Tuesday Tech Talk #79

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. I apologize for no edition last week but I had a family medical emergency that I am happy to say is much better now. Well we have a lot to catch up on so let’s see what is happening.

Mozilla’s Do Not Track feature has a Flaw

You will recall a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox we’re all implementing Do Not Track tools for their browsers. Well, it seems that the Firefox one has a key flaw...it relies on websites to play nice and obey the wishes of the user. Granted it is easier than IE’s case by case solution but what good is it if the website is not being respectful of the user wishes?

LinkedIn going Public

Rumored for months, LinkedIn is taking the first steps to launching an IPO later in the year the first social media site to do so. So the question is will Twitter and Facebook follow?

DISH Network shells out $1 Billion for a Bankrupt Satellite/Antenna Company

Maybe this is DISH being like those folks on Storage Wars that bid outrageous money in the hopes of finding something of great value in abandoned storage sheds. But goodness...$1 Billion? That is what DirecTV pays annually to the NFL for the exclusivity rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. Then again the technology they buy may pay off in the long run. We will have to wait and see.

More trouble for Samsung’s Galaxy Tab

Return rates on the Galaxy Tab are at an astonishing 16% compared to just 2% for the Apple iPad. This comes on the heels of Samsung saying they initially sold 2 million of the devices only to backtrack and say those were distribution channel says and not consumer sales. Welcome to the big leagues kid!

AT&T adding 2GB to Tethering Plans

Starting February 13th AT&T will be adding an extra 2GB to its tethering plan for those with smartphones wanting to share it with their laptops and other devices. This would give the user 4GB of space to use monthly with every extra GB costing $10 in contrast to Verizon’s $20 per gig.

AOL buys Huffington Post, Arianna put in charge of editorial for all AOL Web Content

This is puzzling. I can understand AOL buying the left-wing HuffPo, but putting Arianna Huffington in charge of all the news sites under AOL’s umbrella including Engadget and Tech Crunch makes no sense! Let me put it in a different way, it is like Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan married...it is just not going to end well for either. I can say this much, the minute Engadget goes political on technology is the same time I will unsubscribe to them. It’s not enough they are a bunch of Apple haters over there as it is.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. I will see you all next week for more great tech news and opinion that is neither right or left-wing.