2008-05-12T22:04:18Z A Technology Blog From The Washington Post - (washingtonpost.com) tag:blog.washingtonpost.com,2008:/posttech/83 Copyright (c) 2008, WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive 2008-05-12T22:04:18Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-12:/posttech2008/05/the_allthingssocial_craze.html

The race is on to make social networks much more open and portable, all in the quest to let users spread their profile information across other Web sites. It's been a steady drumbeat of announcements over the past few days. MySpace announced its plan to let people share their profiles with other sites, such as Ebay and Twitter, on Thursday. On Friday, Facebook announced "Facebook Connect," which lets members take their Facebook identities anywhere they...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Kim Hart 2008-05-09T20:34:36Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-09:/posttech2008/05/wifi_warning_that_person_next.html

Next time you flip open your laptop as you wait for a flight or work at a coffee shop, beware, says the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The person next to you may be stealing your personal bank account information, address book and other files from your computer. The agency warned earlier this week that the information on your computers may not be protected when using some of the 68,000 Wi-Fi hot spots, or local wireless...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Cecilia Kang 2008-05-08T22:22:33Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-08:/posttech2008/05/your_profileon_and_off_myspace.html

Do you have a MySpace profile? If you do, your personal information on MySpace could soon be made available to a number of other Web sites. The largest social network in the U.S. said today that it is making its members' data available to third-party sites. The first partnering sites are Ebay, Yahoo, Twitter and Photobucket. That means that if you want to make your profile picture or blog available to people on your Yahoo...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Kim Hart 2008-05-08T18:23:16Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-08:/posttech2008/05/mobile_ads_useful_or_annoying.html

The promise of mobile marketing has been talked about for several years now, yet we still haven't seen the flurry of cellphone ads that have long been predicted--let alone the sophisticated ads consumers see in other countries. This week, the Federal Trade Commission held a "town hall" meeting to discuss the state of the mobile marketing industry and what, if any, rules need to be in place to guide its development. Several ad agency folks...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Kim Hart 2008-05-09T03:04:08Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-08:/posttech2008/05/nintendos_mario_kart_wii_at_un.html

Some folks from Nintendo's public relations team are in town today showing off the company's new "Mario Kart" racing game for the Wii at Union Station. The video game company is the middle of a 12-city tour to drum up some buzz for its latest title, and is, at the moment, letting anybody who comes by try the game out for a while at several TVs the company has set up. The event lasts till...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-05-07T19:40:00Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-07:/posttech2008/05/gta_iv_6_million_sold.html

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive Software announced today that the latest version of the popular and controversial game has sold 6 million units globally in its first week on the market. Put it another way, that's $500 million in sales. The company says it sold 3.6 million copies of GTA IV on the first day the new game launched, last Tuesday. One industry analyst, as I mentioned in a recent column, had predicted that...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-05-02T15:23:46Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-02:/posttech2008/05/eddie_izzards_iphone.html

British comedian Eddie Izzard isn't famous for his consumer tech humor, as far as I know, but he worked many observations and riffs about technology into his act last night at DAR Constitution Hall. Izzard, known by some for his role on the TV program The Riches, and to others for his stand-up comedy, made cracks last night about Bill Gates, Wikipedia, and Macs during his nearly-two-hour show. He even yanked out his iPhone at...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-05-01T19:34:06Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-01:/posttech2008/05/another_jab_toward_white_space.html

Today, several sports leagues, including the NFL, NASCAR, and NBA, formally challenged the "white spaces" proposal put forth by tech companies including Microsoft and Google. In a filing, the leagues asked Federal Communications Commission require the technology companies that want to sell wireless white space devices to prove that their devices won't interfere with wireless microphones, which already operate in white spaces. A group of prominent tech companies have proposed using fallow airwaves, known as...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Kim Hart 2008-04-30T19:17:13Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-30:/posttech2008/04/see_whos_advertising_where.html

One of the main challenges for online advertisers is figuring out which Web sites are worth their advertising dollars. How do they know where their competitors are advertising? How do they figure out whether a banner ad would be more effective than a keyword search ad? A new search engine called Yureekah launched this week to help ad agencies and advertisers find where competitors are advertising and determining the best options for future brand advertising....Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Kim Hart 2008-04-30T18:17:32Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-30:/posttech2008/04/gta_hits_the_shelves.html

Predictably enough, the new Grand Theft Auto game is selling briskly. One local DC game store tells me they've already sold 200 or so copies of the title, which was released yesterday. They have a few left, but those are all reserved copies for customers who already put a few dollars down. Game industry analyst Michael Pachter has said he expects the game to sell about 9 million units in the first couple of months...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-04-29T15:48:02Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-29:/posttech2008/04/yelp_opens_up_to_business_owne.html

Yelp, the site that lets people review restaurants, bars, hair salons, doctors and pretty much any other business, is now letting those businesses take part in the conversation. San Francisco-based Yelp is today introducing a suite of features that allows business owners to create an account for their establishment. They can then see how many people have viewed their page, update information like hours of operation and receive alerts when Yelpers review their business. Most...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Kim Hart 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-28:/posttech2008/04/bethesda_softworks_parent_goes.html

The Rockville-based ZeniMax Media Inc., parent company of game developer Bethesda Softworks, announced today that it is opening a publishing subsidiary based in Tokyo. Bethesda Softworks is a household name among gamers because of its bestselling and critically acclaimed title Oblivion, which was an epic sword-and-sorcery sorta thing. This fall, the company is scheduled a pretty cool-looking title set in a bombed-out future version of Washington, DC, called Fallout 3. "Establishing operations in Asia is...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-25:/posttech2008/04/gta_iv_leaked.html

Has Grand Theft Auto IV already been leaked to the Web? Looks like some Xbox 360 owners are already playing the thing -- thanks to the software tools that Microsoft put into its Xbox Live service, it's easy enough to check online and see that at least a few people are apparently already playing the title, which officially goes on sale next week. Alas, it's impossible to tell whether these folks downloaded it or whether...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-24:/posttech2008/04/lolcats_now_hiring.html

Do u has the skillz? The humor Web site "I Can Has Cheezburger?" is now seeking applications for somebody to help sort through the 7,000 submissions it gets every day. The site is famous for posting users' pictures of cats snapped in cute or awkward poses. Each shot is accompanied with a caption written in the site's misspelled babytalk-slash-Webspeak lingo. "Facebook" reads the caption of a cat who is sticking his head into a bookshelf....Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-23:/posttech2008/04/bus_accident_blamed_on_drivers.html

Well, it might have only been a matter of time before something like this happened, thanks to the soaring popularity of those handy GPS devices. A charter-bus drive in Washington state ran into a pedestrian bridge last week. Seems that the driver was paying attention to his GPS device -- and not to some warning signs on the road. The accident sent 21 of his passengers, a high school softball team, to the hospital though...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Mike Musgrove