Opinion

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) may have easily passed the House of Representatives last week, but it appears that support for the controversial cybersecurity bill is beginning to crumble. Over the weekend, Microsoft, long considered a CISPA supporter, told CNet that it now has concerns about the bill regarding personal privacy. As Declan McCullagh reports:In response to queries from CNET, Microsoft, which has long… Read More

It has happened. After more than a year of arguing and fighting in and out of court, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have struck up an agreement over Android. The new deal seems to help both parties. Microsoft will invest $300 million to take a 17.6 percent share in a new subsidiary of B&N that will merge its Nook business and college divisions. In return, Barnes & Noble has agreed to "license" Microsoft's Android… Read More

Recently, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings pointed a finger at Comcast for promoting its Xfinity on-demand services over competitors'. Comcast — and other ISPs — have been a thorn in streaming services' sides, one of the many complications we've come across attempting to disrupt the video content market. But there are undeniable tangles in controlling a service and promoting your product. At the same time, Comcast has the… Read More

I don't use Bing very often. Neither does the majority of the Internet — a fact that must upset Microsoft. In the last 14 years, Google has snapped up the vast majority of the search market by being the fastest, cleanest, most accurate way to search. Some may debate whether Google is still the best today, but I can't imagine Bing is going to win any points today.  On Monday, Microsoft pushed out a new optional update to… Read More

CEOs and really rich people tend to have their own private jets, a luxury denied to the rest of us because the damn things cost millions to buy and millions to maintain and fly. A new service called JetSuite (run by ex-JetBlue executive Alex Wilcox) is bringing the cost of using a private jet down to something closer to affordable. I had a chance to interview Mr. Wilcox as we took a quick hop from San Jose to the coast earlier this week. I’m… Read More

The window to stop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is closing fast. Starting as early as Monday, the House of Representatives will begin debate on the cybersecurity bill, which many rights advocates believe remains one of the most dangerous piece of legislation on the current congressional agenda. Reports indicate that lawmakers will vote on the bill Wednesday, April 25, or Thursday, April 26. That leaves precious… Read More

In the closing hours of the 2012 Coachella music festival last Sunday, rappers Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre did the impossible: they brought fellow hip-hop legend Tupac back to life... as a hologram. Videos of the stunning, high-tech reincarnation skyrocketed to viral status, and the show has become a controversial conversation centerpiece for, well, anyone with an Internet connection.  In this latest edition of DT Debates, staff writer Molly… Read More

Blog. Nothing about that word exudes excellence, especially as far as journalism is concerned. But that may all be about to change with today's big news: The Huffington Post has won a Pulitzer Prize. The honor, bestowed upon "the Internet newspaper" for the first time since its 2005 launch, comes as a result of Huffington Post senior military correspondent David Wood and his 10-part series, "Beyond the… Read More

I have a long history with educational games. In the earliest of my last 29 years, I can recall hours pleasantly spent with MECC's Number Munchers and The Learning Company's Where in Time is Carmen San Diego, amongst others. But games don't have to be specifically educational in order to teach. Many are imparting valuable learning at the same time they're entertaining. Here are a few surprising lessons that video games… Read More

AMD is getting ready to launch its next-generation architecture (code named Trinity) and invited a bunch of us out to Austin to see it. I can’t talk about the technology until it is launched, but one of the events at the show was a head-to-head comparison between this AMD technology and Intel’s top-shelf products.In each test (including productivity, video enhancement, and file compression) AMD Trinity technology wasn’t just faster, it was… Read More

Earlier this week, I was invited to join in on a conference call with Reps. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger (D-MD), co-authors and chief sponsors of the increasingly-contentious Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, better known as CISPA. During the hour-long talk about the bill, we heard time and again why this legislation is necessary, and why it's not as dangerous as all of us rascally bloggers… Read More

I've written rather positively about Nokia since it made its deal with Microsoft a little over a year ago. Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, has been a commendably honest and forthright CEO for the last year, but it looks like that's changing. In an interview with a Chinese newspaper, Elop has criticized all phones with dual-core and quad-core processors. Yes, he's insulted the very technology that Nokia will undoubtedly use… Read More

In the second big move to squeeze more money out of its subscribers, Verizon today announced that it will begin charging a $30 fee to everyone who activates a new device with a two-year contract. Verizon claims that this fee will help to "continue to provide customers with the level of service and support they have come to expect which includes Wireless Workshops, online educational tools, and consultations with experts who provide… Read More

A few hours ago, Spotify announced what could be a momentous new feature for the Web: the ability to embed and stream tracks, albums, and playlists into Web sites or blogs or anywhere on the Web. Upon reading the press release, it seems as if any Spotify user can easily embed any track or playlist into a Web page and that music can be streamed directly from the page (a la YouTube). Unfortunately, the Spotify Play Button doesn't perform as… Read More

Toshiba has taken the lid off three upcoming tablets today: the Excite 7.7, Excite 10, and Excite 13. All three are essentially identical on the inside and outside, with their only real differences coming from size. I got a chance to check them out last week and walked away fairly impressed. Though Toshiba isn't going to knock the iPad out of the ring anytime soon, representatives seemed genuinely excited about the PC maker's… Read More