Archive

Movie studios and TV networks increasingly are turning to social media for help with generating buzz about their upcoming releases and programming. Communities are building around favorite movie franchises like the Twilight and Avengers series and TV shows like Downton Abbey and The Walking Dead. Ha...

With nearly every market forecast and growing anecdotal evidence pointing to escalating demand for cloud-based alternatives to traditional on-premises systems and software, the challenges of integrating the new on-demand solutions with existing applications and data sources are becoming even more cr...

Microsoft is the latest product manufacturer to follow the retail trend of setting up shop within a big box store. Best Buy and Microsoft on Thursday announced plans to open the Windows Store only at Best Buy in 500 retail locations in the U.S. and more than 100 in Canada. The stores will range in s...

Mobile technologies may tend to focus on life's present and future, but Foursquare this week launched a feature that gives users new insight into the past. Specifically, the location-based social networking service on Thursday introduced the Foursquare Time Machine, a tool that allows users to retra...

In a hotly contested case, the Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously decided that some of Myriad Genetics' patent claims were invalid for claiming products of nature. However, the Court also held that other Myriad patent claims were perfectly valid. In short, Myriad discovered the location and DNA s...

Verizon is on the hot seat. It is at the center of the story about releasing customer information to the U.S. National Security Agency. While Verizon does make information about every call available to the NSA, the actual conversation is still private -- for now, at least. To date, Verizon has been ...

Time Warner Cable appears to have come up with a strategy to help stem the flow of cord-cutters: offering incentives to content providers to withhold certain properties from online entertainment platforms. Limited distribution is clearly an entrenched practice in the entertainment industry, but it s...

Former Palm CEO and webOS creator Jon Rubinstein is apparently still brooding over Palm's acquisition by HP. Two years later, he looks back at what HP did with webOS -- or rather what it didn't do -- and he is very disappointed, he said in a recent interview. When HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion i...

In an effort to manage acquisition fees, Pandora Radio has acquired a terrestrial radio station based in Rapid City, S.D. The move enables Pandora to be subject to licensing fees and royalties for broadcast radio stations rather than streaming stations. Internet radio companies such as Pandora, Spot...

Comcast this week announced new software for its set-top boxes, opening a window into how cable TV companies hope to retain customers tempted to move their eyeballs to online-only alternatives. Comcast X2 blends cable offerings like on-demand movies, program guides and digital video recording with o...

Google has finalized its acquisition of Waze, developer of a crowdsourced mapping app, with the goal of expanding its location-based and social maps offerings while providing users with a way to outsmart traffic. Israel-based Waze has a worldwide user base of about 50 million people who log in to ac...

Major IT companies are hoping to seize the moment in an effort to restrain what they consider to be an abuse of intellectual property rights by so-called patent trolls. In a recent flurry of activity, lawmakers and the Obama administration have taken steps to support large IT companies seeking paten...

Comcast is rolling out a neighborhood WiFi initiative designed to allow its Xfinity Internet subscribers to log in to nearby wireless hotspots outside of their home. Subscribers to the service will essentially be the hosts for two separate WiFi networks. One will be their private and secure home con...

Softbank and Sprint issued a statement late Monday announcing changes to the merger agreement awaiting shareholders' approval. The new deal increases the amount of cash that would go to stockholders by reallocating funds that had been earmarked for direct investment in Sprint. SoftBank will acquire ...

Samsung stockholders went scurrying for the exit on Friday when a research note from J.P. Morgan predicted that third-quarter shipments of the Galaxy S4 would be disappointing. The company lost about $12 billion in market value that day and edged further down on Monday. J.P. Morgan was not the only ...