Prosecutors are reportedly investigating a number of eBay employees to determine if the online auction company broke any laws as it built a classifieds system to compete with Craigslist. The move is the latest chapter in an ongoing dispute between both companies, which centers around eBay's actions after it bought a stake in Craigslist.
A still-ongoing eBay auction has validated suspicions that Apple has been testing 3G-capable Macs for years. The 2007-era MacBook Pro prototype, originally bought off of Craigslist for parts, has a built-in Dynastream ANT2USB modem modified to fit in the aluminum chassis. It includes not just the necessary SIM card slot for the HSPA 3G access but a retractable antenna that would sit flush with one corner of the display.
Black Pixel Luminance has released the first version of Agent Craig, a search utility for Mac OS X. The software hunts for keywords on eBay auctions and Craigslist entries, making it easier to find apartment listings, job offers and items for sale; it also operates continuously in the background, displaying Growl pop-ups whenever new posts match search criteria. These pop-ups can also be given separate sound cues.
Americans browse the web on their cellphones almost twice as often as their British counterparts even without the help of web-friendly devices like the iPhone, according to a new study by M:Metrics. Despite the reputation of Europeans as more openly embracing smartphones, Americans in March were known to spend an average of four hours and 38 minutes per month on websites using their phones versus almost exactly two and a half hours for British users. The difference is largely attributed to the prevalence of flat-rate data plans in the US, which give customers either a block of data or unlimited access instead of the metering that more often exists in Europe.
