Full FeedDell finally ready to announce smartphones next month—maybe
After over a year and a half of rumors and speculation, the Wall Street Journal reported that Dell will indeed announce plans to release smartphones aimed to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s Blackberry in February–maybe. Dell refused to comment on the report and the Journal admits that plans are not finalized and could be scrapped at the last minute.
More doom and gloom from Panasonic and Best Buy
The global economic crisis continues to cause job loss throughout the world. Panasonic announced it will cut 560 jobs in Asia, and Best Buy will layoff an undisclosed number of workers at its corporate office. The announcements come on the tail of massive cuts on Monday by Texas Instruments and other tech giants.
Panasonic’s cuts come from two factories in Asia. The company will close and electronics parts plant in Malacca, Malaysia, leaving 500 without jobs. The other 60 will come from cuts at a battery factory in the Philippines. The company also announced it will merge two plants in Selangor, Malaysia in September. The merger will cause further job cuts, though Panasonic declined to speculate on the number. Further cuts may come as Panasonic completes its takeover of Sanyo Electric Co.
Have colorful portable music with the Music Balloon
Do you have a friend that wants a portable speaker and is afraid of clowns? Then don’t buy them this speaker. For all your friends not suffering from coulrophobia, Geek Stuff 4 U has a news portable speaker that looks like a big, colorful ball—the Music Balloon. Why is it named the Music Balloon? Did you even look at the picture?
Google and friends release Internet test tools
Is your broadband service slow? Or do you notice that certain traffic is slow while other traffic is not? There is a growing concern that ISPs are throttling different types of data, especially P2P BitTorrent traffic and traffic from competitors. On that news, Google and a group of partners announced the release of tools through the M-Lab project. The tools will allow users to test broadband connections, and allow security experts to learn better ways to secure the Net.
Sirius XM announces March price increase
You gotta love loopholes. When Sirius and XM decided to merge, Congress and the FCC had many concerns. As a way of calming those entities, the two companies agreed not to raise the rates on subscription and programming packages. So if you own a single radio and don’t listen on the Internet, then this article doesn’t apply to you. If you have more than one radio on a plan and/or listen to your stations on the Internet, then March 11 is going to be a bad day for you.
House introduces camera phone “click” bill
The media must be making the economy and wars look worse than they are since Congress seems more interested in tweaking technology than solving those problems. First the Senate votes to delay the DTV switch, and now the House is considering a bill that will require all camera phones to produce an audible click whenever a picture is taken. That is the ultimate goal of HR 414, better known as the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act.
House kills delay of digital TV switch
In an unexpected move today, The House of Representatives voted 258-168 to not delay the switchover to digital TV from February 17 to June. The surprise is increased by the Senate’s unanimous vote yesterday to delay the switch, and by the reluctant acceptance by many telecom companies after the Senate vote was announced.
Rep Joe Barton, author of the original transition bill in 2005, led the charge to stop the delay. Barton sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stating that the proposed delay had no merit and actually harmed the country as the spectrum will be used in part by emergency services. Barton said in his letter, “Osama bin Laden isn’t fictional, and he isn’t waiting.” He is correct. Hopefully now that this crisis has been averted, our leaders can get back to more pressing issues.
Yahoo announces loss but beats earnings estimates
They say every cloud has a silver lining. Or is it every corporate bad news has a spin master to make better? Whatever it is, Yahoo announced losses for the fourth quarter of 2008, but they also announced better earnings than estimated.
The total loss for the fourth quarter was $303 million. Yahoo posted $206 million in earnings the same time in 2007, meaning a half billion dollar difference.
Texas Instruments drops 3,400 employees
Monday, January 26, 2009 may earn the name Black Monday as over 40,000 people were told they were losing their jobs as several large corporations cut labor forces in an increasingly weak economy. Global technology company Texas Instruments was one of those companies, cutting 1,800 workers and 1,600 jobs that will be vacated by voluntary retirement.
Most of the jobs will come from internal support functions according to TI chairman, president, and CEO Rich Templeton.
Zip to help Firedog clients
Circuit City’s closing has left millions of customers trying to decide which electronics store they will use. The same is true for those that used Firedog, Circuit City’s installation arm. One competitor, Zip, has stepped in to offer a discount to former Firedog clients.
Experience what it’s like to download at unlimited speeds from a massive collection of over 800 Terabytes of user uploads. You’ll max out your Internet connection downloading a file in… Continue Reading »
Black Friday 2009
Black Friday is almost here! Gadgetell's got you covered with all the latest news on who's offering the best deals. Dangerous crowds? You're on your own.
Palm Pre Information & Updates
Palm just introduced their next-gen smartphone, the Palm Pre, and next-gen operating system, Palm webOS. Gadgetell's got the latest Pre and webOS information and news for you right here.
