time

Vonage founder brings top TV shows to one Web site

Jeff Pulver, the Vonage founder, wants to make viewing online video much more like traditional TV.

Now, to change channels online you have to jump between the Web sites of the different broadcasters and networks. But PrimeTimeRewind.Tv, a company Pulver co-founded, enables visitors to watch shows from such outlets as NBC, ABC, and TNT and on one site. The site launched this week.

Pulver is able to do this by accessing the embed codes that each of the networks provides for their video. No more keying in numerous URLs, filling out multiple registrations or downloading different clients.

The TV … Read more

Apple software update brings wireless Time Machine backups

The wireless backup feature that disappeared from Apple's promotional copy for its Leopard operating system has snuck in through the back door.

Macworld did a little poking around with the recently released Mac OS X software update for "Time Machine and Airport" and realized that Time Machine now recognizes a generic USB hard drive plugged into an Airport Extreme base station, allowing Airport Extreme users to wirelessly back up their notebooks with Leopard's Time Machine. You need to mount the external hard drive using Finder to make sure Time Machine can see it, according to Macworld.… Read more

eMusic: Apple's bundled-music device would be anticompetitive

UPDATED 2:55 p.m. (To include legal challenges to alleged anticompetitive relationship between iPod and iTunes.)

Apple is in for a fierce legal fight should it ever release a device that offers all-you-can-eat music, according to David Pakman, CEO of rival digital music service eMusic.

"It smells like classic Sherman Antitrust Act to me," Pakman said. "I only know what I've read but the plan sounds very similar to the tying practices Microsoft used with Windows/Explorer. And Microsoft is still paying the penalties for that one."

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Apple … Read more

Blogs vs. 'Real Time Reports'

Mark Cuban often makes news, whether it's in his role as owner of the Dallas Mavericks, tech entrepreneur, or ballroom dancer.

This time, Cuban has some advice for the news media: "newspapers having 'bloggers' is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years." He goes on to offer some marketing and branding tips: don't call them blogs, call them "Real Time Reports."

You can read his take on his blog.

What prompted this? Cuban's recent move to ban bloggers from the Mavericks locker room has … Read more

I guess Acer's serious about this after all

Earlier this week, we dropped by an Acer news conference in New York where the company made a pitch for getting into the U.S. market in a big way. We've heard big talk from Acer before, and they're a huge player globally (made even bigger by merging with Gateway), but not the first name you think of when shopping for a laptop domestically.

So while were we all fairly impressed with Acer's plans to introduce new form factors with its upcoming 16-inch Acer Aspire 6920 and the 18.4-inch Acer Aspire 8920, we didn't expect … Read more

Buy Bebo? Better to just dump AOL

Why does AOL have a thing for acquiring companies with silly names? (Last month, it bought widget maker Goowy.

My colleague Dan Farber weighed in earlier Thursday on whether Bebo can "save" AOL, a question that remains impossible to answer in the near term.

Truth be told, I've compiled a stack of old magazine articles since the turn of the century (I love saying that phrase) detailing the "challenge at hand" for, first, the merged AOL Time Warner and then Time Warner, which dropped AOL from its moniker in 2003. At a certain point, however, … Read more

N.Y. governor resignation puts pressure on media Web sites

News sites carrying coverage of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's resignation faced an onslaught of traffic Wednesday, but demand on the servers paled in comparison to earlier in the week when news of the sex scandal first broke.

Spitzer, who developed a reputation as a bulldog while attorney general for the state of New York, was a hot news topic on Monday, when allegations surfaced that he had hired high-priced prostitutes.

And on Wednesday, the former attorney general turned governor announced his resignation, a move that comes early in his term.

The New York Times, for example, faced a … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 679: Unhack my Heart

EPISODE 679

Time Warner CEO addresses Yahoo-AOL talk http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9891145-7.html

YouTube opens up for developers http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9891790-7.html http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=yFlR6EEySg8

No punitive damages in YouTube case http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080311-judge-to-viacom-no-punitive-damages-in-youtube-case.html

Did DivX close Stage6 to duck copyright litigation? http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9891761-7.html

Hackers claim to unlock iPhone 2.0 http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143361-c,iphone/article.html

A Heart Device Is Found Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/business/12heart-web.html

Intel $100 Nettop is … Read more

Can Bebo revive AOL?

When the media talks about the Web giants these days, it's Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, MySpace.com, and Facebook, with AOL as an afterthought.

Since its merger with Time Warner in 2001, AOL has been an odd duck among the swans, trumped by competitors despite its more than 100 million U.S. users, according to ComScore (below).

Speaking at a Bear Stearns Media Conference on Monday, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said AOL's ad revenue is flat, advertising has slowed, and the shift from paid subscriptions to free membership has cut into search ad revenue.

Bewkes also he would … Read more