changes

President Barack Obama, under pressure to spur job growth, said on Saturday two solar energy companies will get nearly $2 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to create as many as 5,000 green jobs.

In his weekly radio and Web address, Obama coupled his announcement with an acknowledgment that efforts to recover from the recession are slow a day after the Labor Department reported that private hiring in June rose by 83,000.

"It's going to take months, even years, to dig our way out, and it's going to require an all-hands-on-deck effort," he said. … Read more

The iPhone is No. 1 in customer satisfaction, says a new ChangeWave survey, but Motorola also has its share of happy Droid users.

Among the 1,009 smartphone owners interviewed by research firm ChangeWave, results released this week found that 77 percent of all Apple iPhone owners said they're very satisfied with their phones. Motorola came in second, with 64 percent of its smartphone users who expressed high satisfaction with their phones.

In comparison, 51 percent of HTC owners and 46 percent of RIM Blackberry buyers said they're very satisfied with their smartphones.

Among specific models, Apple fans who own the newest iPhone 3GS models were more satisfied than those who still use the older 3G. And Motorola can thank the Droid for its high level of customer satisfaction--69 percent of Droid users said they're very satisfied with their phones, while only 50 percent of those who own other Motorola phones said the same.

Of course, we know that iPhone satisfaction varies a lot between rural and urban areas and by geographic location. But ChangeWave spokesman Paul Carton says the customers surveyed were a representative sampling geographically of the U.S. and Canada. Most of those surveyed were U.S. residents, he said.

Looking at HTC's customers, 68 percent of the HTC Hero owners expressed a high degree of satisfaction, compared with 50 percent of those using a Droid Eris and 38 of those with an HTC Touch. ChangeWave was running its survey just when HTC's Droid Incredible hit the market, so it couldn't provide feedback on that new model. But the research firm promised to do a follow-up survey of Droid Incredible owners.

ChangeWave also asked about the mobile operating systems running on smartphones.… Read more

The exit of Microsoft's two top entertainment executives on Tuesday has many wondering just what is going on within Redmond's executive offices.

Although Microsoft reorganizes itself in some way on a nearly annual basis, the departure of both Robbie Bach and J. Allard is clearly a big deal. Bach, 48, had spent two decades at Microsoft and was one of its four divisional presidents, while the 41-year-old Allard was a key visionary behind the Xbox game console and other Microsoft consumer efforts.

The move comes at a critical time for Microsoft, which this year has on tap the … Read more

Verizon's customers are a happy lot. AT&T's? Not so much, still.

At least those are the findings of a survey (PDF) released last week by ChangeWave Research that found Verizon tops among cell phone users for customer satisfaction and fewer dropped calls.

Of the 4,040 wireless subscribers questioned for the survey in March, 49 percent of Verizon's customers said they were very satisfied with their service. In second place was Sprint Nextel with a 35 percent satisfaction rate. T-Mobile and AT&T both tied for last with only 23 percent of their customers … Read more

2010 is proving to be the year of YouTube slimming down.

The company on Thursday began offering up a newer, leaner version of its player that's essentially the same as the old one in terms of functionality. The big difference is that the player's timeline nearly disappears after a few seconds of playback, putting more of an emphasis on whatever's playing.

Other small tweaks include a volume knob that slides out into the player's chrome instead of up and on top of the video, as well as a slight fade to the now white and gray … Read more

Apple announced changes to iTunes Connect this week that should be popular with iPhone developers, giving them additional automation options that will come in handy during holidays or other times developers want to take some time off.

According to News and Announcements for iPhone Developers, app developers can now schedule changes--single or in a series--to the price of their apps. Amro Mousa posted a screenshot of the new feature on Twitter earlier this week.

Developers can log into iTunes Connect to access these features immediately via the Pricing tab.

Dear CNET Download.com readers,

Today, reviews on CNET Download.com are changing in a small but significant way. Since we began reviewing software nearly eight years ago, we have reviewed only the trial version of any software title that was also available for purchase.

For all software reviews going forward, we will evaluate and rate software based on its full version rather than just its trial version, judging an application's effectiveness as a complete piece of software. However, we will continue to highlight and discuss the limitations of a piece of software's trial version. You can read … Read more

The fee to become an Apple Mac developer dropped significantly Thursday to $99. According to Apple the new low cost of membership is in response to the success of the iPhone Developer Program (also $99 per year) and the potential that apps from that platform might crossover to the Mac. Apple had previously sold memberships to the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) Select or Premier programs for $499 and $3,499 respectively.

The newly named Mac Developer Program offers access to Mac OS X prereleases, technical documentation, Xcode 3 and other tools, development videos, member-only developer forums, and two technical code-level … Read more

Senator John Kerry said a bipartisan climate change bill would emerge soon in the U.S. Senate, contradicting what he called the "conventional wisdom" that the legislation was dead this election year.

Kerry is working closely with the Obama administration and a bipartisan group of senators on a comprehensive bill to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide pollution blamed for global warming.

"We're on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation we intend to roll out," Kerry told a climate policy forum, without giving details of his proposals.

The Massachusetts Democrat and White … Read more