Articles by Rachelle Dragani

eBay's third-quarter earnings report showed gains in revenue and earnings, but the company's stock dipped on its warning that a weak U.S. economy might lead to lower-than-expected fourth-quarter gains. Revenue was up 14 percent in eBay's third quarter, with the company bringing in US$3.9 billion compared with the $3.4 billion it reported a year ea...

Yahoo posted its third-quarter earnings report Tuesday, revealing a revenue and earnings slide as it continues to make acquisitions and launch new products The company reported US$1.08 billion in revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs, a 1 percent dip from the same period a year ago.

BlackBerry issued an open letter on Monday in an effort to assure customers that it still has a viable future. Consumers might have concerns after reading recent headlines surrounding BlackBerry's business, the company acknowledged. Most recently, those headlines revealed that it lost US$1 billion in its latest quarter and initiated layoffs of abo...

Facebook announced Thursday that it will finish killing off the privacy setting that previously let users opt out of searches Members of the social network used to have a privacy setting called "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" that allowed their profile to be hidden from searches within the site, even if another user typed in their name exa...

Comcast is teaming up with Twitter to launch a new feature that will allow Twitter users to tune into live TV shows via the social network, making the site a go-to spot for television conversations and viewing. Dubbed "See It," the feature unveiled Wednesday allows Twitter users to control their set-top viewing with the click of a button marked "S...

Amazon this week unveiled a new program designed to draw third-party developers to the company's platform. Known as "Appstore Developer Select," the program offers incentives such as promotional boosts to developers that optimize their apps or games for the Amazon Appstore and the Fire OS mobile operating system on which the company's Kindle Fire ...

AT&T is teaming up with FiLIP to launch a smartwatch designed to appeal to kids -- and their parents. The colorful, durable FiLIP watch connects to a parent or caretaker's smartphone and tracks the child's location using WiFi triangulation, cellular towers and GPS information. It offers two-way calling to five set contacts as well as the ability t...

Nielsen on Monday rolled out Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, a service it says is the first-ever measure of the total activity and reach of TV-related conversation on Twitter Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings measure not only "authors" -- or the number of people tweeting about TV programs -- but also the much larger audience of people who actually view thos...

Twitter filed documents with the SEC for its initial public offering, giving investors a first glimpse of its financials on Thursday. Trading under the ticker symbol "TWTR," it aims to raise US$1 billion in its IPO Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has grown from a microblogging novelty to a social network with 215 million monthly active users, 100...

U.S. law enforcement officials have shut down Silk Road, the online marketplace that allegedly facilitated the anonymous sale of illegal drugs as well as illicit services such as murder for hire FBI officials also on Tuesday arrested the site's alleged founder, 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht, at a public library in San Francisco. Until the arrest, Ulbri...

Scribd announced Tuesday that HarperCollins has become the first major publisher to join its monthly e-book subscription service. Scribd launched the e-book service earlier this year with a handful of smaller publishers including RosettaBooks and Sourcebooks. Since then, it has grown more than 60 percent, according to Scribd, and it will have an e...

Facebook will begin providing TV broadcasters with data about the chatter their shows are inspiring on the site, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Facebook is in fierce competition with Twitter to become the primary destination for second-screen users to post their reactions and engage with others while watching TV series, sporting event...

Facebook announced Monday it was expanding its Graph Search to give users a more complete experience, allowing searches of status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments. Graph Search rolled out to a limited number of English-speaking U.S. customers earlier this year. At first, it limited searches to individual or brand profiles The new fu...

Evernote and 3M on Thursday announced a partnership to digitize the Post-it Note with a new feature on the Evernote app optimized to capture and save messages. ...

Google announced Wednesday that it is opening its Google Shopping Express service to shoppers in the entire San Francisco Bay Area, marking the official launch and first big expansion of the company's same-day delivery service Google began testing the retail delivery service earlier this year among a limited set of invited consumers in a few areas ...

Google on Monday announced the winners of its Science Fair, awarding three students for their innovative ideas in public health, alternative energy and app development The company's third annual competition drew contestants between 13 and 18 years of age from more than 120 countries. Google this summer announced 15 finalists, all of whom were invit...

Netflix unveiled its SpoilerFoiler app Monday, a tool designed for Breaking Bad fans who want to scan their Twitter feeds without encountering any show spoilers. Twitter users who log in via SpoilerFoiler get a normal view of their Twitter news feed, except that any tweet containing words about the Breaking Bad series finale will be blacked out. F...

LinkedIn responded over the weekend to claims in a class action lawsuit filed against it, maintaining that it does not break into users' email accounts and insisting that it asks for permission before using information from anyone's email accounts. Four LinkedIn users filed the suit, claiming it had appropriated their identities to send promotiona...

Angry posts spread faster on social networks than those indicative of any other emotion, according to a recent study. Researchers at Beihang University set out to test whether homophily -- the tendency of people to bond with those who are similar -- occurs in social media interactions.

BlackBerry is preparing to lay off 40 percent of its workforce in an effort to slash costs, according to a Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal. The news came on the same day that BlackBerry launched its Z30 smartphone, a 5-inch, all-touch smartphone that the company said is its biggest, fastest and most advanced smartphone to date. BlackBe...