David Lowery, of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven has an interesting argument for why the new Internet-based music-publishing industry may actually not be great for the artists: Meet The New Boss [more inside]
posted by jferg on Apr 16, 2012 - 105 comments

G-Male And Siri: A Love Story
posted by The Whelk on Apr 15, 2012 - 15 comments

Is Webkit, the web browser engine used by Safari and Chrome, turning into IE6? Concern is growing that reliance on proprietry CSS features marked by vendor prefixes could be breaking the web.
posted by Artw on Feb 15, 2012 - 57 comments

Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Disney, Pixar, Intuit and Lucasfilm are facing a lawsuit for their for their "no poaching" agreements (Bloomberg, TechCrunch). [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges on Jan 28, 2012 - 59 comments

The Great Tech War of 2012: Apple v. Google v. Amazon v. Facebook
posted by OmieWise on Oct 18, 2011 - 98 comments

Suck on it Applesoft. "Everyone was baffled when Google made those crazy bids for the Nortel patents last month. Remember? They bid things like the distance from the earth to the sun, the number pi, and some other wacky numbers from mathematics." [more inside]
posted by three blind mice on Aug 17, 2011 - 211 comments

Mozilla's HTML 5 Circus rolls into town. The emergence of HTML 5 is marked by, among others, emerging browsers (or browser versions). The soon to be released Firefox 4, often delayed, mirrors the slow march to an HTML 5 Flash reduced web. Like others, Mozilla feels the need to sell HTML 5. We also have Chrome Experiments, Canvas Demos, IE HTML 5 demos and Never Mind the Bullets, and Apple's (warning: sniffer protected) HTML 5 showcase. [more inside]
posted by juiceCake on Mar 6, 2011 - 102 comments

We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies. - Google's Chrome is will be joining Firefox in no longer licensing the MPEG-LA H.264 video codec favoured by Apple and Microsoft for use in the HTML5 <video> tag (previously). Not everyone is seeing this as a good thing.
posted by Artw on Jan 13, 2011 - 145 comments

Google's sheer size and power is staggering - and of course a little disconcerting. But ultimately are they ensuring the internet remains open and user friendly? CBC Radio had a great piece on the Algorithm That Changed World on how Google has helped keep the internet useful and spammers at bay. As a user, I have not found any other search engine that come close in giving me useful results. Intelligent Life's take on Apple vs Google, shows how this open system vs closed system philosophical differences plays itself out with product strategy. Of course, Google's user-centric world can suck if you have ever written a book.
posted by helmutdog on Dec 28, 2010 - 106 comments

Wikileaks may have been the big news, but there were numerous other data breaches in 2010. [more inside]
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed on Dec 28, 2010 - 26 comments

With the unveiling of the BlackBerry Playbook, a 7" iPad competitor solidly aimed at business, are the tablet wars heating up?
posted by Artw on Sep 28, 2010 - 253 comments

This is the biggest ego battle in history. It looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Today, such warmth is in short supply. One well-connected Silicon Valley investor, who did not want to be identified talking about the Google-Apple feud, says he is stunned by the level of rancor he’s witnessed. “It’s World War III. Amazing animosity is motivating two of the most powerful people in the industry,” he says. “This is emotional. This is the biggest ego battle in history. It’s incendiary.”
posted by fixedgear on Mar 13, 2010 - 202 comments

The internet is atwitter over Apple's decision to block the Google Voice app from their App Store, and remove all existing apps that facilitate its use. Fingers are pointing at AT&T, but the app is blocked globally.
posted by mullingitover on Jul 28, 2009 - 115 comments

Surprise , Surprise. The big guys of the computer world get anti-competitive when some one gets to close to their turf.
posted by Xurando on Sep 13, 2008 - 62 comments

"A look at the average number of page views per title reveals that Microsoft gets about half as many page views per title as compared to Google and Apple" a strong indication of where reader interest actually resides." - ZDNet. Intelliseek's Blogpulse reveals similar numbers: #1 Google: 473K, #2 Apple: 381K, #3 Microsoft: 262K. Venture capitalist, Ed Sim, says: "While the OS is important, Microsoft has lost its complete and utter dominance as we move to a service-oriented world where broadband is everywhere, apps are in the cloud, and the browser becomes king."
posted by spock on Jul 27, 2005 - 19 comments

Microsoft wipes Apple from the face of the Earth. Virtual Earth, that is. A search for "1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA" renders only an empty field and some sort of barn. This is what it really looks like. Finding that other microcomputer company is obviously not a problem. Microsoft blames old photographs (from 1991) for the omission, but copyright notices on the images go only as far back as last year.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 26, 2005 - 22 comments

The future of Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
posted by Tlogmer on May 13, 2005 - 40 comments