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Google's eye on the sky seems wider than ever. The company reportedly is planning to spend at least US$1 billion on a project to bring Internet access to remote areas through satellites It is not yet clear whether the plan would augment or replace Project Loon -- Google's proposal to connect remote regions to the Internet through high-altitude ball...

SAP has updated its cloud-based CRM portfolio with the rollout last week of three industry-specific applications. These applications, designed for the insurance, utilities and retail sectors, are the first cloud-based verticals for CRM, aside from a broader-based application with functionality tailored for consumer goods. In addition, SAP has intr...

Maybe. Apple is rumored to be launching a smart home platform at its developer conference this week. The smart home market is actually in a place that's rather similar to where MP3 players were when Apple launched the iPod, and the iPhone is basically an iPod with phone capability. The smart home effort is in part about music and video distribu...

Now "anyone can run their business from their phone," Salesforce.com recently promised when it announced its Salesforce1 Mobile App. Many company announcements tend to overpromise, and Salesforce has a tendency to be particularly exuberant, so I took it with the customary grain of salt. My skepticism vanished on Thursday, when Salesforce and Micro...

Remember Heartbleed? Several weeks ago, the exposure of this security bug chilled the Internet, highlighting once again that even the seemingly unbreakable can be hacked. In the case of the Heartbleed vulnerability, encrypted data was at risk of theft. Sites potentially vulnerable to Heartbleed urged users to change their passwords. They ranged fr...

Amazon is gearing up to launch a streaming music service this summer, taking on competitors like Pandora and Spotify, according to a report from Buzzfeed The streaming service would be part of Amazon's US$99 per year Prime service, which offers subscribers free two-day shipping on many items, video streaming and an e-book lending library....

Google this week unveiled a prototype that it will test on California roads to learn more about how to make safe and efficient autonomous cars a mainstream reality ...

Information technology groups and a wide range of other businesses are so divided on proposed changes to U.S. patent law that a key U.S. lawmaker abruptly terminated work on patent reform legislation last week. The legislation addresses intellectual property protection practices, informally known as "patent trolling," that overwhelmingly affect computer software and IT components...

I get the sense that a good many Apple enthusiasts are confusedby its acquisition of Beats Electronics. Sure, many are nodding their heads, saying that Beats is good for Apple and makes total sense. The headphones are selling well. With 250,000 paying subscribers, the Beats Music service is taking off fast, and it can only be elevated by Apple's global brand and infrastructure...

Deepin Linux is something totally new. It is an Ubuntu-based distribution built around its own desktop environment called "DDE" or "Deepin Desktop Environment."The Deepin desktop design is snazzy yet simple to use. It is one of the first Linux distros to take advantage of HTML 5 technology....

A cyberespionage campaign with links to Iran for at least three years has been targeting U.S. military and congressional personnel, journalists and diplomats, as well as U.S. and Israeli defense contractors and members of the U.S./Israel lobby, according to a report released Thursday by iSight Partners Using more than a dozen phony identities on on...

Google on Wednesday revealed statistics about the makeup of its workforce and admitted that it's pretty homogenous "We're not where we want to be when it comes to diversity," Laszlo Bock, senior vice president for people operations, told the E-Commerce Times.

I am a nerd with a goofy hobby -- I build plastic model airplanes. However, that hobby affords me a view of customer relationship issues in an interesting and intimate way. Most of the time, the vendors in this space get things right, realizing theirs is a niche industry and their customers really are in charge, especially since all spending in this sector is discretionary.

Snapchat in May agreed to implement a comprehensive privacy program and be audited for the next 20 years to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that it had, among other things, lied to users when it said messages sent through its service would be erased after a designated period of time However, Snapchat's privacy violation is infinitesima...

There is growing interest in the cloud. It sounds absolutely perfect for both consumers and businesses. Some are jumping in -- so why isn't everyone? There are many pros and cons. Many use it successfully to build and manage their growing business, but many others fall victim to problems What, exactly, is the cloud? That's the first problem. "The c...

Three-dimensional printing is much more than a hobby industry today. Home users can download design files from websites and print a variety of products for their own use. Business users are creating functional products that let them jump-start their product lines with computer-assisted drafting software and desktop 3D printers High-priced proprieta...

Xactly, the SaaS-based incentive compensation solutions provider, has kicked it up a notch. The user meeting I attended last week in San Francisco was very successful -- but more importantly, it made some real news in the compensation space. Conferences like this often are news generators -- or, more precisely, they're PR engines. Everybody wit...

Yahoo is in advanced talks with video producers to launch its own online video channel this year, a product meant to rival Google's YouTube, according to Ad Age, which cited unnamed sources briefed on the company's plans. The news has intrigued the online video and advertising industry because it would introduce some very welcome competition into ...

Apple on Tuesday aimed to calm anxiety among its iCloud users with reassurances that the service hadn't been breached in a ransomware-style attack "Apple takes security very seriously and iCloud was not compromised during this incident," reads a company statement. "Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible and avoid u...

Zappos is ditching conventional job posts to recruit its new hires, instead launching Zappos Insiders, an internal social network designed to simplify and improve the process. Job recruitment can be a vicious cycle on both ends, according to Zappos HR Manager Michael Bailen.