Skip to main content

Latest by Geoff Duncan

E-Waste Toxins Rising in China, India

Hey, whatever happened to your old television? Onsite research from Greenpeace International reveals high toxin levels at ewaste "recycling" centers in southern China and India.

Vodafone: Is that a Ferrari in your Pocket?

Vodafone K.K. will start selling the tiny Sharp V302SH phone in Japan August 19; however, it's hoping a special red Ferrari Edition will rev up sales.

Akamai Mapping Major News Web Traffic

Akamai unveils its Net Usage Index which tracks and maps global online attention to news stories. But what does it tell us?

Google Files to Offer $4 Bln in Stock

Google says is wants to offer 14.76 million new shares of stock, which would be worth over $4 billion at Wednesday's closing price. But how does Google plan to spend that money?

No iTunes Deal for Nokia N91 Music Phone

Nokia says there's no deal to include the popular iTunes Music Store in its forthcoming N91 multimedia phone, but third-party developers could put the two together.

Comcast Offers Users Free Security Software

Comcast offers Windows-using broadband customers McAfee VirusScan, Personal Firewall Plus, and Privacy Service for free.

Report: Broadband Users Rarely Back Up

Broadband users want data fast, but don't really care about keeping it: The Diffusion Group finds less than half back up their home data more than a couple times a year.

Dell Customer Service Drops; Apple’s Shines

The American Consumer Satisfaction Index finds that Dell's once-lauded customer service has declined to match the industry average, while Apple's support stands out.

Nintendo Drops DS Portable Video Game Price

Nintendo announced that as of August 21, it's dropping the U.S. price of the portable Nintendo DS video game device about 13 percent, from $150 to about $130.

Gateway Posts Q2 Profit But Cuts Estimates

Number three computer maker Gateway posted a $17.2 million profit for its second quarter of 2005, but sent shares tumbling by cutting revenue estimates for the year.

Trend Micro: Windows Worm ZOTOB a Threat

Trend Micro reports that a new Windows worm, dubbed ZOTOB, exploits "critical" security issues Microsoft patched just last week.

Report: iPod Trumps Music-Enabled Mobiles

Strategy Analytics reports that Apple's iPod blows away music-enabled mobile challengers, handily beating them in both usability and perceived sound quality.

The Fat Lady Rings: Opera for Cell Phones

Norway's Opera Software has announced Opera Mini, a lightweight Java program which it claims can bring Web surfing to more than 700 million low-to-medium cost cell phones.

Game Over: Man Dies After Online Marathon

Save up your extra lives! A 28 year-old South Korean man has died after playing Starcraft for nearly 50 hours in a Taegu Internet cafe.

Spammer Settles with Microsoft for $7 Mln

Microsoft announced today it has settled a lawsuit against former "spam king" Scott Richter for $7 million.

AOL Wild on Wildseed

America Online continues its new acquisition-splurge by buying Wildseed Ltd. to leverage AOL's content and services into wireless devices.

Monad Is an Island…A Deserted Island

Shortly after proof-of-concept viruses appear for Microsoft's much-touted Monad Shell command-line and scripting tool, Microsoft pulls it from Windows Vista.

ICANN Quietly Raises Internet’s .IQ

After years in limbo, ICANN has turned over control for Iraq's top-level domain (.iq) to Iraq's National Communications and Media Commission.

FCC Ends Facilities-Sharing Mandate for DSL

The Federal Communications Commission eases requirements on phone companies offering DSL, letting them compete better with cable while squeezing indepedent ISPs.

FTC Settles Advertising.com Adware Charges

Advertising.com used to give away an anti-spyware program which (clever clever!) installed adware. Now the AOL subsidiary has settled with the FTC and promises to play nice.

Mozilla Hatches For-Profit Subsidiary

The non-profit Mozilla Foundation has launched Mozilla Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary to capitalize on the success of Firefox and Thunderbird.

Online Consumers Still Not Into Blogs, RSS

Forrester Research finds 6 percent of consumers read blogs and only 2 percent use RSS. But broadband households watch less TV!

Crucial Ships 1GHz Ballistix Memory

When you can't compress enough video, make enough DVDs, or record enough TV, memory maker Crucial adds 1GHz RAM to its Ballistix line.

RadioShack: So long Verizon, Hello Cingular

RadioShack kicks Verizon and CDMA to the curb and signs a 10-year cell phone deal with Cingular, plus re-ups for another 11 years with Sprint.

Worldwide Semiconductor Sales Up 6.5 Pct

The Semiconductor Industry Association reports worldwide semiconductor sales rose 6.5 percent during the first half of 2005 compared to 2004.

Want Ads? Ask Jeeves

Less than two weeks after finalizing its acquisition by InterActiveCorp, Ask Jeeves is rolling out paid ad listings on its search engine.

Ford Getting Sirius for 2006

Ford will begin offering Sirius satellite radio this month as a factory-installed option on some 2006 vehicles.

Microsoft Seeds Windows Vista, IE7 Betas

Microsoft has seeded beta 1 releases of Windows Vista—formerly Longhorn—and Internet Explorer 7 to developers and corporate workers.

Minimo: Mozilla for your Cell Phone?

The Mozilla Foundation has released a previous of Minimo, a Web browser for Windows CE mobile phones which uses the same technology as the Firefox Web browser.

Handhelds Jolt U.S. Video Game Sales

A new NPD Group survey finds retail sales of video games in the U.S. increased 21 percent during the first six months of 2005, as surging popularity of handheld games offset declini

The Kids Are Online

A new report says that today nearly nine out of ten teenagers in the U.S. have online access. Adults? Only two out of three.

File-Swappers Spend on Legal Digital Music?

The BBC and UK's The Register report on a study which says file-sharing Britons are also the biggest spenders on legal digital music.

Who’s Got Your Backups?

The SANS Institute survey of the top 20 security vulnerabilities for the second quarter of 2005 has some surprising entries: backup software.

Yahoo Gives Itself a Widgie

Yahoo has announced its acquisition of Pixoria, Inc. and its Widget-making software Konfabulator, as a technology to enable unique tools built on Yahoo's XML content.

Sony to Enable Web Browsing for PSP

Sony Corporation announced it will release a free version 2 firmware upgrade for PSP in Japan next week which will let the portable gaming units surf the Web.

Because Nothing Says “Windows” like “Vista”

Microsoft has announced that its forthcoming major revision of Windows, codenamed "Longhorn," will be named "Windows Vista."

Feds Charge Seven Companies over Porn Email

The Federal government has accused seven U.S. companies of hiring others to send email which illegally used pornographic messages to promote adult Web sites.

DVRs Seen in Nearly Half U.S. Homes by 2010

JupiterResearch projects DVRs will be in 47 percent of U.S. homes—and 63 percent will have HDTV—by 2010.