Technology

Thought your company could get away with exaggerating its products' merits on Facebook or Twitter? Think again!

Mobile phone company Orange has released its newest service, high definition for calls. There's a link below to a BBC report in which technology reporter Rory Cellan-Jones demonstrates the sound difference. The odd thing is that nobody knew they needed high-def audio on phone calls before this.

Consumer technology is one of the first sectors to come out of recession, according to figures just released by research company Mintel. That's the theory but it doesn't stack up against what's happening in America as we've reported previously.

Next year, when IBM's Watson computer competes live against human contestants on TV, think of this: The machine might be your next doctor.

A projected doctor shortage has been making headlines in the U.S. since the passage in March of health-care reform, which is expected to give 32 million more Americans health insurance by 2014.

Hewlett-Packard has increased the pressure on Dell in its bid to secure storage specialist 3Par by raising its bid again. You'll recall Dell made an initial bid of $1.2bn and HP topped that with an unexpected $1.6bn. Well, Dell equalled that but within hours it wasn't good enough.

Tobacco can't be advertised on TV since I was a young man - that long ago. There may now be a workaround, although the companies themselves have denied it to Sky News and others that they're involved: you put the movies or old ads on YouTube and people volunteer to watch them.

The Rugby Football Union may be about to drop the ball in terms of protecting its members' personal data. Fans may cry foul. Obviously it's a game of two halves (OK, you've had your fun, now get on with it - ed.) but it looks as though it may be about to pass all its members' numbers to O2.

The Tardis will be landing firmly in Nintendo-land for Christmas. Two games, one for the hand-held DS family and one for the Wii, will be released in time to be wrapped up and given away - but do licensed characters actually sell more than other games?

Exaggerated claims watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a series of BT Broadband ads that claims super fast broadband speeds. But some of the complainants were rivals such as Virgin. They are liars about their broadband speeds too. How do they get away with it?

Last week I blogged about Dell buying storage specialist 3Par for $1.2bn so that it could move further into the lucrative services arena and de-emphasise just flogging the tin. Well, Dell has been trumped.

It's nearly September and that means millions of parents breathing sighs of relief as their kids go back to school. They're not going back with new computers this time, though; a slew of PC manufacturers are reporting lower than usual shipments. The tech sector has been leading the way out of recession - we now have to ask, can it sustain it?

In February 2010, New Jersey's Evesham Township Police Department joined Facebook. Like most new members of the social network, it posted its contact and personal information, linked out to some of its favorite sites, and began writing updates about daily events in its community.

But while the average Facebooker rhapsodizes about the mundane stuff of daily life, the Evesham P.D.'s page was a bit more exciting: Its updates told readers about accused thieves and shoplifters, child pornographers and arsonists. What's more, the site's collection of photos made it clear which Eveshamites had been charged with operating on the wrong side of the law.

Want to kill the web? There's an app for that.

Wired magazine sure picked a good time to declare "the Web is dead" and herald the foreboding rise of the "Internet" -- by which it means a newly powerful, vaguely malevolent, premium-services-based online world with competing content fiefdoms, controlled by powerful corporate interests.

Google reportedly is in the midst of developing its own tablet computer and aims to launch its iPad killer on the busiest shopping day of the year -- Black Friday -- according to a report at the website Download Squad.

Google (GOOG) is turning to its previous partners to create the new device, with handset maker HTC (HTCXF) dishing up the hardware and Android-phone carrier Verizon (VZ) providing the network connection, according to the report. But Google will be using its Chrome OS -- not Android -- as the operating system for the device.

In the office? Want to arrange a last-minute break in the dying days of August, or maybe an autumn holiday? Maybe your keyboard's going to stray over to one of the holiday booking sites or some travel information? Well according to a new survey by employment law specialist Elas, that's a major drain on corporate UK - to the tune of £2bn.