Thursday, June 25, 2009
Does Google Need to Start Bulking Up Again?
When the economy cratered last fall, even mighty Google was forced to pull back on spending: The company stopped growing its workforce and put several big expensive projects on hold. But that’s likely to change, predicts Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay. He says that while Google is on track to shell out $1.4 billion on capital expenditures this year, that number will shoot up up more than 40 percent next year, to $2 billion. And if Google doesn’t get a grip on YouTube, that number could keep growing.












Mystery solved, sort of: AT&T is taking the blame for crippling the SlingPlayer iPhone app. The company’s rationale: The iPhone’s too powerful, and our network isn’t powerful enough.
The SlingPlayer iPhone app–software that lets you watch programming from your own TV on your Apple handset–will go on sale at iTunes sometime after midnight Eastern tonight. But it’s missing a crucial feature–the ability to work over AT&T’s network. What happened? “Ask Apple,” says a SlingPlayer rep.
Apple says its customers have downloaded one billion apps for the iPhone and iPod touch from its iTunes store. You can learn more by reading one of the many stories about the milestone or by visiting Apple’s site. Or you can visit the homepages of big Web publishers like the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or CNET.com, all of which have once again handed over prime real estate to Apple for another intrusive/interesting ad.