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The European Commission has decided to accept an e-book pricing settlement, according to Reuters The settlement includes Apple and four publishers -- Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette and Macmillan's parent company, Holtzbrinck. The ruling, which has not yet been confirmed by the EC, is a win for Amazon and its quest to sell e-books more ch...

The ever-changing and ever-expanding quest to keep information technology systems secure requires collaboration and coordination among government and business enterprises. To foster such joint efforts, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has put out the word to U.S. businesses to propose ideas and literally work side by side with federal counterparts to develop effective cybersecurity programs...

Microsoft is flying high, certainly internally, after four important announcements in the last couple of weeks: Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, its all-important new Surface tablet, and the MarketingPilot acquisition. It has also made some important announcements around Dynamics CRM. I was at one of its campuses last week for a couple of days' worth of briefings and conversations, so there is a lot to unpack and in the interest of not perseverating there may be some things that get scant attention here, not due to lack of interest, but for respect to your eyeballs. ...

The recent release of Ubuntu 12.10, aka Quantal Quetzal, is a more palatable version of the open source OS built around the Unity desktop environment.Perhaps I am growing more accustomed to Unity, or maybe Canonical's developers are succeeding in refining the graphical user interface, so it seems less objectionable for me to use....

Microsoft is working on a 7-inch Xbox Surface gaming tablet, The Verge reports The 7-inch tablet has become a battleground of sorts lately, with Apple's iPad mini being the latest entrant....

A U.S. District Court judge has dismissed an Apple lawsuit alleging that Motorola Mobility abused its standard-essential patents by charging rates that exceeded fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. Apple filed the case in March 2011, before Motorola was acquired by Google. It was scheduled for a hearing in Madison, Wisc., this wee...

Google Maps' mobile app is losing market share to local competition in China, according to Tech In Asia Statistics from the third quarter show that Google Maps has lost almost half its market share since the second quarter -- from 17.5 percent to 9.5 percent -- and fell to No. 6 from No. 2 among mobile map apps....

The success of ARM-based processors in mobile phones and tablets has had a tectoniceffect across numerous IT markets, but one of their most intriguing opportunities isin data centers. It seems contradictory that a CPU architecture designed for powerefficiency and lightweight applications would be considered for compute-intensiveenvironments. Howev...

This story was originally published on May 30, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series I was so looking forward to getting the Facebook IPO out of the way, and then splat, like a ripe tomato in the kisser, we have to learn that the underwriters might not have shared some pre-IPO information transparently. Enough al...

Anonymous has been celebrating Guy Fawkes Day by engaging in various acts of mayhem online and turning out in person at sites across the globe to protest. Some of the reported hacks have turned out to be unsubstantiated The attack claims include Symantec and ImageShack. PayPal also was reported to have been hacked, but a spokesperson says that's no...

Hostile takeovers can be a bitter pill to swallow, but Netflix on Monday announced that it has adopted a "stockholder rights plan" -- also known as a "poison pill" -- to prevent activist shareholders from taking control It could be a bitter pill for Carl Icahn, who last week bought a nearly 10 percent stake in the struggling company. Netflix's res...

Facebook has rolled out a new round of security features intended to better educate new users about what information they can keep private and how. Now, when a new user signs up for the site, they will have the option to go on an online privacy tour to get information on the site's privacy policies. It will include descriptions of how third-party ...

Just in time for its one-year anniversary of being a public company, Groupon's response to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into its accounting practices was made public. It was an inauspicious reminder that to regulators and investors, Groupon -- once the tech industry's golden child -- remains a question mark. The stock market responded to the disclosure on Friday by sinking Groupon's share price some 5 percent to a new low of US$3.83...

In a YouTube video, the hacker group Anonymous announced plans for worldwide protests against government surveillance for Monday, Guy Fawkes Day Canada, however, has a plan of its own....

This story was originally published on Aug. 3, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series If you mention a certain brand of lower-priced, assemble-it-yourself furniture ofScandinavian heritage, you stand a pretty good chance of getting a response thatdwells at some length on how hard it is to put it together. I've neve...

The last decade seemed to be about the decline of Microsoft, the dominance of Apple, and the emergence of Google. As we go into this decade, Microsoft seems to be trending up, Apple looks increasingly at risk, and Google looks more and more like the Microsoft of a decade ago. It is almost as if the companies have shuffled and changed chairs. I'...

An analysis of more than 400,000 apps in the Google Play store has revealed that more than 100,000 of them pose a potential security risk to their users The analysis of the Android apps released last week by cyber security vendor Bit9 examined the security permissions requested by the programs. It found that 72 percent of the 412,000 programs exami...

Like great athletes in football or basketball, the most prepared merchants win online commerce in the fourth quarter, when rabid fans propel businesses to profitability. You've likely completed your sourcing and planned many of your general holiday sales and promotions already Now, it's time to go through your pre-game checklist again to make sure ...

This story was originally published on Sept. 12, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series Microsoft apparently is looking to make so-called virtual reality anactual reality with what it calls an "immersive display experience," based on a patent application published last week....

Microsoft could be developing its own Windows Phone hardware, according to media reports that surfaced on Friday. The software giant is reportedly working with Asian suppliers to create a new handset While Microsoft has several partners that are bringing out Windows Phone 8 devices, including Nokia and HTC, this would be the company's first foray i...