Stories by JR Raphael

Microsoft's Bing Ad Claims to End 'Search Overload'

Microsoft's first commercial for Bing, the company's recently rebranded search engine, is officially out in the wild. The inaugural Bing ad focuses on the notion of "search overload," suggesting Internet users have been "lost in the links" while America's financial system has been collapsing.

Lost hard drive and other government data blunders

The U.S. government says it's lost - yes, lost - an entire hard drive full of sensitive data. The external drive, stored at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, held personal data from the Clinton era, including information about White House staff and visitors and electronic storage tapes from the Executive Office of the President.

Why Google's outage wasn't a complete failure

I noticed something interesting in the Google outage and its aftermath on Thursday. Google's sites, in case you were hiding in a cave yesterday, were unreachable around the world for a good hour and a half. Gmail, YouTube, Google News, even the google.com home page were inaccessible to scores of people.

Google Suffers Widespread Outage: Quick Fix Promised

Google appears to have recovered from a widespread outage affecting many of its online services Thursday. Most Google properties were inaccessible to users across the U.S. and worldwide from about 10:45 a.m. until about 12:20 p.m. EDT. People from coast-to-coast and as far as China, Australia, and France were all impacted.

T-Mobile G1 v2: New info on next-gen Android device

We interrupt your steady stream of iPhone rumors to bring you new buzz on that other famous smartphone: the Android-powered T-Mobile G1. While its successor, the T-Mobile G2 (aka HTC Magic) has yet to hit America, there's now talk of a "T-Mobile G1 v2" that could be coming soon to a store near you.

Android aims for the stars with Google Sky Map

As analysts go gaga over Android this week, Google is unveiling a high-tech "mobile planetarium" that could catapult the system into a whole new world. Google Sky Map was officially introduced Tuesday, just one day after researchers suggested Android was well on its way to becoming a "top-tier player" within the smartphone market.

Wet iPhone? No sweat: Apple has a replacement plan

Sweating your iPhone out-of-service is now a slightly less terminal problem, thanks to a new wet iPhone replacement plan introduced by Apple this week. That, my friends, is one odd sentence I never expected to have occasion to write.

Windows 7 in October? Here's the scoop

Windows 7 may be hitting store shelves sooner than you think. Microsoft's latest operating system will be ready to roll this October, some information published by a British tech site suggests.

Apple's iPhone 2.2.1 Update Not Feeling The Love

Apple released its iPhone 2.2.1 software update Tuesday -- but don't get too excited. The update includes mainly fixes and minor improvements, and no signs of any noteworthy new features. Can someone cue the collective sigh of disappointment?

What's new in Internet Explorer 8 RC1?

Microsoft is readying the final release of its browser Internet Explorer 8. Here are images of IE release candidate 1 along with descriptions of the features

Psychic predictions for tech in 2009

Countless people are trying to predict what 2009 could hold for the world of technology. Of course, it's all just guesswork -- these pundits aren't working with a crystal ball. So we decided to find someone who was.

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