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The Russian government plans to produce a patriotic video game to offset the legions of games in which Russian soldiers are the villains Russia is also mulling a ban on foreign video games that it claims "distort historical facts." Russia's culture ministry cited Company of Heroes as a game that is particularly problematic: The plot depicts a Worl...

In retail, the holidays are the best of times and the worst of times. The trick to troubleshooting shipping issues is to manage for the best scenario but expect the worst, especially during peak intervals. Prime shopping season demands that deadlines and customer expectations are managed accordingly. Customers expect great service for a value that...

Constant Contact has rolled out enhancements to its platform, beefing up functionality in its reporting tools, customer tracking and reporting, and mobility options, as well as in a library tool designed to make storing and using content easier for users. ...

Here in Silicon Valley we are currently worried about a major transportation strike, and I doubt many on either side yet realize that this is likely to accelerate the move to automate most of the related jobs. There is little doubt the problem we are currently seeing here will be virtually gone in a decade, but I doubt the workers will be very happy with the solution.

The Android gaming market is becoming increasingly crowded, but on Thursday Sunflex announced a fresh contender: the Unu, a combination console, tablet and home entertainment device that will arrive at retail next month ...

Google has announced changes to its Terms of Service that will take effect Nov. 13 In short, users' profile names and photos will be served up together with content such as reviews they share, ads they +1 (the Google+ counterpart to a Facebook Like), comments they post, or who and what they follow....

BlackBerry cofounders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin are considering buying the beleaguered company themselves, according to a filing made this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission It is one of the many pending possibilities for the company, which has decided to go private in order to salvage its brand and operations....

Facebook announced Thursday that it will finish killing off the privacy setting that previously let users opt out of searches Members of the social network used to have a privacy setting called "Who can look up your Timeline by name?" that allowed their profile to be hidden from searches within the site, even if another user typed in their name exa...

Police in Russia have arrested a man suspected of masterminding a pair of famous hacking tools -- the Blackhole and Cool exploit kits, favorites among cybercriminals looking to install malware Russian authorities have been mum on the situation, but security firms have reported a decline in the programs' use. Also, Alexander Gostev, the chief securi...

Aereo, the upstart TV streaming company that's giving the broadcasting industry dyspepsia, has won yet another court case against broadcasters Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the U.S. District Court for the district of Massachusetts ruled this week denying the motion of Hearst Stations, doing business as WCVB-TV, for a preliminary injunction against A...

Manuals from Lenovo that were leaked onto the Internet indicate that the company is working on a laptop running Android Not only were two manuals for the IdeaPad A10 discovered this week on the Web -- one dated July and the other dated August -- but Lenovo has reportedly since confirmed the upcoming product....

Much the way PayPal is working to extend its reach into the bricks-and-mortar world, so Amazon.com is looking farther afield across the rest of the Web. The online purveyor this week launched Login and Pay with Amazon, a new program that allows online businesses to set up login and payment credentials through Amazon to ease the registration and payment process...

Although the cloud marketplace is growing rapidly, the current rate of growth will continue only if a broader set of strong channel companies emerge to extend the reach of today's cloud leaders into new industries and geographies I've been suggesting for years that building more channels to market for cloud vendors is essential to the growth of the...

There is a significant performance gap between companies that fully apply best customer service practices and those that are inconsistent in their approach, according to a new report from the Miller Heiman Research Institute There was a gap of 13 percent between the two groups of companies in performance metrics such as account acquisition, custo...

WeatherPro by MeteoGroup is available for US$2.99 in the Google Play store. I recently took a look at MeteoEarth, a rather spectacular Google Earth-like animated weather app. This visual, 3D globe-spinning weather app for Android provides zoom-in weather visualizations of the kind seen on television -- and indeed, the publisher is a provider of we...

The touchscreens prevalent on vast numbers of laptops awaiting your hard-earned dollars in consumer electronics stores accommodate highly suitable new tools for creating art. The tactile nature of the screen, as opposed to the awkward mouse, makes sweeping strokes and other gestures a lot easier....

Google Maps has become the default source of directions for many users, but one feature it has notoriously lacked is the ability to provide directions to multiple destinations. On Wednesday, however, the company announced that it is now rolling out the feature at last "Based on your input, we're pleased to announce one of your most requested featur...

Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn, one of the world's most vilified workers-rights violators, confirmed reports that it is manufacturing Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 on the backs of university interns Chinese media broke the story, asserting that thousands of students from an engineering program at the Xi'an Institute of Technology -- the program is ...

Disney Research has developed an algorithm that will render 3D textures and tactile features on a touchscreen, it announced earlier this week, enabling users to "feel" the on-screen images they touch and see The technology works on still images as well as streaming videos, and it achieves its effect by altering the friction the user's fingers encou...

Comcast is teaming up with Twitter to launch a new feature that will allow Twitter users to tune into live TV shows via the social network, making the site a go-to spot for television conversations and viewing. Dubbed "See It," the feature unveiled Wednesday allows Twitter users to control their set-top viewing with the click of a button marked "S...