Archive

Google has announced plans to buy ITA Software, a major provider of airline travel software, for $700 million. ITA is a prominent player in its space -- it counts among its clients virtually all of the major Web travel information and booking providers, including such airlines as American and Contin...

Until recently, a phone was just a phone. Sure, it got cooler when it lost the rotary dial, the cord, the wire and its voice-only restrictions. Still, it was just a phone. Businesses knew that the sound of its ring usually meant money (for what company with silent phones is profitable?) -- but few w...

Amazon.com plans to acquire online retailer Woot.com, pioneer of the "flash sale" concept. No financial terms were officially disclosed when the deal was announced on Wednesday, though the blog TechCrunch reported that the sale was made for around $110 million in cash. Woot will operate as an indepe...

Have you ever considered whether you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? You might think that there aren't many objective ways by which you can assess your entrepreneurial ability. Actually, there are. One of the quickest ways by which you can get some idea of your innate talents for entrepren...

The Bilski v. Kappos Supreme Court case was the latest skirmish in the ongoing war over the scope of patents. On the one side are purists who want the patent statute open to new technologies, and on the other are those who wish to see the patent laws more curtailed -- and particularly that the paten...

Hulu, the TV-network-owned site for watching television programs over the Internet, has announced a new paid subscription service that promises to give users greater freedom to watch their favorite shows online. Hulu introduced the new service, called "Hulu Plus," Tuesday in a blog post authored by ...

A few months ago, the Globeandmail.com's Barry McKenna reported that "Canada has earned a dubious distinction as a world hub for illegitimate file-sharing websites and a leader in Internet piracy." In addition, Canada is in the "embarrassing position of harboring five of the top eight remaining unau...

Google will no longer redirect mainland China Internet users to its Hong Kong site at Google.com.hk. Instead, it will display a link to the uncensored Hong Kong site on its Google.cn landing page. The Hong Kong page also gives mainland users access to such services as music and text translation. Th...

In opening its new Mass Lab on June 16, IBM stated that the facility that will focus energy and attention on mobile computing technologies. For me, that point recalled Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, Louis Gerstner's memoir of his time at IBM. Hired when the company was on the brink of collapse, Ge...

The early-entry, established companies continue to wrestle for dominance in the streaming music space. We have Pandora, Jango, Last.fm, and Google Music is yet to come. Now, though, a small newcomer is in the game, and it joins the fray with an angle. mSpot has just finished its private beta period ...

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a patent case that has held the software industry and patent attorneys in suspense for much of the last year. However, the decision, which came down on the last day of the court's term, was worth the wait for advocates in favor of the patentability of business pro...

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a memorandum that proposes the government to provide 500 MHz worth of additional broadband spectrum for auction -- spectrum that is now controlled by the federal government and private companies. The goal of the proposal is to provide more wireless space for th...

Incorporating social media strategies into your marketing plan is no cut-and-paste job. You've got to know your clientele and what appeals to them, and you have to engage them in a conversation rather than simply spew offers at them. In fact, if you don't have the desire to commit yourself to social...

Twitter has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers and put their privacy at risk by failing to safeguard users' personal information, the FTC announced Thursday. In what was the agency's first such case against a social networking service, the FTC charged that s...

There is a new mindset is pervading the world of digital assets, particularly in a cost-conscious economy. Organizations are looking to maximize the value of all their digital assets, both to reduce up-front costs and to increase ROI. Back in its early days, "Saturday Night Live" spoofed a real comm...