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It's our 20th episode, which means we break out the expensive rose champagne from the bodega and celebrate in style.

Is it just us, or is the whole world full of chocolates and roses and wine and sunshine today in honor of our momentous achievement? It's like February 14 will forever be known as the day Rumor Has It hit 20 episodes and we decided to bet all our chips on the iPad 3 (or 2S) coming out in March. Thanks, world! We love you, too!

On today's show, we run down the litany of iPad 3 … Read more

Today's episode blew our minds. And not just because it was Humiliation Day.

First Emily embarrassed herself by revealing her hidden talents; then she discovered her old lady cowboy voice; then Karyne did a "face mic," which is basically a face palm but using a mic; and then Amazon killed us with the possibility of opening brick-and-mortar stores to sell (drum roll, please): BOOKS! Say what?

Best Buy put out a survey starring the iTV this week, only to tell us later that the survey was "hypothetical." You know what else is hypothetical, Best Buy? … Read more

Spending on technology around the world managed to rise last year, despite economic woes in Europe and a severe hard-drive shortage, research firm IDC said yesterday.

Overall, IT spending rose just 5 percent in 2011, but that proved to be a healthy gain in the face of worldwide challenges.

The 5 percent figure was calculated using constant currency, a method that does not take into account fluctuations in the exchange rate. In U.S. dollars, the picture was even rosier, with tech spending rising by almost 9 percent last year.

A surge in demand for smartphones, tablets, and software kicked … Read more

There's been some chatter lately about Amazon opening its own stores out in the non-cyber world. Yes, we're talking physical, brick-and-mortar stores, the kind people can actually walk into.

This is all speculation, of course, but Jason Calacanis got the ball rolling with a post late last year entitled "Rumor: Amazon Retail Stores Coming & Predatory Pricing Channel Destruction."

That was followed last week by a story in The New York Times Bits blog speculating (and citing that Calacanis story) that Amazon might just very well be exploring opening physical stores.

"For years, there has been speculation that Amazon will open its own outlets, presumably to sell Amazon-label products," David Streitfeld wrote. "The idea seems far-fetched, but before 2001 so was the idea of Apple operating its own stores." … Read more

To celebrate Mark Zuckerberg maybe possibly loosening his death grip on Facebook, Karyne and I give you a little Econ 101 lesson.

Kidding! No we don't. All I learned in Econ 101 was that there is apparently no such thing as a free lunch (then what was that pizza I just found abandoned in the kitchen and ate, hmm?) and that the more scarce a thing is, the more money it will cost.

But scarcity might explain why unvested stocks of Facebook have been some of the highest valued and most traded on SecondMarket--a market to trade stocks in … Read more

It's Tuesday again, and this time we are prepared.

On today's show, code in iBooks 2 points to possible Retina Display iPad; Casio does something other than make keyboards; our favorite people on Earth, analysts, comment on the upcoming year for Netflix; and we have a couple guesses about who Anonymous will attack next.

Also next week, or maybe the week after, is Humiliation Day. You know what's different about this Humiliation Day? For once, Karyne isn't the big loser. If you have any Humiliation Day ideas for Emily, or if you have any ideas about … Read more

Like newspapers to the Web, many business software vendors are now reluctantly dragging themselves into the cloud-based enterprise. If they aren't nimble enough, a new generation of companies is ready to take their place.

While major enterprise IT vendors continue to deliver so-called features that keep users tied to their desks and legacy software, companies like Box and others have figured out that the industry is changing right before our eyes. The new enterprise takes the best aspects of consumer applications to make business-critical data available anywhere, anytime.

The majority of the fawning stories about startups that come out … Read more

LAS VEGAS--CES 2012 ended with a bang, and CNET was there till the bitter, exhausted, don't know what to do with ourselves, end.

What better way to end the week than to dish about all the products we saw (and didn't see) and what it means for the tech world at large? And what better place to have a gambling show than in the gambling capital of the universe? Exactly.

In this episode, Apple rumors abound (of course), Angry Birds has basically jumped the shark big time, and where was HTC's quad-core phone? Also, Humiliation Day! And … Read more

The outlook for IT spending this year isn't quite as rosy as Gartner previously predicted.

Spending on IT products and services is expected to reach $3.8 trillion in 2012, a 3.7 percent rise from last year when spending totaled $3.7 trillion and had climbed by 6.9 percent from 2010.

Released today, the new forecast is a dip from Gartner's prior projection of 4.6 percent growth for this year. The market researcher now believes that all major tech sectors will witness slower gains in spending for 2012.

Spending on telecom equipment will see the … Read more