Skype’s Legal Problems

In 2005, eBay purchased Skype for a reported $2.6 billion and now, four years later, eBay is in a legal battle with Skype’s founders over software licensing issues.  eBay made a huge mistake in the terms of its Skype purchase.  One of the most important components, namely the peer-to-peer communication technology that drives Skype, was not a part of the sale.  Instead, eBay licensed the peer-to-peer technology from Joltid Limited.

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It appears the second Twitpocalypse is due to hit around the end of September.  Why so soon?  Why at all?

Back in June, Twitter faced its first, so called, Twitpocalypse.  It was blown a bit out of proportion and described somewhat inaccurately.  The problem did not affect Twitter itself, but rather some of the third party applications written to access Twitter

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A recent security exploit affecting mobile phones has been identified that compromises mobile phones by simply receiving SMS or text messages.  While most of the news surrounding this exploit has focused on the iPhone, other popular phones are also at risk.

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Trillian Astra was voted “Best Instant Messenger” client in a recent poll conducted by Lifehacker.  Astra’s 17,025 votes placed it 12% above Digsby, the second place finisher.  Rounding out the top five were Pidgin, Adium and Meebo, which actually placed below “Other”.

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Since the Palm Pre was launched in June with the capability of syncing directly with iTunes, Apple has been obsessed with breaking that feature for Pre owners.  It seems that this effort by Apple isn’t helping them in any way and is probably hurting them in the media.  Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »

The Google Wave product preview will be expanding beyond developers on September 30, 2009 adding another 100,000 users in addition to the developers currently using Wave.  According to a recent post on the Google Wave Developer Blog, the new users will be added from people who signed up and offered to test and report bugs.

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The ThinkPad W700ds is outfitted with a second 10.6 inch slide-out/retractable screen that expands the display area by 39 percent according to Lenovo who acquired the ThinkPad line from IBM.  Additional screen real estate is always a benefit, especially for mobile users who are used to dual screens on their desktop computer.

The W700ds comes with all the bells and whistles you would expect in a high end mobile workstation.  Check here for the full technical specifications.

As Google continues to send invites for their Google Voice service, they have announced mobile apps for BlackBerry and Android.  The announcement describes the app’s integration with the phone’s contacts which allows calls to be made via Google Voice right from the contact list.  You must have a Google Voice account to use the new mobile app.

If your WordPress blog requires users to log in, I’m sure you are already aware of the WordPress branded login and registration pages used. While it may be frustrating to bloggers and website owners, it can be downright confusing to your visitors.  Unless your site is technical in nature, your typical user has probably never heard of WordPress and may think they’re logging into a site other than yours when they see the WordPress logo.

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With the announcement of Google’s Chrome OS, I decided to see what the buzz is all about.  Some technology writers have stated that Chrome OS marks the end of Windows.  Really?

To put this in perspective, let’s first identify the intended purpose of Chrome OS.  Some key features described in Google’s official announcement of Chrome OS are:

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