speculation

Facebook's iPhone update paves the way for apps

We still get a pitch about a new Facebook app now and again, but truth is, that ship sailed long ago. Most Facebook apps just don't have the wow factor they once did when the platform was new. With the company's latest iPhone app update, however, the wow could be coming back on a smaller scale.

In case you missed Thursday's news, Apple finally got around to approving the third version of Facebook's iPhone app. It's a big step up from previous iterations, bringing in a number of features for which users had been clamoring. … Read more

Could an Apple HDTV plus an iPhone remote equal living room bliss?

In a note to clients Thursday, Gene Munster, a senior analyst at investment bank Piper Jaffray, floated the notion that Apple would take a bite out of the TV market in 2011 by introducing its first television.

To help support his claim, Munster cited the more than 48 million iPhones and iPod Touches out there that could be used as TV remotes or interactive game controllers.

Of course it's just speculation at this point, but that describes 99 percent of Apple-related blogging anyway, right? And in that vein I think an iPhone/iTouch enabled HDTV would be pretty dang cool if the company did it right. Let's call it the "iHDTV."

Imagine a television that's smoothly integrated into both your home network--for streaming your videos, photos and music--and the Internet at large, including not just iTunes for music and movies but the whole array of Web-based content currently available through the browser on your computer. The company's Apple TV box works great already for many of those functions, and the first step a future iHDTV would need to take is to build that functionality right into the flat-screen TV itself, without the need for an external box.

Even with a built-in Apple TV box and a big, shiny Apple logo, the iHDTV would barely rate a "ho-hum" from jaded tech reviewers like myself. Nope, the real coolness and opportunity for innovation would be the seamless integration of a high-powered, Web-enabled touch-screen remote control--especially one 48 million people already own. Like, say, an iPhone. … Read more

Uh-oh: Gossip site buys up moguls' dot-com names

In what's probably one part prank and one part ironic statement, New York society-pages site Cityfile announced Friday that over the past few months it has been quietly snapping up domain names corresponding to the people it covers.

You may not have heard of many of the people on the list: the obsessively name-dropping Cityfile's terrain is more focused on Gotham's business and media leaders than the likes of Britney and Paris. But among those on the list are Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman Jr. (Cityfile now owns edgarbronfmanjr.com), Greycroft Partners' Alan Patricof, and Nerve.com … Read more

Are new Canon SLRs coming in January?

A Swedish Web site, Kamera and Bild, has quoted Canon Sweden executive Robert Westin as saying the camera maker plans to launch new products on January 24, a week before the Photo Marketing Association trade show begins. That prediction is about as hard to make as figuring out if General Motors will share news at the Detroit auto show, but it does give us an excuse to venture our suspicions.

My bet (and I'm not alone) is that we'll hear about successors to the entry-level EOS Digital Rebel XTi and the full-frame EOS 5D. They're the most … Read more

A new Nintendo DS on the way? Don't hold your breath

Yesterday, GameSpot reported that Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson says Nintendo is gearing up to release a redesigned DS. Apparently, Wilson's "contacts" have told him that a new DS is complete. This redesigned DS, Wilson says, is slimmer than the current DS Lite, includes onboard memory, and features a larger screen. More interestingly, this new DS doesn't have a slot for Game Boy Advance games.

Call me a skeptic, because I'm pretty darn skeptical about this theory. Wilson seems to be straddling the line between "short-term prediction an industry analyst pulled out of … Read more

Driving It: Implications of the Internet-connected car

Someday soon, cars will be rolling Internet access points. Different technologies that exist today could make it happen, such as an iPhone-like connection that picks up Wi-Fi when in range of a hotspot, then switches over to a cellular network when necessary. Or it could be through WiMax, a solution I've heard mentioned by automotive parts suppliers. There are a lot of obvious benefits, such as keeping navigation system maps and points of interest up to date, or having cars serve as traffic probes, reporting to a central database where traffic is slowed or stopped.

But what about the … Read more

Wikiasari, 'Venice Project'...Will 2007 be the year of the 'killer?'

It might be Christmas Eve, but the blogs are still abuzz--mostly with speculation about the big changes in the tech scene that we may or may not be seeing 2007. Over the past couple of days, momentum has been building on a number of stories that are starting to paint what might be one of the first concrete trends we see for '07. Will the coming year be the year of the "killer," the year when big and not-so-big companies join forces to try and topple the products that seem to have a stranglehold on certain niches of … Read more