Articles by

The Great Little Radio Playeris a perfect example of how great things can come in small packages....

Cars -- we love them. We're hooked on their looks, their shine, the freedom they represent. The insurance, the payments, and the smog checks, maybe less so -- but in any case, cars are a good example of a genre of app that fits well with the smartphone. This week, All Things Appy takes a look at key, free must-have apps in this area, including one...

Nintendo took a low-key stance at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year, opting for a more intimate presentation than the competition. Still struggling with less-than-expected demand for the Wii U system it launched last fall, Nintendo stressed that this year would be about the games. Just as a rock band might go back to playing in a small c...

Comcast is rolling out a neighborhood WiFi initiative designed to allow its Xfinity Internet subscribers to log in to nearby wireless hotspots outside of their home. Subscribers to the service will essentially be the hosts for two separate WiFi networks. One will be their private and secure home connection. The other signal, which Comcast would pr...

Sony took its best shot at stealing Microsoft's thunder on Monday evening at E3 by announcing that its upcoming PlayStation 4 will arrive this holiday season for US$399 ...

The European Commission is concerned that U.S. data collection practices such as PRISM may pose a threat to Europeans' privacy rights Commission Vice President Viviane Reding, who is in charge of justice, plans to raise the issue at an EU-U.S. meeting later this week in Dublin. That announcement comes after last week's revelation that the National ...

Softbank and Sprint issued a statement late Monday announcing changes to the merger agreement awaiting shareholders' approval. The new deal increases the amount of cash that would go to stockholders by reallocating funds that had been earmarked for direct investment in Sprint. SoftBank will acquire shares from current Sprint shareholders for US$7....

Sprint this week released the US$99 ZTE Vital, a high mid-range Android smartphone that could rock the market The device, which has been pegged as a competitor to Samsung's highly regarded Galaxy S4, has a host of power-packed features and has already divided analysts....

Against the backdrop of the E3 video game conference and show in Los Angeles this week, Microsoft unveiled 13 new gamesfor its upcoming Xbox One video game console While the company had offered a peak at the hardware behind the system a few weeks ago at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, its press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo pre...

iRobot, perhaps best known for its Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaner, has announced the Ava 500, a robot that lets users conduct video conferences while on the move. The device was developed and will be marketed in close alliance with Cisco. It consists of a Cisco TelePresence EX60 personal telepresence system -- essentially a two-way videoconferen...

Samsung stockholders went scurrying for the exit on Friday when a research note from J.P. Morgan predicted that third-quarter shipments of the Galaxy S4 would be disappointing. The company lost about US$12 billion in market value that day and edged further down on Monday J.P. Morgan was not the only company to come out against Samsung. Other invest...

Google appears to have supplanted Facebook -- which had supplanted Apple -- as the likely candidate to acquire Israeli start-up Waze Google is prepared to pony up US$1.3 billion for the company, according to the Israeli business newspaper Globes. Last month, reports surfaced that Facebook was working on a $1 billion deal for Waze. And that was only...

Among the issues on the agenda for the talks over the weekend between China's President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Obama were cybersecurity and hacker attacks on U.S. targets by hackers based in China Even if China had the will to act against hackers within its territory, doing so wouldn't be easy, noted FireEye CTO Ashar Aziz....

Much has been said recently of the opportunities that lie in emerging retail markets, especially in countries or regions that have been less affected by recession or economic slowdown. For many Western companies, however, a lack of confidence and basic local knowledge is stifling opportunity for international expansion There are two key markets tha...

When Mobile CRM Goes Too Far, Part 1When Mobile CRM Goes Too Far, Part 2 Mobile everything is the current computing zeitgeist and if that means turning an app or function that is perfectly suited for desktop use into a mobilized one, well, as the thinking goes at so many companies now, just do it....

For much of the last decade, Microsoft has set an example more of doing things wrong than right, but at TechEd last week, Microsoft suddenly was showcasing a number of really smart decisions and best practices. It almost felt like an event from a different company -- or the company I remember from the 1990s, before it got arrogant; when it was yo...

Facebook will simplify its advertising structure in an effort to make it easier for marketers to determine which products will help them best reach consumers, the company announced this week Advertisers currently face a choice of 27 different formats on the social network, but the streamlining effort will cut that back to fewer than half that numbe...

If a message isn't read, does it exist? Bishop Berkeley would say no, and a temporal cloak that creates a gap in time during the transmission of a message might prove him right Researchers at Purdue University have created such a cloak: It can hide about 46 percent of the time required to transmit data over a fiber optic cable, making half the tr...

Technology firms in the United States might be impacted adversely by the National Security Agency's controversial PRISM program Classified documents about the program leaked to The Washington Post and The Guardian indicate that major U.S. high-tech companies -- including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo and Skype (now owned by Microsoft) -- provide ...

Homing in on consumers' frustration with the escalating costs of wireless services, FreedomPop this week announced a mobile plan that offers voice, text and data -- for free. The FreedomPop service, which will be available starting this summer, utilizes mobile VoIP on Sprint's cellular network. The company will offer a number of Android phones ...