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In what might be an overseas preview of a battle coming soon to U.S. soil with market leader Netflix, Amazon.com has launched a DVD rental service through its United Kingdom Web site Amazon's UK site began advertising the DVD rental option this week, as the site sees heavy holiday traffic. The service will offer customers up to four rentals per mon...

Men who have been balancing laptops on their knees as they work during rush hour on the train or wait in the airport for flights may be at risk of more than aches and pains from hunching over that little keyboard. They could also be prone to another major side effect: infertility Dr. Yefim R. Sheynkin has found that men who balance their laptops on...

In a move to beef up its services aimed at wireless devices, Yahoo has acquired tech start-up WUF Networks. Company officials confirmed the acquisition this week but declined to disclose the terms of the deal WUF develops software that is designed to simplify the control and access of digital content -- music, photos and video -- among networked de...

The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) has filed a suit against Kaleidescape, alleging misuse of the association's proprietary copy protection technology, known as the Content Scramble System (CSS) Mountain View, Calif.-based Kaleidescape is developer of a home audio video network that enables users to access movie DVDs from anywhere in their h...

Siemens Communications claimed a historic wireless speed record this week, touting that its Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technology allowed it to reach a wireless data transfer rate of 1 gigabit per second, which is 20 times the speed of today's wireless local area network (WLAN) While the speed mark was a significant demonstra...

Disney and its Buena Vista Home Entertainment Division have thrown theirconsiderable weight behind the Blu-ray standard for next-generation DVDs,escalating the battle between this format and HD DVDs Sony, Samsung, Dell and Hewlett-Packard are among the other companies thatare promoting Blu-ray. Warner Bros. Studios, Paramount Pictures, UniversalPic...

Chipmaker Infineon Technologies said it would invest US$1 billion to build a new fabrication plant in Malaysia that will make products aimed at the automotive and industrial industries The German-based company said it would break ground early next year on the facility in Kulim High Tech Park and begin production sometime in 2006. The plant will emp...

ITT Industries announced today that it has won a seven-year contract that could reach a maximum value of US$2.5 billion from the U.S. Army's Logistics Readiness Center. ITT will produce Single Channel Ground to Air Radio System (SINCGARS) combat radio systems for the Army Under the terms of this omnibus contract, the Army can order varying numbers ...

On November 15, Google filed a lawsuit against Texas-based Auctions Expert International (AEI) for engaging in "click fraud" and attempting to force Google's advertisers to pay for fraudulently generated clicks Google claims, among other things, that AEI constructed its Web site with the sole purpose of generating false clicks and collecting advert...

What differentiates a Mac user from a PC user, assuming the usage decision is uncoerced by an employer? My wife, a reformed PC user (always the most merciless of evangelists), answered that question with a list straight from Jeff Foxworthy:...

Nearly four years ago I predicted that IBM would leave the PC business, and it took IBM two years to convince me that I was wrong. Imagine how surprised I was this week when IBM actually sold its PC business to Lenovo Lenovo, formerly Legend, is a Chinese company partially owned by the Chinese government. The chairman of the new company will come...

The independent, open-source KDE Project today announced the availability of KDE 3.3.2, a maintenance release for its latest, most advanced free desktop suite for GNU/Linux and other UNIX systems KDE 3.3.2 ships with a basic desktop and eighteen other packages including administration, network, edu-tainment, utilities, multimedia, games, artwork, a...

About a week after Lycos Europe stirred spammers with its anti-spam screensaver, hackers continue to attack the brand, this time with an e-mail that pretends to be Lycos offering the screensaver but which actually is a trojan Lycos Europe withdrew its controversial screensaver, which replied to unwanted spam with a denial-of-service attack, late la...

U.S. wireless carrier Sprint announced it was pumping US$3 billion into high-speed wireless network partnerships with Motorola, Lucent and Nortel, hoping that more bandwidth and speed will let it generate more revenue from users The deal was a must for Motorola, which won extension of its agreement with Sprint through 2006 and will supply its CDMA ...

In an effort to develop a standard approach to building and deploying an enterprise grid computing infrastructure, high-technology heavy hitters have announced a collaborative effort dubbed Project MegaGrid Dell, EMC, Intel and Oracle are joining forces to combine certain core technologies and technical resources with the common goal of easing the ...

PalmSource, the separate company that develops the palmOne mobile operating system, announced today it would buy China MobileSoft, whose Linux technology will give PalmSource an instant foothold in the open-source market Analysts praised the move. "PalmSource will greatly extend its reach in both the low-end feature phone market and the highest end...

Ending nearly a week of speculation, IBM has reached an agreement to sell its personal computer business to Chinese PC maker Lenovo for US$1.25 billion in cash, a deal that calls for Big Blue to retain a sizeable stake in the business and for an IBM executive to take over the combined company The deal has massive ramifications for the computer indu...

In an attempt to get a jump on the spread of malware through instant messaging, a group of security firms has banded together to create a community of watchdogs that will share information about potential threats Led by IMlogic, which sells enterprise security software for IM systems, the group comprises security companies MacAfee and Sybari Softwa...

The global population is divided into two major groups: open minds in closed societies and closed minds in open societies. Therefore, the marketing and naming of products must address the issues of sexual connotation with extraordinary depth, care and caution Suddenly, French Connection of UK went soft and packed up their most cherished and notorio...

Industry analysts say the fastest growing operating system in the world -- Linux -- could be experiencing growing pains as growth outpaces the supply of IT professionals with expertise in this area "Linux is increasing its market share so rapidly that, in consequence, some companies find it difficult to secure the resources to handle Linux developm...