May 20, 2010 at 5:47 a.m.
Filed under:
Consumer electronics,
Consumer news,
Recalls
Associated Press | Nearly 1 million General Electric coffee
makers sold at Walmart are being recalled after dozens of reports of
overheating, smoking, burning and fires.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the recall
Thursday, said Walmart has received 83 complaints about the GE-branded
coffee maker, including three reports of minor burns to consumers’
bodies.
The reports of property damage include a significant kitchen fire and damage to countertops, cabinets and a wall, said the CPSC.
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McClatchy-Tribune Newspapers | Verizon Wireless said it is working with Google on a new tablet computer to compete with
Apple’s iPad, whose early success has sent rival tech companies
scrambling to catch the next big wave in mobile computing.
Dell and Toshiba have also said they’re working on tablets that would
run on Google’s Android software. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, recently
announced plans to buy Palm and use that smart-phone maker’s software
in its own line of tablets and similar devices.
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May 7, 2010 at 1:01 p.m.
Filed under:
Consumer electronics,
Media
Associated Press | Borders Group Inc. has begun taking orders
for the Kobo electronic book reader and pushing it at a lower price
than competing devices. Borders also said Friday that its e-bookstore
and software will be available beginning in June.
The Kobo e-reader device will retail for $149.99 and come preloaded
with 100 “classic” books, the bookseller said. Friday. Borders’
e-bookstore and e-reader software will run on Kobo technology. It will
run on the Kobo device as well as most smartphones, personal computers
and Apple Inc.’s iPad.
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May 7, 2010 at 12:38 p.m.
Filed under:
Computers,
Consumer electronics,
Litigation
Associated Press | Finnish cell phone maker Nokia Corp. said
Friday that it has extended its patent-infringement claims against
Apple Inc. to include the new iPad.
The latest complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Madison, Wis.,
follows other lawsuits by Nokia claiming that a broad swath of Apple
products violate Nokia patents. Nokia says the disputed technologies
help reduce the size and cost of electronic gadgets.
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May 4, 2010 at 2:40 p.m.
Filed under:
Consumer electronics,
Media
McClatchy-Tribune Newspapers | Google Inc. plans to begin
selling e-books this summer over a platform that would allow readers to
load the books onto multiple electronic devices, the company said
Tuesday.
The search giant outlined the plan during a panel discussion in New
York that was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The service is
called Google Editions and will allow users to buy e-books directly
from the company, as well as through other retailers.
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May 4, 2010 at 10:41 a.m.
Filed under:
Cell phones,
Consumer electronics
By Wailin Wong
| Motorola will keep its mobile devices headquarters in Libertyville at
least through the company’s planned split into two standalone, publicly
traded entities in the first quarter of 2011, co-Chief Executive Sanjay
Jha said Monday.
Jha will lead the mobile devices and home businesses as one company when
the planned separation takes place. The home unit has operations in
Boston, San Diego and Horsham, Pa. Jha told shareholders at Motorola’s
annual meeting that the company’s presences in those cities, as well as
Libertyville, “will continue at the point of split.”
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May 3, 2010 at 7:28 a.m.
Filed under:
Computers,
Consumer electronics,
Technology
Dow Jones Newswire | Apple Inc. on Friday began selling a
version of its iPad tablet computer with cellular capabilities, and
consumers had cleaned out many stores by Sunday. Apple put its iPad 3G
on sale in the U.S. late Friday afternoon at prices starting at $629,
compared with the $499 bottom price for the version without cellular
connectivity that launched a month ago.
Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., estimated Apple
sold 300,000 iPad 3Gs over the weekend, including preorders and online
sales. While that would be about the same as the original iPad’s first
weekend, he said, the original version had a shorter preorder period
and went on sale on a Saturday rather than a Friday.
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By Wailin Wong |
Motorola Inc. is no longer one of the top five mobile phone makers
worldwide, according to a new ranking by research firm IDC.
The Schaumburg-based technology company has been in the top five since
IDC began its quarterly reports in 2004, and was in the No. 2 spot that
year. But Motorola’s well-documented woes of recent years — failing to
follow up the Razr with more hit products, and missing out on the
industry’s initial shift into sophisticated, Web-connected devices –
caused the company to slip in the rankings. Research In Motion, the
maker of the BlackBerry, replaced Motorola in the list for the first
quarter of 2010, according to IDC.
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Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a Q&A session during an Apple special event in early April, 2010. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Associated Press | Apple CEO Steve Jobs is going on the offensive
against Adobe’s Flash technology. He says it has too many bugs, drains
batteries too quickly and is too oriented to personal computers to work
on the iPhone and iPad.
In a statement Thursday, Jobs laid out his reasons for excluding Flash
– the most popular vehicle for videos and games on the Internet — from
Apple’s blockbuster handheld devices.
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By Wailin Wong |
Motorola Inc.’s Droid smartphone accounted for the most traffic out of all mobile devices running Google’s Android operating platform worldwide, according to an industry snapshot released Tuesday.
AdMob, a California-based mobile advertising network, compiles monthly statistics on mobile Web traffic based on data it collects from its network of more than 18,000 mobile websites across platforms such as Android and the iPhone’s operating system. The company is able to pinpoint the handset model from which it receives an ad request.
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Associated Press | Verizon Communications Inc., the largest
wireless carrier in the country, is finding there’s an end to the
number of people who’ll sign two-year contracts for cell phone service.
Verizon said Thursday that it signed up a net of just 423,000 customers
under contract in the first three months of the year. That was the
lowest number in years, and below analyst expectations.
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By Wailin Wong | Verizon Wireless began online pre-sales this week for the Droid Incredible, a new smartphone manufactured by Taiwanese company HTC Corp. If the Droid name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s already attached to two other phones at Verizon, including the Droid by Motorola, which was launched with a splashy marketing campaign late last year.
Verizon is using “Droid” to signify certain phones that run Google’s Android operating system, said spokesman David Clevenger. The carrier licenses the name “Droid” from Lucasfilm, the production company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas.
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Associated Press | Blockbuster iPhone sales helped Apple Inc.
blow past Wall Street’s expectations with a 90 percent leap in net
income for the most recent quarter. Shares skyrocketed in extended
trading Tuesday. Apple said it sold nearly 9 million of its popular
iPhone smart phones in the three months that ended March 27, more than
double sales from a year ago.
After a brief trading halt, investors sent Apple’s stock bounding up
$17.31, or 7.1 percent, to $261.90 in after-hours trading. Earlier, the
stock had shed $2.48 to close at $244.59.
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April 20, 2010 at 3:25 p.m.
Filed under:
Consumer electronics,
Internet
Associated Press | A thief’s thirst for a brand new iPad cost a
Colorado man not only a much-coveted device but also two-thirds of a
pinky finger, police said.
Doctors had to amputate part of Bill
Jordan’s left pinky after a man yanked away a bag containing an iPad
that Jordan had just purchased at a Denver mall.
This image taken from video and released by the Denver police. (AP Photo/Denver Police) >>
Jordan, 59, had the cord of the bag wrapped around his left hand when
the thief “completely blind-sided” him and jerked the bag off his hand,
stripping the flesh of Jordan’s finger down to the bone.
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Associated Press | Technology bloggers have posted photos of
what may be the next version of the iPhone. If the gadget is real,
Apple’s next iPhone could have a longer battery life and be used for
video chatting. Analysts expect an updated iPhone this summer.
AOL blog Engadget posted photos
of the device over the weekend.
Gizmodo, a competing gadget blog, obtained the phone itself and
published details Monday. Both blogs say the phone was found in a
Silicon Valley bar.
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