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More than a third of Americans are turning to the Internet for information about the elections next week, according to a poll released by the Associated Press and America Online last Friday. The telephone survey showed that 35 percent of Americans are using the Internet to get information about the ...

Emphasizing its belief in the value of user-created content and online collaboration, search giant Google has acquired JotSpot, a startup that develops online collaboration tools known as "wikis." Wiki tools, which are increasingly being embraced by the corporate world, let users create, modify and...

Continuing and accelerating a long-term trend, U.S. newspapers lost significant circulation in recent months as more of the population turned to the Internet to get news and information, according to an industry report released Monday. The Newspaper Association of America said its analysis of circul...

By all accounts, the e-commerce sector is poised for another blockbuster holiday season, with forecasters calling for another year of double-digit growth and sales of about US$27 billion for the fourth quarter, according to Forrester Research. Most retailers are already well underway with plans to c...

Concerns have been growing that voting machine mishaps might undermine the results of the upcoming Congressional elections -- among the most bitterly fought in recent memory -- either through glitches in the new technology or through outright fraud. The latest worry? The ownership of Boca Raton, Fl...

Existing copyright laws in the United Kingdom are out of date and should be updated to provide consumers with more flexibility, including the right to copy the content on DVDs and CDs to portable players, a new report argued. The Institute for Public Policy Research issued a report Sunday saying tha...

Verizon Communications nudged past Wall Street estimates for profit in its third quarter as surging revenue in its wireless business helped offset a surge in expenses. Verizon said revenue rose 26 percent to US$23.25 billion as the company began to reap the benefits of its consolidation efforts, in...

The business-to-business market was the darling of e-commerce pundits way back in the early '90s when companies began to get serious about using the Web to do business. B2B e-commerce was expected to lead the way into a brave new online world of business communications, management and international ...

With millions of voters set to cast ballots in key mid-term elections in just over a week, a long-simmering controversy over voting machines continues to percolate. New reports suggest a major manufacturer of e-voting kiosks quietly repaired a flaw without informing election officials. The case inv...

Strong demand for the Xbox gaming console and server software helped push Microsoft to a strong first quarter, with the company exceeding its own revenue projections and surpassing Wall Street forecasts for profit. The Redmond, Wash., software giant said revenue rose 11 percent over the same period ...

The press has been replete with complaints from companies that have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Some of the criticisms were based upon the outsized cost of compliance. Other criticisms revolved around the difficulty and intricacy of compliance, especially to Section 404, Management Assessment of ...

Today it seems like every owner of a decent size database now calls itself a "specialized vertical search engine." I suppose there is some clever marketing logic in positioning oneself as such given the wholesale adoption of search as a business tool, and of good search results as a very cost-effect...

After US$5.4 billion dollars and nearly a year of discussions, Advanced Micro Devices finalized its takeover of graphics chip maker ATI, setting the stage for a revived fight with Intel and Nvidia, which becomes the Intel graphics partner by default. AMD -- which promised integrated platforms next y...

Blaming high churn rates and merger-related costs, Sprint-Nextel, the third-largest mobile phone operator, reported its fifth straight quarter of profit losses. Net income from continuing operations declined to US$247 million, or 8 cents a share, from $363 million, or 12 cents, a year ago. Revenues ...

Fans of online banking can hardly imagine how they lived without the channel. Just as snail-mailed personal correspondence has gone out of fashion in favor of e-mail and text messaging, so have snail-mailed account statements and bills. Consumers use online banking for its convenience and the contr...