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Sony's PlayStation and Sony Entertainment networks were taken down over the weekend by a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack. The hackers, who call themselves the "Lizard Squad," also forced authorities to divert a plane Sony Entertainment president was on by tweeting that there might be explosives on board....

A mother in Walnut Creek, California, recently placed an expensive order for baby formula and diapers that never arrived. Subsequent investigation showed that the package had been delivered but snatched from her doorstep That's a common enough story in this era of e-commerce, but this one has a happy ending....

Can an automated Google feature that ostensibly helps users with a search be a basis for libel? Courts in Germany, Italy and Hong Kong have had to field that question. Google's position is that there is no human intervention, and that its algorithm is based merely on what others have searched for, or strings of words in indexed pages. ...

Twitter last week reported success with its BotMaker spam-prevention system Because Twitter operates in real time, BotMaker is designed to work fast to eliminate spammers. Its main goals are to bar spam accounts from being created, to reduce the time they spend on Twitter if they do show up, and to reduce Twitter's reaction time in responding to sp...

We were treated to the customer support call from hell earlier this month when a couple of well-connected bloggers taped their call to Comcast, attempting to disconnect from the service, and posted it online. Apparently, there has been a sequel. The clear lesson from both calls -- particularly the second -- is that if you talk to Comcast support, you need to record the call if you don't want to get screwed...

Salesforce.com on Thursday reported a second-quarter loss of about 10 US cents per share -- but hey, who's counting? Not investors, apparently, who drove up the price of the CRM giant's stock 7.6 percent by market close Friday. Certainly not Wall Street analysts like Deutsche Bank, which promptly raised its target price for the company to $70.00 per share, pointing to a potential upside of 25.65 percent...

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has spent more than a billion dollars on full-body scanners designed to strengthen airport security. It turns out that at least one model of the scanner in use for four years -- the Rapiscan Secure 1000 full-body scanner -- easily could have been foiled by a savvy bad actor. In addition, it harbored software flaws that made it vulnerable to cyberattacks...

There is a chance that Apple may be forced to postpone the launch of the hotly anticipated "iWatch" or health band -- perhaps pushing it back to 2015, according to financial analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, as reported by AppleInsider Apple apparently is facing wide-ranging production issues involving components, system design, manufacturing, and integration ...

SoundCloud on Thursday launched On SoundCloud, a program that will facilitate advertising on the site Membership initially is by invitation only; SoundCloud will roll it out to a select number of artists....

A growing number of consumers are becoming mobile-first or even mobile-only, so why not businesses? Granted, it is hard to image the company whose computing power and data could be accessed and manipulated only through a mobile device. However, a company that gives mobile the same status and resources as its other IT initiatives? That is a little easier to envision.

After Barnes & Noble bled serious cash trying to create its own Nook e-reading tablets to compete with Amazon's Fire and Apple's iPad -- eventually, scrapping most of the Nook-building unit -- I figured it was pretty much down for the count. The announcement in June of its deal to let Samsung give select tablets the "Nook" brand seemed more like a cry for help them a business decision that had much chance of success...

A conflict between Google's push to make the Web more secure and its Trusted Store program may be costing at least one business money Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies, which encrypts all the pages on its website, has had its application for Google's Trusted Stores program turned down, according to The Wall Street Journal....

In a move influenced by Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA's email snooping, Yahoo and Google last week announced that they were cooperating on end-to-end encrypting their webmail products "We will release source code this fall so that the open source community can help us refine the experience and hunt for bugs," said Yahoo Chief Informati...

Netflix on Tuesday announced that it has signed an interconnection agreement with Time Warner Cable, marking the fourth such deal the content provider has signed with a major Internet service provider Netflix in recent months has signed similar agreements with Comcast, Verizon and AT&T....

The good news for Sprint is the stars seem to be lining up for a recovery. Change is occurring throughout the entire wireless industry. Every player -- including AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and C Spire Wireless -- is changing. We will start to see lots of new services, pricing, competition and marketing going forward.

One of the most troubling issues with home security and remote-monitoring products is the complexity and cost to set them up. Blink, a new Kickstarter project, is different. It promises to be astoundingly easy, and it's inexpensive, too. Backers can get a simple remote motion detection and video camera unit for just US$69 -- or two for $119 Better ...

The SparkyLinux GameOver 3.4 Edition may be one of the best Linux distros catering to game players you will find. It is a full-service specialty Linux OS with a focus on gaming.Linux distro developers usually do one of two things about games. One, they provide none or only a few low-impact card and puzzle titles. Two, they build in links to the Pl...

Apttus and Adobe Echosign earlier this year conducted a survey of more than 100 Fortune 1000 sales leaders, focusing on perennial blind spots for sales managers Here's the big picture view of their just-released findings:...

Barnes & Noble and Samsung on Wednesday jointly announced the Samsung the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook It is essentially the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 tablet, rebranded and preloaded with B&N's content....

Steve Ballmer on Tuesday severed the last of his official ties with Microsoft -- he resigned from the board of directors. Ballmer gave up his CEO role in February. Ballmer's other duties have become too pressing for him to focus on Microsoft, he wrote in a letter addressed to CEO Satya Nadella and posted on Microsoft's website.