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Google is extensively updating its search function with the rollout of a new Knowledge Graph. The heart of the Knowledge Graph is a database Google has compiled, via its own research and through its acquisition of MetaWeb Technologies, of 500 million people, places, things and points of history. That, coupled with a refined approach to search, wil...

RIM execs have invited me to dinner for an off-the-record discussion. I have asked a truckload of questions about them over the last few years here in this column and in media stories. Let me ask you: What are the big questions I should ask them now? What do you want to know about RIM? My Pick of the Week is DISH TV now being sold in C Spire Wirel...

Customer service is a crucial part of the customer experience. That seems immediately obvious. And customer experience is the big buzzword right now, so companies are going bonkers revamping their customer service operations. Right? Would that it were so. Almost paradoxically, many businesses are still stuck in the mode of tweaking with utterly def...

There are a lot of photographs out there. Photo sharing and album network Flickr alone reckons it hit the 6 billion image upload mark last year. If you consider Picasa, Facebook, and the current darling known as Instagram, we're talking gazillions of images floating around -- all freely downloadable Couple this relatively new phenomenon with an ent...

General Motors plans to stop advertising on Facebook because the ad campaigns are not paying off in any measurable way. "We felt we were not getting an ROI for our advertising spend," GM spokesperson Pat Morrissey told the E-Commerce Times.

Two years after its initial attempt to sell Nexus smartphones directly to consumers flopped, Google is apparently trying to revive the strategy This time, though, it's added a few new touches. It's going to work with up to five device manufacturers at a time to create a portfolio of Nexus-line devices that include smartphones and tablets, and it wi...

After months of legal wrangling between technology titans Oracle and Google, phase two of the case has headed to the jury, where 11 good people will decide whether Google actually infringed on Java-related patents, and more importantly whether this was a threat to Oracle's business Two patents in question -- U.S. Patents 6,061,520 and RE38, 104, kn...

Scientists in China have transmitted quantum bits, or qubits, over a record distance of 97 km, or roughly 60 miles ...

Flickr announced a redesign recently, introducing larger onscreen displays for high-res images The photo sharing site launched what it calls its "liquid layout," stating that "Large sizes + Low compression = Beautiful photos." Since Flickr uses less compression than many other image sharing sites, it claimed, the detail and color of Flickr photos i...

Federal Cloud Adoption, Part 1: Lots of Baby Steps The U.S. government's pursuit of cloud-based technology has been characterized by a blizzard of policies, directives, technical studies, proposed contract vehicles and conferences. The federal "cloud first" initiative, requiring agencies to give priority consideration to cloud solutions for IT oper...

The Internet is a hub for acquiring music, video and a just about anyother form of content. Miro is one of the most capable player apps thatI have seen for all of this media.

Ever since the advent of the first radios and TVs, home entertainment has been a relatively high-tech enterprise, but in the past few years, there has been a revolution in the quality of sights and sounds available. This arena continues to be an experimental space for new and improved technologies that enhance viewing and listening experiences.

Groupon delivered earnings that pleasantly surprised shareholders. The daily deal provider reported a net loss of US$11.7 million, a huge improvement from the $146.5 million it lost a year ago in its first quarter as a private company It also posted stronger-than-expected revenue for the quarter, at $559.3 million -- an 89 percent increase from the...

A group of researchers from several universities led by MIT have shown that robots controlled mentally by suitably equipped humans who are multitasking can take over some of the workload when needed The Brainput project had researchers use a technique called "functional near-infrared" (fNIR) imaging to measure the activity of brains in test subject...

Half of Americans believe the social network giant Facebook is just a passing fad, and a similar number believe the expected asking price in its upcoming IPO is too high, according to a new Associated Press-CNBC poll Since the dot-com boom of the 1990s ended with a dot-com bust, many once dominant players have fallen by the wayside. Before there wa...

Lenovo on Tuesday announced new Ultrabook ThinkPad laptops based on Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processor ...

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee plans to examine allegations that Microsoft is giving its own Internet Explorer Web browser preferential treatment over competing Web browsers in a version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system "This is a preliminary inquiry," Lynn Becker, communications director for Sen. Herb Kohl, told TechNewsWorld. Kohl ...

Nvidia and Intellectual Ventures have partnered to buy a set of patents developed and owned by IPWireless. The patent portfolio comprises approximately 500 wireless patents, including in such areas as LTE, LTE-Advanced and 3G/4G technologies. The acquisition is viewed as another sign that the company is getting more serious about diversifying beyo...

The U.S. government is learning quickly that achieving the next big thing in information technology depends upon implementing a huge number of little things. For federal IT managers, that big thing is the cloud Federal agencies have busily pursued cloud solutions since December 2010, when the government adopted its "Cloud First" policy, requiring a...

The Sapphire Now conference kicked off Monday in Orlando, Fla., with 60,000 customers, partners and employees of SAP participating, either at the conference facility or watching it online The first day of the event offered the usual lineup of celebrity speakers -- corporate and otherwise -- with Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong featured in the...