Mac News: Must Read

Cox Throttles, AT&T Flip-Flops, MacBook Finds Itself

Friday - May 16, 2008

If you're tired of picking on Comcast for the way it throttles back peer-to-peer traffic, you can now direct your angry gaze to Cox Communications. Cox does the same thing, according to researchers at the Max Planck institute. In fact, it's one of three ISPs they caught engaging in P2P management. The second is Comcast and the third is StarHub in Singapore. At least Cox is somewhat transparent about it -- its user policies do say that it will manage network traffic for the good of the whole. [More...]

Gaming's Play for Social Networks

Monday - May 12, 2008

Long before social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook set up shop online, there was a social element to playing video games. Gamers have always congregated together, extolling or deriding the merits of one game over another, participating in tournaments and broadcasting their gaming exploits and accomplishments. [More...]

Will Microsoft Ask Facebook to Dance?

Friday - May 9, 2008

The long list of companies Microsoft might acquire post-Microhoo includes such outré possibilities as Netflix, Cisco and Salesforce.com. Facebook is also on that list -- but its potential as a Microsoft acquisition target is beginning to look less unlikely. In fact, it's looking downright plausible. Rumor has it Microsoft has already approached the social networking site about a possible sale. [More...]

Microsoft Ditches Yahoo, Google Picks Up Marbles

Monday - May 5, 2008

The stock market is making its after-the-fact adjustment to the end of the Microsoft-Yahoo saga, which culminated this weekend. After last minute negotiations failed, Microsoft walked away from its bid to acquire Yahoo for slightly more than its original offer of $33 per share. [More...]

Ready for the Robot Revolution

Saturday - May 3, 2008

Despite some impressive showings in robotics lately, the accolades are slow to come from industry outsiders. We, the general public, watch Honda's Asimo slowly make its way down a few steps, for example, and unfairly compare it to the glib and golden C-3PO of science fiction, and thus blind ourselves to the miracle before us. [More...]

Safari vs. .Gov

Monday - April 28, 2008

There's a scenario that most every Apple aficionado has run into: A Web site that, when visited via Apple's Safari Web browser, just doesn't work. If it's just a handy site, failure is irritating. When it's an important site, perhaps even a critical federally managed site, a Safari failure can incite real anger. [More...]

One Person's Tech Trash Is BuyMyTronics' Treasure

Friday - April 25, 2008

The hottest gadgets of today will look old and tired a year from now. Sellers of mobile handsets, smartphones, MP3 players, gaming consoles, camcorders, digital cameras and laptops constantly push the latest and greatest technology, leaving yesterday's choice items in the dust. Then there's the fact that this stuff is pretty easily broken. [More...]

When Disgruntled Customers Attack

Friday - April 25, 2008

After Best Buy lost the laptop Raelyn Campbell had brought in for repair, the D.C. resident filed a lawsuit demanding $54 million from the company. That eye-popping claim -- and the publicity it engendered -- was the culmination of a long blog campaign during which Campbell related her frustration with Best Buy's evasive behavior. [More...]

VoIP: When Cheaper Could Mean Costlier

Thursday - April 24, 2008

For enterprises, the primary reason for adopting Voice over Internet Protocol phone service is money. Long-distance phone calls placed over the Internet typically cost a mere fraction of those placed under the business rate plans offered by traditional telephone companies. [More...]

The Beauty of Not Asking Permission

Tuesday - April 1, 2008

Last year, when Viacom visited YouTube and spotted shows from MTV, Comedy Central and other content producers it owns, it decided to act quickly -- and the only quick reaction a company of Viacom's size is capable of in that sort of situation is to sue. Only after many months did other giant TV networks put the finishing touches on Hulu, a site that does basically the same thing that YouTube had been doing. [More...]

Application Acceleration: The Digital Drag Race

Monday - March 31, 2008

Computer technology in the workplace is all about hardware speed and connection bandwidth. To help IT managers augment their systems in both regards, vendors have been developing tweaking strategies to boost application speed beyond design limits. This process is called "application acceleration." However, this race has changed quite a bit over the past few months. [More...]

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