Articles by Rachelle Dragani

The U.S. Department of Justice received the support of seven state attorneys general Friday in its opposition to the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile The merger, announced in March and now facing an antitrust lawsuit from the DoJ, would combine the second and fourth largest wireless providers in the nation. It's a move that AT&T claims wou...

Research In Motion released its second quarter earnings Thursday, and numbers for the iPhone and Android competitor are looking dismal for the third consecutive quarter The BlackBerry maker reported second quarter earnings of US$319 million, less than half of the $797 million reported a year ago. Revenue was down 15 percent to $4.2 billion, failing...

The world's largest social network is going to delay its plans to publicly sell stock, according to a recent report from the Financial Times that asserts Facebook will be delaying its highly anticipated initial public offering until late 2012 An April IPO was previously rumored, but the Times reports that sources close to the company say Facebook w...

Travelers searching for flights can now look to Google. The search engine giant released its Google Flights feature Tuesday Flights and travel packages were previously one of the few queries Google couldn't answer as quickly or thoroughly as its travel search competitors such as Kayak, Expedia, Orbitz and Hotwire, so in April it acquired ITA Softwa...

After six years of debate over patent reform, the U.S. Senate last week overwhelmingly approved the America Invents Act, a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. patent system that intends to weed out unnecessary patents and put the country more on par with international patent procedures The bill, authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., passed with a bipart...

For the first time in the search engine's history, Google revealed just how much electricity it takes to power its massive computing infrastructure Google announced that for the year 2010, it used 2.6 million megawatt-hours of energy to run its data centers, search mechanisms, Gmail, YouTube and display ads globally. That number is about what it wo...

Despite growing competition from Google, social network kingpin Facebook doubled its revenue in the first half of 2011, raking in US$1.6 billion to bolster company growth before its rumored IPO, according to a Reuters report Earnings from the privately held company aren't confirmed, but the world's largest social network reportedly posted a net inc...

Online coupon retailer Groupon is reevaluating its plans to go forward with its IPO following a volatile summer market, according to a Wall Street Journal report The daily discount company originally announced its plans to go public in June and was rumored to be counting on a valuation of around US$20 billion, with some reports going as high as $25...

Researchers at Tufts University announced Sunday they've created an electrical motor many thousands of times smaller than the width of a single human hair, a breakthrough they claim could eventually lead to innovations in healthcare and technology The microscopic motor is the size of a single molecule and is electrically charged, an innovative feat...

SAP won a battle in its war with Oracle Thursday when a judge overturned the US$1.3 billion sum SAP was previously ordered to pay Oracle in a copyright infringement suit The dispute regarded SAP's TomorrowNow software maintenance unit, which was accused of skirting licensing fees by downloading hundreds of thousands of copies of Oracle software. Or...

The U.S. Department of Justice dealt a surprising blow to the proposed US$39 billion merger between wireless providers AT&T and T-Mobile Wednesday when it filed a lawsuit to block AT&T from acquiring the smaller company, claiming the deal would violate antitrust regulations The proposed merger, announced five months ago, would combine the nation's ...

The U.S. Department of Justice dealt a surprising blow to the proposed US$39 billion merger between wireless providers AT&T and T-Mobile Wednesday when it filed a lawsuit to block AT&T from acquiring the smaller company, claiming the deal would violate antitrust regulations The proposed merger, announced five months ago, would combine the nation's ...

HP has opted to continue producing its TouchPad tablet device, at least temporarily, in response to an explosion of demand among consumers. That demand was likely spurred by the drastic drop in price the tablet underwent earlier this month -- just after HP announced that it was discontinuing the TouchPad. The device, which sold for US$500 when it debuted a few weeks ago, dropped to $99 at some retailers...

Attendees at Microsoft's TechEd New Zealand show were reportedly treated to a preview of what may have been a new quad-core Windows slate device running on the not-yet debuted Windows 8 The slate could be a giveaway at Microsoft's Build conference in September, according to a Smarter Geek blog post by attendee and IT consultant Alan Burchill. The i...

In a nod to users who have complained about Facebook's privacy settings for years, the social network announced new, simplified settings Tuesday that allow users to exercise greater control over what information is shared across the network Going forward, users can choose a feature called "Profile Tag Review," which would allow them to approve a ph...

Sprint is reportedly in talks with Clearwire and cable companies regarding the possible acquisition of the wireless Internet provider to help build its 4G LTE network The talks are allegedly happening between Sprint and cable providers such as Comcast, according to a Bloomberg report. Clearwire is looking for an investment of US$600 million to expa...

HP revealed plans for major strategic changes Thursday that would orient the company more directly toward the enterprise market. It's considering a spinoff or sale of its PC division, shuttering development of hardware for webOS devices and cutting its future outlook The tech company also revealed it's in talks to acquire analytics software company...

T-Mobile isn't letting all the other wireless providers have all the fun with the new BlackBerry devices rolling out this month . On Wednesday, the company announced it'll provide Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold 9900 for a cool US$299.99 -- after a $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year contract agreement Verizon and Sprint offer the BlackBerry 99...

Fusion Garage threw a new tablet into the mix Tuesday when it announced the debut of the Grid-10, a tablet computer that features a new twist on the Android operating system, a dramatic gesture-based interface and predictive intelligence. ...

A partially redacted letter supposedly sent from AT&T to the FCC has raised new questions about the pending merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, bringing to light the money at stake and whether the merger is necessary, as AT&T claims, to expand wireless broadband coverage Since February, AT&T, the second largest mobile network in the U.S., has been pu...