Why I stand up for Stallman. Republic Wireless: An Android-Powered, VoIP/Cellular Hybrid Carrier That’ll Cut Your Phone Bill In Half. Talk about good timing. Over the weekend, I wrote a post pleading with Google to please, finally, bring VoIP capabilities to Google Voice — namely, with an app for Android. The app would have some major benefits: it would let you make and receive calls over your home and work Wifi networks whenever they’re available (that means fewer dropped calls at the office, even if you’re deep inside a large building). And whenever you aren’t around Wifi, you could fall back to your carrier minutes. Unfortunately, while Google was actually working on building a VoIP-powered app for Android long ago, it shelved it, likely because it was concerned about infuriating the carriers.
But shortly after that post ran, I started hearing some whispers. Turns out I’m not the only one with the idea — there’s another big (albeit less well known) fish that’s about to make a splash. First, a little background. Which brings us back to Republic Wireless, which is the latest of Bandwidth’s own products. Google releases new Reader redesign, featuring Google Plus integration. Google announced on their blog last week that they’d be redesigning Google Reader, and today the redesign has hit the interwebs. The redesign takes shape like almost every other Google product in terms of color, shapes, and speed. Google Reader now also features Google+ functionality built in, after turning off friending and following in Reader. Users will be able to +1 a post and then from there have the ability to share it with their Google+ friends.
Check it out after the break. The redesign will begin rolling out to users in the coming days, so hold tight if you’re not yet seeing it. Related articlesGoogle Reader to get redesign and Google+ integration next week (9to5google.com) Twitter Is Not the Enemy of the English Language. Incoming: A Native Gmail iPhone App. Finally. Ever since I bought the original iPhone in 2007, there’s been one app above all others that I’ve been sorely missing: Gmail. Of course, back then, there were no native third-party apps.
But a year later, when those came, Gmail was still nowhere to be found. At first, the talk was that Apple wasn’t going to allow another mail app on their device. Then it was that Google was simply focusing on the mobile web (they’ve had a pretty good mobile web version of Gmail for a while). Then it was the strained (to put it mildly) relationship between Google and Apple. Still, other Google iPhone apps came. Until now. Google is on the verge of launching their native Gmail app, multiple sources tell me. This is great news for a couple of reasons. But again, Google has had a nice mobile web version of Gmail optimized for the iPhone for some time, so what’s the big deal?
Perhaps the biggest issue with using Gmail through the iPhone’s native mail client is that Gmail is not Push-enabled. Business Insider. It's August 2011, and Andrew Mason is agitated. He's at his desk in the middle of Groupon's wide open, call center-style office in Chicago. His headphones are on. His brow is furrowed. His company had been the darling of the business press for the past two years. Suddenly it's not. He can't hang on to a COO. What a turnabout from a few months earlier, when Groupon was the talk of Wall Street. So what happened? And now that Groupon is finally going public, how will the Groupon story end?
This story, as told to us by insiders, answers some of these questions. In 2006, Andrew Mason was a music major, getting a graduate degree in public policy at the University of Chicago. Mason maintained a website called Policy Tree, which featured articles like "Karl Rove should be fired or resign over the C.I.A. leak. " On the side, he was doing contract work building databases at a company founded and funded by an entrepreneur named Eric Lefkofsky.
The Point launched in June. A year after that it had 5,000+. On the Verge of a New Tech Site, Which Finally Debuts - Kara Swisher - Media. Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge. Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge. I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today. From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content. Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.
In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time. A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs. I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met my father, I tried to believe he’d changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.
Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother. By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif. We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I didn’t know much about computers. Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited.