Archive for October 22nd, 2008
How Low Can Blu-ray Go?
If you’ve got any cash, this may be a truly wonderful season to buy all the gadgets you want — it’s list the Xmas shopping season isn’t even waiting to Halloween this year (forget about Thanksgiving!). Try this one on for size — Best Buy is selling its proprietary Insignia brand Blu-ray Disc player for $199 (after a $30 in-store discount) — more than 40% off the suggested retail price. Industry observers have long considered a sub-$200 price point key to brid...
Comcast Boosts Broadband in Beantown and Philly
Hold on to your wallets, sports fans, because Comcast is offering its Extreme50 class of upgraded cable broadband in Boston and its hometown of Philadelphia. The service offers 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps up, but will set you back $139.95 a month. A still speedy Ultra connection is a bit easier on the wallet at $62.95 per month; it offers up to 22 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up. For those content to meander along the information superhighway (and maybe avoid Comcast’s cap), Comcast is also ...
How Low Can Storage Go?
New storage products usually involve gadgets that are bigger, faster and cheaper as disk drives keep packing in more and more data and prices keep on dropping. However, EMC’s Iomega, well-known for such personal disk storage products as the Zip and Jaz drives, is coming out with new products that are smaller — yet “bigger” in capacity — and cheaper. Iomega recently introduced the StorCenter ix2, a 1TB-capacity network storage drive with a desktop footprint that the ...
Rackspace Buys Two Startups to Beat Amazon’s Cloud
Rackspace Hosting said today that it has agreed to buy startups Slicehost and Jungle Disk, a move aimed at boosting its Mosso cloud offerings in order to step up competition with Amazon’s Web Services. But whether or not Rackspace can successfully transition from being a hosting provider to a provider of a truly on-demand cloud offering remains to be seen. The San Antonio, Texas-based company will spend up to $18 million on its two acquisitions, with $11.5 million payable in cash and sto...
SlingMedia CEO to Speak at NewTeeVee Live; Full Schedule Now Available!
Blake Krikorian, co-founder of SlingMedia, the company that brought place-shifting video to the masses, has agreed to be a speaker at our NewTeeVee Live conference that will be held on Nov. 13. Sling Media was acquired by EchoStar for $380 million last year. Krikorian will join me in a fireside chat and we will discuss the new digital living room and the importance of online video in that environment. I have written extensively about the concept of place-shifting, so hopefully I can get him to ...
The Social Media Jungle: Update #2
On November 13th I will be hosting The Social Media Jungle: Leveraging Social Media for YOU (and your business) in Melville, New York. Since sending out a call for speakers, I continue to be overwhelmed by the number of people who have come forward as prospective discussion leaders. At the moment I am still working on the schedule, confirming additional discussion leaders and the event website. Some of the people who will be leading discussions include: - Jeremy Epstein - Leslie Poston - Howard...
2008 World Series Wager: Oranges for Cheesesteaks?
I was sent a release about a wager between two hosted VoIP companies over which team will win the World Series - either the Philadelphia Phillies or the Tampa Bay Rays. The bet involves a dirty dozen cheesestakes by Alteva against Telovations’ two bushels of oranges. Ok, I’ll bite (pun intended) and blog this since it involves VoIP and our national past time. Check out the wager: 2008 World Series: Oranges for Cheesesteaks? The Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays will soon batt...
Who’s the Next Steve Jobs?
Silicon Valley Insider had an intriguing comment about the future of Steve Jobs: Steve and Apple need to find a clear, strong No. 2 soon, and then Steve needs to start sharing the stage with him or her. Is it Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer? Or perhaps Ron Johnson, senior vice-president of retail, who spent many years with Target before joining Apple in 2000. Or does Apple recruit someone from outside the organization? Whoever ends up sitting in the Jobs’ seat, it will be ...
HiDef Conferencing Aids Business During Credit Crunch
HiDef Conferencing, a leading audio conferencing service that incorporates HD Voice when accessed via Skype, but can also be accessed via designated country-specific numbers and toll-free 800 numbers, wants to assist those businesses and professionals who can save travel and meeting costs in today’s economic environment through teleconferencing services. As its key differentiator HiDef Conferencing is a server-supported business grade conferencing service with full host/moderator support a...
Event: Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Tel Aviv on Nov 5th
On Wednesday, November 5th I will be in Tel Aviv and hosting my fifth Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and Friends) in Tel Aviv from 0900-1100. I am looking forward to catching up with my friends. To RSVP, please visit this event on Facebook. Everyone attending this breakfast will receive a “Personal Social Networking Toolkit.” Friends can learn more about my Personal Social Networking Toolkit by watching the video below: — Tags: breakfast, Personal Social Media Toolkit, T...
AT&T is Sitting Pretty with iPhone and U-verse
AT&T reported a slight boost in profits this morning, and the carrier has quite a bit to boast about, especially on the wireless side. iPhone activations reached 2.4 million during the third quarter, and 40 percent of those iPhones were sold to new subscribers who activated on the AT&T network. And despite what analysts say, AT&T also seems on track to reach 1 million U-verse subscribers by the end of the year–gaining 232,000 subscribers this quarter–to total 718,000 sig...
Wednesday Reading
Staffing I didn’t make Obama’s short list for U.S. CTO. Darn. Teachers interview for jobs via Skype video. Family ReadWriteWeb summarizes a study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project: "Simply put, technology may bring us closer, but, as this study shows, its constant use also means that we may be sacrificing other activities in order to fit it into our schedule. It really is both a blessing and a curse in many ways." - Sarah Perez Design James Ken...
Koster’s Metaplace Gets $6.7M in Series B Funding
As we noted last week, virtual world startups seem to be weathering the global financial crisis. There’s more evidence of that out today, as Metaplace, the user-created, web-based virtual world from visionary game developer Raph Koster, is announcing $6.7 million in Series B funding from new investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The round, which also included original investors Charles River Ventures and Crescendo Ventures, brings Metaplace’s total amount of funding to $9.4 mi...
Google Android Goes Open Source
The source code for the Android mobile handset OS has gone online, and Google are keen to stress that many of the components will be useful outside of the mobile handset world too… Read More… ...
The Apple-RIM Wars Officially Begins
Apple being Apple, there is no lack of coverage about Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter results - the highlights being the sale of 11 million iPods, 6.8 million iPhones and 2.6 million Mac computers. Within the press release, one sentence jumped out - at least to those of us north of the border: “Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM“. The fact Steve Jobs made a point of mentioning RIM ...
a jedi you must be
"skype, a jedi you must be to beat it." - Marc Lehmann ...
7 Reasons Why iPhone Is a Smash Hit
Love it or hate it… there is no denying that Apple’s iPhone is not only a game changer but a certifiable hit. Apple shared some interesting stats about the iPhone. I culled some of the more interesting facts come from the transcript of Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter (ending September 30, 2008) earnings conference call, posted by the Apple 2.0 blog & Seeking Alpha. Since its launch on July 11, Apple sold 6.892 million 3G iPhones in the quarter, bringing the total number of...
In Defense of Cable
With Apple’s iTunes now offering HD programming from all four major broadcast networks, Netflix streaming shows from CBS, and Hulu letting you cherry-pick the best skits from “Saturday Night Live,” you might think it’s time to cut the cable cord. But there are some things you should consider before telling Comcast where it can shove its overpriced coaxial cable. Whether it’s time to dump cable depends on how much TV you watch, how important picture quality is, a...
Avaya Global Analyst Conference - Photo Highlights
Am attending the global analyst conference for Avaya in Boston this week, and it sure has been great. Got lots of impressions to share with you, but that will have to wait another day or so. Just been too much going on, and for now, all I can do is post some photos from today’s keynotes. I’ll have some commentary and overall impressions once I have time to gather my thoughts. Interim CEO Charlie Giancarlo Strategy/Tech SVP Karyn Mashima Sales SVP/President, Field Operations, To...
AdMob Raises $15.7M in Series C Funding
AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace provider based in San Mateo., Calif., has raised $15.7 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. The round, which brings the total amount of funding for AdMob to $34.3 million, signals the power of the mobile platform for advertising at a time when businesses across the board are tightening their belts — and many startups are laying off staff or shutting down altogether. The investment in AdMob is all the more notable fo...
Time Warner Cable Talks Last Mile and Bandwidth Caps
I visited Time Warner Cable’s Austin cable plant today in order to learn more about the last mile — or how cable broadband gets from the Internet backbone to your home — and how the limitations of cable play out in the way the company manages its network. I spoke with Scott Young, senior director of digital systems, about the Austin network, whose users download between 5 and 6 GB per month on average. That’s twice the amount the average Comcast user downloads per month ...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.