At first glance AkibaLive looks like a cool new blog on Japanese gadgets. But it’s not. It’s a marketing gimmick by Dynamism.com, “the leading U.S. retailer of next-generation electronics from Japan and around the globe”. The press release says it all: “Retailers have yet to leverage the targeted, personal impact blogging has on consumers,” it… Read More »
A positive early review of Musicmatch’s new online music store, from Paul Thurrott of WinInfo Update. “Musicmatch Downloads also has some unique advantages over competing services, such as higher-quality downloadable songs,” he says. Musicmatch Downloads currently offers more than 200,000 songs for download, and the company says that more than 500,000 songs will be available by… Read More »
A few folk have written in to my column asking how they can fight back at spammers. Here’s one tale that offers hope. Wired reports the saga of graphic artist Andy Markley who found himself the victim of a major spammer who sent thousands of spam messages carefully crafted to appear as if they had… Read More »
More on the health effects of handphones, this time for 3G: Reuters quotes a Dutch government study that found users exposed to base station signals “felt tingling sensations, got headaches and felt nauseous”. There was no negative impact from signals for current — i.e. GSM — mobile networks. The kicker: cognitive functions such as… Read More »