Articles by Sidney Hill

A long list of companies -- including big names such as Amazon, Dish Network, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and YouTube -- appear to be gearing up to enter the online video rental business. Of course, they all have visions of eventually overtaking the current market leader Netflix It makes sense. Streaming video is the future of home entertainment, and surely...

Social networking technology has found a solid niche in the business world. Facebook and Twitter are proving to be powerful -- and cost-effective -- tools for connecting with customers and promoting products and services Major corporations like Pepsi and Procter & Gamble have been so happy with the results of their various social media campaigns th...

After a long period of unfulfilled hype, there finally appears to be some real momentum behind a nationwide movement to electronic medical records -- and that's just one of a series of recent developments that have caused me to change my attitude about online privacy Over the years, I've gone to great lengths to protect my personal information from...

The PC is not yet in danger of becoming extinct, but its position as the primary computing device in most people's lives could soon be threatened by the tablet Several analyst firms have recalculated their 2011 PC sales projections after noticing a trend in which more consumers are passing on PC purchases in favor of tablets. Gartner, for instance,...

It's difficult to find an industry that has had a harder time transitioning to the digital age than the print news media. It also would be tough to find an industry that inflicted so much damage on itself by making a single bad decision When readers started gravitating to electronic platforms, most print publishers responded by porting their existi...

I chuckled when I first heard of AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile. Just days before, I had written that AT&T's movement toward phasing out unlimited data plans for the iPhone and its broadband Internet offerings was a sign that the telecommunications services that have become such an integral part of our daily lives were about to get a lot more expensive...

I chuckled when I first heard of AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile. Just days before, I had written that AT&T's movement toward phasing out unlimited data plans for the iPhone and its broadband Internet offerings was a sign that the telecommunications services that have become such an integral part of our daily lives were about to get a lot more expensive...

I chuckled when I first heard of AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile. Just days before, I had written that AT&T's movement toward phasing out unlimited data plans for the iPhone and its broadband Internet offerings was a sign that the telecommunications services that have become such an integral part of our daily lives were about to get a lot more expensive...

There's no question that as a society, we're addicted to technology. That was evident when the earliest versions of BlackBerry smartphones were given a nickname I won't repeat here Most technophiles are familiar with the term. It equated the devices with an illicit street drug, and alluded to users' seeming inability to refrain from cradling them ...

Addressable Ads on TV Worse Than Being Stalked by Cookies "Convergence" is a popular term in information technology. It generally refers to the meshing of separate technology platforms -- telephones, computers and televisions, for instance -- to give users multiple options for accessing information Convergence is what allows us get some of the same...

With Apple revealing that the second generation of its popular tablet computer-- aka the iPad2 -- will be available for purchase next week, it's a good time to think about mobile devices in general: how they fit into our lives now, and how they may ultimately change our lives in the future Of course, it's impossible to predict exactly what the futu...

Numerous sites supporting some form of mobile photo sharing have popped up over the past few months, ushering in the next big social media trend While the press coverage of these sites generally has been positive, they also have been subject to a fair amount of criticism in online forums. The common knock is that sharing photos over cellphones is a...

Despite Groupon's recent high-profile missteps, enthusiasm over the daily deal site's anticipated initial public offering doesn't seem to be dissipating That's unfortunate, at least in my opinion -- and my thoughts have nothing to do with Groupon running what were widely perceived as culturally insensitive Super Bowl ads or the bad deal it offered...

While thinking about the hoopla that's sure to accompany the long-awaited release of the Verizon iPhone later this week, one question kept popping into my head: Is Microsoft missing out on the mobile computing movement? The company that popularized the graphical user interface, thus making personal computers accessible to the masses, has yet to d...

I was all set to turn my life over to Google when I started hearing rumors that Yahoo was planning to shut down Delicious I realize that sentence might require some explanation, so give me a minute to sort it out for you. ...

The announcement that Google Cofounder Larry Page will become the company's CEO is a very big deal -- and not just for Google With Mark Zuckerberg firmly ensconced in the top spot at Facebook, and Page set to take the reins at Google in April, the two most influential companies in the tech industry will be headed by CEOs who launched their careers ...

As someone who sees value in at least some social networking sites, I'm more than a little uncomfortable with all the attention that Wall Street suddenly is directing toward this sector For the past few weeks, we've been bombarded with stories about the potential for various social networking companies to raise ridiculous sums of money in public st...

Social media was cast in the role of scapegoat in the drama that unfolded immediately after the shooting spree in a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store that left six people dead and a member of the U.S. Congress gravely injured this past weekend Numerous early conclusion jumpers -- many using social media themselves to express their opinions -- argued tha...

All the recent news about Facebook -- from its founder being named Time magazine's Person of the Year to Goldman Sachs placing a US$450 million bet on its future profitability -- makes it clear that social networking platforms are hot commodities It's also clear, however, that not all social networking platforms are created equal. So, while Faceboo...

In the ongoing argument about whether the government should pass laws to prohibit companies from tracking Internets users' browsing habits, one voice has been conspicuously absent -- the voice of actual Internet users Both the government agencies and public advocacy groups that have been pushing for the tracking ban claim to be acting in the intere...