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Microsoft this summer will distribute Windows 10 to anyone running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows Phone 8.1, regardless of whether the existing OS is a genuine or pirated copy. Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft's operating systems unit, disclosed the marketing strategy last week at the WinHEC summ...

Following a sterling Q4 in which it added 2.1 million individual customers, T-Mobile last week announced it was going after competitors with its "Un-carrier for Business" plan. By offering one flexible rate plan, T-Mobile vowed to put an end to the pricing shell game and compulsory haggling business...

Amazon on Thursday expanded Prime Now, its one-hour fulfillment service, to select ZIP codes in Miami and Baltimore. The service -- which delivers thousands of products, including groceries -- eventually will blanket both cities. Strategically placed warehouses in Baltimore and Miami now can respond...

Sony on Wednesday launched its PlayStation Vue streaming service in New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia. A combination of live and on-demand TV with a cloud-based digital video recorder, Vue is available on the PS4 and PS3 in those cities. Users' favorite shows and channels will be right on the ...

At this year's South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals in Austin, Texas, more than 150,000 new people have entered the major wireless carriers' network space. Nearly every one of them has a phone for making voice calls or using the Web. How do wireless carriers handle such a demand surge? That'...

Apple is expected to launch a Web-TV service this fall, offering 25 channels of content from various providers. Its pending move "is yet another sign that the traditional pay-TV provider lock on programming distribution continues to erode," said Greg Ireland, a research manager at IDC. "The availabi...

Nintendo has reached an agreement that will see its beloved intellectual property finally arrive on mobile devices, CEO Satoru Iwata announced Tuesday at a hastily called briefing. Mobile publisher DeNA and Nintendo have entered a capital alliance, in which they'll trade a portion of their stock and...

The U.S. government spends tens of billions of dollars each year just to make sure that computer and data processing systems keep functioning on a day-to-day basis. With so much investment allocated for operations and maintenance of legacy systems, it makes sense that far fewer dollars are available...

Facebook has launched Topic Data, a new service that reveals to advertisers the subjects users discuss, the brands and products they use, and the activities they follow. Marketers will be able to sift through data compilations of what users say about events, brands, subjects and activities. Facebook...

BlackBerry subsidiary Secusmart on Monday introduced the SecuTablet, a high-security tablet based on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, at the CeBIT 2015 trade show in Dusseldorf, Germany. Developed in collaboration with IBM, the tablet targets national and international public sector markets and enterp...

The way to permanently cure someone's headache is to cut off their head, and that appears to be the principle Yahoo has adopted with a new security policy announced Sunday. Users of Yahoo Mail no longer have to rack their brains to remember passwords, said Chris Stoner, director of product managemen...

The Federal Trade Commission last week charged DirecTV with deceptive advertising practices in a complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. DirecTV, which has been in discussions over a potential merger with AT&T, currentl...

Microsoft later this year will offer its Cortana personal assistant as a standalone app for iOS and Android devices. Microsoft has been working on the engine behind Cortana "for decades, and it's arguably better than [Siri or Google Now] simply because it's far more mature and comprehensive," said t...

The ACLU earlier this week filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the NSA from indiscriminately snooping on U.S. Internet traffic. Using a technique called "upstream" surveillance, the NSA does a spinal tap of the Internet's U.S. backbone, which carries the communications of millions of Americans, the ACLU...

We see it all the time: a glowing 5-star comment on Yelp about a restaurant. At first glance, it looks authentic. However, what if the review actually were purchased by the restaurant? Would that change your perspective on the review or the restaurant? Of course, paying for advertising is hardly new...