An extremely creative designer has taken a throwaway idea hatched in February 2009 all the way to an impressive 3D rendering of an “Open Web phone” that will make your eyes sparkle.
Originally, designer Billy May conceived of a dynamic OLED keyboard to improve the BlackBerry Storm, with a shifting set of symbols that appear on the actual keys…
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was enacted in 1986 to protect user data from government oversight and significant portions haven’t been updated since.
That’s a problem, advocates say, because the law is now completely outdated. The law currently gives more protection to data you store locally and less to data kept in the cloud…
The startup Forbes called the “fastest growing company ever” is still growing fast. August data from Web analytics firm comScore showed Groupon’s unique visitors increased 23% from July to August, meaning it grew the fourth-fastest out of the top 250 largest properties on the Web.
Groupon’s cofounder and 30% owner Eric Lefkofsky also made…
The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates communication technology including the Internet, was once credited with having the worst website in federal government.
But the agency is committed to upgrading its technology under the leadership of Microsoft veteran Steven VanRoekel. The FCC has been beefing up its developer offerings and…
The hyperlocal social networking app DeHood launched in May for iPhone, and it’s got some users totally hooked. The app lets you check-in and communicate with people in your neighborhood and neighborhoods in other cities and is designed for “real-time interaction between families, friends and neighbors.”
Another way to say it: DeHood is similar…
Last month, Wired magazine set off a furious debate with a feature titled: “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.” The crux of the argument was that people are spending less time on the open Web and more time using apps.
It’s undeniable that apps are in vogue. But does that mean the open Web – the one we access through a browser – is dead…
Mobile video is exploding. According to Cisco, mobile video will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 131% between 2009 to 2014 as people access more YouTube, Netflix and high-bandwidth material on their mobile devices.
But imagine what will happen to mobile streaming video as the next generation of high-speed wireless networks and devices…
Location Labs today announced a “Universal Location Service” platform that aggregates locations of phones across carriers for developers and centralizes privacy management for end-users.
“Developers can now remotely access the location of over 250MM mobile phones in the U.S. through a single cloud-based API (Application Programming Interface…
Today American Express and Federated Media announced a free iPhone app, Social Currency, built on the Foursquare platform. The app lets users track things they want to buy, upload photos of purchases and comment on what their friends do, pushing the updates to Twitter and Foursquare.
The app was launched to complement Currency, a website that…
Quora, the real-time question-and-answer site started by early Facebook employees and valued by investors at at amazing $86 million, opened its walled garden to the general Internet public six weeks ago.
Opening the gates has not resulted in a flood of registrations. It appears that Quora’s user base grew 27% in the six weeks after the change…
Schools have been illegally showing videos in schools for educational purposes forever. But now universities are taking advantage of Netflix rentals and streaming video to supplement their media collections.
The practice recently gained attention after some first person accounts of the cost-saving wonders of Netflix showed up in a library trade…
Some speculated that Google Instant would drastically change the way people search by letting users see results for their queries as they typed.
That shift hasn’t happened yet, according to an analyst at Conductor, a company that provides search engine optimization tools to marketers. “It doesn’t appear to be having a significant impact on how…
Today Howard Fineman, a reporter at Newsweek for 30 years, announced he’s leaving the beleaguered weekly to become a senior editor at The Huffington Post.
Newsweek has been struggling financially and The Washington Post Company sold the magazine for a small fee and its debt in August. The buyer was Sidney Harman, a businessman and…
The phrase “Internet of Things” got to be an overused misnomer even before the technology had a chance to become common, but at least we’re on to everyday use cases: a developer has arranged for his thermostat to turn on when he’s home and switch off when he leaves.
Hans Scharler’s thermostat keeps dibs on his location, the outside temperature…
The demand for community management and other social media careers is growing fast – even at a time when the recession seems poised to double dip and more than 9% of the population is unemployed.
Social media is the one job sector in which recent college grads are having luck, reports Newsweek, and universities are adding social media classes in…
Groupon is one of the hottest tech companies out there right now; Forbes called it “the fastest growing company ever.”
But Groupon is getting so big that it’s bound to make a few missteps, and it was hit by two doozies today. A photographer posted a completely fraudulent offer and a cafe owner wrote a scathing blog post about Groupon’s sales…
We usually talk about geofencing for advertisers, where a customer’s proximity to a business can trigger a text message or push notification. But geofencing for individual users is just fun – if not more.
Footprint Feed is a mobile app that lets you set up feeds to share your location with people you know through Facebook, Twitter, RSS or specific…
Google and Microsoft are the #1 and #2 most social corporations, according to a new report by NetProspex, a social media sales and marketing contact database.
Tech companies dominated the list, but not exclusively. Other companies in the top 25 include Amazon.com, Best Buy, Apple, Williams-Sonoma, Gap, Electronic Arts, Pulte Homes, and Walt…
A new study of online discussion around social music sites shows Apple’s Ping is the least-talked about among Spotify, Rdio, Blip.fm and Pandora. Of the relatively little being said about Ping, 43% is negative, 3% is mixed and 54% is positive, according to the study by Infegy, which analyzes “chatter” from millions of sites on the Web.
Infegy…
Google announced a new, swooshier format for showing photos on Place Pages, its listings for businesses and landmarks. Photos are now displayed in a lightbox layered over the screen, with a simple slideshow navigation similar to Google Reader – Play and Fast Flip from Google Labs.
Google is not known for smooth design, but it seems to be trying…