2

Does your mastery of the accordion already have groupies beating a path to your polka nights? Then turn back now, lest you glimpse the power of the most futuristic, and dynamic accordion ever made: the Roland FR-2.

Roland's FR-2 V-Accordion is no mere squeezebox. Announced at January's NAMM expo, the FR-2 charts out the future of the already thrilling world of accordion performance. It has eight virtual accordion sound presets, MIDI input/output, AA-battery power, high-resolution bellows pressure sensors, chorus and reverb sound effects, an integrated digital metronome, and pad triggers for sampled percussion (cowbell not included).

For … Read more

WASHINGTON--Verizon Communications doesn't currently block or slow down peer-to-peer file-sharing applications like BitTorrent on its broadband network, but it can't rule out doing so in the future, a company vice president said Monday.

The comments by Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke arrive as Comcast has taken heat for throttling BitTorrent traffic in the name of "reasonable network management" and as the Federal Communications Commission is studying whether Internet service providers should be permitted to manipulate P2P traffic. Consumer interest groups have asked the FCC to declare that "degrading peer-to-peer traffic" violates the FCC'… Read more

Juan Ponce de Leon came to the Americas in 1513 searching for the fountain of youth. He never found it, but he apparently left behind the belief that old bones can be rejuvenated, as Microsoft seems to be chasing th same elixir with its proposed acquisition of Yahoo!.

While there are clues that pockets within Microsoft are embracing the web and its promise, Microsoft is currently $80 billion into its quest for the Yahoo! Botox with little to suggest that the company is truly read to embrace what is most disruptive - and most successful - about Yahoo!.

There are also questions about whether Yahoo! is the ideal teacher for Microsoft, as The Guardian notes:… Read more

Microprocessor technology supplier Transmeta said it has received the initial payment of $150 million from Intel toward the $250 million settlement that the two companies agreed upon back in October. The payment was received on January 28, according to Sujan Jain, Transmeta's chief financial officer. Mr. Jain also said that Transmeta is evolving its business model to generate a more constant revenue stream.

Transmeta, previously a supplier of low-power x86 processors, now develops and licenses microprocessor technologies and related intellectual property. The company filed a lawsuit against Intel in October 2006 alleging that the latter infringed upon Transmeta's … Read more

Sometimes it's all in how you ask the question. As Dan Farber at ZDNet reports, Forrester asked a wide range of enterprises how much they plan to spend on Web 2.0 technologies (plumbing), and then asked essentially the same question but focused on what that plumbing can create - social collaboration - and found that purchasing interest was much higher:

Collaboration is increasingly a big business. Just ask Microsoft which minted $1 billion on Sharepoint in 2007, making Sharepoint Microsoft's fastest-growing product (measured in terms of revenue) ever.… Read more

Toy cars that run on alternative energies are sometimes as impressive as their grown-up counterparts. Yet they often look like, well, toys (or even worse). But Corgi, in a partnership with Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, has come up with a futuristic design that could easily be sitting on a full-size show floor. The "H2GO" is a remote-controlled miniature car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that runs on water and solar energy, made of "lightweight, environmentally friendly, wheat-based plastics and boasts fully recyclable packaging," according to Pocket-lint. It even comes with its own refueling station. The … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW--Israel is brimming with technology upstarts that want what Silicon Valley has--venture money, partnerships, and a bridge to the rest of the world.

On Wednesday, 15 Israeli companies showed off their technology to a group of investors and tech leaders here at Microsoft's offices. The conference, called IsraelWebTour 2008, was like a Demo for Israeli companies, but with potentially more upside for a start-up looking for influential ties.

"I love it. This gives us a lot of first-time introductions to major players like eBay, Microsoft, Google, and Ask.com," said Tai Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of … Read more

When Benjamin Brown, the CEO of Web start-up MakeMeSustainable.com, hands you his business card, it's got "green" written all over it.

Rather than bleached white, it's the color of a supermarket bag and has a green fingerprint printed on the back.

Brown's not the only Web entrepreneur going with the recycled paper look. A growing number of tech and media entrepreneurs are trying to enter the booming green-tech industry via the Web.

Over the past five years, many IT professionals have made the jump to energy-related companies. Former Microsoftie Martin Tobias, for example, was … Read more

I stopped by a LeapFrog event today to at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. I was pleasantly surprised when the company representatives trotted out a new handheld learning/gaming system, the Didj ($89.99), which is due to arrive this summer. LeapFrog doesn't exactly bill the Didj as a Nintendo DS competitor, but the the new device is geared toward 6- to 10-year-olds, an age bracket where the DS currently rules.

LeapFrog also had its upcoming Leapster 2 ($69.99) at the event, which is targeted at even younger children. The idea behind the Didj … Read more