Study: Blackberry-using workers put in 15 extra hours per week
(NECN: Ted McEnroe) - Call it the Blackberry bridle. The iPhone leash. The smartphone shackle. A study from a British employment law firm finds that workers who have smartphones from their workplace spend as much as 15 extra hours per week checking email and responding to calls outside of work.
Barnes and Noble hopes to snuff Kindle’s fire
Barnes and Noble is jumping back into the fight against Amazon.com in the eBook world.
The bookseller has rolled out a new eBooks section of its website, making available software for the iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry and PC and Mac computers and selling a vast array of books, as it tries to stem Amazon’s advantage among electronic readers.
Barnes and Noble says it will have more than 700,000 titles available (and as many as a million) within the next year, claiming it would then be the world’s largest eBookstore.
The company also tells the Associated Press that it will be the exclusive content provider for the new eReader from Plastic Logic. Plastic Logic’s competitor for Amazon’s Kindle is expected to be rolled out later this year, with a full-blown release slated for 2010.
A quick first download of the eReader for the Mac finds it to be easy enough to install, and far more customizable for the computer than the Kindle is for the reader. Of course, the real test will be with the iPhone and Blackberry apps – and whether they can compete with the Kindle’s portability and ease of use. Kindle also already has an iPhone app, which has gotten generally good reviews. That leaves the Plastic Logic versus Kindle battle as perhaps the most critical element of this fight, and it will be very interesting to see what the Mountain View, CA company can come up with that makes its product stand out from Amazon’s.
Cisco CEO touts Flip
Flip cams are all the rage in many places – we actually are using the cameras to do a number of different things on NECN.com – weather video, video blogs, and much more.
But today might have been the first time that an interview subject whipped out his Flip camera during the interview.
Of course, the guy who did it, Cisco CEO John Chambers, is an unabashed Flip fan. He liked the product so much, he bought the company (Pure Digital). Chambers notes that videoconferencing has already cut travel costs and improved communications at Cisco, and says more portable, higher quality video cameras, better file formats and increased bandwidth will lead to a lot of startup activity in the coming years.
And it seems from his tone that Cisco will be in a buying mood.
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EMC raises the ante for Data Domain
Data storage company EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, Mass. is offering $30 per share, or $1.8 billion, for Data Domain Inc. of California, raising the stakes for the backup system provider in a battle with rival NetApp.
EMC’s offer is all-cash, and represents a 20 percent premium over the NetApp’s $25 per share cash offer.
In a statement Monday, EMC Chief Executive Joe Tucci said, “Our substantially superior proposal is a win-win for both companies.”
Data Domain shares have rocketed to $30.50 in after-hours trading.
Technology helps Maintain Seniors’ Independence
New technology being developed by New England companies can help seniors stay healthy — and maintain their independence.
Mass High Tech reports a pair of efforts to develop technology would connect seniors in their own homes with care providers. One of the companies, Careful Products, is developing a touchscreen-based system. An MIT lab is researching a digital pet that will virtually get sicker or even die if the senior doesn’t take his medicine. It can even be networked to another pet — called “pharm animals” that can be linked to another relative who can then see if the senior is following their drug regimen.
Mass High Tech reporter Marc Songini will be interviewed live on these technologies, on Business Day — Friday, May 29th at 6:30 p.m. on NECN. Find out how companies in New England are using technology, and robotics to help keep seniors self sufficient.
You can read Marc’s full story at www.masshightech.com.
Obama unveils emissions limits
President Barack Obama is spearheading the nation’s effort to limit vehicle emissions and improve fuel efficiency at the same time.
The plan would save billions of barrels of oil. It would also add about $1,300 to the price of a vehicle by 2016.
Twitter makes a stumble – or a business move
It’s funny how momentum can shift so suddenly. Last week, the Carolina Hurricanes had the Bruins 3 games to 1. And Twitter was exploding. Now the ‘Canes and Bruins are tied at 3 – and Twitter has gotten the wrath of the Twitterati.
Guess what! They earned it. (Somewhere, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is smiling – he’s usually the one on the defensive for these things.)
Yesterday, Twitter made a ’small settings update’ that made it so unless you are following both members of a public conversation, you don’t get to hear it. The hubbub is over @replies. And for Twitter newbies, it goes like this. When I post in general on Twitter, I just speak my mind in 140 characters or less.
But what if I am commenting on someone else’s post? Typically, I would put @theirname at the beginning, and my reply to them would be seen by my followers, too. They’d get to see who I was talking with, and maybe, just maybe, they would check them out and decide they were worthwhile to follow, too.
Now that’s gone, which makes discovering interesting people (which is a whole point of networking, right) that much more difficult.
It also steals some accountability and marketing benefit. Earlier this year, RD Sahl from NECN asked Gov. Deval Patrick’s office a public question. He got a public response – and that’s the way it should be. If I tweet a question @massgovernor as a journalist, there’s a point to it, and that’s to make the question and answer public. If I send something @comcastcares about my cable, it is in both my interest and Comcast’s interest that the question is asked and answered publicly. I hold them accountable with the public question, they get public credit for responding effectively.
The decision has turned into a firestorm for some loyal Twitter users. On the one hand, you can’t discover people without someone saying “you should follow @tmcenroe”, Twitter becomes Facebook without the features.
But Mat Asay at CNet suggests there might be a business plan in here somewhere. If serious Twitter users want to see @replies – maybe they’ll be willing to pay for the service. Since right now, it’s free – and for people whose use of Twitter is reading news headlines or following stars, that’s just fine.
It might be the rest of us who will have to pay up.
Old media lives, new media wins
We have done a couple of very interesting stories in recent days that provide a contrast between old media’s struggle for survival and the next generation of storytellers (and media consumers) thriving in new ways.
Amazon hopes big screen = big market share
They have a sizable hold on the e-reader market, but with new companies eyeing Amazon’s Kindle with dollars in their eyes, and new netbooks posing a threat – Amazon is expected to roll out a new Kindle tomorrow morning with an eye toward textbooks and newspapers.
I talked about it on NECN this morning.
But while the concept makes sense for Amazon – its impact on newspapers is less clear. Some bloggers have suggested that papers are banking on a conveniently downloadable daily Kindle edition as a way to give newspapers a boost – most of them, to put it bluntly, say that’s nothing more than a pipe dream, but that Kindle’s foray into the textbook market could pay better dividends.
We’ll be watching the announcement with interest.
Welcome to the Biz Day Buzz
If you are stumbling across this site for the first time, welcome to the Biz Day Buzz, NECN’s daily blog to go along with New England’s only daily business show, Business Day.
We are still getting things set up, so consider this site in Beta for a couple of weeks, but we will quickly be picking up the posting pace as we get more and more people online with the show.
if you have any ideas or feedback that you want to share, feel free to post them in the comments to this post. We want to hear from you!
