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The Alliance for Wireless Power on Thursday announced a new certification program and a new brand name for its wireless power technology Dubbed "Rezence," the new brand is designed to give consumers a recognizable icon that member companies can add to their certified product packaging, technical literature and future software applications. It will ...

Despite recent revelations regarding the NSA's extensive surveillance of email messages, Internet traffic and mobile communications, no one expects people or businesses to discard these essential habits and tools. In fact, I believe cloud-based alternatives to traditional, on-premise software and systems will continue to expand in 2014, as providers offer more deployment choices...

Technology and social media give businesses new ways to interact with customers, to build stronger and longer-lasting relationships, and to create two-way conversations that lead to better products and happier people at both ends of the conversation They also allow dumb businesses to expose their incompetence faster and to a wider audience than eve...

Books in a multimedia environment bring certain advantages not available on paper alone or via classic audiobooks. Among those advantages are audio accompaniment for text and cloud syncing of notes and highlights. Add to that the lower distribution costs of multimedia over paper and the browser becomes a good tool for books. You don't need an e-re...

Red Hat on Wednesday launched Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 into beta RHEL 7 incorporates several changes, including a move from Oracle's MySQL to the open source MariaDB, the adoption of the XFS file system, and improvements in various areas, including storage and file size....

Instagram has dipped its toes into private-photo and video messaging waters. Instagram Direct allows the community's more than 150 million monthly active users to send photos and videos within a group. The process of sending a private message works just like posting a photo or video publicly: Take a new photo or upload an existing one, slap on a f...

Spotify announced Wednesday that it is offering a new free mobile streaming option to listeners, a move that could help it compete in the evolving digital entertainment space Mobile users previously were limited to the Spotify Premium plan, which provides streaming access on phones or tablets for US$9.99 per month. The new service gives iPad and An...

The Australian state of Victoria has made it illegal to distribute explicit images without consent The new law specifically outlaws "non-consensual sexting," which generally takes place when lovers split and there is post-breakup payback in the form of intimate photos of the former partners....

Nothing stirs up speculation like success, and right now questions about Bitcoin are on everyone's lips. Is it headed for the moon after once again breaking the US$1,000 mark on Wednesday? Or is it, as former United States Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said, overpriced, lacking in intrinsic value and, essentially, a bubble? Bitcoins are b...

The United States National Security Agency is using at least one type of Google cookie -- PREF, which stores a user's preferences -- to home in on the PCs of targets it wants to hack, according to a Washington Post report. NSA's Special Source Operations division, which works with private companies to slurp data from the Internet's backbone and f...

Lately I have been reading several very interesting stories in the media about both Verizon and AT&T. It looks like things are starting to change. AT&T quality and reliability reportedly are getting better. At the same time, Verizon seems to be losing its grip in those same areas. So what's up? Over the last decade or two, Verizon and AT&T have bee...

Lately I have been reading several very interesting stories in the media about both Verizon and AT&T. It looks like things are starting to change. AT&T quality and reliability reportedly are getting better. At the same time, Verizon seems to be losing its grip in those same areas. So what's up? Over the last decade or two, Verizon and AT&T have bee...

Consumers seem to be softening their hate-hate relationship with the banking industry, according to a new report released Tuesday by the American Customer Satisfaction Index In fact, customer satisfaction with financial services in general -- a category that includes banks, credit unions, health insurance, property and casualty insurance and life i...

If you want a Linux distro that is different and almost always up to date, look no further than Manjaro. If you can get it to load on your computer, Manjaro has a few features that could interest a Linux user who likes tinkering with the OS.The latest release -- version 0.8.8, or "Ascello," which came out last month -- failed to impress me with it...

Twitter has been rolling out some new features in recent months. Two of the most useful are crisis alerts and the ability to preschedule your tweets for marketing purposes Here's how to use these handy new tools....

Smartwatches have dominated many of the tech headlines in 2013, but a new project now counting down the final hours of a successful crowdfunding campaign promises wearable computing of a different kind Dubbed the "Smarty Ring," this new device features an LED screen and is designed to be worn on the finger and to stream data from an Android or iOS ...

Nokia might be planning a shift away from its Windows Phone base in future smartphones -- even as the mobile phone unit of the business heads to Microsoft The company is working on an Android phone as part of a push into the low-end smartphone market, according to The Verge. Several sources close to Nokia suggested the company is working on the pro...

Viber on Monday launched v4.1 of its eponymous VoIP chat application. It includes Viber Out, a feature that lets users call anyone mobile phones or landlines anywhere. Calls to other Viber users are free; otherwise, a fee is assessed. The company also unveiled additions to its line of stickers....

Microsoft on Tuesday previewed the third generation of its Photosynth technology, touting it as a dramatic step forward in smoothness and simplicity. Four effects are now available in Photosynth. There's Spin -- which lets you rotate an object in the photo around itself -- and Panorama -- which lets you "stand" at the center of a photo and rotate ...

The Obama administration's support of Big Data technology for more efficient and effective government operations was highlighted at a recent White House sponsored conference. Billed as the "Data to Knowledge to Action" event, the Nov. 12 session included presentations on more than 30 public and private sector projects successfully employing Big Data technologies...