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Microsoft has filed its first eight lawsuits accusing defendants of distributing counterfeit Certificate of Authenticity (COA) labels in an attempt to authenticate unlicensed software Yesterday's filings are the first fruits of the software giant's effort to identify and target computer resellers who allegedly buy or sell counterfeit COA labels....

Will consumers have a safe and secure holiday shopping season? Or will identity thieves walk away with the lion's share of the profits? According to VeriSign's latest Internet Security Intelligence Briefing, which covers the period from July through September, the number of security attacks has declined slightly from the first and second quarter of...

Siebel Branch Teller, a new retail bank solution that invigorates cross sales and customer care at branches, finally brings CRM to the channel that originates most financial services relationships with consumers The product, which uses IBM middleware specifically designed for the retail banking vertical, ensures the consistency of customer interact...

When Elvis sang "Don't be Cruel," he certainly wasn't referring to contracts. But contracts, like love affairs and other personal relationships, can often make the parties involved behave harshly to each other. When the rivalry involves money, as the old saying goes, business is business I have seen many harsh contracts, but Microsoft's Royalty-F...

Because cellular services are one of the fastest growing segments in the telecommunications market, new models are emerging that focus on how cellular services are delivered. The days when carriers installed and controlled their own equipment are giving way to a new era in which wireless network service providers lease their networks to others, who are dubbed mobile virtual network operators (MVNO)...

In an attempt to cut down on the use of counterfeit software use, Microsoft is allowing users of non-licensed copies of Windows XP in the United Kingdom to trade them in for legitimate versions of the operating system The program, Windows XP Counterfeit Project, has some strings attached. To be eligible, users must live in the UK and have bought a ...

Some spots of weakness in the first few days of the holiday shopping season helped pressure stocks as trading resumed today, though shares bounced off their session lows to finish mixed The Dow felt the brunt of retail weakness as a disappointing showing by Wal-Mart weighed heavily on the blue chip index, dragging it lower by as much as 90 points d...

Research firms are predicting gangbuster sales for antivirus software vendors over the next few years IDC forecasts the antivirus software market will increase to reach US$4.4 billion by 2007, with significant market share from corporate customers, and customers in North America and Western Europe....

The holiday shopping season has officially begun, and the sales results are in for the first weekend of the 2004 race for fourth quarter profits. Online and offline retailers alike have a lot to smile about Indeed, while both brick and mortar and e-commerce outfits are reporting boom times, it promises to be a race to the end to determine which cha...

Although it is poised to bring some competition to the mobile gaming world with the PlayStation Portable (PSP), Sony seems more intensely focused on its PlayStation console and the silicon for the next-generation PlayStation3 With IBM and Toshiba, Sony announced a new electronics chip codenamed "Cell" that will leverage multi-core processing to pow...

A closely watched trial that could have lasting implications for the peer-to-peer (P2P) industry has gotten underway in Australia, where the entertainment industry hopes to prove that P2P network operators are responsible for the illegal swapping they enable Major music labels made similar attempts in the U.S., but had their efforts stymied when an...

Are you searching for holiday profits? Join the e-club Countless thousands of online retailers are competing in what analysts call a "zero sum game" where only one vendor can win the sale. However, take heart. There are plenty of sales to go around....

The introduction of retail RFID comes with many challenges: technological capability, the adoption of appropriate software architectures and the production of cohesive standards, to name but a few. Not the least of these challenges is finding ways to address the concerns of consumer privacy groups The ability to uniquely identify an item and to do ...

The Insane World of Home Electronics 2: Media DistributionLast week we chatted about home automation. This week we move on to home media distribution On top of the automation projects in my home I mentioned last week, I've also centralized my two TiVos and can watch time-shifted programming throughout the house. In addition, I surrounded my home...

Have you ever dreamed about taking your company public -- the relative ease of raising capital, the ability to use your company's stock to buy other businesses, and the liquidity of your own shares so that you can "cash out" when you are ready? This all sounds good, and it is. But not every business is meant to be publicly traded. There are certain...

Wireless carriers are finding online gaming via use of cell phones to be the latest cash cow to boost revenues. "Carriers have been surprised that wireless gaming is even more lucrative than ringtones," Ken Hyers, a senior analyst with market research firm In-Stat/MDR, told TechNewsWorld Online gaming, where users download video games onto their ce...

For years there existed a fuzzy distinction between good and bad computer hackers. Black Hat hackers were known to crack into computer systems for the challenge and the bragging rights. These miscreants took great pleasure from wreaking havoc once they gained entry. White Hat hackers, on the other side of the ethical line, broke into systems to alert company officials to their ineffective security measures. As concerns about network security grew, computer security companies sprung up and often recruited their experts from the ranks of the White Hatters...

It's nice to know someone is reading my column. According to some of your letters, it seems my recent column on the GPL [Phil Albert, "A Consumer's Review of the General Public License, LinuxInsider, July 20, 2004] touched a nerve. To my critics who referred to me by names other than Phil, I can only respond with an equally mature "Same to you!" For those who prefer a more reasoned discussion, please allow me to devote this week's column to answering some of your criticism...

As a guest of AMD, I went to Indianapolis to watch the top Ferrari team once again whomp the other nine teams in what remains one of the most expensive sports in the world. This racing team has been winning for so long and is so dominant in this sport that I often wonder why anyone watches these races anymore. The outcome often seems preordained Th...

Black Friday is taking on a new meaning this year as Yahoo today sets out to shake up the holiday shopping season with the world's largest interactive snow globe smack dab in the middle of Times Square "We wanted to get the word out about our Comparison Shopping and award-winning Product Search and show people how searching is really fun," Rob Solo...