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Verizon Wireless is offering steep discounts on the troubled Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus handheld devices. On its site, it has slashed the prices of these devices from $250 to $50, and $150 to $30, respectively. It's also offering customers a buy one, get one free deal. Wal-Mart customers can get a ...

Many college students have been spending the week on the beaches of Padre Island and other balmy locales, soaking up equal parts sun and alcohol. Meanwhile, the families of America are starting to think about where they'd like to dig their toes in the sand for summer vacations -- if they're not alre...

Amazon has reportedly agreed to new pricing terms with two major publishers on e-books sold for its Kindle. Amazon forged new agreements with Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Publishers. The new terms -- which mirror the deals the two companies struck with Apple for the iPad -- will allow most...

If I were to ask you what you thought were the main causes for business failure, what would your answer be? Lack of working capital; trying economic conditions; severe competition; obsolescence of a product? Actually, if you cited any of the preceding, you probably would be partially correct. I say ...

During this time of economic recovery, it seems that the Internet has remained fairly immune. E-commerce is on track to account for 53 percent of all purchases by 2014, according to Forrester Research. This represents positive growth, but when you put it into perspective based on the Internet's over...

Google, AOL, AT&T, the ACLU, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and other members of a newly formed coalition called "Digital Due Process" are proposing that the federal government update laws on government access to email and private files stored by third-party service providers in the cloud -- or any o...

Climate change, peak oil, and precarious food systems seem finally to have entered the realm of relatively mainstream discourse. Corporate employees now routinely discuss their gardening plans and dreams of a hobby farm over lunch. Photographs of whole foods guru Michael Pollan grace the covers of p...

It's been a couple of years since AMD had to delay shipments of its buggy quad-core Barcelona server chip to manufacturers, costing the company market share, stock value and reputation. Now, the No. 2 chip vendor hopes to come roaring back with the world's first 8- and 12-core x86 processors and a h...

Sometime this year, Apple will almost certainly unveil an iPhone compatible with Verizon Wireless' -- and Sprint's, for that matter -- CDMA-based network. Apple is also reportedly working on another GSM iteration of its iconic device, which will be released by AT&T later this year. The timing i...

So-called smart grids are among the first real-world examples of what expansive IT vendor initiatives like IBM's Smarter Planet envision. Just what are smart grids? Designed for deployment by utility companies, smart grids incorporate sensors embedded in electric, gas and water meters to communicate...

Australia's proposed Internet filtering plan has already drawn criticism from censorship foes around the globe, and the U.S. Department of State recently weighed in with its own concerns. The plan would require that Australian ISPs filter out a range of content, including child sexual abuse, bestial...

The set-top box is the primary point of entry into the digital home for television services, including cable TV, DTH, and IPTV. This device has evolved beyond its historical role as a simple black box sitting on top of a large TV set into a smaller form-factor device supporting a variety of function...

One of the biggest questions facing companies today is what to make of cloud computing. Does it signal a major shift in how we approach IT -- and the business -- or is it just another ride on the hype wave that will disappear if we just wait it out? HP tackled this question this month with a series ...

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced computer hacker Albert Gonzalez to 20 years in prison for his role in stealing 40 million debit and credit card numbers that resulted in an economic loss of $200 million, according to the U.S. government's best estimate. The sentence closes what was the larg...

Google has introduced a feature that gives advertisers another bite at the apple -- that is, it gives them another shot at potential customers who interacted with their company somewhere on the Google Content Network but didn't make a purchase. Google is calling the feature "remarketing." Introduced...