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Dell apologizes for hiring sexist summit moderator

Last week, I wrote about a Dell summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the moderator of the event, Mads Christensen, "entertained" the crowd of IT professionals with a barrage of sexist jokes, and exhorted them to go home and tell their wives to "shut up, bitch."

This week, Dell posted an apology on its Google+ page, saying the company would be "more careful selecting speakers at Dell events."

The apology comes weeks after the actual event, unfortunately, after my column and tech blogger Christiane Vejlo's English-language post made it onto Reddit this past weekend. (… Read more

Ex-AOL honcho Brad Garlinghouse to run YouSendIt

There are a lot of things you can be famous for in Silicon Valley, but Brad Garlinghouse will probably always be known for having sent the legendary "Peanut Butter Manifesto," a 2006 document that excoriated his team at Yahoo for their lackadaisical attitudes, and which will always be mentioned as "Jerry McGuire-esque."

More recently, Garlinghouse has been president of commerce and applications at AOL. And today, according to Fortune, YouSendIt, a player in the cloud storage business, announced that Garlinghouse is coming aboard as CEO.

"I didn't want to be the salmon swimming upstream, … Read more

Why we need to keep talking about women in tech

Update: May 15, 2012 In the wake of this article, Christiane Vejlo's English-language account was posted on Reddit, and Dell has apologized on its Google+ page for hiring Mads Christensen to speak at its Copenhagen summit. "Dell sincerely apologizes for these comments," they wrote, saying also, "[g]oing forward, we will be more careful selecting speakers at Dell events."

Update: 11:31 a.m. PT

A lot of women in tech, including me, don't like to spend a lot of time talking about being a woman in tech. In fact, on a panel of … Read more

The best of NY Tech Day, a showcase of startups

NEW YORK -- Today, more than 200 startups, most from the Big Apple, came together for the first NY Tech Day, their chance to show off their wares to a gathering of more than 1,000 press, investors, and members of the public.

While the companies' offerings were diverse and rather uneven, there were some that stood out, and CNET did its best to pull together a list of the best that were on display:

FoundIt FoundIt is a useful service with an analog approach. The idea is to help you recover lost belongings. By signing up, you receive a sheet of stickers, each with an ID number assigned to your FoundIt account. Affix a sticker to your phone, your wallet, or anything worth recovering, and the finder can contact FoundIt via a phone number or by entering your code number on FoundIt's Web site. FoundIt then notifies the owner via text message or e-mail that the item has been located.… Read more

Does Facebook's corporate board need women?

Facebook is under fire once again for lack of women in its leadership. The FACE IT Campaign launched today to draw attention to the fact that as the world's largest social network readies itself to go public, after announcing a $5 billion IPO in February, its board consists only of white men.

"We believe that this board of white men should include women of all colors," states the FACE IT Campaign's mission. "Because Facebook should go public with a board that reflects its own mission--to make the world more open and connected."

Facebook's … Read more

IT guys don't know enough, bosses say

Complaining is easy.

When 500 bosses and IT managers were asked what they thought of their IT guys, they seemed to have let their feelings depart swiftly from their hinges.

I am grateful to Wired for having corralled this report before too many IT guys got a hold of it and slapped it over the heads of their bosses. For it declared that 93 percent of respondents believe that their IT guys' know-how contains more holes than the average chunk of Emmental.

The report, commissioned by CompTIA, a nonprofit industry association, made my own laptop quiver with indigestion. For the … Read more

New iFixIt kits offer expansion to new iMacs

When it comes to packing more storage into Mac systems, the only model that Apple supports adding more internal hard drives to is the Mac Pro, where you have four drive bays to use for new hard drives. While drives on other Mac systems may be user serviceable, the only supported options for adding more drives to them is to use external storage options.

External storage options are relatively fast and easy to set up, however, they do offer a bit of an inconvenience as they can clutter your workspace, or be a burden to lug around with a portable … Read more

Rumor Has It, Ep. 20: Break out the bubbly for iPad 3 rumors (podcast)

It's our 20th episode, which means we break out the expensive rose champagne from the bodega and celebrate in style.

Is it just us, or is the whole world full of chocolates and roses and wine and sunshine today in honor of our momentous achievement? It's like February 14 will forever be known as the day Rumor Has It hit 20 episodes and we decided to bet all our chips on the iPad 3 (or 2S) coming out in March. Thanks, world! We love you, too!

On today's show, we run down the litany of iPad 3 … Read more

Rumor Has It, Ep. 19: Amazon's brick-and-mortar black hole (podcast)

Today's episode blew our minds. And not just because it was Humiliation Day.

First Emily embarrassed herself by revealing her hidden talents; then she discovered her old lady cowboy voice; then Karyne did a "face mic," which is basically a face palm but using a mic; and then Amazon killed us with the possibility of opening brick-and-mortar stores to sell (drum roll, please): BOOKS! Say what?

Best Buy put out a survey starring the iTV this week, only to tell us later that the survey was "hypothetical." You know what else is hypothetical, Best Buy? … Read more

Tech spending was strong in 2011, despite sluggish economy

Spending on technology around the world managed to rise last year, despite economic woes in Europe and a severe hard-drive shortage, research firm IDC said yesterday.

Overall, IT spending rose just 5 percent in 2011, but that proved to be a healthy gain in the face of worldwide challenges.

The 5 percent figure was calculated using constant currency, a method that does not take into account fluctuations in the exchange rate. In U.S. dollars, the picture was even rosier, with tech spending rising by almost 9 percent last year.

A surge in demand for smartphones, tablets, and software kicked … Read more