Articles by

Just as Las Vegas pioneer Bugsy Siegel imagined a city of dice games and slot machines in the middle of the desert, entrepreneurs looked at the Web a few years ago and saw an audience hungry for online gaming They were right to suspect there was gold in all those clicks. A December 2002 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office stated that onlin...

Not to be left out of lawsuits being launched by rivals AOL and Amazon, Microsoft has announced that after a six-month investigation and collaboration with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, it has filed parallel lawsuits against a New York spamming ring accused of sending billions of "illegal and deceptive e-mail messages." Microsoft a...

A Norwegian court has upheld a lower court exoneration of the man charged with cracking Hollywood's copy-protection technology for DVD movies. The software crack, known as DeCSS, earned then 15-year-old Jon Johansen the nickname 'DVD Jon.' Now 20 years old, Johansen was cleared when a three-judge panel rejected charges that he had accessed DVD movi...

Through much of the year I hear complaints about personal computers -- whether they are running Windows or the relatively rare alternatives. These complaints are typically about systems reliability, the costs resulting from migrating employees to new hardware, the cost associated with new employees and the massive costs associated with keeping software up to date...

Trust, like love, can be a tricky emotion to evoke. Even tougher, it is all too easy to lose. In business, however, trust is essential if a company wants to retain customers, draw new clients and keep its hard-won reputation shining brightly In the e-business realm, unique challenges abound for firms that are trying to build a loyal customer follow...

Recently, many traditional firewall vendors have been adding more capabilities, such as antivirus and antispam, to their security offerings This all-in-one approach has both proponents and opponents. Proponents say more all-inclusive security devices can simplify the all-too-complex life of an IT manager. On the negative side, opponents note that i...

All of the thousands of subpoenas filed by the Recording Industry Association of America in its legal pursuit of accused illegal Internet file traders have been invalidated by a court ruling against the industry association Since September, the RIAA has launched three waves of lawsuits against individual computer users alleged to have traded copyri...

A lawsuit over riches and arms achieved while playing an online video game might sound bizarre, but the Chinese court that heard the case has ordered the video game company to return the virtual booty to the 24-year-old who filed the suit According to Chinese news service Xinhuanet, The Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court ordered the maker of...

As companies have grown more confident in their business process planning, the integration industry has worked to refine its products and services to meet enterprise needs. Many integration offerings now focus on optimizing collaborative relationships between customers, partners and suppliers. As a 25-year veteran in the integration space, Sterlin...

Saying its business would be much larger today if Microsoft had not pushed to create a "new monopoly" in the media player market, RealNetworks said it has filed a civil suit against the software giant seeking US$1 billion in lost revenue and damages RealNetworks claims Microsoft used its dominance of the desktop operating system market to "restrict...

Hackers and security vendors are engaged in a never-ending game of leapfrog, with the former constantly devising clever viruses and the latter feverishly trying to concoct antidotes. As a result, through the years hundreds of thousands of malignant programs have infected networks around the world. Most have had minimal impact, but a handful have caused hundreds of millions -- even billions -- of dollars in damage...

Adding to its arsenal to launch an offensive in the growing market for enterprise content-management software, IBM announced another acquisition this week, this time of document-management specialist Green Pasture Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the move represents IBM's third content-management acquisition since 2002. The other two acqui...

It shouldn't come as a surprise, because it happens every year, but somehow it is still slightly startling. With the calendar officially out of pages and the rest of 2003 now measurable in days, another year has sped past. It's about time now for news organizations to start collecting their biggest stories of the year. Those lists do more than jus...

Just two days after President Bush signed national antispam legislation, Microsoft has announced that a six-month investigation it conducted with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer led to a slew of lawsuits against an e-mail marketing ring believed to be responsible for sending billions of spam messages. Microsoft and Spitzer said their legal...

Within six months, Philips Electronics expects to release a new interoperable digital rights management (DRM) system. That will be good news for music consumers currently befuddled by a hodgepodge of schemes promoted by the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Napster and RealNetworks "It is Philips' opinion that DRM solutions will be necessary to enable the...

As enterprises continue to invest in wireless devices and networks, IT specialists will be faced with the growing challenge of maintaining and improving the security of those networks In many cases, they are getting the financial assistance they need to achieve this goal. Global spending on overall security and business continuity will grow at twic...

The Canadian equivalent of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has signaled that it might follow the U.S. model of launching lawsuits against individuals accused of illegal music trading, which the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) blames for CAN$425 million in lost sales annually Although the Canadian Copyright Board ...

Backing up its declarations that it will refocus on core competencies and protect and grow its communication strength, mobile phone maker Motorola has selected former Sun Microsystems president Edward Zander as its new chairman and chief executive officer Zander, 56, will take the helm of a 75-year-old company that grew into a top communications an...

Continuing its transformation into a network security and services provider, VeriSign agreed Tuesday to buy privately held network security firm Guardent in a deal valued at US$140 million. The stock-and-cash agreement calls for VeriSign to take over all 150 of Guardent's full-time employees and to maintain Guardent's Security Operations Center in...

Laptops are no longer the slow-but-necessary alternative for mobile professionals. Today's notebooks offer powerful processors, dazzlingly large LCD screens, improved upgradability and features as potent as those you'd find on many desktops -- all at attractive prices. Couple that with the siren song of ubiquitous wireless connectivity, and more buyers are seriously considering a notebook for their next business or home PC...