Archive

Twitter is acquiring mobile advertising exchange MoPub in order to support advertisers' efforts to optimize their ad buys. MoPub helps advertisers and publishers buy, manage and maximize performance of a variety of ads, especially those on mobile platforms. Twitter plans to invest in MoPub's core bu...

Moto X, Motorola's first new handset since being acquired by Google, is a true tech-fashion-forward move. In the past, a new handset offered by Motorola would get me as excited as watching paint dry, but something is different this time around. The Moto X is a strong entry into the Google Android ec...

Facebook and Twitter both added embedded-post capabilities to their platforms last month, and now Google has brought similar functionality to Google+. Both embedded posts and an author-attribution feature were unveiled by Google earlier this week, in fact, giving individuals and businesses a way to ...

The 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled, in essence, that Google broke federal wiretap laws when its Street View cars collected data from unencrypted WiFi networks. The federal court affirmed a district court's order denying Google's motion to dismiss the claim. Google's data collec...

Technology has always enabled the "factorification" of processes and skills for both users and suppliers of IT. The success of early computing solutions rested in replacing hundreds and thousands of Bob Cratchett-like professionals with systems that required few, if any, sick days and no vacations. ...

Facebook on Monday began rolling out new tools designed to help news organizations uncover the real-time conversations people are having across the social network. The company released two APIs to a handful of online publications. The Public Feed allows news organizations to integrate Facebook conve...

PayPal on Monday announced new technology that aims to make paying for goods as simple as walking into a store. Specifically, PayPal Beacon is a contactless payment system that uses Bluetooth Low Energy to connect with customer handsets to send offers and complete transactions. The mobile wallet-lik...

Hard on the heels of the recent announcement of Apple's iPhone trade-in program, Walmart on Tuesday announced a smartphone trade-in program of its own with up to $300 in-store credit for the old devices turned in. Specifically, consumers can get an immediate credit of between $50 and $300 for more...

Protection of intellectual property is a major element in the highly competitive world of information technology. The scope of protection affects not only providers such as software developers but also the users of software products. Software patent litigation has increased significantly, according ...

Activist investor Carl Icahn has given up his fierce struggle to prevent Michael Dell from buying his namesake company and taking it private. In a letter to shareholders, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday morning, Icahn said Dell would be paying a price approximately 70 per...

The subscription model has already proven its mettle when it comes to music and movies, but this week Oyster unveiled a new service that applies the concept to books instead. Specifically, the startup on Thursday launched an invitation-only preview of an e-book rental service that's widely being des...

PayPal introduced a new version of its mobile app on Thursday, unveiling features designed to make it easier for users to pay restaurant bills or take advantage of location-based deals while on the go. The updated app lets users access full menus from approved restaurants and order ahead of time to ...

A federal court in Seattle this week upheld Microsoft's claim that Motorola Mobility refused to license its standard essential patents at a fair and reasonable cost, resulting in an award to Microsoft of $14.5 million in damages. Microsoft claimed that the license fees Motorola Mobility initially de...

An October 2010 class action lawsuit against Google included allegations that "Google transmitted user search queries to third parties without knowledge or consent in order to enhance advertising revenue and profitability." Following three years of litigation, Google and the plaintiff users this Jun...

The wave of companies rushing to merge is building once again. On Monday it was Verizon and Vodafone. Tuesday was Microsoft and Nokia. Two questions: What will merging do for these companies, and which are next? The reason for companies merging is clear. The wireless world continues to change. Growt...