When you can’t beat them, sue them. That seems to be the modus operandi of Yahoo, a former Web star whose fondness for lawyers has grown as its commercial fortunes have faded. On 12 March, the ailing company sued Facebook, alleging that the social networking giant had violated 10 patents that belong to it. Yahoo’s aggressive move has sparked
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Not long after Steve Jobs died last year, wags eulogised the Apple co-founder with a joke: “Ten years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Now we have no jobs, no hope and no cash.” Apple may no longer have Jobs, but it fills investors with hope and is brimming with cash. Its market capitalisation recently passed US$500bn
His seven online aliases, which include Anarchaos, POW and yohoho, suggest that Jeremy Hammond, as somebody who spends much of his time at a keyboard talking to other people with aliases online, is a distrustful man. He now has even more reason to be. According to indictments revealed last week, Hammond and four other hackers were
Encyclopaedia Britannica, mortally wounded by the Web and Wikipedia, is ending the production of its print edition in favour of a strictly digital strategy, the company announced Tuesday. “It’s a rite of passage in this new era,” Encyclopaedia Britannica president Jorge Cauz told the New York Times. First published
The enormous power tucked away in the atomic nucleus, the chemist Frederick Soddy rhapsodised in 1908, could “transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen poles, and make the whole world one smiling Garden of Eden”. Militarily, that power has threatened the opposite, with its ability to make deserts out of gardens
Instagram has reached 27m users and continues its mantra that the photo sharing app will come to Android “really soon”. Instagram is a photo-sharing social network that is available only on the Apple iPhone. It allows people to take pictures, assign filters, and then post them to a variety of social networks, including
Microsoft recently released its Windows 8 Consumer preview. Many have written about its features and capabilities, so I won’t rehash that for this article, other than to say that while it isn’t perfect, this beta version seems quite well done. However, what hasn’t been highlighted is Windows 8’s ability
Inside a remote mountain in Texas, a gargantuan clock is being pieced together, capable of telling the time for the next 10 000 years. Once the clock is finished, people willing to make the difficult trek will be able to visit the vast chamber housing it, along with displays marking various anniversaries of its operation
Apple unplugged the rumour mill and fired up new hype machine on Wednesday, announcing the next-generation iPad and an upgraded Apple TV. “Apple has its feet in in the post-PC future,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook, kicking off the event by saying that Apple has sold 172m “post-PC” devices, including the iPhone
Apple has long been known for its intense focus on consistent branding and beautiful simplicity. Although this week’s Apple event unveiled a couple of new improvements to an expected line-up of products, it also revealed a certain sloppiness that was absent from earlier, Steve Jobs-led launches. This wasn’t anything major