IT Buoy

Today, BoomTown gassed up the Mini Cooper and motored down to the Sunnyvale HQ of Yahoo, this time with a tiny bit of trepidation. Ok, not that much, but some! Why? Because Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz had invited me to be the first in a new speaker series for employees at the Internet giant, called “Yahoo from the ‘Outside In,’” due to my intense–some might say obsessive–interest in the company. The twist: Bartz herself conducted the interview with me in front of about 600 Yahoos gathered in its URL’s Cafe, the main cafeteria at the company. As it turned out, she was pretty good at playing the journalist, asking about a range of things, including how I got the sources I did (I never kiss and tell), what I would do if I ran Yahoo (run it right into another wall, I am sure) and what Yahoo should focus on (content, content and more content). The Yahoos had some good and also tough questions for me too, including about my sometimes snarky tone in posts, my personal relationship with a Google exec (see my copious disclosure here ) and my thoughts on the future of content (bright for Yahoo, not so much for newspapers). We also talked about a variety of tech companies, such as Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN). And, as Yahoos have tweeted, I did say I had a “man-crush” on Bartz (but only after she claimed I had a regular one) and described myself has a “sparkly vampire,” when asked about my late-night blogging habits

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Turning the Tables: Carol Bartz Grills BoomTown in the Yahoo Cafeteria (Over Easy With a Side of Disclosure)

Another speed bump on Google’s plan to take over the mobile phone world.

Intel Kirk Skaugen Intel loves to talk about Moore’s Law, its co-founder’s famed maxim about how rapidly miniaturization improves semiconductors. The company also prides itself on setting the pace, underscoring the strategy recently by deploying its most tiny circuitry in microprocessors for mainstream PCs. Then there’s Itanium. The high-end microprocessor line, originally developed with help from Hewlett-Packard, uses an entirely different technology than the x86 chips that Intel popularized in desktop and laptop PCs and low-end servers. Itanium models have tended to lag the production processes used to manufacture other Intel chips, but the disparity seems particularly stark with the latest version. Tukwila, the code name for a long-delayed Itanium model introduced Monday, is being built using manufacturing technology that creates lines of circuitry with features rated at 65 nanometers, or billionths of meter. That’s two technology generations behind the 32-nanometer process used in Intel’s latest x86 chips; the company earlier this year announced a $7 billion plan to accelerate the conversion of its U.S. factories to 32-nanometer technology

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Intel’s Itanium Again Marches to Different Drummer

Word broke today that Google will announce something of a Twitter-killer tomorrow. But unless the thing plays well with Facebook and Twitter, we don’t give it much of a chance. Truth is, Google hasn’t ever been very good at launching new consumer products. Gmail is big, but it’s no Yahoo Mail. They love Orkut in Brazil, but Orkut’s user base is dwarfed by Facebook’s 400 million monthly active users. Google Wave? Hah! But here’s the thing: Google does have a backup plan for this.

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Google Goes For The Kill (GOOG)

Apple’s new iPhone could be 1/4-inch taller, according to supposed photos of the new phone’s parts . If that’s the case, we imagine Apple would also make it thinner, so it feels sleeker in the hand. Read the rest of this story