News Inventory

Intuit has finally dropped the subscription fee on Quicken Online, its Web-based financial software that competes with Mint, Geezeo, Buxfer, and Wesabe. The company is still selling, as completely separate products, software versions of Quicken. When I last covered Quicken Online in December 2007, my biggest complaint was its price. In a market with free (and very good) competitors, there was just no reason to pay for Quicken Online. This is a smart move on Intuit's part. But while Intuit Online is a ... Read More

I was pretty surprised when I got an e-mail this morning from a friend who’s a sophisticated figure in the local music scene. The e-mail amounts to a long conspiracy theory meant to suggest that Obama has questionable Muslim connections who may have funded his college tuition and other endeavors. Then I got the same e-mail today from a Fort Lewis-based sergeant I know serving in Iraq. It begins like this: “Around 1979 Obama started college at Occidental in California. He is very ... Read More

The future for the BBC lies in the technology that can open it up to the world, just as technology gave it life last century. In the corporate world, Facebook, Apple and Google have launched platform services that allow external developers and companies to build services using their code - but the BBC is uniquely placed to use those same principles to create a cultural and commercial resource for the nation. The director general Mark Thompson has directed the corporation to think beyond ... Read More

The deal between Yahoo and Google, which would see Google supply ads for the search pages of its largest competitor, has already been put on hold while the Justice Department evaluates it on antitrust grounds. Most observers are expecting a straight thumbs-up or -down from the DoJ, based on how the deal will affect prices and competition. But at least one US Senator feels that this isn't sufficient. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has released an open letter in which he calls on the ... Read More

Reports are bubbling up that Digg has permanently banned over 80 users for running scripts that help them automatically perform certain tasks on the site. The mostly lengthy account has been published on the Get Smart Blog under the title The Grim Reaper has visited Digg. The post lists 86 usernames that were unceremoniously dropped from the site without forewarning. The tone of the author and his commenters, all apparently Digg users (or ex-Digg users) themselves, is dramatic: “So many brave and valiant ... Read More