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One of the classic items on the agenda for all presidential candidates, including incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, is to cut federal government waste. In fact, the Obama administration has been campaigning for nearly the past two years to reduce waste and improve the efficiency of federal information technology with a 25-point action plan...

It's been a little while since I wrote about the impact of energy costs on business, but just because I have been silent doesn't mean the issue is quiescent -- just the opposite. Demand is stronger than ever and supply is trying to catch up, but it will fail The result will be higher energy and transportation costs in the year ahead, and those high...

Freeplane is an application for creating mind maps. A mind map is the doodling you draw with shapes and other symbols around words connected with lines to make charts representing your thoughts and ideas on a particular topic or project.It's not often that productivity software makes the task at hand more difficult than old-fashioned methods, but ...

Mojiva has rolled out Mojiva Tab, a new mobile ad network for tablets only, as advertisers flock to this hot piece of digital real estate. In 2011, there were an estimated 3 million tablets on Mojiva's mobile ad network. By January 2012, that number had increased to 25 million. As of June 2012, the network was boasting access to 40 million tablet ...

Boxee on Tuesday announced a new device, Boxee TV, which combines live TV, Web apps and a digital video recorder (DVR) with cloud storage The box hardware is based on a new chipset from Broadcom and runs software written from scratch for the device....

NASA and IHMC (Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition) have jointly developed a new robotic exoskeleton, dubbed the "XI," that could help astronauts in space stay in better physical shape, while also helping humans on Earth walk. The 57-pound wearable device is in essence a robot that fits over a human body to either assist or inhibit m...

Amazon is reportedly in talks to buy the mobile chip division of Texas Instruments in a move that could push the online retailer further into the hardware business The reports fit in with Texas Instruments' announcement last month that it would shift the focus of its chip business away from mobile products and toward larger, more stable and lucrati...

In the latest film installment of Ayn Rand's influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, the government has taken the drastic step of seizing all patents, as well as copyrights, for the public good, under the so-called Fair Share Act. Although the U.S. government has not officially taken such a drastic step, some economists and advisors have recently advocated the abrogation of patent rights for industries involved with software. Indeed, some argue that software patents are deleterious to the public good...

It is not hard at all to find an example of a mobile B2C CRM app -- all one has to do is fire up the nearest smartphone But B2B mobile CRM? That is a qualified yes -- assuming one is willing to limit one's thinking to salesforce automation as a B2B discipline. To be sure, there is a case to be made for that argument -- consider mobile CRM apps in ...

Google on Monday made its new Android developer console available to devs everywhere on Google Play The console was announced at Google I/O in July, and devs were invited to test out a beta version....

Microsoft is taking another stab at the digital music industry with the Tuesday launch of Xbox Music, a streaming music service that will be an update to the Xbox. It will also be released as a built-in feature on Windows 8 PCs and tablets later this month ...

EPEAT, a vendor-supported organization that bills itself as the definitive global registry for greener electronics, has certified ultrathin notebooks from four vendors as meeting its green rating requirements The vendors are Apple, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba....

Softbank has agreed to pay US$20.1 billion to acquire a 70 percent stake in Sprint Nextel, the companies announced Monday. The deal will be the largest outbound acquisition by a Japan-based company since at least 2000, assuming it goes through The move is seen as a way for Softbank to grow overseas as its local market declines, and it could help Sp...

Best Buy reportedly is attempting to keep sales from walking out the door by offering to match its online competitors in price and shipping deals during the upcoming holiday season. The electronics retailer will give employees discretion to match the price a customer finds on Amazon or other major online sites in an effort to close more sales insi...

The Federal Trade Commission is poised to launch an antitrust case against Google, according to anonymous sources cited in a Reuters report. The alleged charge is straightforward: Google has been using its search engine dominance to hurt competing firms. The rest of the details are expected to unfold in the coming weeks. The commissioners are deba...

It's official. Sprint Nextel and Softbank are getting together. If the deal is approved, Softbank will own 70 percent of Sprint Nextel. That means this is not really an acquisition. Rather it is an investment. However, as a majority owner you can expect Softbank to steer the Sprint ship. That could be great news for the No. 3 U.S. wireless player. We can expect some changes going forward...

Apple has negotiated an agreement with Swiss railway operator SBB that will allow Apple to use the company's patented clock face design As CNN explains, SBB "politely complained" to Apple last month after noticing that a clock design on iOS 6 was lifted from SBB's design. SBB released a statement Friday saying that the two sides had struck a deal, ...

With two new acquisitions, ExactTarget is pushing beyond its original email marketing mission to become a one-stop online marketing and social media shop. The company has acquired Pardot for US$95.5 million and iGoDigital for $21 million -- it announced both deals last week ExactTarget paid out $85.5 million in cash and $10 million in common stock...

Given that the Theme for Windows 95 Was "Start Me Up" (check out this classic ad), Windows 8 likely should pull from the old Beatles hit "Getting Better." As we approach launch, it truly appears to be getting better all the time. It is clear Microsoft has been holding some things back for the launch You see, I've been working on a Windows 8 tablet ...

While U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did some silicon saber-rattling last week by raising the prospect of a preemptive strike against cyberattacks, he also delivered a wake-up call to Wall Street and Congress about cybersecurity Panetta's message to the business leaders gathered at a meeting in New York of the Business Executives for Nation...