PC showdown: Netbook threat heats up

Computer makers hope that stylish new laptops like Hewlett-Packard's Pavilion dm3 will lure shoppers away from low-cost netbooks. Photo: HP.

There's going to be a PC retail showdown this holiday season. Let's call it the netbook vs. the nymph.

In the netbook corner: the cheap, small, underpowered laptops that are all the rage lately. Asian manufacturers like Asus first introduced them, and consumers love them because they handle documents, e-mail, and MORE

iPod challenger? Microsoft Introduces Zune HD

Redmond's MP3 player goes hi-def. Should Apple be worried?

On the heels of Apple's (AAPL)  iPod event last week, Microsoft (MSFT)  is unveiling its latest offering in the MP3 player market, a sleek high-definition device capable of playing HD movies and HD radio known as, appropriately, Zune HD.

Available in 16GB and 32GB versions at $220 and $290, Zune HD features a vibrant organic LED color screen with multi-touch technology. Retail outlets MORE

Accounting rule change in Apple's favor

Image: FASB

A change in accounting rules for which Apple (AAPL) -- among other high-tech companies -- lobbied heavily won tentative approval last Thursday. The change could significantly affect both the company's reported earnings and its stock price.

The new rules are in draft form and must still win final approval from the FASB -- the organization empowered by the SEC to set accounting standards in the United States.

But they have MORE

Every Phone a Smart Phone

You probably already own a multimedia phone - you just don't know it yet.

Jacobstein aims to put a smartphone in every pocket. Photo: iSkoot

By Mark Jacobstein, CEO, iSkoot

If you've noticed that smart phones seem to be everywhere, it's because they are.

And if that seemed to happen overnight, it's because it did. Way back in summer of 2007, less than one in ten of us in the U.S. carried a MORE

To catch a cyberthief: How Symantec does it

As cyber-heists become more daring, security firms have to deploy more resources to stay abreast of the bad guys.

CEO Salem compares cybercrime and security to an arms race. Photo:Symantec

By Julia Ioffe, contributor

Hacking used to be so quaint. In the old days (the early 90s) the villains typically were attention-seeking computer geeks infecting computers with viruses that were a headache for consumers and tech departments to debug.

Today's cybercriminals are out MORE

Apple's amazing, incredible Phil Schiller

Phil Schiller. Photo: Apple Inc.

The day after Apple's (AAPL) "It's only rock and roll" event, Erik Sherman asked on CBS's BNET why the media missed the strategic importance of the gaming announcements that were made that day.

He has a point. Apple spent nearly a third of the hour-plus long presentation talking about the iPod touch -- the "funnest iPod ever" -- and how it stacks up against handheld game MORE

Eight hard truths about online media

Think you can create the next Twitter or Facebook? Good luck with that.

Markson: Building an online business has many offline challenges. Photo: Blekko

By Mike Markson, co-founder, Blekko Many a consumer looks at an "overnight sensation" such as Twitter or Facebook and muses: "That service is so simple -- I could do that."  If only it were true.

It turns out that starting a business on the web is hard.   Very hard.  MORE

Did Steve Jobs spin the NY Times?

Jobs. Photo: Apple Inc.

When David Pogue, the New York Times' chief technology columnist, sat down with Steve Jobs after his "It's only rock and roll" keynote Wednesday, Pogue's first question was the one, as he put it, the "blogosphere's been buzzing about": Why did Apple (AAPL) put a video camera on the iPod nano but not -- as widely expected -- on the iPod touch?

Jobs reiterated what Phil Schiller, MORE

Is this Apple's e-book trojan horse?

Tyrese Gibson's Mayhem is a comic book – the first standalone print publication for sale in Apple's iTunes LP format.

Tyrese Gibson's Mayhem is the first digital book for sale on iTunes 9 – perhaps an early sign of Apple's (AAPL) desire to take on Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle and Sony's (SNE) Reader in the digital book market.

I would have missed the significance of Mayhem on iTunes if I hadn't run MORE

San Francisco gets smart with green technology

San Francisco is using advanced technology - and the strong arm of government - to turn the city into one of America's greenest.

By David Ewing Duncan

Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco

On Pier 96 on San Francisco Bay, a dirty, smelly leviathan of a machine roars and vibrates as it organizes 750 tons of refuse each day into neat cubes of plastic, paper, and metal.

It may look crude, MORE