Archive

On October 30, 2008, the Court of Appeals that handles all appeals of patent cases in the U.S. issued a landmark decision. The Federal Circuit's opinion in In re Bilski, sent shockwaves through the high-tech legal community. The court held that in order to be patentable, a method must either be "t...

If the Internet is indeed "a series of tubes," as famously described by former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, then the mother of all plumbing snakes would be needed to unblock the press releases and emails sent over the last two weeks by those backing and opposing Net neutrality. That would include Mon...

Sprint Nextel is acquiring iPCS, an affiliate that sells its branded products, in a deal that will put an end to a number of legal clashes between the two. It will also bring an additional 710,000 subscribers under the Sprint Nextel corporate umbrella. The acquisition means that Sprint will not have...

Cloud computing is perhaps the most talked-about shift in the technology industry today. The concept of running applications from the cloud is quickly evolving from a futuristic vision to a commercially viable alternative for mainstream business. A recent survey of global 2,000 companies revealed th...

The tech industry is getting a boost from Google's 7 percent revenue jump from the year-ago quarter, as well as from better-than-expected earnings reports from IBM and, earlier this week, Intel. Google is apparently feeling confident enough about the economy and its own near-term prospects that it's...

Jeff Bezos named his company after the longest and largest river in the world. So it's appropriate that the past week has shown just how influential Amazon has become in both the online and offline retail spaces, as competitors and the Seattle-based e-commerce giant threw a series of punches and cou...

Hotwire is a discount site that sells off unsold inventory by masking the identity of the hotel or rental car service or airline until the purchase is complete. I have to confess the concept never appealed to me that much -- it conjured up visions of middle-row airline seats and secluded hotels that...

As global PC shipments rose 2.3 percent year over year in the third quarter, Taiwanese PC manufacturer Acer took the No. 2 spot in PC sales worldwide, according to market research firm IDC. That pushed Dell into third place; market leader HP, however, maintains its commanding lead. HP accounted for ...

It is important to understand that Europe is not a melting pot like the U.S., where people of different cultures and religions blended together far from their native lands. Politically and culturally, Europe is diverse, but each country has a different history, religion, national language, culture a...

From bulk mail to email to social media: The next chapter in the checkered history of spamming is now being written via status updates and tweets. However, Twitter is trying to ensure that the chapter is a short one following the company's introduction Tuesday of a new "report as spam" button on use...

Most business executives only spend money when they foresee a reasonable return on the investment, unless there is some other compelling reason for the expense -- like keeping them out of jail. To a large extent, the development of governance, risk management and compliance technologies was spurred ...

Service is now largely restored to Sidekick users, but T-Mobile is apparently still struggling to retrieve content and data lost due to a server malfunction over the weekend. At the same time, the carrier is piling on the mea culpas to its customers, many of whom are furious about the incident. Its ...

The venture business needs an overhaul, and below is my low-burden / high-impact plan for change. Venture capital is a systemic risk to our innovative culture, to $200 billion in direct asset allocations and to $2.9 trillion in spawned revenues. Yet VC has produced less than 10 percent IRR for the l...

The market for set-top boxes in Europe has received a major boost from the transition to digital services. Right now, terrestrial television is still a major source of video for viewers in some of the larger Western European markets, including France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom Almost 44 pe...

If you view AT&T and Google as squabbling high-tech siblings and the Federal Communications Commission as the harried parent, then AT&T has won the latest round of attention-getting theatrics, thanks to the FCC's Friday decision to investigate Google Voice. It was the carrier's initial compl...