Sony going after new world record!

Sony batteries are looking about as popular as a bee on my butt today as Toshiba and Fujitsu have now joined the stampede to recall the ill-fated laptop batteries.

Sony is on course to have more than 7 million batteries recalled and seems to be going after a new world record. They promise more battery returns are on the way and the record should be broken soon. Ta!

Microsoft points to become the new Web currency?

Microsoft is going to sell online music for Microsoft points??!!

For consumers looking to own a song, the Zune Marketplace' launching this fall, will sell tracks for 79 Microsoft points. A user can buy 80 Microsoft points for $1 and points will also be redeemable at its online video game store, Xbox Live Marketplace.

Hey this sounds like Beenz - the ex-Web currency. What's going on?

HP needs a little Voodoo!

HP is attempting to get out of the Valleygate scrutiny/ f*** awful press by buying Voodoo! Yep, they could do with a little African magic right now.

And apparently this twinkle dust comes packaged with a PC gaming company sporting revenues over $115M. Nice one.

Oh, so I guess that means that as well as diversifying into detective services HP's getting into gaming. Is anyone not?

HP's Valleygate affair gets hotter than toast on fire!

HP's Valleygate scandal gets hotter than toast on fire today as ex-Chairman Dunn slammed blame for the dubious investigative practices on CEO Hurd and his team, including the now defunct chief lawyer Baskins (who I am promised has nothing to do with the ice-cream family).

CEO Hurd in return stated, that she (Dunn) had been the “business owner” of the leak investigation. “Pattie took it very seriously,” he said. “She came to me and asked to use HP...resources.”

Proving that he can chuck back a political hot potato as well as the next gal/guy.

Mind you no-one steps over a graveyard ex-employee better than Dunn: "[Ms Baskins] bled HP blue ink. Her career is ruined. She made some mistakes in her judgement.”

You bet - and who's next? Hurd's not looking so hot right now - maybe he's about to become toast!

RIM kicks butt!

RIM, the maker of exec super-toy, the BlackBerry, has today announced that they really are the kick arse makers of smart-email-phones as their latest numbers defied even greater gravity than the email guzzling super leaders that they serve.

And apparently the addictive devices are spreading - now small company folk and consumers are biting - thanks mainly to the BlackBerry Pearl (and it is) - aimed at the street.

And I could blog from one of those babies. Oh my God no, not more blogage!

Sportingbet chief set free - and I only had lunch with him recently!

The former Sportingbet Chief has been set free! And I only had lunch with him a few short years ago! (Is that illegal?).

New York has dismissed Louisiana’s request for the extradition of Peter Dicks, former chairman of the British online bookmaker, on illegal gambling charges.

He's now free to go gambling wherever he wants! Obviously other than the US.

Oh, and I think a few Muslim spots as well. No, no, I promise that isn't an attack against Muslims. Please don't burn pictures of me (but if you have to could you make sure they're good ones - I might get on the evening news!).

Mobile ESPN bites the dust!

Mobile ESPN has bitten the dust!

The eponymous sports channel tried a bold attack at the MVNO market space with the launch of Mobile ESPN at the Superbowl last fall. Well, it didn't work.

The ESPN ads stated, "Sports lovers will enjoy our mobile cell phone which provides sports info 24/7".

I guess not!

Consumers didn't buy into it (as they have proved slow in all manners of mobile Internet services) and ESPN has instead decided to join every other content provider and sell their stuff to all/any mobile operator willing to pay up.

Will Disney Mobile be the next to bite the dust?

Firefox 2's a coming!

Firefox 2 gets closer to going live - and its looking coolito!

The new version just thrown out is only for hard core techies (i.e. flaky), but the general release consumer version comes out the end of October. Ooh, that's in a month or so.

Security is improved - i.e. it'll tell you if nasty/fako sites are haunting/stalking you.

And the look and feel seems a big upgrade with a see through control panel until you scroll over it. Now that one's got me. Coolito!

Comverse CEO to be extradited from Namibia - apparently he was enjoying the sun!

According to the Wall Street Journal,

"Comverse Technology's Inc.'s former Chief Executive Kobi Alexander has been found in the African republic of Namibia, where he is being held pending extradition to the U.S.

The whereabouts of Mr. Alexander, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel, have been a mystery for the last month. Mr. Alexander failed to show up in court, and has been declared a fugitive by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Apparently he was enjoying the sun.

Intel hotter than AMD - well, hey, they promise they are...!

Intel is bouncing around on the offensive again after a year of being humbled by AMD.

And Itellini promises that their dual-core and about to be launched quad-core architectures put them ahead of AMD in the server market both in terms of performance and innovation. Honest guv.

At least that is until AMD launches their answer to multi-core smack em sideways techno leapo around the middle of next year.

Hey but Intel promise 80 quads in 5 years - beat that one AMD.

According to AMD; "anything they can de we can do better..." Does that mean 100 quads?

This is all getting too exhausting.

Google still a search company - really!

At a recent industry event a senior exec from Google provided the most extraordinary insight into the company's future strategy by stating:

"Google would prefer to stick with "getting users where they want to go.""

Genius - give him a raise!

And I thought they were planning to operate space flights - or is that Virgin?

Vivendi back to its binge buying habits

Oh yippee Vivendi's back on the acquiusition trail - today they bid for Polands PTT (telco silly).

Lets hope they buy many more outfits - remember what a business soap opera we had last time round. Shame Messier's gone though - he was worth a million dollars (well a lot less today of course!).

Intel go core crazy!

Intel has announced that their 4 (quad)-core processors will be ready to ship this fall.

AND they've apparently built a prototype of a processor with 80 cores that can perform a trillion floating point operations per second!! WOAH!

I just wish I understood a damned syllable of what that means. But hey, it sounds whacky enough to me!

In the mean time Intel also plan to launch a new mobile platform next year called Santa Rosa proving that Otellini is of Italian origin and I guess Catholic to boot. Well that's nice. What it means for you and me is that laptops should boot faster. Finally.

Hey at least I got that.

NBC hitting your Intel PC with "Heroes" (not the roll dummy!)

NBC plans to announce later this week a program with Intel that will allow consumers who have ViiV PC's (its such an annoying name!)or Centrino notebooks (not much better) to download current TV shows including "Heroes" and "Studio 60 on Sunset Strip."

Another mind boggling step in the path to full Internet TV. Wey-hey!

Virgin - making sure we don't self-combust in the air!

Just to make sure that we don't blow up when cruising over the Atlantic or wherever - Virgin Atlantic have stated that they will now allow Apple and Dell laptop owners to take their beloved if combustible laptops on board again.

As always there's a catch - you have to let them check the serial number before letting you on board.

We don't want those batteries self-combusting at 30,000 feet now do we.

Ta Virgin!

IBM close to buying FileNet. Zzzzzzzzzz...

Accoring to Reuters,

"The Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period has ended in the acquisition of software company FileNet Corp by International Business Machines Corp., Filenet said on Friday."


Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Marc Andreessen backs web moonlighters/er new web TV outfit

The founders of dead cool techno news site Digg have just announced/come clean that they were moonlighting after all and building another dead cool company by night (presumably) while tending to their day jobs at Digg.

They've exhausted me already.

The new company's a web TV outfit that already produces dead funky web TV show Diggnation. They have raised $1M to expand and make more online shows and are taking the start up, Revision3 Corp into the real world. (Interesting brand...)

This brings a whole new meaning to the term 'don't give up your day job'. Will they?

Marc Andreessen, stuffed by Microsoft/er, founder of Netscape, is one of the investors.

US online ad revenues soar - oops Yahoo!

US Internet advertising revenue rose 37% in the first six months of the year, hitting a record of nearly $8 billion, according to a study released on today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Which let's face it is a bit of an oopsy for Yahoo! Guess who got all the lolly.

Allright then don't guess - cos its Google.

Redtsone's lolly less gopping!

The Viacom board has shown extreme resiliance under the line of fire and reduced Sumner Redstone's somewhat lavish pay package.

Mr. Redstone's salary will be snuffled down to $1 million a year from $1.75 million and deferred compensation of $1.3 million a year will be eliminated.

Apparently he's gonna have to make the company's stock price perform to get whappin' lolly in the future. Poor dearie!

HP Chairman resigns over Valleygate affair

Patricia Dunn, Chairman of HP and recent winner of leadership award from Bay area group known to support business ethics, has just resigned for poor business ethics in the Valleygate affair.

Go figure.

Microsoft's gonna give their software away for FREE!

According to Reuters today,

"Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it may offer a free, advertising-supported version of its basic word processing and spreadsheet software, in an apparent bid to fend off a nascent challenge from Google Inc. in the business software market."

And I guess their software's a little too buggy to be able to charge for it.

Today's OneWebDay - teach your granny to blog!

According to CNET News.com today,

"Friday marks the first OneWebDay, a global awareness event to "create, maintain, advance and promote a global day to celebrate online life.

The organizers have suggested a variety of ways in which to participate, including making an entry for your neighborhood on Wikipedia, showing your grandmother how to blog, running a virtual meeting for your telecummuting colleagues and teaching your boss how to use instant messaging."

Clearly none of them have met my grandmother.

Sony drop their trousers/prices on PlayStation 3

Proving that Sony does read TechBoard (does anyone not?), they have today announced that they'll drop prices on their upcoming PlayStation 3 by 20% before even launching - which lets face it doesn't exactly happen every day.

I gues Nintendo's Wiii (not pee) is getting the nice Japanese folk (obviously other than their CEO) at Sony a little too hot under the collar with sweat rather than grime and so they feel they need to drop their trousers/er prices even before launch.

But (why's there always a but), the discount will only be available in Japan which means they still plan to royally rip off both the Europeans and Americans. Unless of course you want to buy a plane ticket to Tokyo in which case you're still a OK. Ta Sony.

Facebook going going to Yahoo for a mere $1bn!

Facebook is apparently looking set to sell to Yahoo for $1bn.

Apparently they chatted to Microsoft but they thought them too cheap. I guess Microsoft will have to buy Yahoo after all.

Oh and their price tag would make MySpace worth about $10bn. Nice one boys, selling out to News Corp for $500 Million odd. Oh well, better luck next time.

HP's CEO now linked to leaks!

Oh and apparently Mark Hurd, CEO of HP and soon to become Chairman (!), has been linked to a bogus announcement sent to CNET's journalist to try and discover the identity of the original leaker.

Hurd plans a press conference on Friday alongside jailed video blogger, Josh Wolf.

HP's Dunn gets award from organization that stresses business ethics!

According to CNET's news.com

"Hewlett-Packard's embattled chairman, Patricia Dunn, accepted a "hall of fame" leadership award at a gala dinner here on Wednesday night where she received a standing ovation from local executives."

Proving just how popular pretexting must be at other firms.

Oh and the award was given by an organization that stresses business ethics and good corporate governance! Right.

Murdoch sends wife to tackle China for MySpace

Proving that everyone loves MySpace Rupert Murdoch's wife is trotting over to help them expand in China.

Murdoch explained that China is important for MySpace and it helps that his wife Wendy speaks the lingo!

The fact that the Chinese government don't exactly get on with Rupert has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Yahoo's withering on the vine - watch out Mircrosoft's prowling!

Yahoo's withering on the vine as they announce today that weakness in online display ads will hold back earnings in the latest quarter. Groan!

And of course their much touted attempts at sprucing up their search engine technology is still a way from being ready - giving Google ever more the edge!

It looks like just being a portal ain't enough no more - what with the MySpace's, Google's and YouTube's carving up the space. I just hope that as Yahoo's stock keeps falling they don't become prey to the hungry Microsoft. That would surely be the end of them!

Oracle shines - could they buy Microsoft?

Oracle's Larry Ellison's smiling like a Cheshire cat and preparing to buy another couple of yachts and a M1G (Sayonara to you too!) as his company today announced both revenues and profits nicely above expectations.

He will naturally tell you that his $20bn spending spree (Oracle's, not his silly - yachts and planes don't cost that much!) is the smartest move in the Valley since Apple launched the iPod - and he may even be right!

Let's hope this doesn't spur him to go on another massive spending spree. Mind you, Microsoft's looking quite cheap right now - and with Billy Boy off saving the world...

YouTube inks major deal with Warner Music!

According to the Guardian:

"YouTube users will be able to use music from artists including Led Zeppelin, Madonna and Red Hot Chili Peppers legally in the homemade videos they upload, following a deal with Warner Music.

Under the landmark deal, Warner Music has also agreed to provide music videos from its extensive catalogue of artists on the video-sharing website for the first time."

Warner Music are not doing this for charitable/support Internet copyright abuse reasons - they're doing it for the oldest reason on the planet - money! You see YouTube are about to launch a sophisticated video ad system which means that videos carrying Time Warner music/artists will earn Time Warner ad dollars as they are viewed by YouTube users.

This has to be the monetization (techno coolo smarty pants term) model for videos/TV on the Internet. Get that handycam out - now you can make money off it - finally!

Telecom Italia more confusing than spaghetti junction

Proving that Italy is as confused as ever, the much lauded Chairman of Telecom Italia has just resigned following his complete volte face at the telecom companies latest 180 degree strategy turn.

After a few years of repurchasing all of their mobile group TIM, the Chairman abruptly announced that they should sell the highly profitable mobile unit. Apparently he had had a little too much cappucino that day.

Fortunately the Italian politicians made him see sense (which is an extraordinary feat for any politician - let alone an Italian one) and so he gave up his master plan to merge Telecom Italia with Sky to create a European media powerhouse.

The new Chairman promises to stick to the original strategy if anyone can figure out what the hell that was. Oh well.

Freescale Semi flipped - Motorola lookin a little daft!

According to Bloomberg:

"Freescale Semiconductor Inc., the computer-chip maker spun off by Motorola Inc., agreed to be bought by a consortium led by Blackstone Group LP for $17.6 billion.

Shareholders will be offered $40 a share in cash..."

Oops, I guess Motorola flogged out a little too soon - there's nothing worse than a quickie flipper, eh?

My brilliant review of iTunes 7!

Ah stuff the review I promised on iTunes 7 - its brilliant, so just go download it!

Enjoy...

Murdoch dumps Liberty Media and buries them under DirecTV!

The oh-so exciting media rumour mill seems to be pointing to Murdoch swapping Malone's (Liberty Media) stake in News Corp for their stake in DirecTV.

And if that's not confusing enough it's because Murdoch's worried about getting his poison pill extended which is designed to stave Malone off from trying to take over News Corp.

Either way it looks like Murdoch may be the better off if he dumps Malone as a devious shareholder and buries him under the even dodgier DirecTV satellite business that could even be more stuffed than Ford!

Na, that's too much of a stretch surely?!

Nintendo's Wii's gonna vibrate and sell cheap!

Nintendo has announced their plans to launch their next generation games console - the Wii (not pee, stupid) in November, merely a couple of days after Sony launch the delayed and somewhat expensive PlayStation 3.

So, Wii (what a name!) will be the low end, mass market, vibrating (?) device retailing at $250 (nice), Microsoft's Xbox will be the mid-market offering and the PlayStaion 3 the Rolls-Royce of games devices (hopefully selling in larger volumes than the car company).

And of course the news that everyone's neglecting is that the iPod has just become a games device too. But, all the others have browsers - so come on Apple when's the Wi-Fi iPod coming?

Google Earth tramples on traditional map publishers

Google have just announced that new partners will directly overlay Google Earth maps with video, photo and blog content.

Content on places, such as the Great Pyramids, will feature 3-5 minute clips of existing Discovery Network nature and travel channel content, chimp info from the Jane Goodall Institute (hey, that could come in hany one day - right?), and the US National Park Service has supplied information on over 10,000 trails at 58 parks (Yippee).

And its just the beginning - oh and the end for traditional map publishers - sorry.

Vista faces yet another delay, delay

Microsoft's Vista looks set for yet another delay, and now there is no doubt left that waiting for Godo would be more palatable.

The latest delayer is the EU regulators that are making Microsoft's life tricky following their recent and tremendously exciting legal spat.

Proving yet again that even Microsoft is not above the law and damned daft for rattling the Euro lawmakers in the first place.

Look for Euro Vista to launch some time later in 2007.

(Apple must be dancing in Champagne.)

Kleiner Perkins veterans ditch HP and Sun

Kleiner Perkins veteran dudes have just ditched Silicon Valley veteran companies HP and Sun.

John Doerr today joined the trend for Kleiner founders to desert public company boards as he resigned from Sun Microsystems hot on the heals of Tom Perkins who left HP's board after being investigated for leaking company news to CNET.

Yep, that's CNET not us - ta!

Next time an HP'er wants to go for a leak - check out TechBoard first, please!

Amazon launch Unbox

Amazon has finally launched their TV and film download service aptly (yet weakly) named Amazon Unbox.

The service will offer content from six major Hollywood studios, including 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., as well as TV networks such as CBS and Fox, and cable channels like Comedy Central and E! Entertainment.

You'll be able to buy movies for between $7.99 and $14.99 depending on their cool factor/age and TV programs will cost $1.99. You can also rent a movie for $3.99.

Out of the box/launch come 'Walk the Line' and 'Chinatown'.

I guess Steve Jobs is a little pissed - Amazon have jumped their movie launch next Tuesday. Ouch. But should Jobs worry about the threat to iTunes from Amazon's Unbox? Not yet, and certainly not with an install base of 60M iPod users and a couple of hundred million iTunes users.

Amazon has a long road ahead of them.

Google's news archiving service hits the masses

Google has just launched a newspaper archive tool for the masses - assuming your willing to cough up $6 per month.

The service archives and allows you to search through 200 years of news - from papers and archiving services all over the world.

So any of you wasting loads of money on older news archiving services - or new news junkies - check out newspaperarchive.com.

MySpace goes after iTunes launching music store

MySpace is taking on iTunes and Microsoft's soon to be Zune (Zune Zune) ((God I hate that name)) and launching their own MySpace music download store.

No surprises there.

Well maybe, 'cos they're allowing the music labels to set their own prices (oops) and in return users will be able to copy the music they buy (for their own use of course ((shame)).

Oh and independent artists will be able to sell their tunes direct at their MySpace space taking payment by PayPal. Now that's cool!!

Next up MySpace video store - next year though!

Apple launch iTunes movies, big ass iPod, 23" iMac and mobile phone!

Next week, September 12 to be precise, Apple wil have their D-Day!

If you believe the press, blog-mill, Apple leaks and general media natter Apple are about to control the digital media universe (well actually home) like never before.

For they are to unveil iTunes movies selling at $9.99 initially from Disney only - proving that it is worthwhile being their largest shareholder (plus, of course, the rest of the studios will promptly follow as was the case in the TV space). And to better view them we're gonna get a wider screen/better pixelled iPod and a 23" iMac to replace those boring 'ol TV's of ours (and I just bought a plasma - shame!).

And if this weren't enough Jobs is also going to bombard us/Microsoft with a video streaming wireless unit (Airport Extremely Xtreme) and an Apple mobile phone.

Oh God, where's my credit card gone.

Apple kickin' out iTunes movies in less than a month!!

It looks like Apple's gonna launch iTunes movies in September after all - no thanks to Wal-Mart who seem to want to stop them. Hey they're gonna launch their own music store soon as well!!

But either way Jobs is gonna launch iTunes movies with just Disney (funny that) to start with costing $14.99 for new movies and $9.99 for older ones.

And to add to the lustre a chubbier, bigger screen iPod's comin' out to make those juicy movies juicier. Nice.

iPod users better buy movies fast - then the other studios will follow the money - as always!

Intel to continue the slash and burn

Proving that turning Intel around is harder than hand braking a cruise liner, it looks like Otter-lline, their erstwhile CEO, could be about to dump another 10,000 Intellers next week.

And I thought he was hired to grow the company - not company doctor it.

Maybe their new chips will do it. They'd better cos if not the ol' otter himself maybe next for the firing line!!