Friday, February 20, 2009

News and Views for Friday 2/20/09

Where’s Bin Laden? New theory, Google Earth offer clues

A couple of geography professors at UCLA have done some legwork that just might help the U.S. get closer to capturing Osama Bin Laden.

Sprint loses another 1.3 million customers

First, the good news: Sprint narrowed its losses considerably, compared with a year earlier. For the fourth quarter, Sprint lost $1.62 billion, or 57 cents a share. This is certainly better than the $29.45 billion, or a whopping $10.36 a share, it lost during the fourth quarter of 2007. The previous year's losses were due to some large write-downs the company was forced to take related to its merger with Nextel. This time around, Sprint only had about $1 billion in write-downs. Now for the bad news: Sprint is still losing customers. And as a result, its quarterly revenue declined about 14 percent to $8.43 billion.

I'll wait for Windows 7 before buying a new computer

I need a new computer. Badly. My old iMac, which I'm using to write this now, has seen better days. My Windows machines, strewn across the house, are old and tired. But I'm unwilling to buy a new computer today. It's not that I haven't seen machines that I really would like to have, or that I don't have a desire to build my own. But there's a single factor that's forcing me to wait: Windows 7.

Facebook Reverses Course, Pulls Terms of Use - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Facebook changes its terms of service. Backlash occurs. Then Facebook changes them back. At issue is whether user data can be retained after it is deleted. The interesting thing here isn't that a giant online company changes its ToS, it is that somebody noticed. As it is, cell-phone companies, ISPs, cable providers, and even grocery stores change their privacy policies all the time and no one even notices, let alone makes a peep. Check out our full story to find out if Facebook's policy should concern you.

Six Ways to Make Twitter Useful

Just a few days ago, I talked about our introductory story "Top 10 Twitter Tips for Beginners," but what about old Twitter hands like us? Turns out you can use Twitter for everything from getting better customer service to making your own news feeds. Oh, and you can also discover just how much happier Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are than the rest of us. That isn't useful, but it is illuminating. Find out how to do all this and more by following this link.

No comments: