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How can classic retail, the brick-and-mortar physical stores dotting ourneighborhoods, compete with the likes of Amazon and Zappos? Can real-world retail survive e-commerce? And if it can, what's the trick? How do retailers intend to meet this growing threat? From the outside, shopping malls do not exist, author Douglas Coupland wrote in his vision...

In the beginning, there was Apple's iPad. For a long time, "tablet" meant the iPad and nothing but the iPad. Then competitors began to make an appearance in the tablet market. For CRM vendors, that state of affairs made developing mobile products and strategies much easier Now, there are several tablets of varying sizes competing in the market -- ...

For the installed user base of the former Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris OS, questions about its continued support and development remain largely unanswered. When Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, it raised fees for its technical help and halted further development on OpenSolaris, replacing it with its own Oracle Solaris 11 Enter the Illumos Foundatio...

Last month Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who is facing charges in the United States for engaging in digital piracy, announced that he would relocate a new version of his site, Me.ga, outside the United States The belief was that this would free him from coming under fire by U.S. law enforcement, but Gabon -- which controls the ".ga" domain -- has...

Some of Walmart's employees are taking aim at a major soft spot for any retailer: Black Friday, the most important shopping day of the year. A union-backed coalition called "Making Change at Wal-Mart" is organizing strikes this week, culminating on Friday, to protest the company's working conditions. Walmart has already been the focus of negative ...

Facebook is finalizing a new tool for marketers that can help them determine how effective their promotions are and ultimately give them an incentive to stick around on the site as advertisers, Reuters reported. The tool lets online retailers follow purchases made by Facebook users who have viewed their ads, although it does not divulge personal i...

More than 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israel's government websites since last week, when it unleashed 20 air strikes and killed Hamas' top military commander, the Israeli government announced Sunday According to Reuters, Israel's finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, said that only one hack was successful, although the affected site w...

Lytro, the new darling of the digital photography world, has added a perspective shift feature, plus nine filters to create effects in Living Pictures. The software update will be available on Dec. 4, and will work even for photos previously taken Because the Lytro camera captures a wealth of information -- including light fields -- that is proces...

Microsoft had to temporarily disable Skype's password reset feature last week after a Russian hacker revealed a simple way to lock users out of their accounts All an attacker needed to know was an email address associated with an account in order to hijack it. That address could be used to create a new account, which could then be used to reset the...

Customers are increasingly turning to company Facebook pages and Twitter accounts when they have questions or problems, rather than emailing or phoning their inquiries. A recent report from independent analysis firm thinkJar shows that 86 percent of organizations are using Facebook or Twitter for customer service. To deal with the problems properly, and sufficiently resolve customer issues, it's imperative to have real customer service agents in place -- trained in how to respond publicly via social channels...

We've had a couple of weeks to think about the election outcome, and both sides are positioning the results around the issues. This has become so divisive that there is a significant move by Texas to exit the United States and become a country. I've spent some time looking at this, and the real reason the Republicans lost is that the Democrats use...

United Airlines experienced a major computer problem this week, and the news no doubt sent shudders down the spines of would-be Thanksgiving holiday travelers everywhere. The glitch -- reportedly in its dispatch system -- led to the delay of a number of flights. United found and corrected the error, and by mid-afternoon, system-wide on-time perfor...

Nintendo's next-generation video game console system, the Wii U, will arrive at stores on Sunday and is expected to sell out quickly. This could leave many holiday shoppers unable to find one as Nintendo will be unable to meet the demand ...

Dell reported a decline in earnings of 47 percent during its most recent quarter, causing it to miss already low expectations as the overall PC market continues to decline The PC maker reported US$475 million, or 27 cents per share, in net income, compared with the $893 million, or 49 cents per share, during the same time past year. Analysts expect...

Amazon began shipping its 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD on Thursday, ahead of its original planned schedule. The specs and price point of the device are interesting enough that it will certainly make some inroads in the tablet market: Among other features, it sports a front-facing HD camera, 16-GB or 32-GB storage options, and 10 hours of battery life Th...

Holiday shopping this year will take place on multiple channels, with many shoppers doing research and buying online or on mobile devices. That's according to Deloitte's 2012 Annual Holiday Survey, which found that shoppers who use multiple channels plan to spend more money than retail shoppers....

One of the overriding issues in the federal elections was the need to get the government's financial house in order. In the post-election period, Republicans and Democrats have offered conciliatory comments as a deadline for resolving the issue of the fiscal cliff draws near, but positions on the issue remain very much in conflict One area of agree...

Genesys is making a play for the middle market with the release of Genesys One. The last time the company targeted the middle market was more than 10 years ago, when it was owned by Alcatel. Since then, the middle market has changed significantly.

iMap Weather Radio, an app from Weather Decision Technologies, is available for US$9.99 at Google Play....

Of all the space objects humans have come across so far, asteroids are surely among the more anxiety-producing examples, thanks to their recurring habit of barreling past our planet at terrifying speeds and uncomfortably close proximity ...