Articles by Erika

World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking's physical condition is further deteriorating, and Intel wants to help the famous scientist continue to share his ideas with the world. Hawking, who at 21 was diagnosed with a motor neurone disease related amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as "Lou Gehrig's disease," has been confined to a wheelchair for much of his adult life.

Sony appears to be preparing for a reshuffling of its top management, with the end result being the loss of power for current president Howard Stringer. The common denominator among the various reports that have surfaced is that Executive Deputy President Kaz Hirai will be elevated to president and Stringer will retain his current roles of CEO and...

Corning will be at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, but unlike most of the exhibitors there, it won't be debuting a sexy new gadget Corning will be showing off Gorilla Glass 2 alongside the newest smartphones, tablets and other miracles in computing.

Gartner has released its global IT spending projections for 2012: It is forecasting a 3.7 percent increase from 2011 to US$3.8 trillion. This forecast is a downward revision from its earlier 2012 outlook of 4.6 percent growth. Last year, IT spending clocked in at $3.7 trillion, which was up 6.9 percent from 2010 levels....

Sweden has recognized a new religion. This might not be headline news for the open-minded Swedes, save for the belief system's atypical focus: Kopimism is devoted to technology in general and free online file-sharing in particular. The church was registered by the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet, shortly before the Christmas holiday, a...

President Barack Obama named Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau via a recess appointment on Wednesday. It was a controversial move for the president, prompting Senate Republicans to accuse him of making a power grab and abusing executive authority. Indeed, Republican resistance to confirming the former Ohio attorn...

Zynga is plowing new ground with "Hidden Chronicles," a game it has launched on Facebook. Zynga is touting it as its first social hidden object game, and indeed, it is a departure from the 'Ville model that made the company famous. It invites players to uncover hidden objects, solve puzzles, and unlock mysteries. As is typical of Zynga games, ther...

Wendi Deng, wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, started out the year by discovering that her name had been hijacked by a spoofer on Twitter. Twitter had apparently verified the account, "Wendi_Deng," as genuine, but after being informed it was a hoax, quickly removed it and apologized to Deng, according to news accounts. Twitter doesn't discuss ve...

Daily deal industry leader Groupon dropped some 8.9 percent in stock value on Tuesday, following the release of a report from Susquehanna Financial Group and Yipit. The report surveyed some 400 merchants about their experiences with Groupon, LivingSocial and other providers in this space. A healthy majority -- eight out of 10 merchants -- liked th...

Google has become the subject of a series of withering articles calling it out for violating its own advertising policies. The company reportedly has run sponsored marketing ads for its Chrome browser using techniques that last year's Panda algorithm change was designed to prohibit. The paid sponsorships apparently resulted from a misunderstanding...

This story was originally published on Oct. 8, 2011, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. Ejected from Oracle's Open World. An impromptu gathering at a nearby restaurant. Fulsome explanations from PR flacks and tweets galore. The relations between Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Salesforce.com chief Marc Benioff went fr...

Facebook has agreed to improve privacy protections in Europe over the next six months, after a three-month audit by Ireland's data protection agency found the social network lacking in some areas. Users will be given more information about how Facebook and third-party app providers handle their information, the company promised. It also agreed to ...

Google and Mozilla have reupped their search revenue agreement. Under the new three-year plan, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for Firefox users. Given Google's clear desire to push Chrome into the top ranks of the browser market, it would seem counterintuitive for it to re-ink a deal with one of its chief rivals in t...

AT&T has decided not to challenge the Federal Communication Commission's objections to its proposed US$39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. Given the energy, time and resources it clearly put into the effort, the company is likely still licking its wounds, but it will soon have to address the question of what to do next -- as will T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom...

AT&T has decided not to challenge the Federal Communication Commission's objections to its proposed US$39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile. Given the energy, time and resources it clearly put into the effort, the company is likely still licking its wounds, but it will soon have to address the question of what to do next -- as will T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom...

A lawsuit alleging Facebook violates a California law on commercial endorsements can move forward, a federal judge has ruled. Facebook failed to persuade the court to dismiss the suit altogether, but District Judge Lucy Koh did reject the plaintiff's claim that Facebook had unjustly enriched itself from its advertising.

Google may be planning to enter the tablet market in the medium term -- and not just as a partner in an OEM relationship. Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that "in the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality." ...

If Google's Zeitgeist 2011 -- the company's 11th annual list of the most popular and fastest-rising Internet searches -- truly reflects the spirit of the times, then we must be living in a world of whiffle heads. In a year when the U.S. pulled its troops out of Iraq, the U.S. Congress almost brought the government to a financial standstill -- on ...

A federal judge has dismissed a criminal case against a man accused of using Twitter to conduct a threatening campaign against a religious leader. William Lawrence Cassidy had been jailed for predicting that violence would befall Alyce Zeoli, a Buddhist religious leader, and for urging her to kill herself.

It looks as though Zynga was right to err on the side of caution when it priced its long-awaited IPO on Thursday evening. The social media gaming company priced the offering at a very conservative US$10 per share, below the rumored $12 price per share that it was said to be considering.