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Silicon Valley semiconductor company Transmeta has put itself up for sale. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip designer hired investment bank Piper Jaffray in early 2008 to assist it in exploring options. The Transmeta board ultimately decided a sale of the company was the best strategy. Piper Jaffra...

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison startled attendees at the company's Openworld conference -- as well as the rest of the industry -- with his announcement that Oracle and HP are joining forces to build computer hardware. It is Oracle's first direct foray into hardware manufacturing. HP will actually make the...

She wasn't the first person to be sued by the music industry for illegally sharing digital music files, but Jammie Thomas was the first to go to court in the ongoing battle over copyrights, consumers and charges of piracy. The 30-year-old single mother from Minnesota lost the first round last Octobe...

Yahoo has rejiggered its online display advertising engine in the hope that it can dominate the segment in the same way rival Google owns the search advertising market. Called "APT" -- the acronym doesn't stand for anything, according to Yahoo Vice President of Product Management John Slade -- the n...

After more than a decade in the software privacy and antipiracy space, Keith Beeman, general manager, Worldwide Anti-Piracy, Small and Midmarket, Solutions & Partners for Microsoft, says he has been able to gain a first-hand view of software piracy issues on a global scale. Piracy is a pervasive...

Cisco has made countless billions selling switches and routers -- the network equipment that monitors and directs Internet traffic and keeps data flowing smoothly. Now, the hardware giant is moving into another market: corporate communications software. The move is part of a larger strategy to incre...

October is the expected release date for the next version of the PCI Data Security Standard, 1.2. Since the PCI Standard's creation -- to serve as a guideline to help organizations that process card payments, prevent credit card fraud, hacking and various other security vulnerabilities and threats -...

Online movie rental company Netflix has signed distribution deals with two heavy hitters from the TV world -- the CBS Television Network and the Disney-ABC Television Group. Netflix will soon have a stable of new and syndicated television shows that its users can stream over the Internet -- "CSI," "...

Viviane Reding, Europe's info-media commissioner, has skillfully staked out her position as champion of consumers who want it cheap and now. Her Europe-wide caps on roaming charges for mobile voice services are popular, and now Reding wants the same relief for consumers downloading data and text-mes...

What do Metallica and SanDisk have in common? For both, the memory remains. The metal band was singing about faded rock stars trapped in their glory days. The data storage company, however, is hoping that music-filled 1GB microSD memory cards will lure in consumers who fondly remember when their fav...

Microsoft announced plans to buy back $40 billion of its own stock, increase its dividend by 18 percent, and tap the debt markets for the first time in its 33-year history. The moves come at a time when many companies are battening down the hatches in anticipation of an ever-tightening credit market...

Virus protection giant McAfee is expanding its security empire with the acquisition of Secure Computing. The company announced plans for the purchase Monday morning. It'll pay $465 million, or $5.75 per share, in the merger. The move will no doubt help expand McAfee's suite of security-related produ...

Despite the recent gloomy economic news and consumer credit crunch, consumers will still spend hundreds of billions of dollars this holiday season. For retailers, the countdown has already begun and now is the time to start thinking about your holiday e-mail marketing programs for the holiday push. ...

Enterprise software giant Oracle surpassed Wall Street expectations Friday by reporting a 28 percent boost in profit for the quarter ended Aug. 31. However, Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle said revenue and profit growth will slow down in the next quarter as the U.S. economy loses steam. The rising...

A battle is brewing over a secretive intellectual property agreement being negotiated by the U.S. and several other nations. Leaked documents indicate the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would allow multiple countries to enforce each others' intellectual property laws. That, some fear, could pos...