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It's easy to take things you see every day for granted. We take the sun rising and setting for granted, for instance, and that's a good thing because it helps us organize our lives However, in business, taking things for granted is a hazard. Change is everything these days, and that means the concepts you take as constants may not be as constant as...

We may just be turning the calendar to November, but if you're like most retailers, you're already deep into planning for the gift-giving season. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are circled and starred as you anticipate, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, the spike in sales and massive increase in traffic to your website and mobile app -- with good reason.

Nvidia on Monday introduced two new versions of its Android TV-based Shield streaming product. Shield TV (US$149) and Shield TV Pro ($199) are replacements for the last generation of Shield video streamers, which Nvidia introduced in 2017. The Shield TV Pro retains the form factor of its predecessors -- the box-like form favored by the industry ge...

The shopping season is fast approaching. Black Friday -- the kickoff of Christmas consumerism -- falls on November 29 this year, six days later than last year. However, e-commerce stores easily will compensate for this shorter shopping season: Last year consumers broke records with US$6.22 billion spent online, but this year Black Friday is set to surpass $12 billion in online sales...

Though they're often made fun of, millennials arguably are making a bigger impact on saving the planet than the generations that preceded them. It does seem strange to me that our governments haven't been more aggressive about protecting the environment, given that the cost of not doing so poses an existential risk to the human race. It seems ins...

Each person interprets an image in countless subjective ways, based on individual biases. However, when searching for a product on the Internet, most people prefer accuracy over multiple interpretations of a single object Putting the appropriate tags on images ensures better searchability for users. Doing this manually, though, can be inefficient ...

There's a new trailer for Battlefield V, the World War II first-person shooter Electronic Arts released last year, highlighting the game's Chapter 5: War in the Pacific. The trailer, released Wednesday, previews team-based gameplay in settings ranging from Europe to the South Pacific War in the Pacific is a free download that will be available on O...

Bob Stutz is a great guy. I have interacted with him occasionally over the years in his various senior postings throughout the CRM industry and always found him to be kind, generous and thoughtful. Last week he announced he was leaving his position as head of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which he's been at for four years, and taking a job as President of SAP's CX effort.

Microsoft once again is making a move in wireless with its new foldable smartphone called "Surface Duo." The company tried and failed to break into wireless several times over the last couple of decades before finally pulling the plug. Now it is back. Will the Surface Duo give Microsoft a chance to succeed in wireless at last?...

Unmanned aerial vehicles -- or "drones" as these flying objects more commonly are known -- pose a growing danger, cybersecurity expert Kevin Townsend recently warned in a guest post for Avast The drone category is broad -- it includes toys for hobbyists, tools for commerce, and devices used for a variety of military purposes. They range in size fro...

In manufacturing, margins are everything. In fact, if you're like most manufacturers, your business operates on such tight margins that even a small change in the price list can have an enormous impact on your bottom line So what happens if your sales team inadvertently uses an old price list and the cost of steel actually has gone up a quarter sin...

The United States Federal Trade Commission on Monday announced settlements of a series of fraudulent marketing charges against two high-profile firms The actions taken make it clear that anyone who engages in similar illegal behavior will face enforcement action, the FTC said....

GoPro has begun taking preorders for its US$500 360-degree camera, the Max 360, and reviewers have begun to weigh in on the latest entry in the action camera company's line "GoPro has become a household name for its durable, portable little action cameras and the Max is no different. While the camera has a lot of great features, it was the ease of ...

Mobile phones have come a long way since Zack Morris lugged his brick of a cell phone around the halls of Bayside High School in "Saved by the Bell." If Zack had one of today's smartphones, he'd be texting Kelly on WhatsApp, posting pictures of himself and A.C. on Instagram, and trolling Screech on Twitter Today's smartphones have become essential ...

Samsung has called quits on its effort to provide a full Linux desktop platform for Android In an email to beta testers last week, Samsung said it would not support its Linux on DeX beta program for future operating system and device releases....

Flaws in Amazon and Google smart speakers can expose users to eavesdropping and voice phishing, security researchers reported Sunday Researchers at Security Research Labs, a hacking research collective and consulting think tank based in Berlin, Germany, discovered that developers could create malicious apps for the Amazon and Google platforms to tu...

Now would be a good time to put Zoho on your radar if for some reason it isn't there already. The Austin-based company just announced Catalyst, a developer environment that helps programmers and others to speed development of apps and microservices with capabilities inherited from Zoho's apps portfolio. The easiest way to understand this is to say...

Not so long ago, marketing usually meant gathering some demographic data, placing ads in selected print and broadcast media, stuffing mailboxes with direct mail, plastering the countryside with billboards, and, more recently, bombarding the universe with spam As technology advances and consumers' expectations and digital sophistication rise exponen...

I was moved by the recent news about a woman being shot in her home by a police officer who had come to check up on her. Once again, I found it frustrating that people immediately jumped to apply blame before all the facts were in, which tends to do more damage than good. From my reading, three mistakes contributed to the incident. The first wa...

I wanted to like Kara Swisher's piece in The New York Times about Facebook's attempt to wrestle with its demons, but I can't. It feels too much like self-delusion. To cut to the chase, Facebook announced it was forming an oversight board that eventually will have about 40 members with responsibilities for policing its domain and reducing or even e...