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Collaborative wiki technology is making its way into the small and medium-sized business, offering SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) a way to foster collaboration among employees and interaction with the public One company, Des-Moines, Iowa-based CustomerVision, on Aug. 17 released RapidWiki, which is designed to get SMBs up and running with...

Intel has upgraded its vPro processor technology for desktop PCs with a host of new security features that protect against viruses, hacker attacks and other threats, the company announced Monday The upgraded vPro, formerly code-named "Weybridge," combines an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with an Intel Q35 Express chipset and several technology innovat...

Yahoo launched a new version of its Web-based mail service Monday, incorporating advanced communication functions it says have not been offered before The new version of Yahoo Mail includes "real-time communication" in the form of instant messaging and SMS (short message service) text messaging as well as several other performance enhancements that...

This Halloween, something once thought dead will come back from the grave. Video game maker Rockstar, the creator of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, said it has revised its much-maligned "Manhunt 2" ("MH2") game -- this time with a Mature rating by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) The game's initial Adults Only (AO) rating, revealed in...

A server problem at Microsoft over the weekend caused the company's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation system to falsely accuse legitimate users of Windows Vista and XP of running pirated software, resulting in the disbanding of some features for those users until the problem was fixed The problem began around 8 p.m. Friday, causing users t...

The long-consolidating personal computer industry is shrinking once again, with Taiwan-based Acer saying it reached a deal to buy Gateway in a deal worth US$710 million, a move that has implications in both the U.S. and Europe The once market-leading Gateway -- the current iteration of which is itself a combination of Gateway and eMachines -- will ...

The open source model of developing software is making a significant impact, not only in the software development and broader high-tech community, but more generally within corporations, other types of businesses and organizations around the world, as Part 1 of this series describes Whether it's on servers, desktop computers or mobile devices, it's...

I think that, for all of us, the battle for the next generation of DVD technology has gotten really old. This is especially true for the studios, which are well off their revenue targets This week, we'll look at why DreamWorks and Paramount backed HD-DVD, effectively assuring that Blu-ray will lose whether HD-DVD wins or not -- and it may still not...

Dubious pharmacies abound on the Internet, and they're posing a threat to both pharmaceutical companies and consumers That's the main finding in brand-protector MarkMonitor's summer edition of its Brandjacking Index, released this week....

The maker of the batteries that prompted Finnish cell phone maker Nokia to recall up to 46 million handset batteries will pay up to US$172 million of the costs associated with replacing them Japanese electronics giant Matsushita, perhaps best known for its Panasonic brand of electronics gear, agreed to fund the direct costs associated with the repl...

SoundExchange has agreed to implement a cap on the royalty rates large Internet radio webcasters must pay, the organization announced Thursday TheThe Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) recently ruled that webcasters must pay a US$500 minimum fee per station or channel, regardless of the overall number of stations or channels they stream. The new arrange...

A group of New York City taxi drivers say they are going to strike for at least two days in September to protest a regulation calling for all city cabs to be equipped with GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking technology Starting on Oct. 1, all 13,000 taxis must have touch-screens and GPS when they come up for inspection. The expense of outfitti...

After launching a three-year, US$1 billion warranty plan in response to hardware failure in its Xbox 360 video game console, Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has begun offering a free retrofit for its Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel controller Microsoft has received a "very small number" of reports of a malfunction that could cause a component ...

When it comes to sales, Nintendo's Wii continues to lead the pack of current-generation video game consoles, according to NPD Group. However, the real eye-opener, from NPD's perspective, is the unexpected mid-summer sales boom involving just about everything related to the games Those following the console wars tend to focus on the ups and downs of...

In a move heavy with symbolism, Sun Microsystems said Thursday it would change the ticker symbol under which its stock trades on the Nasdaq to "JAVA." Sun will replace its current ticker of SUNW with the new symbol, which is also the name of the widely used software for handling Web applications that it helped create more than a decade ago....

The Internet is beginning to overtake TV as the preferred medium of consumers around the globe, according to a new survey sponsored by IBM In the survey of more than 2,400 households in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Australia, the IBM Institute for Business Value found that 19 percent of consumers said they spend six or more...

The world of technology contact centers is going to get a little more engaging IBM, forever scrambling to stay ahead of the game in customer interaction models, announced Thursday that a virtual IBM Business Center is open for business in Asia....

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has come a long way from relying on walkie talkies to hear descriptions of suspects on the run -- now they can watch video of crimes in progress in real time Last year, the department installed 10 surveillance cameras and a multi-radio wireless broadband network, also known as a "mesh network," throughout th...

Microsoft this week unveiled its SideWinder Mouse during the 2007 Games Convention held in Leipzig, Germany. Designed for the hardcore PC gaming crowd, the mouse marks the revitalization of the SideWinder brand and Microsoft's reentry into the PC gaming hardware market The button-studded, black and red laser mouse boasts an LCD screen for gamers to...

PlayStation 3 (PS3) and PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners in Europe will have something to look forward to in 2008 -- the addition of PlayTV, a TV tuner and personal video recorder (PVR) for the PS3, as well as a whole slew of additional functionality for the PSP such as a video download service for users in the U.K and Ireland. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) head David Reeves made the announcement Wednesday at the 2007 Games Convention held in Leipzig, Germany...