Clint Boulton

Sony proved that it isn’t spooked by the fact that the Department of Justice is formally investigating the settlement that lets Google scan books online and grant access to them for a fee. The Sony eBook Store, which offers digital books consumers can download and read via Sony’s Reader handheld gadgets, is providing access to […]

In a sign of just how easily Twitter wants its users’ tweets to be found, Twitter July 29 unveiled a revamped home page that puts the Summize search assets it acquired a year ago to the test. Twitter users will have to sign out of their account to see the new home page, which puts […]

The Google Voice team last Friday, July 24, promised to start offering 50,000 sets of free calling cards for the new invitees of its phone management service, which lets users receive calls to multiple phones via one Google Voice number. Many people are getting Voice numbers for the first time so the move, in conjunction […]

In a move first reported on by eWEEK July 23, IT solution provider Sparxent July 28 confirmed that it has acquired Cemaphore for an undisclosed sum. Cemaphore, a partner of messaging rivals Google and Microsoft, makes software suites that help businesses migrate e-mail, calendar and contact information from Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers to Google Apps, […]

In a sign that Apple will not always play nice with Google, Apple has banned the Google Voice application, as well as third-party Google Voice applications, from its iPhone App Store, ostensibly because Google Voice features compete with those in the iPhone. Reached by phone July 28, Apple spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock declined to comment, but […]

Say what you want about some of Yahoo’s business incompetencies (Buy Maven, then squash it? Pay programmers lots of money to work on projects, then shutter them when the rest of the market has tied you to the whipping post? Dumb!), but the Web services company sure knows how to market with humor. If you’ve […]

Google sold its $1 billion investment in AOL for just $283 million July 8, more than four years after buying the 5 percent stake in the Web portal in a coup against rival Microsoft, according to a regulatory filing July 27. Google had purchased the stake in Time Warner’s online unit in May 2005, beating […]

It’s no secret that video is a major collaboration tool in large companies these days. For companies where employees are often geographically dispersed, video makes it easier and cheaper for workers to meet face to face without spending money on airfare. Kontiki July 28 introduced Kontiki Live, a video broadcasting software plug-in that companies install […]

Nothing like adding a little levity to the black eye Google is getting over its Google Book Search project. I just successfully finished answering five literature-related questions for the Google Books game, the first round in the 10 Days in Google Books contest. Here’s how it works: For the next 10 days, Google will ask […]

Yahoo July 24 introduced some improvements to its Yahoo Image Search engine that will help users more easily search pictures to plan vacations and trips to various locales. A new travel image search refiner mechanism allows users to search a state or country, and peruse pictures of destinations in that geographical area without leaving the […]

Numerous blogs this weekend reported sightings of the new Google Android “Donut” code on G1 phones. Donut follows Cupcake, but precedes ??½clair and Flan in the dessert-oriented nomenclature for refreshes, which are not new releases but new iterations of Android code. More on that later in this report.Engadget claims Donut boasts many of the same […]

Video chat startup ooVoo is making a bid to move from the consumer sector to the turf of such powers as Cisco, Skype and Google with a new version of its software that delivers to small businesses video conferencing and screen sharing for up to six users at once. For $39.95 a month, ooVoo Version […]