Faster Forward: November 7, 2010 - November 13, 2010
Web celebrates one of its 20th birthdays
It was 20 years ago today that a computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee sent around a proposal to some of his colleagues. Berners-Lee, then a researcher at the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research (known as CERN for the French initials of its former name), was fleshing out an earlier...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 12, 2010; 12:23 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Categories:
Policy and politics, The Web
Save & Share:
Facebook rumor of the week: A Web-mail app?
Once again, tech reporters are engaged in a sort of Kremlinology: Guessing what Facebook might mean with its latest vaguely worded invitation to a media event. The latest such solicitation, seen below, arrived yesterday: Come hear Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talk about ... something at 10 a.m. Pacific Monday in...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 12, 2010; 10:55 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (5)
Categories:
E-mail, Social media
Save & Share:
Apple ships OS X 10.6.5 update: its biggest yet?
On Wednesday, Apple shipped its fifth patch to Snow Leopard, the 10.6 version of Mac OS X that it delivered in August 2009. OS X 10.6.5, to judge from its characteristically vague release notes, is not the most consequential update ever. It fixes such glitches as "an issue syncing Address...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 12, 2010; 5:05 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (4)
Categories:
Mac, Security
Save & Share:
Newest Twitter annoyance: iTunes Ping updates?
Twitter is tuning into Apple's iTunes--and this change may not get a good reception. Ping, the woefully underdeveloped, music-centric social network Apple introduced in September inside its iTunes 10 program, now allows users to link in their Twitter accounts. A post on Twitter's blog--this update is unheralded on Apple's "Hot...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 11, 2010; 3:00 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (6)
Categories:
Music, Social media
Save & Share:
Facebook, Google privacy 'breaches' that aren't
Facebook and Google have been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent weeks--the social network for the misuse of some users' data by applications they'd installed on their pages, the Web-services giant for collecting data from people's wireless networks. Both of these episodes show we need to...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 11, 2010; 9:45 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (6)
Categories:
Privacy, Security, The business we have chosen
Save & Share:
CEA launches 'Tech Enthusiast' membership
You, too, can be a member of the Consumer Electronics Association. Well, sort of. The Arlington-based trade group began signing up individual "Tech Enthusiast" members yesterday. Where CEA's regular dues start at $750 a year and require active participation in the industry, "Tech Enthusiast" membership costs $49 a year ($29...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 10, 2010; 7:14 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Categories:
Policy and politics, The business we have chosen
Save & Share:
The flat market for 3-D TV -- is anyone interested?
The flat market for 3-D -- nobody seems to care.
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 10, 2010; 12:31 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (48)
Categories:
TV, Video
Save & Share:
Ask.com and you won't receive
It may be all up to Bing now: Ask.com, the only other search engine to provide measurable competition to Google in the U.S., announced today that it would end its Web-search efforts. The Oakland, Calif., firm broke the news to its remaining users in a blog post: We know that...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 9, 2010; 4:00 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Categories:
Search
Save & Share:
Google offers instant previews, free inflight WiFi
Google has a couple of early holiday presents. It unwrapped one yesterday: free inflight WiFi Internet access on three airlines. The other came this morning: an optional, in-line preview of search results. The latter affects more people, so I'll cover that first. Google's Instant Previews enable you to see a...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 9, 2010; 12:57 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Categories:
Digital culture, Search, Telecom, The Web
Save & Share:
Weekly video: Xbox Kinect
In this week's video episode, I show off the Kinect there-is-no-controller control system for Microsoft's Xbox 360 that I reviewed here last week. Your Browser DoesNot Support IFrames. This was an obvious choice for a video segment, since it's easier to show how Kinect works than to describe it. So...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 9, 2010; 6:35 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Categories:
Gadgets, Games, Weekly video
Save & Share:
Post launches iPad app; Post columnist reviews it (semi-favorably)
The Washington Post has an iPad app, and it's much better than the iPhone program I panned in March. That's good, inasmuch as I work here and want my employer to do well. But the Post app -- coming months after the iPad debuts of such other newspapers as the...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 8, 2010; 8:25 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (33)
Categories:
Digital culture, Mobile, The business we have chosen
Save & Share:
Windows Phone 7 launch-day roundup
You no longer have to rely on the likes of me to decide if Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 is any good--you can buy a WP7 device yourself and make up your own mind. But is anybody doing that? It's hard to say. The usual anecdotal indications of consumer interest--Google search...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 8, 2010; 2:50 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Categories:
Mobile
Save & Share:
PostPoints tip: Microsoft-logo keys aren't useless (on netbooks, at least)
The two keys on PC keyboards that sport Microsoft logos--one with the Windows icon, the other with a menu graphic--go ignored by many users. On a desktop and larger laptops, that's understandable; it's just easier to keep using a mouse or a touchpad. But on a netbook, switching between the...
By
Rob Pegoraro
| November 8, 2010; 6:37 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Categories:
Tips
Save & Share:
