Personal Tech

Google might be getting its layoff machine rolling again, Samsung’s stylus-oriented Galaxy Note tablet is due soon, and Apple, dear Apple, is having its video ambitions debated in a wide public rumor exchange. Let’s get into this Wednesday’s rumor roundup!

Leap Motion introduced its tiny, inexpensive Leap gesture-controller yesterday. It claims to be 100 times more accurate than Kinect.

I once had two friends who were fairly happy with their Droid X Android phones. But after I showed them how to grab an official, over-the-air upgrade to Android 2.3, or “Gingerbread,” they were much less happy with their phones, with Android in general, and almost certainly with me.

One thing you might ask about Facebook's huge IPO: what are they going to do with all that money? One place it’s going is into the social network’s mobile presence, where Facebook is less sure of its footing.

Microsoft is planning on rolling out its NUad interactive TV ad technology soon. But there's an easier way for advertisers to get eyeballs on their ads: produce quality content!

Your dad’s Wall Street Journal was the sheet that aimed to tell you everything you needed to know that morning to face the many-headed, irrational beast known as The Market. Your Wall Street Journal? It wants to have the very best sourcing on what your next iPhone is going to look like, and it usually succeeds.

Back at SXSW streaming music service Rdio introduced a redesign to paying customers. Now free users have it, too.

As previously noted in this space, text messaging, or SMS, is a scam and it needs to die. I suggested that Google Voice, Kik Messenger, and Apple’s iMessage could help kill it off. Yet it’s really a fourth, much more obvious service that will be the death of SMS.

It’s no secret that Apple and Google have the kind of relationship that touring bands have with Ticketmaster: an aspiring artist with a thinly veiled contempt for the company that has all the right connections.

I love Android. I've been happily using an Android phone and an Android tablet for a few years now. So what prompted me to decide to buy one of the new iPads?

BlackBerry 10 devices could let you show people what you’re seeing on your screen. Apple’s purported HDTV offering could see what you’re looking at. And you may not see any Verizon representatives pushing an iPhone on customers any time soon. This week’s Rumor Roundup is all about vision.