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The recent data breach at Premera Blue Cross -- in which the personal information of some 11 million customers was compromised -- raises questions about how effective government regulators are at ensuring that healthcare providers adequately protect their patients' data There have been abundant warnings that compliance with government regulations a...

YouTube on Friday announced that it would begin supporting Ultra High Definition 4K video content. YouTube officially unveiled the news via TestTube, an incubator for new features concocted by its so-called mad scientists YouTube developers have posted six experimental videos that can be streamed at up to 2160p -- essentially a resolution of 3,840...

BlackBerry last week reported fourth-quarter revenue of US$660 million -- well under analyst expectations, but enough to put the company back in the black Approximately 42 percent of that revenue came from hardware sales, about 47 percent from services, and about 10 percent from software....

One of the really attractive options for retirement is moving to another country and, for a fraction of the cost of living in the U.S., living like royalty. Well, I've been hearing a lot of stories about this over the last year, and I think there is reason for concern. This isn't to say that a lot of folks haven't done it successfully, but I've m...

Welcome to another edition of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, your guide through the tundra of drab gadget announcements toward the oasis of wondrous gizmos. Or is that just a mirage? ...

Cyanogen this week announced the completion of a follow-up round of Series C financing that brought US$80 million in new funds to pay for more hiring and accelerated development of its open platform software development kit Premji Invest led the round, which included some key new investors, such as Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm, Telefnica Ventures, Sm...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week told an audience at the F8 conference for Facebook developers that the company's future lies in its family of apps and in giving the network's members the ability to share what they want, where they want "We're building this family so we can offer unique, world-class experiences for all of the ways that people...

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday released Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2015, its fourth annual study of consumers' mobile commerce behaviors The report shows a continued boom in banking on mobile phones and other devices rather than at a teller desk....

The retail industry has finally awakened to what customers always have known -- they don't distinguish too much between channels. Modern shoppers are happy to embrace the immediacy and experience of the physical store while also benefiting from the informed and personalized ease of shopping online As many pure play online retailers invest in a phys...

The Internet has been good for education but bad for morality, according to a study recently released by the Pew Research Center Researchers conducted face-to-face surveys with 36,619 people in 32 developing countries....

Amazon on Thursday announced two new plans for unlimited storage in its Cloud Drive service The Unlimited Photos plan includes 5 GB of additional storage for videos or other documents and files. It costs US$11.99 per year.

Twitter on Thursday unveiled Periscope, the live-streaming app developed by a company it acquired earlier this year, reportedly for just under US$100 million. It's a big bet for an app that's in a genre that already has matured, but Twitter is counting on the mobile world's appetite for more video "The Twitter experience won't be changed much. Peop...

Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, along with Commissioners Julie Brill and Maureen Ohlausen, on Wednesday released a statement reaffirming the agency's decision not to prosecute Google over its search practices, and insisting it was in line with the recommendations of the FTC's staff. "Contrary to recent press reports, the Commiss...

If an annoyance contest were held between passwords and CAPTCHAs, passwords would probably win, but not by much CAPTCHA -- Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart -- was created to foil bots attempting to mass-create accounts at websites. Once created, those accounts could be exploited by online lowlifes for malic...

It takes prodigious amounts of cash to launch a company these days and that's especially true when trying to insert a new idea into the collective consciousness. Salesforce spent well over US$100 million to convince us that SaaS CRM was real, Zuora has raised nearly twice that amount defining the subscription economy, and cloud ERP is following suit...

Here we go again. Most everyone who thought Google Glass crossed the privacy line was happy when it appeared the new technology was being shelved. Not so fast. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says Google is not giving up on Glass. Like everyone else, I love new technology. However, sometimes companies and their tech staff cross over the line and d...

Bodhi Linux 3.0.0 RC3's implementation of the Enlightenment desktop, makes an awesome desktop computing platform for office or home. Bodhi is one of only a handful of Linux distros embracing the Enlightenment environment. Its developers call Bodhi the Enlightened Linux Distribution.

Ford Motors on Tuesday unveiled a new technology that can scan traffic signs and automatically adjust a vehicle's speed accordingly. The Intelligent Speed Limiter was demonstrated in Germany, but it will be available worldwide in the newest edition of Ford's S-Max cars The technology features a camera mounted on the windshield that works with a rec...

Open Source Virtual Reality, a platform that aims to unify virtual reality input devices, games and output, and Leap Motion, a company that has established itself in the development of motion-tracking hardware, on Wednesday announced what may be a compelling way to control movements in a virtual reality environment Despite spending years -- decades...

Apple has chosen some iconic names in the past, like the "iPod" and "iMac." Apple even managed to take "iPad" -- which was widely panned for evoking a feminine hygiene product -- and transformed it into the popular lexicon of children and Wall Street analysts alike However, Apple does far more than give big and bold names to products -- it even nam...