Tag: Tech (1-10 of 158)

May 23 2012 10:55 AM ET

Inventor of TV remote control dead

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Image Credit: LG Electronics/AP

Couch potatoes everywhere can pause and thank Eugene Polley for hours of feet-up channel surfing. His invention, the first wireless TV remote, began as a luxury, but with the introduction of hundreds of channels and viewing technologies it has become a necessity. Just ask anyone who’s lost a remote.

Polley died of natural causes Sunday at a suburban Chicago hospital, said Zenith Electronics spokesman John Taylor. The former Zenith engineer was 96. READ FULL STORY »

May 14 2012 09:03 AM ET

Ousted Yahoo CEO has thyroid cancer: Report

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Yahoo’s Scott Thompson, who was pressured to give up his CEO post because his official biography included a college degree he never received, reportedly has thyroid cancer.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people it did not identify, says that Thompson told Yahoo’s board and several colleagues of his condition before resigning from his role with the company.

The newspaper says it was told by one source that Thompson’s decision to resign was partly influenced by his cancer diagnosis.

Thompson was hired as Yahoo’s CEO in January to fill a void created by Carol Bartz’s firing.

Yahoo Inc. has named Ross Levinsohn as its interim CEO. Levinsohn had a successful stint running Internet services within Rupert Murdoch’s media empire at News Corp. before Bartz hired him in November 2010

Yahoo’s stock gained 33 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $15.52 in premarket trading Monday.

May 1 2012 07:19 PM ET

Report: Facebook IPO set for May 18

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The proof is in the pudding and on May 18, the world will learn what social networking is really worth. Facebook, which has a valuation of $100 billion, has set its IPO date for May 18, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company expects to raise over $10 billion.

Early investors like Bono’s Elevation Partners and other bold-faced names will be in the black, and still more in the inner circle will be able to invest outright. But what does Facebook’s going public mean for users? For a basic outline and understanding of just how big Facebook is and what the IPO could mean on a larger scale, check out this video from Kapitall, first picked up by Mashable, below:  READ FULL STORY »

Mar 16 2012 03:02 PM ET

'This American Life' retracts Apple factory story

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Image Credit: Joan Marcus

NPR is retracting a story about Apple factories in China that ran on This American Life Jan. 6, reports Poynter. Per a press release, this week’s edition of Life will be dedicated to detailing how monologuist Mike Daisey “partially fabricated” his story — including dramatic incidents involving underage workers and the poisoning of factory workers. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 13 2011 09:00 PM ET

Man charged in hacking attack on Gene Simmons site

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A man affiliated with a hacking group was arrested Tuesday on federal charges for an attack on a website belonging to Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, authorities said.

Kevin Poe was indicted in Los Angeles on two counts: conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer. Poe made his initial appearance in court in Hartford, Connecticut and was released on $10,000 bond.

If convicted of both charges, the Manchester man faces up to 15 years in prison. An email message left for deputy federal public defender Deirdre Murray was not immediately returned.

READ FULL STORY »

Nov 14 2011 10:37 AM ET

Diaspora co-founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy is dead at 22

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Image Credit: blog

Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the founding members of the social networking site Diaspora, has passed away at the age of 22. According to the International Business Times, the company confirmed that Zhitomirskiy has died, though the cause and date of his passing have not yet been reported. IBC writes that Zhitomirskiy, along with Dan Grippi, Maxwell Zalsberg and Raphael Sofaer, created Diaspora out of growing dissatisfaction with Facebook and wanted to create “a social network that didn’t force people to surrender their privacy.” (Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg helped contribute to Diaspora’s website fundraising, and said of the up-start, “I think it’s a cool idea.”) Zhitomirskiy’s profile on Diaspora reads, “Ilya is a Russian. He is super passionate about building a world of hacker spaces, maker culture, sharing, cycling, and life satisfaction.”

Oct 25 2011 05:20 PM ET

Netflix stock plunges 28 percent on dismal quarterly report

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Tags: , Movies

(UPDATE: The L.A. Times reports Netflix’s stock has fallen 35 percent, and Goldman Sachs has cut its shares to sell.) Netflix jolted its shareholders again with a third-quarter financial report that portrayed a company in crisis. The video subscription service’s latest blooper reel, released Monday, included an even larger customer exodus than the company had foreseen after announcing an unpopular price increase in July. What’s worse, the report contained a forecast calling for more defections during the next few months.

The backlash will deprive Netflix Inc. of some of the revenue that management had been counting on to finance the company’s expansion plans while it pays higher fees for Internet video streaming rights. The result: Netflix expects to post losses next year when it starts selling its streaming service in Britain and Ireland. The company didn’t offer further specifics besides saying it won’t go into any other overseas markets until it’s making money again. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 19 2011 08:53 AM ET

Google unveils Android's new 'Ice Cream Sandwich' OS

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Samsung Electronics unveiled its newest Galaxy Nexus smartphone Wednesday, the first to use the latest version of Google’s Android operating system. The new phone is seen as the Samsung-Google partnership’s answer to Apple’s iPhone 4S, which in less than a week on the market has already sold more than 4 million units.

At a glitzy unveiling in Hong Kong, Google executive Andy Rubin said Android’s latest “Ice Cream Sandwich” operating system demonstrates innovation “that works on phones and tablets and everything in between.”

Rubin said features like Android Beam and Face Unlock showcased Ice Cream Sandwich’s capabilities. Android Beam allows transfer of data between two smartphones by holding them together, while Face Unlock uses facial recognition technology to activate smartphones, rather than conventional passwords. However, during a demonstration at the Hong Kong unveiling, the Face Unlock feature failed to activate the Galaxy Nexus. READ FULL STORY »

Oct 6 2011 01:31 PM ET

Apple stock holds steady after Steve Jobs' death

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When Steve Jobs stepped down from his day-to-day role as Apple’s chief in August, the stock price sank more than 5 percent in after-hours trading… but quickly rebounded once the American markets officially opened the next day. In the weeks that followed, the stock prospered as investors decided that the Apple brand was bigger than any one man — even someone as essential as Jobs had been to that brand.

Following the news of Jobs’ passing yesterday, Apple’s stock seemed to be following a similar trajectory. Early trading sent the stock down six points before buyers pushed the price back up. At 1:28 p.m. the stock was sitting at 376.50, just below its closing price yesterday. Most financial experts don’t expect Jobs’ passing to have a huge impact on the stock, as Jobs’ passing was not entirely unexpected and he had left behind what is perceived to be a capable executive team.

Read more:
Steve Jobs dies at age 56
Steve Jobs’ bio moves up release date, sees pre-orders rise
Steve Jobs: Thank Him For…

Oct 5 2011 07:50 PM ET

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dies at age 56

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Steve-JobsImage Credit: Shaun Curry/Getty ImagesSteve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. and Pixar Studios, and the man behind the launch of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, died today in California at the age of 56, according to Apple. Jobs first revealed he was battling pancreatic cancer in 2004, having surgery later that year. This past January he announced he was taking a medical leave of absence from his position at Apple until the end of June; he resigned his post as CEO of the company on Aug. 24.

Jobs was a visionary, a technical genius, a ruthless dealmaker, a control freak, a cool-packaging fetishist, and a celeb who loved delivering his company’s products to other celebs as a way to network. But most of all, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was a salesman.

Videos of his keynote addresses, those heavily live-blogged events at which he unveiled the latest Apple products and innovations, are archived all over the Internet. They’ll be dissected at business schools for decades, because they demonstrate directly that there’s never been a more galvanizing high-tech celebrant. Whatever he was extolling—the introduction of the iPad, the latest iteration of the iPhone, the newest, most capacious iPod music players—Jobs came on not like a business executive but like an amalgam of high priest and rock star. READ FULL STORY »

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