Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7: The War of the Wallpapers

Image: Microsoft Corp.

Image: Apple Inc.

"I would give a lot to have Steve's taste."

Bill Gates said that of Steve Jobs at the D5 conference two years ago, and we knew exactly what he meant.

Take, for example, the two images above. They are samples of the new desktop images offered by this fall's big operating system updates: Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows 7, scheduled for release in October, and Apple's (AAPL) Snow MORE

Sex-predator iPhone app is back in business

Map: ThinAir Wireless

Of all the applications that Apple (AAPL) has pulled from the iPhone App Store -- and there have been quite a few -- none were as creepy, sad or profitable as Offender Locator.

Launched in early June by ThinAir Wireless, a Houston-based GPS-tracking services company, in both free and $0.99 versions, it displayed the names, addresses, faces and criminal records of registered sex offenders living near you or MORE

Duke Energy, Echelon team up on $1 billion smart grid project

Last week, the nation's third-largest utility, Duke Energy (DUK) filed an application for $200 million in federal stimulus funds to bolster its $1 billion smart grid initiative in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Today the company is announcing that it has found a partner to supply the guts for the project -- and it's not who you might think.

Google's anti-poaching smoking gun

Back in June, before the ties that bound the two companies unraveled and Google's (GOOG) Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's (AAPL) board of directors, the New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had begun an antitrust investigation into the two companies' hiring practices.

The issue was whether Apple and Google had made an anti-poaching deal -- an agreement not to go fishing each others' talent pool -- that MORE

Meet "the world's most annoying Web site"

Social-networking site Tagged.com has become a target of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the bane of a multitude of customers.

"There's a thin line between clever and stupid," went the faux maxim from Spinal Tap, yet it seems to apply pretty well to Web startups. One of the most notoriously over-the-line is the social-networking site Tagged.com, which New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says he plans to sue for MORE

Apple's $1.2 billion tablet computer

Apple's next gadget? Image: Piper Jaffray

Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster took another crack at the Apple (AAPL) tablet computer he's been writing about for months, issuing a report to clients Friday that included some back-of-the-envelope sales estimates and a computer-generated rendering of what he thinks it will look like.

"Last week we spoke with an Asian component supplier that has received orders from Apple for a touch-screen device to MORE

Apple's curious PR problem

Senior VP Phil Schiller. Image: Apple Inc.

The tech press is buzzing this week with the news that a senior Apple (AAPL) vice president took the time to e-mail a blogger.

The senior VP was Phil Schiller, one of Steve Jobs' top lieutenants. The blogger was Daring Fireball's John Gruber, one of Apple's staunchest defenders. The issue was Apple's apparent censorship of an iPhone dictionary called Ninjawords that included some four MORE

What works on TV won't work online forever

Break Media CEO Keith Richman. Photo: Break Media.

By Keith Richman, CEO, Break Media

It has become fashionable to claim that it is impossible to profitably produce original video content for the web.  After all, many high-profile digital studios closed after burning through millions in venture capital, while established media companies are finally making real money by streaming prime-time shows on their websites and through ventures like Hulu.  The future of MORE

Apple's sexiest feature

It's undeniably interesting to talk about the health of Steve Jobs. And whether Apple plays nice with the competition. Oh, and the multiple conflicts of interest between the boards of Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), even after Eric Schmidt removed himself as an Apple director. (Genentech Chairman Art Levinson remains on both boards, and unless something has changed recently, Apple lead director and Steve Jobs confidante Bill Campbell is still MORE

Putting lipstick on Microsoft's pigs

Windows Mobile. Logo: Microsoft

At the end of a long report on the Apple Stores -- and the corner he believes they have turned -- Needham analyst Charles Wolf turned his attention this week to Microsoft (MSFT) and its plans to launch a fleet of company-branded stores of its own, complete with wall-sized digital screens, spaces for free public events and "Guru" bars to deal with customers' software complaints.

Let's hope MORE