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To listen to Microsoft's Steve Ballmer talk, you'd think he was the prime minister of a besieged nation, rather than the captain of one of the largest software companies in the world In an interview Tuesday with CRN, a website for VARs and technology integrators, the flamboyant head of Microsoft pledged to compete with arch rival Apple on every fro...

Google is about to be smacked with the highest fine ever levied by the Federal Trade Commission -- US$22.5 million -- according to reports. The search engine is expected to agree to the stiff penalty to put to rest the agency's concerns over its apparent privacy violations in connection with Apple's Safari Web browser The settlement will close anot...

A recent report in The Wall Street Journal sheds light on a new "Big Brother." Some of the largest automobile insurance companies are now using driving data obtained from GPS and other devices to create preferred pricing for those who submit real-time driving data that demonstrate their good driving habits and low risk. So, if drivers travel at t...

I have always been interested in the similarities between biology and economics and ultimately business. In the last few years we've adopted some of the parlance of biology when we talk about business, especially social business. Perhaps the best example is the analogy we freely make between a vendor and its partners and supply chain, i.e. "the ecosystem." But itdoesn't stop there; it extends to the customer as well...

GanttProject is an impressive project management tool that can be a useful alternative to similar applications locked onto other OS platforms. For enterprise and small-business users, GanttProject's cross-platform access and easy data portability make it a winning choice for Linux users....

The search for the elusive Higgs boson continues as scientists analyze the data from two recent experiments conducted at CERN, the European organization for nuclear research On Tuesday, scientists raised the possibility that the data might indicate that the particle they observed was a Higgs impostor....

In response to increasingly aggressive ads in free mobile apps, mobile security firm Lookout on Monday released guidelines to protect consumer privacy and security and promote responsibility among advertisers The guidelines offer mobile ad providers information about how to target advertising, while at the same time adhering to principles of priva...

For the last decade, the battle for supremacy in the video game arena has been waged by three players -- Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. These are companies with long track records, numerous successes, some setbacks and failures -- but most importantly, deep pockets and experience in the marketplace However, an upstart called "Ouya" is looking to ch...

Following a 30-day period in which the company lost US$2 billion in value, Research In Motion executives faced shareholders Tuesday at the company's annual meeting On the positive side, CEO Thorsten Heins reportedly told shareholders the company remains strong in some market segments. However, he admitted it's weak in the North American market and ...

Andreessen Horowitz is investing US$100 million in GitHub, the San Francisco startup that provides online resources for software programmers. It's the largest investment the venture capital firm has ever made. Github's acceptance of the cash is notable. Unlike many startups, the company has been profitable since its 2008 beginnings, and it's turne...

A congressional inquiry conducted at the behest of Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., found that law enforcement agencies made 1.3 million requests to cellphone carriers in 2011. They sought such information as individuals' text messages, their locations, and even lists of phone numbers they called when in the vicinity of a particular tower, whether they belonged to people under investigation or not. Wiretaps figured prominently in the mix of requests...

Good customer relations management involves a two-way process -- making sure that customers are consulted as well as targeted. In fact, it is far more likely that a vendor will hit the target if consumer input is part of the marketing process Two recent surveys have taken the measure of the ultimate federal agency information technology consumer: ...

Salesforce.com is acquiring GoInstant, according to a blog post on the startup's site. The development was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources who said Salesforce.com was paying US$70 million for the company. The news generally fits the "another day, another Salesforce.com acquisition" story line. The CRM cloud ven...

MeeGo, the ill-fated Nokia mobile operating system project that had the plug pulled on it earlier this year, is being revived JollaMobile, a company consisting of former Nokia executives and techies, has announced that it will release a new MeeGo smartphone later this year....

IBM's Sequoia supercomputer headed the latest Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers. The twice-yearly roster was released at the 2012 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany, in June Delivered to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 2011, Sequoia is scheduled for operational deployment this year. It's...

A baby's first step is often considered the hardest and the most significant. Human babies, which are among those that are altricial at birth, are unable to walk and must "learn" to do so, often by mimicking the movements of other people Now engineers with the University of Arizona have developed a set of robotic legs that essentially also work by...

Twitter has given its site an overhaul designed to simplify its search functions and provide users with suggestions when they're unsure of an exact handle or hashtag The site's upgraded search results will now more closely resemble those of a Google search. Now when users begin typing a search term, they will see an autocomplete dropdown box of sug...

Yahoo and Facebook are ending their patent infringement lawsuits against each other with a settlement that includes a licensing partnership as well as an expanded content distribution and advertising relationship The new agreement allows for collaboration on ad campaigns during major media events. However, the pivotal part of the agreement is the ...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has issued an open call to the robotics industry soliciting expert proposals to create more power-efficient robots. The agency aims to maximize robotic technology potential and improve the power efficiency of current robots by 2,000 percent. Robots are highly important tools in defense missions...

Financial site Adaptu serves people in all stages of life, from young people just establishing themselves, getting married and buying a home, to more mature investors planning for their children's educations or their own retirement dreams "Some of these people are open to talking about their financial troubles or dreams in public, while others like...