Articles by Erika

Cisco will have completed its acquisition of Norwegian video company Tandberg once the compulsory acquisition for the company's remaining shares is closed. Cisco is acquiring the firm for US$3.3 billion -- after its initial offer of $3 billion was rejected by shareholders. The compulsory acquisition will be effective at close of trading Monday. Ci...

There's a growing trend among companies to use the cloud to manage and store not only simple business processes like email, but also higher-end, more sophisticated ones. Indeed, in some cases demand for such functionality is outstripping supply. In response, vendors are turning to a long-standing tradition to build out functionality -- forging partnerships -- in order to get to market sooner.

The Federal Communications Commission believes it has the authority to implement its National Broadband Plan -- a wide-ranging initiative that calls for nationwide Internet services, greater availability of wireless connectivity, and improved rural access to such services -- despite a recent court ruling that clouds the issue. The U.S. Court of Ap...

Seagate and Paramount Digital Entertainment have launched a limited promotion for a Seagate portable hard drive that has been on the market for about a year-and-a-half -- they are now offering it preloaded with Paramount movies. ...

Twitter has made a number of moves in the past few days that have jangled the nerves of third-party developers who fear the micro-blogging site is about to make a big push into their territory. For starters, Twitter has acquired Atebits, the maker of Tweetie, a Twitter client for the iPhone. Twitter also unveiled its own BlackBerry app, developed ...

Salesforce.com has launched ChatterExchange, an app marketplace for Chatter, the enterprise collaboration platform it introduced earlier this year. It is built on "Cloud 2" -- the company's name for the next generation of cloud computing: social, collaborative, and capable of delivering real-time access to data and information across new mobile devices...

Google has become the target of another lawsuit alleging privacy violations in connection with the February rollout of Buzz, its social networking application. The suit, Feldman v. Google, was filed in a federal court in San Jose, Calif., by New York resident Barry Feldman, who is seeking class action status.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has issued a ruling that could spell the end of Net neutrality -- or merely redefine the battle terms a little. It's a matter of perspective The court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission did not tie its assertion of "ancillary" authority to order Comcast to change it network manage...

T-Mobile has launched a promotion offering credit toward the purchase of its high-end HTC HD2 to anyone willing to trade in an iPhone. The promotion was reported on several blogs including TmoNews, which cited an internal memo describing it. The company reportedly is offering credits from US$100 to $350....

Amazon has reportedly agreed to new pricing terms with two major publishers on e-books sold for its Kindle Amazon forged new agreements with Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Publishers, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new terms -- which mirror the deals the two companies struck with Apple for the iPad -- will allow most bestsellers to b...

Google, AOL, AT&T, the ACLU, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and other members of a newly formed coalition called "Digital Due Process" are proposing that the federal government update laws on government access to email and private files stored by third-party service providers in the cloud -- or any other storage system. Currently, third-party storage o...

Sometime this year, Apple will almost certainly unveil an iPhone compatible with Verizon Wireless' -- and Sprint's, for that matter -- CDMA-based network. Apple is also working on another GSM iteration of its iconic device, which will be released by AT&T later this year, according to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story on Monday.

Facebook is proposing another round of changes to its privacy policy. The updates are meant to better explain certain features, said Facebook Deputy General Counsel Michael Richter in a blog post -- such as why invitations that non-users receive to join Facebook sometimes include the names of persons other than the one who sent the invitation. (It...

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced computer hacker Albert Gonzalez to 20 years in prison for his role in stealing 40 million debit and credit card numbers that resulted in an economic loss of US$200 million, according to the U.S. government's best estimate. The sentence closes what was the largest credit and debit card theft in U.S. banking history.

Google has introduced a feature that gives advertisers another bite at the apple -- that is, it gives them another shot at potential customers who interacted with their company somewhere on the Google Content Network but didn't make a purchase. Google is calling the feature "remarketing." Introduced last year in a beta test, it is now available th...

GoDaddy.com and Network Solutions have discontinued their domain name registration activities in China in the wake of stepped-up requests for detailed information on customers. The news came to light earlier this week in Congressional hearings focusing on Google's decision to stop censoring its search results there -- and the subsequent fallout from that decision.

Samsung has given the audience at the International CTIA Wireless trade show a sneak preview of its forthcoming Galaxy S smartphone. At less than 10 millimeters, it is expected to be the thinnest Android phone on the market. It also has a 1-Ghz processor and sports a 4-inch, 800 by 480-pixel AMOLED screen that offers better outdoor visibility. ...

Palm is expanding the distribution of its smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, by making them available through AT&T. While the move isn't likely to hurt Palm's fortunes, it's not clear whether it can do much to help the flailing company. AT&T will start carrying the Palm mobile phones in a few months. The Pre Plus will retail for U...

Palm is expanding the distribution of its smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, by making them available through AT&T. While the move isn't likely to hurt Palm's fortunes, it's not clear whether it can do much to help the flailing company. AT&T will start carrying the Palm mobile phones in a few months. The Pre Plus will retail for U...

Palm is expanding the distribution of its smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, by making them available through AT&T. While the move isn't likely to hurt Palm's fortunes, it's not clear whether it can do much to help the flailing company. AT&T will start carrying the Palm mobile phones in a few months. The Pre Plus will retail for U...