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A private company in South Africa has created "Memorial Alert," a microchip-based technology designed to thwart tombstone robberies. There recently has been a spate of these crimes in Johannesburg The microchip is inserted into a memorial. When it is disturbed, it will sound an alarm and send a text message to relatives and integrated security comp...

Google and Microsoft have ramped up their efforts to fight online child porn following months of pressure by the office of UK Prime Minister James Cameron Among other things, the two have created a blacklist of search terms for which results will be blocked....

Building on the B2B targeting and personalization ad platform it launched about a year ago, Demandbase last week debuted a new ad tool called "B2B Retargeting." Like the Company-Targeted Advertising solution Demandbase launched in 2012, B2B Retargeting is a rare breed of online ad software in that it focuses specifically and solely on businesses --...

I went public last week with my opinion that IBM eventually will beat Amazon Web Services, even though Amazon won the first skirmish. I was referring only to the federal government, not the largely user-based market Amazon currently serves, but I was less than precise, and I can see why some took offense and disagreed with the broader statement I didn't intend to make.

The holiday shopping season is right around the corner, and that means e-commerce companies are now in the midst of the great run-up to the holidays -- an all-out sprint to get every possible new feature, bug fix and version tested and released in time for the big crush This year, the stakes have been raised even higher with one less week between T...

A developing technology using an ultra-thin layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure could start revolutionizing consumer electronics and many other industries in less than five years Known as "graphene," the material's special strength and conductivity make it an ideal component of super-fast, very sensitive and low-cost devices. Gr...

United States District Court Judge Denny Chin has ruled in favor of Google in a lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild over the Google Books project "In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits," Chin stated in his ruling.

Sony's first new console in seven years, the PlayStation 4, has finally hit the market. It started retailing Friday, but the launch was not without its glitches ...

The U.S. government once again heads the list of those requesting data from Google, and lately it's been asking for a lot more Google's Transparency Report, a twice-a-year reminder of how often governments ask for information, says that the U.S. submitted 10,918 requests for 21,683 user accounts during the first half of 2013. U.S. requests had the ...

The Internet of Things has been receiving quite a bit of attention. Definitions vary, but at its core the concept is a simple one: Extend computing and data-processing capability to the physical world around us. The earliest manifestations of this are starting to be seen already in the growth of smart devices: televisions, automobiles, appliances, electric meters, etc.

Ask prospective buyers of CRM software what they're most interested in, and you'll probably get a mix of variations on the following three themes: "I am not sure about the deployment model yet, although I have heard good things about the cloud";...

Here's a look at the top five free Windows 8 apps for the home Among the offerings covered in this week's All Things Appy are apps for Windows 8-based home-tech hacking on the cheap -- or not so cheap -- plus cooking, home repair, gawking and some spiritual guidance....

The furor around popular technology startups shows no sign of letting up. The latest big-money rumor centers on Snapchat, the company behind the eponymous 2-year-old smartphone messaging app that has yet to earn a cent. Its would-be suitor, Facebook, reportedly made an all-cash US$3 billion offer in recent weeks. However, Snapchat turned it down T...

IBM on Thursday announced it will open up its Watson cognitive platform, allowing software developers to access it in the cloud starting next year The technology is based on its Watson supercomputer....

Video streaming service Roku has added an integrated news service powered by AOL to its home screen, the company announced Thursday, giving users quick access to news content including videos from AOL partners such as The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, BBC News, CNET, GlobalPost and Entertainment Tonight ...

Twitter announced changes to its timeline feature on Tuesday, unveiling a feature that allows users to create custom data streams within TweetDeck The custom timelines are designed to help users curate a stream of tweets centered around specific hashtags, events, people or any other piece of information a Twitter user deems noteworthy. The timeline...

Italian authorities are investigating Apple for allegedly hiding 1 billion euros -- about US$1.34 billion -- from the taxman Prosecutors in Milan claim that Apple didn't declare more than $250 million in 2010 and more than $1 billion in 2011. Apple's Italian subsidiary booked some profits with an Irish subsidiary, thereby lowering its taxable incom...

Motorola on Wednesday announced the Moto G, an unlocked, no-contract smartphone with an unlockable bootloader running Android 4.3, Jelly Bean, to be widely available next year An 8-GB version will be offered for US$179 and a 16-GB version for $199....

Don't you wish someone had the courage to tell the Emperor he's naked? What am I talking about? Curved smartphone screens. Think about it -- over the last few months, there's been a lot of chatter about Apple, Samsung, LG and others getting ready to launch smartphones with curved screens. Sounds cool, but what the heck is the point? Before writing...

There's one thing in the post-industrial world that's never affected by economic slowdowns, changes in customer preferences, or technological advances. In fact, production of this commodity seems to pick up when there are disruptions, and each year an increasing quantity is produced, regardless of market forces I'm talking about jargon. It used to ...