starbucks

NEW YORK--Grabbing a little pick-me-up for those late-night code-writing sessions or World of Warcraft marathons might be about to get a little easier.

The ubiquitous coffee house chain Starbucks started offering free Wi-Fi on Thursday, so I went to go check out the new service. A few people here, at the Starbucks located at the intersection of East 96th Street and Madison Avenue, were trying to log on to the Web with mixed results.

When Web access was actually up and running, pages sometimes took minutes to download. And it's not as if the network appeared overwhelmed. This is … Read more

The 404 Podcast will never charge for premium content because the words "premium" and "The 404" have never occurred in the same sentence before, and besides, we're no Hulu, who just announced Hulu Plus, a premium subscription service that offers all-you-can-eat helpings of your favorite primetime shows from ABC, NBC, Fox, and other cable channels for $9.99 a month. In addition, Hulu Plus will also stream full back catalogs of shows like Glee and Saturday Night Live.

The company also announced a Hulu Plus app that works with the Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod … Read more

It turns out that the winner of the Starbucks-sponsored Betacup Challenge, a design competition aiming to solve the problem of the billions of disposable coffee cups discarded annually, isn't a cup at all. Rather, it's a chalkboard.

Called "Karma Cup," the jury-selected winning concept envisions a chalkboard at the counter of every Starbucks. Bring a reusable cup for your coffee, and you get to put a check mark on the chalkboard. Every 10 check marks, the next person to come in with a reusable cup gets his or her coffee on the house. "Think of … Read more

Starbucks is stirring up a few changes to its Wi-Fi access that should make Web-surfing coffee drinkers happy.

Starting July 1, the coffee brewer said it will launch free Wi-Fi access throughout all of its stores nationwide, with no special registration or account required and no limits on the time people can spend online.

Available through AT&T, the enhanced Wi-Fi improves on the current access, which is free to customers who use their AT&T accounts or Starbucks cards to log in, $3.99 for everyone else, and restricts the time online to no more than two … Read more

Getting a jump on Apple's upcoming iAd service, Pandora Media has designed its own ad platform for its iPad app and enlisted its first three advertisers.

Starbucks, Lexus, and Budweiser are each expected to launch campaigns designed to take advantage of the new ad platform. Similar to iAd, Pandora's iPad ad platform will allow users and potential customers to view the interactive video and audio advertisements without leaving the music-streaming app.

Pandora, which lets people create personal "stations" based on their music tastes, said the in-app ads can be targeted to listeners based on their age, … Read more

The indignities start with problem in the New York studio that keep Molly from being visible on today's show, and then end with the realization that all those browser preferences are basically a trackable fingerprint that's further eroding any illusion of online privacy you might have ever had. Also, Google's getting into the phone business. Again.

To counterbalance the stories we regularly see about how the Internet makes us antisocial misanthropists, here is one that shows just the opposite: the Internet brings happiness. Well duh! CNET readers already knew that!

All joking aside, there is something to be said about information and happiness. Ignorance is hardly bliss when ignorance means not having access to research, news, entertainment, and one another. The popular belief seems to be that modern advancements do not make us happy but perhaps that is too technologically deterministic. 

In The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler writes that "technological determinism is false.&… Read more

Some days, even The Cheapskate comes up empty. I searched high and low, checked in with all my DealSpies (trademark), and even went rummaging in the old-but-still-good deals bin. Nuthin'.

Sure, game fans may want to check out Direct2Drive's spring sale, which includes a few goodies (like Fallout 3 for $14.95). But ultimately, this day is looking mighty "meh," deal-wise.

On the other hand, who's up for some freebies?! One to boost your energy, one to boost your health, and one to rot your brain. Here's the rundown: