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Wikis are finally becoming a useful tool for collaboration and information sharing in the workplace. However, like all business tools exposed on the Internet or corporate intranet, IT managers have to view their deployments with a stern eye regarding who can use them and what corporate information may be at risk The concept of a wiki, named for the...

This week marked the anniversary of the announcement that the satellite radio firms Sirius and XM plan to merge, yet so far the companies have not been allowed to consummate the marriage. That's because regulators are standing in the way, backed by well-heeled Washington lobbyists out to prove that ridiculous ideas still have an impact if they come with dollar-sign attachments...

Cisco is going green, and now the information technology networking giant is helping cities turn green, too At the center of the effort is the Connected Urban Development (CUD) Global Conference in San Francisco this week, where Cisco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers in a keynote address Wednesday called for industry and governmen...

T-Mobile confirmed Thursday it is testing an Internet-based callingplan meant to replace traditional land lines, a move that came just a day after it joined key rivals in announcing a flat-rate mobile plan that could help change the economics of the wireless industry The new VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service, Talk Forever, lets mobilecust...

High-tech rumors sometimes amount to little more than hot air, but a new one circulating about Google doesn't involve hot air -- it involves hydrogen That's hydrogen-filled balloons, to be exact, and it appears to be more than a rumor. Google is considering partnering with or even buying a company that provides such balloons as a way to bring wirel...

Just as Microsoft began grappling with a glitch in the installation of a file required for its Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) download, another Vista SP1 hiccup has bubbled up. The company has confirmed that some applications may experience "a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows Vista Service Pack 1-based computer." In other words, SP1 bre...

Microsoft will soon launch its Xbox Live Community Arcade service, which will allow anyone to create -- and distribute -- console games for the Xbox system The move, announced at the Game Developers Conference, opens the doors for aspiring game creators to compete with big name studios. To participate, developers must become a member of the XNA Cre...

Oracle has introduced a new single-tenant option for its Siebel CRM customers In contrast to the typical multitenant architecture, Siebel's Single Tenant, Enterprise Edition gives customers a path to connectivity via a fully dedicated database, middleware and application instance of Siebel CRM On Demand. The system is hosted at Oracle's data center...

AMD has open sourced more than 3,000 routines in its AMD Performance Library for multi-threaded programming These routines, which will make it easier to build media and other applications for multi-core processors, have been posted under the Apache license on SourceForge.net....

Shares of Georgia-based data-services provider ChoicePoint jumped by nearly half Thursday over their previous closing price after the firm announced that UK-based publisher and Lexis Nexis owner Reed Elsevier is buying it for US$4.1 billion ChoicePoint stock jumped by 43.26 percent, to $48.22 by midday on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock, whi...

Microsoft is making broad changes to its technological and business practices in an effort to make its most popular products more open and interoperable with those from other vendors Driven by industry changes, competitive pressures and legal realities, Microsoft laid out a variety of moves designed to make Windows and other products work better wi...

Promising hefty productivity increases and a lower TCO (total cost of ownership), Tibco Software this week announced its beefed-up ActiveMatrix 2.0, which aims to simplify building and managing service-oriented architectures (SOAs) This latest release adds BusinessWorks, which is available either in standalone mode or as a container hosted in the A...

With rising interest around new mobile communications platforms, there are several early adopters that are successfully utilizing this medium to market and communicate with customers. However, there is still a large majority of marketers who want to first maximize their current e-mail efforts. Most marketers have only scratched the surface when it comes to using e-mail as an effective marketing tool...

The dam has burst in regard to the demand for supply chain management (SCM) services in the small business segment, according to recent Aberdeen research. The results of a December 2007 outsourcing survey of more than 300 organizations reveal that small businesses (with annual revenues of US$50 million or less) are reporting a major uptick in demand for SCM services...

As myriad game makers displayed their wares at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, 10 leading companies in the industry announced on Tuesday that they have teamed up to form a new alliance The nonprofit PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) aims to unite hardware and software creators, game developers, publishers and others committed to the PC gam...

Emotiv Systems unveiled a new gaming headset that uses thoughts and movement to control on-screen character movements The San Francisco-based peripheral company demonstrated the Emotiv EPOC at the Wednesday kickoff of the Game Developers Conference, the annual confab where developers, designers and hardware companies showcase their wares. The EPOC ...

Intel rolled out its latest offering for gaming enthusiasts Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Formerly code-named "Skulltrail," the Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop (DSED) platform brings gamers wickedly good performance with eight processor cores and support for multiple graphics processors Originally unveiled at the 200...

A US$2.2 billion deal 3Com had been planning involving a private-equity group and a Chinese telecommunications firm apparently fell apart Wednesday over security concerns 3Com, a Marlborough, Mass.-based network equipment manufacturer, had agreed in September to accept an offer of $5.30 per share from Boston-based Bain Capital Partners and Huawei T...

Three of the four largest wireless carriers rolled out new flat-fee monthly subscription options that let users talk as much as they want, sparking concerns among investors about a profit-sapping price war in the mobile space Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile all announced all-you-can-consume plans within hours of each other on Tuesday. Verizon broke the ...

A study by the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) shows that more than half of all e-mail is authenticated. However, the Alliance wants the industry to push for higher adoption. AOTA has issued a call to action to implement e-mail authentication at the top level corporate domain within the next six months Those brands that adopt higher...