Technology posts

In 2008, many tech sites and bloggers pronounced that XM radio was dead. Today, Sirius declared otherwise. Mel Karmazin, CEO of SIRIUS XM Radio, announced that the company is projecting to break 20.1 million subscribers by the end of the year. It will be the first time an XM radio provider has achieved this mark and means that 2010 will net them approximately 1.3 million new subscriptions. Despite the increased adoption of digital music downloads in the “iPod Age”, XM is still proving to be a valid option. Growth in the 2nd quarter of 2010 was triple what it was in 2009. The question is: what is prompting…

The transition over the last decade from brick-and-mortar store purchases to e-commerce purchases has been dramatic. The 2nd quarter of 2010 showed nearly $40 billion in e-commerce sales, a 14% increase from 2nd quarter, 2009. Despite the mass-adoption, there are still many who avoid online purchases based upon certain fears. The infographic below by SiteJabber takes a look at the top seven fears as well as seven tips to ease those fears. (click to enlarge) …

As you’re well aware, most bodies of authority aren’t terribly thrilled with Google’s Street View these days, looking down upon the service as an invasion of privacy, etc, etc, you know how it goes. I, for one, forgive Google of its trespasses – quite frankly, Street View is an incredible tool, and – surprise! – Google tends to agree. “We often consider Street View to be the last zoom layer on the map, and a way to show you what a place looks like as if you were there in person,” explains Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering for Google Maps. “Whether you’re checking out a coffee shop across town or planning…

Following AOL’s acquisition today of technology news site TechCrunch and video service 5min Media, industry insiders are left to wonder what’s next for the online powerhouse.  As such, oddmakers at YouWager.com, a leading sportsbook with top management and line-makers collecting over 150 years of experience, are asking which major player will be next to be added to the company’s growing roster of content sites. Seems like Vimeo and Alltop stand as the most likely to next to be acquired, full odds below: The next major content player to be acquired by AOL Vimeo (33%)   …

Almost everyone in the tech world agrees that the future is mobile. In fact, I do too. Being able to work wherever, whenever, untethered by cables is great. To write a blog post in a park or share photos from the beach is one of the most convenient and enjoyable things technology has allowed us to do. People move around a lot these days, and the laptop just makes sense. Yet, though you might call me crazy, for my main, day-to-day computer, I still want a desktop computer. While admittedly, I wouldn’t only want a desktop, I still don’t want to live without one. So why would I – someone who doesn’t really play…

Appcelerator®, a platform for mobile, desktop, and iPad applications using web technologies, and FortiusOne, a location analysis software provider, have joined forces to launch the first location-based analytics platform for mobile applications. The new Titanium+Geo platform, which is being demonstrated today by FortiusOne at the Location-Based Marketing Summit in New York City, allows enterprises, marketers and retailers to better understand where, when and how mobile applications are being used. Appcelerator’s Titanium+Geo captures, analyzes and visualizes real-time…

The rumors started flying yesterday. Today it became official. Techcrunch announced that they agreed to be purchased by AOL during their Disrupt conference. Financial details have not been disclosed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen today — this was supposed to happen later,” TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington said from the stage at their Disrupt conference. “So we had to rush through this.” From the stage he polled the audience about whether or not he should sign the agreement. “Absolutely Not!” defeated “Yay” in a 60/40 split, but Arrington signed anyway. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong posted…

ISPs in the United Kingdom are making money from the process of anti-piracy groups taking legal action against copyright infringing customers. When a copyright holder wishes to pursue those infringing their copyright, they must request customer information from their ISP. ISPs are giving up the information, and charging for the privilege. An executive at FAST, the Federation of Against Software Theft, spoke out about the practice. “In 2006, we ran Operation Tracker in which we identified about 130 users who were sharing copies of a security program over the web”. The end result? 100 names…

Spam me once, shame on you. Spam me twice and it’s time to get better moderators. For the second time in three days, Digg has become the pitiful victim of a major spam attack on their Top News section. This isn’t the case of a complex algorithm breach or a hidden exploit being passed around the darkest corners of the Internet. The same spam sites that attacked early in the morning on September 26th hit again before midnight on September 28th. The 4 stories in question were submitted at 10:30 pm Pacific. All four were promoted utilizing a gaping hole of an exploit inherent to V4 (which we will not detail…

Porn is really easy to get, isn’t it? Porn has always been the internet’s biggest business, but most of us would-be consumers are generally asking ‘what business’? Porn is perfectly easy to get for free. That’s just what porn producers are worried about, and they’re rallying to change it. Studio Pink Visual has rallied adult content providers the world over to Arizona for a ‘Content Protection Retreat’ in October, to figure out a plan. “People were willing back then [at the advent of filesharing services] to pay top dollar for porn,” says PV’s president Allison Vivas. “Now it looks like the majority…