Barack Obama’s weekend promise to back a significant new internet infrastructure build-out and promote “‘green” jobs has certainly struck a chord in Silicon Valley, which has been urging the president-elect to think big and make technology investment a centrepiece of his administration (this is the Obama YouTube video.)

But can Obama possibly live up the Valley’s very high hopes?

Take the hopes of the electric car industry, which we wrote about today. The simplest way to support electric cars in the US would be to slap a tax on gasoline, but that is a political non-starter. So a whole framework of incentives and regulations would be needed to bring the industry into being. Continue reading "Waiting for a White House that thinks big on tech"

Imagine you are visiting a Website that offers free access, but only to registered users. At the top of the page are a number of options. You can create a new identity, or you can just sign in using your Facebook account, your Google account, or one of several other online identities you already have.

Which do you pick? And could your choice tip the balance of power between the big internet companies? Continue reading "Solving the Web’s multiple personality disorder"

Advanced Micro Devices has had to settle for less in its spin-off of its manufacturing business.

Just two months after it announced Abu Dhabi investors would take an increased share in the company and enable it to create “The Foundry Company”, AMD announced on Monday that the terms of the agreement had been amended.

The rapid economic deterioration is being blamed but, more to the point, AMD’s share price has fallen more than 50 per cent since the deal was announced on October 7. Continue reading "Abu Dhabi chips away at AMD deal"

Researchers from IBM and Harvard are teaming up to produce cheaper, more efficient solar cells. It’s a noble effort, and solar could certainly use the help as it struggles to gain traction.

Yet what’s most interesting here is not the research itself, but the way in which it’s being conducted. These scientists won’t be squirrelled away in some university basement. Rather, they’ll be using the computing power from a network of idle PCs around the world to screen organic compounds for certain electronic properties. Continue reading "IBM and Harvard Tap World Community Grid"

Intel has managed to make its power-hungry hot-running microprocessors a thing of the past, but now it has bigger problems to tackle, according to Justin Rattner, chief technology officer.

At a briefing on Intel’s “Eco-Technology” research on Friday, Mr Rattner showed slides on how the CPU (central processing unit) was now just a small piece of the power-consumption pie in a PC . Computing itself represented only 2 per cent of the world’s energy-efficiency problems. Continue reading "Intel senses change in energy needs"

Cheap and cheerful may be the theme for holiday shopping this year, with consumers looking for low-priced technology that can raise their spirits with its entertainment value.

Nintendo’s $250 Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Arcade console are cases in point. Since the basic version of the Xbox 360 console was dropped to $199.99 in September, making it the cheapest of the next-generation ones, sales seem to have soared. Continue reading "Wii wish you a merry Xbox"

While Yahoo’s management has come under relentless criticism this year for its decisions and performance, there was a reminder today that it was making even more questionable judgement calls back in the last century.

Yahoo announced it had reached agreement with CBS Radio to take over the running of its 150 Launchcast internet radio stations from early next year.

Today they should all be playing funeral dirges for Yahoo’s 1999 acquisition of Broadcast.com for $5.7bn. Admittedly, this was an all-share transaction at a time of inflated valuations, but co-founder Mark Cuban was quick to cash in and invest elsewhere, making himself a billionaire in the process. Continue reading "Broadcast.com reverts to radio"

Credit-crunched Americans appear to have turned to the internet for their Christmas shopping bargains this year, with the comScore research firm reporting “the second heaviest online spending day on record” on “Cyber Monday” this week.

ComScore says $846m was spent on Monday, up 15 per cent on last year and only beaten by the seasonally busier “Green Monday” in 2007, when $881m was spent on the second Monday in December. Continue reading "Cyber Monday’s big spenders"