Old fashioned folks would call it closing the barn after the horse has bolted. Young people are going to call it “whatever.” I just call it – too little, too late. Microsoft says it has restored most if not all of the data for the Sidekick-using customers of T-Mobile. Last Friday a data wipeout left [...]

  FourSquare, the location-based mobile application game that launched back in March, has been getting a lot of attention here in the U.S., but in the meantime, an offering made available in the iPhone App Store that same month has been gaining users internationally: Gowalla. Created by the Austin, Texas-based startup AlamoFire, the app is similar [...]

  Is this nun praying for Google Voice?AT&T today countered Google’s claims that it’s blocking Google Voice calls to rural areas because they’re directed to free conference call lines and sex hotlines engaged in the dubious practice of so-called traffic pumping by trotting out a convent of Benedictine Nuns who apparently can’t receive, or make, Google [...]

  Containerized data centers were the hot trend for server vendors last year, although the rate of adoption seems to be fairly slow. But a rep for Dell recently let me know that one of that company’s employees had essentially created a data center in a much smaller container –a 40-pound toolbox, to be exact — [...]

  The cutthroat prepaid market will get even more competitive this weekend when Wal-Mart begins offering no-contract plans at bargain-basement rates. The planet’s largest retailer said it will roll out TracFone Wireless’ Straight Talk, which offers a $30-a-month plan as well as a $45 monthly rate that includes unlimited text messaging and mobile web access. But the [...]

  In less than a month, when we host our third-annual NewTeeVee Live conference, I will have the pleasure of interviewing Quincy Smith, chief executive of CBS Interactive, onstage. It will be a freewheeling interview about everything from his company’s TV.com to Hulu to TV Everywhere.Smith was one of the two keynote speakers at our inaugural [...]

  Could some of the biggest boosts yet for Google’s open-source Android operating system, outside the realm of smartphones, come from unlikely sidekicks: Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 OS and offbeat new processors? That’s worth thinking about in the wake of Acer’s announcement today that it is doing a version of its popular Aspire One netbooks that [...]

  The Federal Communications Commission today launched a site where engineers, consumers, ISPs or anyone with a stake in the game (or an opinion) can comment on the plans to codify six principles that would ensure ISPs can’t block or favor certain types of traffic on wired or wireless networks. As it considers how to implement [...]

  There’s no question that the recession has taken a serious toll on the mobile industry: Overall handset sales have declined, global growth is slowing and the low-margin prepaid segment is fueling much of whatever growth there is. But there are plenty signs of a resurgence, with mobile data — which has proven remarkably resilient over [...]

  I’m moving to Springpad from Backpack — here’s why (WebWorkerDaily)6 top screen capture tools for Linux (OStatic)Flip launches second-generation MinoHD (NewTeeVee)The 15 hottest hubs for cleantech jobs and what they pay: report (Earth2Tech)The value proposition of netbooks is getting overlooked (jkOnTheRun)AT&T using iPhone as prospective employee search tool (TheAppleBlog)

  Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the founders of Skype, though their Joltid and Joost businesses, are seeking an injunction against Mike Volpi and Index Ventures that would prevent Volpi and Index from completing a deal agreed to in September to buy Skype from eBay. Friis and Zennström sued Volpi and Index last month, after [...]

  In a move that could have a major impact on the lives of Cubans, a small Miami-based firm is hoping to give the isolated island nation its first-ever fiber optic connection to the rest of the world. TeleCuba Communications Inc. said the U.S. government has approved its effort to link Key West with the Havana [...]

  The Wi-Fi Alliance today issued a new standard to augment Wi-Fi, called Wi-Fi Direct, that turns a Wi-Fi chip into a mini access point. The technology allows your Wi-Fi gadgets to talk to one another without having to get on a network, and enables anything containing a Wi-Fi chip to combine with other WiFi-chip-containing [...]

  Shazam, a popular mobile application that allows you to ask your phone what song is playing by holding it up to the source of the song, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from the iFund, a $100 million fund started by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. According to published reports, Shazam had previously raised [...]