Archive for July 1st, 2008
Starbucks closes 600 stores
Starbucks, the gourmet coffee retailer said today that it had drastically increased the number of stores it plans to close, citing in part continued weakness in the U.S. economy. Starbucks now plans to close 600 stores in the United States, up from its previous plans to close 100 stores. Additionally, StarBucks said it now plans to open fewer than 200 stores in its coming fiscal year. Apparently, with high prices for oil, gas, and food, something had to give — luxury items like $4 cups of ...
Happy Canada Day
I was going to write something really insightful today but figured it’ll wait given it’s Canada Day and, as important, the first day of NHL free-agency. Technorati Tags: NHL, Canada Day, puppy ...
Microsoft, Now Loving Hadoop
Last week, OStatic noted the rumor, first reported by VentureBeat, that Microsoft intended to buy Silicon Valley semantic search engine Powerset for $100 million. Lo and behold, Microsoft and Powerset are confirming today that an acquisition agreement has been signed. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the rumored $100 million figure was in line with valuations put on Powerset based on its early financing. Powerset’s search technology uses the open-source, cluster-based te...
PlayStation 3 helps discover oil
The technology used in the PlayStation 3 is being used to help explore and find oil much faster than before. Woohoo! Using IBM technology, specifically the IBM PowerXCell 8i, which was originally developed for the Sony Playstation, a Spanish Oil company reports that specialized “Cell” microprocessors are speeding the search for oil and natural gas reserves located 30,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico up to 6 times faster than current technology. Repsol and the Barcelona Supercompu...
Dog Photo of the Day
Thought I’d share a photo of my Labrador/Shepherd mix named Jessie. It’s not often I shoot in black & white (B&W) but I thought this photo came out pretty well. She’s yellow… in case you were wondering. Tags: dogs, Jessie Keating, Labrador, Shepherd Related Entries Over protective dog while I’m away at ITEXPO? - Jan 25, 2008 Find a pet-friendly hotel with BringFido.com - Jan 08, 2007 Baby Pictures - Jun 01, 2006 TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) | Tag w...
truphone summer credit giveaway
Andy Abramson tipped me off to a new summer promotion by Truphone which now gives you 4X the inititial credit in your new account. Andy told me, “With the summer holiday season upon us, Truphone is giving away more credit to new users - meaning more free minutes and free SMS messages. New customers signing up for Truphone from Tuesday, July 1 to Monday, July 14 will get $8 credit in their account (instead of $2). This is a great gift just in time for the 4th of July holiday weekend just d...
Red Sox: Mid-Season Thoughts - Tampa Who?
Well, it’s Canada Day - whoo hoo! Am just getting this post done and then off for the day to enjoy our birthday. What could be more appropriate than navel-gazing about my Red Sox? I dunno. Well, I planned to post this before the Tampa series in anticipation of a W last night - which would have put us back in first place. That’s a much better vantage point for reflecting on the season so far, but come to think of it - now that we’re 1.5 games out of first - this is a more approp...
Fringe on FOX
Speaking of fring (blogged earlier today), there is a cool new TV series called Fringe which comes out this Fall created by American Emmy Award-winning film and television producer, writer, actor, composer, and director J.J. Abrams. J.J. Abrams also wrote and produced for the popular TV show Lost, including the opening sequence in the first episode of Lost where the plane breaks apart in mid-air. Apparently Abrams hates planes since in the opening sequence in Fringe involves a plane that land...
Verizon Helps Turn Consumers Into Geeks
As the average consumer embraces ever more complex technology, Verizon is offering a series of classes beginning in New York City to show consumers what their PDAs and smartphones can do for them. I’m sure many of our readers aren’t in need of such a class — which will teach users all about texting, syncing music and emails — but it’s a great idea. I hated my BlackBerry Pearl when I first got it; it took what felt like forever to figure out how it was supposed to w...
10 Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Ready to Trust the Cloud
Many entrepreneurs today have their heads in the clouds. They’re either outsourcing most of their network infrastructure to a provider such as Amazon Web Services or are building out such infrastructures to capitalize on the incredible momentum around cloud computing. I have no doubt that this is The Next Big Thing in computing, but sometimes I get a little tired of the noise. Cloud computing could become as ubiquitous as personal computing, networked campuses or other big innovations in ...
No-Contract iPhone Found in AT&T Press Release
If you want a 3G iPhone without an AT&T contract, you can get one. Eventually. For $599 for the 8 GB version or $699 for the 16 GB version. That’s a 200 percent markup over the $199 price tag for the 8 GB version with a contract. AT&T isn’t providing details yet on when this hoped-for option will be offered (will it look like the SIM card plan?), or if the iPhone is unlocked, but a spokesman said all will be revealed before the July 11 launch. ...
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of $7 Gas
Imagine what it would be like if gas were $7 a gallon, or three and a half times the price at the beginning of last year. According to CIBC World Markets analyst Jeff Rubin, unless something gives, that’s what we can expect two pay — in less than two years time. Earth2Tech has the full story. ...
Second Chances from First Impressions
While first impressions might be the only impression most people leave on you, you owe it to yourself to give somebody a second chance to make their first impression with you. Believe it or not, there are others who have given you a second chance and you don’t even know it. You owe it to them, yourself and the people you haven’t met yet to extend the same courtesy. Second chances may not exist for many things, but before you give up on somebody for whatever reason, don’t always...
fring Enhances Mobile IM Client with fringAdd-ons
fring claims that since they opened their API last Monday that hundreds of apps were submitted “proving that there’s an insatiable appetite in the U.S. for new mobile widgets and add-ons.” In the past week, fring has approved four of these submitted apps/widgets which will be announced tomorrow. Today, fring announces new fringAdd-on app...
Telecom Intermission - Ode to Kyler & Theodore Lagerway
We have been working pretty hard on the release of Lypp, which we believe will turn a few heads. We are at that point where I just need to let Mike do his thing. There is nothing better than your 3 year old son’s birthday (yesterday) to snap you out of work mode for a couple of days. To say our first son Ky is, “full of life” would be an major understatement. I have never seen this much energy in any kid. One thing’s for sure, It keeps me young and I would not trade it f...
Inside Microsoft’s Internet Infrastructure & Its Plans For The Future
A few minutes after she delivered a speech at our Structure 08 conference in San Francisco, I caught up with Microsoft’s corporate VP of global foundation services, Debra Chrapaty, for a video chat. I think a more appropriate title for her would be Mr. Softie’s Internet Infrastructure Czar. I found her very knowledgeable, engaging and open with her opinions. “We have some new innovations up our sleeve that are going to knock the socks of anything anyone is doing, including our...
Jeff Pulver on pulverTV: Wednesday July 2nd at 2PM EDT / 11AM PDT / 1800 GMT
The next edition of the Jeff Pulver Show, my LIVE (unscripted) Internet TV Talk show on pulverTV will be airing on Wednesday July 2nd at 2PM EDT / 1800 GMT. You can catch the show on both UStream and BlogTV. If you would like to be an in-studio guest on a future next show, please send Jeff Pulver a message on Facebook. Archives of past shows are available at: pulver.tv. Friends of pulverTV can now join the pulverTV group on Facebook. — Tags: Internet TV, facebook, Social Communications,...
Dash Express Gets Twitter App
At first we were scratching our heads over the idea that the Dash Express, an Internet-connected navigation device, has a Twitter app — given how stupid texting while driving is. Surely tweeting while driving would fall under that category? However, the Twitter app for the Dash merely sends out a tweet telling your followers where you are and provides a link on a map. There are almost 30 other Dash apps that the company talked about today, including useful ones that provide route-specific...
Out of Cloud Chaos Comes Structure
In planning for last Wednesday’s Structure 08 conference, we at GigaOM had our heads in the cloud. We aimed to draw attention to the resurgence of hardware underlying the various software and web services that consumers and businesses now use, and hoped to define the emerging set of offerings that comprise cloud computing. That definition is important. But not as important, I realized, as figuring out which business models will win out. Because while everyone wants to push their own defin...
Already Rocked Out on Guitar Hero Aerosmith — Right?
It’s been out, you’ve bought it and by now you’ve already shredded quite a few songs … we are talking Guitar Hero Aerosmith of course! Which are the hardest What is the coolest We want our GHA!!! Related Entries TrackBack (0) | Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: Already Rocked Out on Guitar Hero Aerosmith — Right? Tags: Guitar Hero Aerosmith Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog ...
The Future of Home Phone Service - Ari Rabban
For long-time VoIP followers, you’ll likely know Ari Rabban. I’ve known Ari from my earliest days of tracking VoIP at Frost & Sullivan. He was with industry pioneer VocalTec for many years, and most recently is the CEO of startup Phone.com. The company has an interesting pedigree, and I’ll leave that for you to discover. My post is more about shining some light on Ari and what the company is up to. They recently launched a corporate blog, and I want to steer you to Ari̵...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.