Nicholas Kolakowski

Hewlett-Packard confirmed in a July 1 statement that its newly acquired Palm WebOS will serve as an operating system for the company’s tablet PCs and other hardware products. “Under Jon Rubinstein, former Palm chairman and chief executive officer, the Palm global business unit will report to [executive vice president of HP’s Personal Systems Group Todd] […]

Apple claims that an e-mail exchange between CEO Steve Jobs and a customer over the iPhone 4’s reception issues is a fake, according to the company. The conversation had originally been printed July 1 on the blog Boy Genius Report, and features Jobs trying to placate an irate, self-described “Mac fan.” An Apple spokesperson “emphatically” […]

Apple has been hiring antenna engineers, possibly in an attempt to address the reception issues that have been plaguing the company’s newly released iPhone 4. Although Apple issued a July 2 statement suggesting that customers’ reception issues have been software-related, the investigation into the matter-or else the need to ensure such a thing never happens […]

Microsoft is discontinuing its Kin phones, which evidently failed to gain traction with its target demographic: teenagers and young adults obsessed with social networking. As the news spread across the Web, analysts and pundits widely assumed the Kin’s death had been hastened by the recent shakeup in Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division. “Microsoft has made […]

Microsoft is announcing a new technology, InstaLoad, that allows batteries to be inserted into a device “without regard to positive and negative polarity,” according to the company. In theory, that means no more squinting at a micro-sized diagram embedded in the battery cover, trying to figure out whether the leftmost battery goes negative-side-down or positive-side-up. […]

Amazon.com is announcing a new, cheaper version of the Kindle DX, its large-screen e-reader, in a bid to remain competitive against both rival devices and Apple’s iPad. Despite slashing the price of the original Kindle, and increasing the supported devices for its Kindle software, Amazon had left the Kindle DX relatively untouched until now. That’s […]

Dell faces a potentially massive public-relations battle in coming weeks, as recently unsealed court documents allege that the manufacturer knowingly sold nearly 12 million defective computers between 2003 and 2005. The OptiPlex PCs in question reportedly had a failure rate of 97 percent over a three-year period, due to faulty capacitors manufactured by Japanese supplier […]

Samsung Galaxy S Smartphone Makes Debut by Nicholas Kolakowski Galaxy S Debut J.K. Shin, president of Samsung’s mobile communications division, unveiled the Galaxy S series during a presentation on New York City’s West Side. The company’s goal with the devices, he said, was to make smartphones “brilliant.” Battery Life Samsung claims the Galaxy S battery […]

Apple’s iPhone 4 launch may have proved to be a marketplace success, with sales of 1.7 million units in the smartphone’s first three days of release, but analyst firm iSuppli believes that difficulties associated with the rollout have tarnished Apple’s much-vaunted branding. Specifically, iSuppli cited two incidents-the meltdown of Apple’s and AT&T’s ordering systems on […]

Amazon.com announced the release of Kindle for Android June 28, porting its e-reader software to yet another family of devices. As competition in the e-reader space continues to heat up, Amazon.com finds itself pushing Kindle software and hardware updates in an effort to stay ahead of its ever-multiplying rivals. The free Kindle application requires Android […]

Microsoft is already deep into discussions about Windows 8, according to an alleged internal slide deck leaked online in the past few days. While the company has refused to confirm whether the slides in question are real, they detail potential ideas for a next-generation operating system that include ultra-fast booting, a “Microsoft Store” for downloading […]

Amazon.com has added embedded audio and video clips to its Kindle e-reader applications for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch-a feature seemingly designed to leapfrog not only Apple’s own e-reader, but also those of competitors such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The new Amazon feature bakes more multimedia into e-books; readers can now listen to a […]