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2007 Crunchies
2008-01-19 17:24:00
Hello guys, Yesterday Techcrunch has picked the 2007 Crunchies, A great evening was had by all as some of the leading startups gathered for the first annual Crunchies, a joint production between Read/Write Web' VentureBeat, GigaOmCheck out the winners (and losers) I can just tell you that the bigest winner of the evning was Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. ׁ and TechCrunch.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.

Breaking down Macworld 2008 from all sides
2008-01-16 17:38:00
Hello folks, Steve Jobs keynote speech is over, and we got some pretty interesting stuff, including the thinest notebook in the world.Cnet has put a nice story which covers Jobs keynote.MacBook Air -- I'm not crazy about the name, but this is a nice-looking laptop. Ultraportable laptops are prestige products for both the vendor and the customer; Apple gets to show off what it's capable of designing, while the customer gets to show off his or her taste and style. These $1,799 laptops are not for the masses. Most people will have to make too many compromises with the MacBook Air, from the lack of an optical drive, Firewire, and an Ethernet jack to the battery, which like the iPhone and iPod can't be replaced by the user.What's in the envelope? The super-slim MacBook Air.(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks) But this is a nice addition to Apple's lineup of notebooks. It definitely will appeal to a group of people who aren't worried about making those trade-offs, and it gives Ap...
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Best of CES
2008-01-14 20:46:00
Howdy guys! Cnet has put together all of their incredible videos of CES, which took place last week at Las Vegas, check it out.Here are their 2008 Finalists.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.

Apple Retail- the unsung hero of Jobs' post-return?
2008-01-08 19:18:00
Hello folks, Apple insider has posted a really interesting perspective made by a new investment note from Bernstein Research.It looks like Apple(AAPL) retail segment is doing really well, and as one user wrote in a comment; it seems its the unsung hero of Steve Jobs ' post-return success.Everyone talks about the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, expanding the company into consumer electronics, etc. But none of that would have really been possible without the retail initiative. iPods would have gotten buried on CompUSA and Best Buy shelves.It was his boldest and riskiest move, one that very few gave any chance of succeeding.But it was the foundation for everything that has happened since, and it will pave the way far into the future. The report states that Apple stores' Mac sales beat PC stores sales by 10-to-1.Even more amazing is that in tems of retail efficiency, For fiscal 2007, all of the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm's retail space earned roughly $4,500 per square foot.The f...
More About: Post , Retail , Return

Change brewing at Starbucks
2008-01-07 23:05:00
Hello guys, Starbucks (SBUX) has just released a statement that Chairman Howard Schultz will take on the additional role of chief executive to replace Jim Donald, effective immediately. Schultz said he will slow the pace of U.S. store openings and close a number of underperforming locations. He will accelerate expansion outside the U.S., redeploying a portion of the capital originally earmarked for domestic stores to the international business. Schultz will also work to realign the company's organization, streamlining management. (Marketwatch)I like Schultz, and I think he could bring tremendous momentum and inject some much needed energy and sprint into the coffee giant.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
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Google Presentation now includes embedded slideshows
2008-01-05 12:40:00
Google Docs just added some cool new features to its Web-based Presentation software: slide shows that you can embed anywhere on the Web. Check it out below:Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
More About: Google , Slideshows , Embedded

Early Macworld bets
2008-01-04 17:17:00
After a holiday spent freezing in the wilds of Connecticut and pondering the mysteries of the chip industry, I felt it was time to take stock of the latest Macworld Expo rumors. The craziness is just 12 days away and undisturbed this year by that big gathering in the desert taking place the prior week. The predictions are starting to come in, and the early bets have mobility in mind. For months, the betting odds have favored the introduction of new MacBooks at Macworld. It's been awhile since Apple tweaked the basic hardware design of the MacBook, and with new mobile processors expected from Intel this quarter, it seems like a natural fit. But what kind of notebook are we talking about? The most persistent rumor is that Apple will release an ultraportable notebook, or a sub-notebook, or whatever you want to call it. Think small and thin, a 12-inch or smaller screen and a weight of less than 3 pounds. This is a small segment of the overall notebook market, but it's one of prestig...
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Will Apple Rescue Intel's Silverthorne?
2008-01-02 20:35:00
Appleinsider has posted a fascinating article aboutthe latest Apple rumor which states that Apple is eyeing a new mobile processor from Intelcode-named Silverthorne for use in a new generation of handheld devices.That has broad implications for Apple's expanding role in consumer electronics, and holds out the prospect for the company to play the savior for a chip originally designed to power the second-generation of Microsoft's beleaguered UMPCs.The article includes a long revision of the history of mobile PC handheld devices from Go's PenPoint OS, to Apple's Newton MessagePad, Windows CE, Palm , and most recent Tablet PCs which have been swimming in troubled water for the most part.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
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Steve Jobs 2.0?
2007-12-09 20:58:00
Hello guys, I've just read an excellent article, which try to convince us that Jonathan Ive, Apple's design chief, could be a serious contender as CEO Steve Jobs replacement, as the pressure grows for Apple to name a successor to Jobs as chief executive.Could Jonathan Ive, the publicity-shy Essex boy who started his career designing toilets and combs, be close to performing one of the most extraordinary coups in American business history? “I think Steve Jobs has found somebody in Jony who knows how to complete or even exceed his vision, and do it time and time again,” said Chee Pearlman, who hosted the event at which Mr Ive spoke four years ago.I think its an unlikely possibility that Ive will succeed Jobs as CEO, there's no doubt he is a brilliant designer and a visionary, but I think heading a company like Apple requires much more then a vision and a sense of style (even a terrific world changing one).I think Apple will hire an outsider to run the company or chose the COO...

Top 8 Macworld predictions
2007-12-07 22:21:00
It's that time of year again, when the entire tech world is gearing up to start speculating what's going to come up over at Apple's annual conference next month in San Fransisco. The guys over at Applegazette, have gathered a nice list of their top 8 predictions for Macworld 08, which starts January 14-18. iTunes Update HD video, rentals, possibly video pricing hikes.AppleTV Update Higher capacity AppleTVsThe Strongest Holiday Season Ever Strongest shopping season in company's history, powered by new Macs, iPhones, and iPods.Updated Macbooks Aluminum Macbook with a BLU LED screen and updated specs.No iTablet The rumor of a tablet Mac, will probably not come to see daylight.iPhone and iPod Touch Software Updates Bug fixes, some new featuresiPhone SDKOne More thing…Mac Nano Completely redesigned, and insanely small, Mac Mini replacement.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing op...
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The Burger Guy, Jim Skinner: CEO of the Year
2007-12-07 20:20:00
Hello folks, Jim Skinner , McDonald's CEO has been elected as CEO of the year over at Marketwatch.He still drives his own car most days to the fast-food giant's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., and tells new acquaintances that he sells hamburgers for a living. He eats McDonald's food every day, and while he mixes up his choices he manages to sneak in french fries most days, for "testing purposes." Coming into his own in his third year at McDonald's helm, Jim Skinner has made a deep impression. The evidence is on the bottom line, on the menu and on employees' lapels.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
More About: Burger , Year , Urge

Microsoft is gearing up to get XP running on OLPC!
2007-12-06 19:27:00
Microsoft is serious about getting Windows XP to work on One Laptop Per Child's low-cost laptop, but the company still isn't sure it will be able to make a go of it. In an interview, James Utzschneider, the general manager of Microsoft's emerging market unit, says Microsoft has devoted about 40 employees and contractors to work on its effort. However, there are plenty of technical hurdles, he said. One of the biggest is the fact that the XO has no hard drive and only 1GB of built-in memory. The company concluded it needed at least 2GB of memory just for Windows and Office, so it convinced the OLPC folks to include an SD slot on the laptop's motherboard. Microsoft's current plan is to get its low-cost Windows and Office bundle to fit on a 2GB SD card that can be added to the laptop. It also has to write new BIOS software to ensure that the operating system can boot directly from an SD card. Just to get ready for a planned trial in January, Microsoft must write about 10 differ...
More About: Running , Microsoft

Google fastest growing search terms!
2007-12-04 19:00:00
Hello guys, Google announced yesterday its list of the fastest growing search terms, VP of Search and User Experience Marissa Mayer revealed the “fastest rising U.S. search terms” on the Today Show.Last year Google described how they came up with the list:“we looked for those searches that were very popular in 2006 but were not as popular in 2005 — the explosive queries, the topics that everyone obsessed over. To come up with this list, we looked at several thousand of 2006’s most popular searches, and ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2005.” That sounds a lot like how this list would be compiled.So without any further introductions here's the list: 1. iphone2. webkinz3. tmz4. transformers5. youtube6. club penguin7. myspace8. heroes9. facebook10. anna nicole smith Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
More About: Terms , Growing

Dude, you're getting Dell's market share!
2007-11-30 18:44:00
On its latest report Thursday night, Research firm iSupply said Dell is facing assaults on all fronts from PC vendors ready to take advantage of its mistakes. Dell's computer shipments increased in the third quarter by just 1.5 percent compared to the same season a year ago, well behind other top-tier PC makers. The company shipped just 100,000 more systems than in summer 2006 and tumbled from a 16.3 percent market share of all PCs shipped worldwide to 14.6 percent. Yesterday after the closing bell Dell reported its quarterly results which weren't welcomed well by investors, the stock gave up $3.88 a share to fall to $24.70 amid negative reaction to the company's cloudy late-Thursday forecast, in which Dell kept with its new policy of not giving earnings or revenue forecasts. On a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Don Carty said that Dell's near-term results could be adversely impacted by the slower declines in computer-component costs and the shift in emphasis toward...
More About: Market , Dude , Share

Digg style voting coming to Google?
2007-11-29 22:02:00
Techcrunch is reporting that Google is experimenting with Digg style voting features on search results that allow users to vote up or bury search results they see. The program, part of Google Labs, works like this:This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made.At the moment the results of the program will only be stored per user and not applied to the general search index, so that sites buried (”I don’t like”) will not appear in future results for the user, where as sites voted up will stay up. Google Labs notes that “this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks,” still, who would have thought that Google would even experiment with Digg style social voting. Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items...
More About: Style , Voting

OLPC Laptop in danger!
2007-11-26 21:00:00
Hello folks, the Wall street Journal has posted a fascinating story about the development of the One Laptop Per child initiative and its many recent difficulties and clashing with Intel and Microsoft, its really a great story, that demonstrates how a computer which was designed for the poor developing nations got stomped by technology giants.I think that OLPC should have expected both Microsoft and Intel to compete and aiming at their initiative and cooperate with them, because its really too bad to watch such a great and bright project for developing nations gets stomped by tech giants. I really think that you can both make a profit and contribute something to the world's poor and needy, its just a matter of finding the right balance. Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
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World Wide Web: Land of Free Stuff!
2007-11-23 18:40:00
Hello guys, and Happy Thanksgiving to you all.Business week has made an interesting list of 101 free things on the internet, including: college education, shampoo, coffee samples, Vodka, Open source software, and much more intriguing stuff. Its really nice to read how the web evolved from its prehistoric age 15 years ago, into what we're seeing today.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
More About: World , Free Stuff , Free , Stuff , World Wide Web

TV on your PC
2007-11-21 22:35:00
Another rainy Sunday afternoon? the best thing you can is fire up your PC and watch a TV show or a movie, but wait how do you get the content? Hello guys, I've just read a nice review of Joost, Hulu, and Miro over at Gizmodo.and yeah all the three are totally free.All of them of course are pushing TV content over into the computer, with the goal of making TV shows available on the web.Persoanlly I like Joost but it has lots of unresolved issues that's just annoying making it a bit frustrating watching shows.The Contenders:Hulu: NBC Universal/News Corp.'s mutant is a sandbox-y YouTube for their properties. Joost: Streaming P2P service from Kazaa/Skype founders that wants oh so badly to be real TV. It's got deals with Viacom and other name players—News Corp.'s rumored to be at the table as well. Miro: Open-source Cory Doctorow-anointed Joost-slayer. You download, rather than stream. It uses RSS-based channels and BitTorrent for its P2P workings.Bottom line: No matter what serv...

Will eBooks ever be a best seller?
2007-11-19 21:08:00
Hello guys, Well Amazon launched today its much rumored eBook reader called: Amazon Kindle.Over all I must say I'm not really impressed with it. and books are pretty expensive at 9.99 a piece, plus you can get subscribed to different magazines and newspapers , the benefits of the unit is that you get a free of charge always on cell phone like connection which is basically subsidized by Amazon in order to get people to buy eBooks. Greg Sandoval at Cnet asks whether eBooks will ever become a best seller? The average commuter seems to be doing OK reading an old-fashioned newspaper on the way to work. Why, then, do Amazon.com and Sony think they need to replace traditional books with electronic readers? On Monday, Amazon unveiled the Kindle, a $399 handheld device that can download digital books, newspapers, and magazines from the Internet. Like the name suggests, Kindle is Amazon's way of burning down the traditional paperback book busin...
More About: Ebooks , Seller , Best Seller

Obama drops by Google
2007-11-17 21:42:00
Barack Obama was visits Google this week, sat down for a Q&A with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Pretty interesting stuff.Also check out John Dvorak's Marketwatch column about politicians and the tech world.Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.

Let the music play!
2007-11-17 15:55:00
Hello guys, I hope you're all having a great week weekend, I've got something to make your weekend a bit better. I just ran across a terrific website called: Songza, for listening to streaming music online with your song of choice, you simply tap whatever song or artist you like and boom, it just streams that song. There are lots of internet radio services that stream music which provides far better experience, but the majority of these offer music by artists, similar song etc.. They don't allow you to listen to a specific song of your choice. And that where this great service becomes useful, The beauty of the service is that it specifically great for tracking down songs, and live artists performance as it find all sorts of music even from YouTube videos, and much more. It has a super easy intuitive user interface like we all love, and does a great job at streaming songs. Songza is actually the brainchild of 23-year-old Aza Raskin — the president of Chicago-based software ...
More About: Music , Play , The Music

AMD+Abu Dhabi?
2007-11-17 12:02:00
(Credit: Abu Dhabi government)What does Abu Dhabi want out of Advanced Micro Devices? A way to make money that doesn't involve an oil well. On Friday, Abu Dhabi's Mubdala Development announced it was buying an 8.1 percent stake in chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, which could cost it roughly between $550 million and $700 million. Mubdala is a separate organization but it's funded by the government. The emirate, part of the United Arab Emirates, is awash with money thanks to escalating oil prices so it needs to put the money somewhere. But there is also more going on in the deal. Abu Dhabi, like nearby Dubai and Qatar, has been rapidly increasing its investments in the technology industry as a way to diversify its economic base. Oil is still gushing out of the ground in Abu Dhabi but leaders have acknowledged that fossil fuel supplies will inevitably dwindle. So rather than squander their money on cars and luxury goods, the government (and the investment trusts it owns) is ef...

High quality YouTube videos coming soon
2007-11-15 20:52:00
YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference today, confirmed that high-quality YouTube video streams are coming soon. Although YouTube's goal, he said, is to make the site's vast library of content available to everyone, and that requires a fairly low-bitrate stream, the service is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer's Net connection and serves up higher-quality video if they want it. Why wouldn't they? Because the need to buffer the video before it starts playing will change the experience. Hence the experiment, rather than just a rapid rollout of this technology. On stage, he said the current resolution of YouTube videos has been "good enough" for the site up till now. Chen told me that he expects that high-quality YouTube vids will be available to everyone within three months. Chen also confirmed that in YouTube's internal archive, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was sent in. However, he said, a large...
More About: Videos , Youtube , High , Quality , Ality

Google's Android OS early look SDK now available
2007-11-13 21:09:00
Here's A first look at the Android OS we've been writing about last week, it looks pretty good, a lot iPhone like, and of course Google released an SDK, so if you're a developer you can write programs for Android and get ready for it. Boldinvestors latest and greatest posts: including news items, editorial takes, investing opportunities ideas,and much more.
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Infineon teams with Intel for high-density (HD) SIM cards
2007-11-13 20:38:00
After buddying up with IBM earlier this year on a 32-nanometer semiconductor, Infineon is now teaming with none other than Intel to produce high-density (HD) SIM cards. Announced today at the Cartes Trade Show in Paris, the agreement will spark a "strategic technology collaboration" which will see Infineon producing modular chip solutions while Intel offers up memory capacities from 4MB to 64MB.More specifically, a 32-bit security microcontroller will be provided by Infineon, while the partnership's other half throws in its "leading-edge flash memory technologies, capabilities and manufacturing." Apparently, the HD SIM will play nice with "data-intensive mobile applications, services and over-the-air downloads" which are likely to become more pervasive in the coming years, and current market research shows that these very devices will account for "six- to eight-percent of the total SIM card market in 2010." As for availability, look for samples to land in Q2 of next year, but don'...
More About: Teams , High , Cards

Cheering the Tech Stock Crash?
2007-11-10 20:15:00
Its been a crazy week down at Wall street particularly these past few days.The selling that plagued the financial sector of the market for the last two months formally spread to the rest of the market on this past Thursday. That's when tech shares began selling off in earnest upon a lower-than-expected revenue forecast from industry giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) which fueled worries that corporate spending on technology products going into next year.Saul Hansell has written a real nice post at the NY Times Bits Blog, about the recent day's stock market sell off, so I thought that rather then write another description and explanation of what has happened over the past two trading days, I will just let his post speak for itself. There is a journalistic convention that drives me absolutely crazy: writing about rises in stock prices as good and declines as bad. Here are some of this afternoon’s headlines. Nasdaq Loses 6.5% in a Rough Week-Wall Street Journal Stock s Post Steep Loss...
More About: Tech , Crash , Erin

YouTube releases multi file uploader
2007-11-10 18:51:00
Howdy guys, I've just came across an interesting piece at ReadWrite Web, It seems YouTube announced the availability for Windows users of a desktop uploader. Users will now be able to do bulk file uploads. The company also raised its file size limit from 100 MB to 1 GB. Length will remain at 10 minutes though, so that just means more high quality video will be available on the site. Google Video remains the option of choice for long form video uploaders but some YouTube users have long complained about the small file size requirements and resulting low quality. Vimeo, a tiny boutique competitor owned by IAC, opened to HD uploads at the end of last month. A Mac version of the uploader is in the works, the company said. Hopefully the time limit will be changed as well - the YouTube brand is so strong there's no reason not to encourage users to store their full length videos there. Video archiving is important work and YouTube should be up to the task.Boldinvestors latest and greate...
More About: Youtube , File , Multi

Mass production kicks off for XO laptops
2007-11-07 19:08:00
Hello guys, Its been a while since we reported about the XO laptops, better known as the $100 laptop for developed nations, well its finally up for mass production. Following a number of delays, the One Laptop per Child Foundation's much-awaited XO laptop for needy kids has finally gone into mass production. Early Tuesday (local time), Taiwan's Quanta Computer started producing the green-and-white computer in its new Changshu manufacturing center, two hours northwest of Shanghai. The commencement of mass production means children in developing nations could have the rugged, open-source laptops in hand starting this month. The OLPC has already announced orders for kids in Uruguay and Mongolia. (Residents of the U.S. and Canada participating in the Give 1 Get 1 program--which donates an XO to a child in a developing nation for every machine sold online--are expected to start getting laptops in December.) "Today represents an important milestone in the evolution of the One Laptop ...
More About: Laptops , Production , Mass , Kicks

Hello Android! (The Google Phone)
2007-11-05 21:50:00
As expected Google (GOOG) today finally confirmed its long-awaited foray into the mobile phone business by announcing the Open Handset Alliance, a team of thirty three other leading technology and wireless companies who have agreed to share in Google's development of Android , a new open software platform aimed at bettering the user experience on today's mobile devices.As part of the alliance, the companies strive to develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. Android is said to be a first step in this direction, and represents software that has been under development for three years now, dating back to a Silicon Valley startup called Android Inc. that Google acquired in 2005. The platform is essentially an integrated mobile "software stack" that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and user applications.Built on the open source Linux Kernel, Android was conceived from the gr...
More About: Phone , Google Phone , The Go

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Impressions
2007-11-03 19:12:00
Hello guys, I finally had some time to play around with the latest release of Ubuntu 7.10 and write down my impressions. Overall I'm really impressed with it. In most cases it has exceeded my expectations. Ubuntu is of course a wonderful simple great distribution of Linux made by Canonical, with a new release coming out every 6 months, with plenty of breakthrough features that probably surpass many other OS, and in the Linux space for sure its the best most simple one (Yup that's Linux for ordinary people!) Ubuntu has originally started out as a software project in 2004. A small group of developers organized their talents and efforts to create a Linux-based distribution, including application software suitable for a desktop environment. Eventually, the effort came to be known as Ubuntu, with the following ideals: Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change, and improve their software for any purpose,w...
More About: Gutsy Gibbon , Impressions , Gutsy