Miscellaneous

Update 11:00 a.m. PST: Several readers have pointed out that CNN's technology was not true holography, and the story has been updated to reflect this.

Holy holograms, was that Princess Leia on CNN during election night?

No, it was just Jessica Yellin, a CNN correspondent. CNN beamed her image from Chicago to the CNN press center in New York City, where Wolf Blitzer and the rest of the team were covering election returns.

Yellin, who claimed she was the first person to be beamed in a "hologram" on live TV, explained for the audience how … Read more

At this year's Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft offers glimpses into the next version of its OS, the next iteration of its productivity suite, and its cloud-computing efforts.

Microsoft announced a version of Windows that runs over the Internet from inside Microsoft's own data centers. Dubbed Windows Azure, it's less a replacement for the operating system that runs on one's own PC than it is an alternative for developers, intended to let them write programs that live inside Microsoft's data centers as opposed to on the servers of a given business.

With the launch of Azure, … Read more

Virtualization company VMware has publicly disputed the way in which key research into the virtualization market was undertaken by analysts IDC, and disputed figures that appear to show a rapid growth by a competitive product from Microsoft.

According to the IDC research published last week, Microsoft has done well in virtualization since the launch of its hypervisor, Hyper-V.

In "its first quarter of general availability Microsoft Hyper-V delivered a strong showing, and when combined with Virtual Server 2005, Microsoft's market share is 23 percent of new shipments," according to the IDC research note.

Then in a blog posting … Read more

North Korea has been restricting the use of cell phones to prevent its residents from sharing news about a worsening food crisis, according to a report on the The Times of London Web site.

The Times story cites a report to the United Nations General Assembly from a human rights investigator that claims the government has been intimidating its citizens with public executions and has been limiting the use of cell phones to discourage people from sharing information about what is happening in the country.

Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN investigator from Thailand, claims the clampdown on cell phone and long-distance … Read more

Ever since Apple's iPhone hit the market, some people have loved using a virtual keypad. Others have hated it.

Owners of Google's new G1 Android phones could soon have a choice to use either the existing slide-out QWERTY keyboard or a virtual keyboard like the iPhone's.

Google has added "soft keyboards" to its road map of future software releases. The new software hook is expected to be available for phone manufacturers as part of the source code in the first three months of 2009.

While there are many features to love about the G1, which … Read more

Ten years ago, Apple and Yahoo were in very different financial situations.

Apple had hit rock bottom and was trading for a few bucks a share, while Yahoo was the Internet darling at the height of the Internet boom. In the past couple of years, they quietly exchanged places, and their earnings calls this week bore that out clearly.

Apple's fourth-quarter profit soared past expectations on extremely strong sales of the iPhone, but revenue was a little light. iPhone sales were astonishing during the quarter: Apple sold 6.9 million iPhone 3Gs during the quarter, which was far more … Read more

I admit it; I've been put off by the term "contactless payments." But it's an emerging area that deserves some attention.

If you are in Asia, you know what I'm talking about. People there have been making payments with their mobile phones using what's called "near-field communications." Just wave the handset in front of a reader and voila, the transaction is done.

In the U.S., we've had RFID technology embedded in cards. But the long-term goal is to eliminate the need to carry credit cards, building access badges and transit … Read more

Motorola, which has been struggling to find a home run hitter to replace its Razr, appears to be gearing up to debut a social-networking smartphone that uses Google's mobile operating system, Android, according to a BusinessWeek report.

Motorola's Android phone, according to the report, is expected to feature a touch screen similar to Apple's popular iPhone, as well as a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that allows users to connect to such social-networking sites as MySpace and Facebook. It is unclear how similar it will be to T-Mobile USA's newly released G1 phone, manufactured by HTC, which also … Read more

The National Association of Broadcasters has filed an emergency petition with the Federal Communications Commission in an effort to change the agency's mind about supporting the use of "white space" spectrum.

The NAB, which has opposed the use of "white space" spectrum, said in a statement that it has filed a request for the commission to take public comments on a report that the FCC issued earlier this week stating that this spectrum could be opened up for unlicensed use without interfering with licensed spectrum holders. The report said that geolocation and sensing technologies were … Read more