Articles by Erika

AT&T and litigant Matthew Spaccarelli are engaged in a war of words that AT&T appears to be losing. The incident began when Spaccarelli sued AT&T in small claims court in California. He charged that the company had violated his unlimited data plan agreement for his iPhone by throttling, or slowing down, his data speed. The court agreed and awarded...

Dell is acquiring network-security and data-protection tool provider SonicWall. Terms of the deal were not announced, but analysts have estimated it at between US$1 billion and $1.5 billion. This is the latest in a series of acquisitions Dell has made in recent months. It has acquired Force 10, Perot Systems and SecureWorks. All of these compani...

Intel is rumored to be considering entering the pay-television service market. The chipmaker has reached out to media companies and cable channels as part of its research, according to news accounts. The service would be based on a Web-connected set-top box that could offer both streaming TV and video-on-demand programming, reported The Wall Stree...

The claims that Samsung and Apple have on smartphone market share in China may come as a surprise to people who are familiar only with U.S. trends. Samsung far outpaces Apple in the world's most-populous country, with a 24.3 percent share of the smartphone market, according to new figures from Gartner. Apple, by contrast, has only a 7.5 percent share...

Reports are circulating that CNN is finalizing a US$200 million deal to acquire the social news and technology website Mashable CNN has been looking to match CBS' acquisition of Cnet for at least three years, said Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, but network officials were unable to reach an agreement on a property until now.

"Kony 2012," 30-minute online video spotlighting the atrocities of Joseph Kony, head of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, has garnered support around the globe for his removal. In 2005, Kony was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, after decades of brutal actions against people -- children in particular -- in se...

Facebook is rolling out yet another feature to keep members engaged with the site for as long as possible. Called "Interest Lists," Facebook touts it as a way for users to create their own personalized newspapers with special sections -- or feeds -- on topics that matter the most to them.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are a team in the National Hockey League, which means their revenue stream thrives -- or dies -- on how well they can sell tickets. The team has an extensive and sophisticated sales operation that fields nearly 300 calls per day....

Now is a good time to be a startup looking for funding, suggests the Halo Report, which provides data and identifies trends affecting early stage entrepreneurs and investors. Angel Resource Institute, Silicon Valley Bank and CB Insights collaborated in the development of the report Most notable among its findings: The median round size for angel gr...

Pandora reported a 62 percent increase year-over-year in active users for its fiscal fourth-quarter, which ended Jan. 31, along with a 74 percent increase in advertising revenue and a 99 percent rise in listening hours. However, those gains were accompanied by increases in royalty payments the online radio provider had to pay to content owners, an...

Yahoo may be readying for a significant change in corporate structure -- and headcount. CEO Scott Thompson is getting ready to restructure the company in a move that will entail layoffs that could number in the thousands, according to a report in All Things D. "The indications are that the layoffs will be massive," David Cadden, a professor of ma...

The FCC is seeking public comment on the subject of when or if government entities -- such as the police or transit authorities -- can intentionally jam cellphone signals and Internet service for the sake of public safety The comments will help inform FCC deliberations regarding what, if any, rules or policy guidance may be appropriate regarding wi...

Yelp had an excellent first day as a publicly traded company. It opened on the New York Stock Exchange Friday at US$22.01 per unit -- up 47 percent from its IPO price of $15. By the end of the day, shares were trading at $24.58.

Zynga is launching its own platform this month as a beta, with a number of features designed to lure players away from their comfort zone on Facebook. There is, for example, a way for players to meet and connect with other players -- in other words, you don't need a set of already-connected friends to play the games. The launch is part of Zynga's ...

Bank of America appears poised to ignite the wrath of its customer base once again by introducing a new fee structure for basic checking accounts. The company is readying changes that will require users of basic checking accounts to pay a monthly fee, The Wall Street Journal has reported. If the customers agreed to bank online or, buy more products, or maintain a certain balance, the fee may be waived.

Facebook introduced a slew of new ad initiatives at its marketing conference, fMC, held in New York on Wednesday. Most had been leaked to industry publications prior to this first-ever event. Timeline for Pages, for example, was expected. Also expected was a mobile ad play -- Facebook had admitted in its S-1 filing that it was lacking in this area...

Facebook introduced a long-expected development on Wednesday: Timeline for Pages -- that is, Timeline for brands. It is similar in look and feel and function to the feature that was pushed out to user profiles last fall. However, the implications of Timeline for Pages are much greater for brands, both in outreach to customers and in terms of the ...

There has been a shakeup in LightSquared's executive ranks following the Federal Communications Commission's refusal to let the company launch its high-speed wireless network due to potential disruptions to devices that rely on the Global Positioning System. LightSquared's chief executive, Sanjiv Ahuja, has stepped down. Doug Smith, the company's ...

New figures from comScore echo what many Google+ critics have been saying for the past few months. Google+ seems to be good at signing up users for its network, in large part due to its strategy of integrating its other products to the network. However, these users, which now number 90 million, don't stick around to actually use the network, according to the data. Where are they? At Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Twitter and even Pinterest...

Dell has unveiled a portfolio of new blade, rack and tower PowerEdge 12th Generation servers. The product line is nothing short of amazing, the company would like you to know. However, please don't focus so much on the underlying technology; rather, consider what it can do for the business line end user That was CEO Michael Dell's implicit message ...