Articles by

The relationship between Facebook and Zynga got even more complicated this week as the pair agreed to new partnership terms that free both from constraints under the prior deal. Zynga's stock took a hit because the new deal allows Facebook to develop its own games. The success of each company has long been tied to the other, especially for Zynga, ...

Goldman Sachs has given Research In Motion a thumbs up -- relatively speaking -- telling investors on Thursday that there was a "30 percent chance" the company's long-awaited BlackBerry 10 smartphones would be a success. The investment bank upgraded the stock from "neutral" to "buy." It also lifted the 12-month price target from US$9 to $16. RIM's stock jumped 6 percent in response...

Internet and mobile phone service has been cut off throughout war-ravaged Syria According to the BBC, the Syrian government blamed terrorists for the outage. Activists, on the other hand, have warned that Internet and phone blackouts commonly precede military operations in isolated areas....

The Federal Communications Commission passed a little-publicized order last month that changes how cable television providers can deliver basic broadcast channels. This rule change has far-reaching implications for those who legally grab their basic broadcast channels for free from cable, but don't buy a cable subscription. It also affects television streaming device set-top box makers, like Boxee and Roku...

Benbria has launched Blazeloop, a customer engagement platform that revolves around one pointed question aimed at the consumer: How did we do? The theory behind the Web-based app is that most customers do not take the trouble to complain about little things -- but it is those very little things that can drive them away.

Wave Control Pro, an app from MarksThinkTank, is available for US$2.99 at Google Play....

Microsoft on Thursday laid out the specifications and pricing of its Surface tablet with Windows 8 Pro, which goes on sale in January It will offer the 64 GB standalone version at US$899 and the 128 GB standalone version at $999, both including a Surface pen with Palm Block technology. Palm Block prevents pen-based input from being interrupted when...

Nokia has filed lawsuits against Research In Motion in the U.S., the UK and Canada seeking to enforce an arbitration ruling it won in Sweden The dispute began when Nokia accused RIM of breaching a cross-licensing agreement that allowed RIM to use Nokia's standard-essential cellular patents. RIM had taken the position that the agreement included No...

The Basis wearable fitness monitor -- announced back in January at the 2012 International CES -- has finally shipped, the company said Thursday. Already sold out for the holidays, according to the website, the Basis can be reserved for US$199. ...

Windows 8 has failed to give PC sales the boost it was supposed to, the NPD Group has found Since the OS' Oct. 26 launch, overall Windows device sales have fallen 21 percent compared with the same period last year, NPD said. Notebook sales fell 24 percent, and desktop PC sales slipped by 9 percent....

Google acquired retail coupon company Incentive Targeting, giving it a way to target consumers with deals based on their preferences and broaden its e-commerce presence Incentive Targeting works with manufacturers of grocery and consumer products to design personalized, timely coupons and special offers. Its technology allows retailers and manufact...

A Like on Facebook goes a long way. Seventy percent of consumers who engage in social media make purchases from brands they are connected to, according to a new study released by SocialVibe Connections form when a consumer clicks Like on Facebook, Follows a brand on Twitter or interacts with a brand's presence on other social networks including You...

Germany's parliament on Thursday began discussing legislation that would allow the nation's news publishers to charge search engines for displaying links to, and snippets of, news articles. Before debate began, Google launched a very public campaign on its German site asking the public to oppose the legislation According to the Financial Times, the...

Amazon Web Services on Wednesday launched RedShift, an on-demand data warehouse service that is optimized for the analysis of huge sets of data RedShift is "profoundly disruptive," said Merv Adrian, research vice president of information management at Gartner. Its success will move the economic boundary between on-premises and cloud usage and "data...

From time to time, we receive stark reminders of just how delicate our IT systems really are. Disaster preparation has risen to the top of the to-do list at many companies, thanks to the wrath of Hurricane Sandy several weeks ago. How can we maximize our chances of keeping communications open and data safe? I will present two relatively new ideas y...

As a callow youth, I enlisted in the Navy and found myself at sea aboard the USS Gray as a bosun's mate. That meant standing a lot of watch on the bridge, and being on the bridge meant knowing how to report positions of other things based on a 360-degree arc. The idea was to have a 360-degree view of what was out there -- primarily so we didn't ru...

A simple AM radio can keep you abreast of events during a disaster. However, a smartphone is ideal for two-way communications, as well as for news and government messages via text message and social networks like Twitter I've been using a signal booster kit while backpacking around network-sparse, sunny Southern California. You could also hack toge...

A team of researchers, including engineers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, this week reported their successful demonstration of a new concept that could provide reliable nuclear power for space exploration. The technology is still years away from the warp drive of Star Trek, but it could provide a means of propulsion for space travel beyond the moon...

Google is integrating its Google Drive cloud storage service with Gmail, letting users send files 400 times larger than previously allowed Gmail now will send links to files up to 10 GB stored on Google Drive from inside the Gmail interface....

There's apparently little inclination to wait for the legal system to establish who wronged whom with respect to the allegations that Autonomy committed accounting sleight of hand prior to being acquired by HP. Both HP and the erstwhile head of Autonomy are making their claims and counterclaims public Mike Lynch, founder of Autonomy, came out swin...