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Dish Network is abandoning plans to develop Blockbuster into a streaming video service that would directly compete with Netflix, company founder and chairman Charlie Ergen said in an interview with Bloomberg Dish acquired the video rental chain for US$320 million in April of 2011, months after Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Later that year, Dish...

A congressional panel has warned that Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei and ZTE pose a security threat to the United States According to the BBC, the panel recommends that both firms should be prohibited from any mergers or acquisitions....

Is your small business guilty as sin? Many small businesses are committing sales transgressions that hinder success and threaten to condemn them to eternal mediocrity in the market. The root of all these sins lies in a failure to adhere to the "commandment of commitment." To stay on the right path, every business should commit to a sales process t...

The technology market is a graveyard of companies that had potential and lost their way either to fail or be gobbled up and lose their identity. Netscape, Novell, DEC/Digital, Palm, Transmeta, ATI, ROLM, Northern Telecom, and FLIP are all names of companies that have left us as independents or completely over time. Most of these firms were high fliers once, but all of them hit hard times, resulting in the disappearance of their brand and identity.

Cybercrime costs continued to climb in 2012 according to a report released Monday by the Ponemon Institute The study of 56 large organizations showed that the average annualized cost of cybercrime for the businesses was US$8.9 million a year compared to $8.4 million a year ago. Losses for the firms ranged from one $1.4 million to $46 million....

The words "software audit" can strike fear into even the most unflappable business executive'sheart. Just as the sight of a police cruiser on the freeway compels all but the most foolhardy toslow down immediately, for most organizations the mere possibility of a vendor audit prompts aflurry of anxious activity and more than a few sleepless nights S...

The first resupply mission to the International Space Station conducted by a private firm is set to launch Sunday evening. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon capsule made by SpaceX are scheduled to take off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida at 8:35 p.m. Eastern time Ahead of the launch, NASA set up a Google+ Hangout session...

The European Union on Thursday launched a massive multinational security exercise to simulate a distributed denial of service attack on online services in all participating countries A total of 25 EU countries are actively participating in the exercise and another four are observing it....

This week CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook has reached 1 billion active monthly users The number is a nice round one for the firm to publicize -- especially in light of the past few rocky months. However, like anything Facebook these days, the announcement was accompanied by a healthy dose of skepticism on Wall Street. Facebook's stock barel...

The hacker group Anonymous posted a YouTube video vowing that Friday, Oct. 5, will be "the biggest thing we have ever done." The video does not get into specifics, but The Local, an English-language outlet in Sweden, reported that the threat comes amid several DDoS attacks against various Swedish agencies, including the National Board of Health and...

It isn't too hard to see what Facebook users Like, but on Thursday reports surfaced online about something few if any users would find likeable. It appears that sending links via private messages through the social network results in extra Likes for the link targets -- never mind that the link you're sharing may concern something you abhor. Call it a case of Like fraud.

There are countless of CRM apps for small businesses, Bizness Apps CEO Andrew Gazdecki readily admits. ...

PYKL3 Radar, an app from PYK Consulting, is available for US$9.99 at Google Play....

Google and the American Association of Publishers, whose members are 300 of America's largest publishers, have settled their 7-year-old legal dispute over digitizing books for Google Books The settlement will give Google access to publishers' journals and books that are in copyright, for its Google Library project....

HP shareholders counting on Meg Whitman to lead the company into a quick turnaround received very disappointing news from the CEO: Don't hold your breath. Whitman made her comments at HP's annual analyst meeting. The company is on track for a turnaround, she reportedly said -- but it won't materialize until the end of fiscal year 2014. The bottom...

Facebook has a new offer for users with US$7 in their pocket -- they can use that cash to pay to promote their own posts on the social network The social network already uses a complex algorithm to determine which posts appear on any given News Feed. With Facebook's new feature, though, users can pay $7 to ensure the posts they consider most newswo...

Google-owned Motorola Mobility is acquiring Viewdle, a Ukrainian firm that makes facial recognition technology According to Cnet, Motorola had been in talks with Viewdle before it was acquired by Google. The acquisition of Viewdle, a pioneer in technology that recognizes and tags people in photos, figures to be a boon for Google+, Android and other...

The FCC has weighed in on the looming wireless spectrum shortage. The good news is it looks like it is going to step in with a plan for auctioning off unused television spectrum to various wireless carriers in the United States. The bad news is that even though it's only a bandage, it will take years to accomplish. My Pick of the Week is Apple CEO...

One of the tricky parts of developing a social CRM (SCRM) strategy is that it requires left brain and right brain thinking. The left brain, where more logical and procedural thinking takes place, is comparable to how "traditional" CRM operates, organizing and distributing data based on predetermined processes. The right brain, the center of creative thinking, is comparable to SCRM, discovering new relationships and communication models and engaging and conversing with customers...

As many of us are gearing up for Windows 8's imminent release, it may well be worthconsidering some alternatives. I don't know about you, but after XP to Windows 7, viaVista, the idea of another OS from Microsoft, while not yet causing night sweats, isengendering some trepidation For one, there are its networking quirks -- XP didn't talk to 7 at t...