company

Can expensive audio cables improve the sound of a hi-fi?

Some audiophiles swear that cables can make or break the sound of their hi-fis, while others poo-poo the idea and use the cheapest hardware store wires. The debates have raged for years, but the only way to really know for sure is to try a set of high-end cables in your system. When I sold hi-fis for a living, I convinced a lot of reluctant customers to buy a set of cables, with the promise I'd refund their money if they didn't hear a difference. The majority of them kept the cables; even some of the most skeptical … Read more

Injustice? EA wins Worst Company in America again

They fought. They lost. They won.

This might sum up Electronic Arts' role in this year's Worst Company in America polling, conducted in the pages of the Consumerist.

For the second year running, the game maker has been voted America's worst company -- aka the company those who are online a lot choose to dislike the most.

It wasn't even close. EA managed to received 77.53 percent of the vote.

EA was up against Bank of America in the final and some might have imagined it might have a puncher's chance against an entity that … Read more

Tech firms may balk at California push for citizen data access

The European Union has long championed its citizens' right to submit requests for data that companies hold on them in order to ensure the information is up to date and correct. In recent years, an Austrian law student brought this "habeas data" right into the public spotlight by demanding his Facebook data from the social network.

Americans don't have this right -- and generally, relative to the EU, they have little legal protection from the state or federal government against data theft, unauthorized disclosures, and other privacy-related matters.

Though the EU and the U.S. have never … Read more

Apple's next-gen iPhone chip being prepped

Apple and its manufacturing partner are readying the next-generation processor expected to land in future iPhones and iPads.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is expected to tape out -- one of the final steps before manufacturing -- Apple's A7 chip this month, according to a report in Digitimes.

That will set the stage for pilot production by TSMC this summer and commercial production by the first quarter of 2014.

The A7 will use TSMC's future 20-nanometer manufacturing process -- which isn't expected to be ready until 2014.

Apple, in fact, is designing products now based on … Read more

Apple is again Fortune's most admired company

Apple is the world's most admired company, at least in the eyes of executives polled by Fortune magazine.

For the sixth year in a row, Apple took home top honors for the title, this year scoring 8.24 on Fortune's ranking system, ahead of Google with a score of 8.01 and Amazon with 7.28.

Apple was deemed the most admired despite recent concerns over the company's performance.

Its stock has tanked 35 percent since September as investors and analysts fret that Apple's best days may be behind it. But the company still rates as … Read more

Credit card companies' WikiLeaks block just fine, EU says

Credit card companies that blocked WikiLeaks a couple of years ago didn't do anything wrong, the European Union's European Commission said today.

Last year, donation collection gateway DataCell complained to the commission that it was unfair for MasterCard Europe, Visa Europe, and American Express to have blocked donations to WikiLeaks. DataCell provided payment gateway services to WikiLeaks, accepting donations for the controversial organization. It was able to facilitate those transactions by operating its datacenter in Iceland -- away from legal prying eyes.

In its complaint, which it filed in July 2011, DataCell said that the credit card companies … Read more

Rumored Apple program lets employees toy with side projects

Apple has reportedly taken a page from Google's playbook by offering employees time to work on side projects that fall outside their normal routines.

The Wall Street Journal's Jessica Lessin notes in a video interview today (via Business Insider), that Apple CEO Tim Cook quietly started a program code-named Blue Sky that gives some of the company's employees two weeks to work on projects that aren't part of their job.

While shorter, the idea is similar to one popularized by Google's "20 percent time," which allows company employees to work on side projects … Read more

Jeweled iPad Mini case sells for sparkly $700,000

Apple's new iPad Mini goes on sale Friday, and if you get one, you're probably going to want to show it off. You could do that by wearing an "I'm with iPad Mini" T-shirt, or you could house it in a look-at-me $700,000 case bedecked in natural sapphires and diamonds.

Yes, in the grand tradition of accessories that require liquidation of your kids' college fund, the National Sapphire Company this week announced an iPad Mini case featuring an 18K high-polished white gold body set with 3,328 natural Ceylon blue sapphires.

An Apple logo set with 50 round diamonds weighing a total of 5 carats rounds out the subtlety. Interested in a ruby monogram beneath the logo? The National Sapphire Company will happily customize your shiny new case. … Read more

Amazon cloud outage impacts Reddit, Airbnb, Flipboard

Amazon's cloud service is experiencing an outage in the East Coast region, taking down popular sites like Reddit and Airbnb.

The outage has lasted for several hours, limiting access to popular Web sites and causing problems for small businesses and other Amazon cloud users. Along with Reddit and Airbnb, Heroku, FastCompany, Flipboard and others have been impacted.

Amazon isn't saying what happened, but a spokesperson said the problem isn't due to an attack, as some have speculated. A member of hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the outage via a tweet, but the Amazon spokesperson said that'… Read more