Of all the so-called iPhone killer phones since Apple's ubiquitous device was released, Verizon's Google-powered Droid comes closest to fitting the bill, and, even giving iPhone devotes pause for thought. While the iPhone and its App store are still king, the gap just got closed in a major way. But about that keyboard ...
Beware stolen merchandise being fenced online, especially in time for holiday bargain seekers, the National Retail Federation advises.
Verizon’s ubiquitous “iDon’t” commercial has been peppering TV for weeks now. It makes two conventional mistakes in advertising. It’s not clear that it’s an ad for the Verizon Droid phone, a remarkable new handset made by Motorola and the first phone to ship with Version 2.0 of the Google Android mobile OS. It’s clearly designed to compete against iPhone. It's a fine fone. But the ads are another story.
T-Mobile subscribers are having problems sending text messages and receiving phone calls. It's not known how widespread the service outage is or what caused it.
For Bump Technologies, 3 million is a more significant number than 1 billion. The company that famously developed what was the 1 billionth iPhone application downloaded from Apple reportedly raised more than $3 million in its first institutional round of financing.
Why would people who live in inner-ring suburbs such as Berwyn, Evanston, Oak Lawn and Oak Park be able to obtain health-care insurance quotes that are 14.6 percent, on average, lower than their Chicago neighbors?
NEW YORK (AP) — Forrester Research Inc. is projecting an 8 percent increase to $44.7 billion in online holiday sales compared with a year ago as bargain hunters turn to the Web for deals.
Van Giles, a free-lance public-relations consultant who lives in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood, found health-insurance coverage through GoHealthInsurance.com for what he was willing to pay.
Web sites that compile deals, discounts and door-buster sales from major retailers are launching services to help shoppers find bargains. DealNews.com has launched its "Black Friday Guide" at dealnews.com/ black-friday.html, detailing rumored and published deals that retailers are expected to offer the day after Thanksgiving.
Church volunteers greet visitors entering the lobby. The worship band begins its set and a pastor offers to pray privately with anyone during the service.
I guess I’m a man of Faith after all. I gave away my Garmin Nüvi GPS navigator earlier this year. I’d lent it to my sister for a 1200-mile road trip with the kids. When the time came for her to hand it back, she dropped a lot of hints about how grateful she was and how indispensible the GPS had been and how she’s always getting lost, particularly when driving her children to get their educations and their occasional medical checkups and ...
Motorola on Wednesday unveiled its much-anticipated Droid smart phone, expected to compete with Apple's iPhone, showing off its speedy Web browsing, Verizon Wireless carrier partner and 3.7-inch high-resolution screen.
If you're starting your holiday shopping early to avoid the last-minute rush or, this year, the empty shelves, you're going to want to add social networking online to your usual bargain-hunting routine. "Many retailers are announcing deals only on Facebook or Twitter, so if you like a particular store, become a fan on its Facebook page or sign up for its Twitter feeds," said Sue Kirchner
Motorola unveiled this morning its much-anticipated Droid smart phone, expected to compete with Apple's iPhone, showing off its speedy Web browsing, Verizon Wireless carrier partner, and 3.7-inch high-resolution screen.
Best Buy is selling a transmitting device that lets parents keep track of their children. Parents can place the device in a child's backpack or lunch box, for example.
Orland Park native Molly Mann worked with a job coach and used a new Chicago-based Web site, GoSavant.com, to land her first job out of college. Even so, her efforts took five months in today's troubled times.
Groundbreaking ideas rarely make money without patience, passion and relentlessness.
FRESNO, Calif. -- Last month, two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world's most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon's parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon -- just in case.
NEW YORK -- Worried about missing a birth announcement, or details on what your portly uncle had for lunch?
Chicago is seeking federal stimulus money to expand high-speed Internet access to five needy neighborhoods -- a plan that could add 300 jobs to existing community centers to teach people how to use the Web to post news and use online financial and social media resources.
Andy Ihnatko: I found Windows 7, officially released Thursday, to be confusing and disorienting from the very start. I felt lost: where was the familiar sensation of pain, frustration and rage that has acted as the compass guiding me through every Windows experience I’ve had since my school days?
Twitter Inc. is selling the rights to mine its communications hotbed to both Internet search leader Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in dueling deals that underscore the growing importance of being able to show what's on people's minds at any given moment.
CHICAGO -- They think it's pointless, narcissistic. Some don't even know what it is.
Windows 7 is now available on new PCs, but you also can buy it for a computer you already own.
REDMOND, Wash. — About 500 Microsoft employees gathered before dawn Thursday in a building at the Redmond campus to celebrate the launch of Windows 7.
Windows 7 isn’t merely a poke in the eye with a slightly blunter stick than what we’re used to getting from Windows. It’s a tremendously positive $119 update that makes your PC easier to use, easier to maintain, and puts more of your hardware and software’s power up at the surface where you can make the most of it.
Microsoft Corp. put a new edition of Windows on sale Thursday, hoping for a fresh start after a bad reception for the previous version of the software that runs most of the world's personal computers. Windows 7 is now available on new computers, and as a software upgrade for some older PCs.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Barnes & Noble Inc. unveiled a new electronic-book reader Tuesday that will compete with Amazon.com's Kindle in a still-small arena where some see bookselling's future.
Illinois enjoyed its fifth straight increase in exports of high-tech goods in 2008, but the lingering recession threatens to undermine that progress, according to the latest data being released today.
Andy Ihnatko: Apple’s upcoming tablet computer (whoops, “rumored” upcoming tablet) just got a little more interesting: there are signs that the company is getting into the digital comic book market. Which is tantamount to saying “Apple is helping to create a digital comic book market.”
Just as Apple Inc. announced Monday its fourth-quarter profits leaped 47 percent, helped by its iPhone sales, a new phone believed to be from Motorola -- the Droid -- surfaced in ads declaring it an iPhone threat.
An aggressive TV ad campaign from Verizon Wireless is adding to the support building for a software package from Google Inc. that is shaping up to be the most formidable challenge yet to Apple Inc.’s iPhone.
Brad Spirrison: Chris and Kristen Conn had no idea they would be going into business together when their first child was born more than four years ago. The 35-year-old founders of Evanston-based MightyNest decided to cradle their Web startup after having trouble finding chemical-free products for their nursery.
Chicago startup darling Groupon, whose name combines “group” and “coupon,” offers daily deals on products and services, such as tailored shirts, meals at restaurants and paintball games. There is a catch: A certain number of people in a given city must sign up for the deal to go through.
Wal-Mart jumped into the popular pre-paid, no-contract cellular phone market Wednesday with two calling plans. A $30-a-month prepaid plan includes 1,000 minutes of talk, 1,000 text messages and 30 megabytes of mobile Web access.
A casual remark about the social networking service Twitter sent Tyrone Schiff's imagination, well, a-twitter. A Northbrook resident, Schiff was attending the University of Michigan when a student warned users of the ultra-extroverted service. "He said, 'Beware of what you share,' and a light went off in my head," said Schiff.
Andy Ihnatko: There are more than a million Sidekick smartphones in the US, and a single set of servers keeps them all running. Well, last weekend, this set of servers collectively stepped on a rake and was thwacked across the face by a five-foot-long handle of white ash and it’s been lying motionless on the lawn ever since.
Chicago will spend $20 million in proceeds from the parking meter lease to create its very own “Tech Corps” — by offering technology training and temporary city jobs to 10,500 laid-off professionals.
Owners of Sidekick phones may have lost all the personal information they put on the device, including contact numbers, because of a failure of servers that remotely stored the data.
To companies like BigMachines, the sputtering economy is serving as an engine of massive growth.
