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Are You Ready for 3-D in Your Living Room? Hollywood Can't Wait.
3-D was a big buzzword at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and it’s even bigger this year. It’s hard to find a TV manufacturer that isn’t showing off sets promising to let you replicate the...
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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: We'll Be Shipping DVDs Until 2030
The digital video revolution may be hastening the DVD toward its end, but there’s quite a bit of life left in the old format yet. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said as much today when he remarked that the...
View ArticleIs Running Windows on a Mac Secure?
Q: Thanks for your review of programs for running Windows on a Mac. But, if I use them, won’t I expose my Mac’s files to Windows viruses and spyware? A: Yes, potentially, because both of the programs I...
View ArticleTwo Laptops Take Images to Another Dimension
If switching from standard to high-definition television wasn’t confusing enough, there’s another wave of TV technology on the horizon: 3D. But 3D TVs and much of the 3D content won’t be available...
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YouTube Steps Cautiously Into Mobile Ads
Another sign that Google is serious about wringing more money out of YouTube: It is adding ads to the video’s mobile site. Another sign that mobile ads are still in their infancy: Google isn’t using...
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Adobe Co-Founder: We Never Abandoned Apple, but Apple Is Abandoning Us
A couple of weeks ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published “Thoughts on Flash,” a 1,671-word execration of Adobe’s Flash platform. On Thursday, Adobe co-founders and co-chairmen Chuck Geschke and John...
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Google Open Sources VP8 Video Codec. Will Apple, Microsoft and Intel Use It?
Google’s plan to open-source the VP8 video codec has been rumored ever since the company acquired its developer, On2, in August 2009. After all, in the press release detailing the acquisition, Google...
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Google's "Royalty-Free" WebM Video May Not Be Royalty-Free for Long
The announcement of Google’s new WebM video format and release of the VP8 video codec as an open standard have been hailed by some as the move that will free the Web from the proprietary H.264 codec...
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The Chapter And Verse on E-Bookstores
As books go digital, much of the focus has been on which gadgets offer the best approximation of old-fashioned paper and ink on a screen. But there’s another choice that’s just as important for readers...
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Meet Flipboard: Mike McCue Talks About Stealth "Social Magazine" Start-Up...
Today, BoomTown gassed up the MINI and headed down to see one of the more innovative new start-ups I have encountered of late. That would be a new social magazine concept called Flipboard, which is...
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YouTube Leanback Freshens Up for Google TV's Debut
One of the things that Google thinks you’ll do with Google TV is watch a lot of Google video, via YouTube. That’s why the search giant introduced a “Leanback” version of the site, designed for...
View ArticleAdobe Revamps Acrobat Software, Mobile Apps
Adobe Systems on Monday unveiled the latest version of its Acrobat suite of software for creating and viewing PDF files, the company’s latest move to bolster its influence over the popular document...
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The My-Fill-In-the-Space Reset Is Here, as Struggling Social Network Morphs...
Empty bracket or no empty bracket: Will it work? That’s pretty much the big question at News Corp. tonight, as its much beleaguered social networking site, Myspace, rolls out a new beta version aimed...
View ArticleConverting Songs From AAC to MP3 in ITunes
Q: How do I convert songs in iTunes to plain MP3 files? I want to use them in another program that doesn’t recognize the AAC song format that iTunes prefers. A: Assuming you are using the latest...
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Codec Capers: Google Drops H.264 Support in Chrome
Here’s one way to spur adoption of your new video codec. End your browser’s support for a widely used rival codec. That’s what Google did today, announcing that its Chrome browser will ship without...
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"Final Jeopardy" Question: Would You Buy an E-Book Without an Ending?
Stephen Baker has a great story to tell you. He just won’t tell you how it ends, yet. It’s about IBM’s years-long effort to build a computer smart enough to beat the world’s best “Jeopardy” players....
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Former Apple and PopCap Engineer Launches App to Make iPhone Camera Useful
A new app called VisualList offers a simple but natural extension of the iPhone’s camera, allowing users to organize and remember things by taking a picture of them. Many of us already pull out our...
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Pretty Flipboard Fundraising at an Even Prettier $200 Million Valuation
Flipboard, the high-profile and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, is out raising another round of funding at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, according to numerous...
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Exclusive: Flipboard Confirms $50 Million Funding at $200 Million Valuation
Late last month, BoomTown posted about a huge venture funding effort by the high-profile and even more highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, Flipboard. Today, its co-founder and...
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Flipboard CEO McCue Likely to Step Down From Twitter Board Over Potential...
According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue has approached Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and co-founder Jack Dorsey about moving off the board of Twitter. It is not...
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Video Shopping Startup Joyus Raises $11.5M in Second Round, Focuses on ROI of...
Joyus, the video shopping platform startup led by former top Google exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, said it had raised $11.5 million in a second round of funding, led by InterWest Partners and Time...
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Yahoo's Mayer Has Met with Hulu Execs in a Preliminary Look-See at Premium...
According to numerous sources close to the situation, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently met with top execs at Hulu, the premium video service whose big media company owners have been considering...
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Apps Raise the iPad's Aptitude for Real Work
There’s a popular myth that Apple’s iPad and other tablets are simply media-consumption devices, unsuitable for productivity applications. That’s just not so, and this week I tested a variety of office...
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"Luminary" Access Site IfOnly Officially Launches With $3M in Funding From...
IfOnly, a charitable marketplace for experiences with the top “luminaries” in sports, cooking and entertainment, is officially launching its site after collecting $3 million in funding from a group...
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Exclusive: Flipboard Raises $50 Million More on $800 Million Valuation
According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard has raised $50 million in new funding, in a round led by Rizvi Traverse Management and Goldman Sachs. The new funding puts the valuation of the...
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