“What’s happening is that everybody in new media is scrutinizing their relationships,” said James McQuivey, principle analyst at Forrester Research. “This is happening in online video as well. (The big entertainment companies) are even looking at the successful services, the ones bringing in traffic and revenue. There was a honeymoon period in 2007 and 2008 when the labels would take some risks, but they may not want to continue placing a bet on something that isn’t performing.”

“Given the situation that GM is in right now, all expenditures, anything that involves capital, is under review,” GM spokeswoman Sharon Basel told the newspaper. “And such as the case with the Flint engine plant.”

Three months ago, GM announced that it would construct a new plant to manufacture the engine for use in the Volt and the Chevrolet Cruz, another highly touted fuel-efficient car.

General Motors' Chevy Volt. GM decided to delay plans for a

Few would disagree that faster is better when it comes to the Web, and Google wants to get Web publishers hooked on speed.

Now the company wants to share some of what it’s learned with the outside world. Rabbat noted a recent experiment by a Google engineer in which the Google experience was slowed for a small number of visitors; predictably, they were less likely to come back. Google has already started to help Web publishers test their sites for stragglers with a
Firefox plug-in

Along with being able to post new messages directly from the box, users can get their tweets filtered into the stream using hash tags. These show up alongside the happenings of the game and serve as an alternate commentary to the streaming radio feeds. This is a really neat approach, since it does not require users to remain on MLB’s live game sites. Instead, it can tap the commentary of people who are watching or listening to it elsewhere.

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CNET)

Sounds great, especially if you’re keen on saving energy and the environment.

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Sanyo)

But you’ll also have to carry the Eneloop Mobile Booster (2.5 ounces) because it contains the lithium ion battery that stores the solar energy. You then connect your cell phone, gaming device, or whatever to the Booster.

You might also have to lug your laptop to charge the Booster if the weather doesn’t cooperate. Though it takes 1.5 days to 3 days to fully charge the Bo

It’s not that I deprecate the value of my security. It’s just that I value more the possibilities that arise when I share this data with a network of friends–sharing really only makes sense through a company or community that networks my address book with those of others I like and trust.

I can’t fathom why someone hasn’t done this yet. Tim O’Reilly has been talking about this Address Book 2.0 concept for years, and I’ve written on it several times, too. (See here and here.)

The point is that many Asia-based manufacturers would be quite pleased if the Apple tablet was a success and, as a result, ushered in a new device category. Needless to say, companies like Dell, Sony, and Acer would quickly follow suit if consumers started snapping up boatloads of Apple tablets.

But Apple will stay above the fray, according to this analyst, offering a device that’s very thin, light–and expensive. In other words, don’t expect Apple to bring out a $199

This might not seem like a big deal at first glance since most Web sites use username log-in. But this is a time saver, compared with typing in your full e-mail address every time. I still suspect that we will see our Facebook usernames being used for more things in the future, though it’s unclear what those things may be.

We knew that Facebook had bigger plans for vanity URLs/usernames when it opened them up for registration this summer.

The popular bet was that it

In today’s socialized Internet, APIs to your data are the barrier (or door) to getting users hooked on your data. Regardless of whether through an API that controls a cloud service like Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), or the ability to get communications in and out of Facebook, users want to consume data in the way they feel most comfortable. Any company that creates or aggregates data needs to make it available, if it expects to ever hit critical mass.

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What I find frustrating is when I think people or companies are trying to hold back what the technology allows. Those are my concerns especially when we’re holding back the opportunity. That’s where a lot of this comes from. I’ve been writing Techdirt in one form or another since 1997. So it was started when I was in business school, looking for a way to keep myself in touch with what was going on with technology and business world and it was a good way of paying attention.