Articles by Mike Pearson

One figure that's drawn much attention in Facebook's US$200 millioninvestment deal with Moscow-based Digital Sky Technologies announcedTuesday is the implied valuation of the privately held socialnetworking company: $10 billion While impressive, the number is off a third from the $15billion figure floated after Microsoft invested $240 million inFac...

Early adopters of Microsoft's next operating system won't facedebilitating bi-hourly shutdowns or be forced to clean-install therelease candidate until July 1, despite an email that went out overthe holiday weekend setting a June 1 deadline The date for the shutdowns to begin isactually July 1, a month before the Windows 7 beta program expires, acc...

The business and national security implications of a Global Positioning Satellite system failure would be too enormous to bear, and as a result, the prediction made in a recent U.S.Government Accountability Office report is unlikely to come to pass, a Gartner research analyst who follows the industry told TechNewsWorld on Wednesday However, busines...

Dell's new education-themed netbook may look like it's aimed at kids, but it's really educators the Texas-based computer manufacturer is hoping to lure with the Latitude 2100 The 10.1-inch netbook is designed specifically for school environments, with rubbery non-slip surfaces, an optional antimicrobial keyboard and a telltale network activity ligh...

Scribd.com, the online document-sharing site, plunged into the world of e-commerce Monday with a store designed to help both established publishers and independent authors make sales The Scribd Store allows content creators to set prices and digital rights for their works and follows closely on arrangements with major publishing houses to make some...

The European Commission fined dominant CPU maker Intel US$1.4 billion on Wednesday after finding the company violated anticompetition laws Intel CEO Paul Otellini blasted the decision in a conference call with reporters, saying EU regulators had ignored crucial evidence that will, on appeal, prove the company innocent of charges that it harmed cons...

Software piracy dropped or remained steady in scores of countries across the globe in 2008, but the worldwide rate still rose, thanks to rising piracy in emerging markets, according to a report for the Business Software Alliance released Monday As usual, the report contained an ever-controversial estimate of what the BSA terms "losses" from softwar...

The European Commission could be nearing a decision to impose a significant fine against Intel. The timing coincides with a Department of Justice announcement promising more vigorous antitrust enforcement in the United States Taken together, the possibility of a record fine against the market-leading chipmaker in Europe and the promise of stronger ...

Part 1 of this three-part series describes the size and complexity of the identity fraud problem, and touches on some of the consequences that go beyond financial damage. Part 2 offers some pointers on what consumers should do if they find they've become victims of identity fraud Recovering from an identity theft case can be more than a burden on y...

Part 1 of this three-part series describes the size and complexity of the identity fraud problem, and touches on some of the consequences that go beyond financial damage So it's happened. Someone's stolen your identity and now you've got a collection agency on your case, demanding payment for a car you didn't buy or a credit card you didn't take ou...

Imagine getting a US$45 billion bill without knowing exactly how you ended up with such a big tab That's exactly the situation facing Americans struck by identity fraud....

Less than a decade ago, it seemed touch-screen had the touch In the years after the 2000 Florida general election controversy, election officials worried about public confidence in voting and, fueled by US$3 billion in federal funding for election improvements, presided over a swift transformation of the American voting experience....

First Amazon transformed itself from simple online bookseller to general e-tailer. Then it spread into the world of Web services and distributed computing. Now the online giant is entering the alternative payments game Amazon's two new payment services announced this week, Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay, enter a market with existing playe...

Markets responded favorably to Tuesday's news that the chairman and CEO of Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent would be leaving the merger-troubled company The telecommunication company's stock was up nearly 6 percent by market close following the announcement that CEO Serge Tchuruk and CEO Pat Russo will both leave later this year. The company also announc...

Forrester Research has unleashed a bit of ire from Microsoft with an analyst report suggesting large corporations might do well to sit out the Vista era of Windows Analyst Thomas Mendel's July 23 report on enterprise trends contained a brief mention of Vista, comparing it to "New Coke" -- Coca-Cola's disastrous reformulation of its namesake product...