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Vonage may have found a way to provide its services without using disputed technology that Verizon Communications has patented, Vonage said Thursday, offering hope that the troubled VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) provider can get out from under potentially crushing legal obligations to Verizon Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's chairman and interim CEO,...

Social networking portal MySpace will host a series of hour-long sessions on college campuses that will allow people to ask questions of presidential candidates both in person and via the Web The "Presidential Town Hall" series is MySpace's latest foray into national politics. The social networking powerhouse also recently revealed it will hold a v...

Microsoft has acquired a minority ownership stake in CareerBuilder.com, extending a partnership between the leading U.S. job search site and its MSN portal, Microsoft said Redmond will acquire a 4 percent ownership stake in the dot-com as part of an agreement that calls for CareerBuilder to deliver job listings to MSN through 2013....

A team of astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has mapped temperature variations over the surface of the giant gas planet HD 189733b, revealing it is likely being whipped by roaring winds "We have mapped the temperature variations with longitude across the entire surface of the planet that is so far away its light takes 60 years to reac...

Uncle Sam is often portrayed as a technological laggard, representing a market segment bringing up the rear as new innovations take hold. Well, surprise, surprise -- the government is ahead of the private sector by a better than a three-to-one margin in one emerging area: telework "To be successful, telework programs must be top-down initiatives, a...

The term "open source" has long been associated with software development, but when the philosophy is applied to filmmaking, it takes on a whole new meaning. As movie production tools become more readily available and groups of creative minds put their heads together on scripts, Hollywood might want to take notice. It seems the open source method of filmmaking is ready for its closeup...

The success of Apple's iPod, sales of which recently surpassed 100 million units, not only changed the way digital audio player (DAPs) makers thought of and designed their devices. It also caught the eye of mobile phone manufacturers. After adding cameras, then video recorders, it was natural that cell phone makers decided to try their hand at giving their devices digital audio playback capabilities...

For the second time this year, hackers have victimized the University of Missouri. The names and Social Security numbers of 22,396 current or former students who were employed by UM during 2004 may have been compromised, according to university officials The hacker or hackers reportedly gained access to the personal information via a 2004 Web page ...

In an unprecedented cooperative effort to combat climate change, 31 states have joined forces to create The Climate Registry, a national initiative to track greenhouse gas emissions The newly formed Climate Registry is a tool to measure, track, verify and publicly report greenhouse gas emissions accurately, transparently and consistently across bor...

Xbox 360 owners may be in for a pleasant surprise the next time they connect to Xbox Live using the next-generation console. Microsoft released its Spring Update for the Xbox 360 Wednesday on a rolling basis to the Xbox Live (XL) community. The software upgrade brings with it communications support for Windows Live Messenger as well as a host of tweaks for a new and improved dashboard that reduce the operating system's annoyance factor...

Chip maker Intel is set to launch an overhaul of its Centrino laptop platform -- the first to use flash memory chips, which should mean faster performance and longer battery life The latest Centrino, dubbed "Santa Rosa," is the fourth generation of the company's successful laptop platform brand that helped popularize the WiFi technology that is now...

Leading scientific institutions from around the world have collaborated on one the largest Web projects to date: a global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of plants and animals on Earth in a free online resource called "Encyclopedia of Life." Similar to Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Life will allow users to add information and deta...

Another month, another batch of Microsoft security fixes This month's Patch Tuesday distribution shows that even the newest offerings from Redmond contain holes that malicious yet savvy hackers can exploit. In fact, all of the seven advisories -- covering 19 flaws -- described in the latest Patch Tuesday were labeled by Microsoft as being "critical...

Internet and networking gear maker Cisco Systems posted sharply higher profit for its third quarter, but investors disappointed by the company's outlook sent its stock sharply lower Wednesday Cisco earned US$1.9 billion, or 30 cents a share, up 34 percent when compared to the $1.4 billion the San Jose, Calif., company cleared in the same time frame...

Kana has pushed into the professional services area with its acquisition ofeVergance Partners, a management consulting and systems integration firm Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Kana for 2007 and is expected to close during the second quarter of Kana's 2007 fiscal year....

Lenovo unveiled on Wednesday three new notebooks built around a new processor and chip set announced the same day by Intel Lenovo engineered both the ThinkPad T61 and the ThinkPad R61 with its new Top Cover Roll Cage for enhanced durability, an improved thermal management cooling and efficiency system, enhanced wireless connectivity with Ultra Conn...

The billion-dollar lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube feels like a rerun. Haven't we seen this show before? New technology from an upstart company is rapidly adopted by millions of users, transforms traditional media distribution and stretches the legacy copyright framework to its limits Maybe these disputes are inevitable. The key players in the o...

Do we still need venture capitalists in the software industry? Sounds like a no-brainer, but the question also reflects the disruption that is taking place in enterprise software -- initiated by Salesforce.com and accelerated with its unveiling of a company incubator in San Mateo, Calif For the record, I think there will always be a place for VCs ...

For years now, Microsoft Word has become synonymous with word processing. Nevertheless, the folks in Redmond, Wash., with the latest release of their word cruncher, have shown they're unafraid to take a daring turn with the program Veteran users will barely recognize Microsoft Word 2007 (US$175 to $230) as their venerable word processor of choice.

Samsung Electronics has unveiled the second generation of an ultra mobile personal computer (UMPC) it introduced a year ago with partners Microsoft and Intel The company unveiled the device, dubbed the "Q1 Ultra-V," at the Samsung Experience store in New York on Monday, touting it as a physical and functional improvement over the original Q1....