Motorola has just purchased 4Home, the developer of home monitoring, control, and energy management software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 4Home's software platform essentially adds a technology layer to any consumer's home. Services include energy management, home security and monitoring, media management and home health. The software allows consumers to control web-based content on their TVs, appliances in the Kitchen, home devices and digital media in one unified user-interface, and track their home energy usage down to the device level. The technology also has mobile functionality as well.

Yahoo

Now that HP owns Palm, it's been made it clear they have little interest in selling Windows Home Server boxes. Zero interest, actually—they've announced they're selling the rest of the inventory they've got, and never looking back. More »

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It seems, if unnamed insider sources and some speculation from TechCrunch are to be believed, that Google has just bought Groupon, the deal-of-the-day website, for $2.5 billion.

Yahoo tried, and failed, to buy Groupon for over $3 billion earlier this year, but little is known about why the deal fell apart. That Google has now apparently bought them for 'only' $2.5 billion would suggest that Groupon's management team would prefer a future as part of Google instead of Yahoo.

As far as what Google stands to gain from the deal, other than raw cash -- Groupon is rather profitable -- we will probably see extensive integration between Groupon and Google's Places and Shopping products. When searching for Places, coupons for local businesses could be shown. When looking for the lowest prices with Shopping, coupons could be worked into the results.

Ultimately, though, I just hope that this merger will result in a site called Goopon.

Google rumored to have bought Groupon for $2.5 billion originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you ever wanted your outfit to stand out, maybe you should try creating a dress out of dyed water and plastic tubes like this artist.

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Perhaps my expectations were too high as I eagerly unwrapped my HTC Trophy, plugged it into my computer and booted up Zune. Installing apps is so easy! Search, click, blam. In moments I was booting up Twitter, its comforting, peaceful blue emanating from the phone's bright screen.

You're greeted with a 'top tweets' (lower-case is obviously still in), 'trends,' 'suggested,' and 'nearby' panorama. You don't have to log in to use this section, which is nice, as a lot of people use Twitter for the newsy aspect, rather than actually tweeting.

That's where the good news ends.

Twitter for WP7 is slow. Sliding between pages is spluttery and nowhere near as smooth as the main WP7 menus. Scrolling down through tweets is worse; the frame rate drops just enough to create a bit of a 'blinking' effect that will probably cause epileptic seizures amongst sensitive users.

Unfortunately... it gets worse.

Continue reading Twitter for Windows Phone 7 reviewed, thoroughly unexciting

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Social Software

Twitter for Windows Phone 7 reviewed, thoroughly unexciting originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We loaded Windows 7 on two MacBook Airs and found that they ran faster than nearly any other recent netbook or ultraportable laptop.

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eWEEK Labs Technical Director Cameron Sturdevant's year of using and covering Apple products in the enterprise has come to an end with a newfound respect for Mac hardware and the resistance of Mac OS X 10.6.3, code-named Snow Leopard, to hacks and viruses. For executives and high-value creative content users he sees Apple's appeal. But as we enter the cloud computing age, Sturdevant is less enamored of fat clients of any variety for routine office workers. - For just over a year I've used a variety of Apple devices from the Xserve and Mac Pro to the iPhone and MacBook Pro and even a Mac Mini as my primary work systems in a Windows-oriented IT shop. I made the switch because Apple PCs and iPhones and now iPads are coming into the enterprise. I wanted...

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We loaded Windows 7 on two MacBook Airs and found that they ran faster than nearly any other recent netbook or ultraportable laptop.

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All of a sudden, many organizations are finding their employees are no longer accepting the corporate-issued BlackBerry as their only mobile option. Even when that is the single formal option, more and more employees are using their own smartphones -- iPhones, Androids, whatever -- for business purposes. With Nielsen projecting that half of all U.S. cell phones sold will be smartphones by 2012, the tide is unstoppable.

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Have a look at today's online-only Cyber Monday video game deals, mindful of the principle "not all that glitters is gold."

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