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Amid much public debate and reports that it could leave consumers wide open for malicious attacks, Sony halt the insertion of anti-piracy software into its CDs The Digital Rights Management system in question is an XCP (Extended Copyright Protection) program developed by Britain's First4Internet. The software limits the number of times a CD can be ...

Podcasting changed the face of audio on the Web and now it's altering the face of hosting, too The technology that moved blogging from eye to ear has hosting services revising their pricing to attract the growing ranks of podcasters to their servers and has increased pressure on niche players to rethink their offerings....

House Democrats today will introduce a new "innovation" strategy for the U.S. economy in a speech at the National Press Club by House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a spokesman for the leader's office, Russ Kelley, told TechNewsWorld Pelosi will be announcing the "Democrats' new 'Innovation Agenda -- A Commitment to Competitiveness...

IBM's speed in the supercomputer world remains unchallenged today. The company not only maintained its hold on the top ranking spot among all supercomputers with its Blue Gene/L System, which doubled its own speed in the Top500 biannual listing of the world's fastest machines, but Big Blue built the second- and third-fastest machines as well In all...

In what could be a bid to assuage some of the publishers angry about its efforts to digitize millions of books and a glimpse into a new revenue model for book publishers, Google is said to be weighing a book rental program Under the scheme that published reports say was pitched to at least one publisher, Google would offer users the chance to "rent...

Sun Microsystems unveiled its updated UltraSPARC T1 processor this week, touting multi-threading technology that cuts power use for ecological and economic benefit Sun said the new chip, formerly code-named "Niagara," will power its new line of Sun Fire servers, to be released by the end of the year. The T1 chips use the company's "CoolThreads" mul...

America Online today said it would become just the latest media company to embrace the Internet as an alternative outlet for television programming, striking a deal with Warner Bros. to offer free, ad-supported versions of classic TV shows online AOL said it would use Warner content as the anchor for its new broadband video channel, known as IN2TV....

Yet another Linux phone standardization has been created, the third of its kind to address mobile criteria The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum launched today. The consortium of leading companies said it is banding together to accelerate the adoption of Linux in fixed, mobile and converged devices....

Google today announced that its hosted Web analytics service, Google Analytics, is now free Formerly known as Urchin from Google, Google Analytics is designed to help businesses use performance data to improve their online marketing campaigns and Web sites....

When it comes to outsourcing customer service tools, some companies have found it difficult to get a positive return on investment Indeed, cross-channel customers who use the Web and phone independently have posed problems for firms: They drive up service costs, are harder to satisfy, and can't be tracked by revenue or customer experience analytics...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Google was on track to become the next "Evil Empire" because they were increasingly behaving as if they were the center of the universe. The central theme of the piece was how companies, particularly those that grow very quickly, can lose track of their ethics and, by placing their needs in front of all others, move from being widely admired to widely despised...

Every business manager can remember some hellish, hair-pulling scene resulting in missed deadlines and dead-in-the-water deals all in the name of IT gone wrong: Printers wouldn't talk to computers; a virus choked up network traffic for days; servers crashed; or a traveling rep didn't have the right tools to access office data that could have turned a prospect around. One can compose a very long list of IT crises that involve hardware, software applications -- and all the cards and wires in between...

The Federal Trade Commission shut down a U.S. spyware operation and affiliate that were supposedly sneaking troublesome tracking software onto PCs under the guise of ringtones, free lyrics and browser upgrades The FTC said three individuals operating out of California under the name Enternet Media, and the affiliate operator of Iwebtunes, were char...

The success of Microsoft's decision to embrace the software-as-online-service approach, hailed by many as a landmark shift, may hinge on the software company's ability to make the platform work for advertising as well as for distributing software Analysts say the move to offer online versions of its software may well merge soon with Microsoft's dev...

Continuing its settlement spree, Microsoft put to rest another anti-trust lawsuit by striking a US$30 million deal with in South Korean Web portal owner Daum Communications The portal and ISP had filed a complaint in 2001 with South Korea's Fair Trade Commission alleging that Microsoft had violated fair trade rules by tying its Microsoft messenger ...

Inevitably, even the best companies do, from time-to-time, suffer a catastrophic event that can change not only the course of the company, but also its very survivability. Unfortunately, many companies do not have a Crisis Action Plan. This lack of a plan can have profoundly negative affects on the business when a disaster strikes Possible crises i...

Less than half the consumers using the Internet feel safe shopping online, according to a survey expected to be released today by Symantec, a maker of anti-virus and security software The survey, based on a sample of 2,400 consumers, revealed that some 60 percent of those respondents felt less than safe shopping online....

Ask any salesperson what they never have enough of, and leads will always be at the top of the list. The traditional forms of creating leads including advertising, direct mail, webinars, events and tradeshows, and even cold calling aren't delivering enough leads to create consistently strong pipelines The definition of a strong pipeline varies by ...

Imagine a world where China argues for guaranteed freedom of speech and Cuba and Iran push for democracy. If that sounds like an episode of "The Twilight Zone," then welcome to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's new show set to air again next week in Tunisia Before anyone starts to think that Chinese and Cuban communists have suddenly become enligh...

Digital rights management (DRM) software embedded in some Sony BMG CDs has become a lightning rod for complaints against the measures the music industry is taking to prevent illegal copying Eight months after Sony incorporated the software into 20 of its CD releases, developer and author Mark Russinovich wrote in his blog that the CDs, when played ...