he holds stock in its competitors.

Andreessen serves on the board of Open Media Network, a company that produces a combined Kontiki (VeriSgn) client and media player. He is also an investor in Digg, Twitter, and several other Web 2.0 start-ups.

Continue reading →

The prospective partners in satellite radio may be prompted to consider expediting their deal arrangements, perhaps before November, in light of a letter to the FCC from likely policymakers, should a Democrat take the White House.

A trio of Democratic senators, including two who were early backers of Sen. Barack Obama's (D - Ill.) bid for the presidency, sent an open letter last Friday to US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, calling on him to, at the very least, impose stricter requirements that XM and Sirius satellite radio produce interoperable radios.

Continue reading →

Semiconductor chip sales worldwide rose 7.5 percent in May compared to a year ago and 2.8 percent compared to last month despite drops in prices, which the Semiconductor Industry Association attributed to growth in emerging markets.

The 7.5 percent figure -- for sales of $21.8 billion in May compared to $21.2 billion in April and $20.3 billion in May 2007 -- is especially noteworthy considering that the San Jose, Calif., organization had lowered its November prediction of 7.7 percent to 4.8 percent earlier this month due to strong price pressures on memory chips, said John Greenagel, director of communications.

Continue reading →

Real Networks' Rhapsody has opened an MP3 store that works independently of the subscription-based service, bringing Rhapsody ever closer in design (but not execution) to the venerable iTunes.

United States customers today can access the new Rhapsody.com digital download store which offers DRM-free music for 99¢ per track, or $9.99 an album. Like Rhapsody's subscription service, users can preview up to 25 full-length tracks per month, and then all subsequent previews are pared down to 30 seconds, the same as iTunes.

Continue reading →

A report from a well-known TV psychologist in the UK is having an impact on the way that country's regulators rate video games there, and Microsoft and EA are now leading a counter-offensive.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has been the target of heavy criticism lately from game publishers, about proposed changes to one of two game ratings classification systems for the United Kingdom. That proposal is being backed by popular support due to the popularity of its author, a well-known presenter there.

Continue reading →

PlayStation 3 consoles have always had Internet connectivity, but players trying to message one another have found that they're considered "busy" while they're in a game. An upcoming firmware update should change all that.

What's been perceived as perhaps Sony's greatest continuing weakness in its full-feature game console battle against Microsoft's Xbox 360 is the continued delay of its all-inclusive online community. This weakness is only compounded by the perception problem the company created for itself, having announced the PlayStation 3's Home service over a year ago, and having since then delayed its rollout, most recently in search for something that's more "focused" on gaming rather than the virtual bar-hopping experience Home was originally touted to be.

Continue reading →

Somebody needed to tell the world's PC manufacturers there was a recession scheduled for the first quarter of 2008. Anyway, they didn't seem to pay much attention to those warnings, and iSuppli thinks the industry looks pretty healthy.

For the last two years, analysts both with iSuppli and other firms have said that a healthy worldwide PC market had to grow at an annual rate of 12%. Despite what's generally perceived as a global economic slowdown, the annual rate of PC shipments was 12.1% at the end of March, based on numbers released by iSuppli today.

Continue reading →

Centro manufacturer Palm Inc. announced that despite record high sales, its fourth quarter revenue was well below forecasts, reporting losses of $43.4 million.

The Centro is proving to be the flagship device for Palm, that is to say, it's been just enough to buoy the company through flagging Treo sales until the 800w ships.

Continue reading →

Select users are now being treated to the next version of the company's portal, which integrates social networking characteristics into the site.

As things currently stand with iGoogle, users cannot do much more other than add widgets and customize the look of the page. This essentially makes Google's offering no more compelling than the dozens of other available portal sites out there -- and some may argue from the page's bland design any more appealing.

Continue reading →

Professional short form video's longest-running site AtomFilms has merged with user-generated content partner AtomUploads.com into what is now simply called Atom.com, and has shifted its focus exclusively to comedy.

With the site change, Atomfilms' partnership with sister company Comedy Central takes a more central role. The cable comedy network recently began airing a late-late-late show called AtomTV that airs much of the Atom's content and serves as a showcase for the weekly winner of the site's Upload Showdown contest. Its champion is determined by audience voting, and participants are amateur video makers who get a chance to sign a "professional" contract (a nonexclusive licensing agreement for their video) and earn a $500 prize.

Continue reading →

On this final day of Bill Gates' salaried employ at the company he founded, we recall a period of history way, way back -- an era when Gates was one giant among many, and just as likely to survive the shakeout as any other.

The computing industry was built by brilliant people with colorful personalities and extraordinary talent. We have forgotten most of them. Chuck Peddle, Adam Osborne, Clive Sinclair, Federico Faggin, Les Solomon, Gary Kildall...these are among the names we knew by heart and often knew personally, for those of us who grew up with the dawn of the computing era. We knew these people often because we had met them in person -- during the first computer conferences, they were part of our second family, even if they only showed up in name only.

Continue reading →

An Apple enthusiast blog claims it has seen an internal AT&T memo intended for its customer service representatives, stating that picture and video messaging are part of the new iPhone's feature set.

As iPhone Atlas mentions, AT&T's employees are not known for their accurate information. However, if verified, the emergence of this memo would mean the carrier is adding one of the missing features that the device has received some flak for failing to include.

Continue reading →

After two years of development, Altec Lansing finally plans to ship the M812 -- the latest addition to its line-up of digital speaker systems for iPod, Zune, and other MP3 players -- on July 15.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) -- "Actually, the M812 won an innovation award at CES 2007," pointed out Patrick Beck, marketing manager, talking with BetaNews this week at Pepcom's Digital Experience show. "But then, it got shelved," he acknowledged.

Continue reading →

Both Rogers and its smaller wholly-owned subsidiary Fido announced plans for the iPhone 3G -- along with the longest mandated contract length so far of any iPhone carrier: three years.

Rogers is Canada's largest wireless provider, serving some 7.1 million subscribers. Fido is the fourth largest, serving 1.3 million subscribers, and has been a subsidiary of Rogers since November 2004.

Continue reading →

On a week when ICANN's decisions were headlining hundreds of tech news sites, several of the group's pages were defaced by a group of hackers, and a phishing scam spoofing the group's page hit inboxes across the country.

Yesterday, a Turkish group known as "NetDevilz" -- which is linked to a reported 31 perpetrated attacks just this year, as tracked by site Zone-H -- hijacked icann.com, icann.net, iana.com, and iana-servers.com, all sites belonging to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

Continue reading →