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Year: 2008 (Page 9 of 52)

Analysts Predict Global Drop in 2008 Chip Sales

PCWorld – Two industry watchers this week revised their estimates of worldwide semiconductor revenue this year, with one even predicting a year-over-year decline.

ISuppli Corp. Wednesday said it is projecting that 2008 semiconductor sales will decline by 2% to US$266.6 billion this year from about $272 billion in 2007. Just last month, iSuppli had predicted that 2008 semiconductor sales would grow by 3.5% over last year.

And Tuesday, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics issued a report predicting that the global semiconductor market will grow by 2.5% and hit $261.9 billion in 2008. That’s down from the 3.2% growth the trade association reported last year.

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BlackBerry’s Storm: Awkward and Disappointing

PCWorld – BlackBerry fans who’ve been yearning for a touch-based handset à la iPhone now have one, but the BlackBerry Storm–which Verizon Wireless plans to start selling Friday for $250 with a two-year contract–might not be the smart phone of their dreams.

The decision by Research in Motion to differentiate the Storm by giving its capacitive touch screen a mechanical component (the entire screen functions as a button for confirming selections or initiating actions) turns out to be more confusing than helpful. Ultimately, the Storm’s touch interface feels like a failed experiment.

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Net Neutrality Legislation Expected In January

Techdirt – This probably won’t come as a big surprise to most folks, but Sen. Byron Dorgan, has made it clear that he intends to reintroduce net neutrality legislation early next year. While the issue of net neutrality used to not be a partisan issue, somehow it became one a few years ago, with many Democrats lining up in favor of net neutrality regulations, and many Republicans against them. President-elect Obama’s platform included network neutrality legislation, and with more Democrats being elected to both the House and Senate, it’s no surprise that such a bill would quickly find its way to being introduced.

While we’re strong supporters of keeping the internet’s end-to-end principles intact, that doesn’t necessarily mean legislation is the best way to do it. Once again, we’d urge anyone supporting the legislation to at least carefully read Tim Lee’s paper on the subject. Yes, it’s important to keep the internet working under these principles, and yes many internet providers would like to start double charging some providers for traffic, but this particular piece of legislation may not be the best answer — and could, in fact, create more problems.

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Study Says Lots Of Kids Are Making Sneaky Purchases Online With Parents’ Cookied Credit Card Info

Techdirt – Plenty of online shopping sites let customers store their credit card info to make it easier to purchase stuff in the future. And, for most home users, that is a convenient feature — as it seems unlikely that a third party would access your computer and use your credit cards to order stuff. Except, apparently, a lot of parents forget about their kids being able to do that. A study in the UK found that plenty of kids were buying stuff online without their parents’ knowledge or approval, using the stored credit card info on certain web shopping sites. Of course, if parents checked over their credit card statements regularly (or received the packages when delivered), you would think they would notice such activity.

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How Much Ink Is Left in That Dead Cartridge?

PCWorld – You’ve probably had this experience: Your printer tells you it’s time to change the cartridge, but you dismiss the message and keep printing. Days or weeks later, you’re still using the same cartridge and thinking to yourself that rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated.

Or perhaps your printer simply shuts down when it decides you’ve gone deep enough into its ink well, refusing to operate until you replace the cartridge, though you suspect there’s plenty of ink left.

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