Give Gifts With Bytes, Not Gives That Bite
This holiday season, 80 percent of individuals want some sort of consumer electronics device as a gift, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association and CNET, but unless your recipients are already app-loving, ebook-downloading, subscription-paying gadgeteers, buying hot consumer electronics can pose several problems. I’ve tried to outl

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8 Timely Tips for the Netbook Buyer
Netbooks, low-cost portable computers optimized for web usage, are continuing to sell at a torrid pace, with Acer expecting 50 percent growth in the global netbook market in 2010, to 42 million units. In the meantime, standard technologies, operating systems and other options in these diminutive systems are undergoing rapid shifts. Here are eight up-to-date tips to k

Why PC Makers Will Make Android King
IMPORTANT POINTSThanks to open operating systems like Android the phone can be divorced from its operating system Android will help PC makers build compelling smartphones To compete against the PC makers, handset OEMs will have to focus on services, cutting costs and communitiesAs PC makers such as Lenovo — which said today that it will spend $200 million to buy back its mobile unit — move

Black Friday, Red Ink: Big Discounts Will Kill Profits
It’s that time of year again. The holiday shopping season has shifted into full gear, and so have the economists, analysts and retailers who wring their hands over things like Black Friday sales figures. Or those of its fake, and widely mocked, online counterpart, Cyber Monday (which is far from the busiest shopping day on the web — online sales at Amazon, for example, typically peak in mid-December). Overall, a modest improvement over last year’s dismal performance is expected. Forrester Research projects