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Recent entries
- Americans are ditching their landlines
- Send your social-network profile to other sites
- HP-EDS is a done deal -- so what's next?
- HP bidding for EDS
- Data from shuttle Columbia hard drive recovered
- Web site helps women get breast implants for free
- Online content, straight from the sewer
- More entries...
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Americans are ditching their landlines
Nearly three in 10 households in the U.S. have only a cellphone or they don’t bother taking calls on their landline phone because it’s probably a telephone solicitation or their landline is hooked up exclusively to a computer.
I cut off my land-line phone and my long-distance service last year because it was getting costly to support my family’s three cellphones with extension texting and calling.
The cellphone figures come from a survey by the Centers for Disease Control. They grew markedly since last year, when 16 percent of households only had cell phones and 13 percent had landlines but got all or nearly all of their calls on their cells.
The growth in cellphone-only use might be one of the reasons why Microsoft is aiming to take 40 percent of the smart-phone market with its Windows Mobile OS by 2012. It was in 11 million hand-sets in 2007 and is expected to reach 20 million this year.
Oh great, another device that’s going to be dominated by Microsoft!
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Send your social-network profile to other sites
Google announced this week that it’s going to allow users to transport their personal profile information and favorite applications to other sites.
It’s called Friend Connect and is similar to announcements made earlier by Facebook and MySpace. Google says it will help people interact with friends on other social-networking sites.
Techcrunch.com’s Mike Arrington sees another reason for Google’s interest. The site that holds the information in the first place will likely control the data going forward and be the site the user identifies with.
C/NET blogger Dan Farber suggests that it’s also a great move for Google. Its own social-networking site, Orkut, is much smaller than Facebook and MySpace. But with its software tool for sharing information, Google can build a better connection to those sites.
Let’s see how this shakes out two or three months from now.
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HP-EDS is a done deal — so what’s next?
Hewlett-Packard Co. announced in the wee hours of this morning that it’s official — it is buying Plano, Texas-based Electronic Data Systems Corp. for $13.25 billion. The deal, one of the tech biz’s biggest in recent years, will solidify HP’s status as the world’s biggest tech company and make it No. 2 in IT services behind IBM Corp.
So what’s next? For one thing, HP CEO Mark Hurd told reporters and analysts in conference calls today, EDS will remain in Texas and EDS CEO Ron Rittenmeyer will keep running the company as a subsidiary.
Hurd also said not to expect the company to sell off any EDS divisions — good news for HP and EDS workers in Texas, Georgia and elsewhere — because the two companies have relatively little business overlap. (CEOs always say this after a merger, of course, but this time it may be legitimate).
Big money’s professional pundits were mixed on what the deal might mean to HP and the technology landscape. Some, like the tech analysts at Goldman Sachs, said the deal has many positives, but also wondered why HP was putting so much money in a company that recently has had a tough time finding profits. Others, like the analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities panned the deal, suggesting it will result in “modest dilution, low returns and significant opportunity cost.”
Others are trying to figure out what it means to HP’s competitors — especially Dell Inc., which HP surpassed a while back to become the world’s No. 1 PC maker.
Many Wall Street analysts suggested Tuesday that Dell will suffer, at least in the short term, as HP is able sell more computers and other hardware through its new connection with EDS. Financial pundit Aaron Task may have the made the best point about HP and Dell on Yahoo Finance. The deal, Task says, indicates that HP has moved beyond its fight with Dell over hardware, putting that one behind it and turning to its next battleground and its next foe — namely IT services and IBM.
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HP bidding for EDS
Hewlett-Packard Co. just confirmed it is talks to buy Dallas-based Electronic Data Systems Corp. - a potential mega-deal in the high-tech industry that would push HP further into the services and consulting business and make it an even more formidable competitor to IBM Corp.
In a statement, HP wouldn’t give any more details and said it won’t comment further until an agreement is reached or discussions are terminated. But - citing unnamed sources - the Wall Street Journal and other news outlets are predicting the deal could be worth as much as $13 billion. Word of the talks sent EDS’ stock soaring, while HP fell.
In addition to reshaping the high-tech services business, the deal also could shake up the companies’ operations around the country. HP and EDS are major employers in Texas, Georgia and Florida (as is IBM Corp., for that matter).
Stay tuned on this one.
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Data from shuttle Columbia hard drive recovered
Five years after the shuttle Columbia crashed on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, data recovery experts at Kroll Ontrack Inc. managed to recover data from a 400-megabyte Seagate hard drive that was on board.
The cracked component was discovered six months after the crash in a dried-up lake bed. But the data recovery team was still able to retrieve 99 percent of the stored information, Computerworld.com said.
A science journal in April published results of tests performed by astronauts on xexon gas which were stored on the hard drive.
If they are that durable, I’m going to take a hammer to the next hard drive I get rid of so no one gets my personal data, even if I think it’s broken.
There’s a slideshow of the damaged hard drive on the Computerworld site. Below is one of the images.
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Web site helps women get breast implants for free
Only on the Internet.
There’s a web site at www.myfreeimplants.com that links women who want breast augmentation and guys who want to pay for it.
The women are allowed to post racy photos of themselves and the site gives updates on how much they’ve raised. There’s even a list of surgeons from around the country listed that do the procedure.
The brainstorm for the site came in 2005 at a bachelor party when some of the participants essentially passed around the hat to pay for a woman there to get implants.
You have to register on the site before you can see the women’s posted photos and interact with them electronically, although there are some before-and-after teaser shots (fully-clothed).
It asks that the men be respectful of the women on the site. “While you may request particular outfits for custom photos, the ultimate decision is up to the lady. We encourage you to both work together in a civil manner.”
Natasha is the face of the web site, and it’s official “spokesmodel.”
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Online content, straight from the sewer
For one city in Britain, superfast Internet service is going to stink.
H2O Networks, baed in Wales, will deliver fast Internet connections to Bournemouth via the sewer system. More than 88,000 homes and businesses will benefit from Internet speeds up to 100Mbps under the plan, a connection that’s a lot speedier than the current broadband services on the market.
H2O, which has been plotting its underground invasion for the last six years, plans to spend the next six months laying fiber-optic cables through the sewer system. The company hopes to create a nationwide network for consumers over the next few years.
Proponents say it’s a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly to use Britain’s 360,000 miles of sewers rather than to dig up roads to lay fiber.
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Manny, Moe, Jack - and Michael
It looks like Michael Dell is getting into the car business.
MSD Capital, the private investment firm for Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell and his family, said Wednesday it has teamed up with the former CEO of the Pep Boys auto parts stores to start a chain of premier car dealerships across the country.
Dell’s new partner Jeffrey Rachor will run MSD Automotive Partners from headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn. No word just yet on where the company wants to open its high-end car lots.
Rachor served as president and CEO of Pep Boys - Manny, Moe & Jack for about a year before leaving in April. Previously, he ran car retailer Sonic Automotive.
Dell, as one of the richest guys on the planet, can of course drive just about anything he wants. In a statement, MSD Capital partner Howard Berk said the investment house has been looking to get into the car business for several years.
Founded in 1998, MSD Capital exclusively handles the investments of Dell and his family. Currently, the New York-based firm has more than $12 billion in assets.
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Webgrrls comes to Boca Raton
The women’s Internet organization, Webgrrls International, is launching a new chapter in the Boca Raton/Fort Lauderdale area.
Webgrrls International is a global group for women which offers online and offline resources, offering a forum for women to network and to exchange job and business leads. As important, it helps women to learn Web-related skills.
Allison Nazarian, president and founder of Boca Raton-based Get It In Writing, heads the organization locally.
You can find the Webgrrls International website at http://www.webgrrls.com. It is part of the Cybergrrl Network of websites for women including Cybergrrl.com and Femina.com.
The first Boca/Ft. Lauderdale Webgrrls meeting will be held Thursday, May 22, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Art That Works Inc. at 270 W. Hillsboro Blvd. in Deerfield Beach. For more information, contact Allison Nazarian at boca-fl@webgrrls.com or call 561-989-8555 or visit http://www.webgrrls.com/boca-fl/.
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Dell brings a bit of the beach to its laptops
Dell has teamed up with Brooklyn artist Mike Ming to give one of its notebooks a surfer’s edge.
The special edition Inspiron 1525 will feature two of Ming’s designs: “Bunch O Surfers” (black-and-white) and “Sea Sky” (color). The laptops are available for order, and pricing starts at $699.
The Ming-designed PCs are the first of what Dell plans to grow into a series of special art-edition laptops. More on Ming and the laptops carrying his design can be found here.
Computer makers have looked to spruce up their notebook designs to give them more appeal. Dell added several color options to its lineup last year. And Hewlett-Packard joined with MTV in a contest to find a design for an H-P notebook.
Apple, which has about the hottest consumer products out there these days, is sticking with plain old silver, black and white.
Latest comments
What is a land line?
... read the full comment by todd | Comment on Americans are ditching their landlines Read Americans are ditching their landlines
I’M PRESSIN’ CHARGES !!
I’M PRESSIN’ CHARGES !!
I’M PRESSIN’ CHARGES !!
I’M PRESSIN’ CHARGES !!
... read the full comment by MARTA Train SOULJA GIRL | Comment on Americans are ditching their landlines Read Americans are ditching their landlines
Read the article, Full Metal Jacket. It took them only two days to recover the data. The disk’s existence is only coming to light now, because the scientific data recovered from disk is being published in some scientific journal. No conspiracy
... read the full comment by Alan | Comment on Data from shuttle Columbia hard drive recovered Read Data from shuttle Columbia hard drive recovered
I don’t think they are talking about the black box, but a hard drive on one of the many computers they store data from all the science experiments they conduct. I doubt it had the same protection as the black box. If so that was one tough hard drive.
... read the full comment by FF Brian | Comment on Data from shuttle Columbia hard drive recovered Read Data from shuttle Columbia hard drive recovered