Apple Tops Microsoft Equity Value for First Time

You knew it would happen one day, and on May 26, 2010, it finally did: Apple's equity value eclipsed that of Microsoft, at least for the day. At the close of trading, a small decline in Apple shares combined with a 4% drop in Microsoft’s stock to leave Apple’s market value ahead — at nearly $223 billion compared with about $219 billion for Microsoft.

 Over the past year, Apple’s share price has nearly doubled to more than $244, as the computer and device maker has ridden a wave of success with its iPhone and new iPad.

The movement of Apple to the top position in market capitalization among technology companies perhaps reflects its growing stature in emerging product categories and services, ranging from new devices to mobile advertising.

Presumably, that is why regulators suddenly have taken an interest in Apple's market dominance as well.

Facebook Updates Privacy Rules

Basically, users will have more control over their own sharing.

Who is More Careful About Personal Information:Younger or Older People?

Though it is not intuitive, younger users might be more careful and active about curating their online information than older users are, a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests.

Internet users between the ages of 18 to 29 are more likely than older adults to say they take steps to limit the amount of personal information available about them online. About 44 percent of young adult Internet users say this, compared with 33 percent of Internet users between the ages of 30 to 49, 25 percent of those 50 to 64 and 20 percent of those ages 65 and older.

Also, 71 percent of social networking users ages 18 to 29 have changed the privacy settings on their profile to limit what they share with others online. By comparison, just 55 percent of users ages 50 to 64 have done so.

Compared with older users, young adults are not only the most attentive to customizing their privacy settings and limiting what they share on their profiles, but they are also generally less trusting of the sites that host their content.

When asked how much of the time they think they can trust social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, 28 percent of social networking site users ages 18 to 29 say “never.” By comparison, 19 percent of users ages 30 to 49 and 14 percent of those ages 50 to 64 say they never trust the sites.

See all the findings

Is the iPad Really a PC?

"The iPad is a new kind of PC, argues Sarah Rotman Epps, Forrester Research analyst. If so, it might be said to be so in the same way that a high-end smartphone also is a PC, which is to say an iPad both "is" and "isn't" a PC.

The iPad’s features don’t line up with what consumers think they want. The top features that consumers say they want in their next PC — DVD drives and burners, CD drives and burners,
and Webcams — are all absent from the iPad.

Click on the image for a larger view.

The features that the iPad does have, such as a touchscreen, are lower on the list of features buyers say they are looking for.

Two-thirds of U.S. online consumers say they want a DVD drive in their next PC, while only 22 percent want a touchscreen. This doesn’t mean that consumers won’t buy the iPad without these features, but it does mean that Apple will need to teach consumers that they can live without them in the device.

So a question yet to be answered is whether people will figure out "what" the tablet PC is, and how it can be used. Form factor might be important as users try to figure out what a device between a smartphone and a PC looks like, and what it must do to be useful.

Google Adds Dashboard for Mobile Location History

Google has a new beta dashboard for its "Location History" function, which might be useful for people who want to know how they actually behave, rather than how they think they behave, at least from a location perspective. The dashboard, which is private and viewable only by the user, will highlight

location trends.

You might want some detail on trips taken, places visited, or time spent in the house compared to outside it, for example.

The dashboard can be used to review how much time time you have spent at an office location over the last month or year, and whether your patterns are changing, for example.

If you want to know where you stopped on a recent trip, the dashboard can be used to find the answer.

To try out the new dashboard, enable Google Latitude in the background on your phone, turn on Google Location History, and wait a few days (up to a week) to build up enough history for the dashboard to begin showing information.

Where Have I Been? Get Your Answer with the Google Location History Dashboard - Official Google Mobile Blog

Facebook Not Completely Set on How It Will Use "Location"

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says his firm still is not exactly sure what it is going to do in the geo-location area, yet, and hasn't finished building the application.

Sometimes it is quite refreshing to hear influential CEOs frankly say they aren't completely sure how they will use an important feature, or what the business model might be. Perhaps that is a problem when a CEO "never" seems to have answers about such questions, but it is okay to figure it out and get it right, even if it sometimes takes a while.

Of course, it is less comforting when a firm does not basically have enough current revenue to fund current operations, but that isn't Facebook's problem.

Mark Zuckerberg: We Don't Know What We're Doing With Location Yet:

73 Democrats tell FCC to Drop Title II Gambit

73 House Democrats have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission warning the agency not to go forward with its plan to partially reclassify ISPs as common carriers, a move needed to impose net neutrality rules.

'The uncertainty this proposal creates will jeopardize jobs and deter needed investment for years to come,' wrote Texas Congressman Gene Green. 'The significant regulatory impact of reclassifying broadband service is not something that should be taken lightly and should not be done without additional direction from Congress.'"

Common carrier regulation in the U.S. communications business historically has been good for coverage, bad for innovation. It was good for quality but bad for prices.

Whether common carrier regulation would have the same impact on broadband and innovation in the broadband business is the question

73 Democrats tell FCC: drop net neutrality rules