Stefania Spagnuolo

After weeks of rumors regarding an impending iPod announcement, the day has come. Late Tuesday, Apple sent out invitations to a media event on Wednesday, September 5 in San Francisco called "The Beat Goes On." Although the company did not explicitly ... reveal the event's focus, the silhouette of a dancing iPod user left a big hint. "The Beat Goes On" was the final phrase used in The Beatles' last news release in 1970. Rumors have been swirling that Apple will soon reveal the availability of the entire Beatles catalog at the iTunes store. In a report released Wednesday, analyst Gene Munster said ... (view more)

The recording industry must be smiling. A US federal judge has just ruled that making songs available on P2P networks violates copyright laws. The ruling comes from the case Atlantic v. Howell, in which the Recording Industry Association of America ... (RIAA) sued an Arizona resident for copy infringement. The defendant, whose IP address had been turned over to the court, was targeted since he made his songs available for download on the Kazaa P2P network. Members of the RIAA then hired MediaSentry Services to look into the contents of the shared folder; inside, the company found 2,329 MP3 tracks ... (view more)

Good news for European gamers: Sony is bringing television to PS3 and PSP, thanks to its joint venture with British Sky Broadcasting. 'Go!,' which is set to launch early next year, will allow users to download videos to their gaming system. Sports, ... entertainment, movies, music and animation programming will be available from Sky, in addition to some third-party content. Another product called PlayTV will allow users to record television programs and then transfer it to a PS3 or PSP. Unfortunately, the new service will only be available in Europe. Europe and the US use different systems to ... (view more)

A usability study by consulting firm User Centric has found that average cell phone users are more efficient when using a QWERTY keypad than Apple's new iPhone design. The study involved 20 participants who said they sent text messages at least 15 ... times per week. Half of these participants owned a QWERTY keypad, and the other half owned a phone with a numeric keypad. None of them had ever used an iPhone. All participants were asked to copy 12 standard messages that had been created for the study using their own phones. Then the participants were asked to copy the same messages with an iPhone ... (view more)

Wikipedia, known as the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," allows users to correct false information and further develop informative articles. But, there is a flip side to anonymous edits, and one program is now showing just who's behind some ... of these critical changes. Virgil Griffiths created WikiScanner, a tool that identifies which IP addresses are making Wikipedia edits. WikiScanner has revealed that many top companies have been using Wikipedia to bash rivals while downplaying their own fumbles. Although WikiScanner cannot identify which people are making the edits, it can trace an ... (view more)

Microsoft has revamped Hotmail once again, this time providing more storage and a slew of new features. Free accounts will now have a 5 GB storage limit, a large increase from the previous 2 GB limit. Paid subscribers will see their storage limits ... upped from 4 GB to 10 GB. (Source: betanews.com ) The added storage puts Hotmail ahead of Google, which offers 2.8 GB of storage, but still behind Yahoo's unlimited storage. (Source: windowsitpro.com ) Additional features include vacation replies and the ability to disable the 'Today' screen. Further, Microsoft responded to consumer comments and ... (view more)

Although it seems like Google has been receiving buckets of praise while rival Yahoo has been struggling in their game of catch up, the tables may be turning. Yahoo recently beat out Google for bragging rights in customer satisfaction, receiving a ... rating of 79 by the University of Michigan's American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Although Google scored a respectable 78 on the 100-point scale, the two companies' changes in scores from the previous quarter is more telling than the raw scores themselves. Last time, Google received a score of 82, meaning that the company's tally decreased 4 ... (view more)

Apple is not only known for its sleek and simple product designs, its success is actually built on it. Thus, it came as quite a surprise when AT ... (view more)

Google has unveiled a new feature for its popular Google News: comments. The new addition, now in beta, is sparking talks of the ethical implications of journalism and how Google is "stepping it up a notch" on that front. As Google software ... engineers Dan Meredith and Andy Golding explained on the official Google blog, adding comments may equate to adding integrity. "As always, Google News will direct readers to the professionally-written articles and news sources our algorithms have determined are relevant for a topic...But we're hoping that by adding this feature, we can help ... (view more)

Now that it's been a while since the iPhone's release, it seems an appropriate time to discuss the device's impact on the "smartphone". ABI Research weighed in on the debate after revealing its forecast that the smartphone market segment will ... increase from 218 million units in 2007 to 426 million units in 2012. Stuart Carlaw, wireless research director at ABI Research, says that although the iPhone will have a considerable impact, it will not have the ground-breaking effect that many had initially expected. "The iPhone will not revolutionize the smartphone market," said Carlaw, "but ... (view more)