Archive

Microsoft is establishing a research center called adLab that will develop new ways to provide even more detailed demographic data about consumers, as well as new marketing technologies, to online advertisers. AdLab, which is a joint effort of MSN's adCenter and Microsoft Research, is located at a s...

Portable devices helped offset weak sales of gaming consoles and drove the video game industry to record sales in the United States last year, according to a report from the NPD Group. The research firm said sales hit US$10.5 billion, up nearly 7 percent from last year and eclipsing the previous hig...

Apparently eyeing the worn pathway from enterprise technology to the consumer marketplace, Cisco Systems is said to be mulling a plan to produce electronics and related products for home use. The Financial Times reported that Cisco is on the brink of rolling out a range of Web-connected products, in...

One twentieth of a second. That's about how long it takes for a Web site to make a first impression on an Internet user, according to researchers at a Canadian university, whose findings could have competitive impacts for businesses on the Web. Dr. Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton Univer...

Setting the stage for a bruising battle for paid search supremacy with Google and others, Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on its MSN adCenter system, which will offer a self-service, targeted way to buy pay-per-click search advertising. Microsoft said its adCenter would be ready in the U....

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a formal investigation into how tech giant IBM reported earnings and stock compensation expenses in a quarterly report nearly a year ago. The SEC had launched an informal inquiry in June of 2005, which IBM said it had been cooperating with. O...

Boeing announced plans to build three satellites and ground systems for Mobile Satellite Ventures under a deal worth US$500 million to $1 billion -- the most impressive contract win for its commercial satellite division in nearly a decade. The huge price tag -- the largest for satellites since 1997 ...

Microsoft Research India announced plans this week to expand its operations over the next 18 months. The company intends to bolster teams in existing research areas and to create a new research group for cryptography and security. "Microsoft Research India continues to identify research areas that a...

Saying even its smaller business customers need more powerful search solutions, Google is broadening its menu of enterprise-search appliances to include two larger versions of the Google Mini. The day before the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Mini, Google's first search appliance designed...

Betting that consumer demand for high-end electronics devices such as plasma TVs and digital cameras will continue to surge, Sharp and Fujitsu each announced major investments that will result in manufacturing capacity being quickly brought up to speed. Sharp said it would spend about US$1.75 billio...

Corporations are in need of quick and serious shock therapy to prod them out of the complacency of owning a few flashy Web sites. The exuberance that attended these early achievements fueled the false notion in many corporate boardrooms that their firms had become "the master players of global e-com...

Tucked away inside the wave of enthusiasm over the strong 2005 holiday shopping season -- which saw sales exceed forecasts while shoppers expanded their buying to new categories -- is a slight complication that could trip up some retailers hoping to turn those great sales into great profits. One of ...

Seeking to buy its way to a stronger position in the emerging video search and download marketplace, America Online said it would acquire video search firm Truveo, Inc. Terms of the deal -- AOL's fifth acquisition in a year -- were not disclosed. Truveo, which is privately held, was founded in Janua...

Mercury Interactive Corporation on Monday signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Systinet Corporation for US$105 million in cash. Mercury is in the business technology optimization (BTO) software business. Systinet is a provider of service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance and ...

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who spent much of 2005 buying up Internet properties, may be poised to invest as much as US$1 billion into developing high-speed wireless Internet connectivity through the DirecTV division of News Corp. The DirecTV effort, which Murdoch said it would reveal in full in com...