Archive

Interest in the United States Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe into Google was given a jolt with the commission's decision to enlist seasoned white-collar crime litigator Beth Wilkinson to head the investigation. "When we have the opportunity to augment our team by bringing on a lawyer wit...

Amazon's first fiscal quarter surprised shareholders Thursday by beating performance expectations. Investors sent shares upward even though the online retailer reported a 35 percent drop in net income. Amazon announced a net income of $130 million, or 28 cents a share, for its latest fiscal quarter...

Walmart is targeting an interesting customer segment -- shoppers with access to the Internet but perhaps no credit card to use for purchases -- with its newly launched "Pay with Cash" initiative. It allows a customer to shop at the Walmart.com website and then pay for the order at a local Walmart st...

In the rush to play in the Big Data game, it's easy to forget the fundamentals. The fear of being left behind can cause enterprise IT teams to move directly into pilot projects with a choice of products and technologies that may not be best designed to solve the identified business problem. For ex...

Nintendo has reached a dismal milestone: For the first time ever, it posted a fiscal year operating loss -- down $458 million for the year just ended. It is an ignominious turn of events for the company, which created legendary games like "Super Mario Brothers" and innovative devices like the Wii. I...

As testimony unfolds in the Oracle-Google lawsuit, now in its second week, it appears that Google's defense against copyright infringement is vulnerable. That is not to say Google will not ultimately prevail in the end. Oracle has alleged that Google's Android OS infringes both Java patents and copy...

Would it surprise you if I said the upcoming CTIA Wireless 2012 show will be very different from those in the past? I've been going to these wireless shows for more years than I can remember. Every few years, the show -- and in fact the entire industry -- changes. This is a great showplace for wha...

Mobile carrier Sprint Nextel reported deep losses amounting to $863 million in the first quarter of this year, but the company's results actually beat Wall Street expectations. And since it began offering Apple's iPhone as of last October, Sprint added a net 263,000 subscribers. However, this has co...

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt defended his company's actions regarding Java and Android as he took the witness stand Tuesday during Google's ongoing trial, in which the company stands accused of misusing Java programming code in the development of its mobile operating system. Oracle, which ...

In an initial determination, International Trade Commission judge Thomas Pender ruled that Apple was violating one of Motorola Mobility's patents for 3G wireless technology. Specifically, the ruling cited a patent that was issued to Motorola in 2001 for a "method and system for generating a complex ...

The tech industry loves the concept of new innovation to the point where product launches all too often call to mind infatuated elders showing off photos of their latest grandkids. But practicality tends to drive the manufacturing side of the IT business, with consistency trumping innovation. As a r...

The hacker group Anonymous and other so-called hacktivists are the biggest concern for IT security professionals, according to a survey by Bit9. Its 2012 Cyber Security Survey queried nearly 2,000 IT security experts to gauge the current state of enterprise security and otherwise identify what keeps...

President Obama initiated an Open Government program on his second day in office, pledging to make government information more accessible to the public. Three years later, that program has achieved significant success in many forums. However, the effort of making more federal information even more a...

Just two weeks after forking over more than $1 billion to AOL for hundreds of patents and patent applications, Microsoft resold 650 of them to Facebook on Monday. Each party in this latest transaction will retain licenses to the intellectual property the other will hold when the deal is completed. T...

What a difference a year makes. Netflix, the tech industry's golden child last spring, has been struggling to overcome a series of missteps it made later in 2011. There is guarded optimism that when the company posts its fiscal first quarter report after the closing bell on Monday, some progress wil...